by V. K. Sykes
“And of course you can’t get that kind of gem locally, can you?”
“Nope. The only place I could find the one we need is in Washington.”
“D.C.?” Aiden said hopefully.
Roy gave an evil chuckle. “Washington State. Seattle area.”
“Of course,” Aiden muttered, his mind trying to calculate how long it might take to get the part on a plane to Portland, then get it over to the island, install it and complete the reassembly of the diesel. He didn’t like the number he came up with. “I don’t care what that chip costs, but can they put it on a damn airplane and get it here on time?”
Roy glanced at his watch. “I asked the guy out there to stand by until I got word from you one way or the other. There’s a three-hour time difference, so he might be able to get it here by first thing in the morning. If we’re lucky.”
“Then do it,” Aiden said. No freaking way was he settling for second best, at least not yet. “If you get the chip in the morning, will you be able to get all this ready?” He indicated the mess of parts scattered around the deck.
“Hope so,” Roy said. “I’ll tell you one thing, son. If that new chip is as good as they say it is, we could get 30 percent more horsepower and more torque too. I wasn’t sure it would work in this baby, but after talking to the manufacturer, it looks like we’re a go.”
The elderly man’s sudden, enthusiastic grin slightly eased Aiden’s worries. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about, and Aiden had to admit it was pretty awe-inspiring to see a man so engaged and enthusiastic in the tenth decade of his life.
Aiden extended his hand, and Roy rose and shook it. “Then give it all you’ve got, Roy.”
The old rascal gave him a wink. “One more thing before you go. As far as Miss Annie knows, I’m playing poker at your dad’s place tonight. So you’re with the program, right, son?”
Aiden grinned. “You bet your ass I am, sir.”
At its last get-together, the little group that met tonight in Saint Anne’s-by-the-Sea Catholic Church hall had decided to call itself the Seashell Bay Smart Development Coalition, or SDC for short. Lily had come up with the name, figuring who wouldn’t be in favor of smart development for the island? In truth, though, for her and most others in the group, smart development was pretty much synonymous with no development. She liked the island the way it was, and if that made her something of a dinosaur, so be it.
She’d arrived a little late for the weekly meeting, because she’d spent extra time with Josh Bryson at the dock, chatting about Miss Annie and her new modifications, before heading to her parents’ place to wolf down dinner. After hitching a ride with Morgan and her father, Lily had rushed in to take her seat at the head table beside the SDC chairman, Jack Gallant, who also headed up the Seashell Bay Fishermen’s Association, and the secretary, the real Miss Annie. Somehow, in a moment of weakness, Lily had let Gallant and her grandmother cajole her into taking on the role of treasurer, even though she had about as much financial know-how as a barrel of bait.
Feeling tired and grungy after a long day on the boat, Lily prayed for a noncontentious meeting. But she knew it was a prayer of faint hope. Most residents had no reluctance to voice their opinions forcefully and at length. Lobstermen in particular marched to the beat of their private drummers, and that made reaching a consensus—especially a speedy one—rarely possible.
The fifty-something, grizzled Gallant rapped his gavel twice on the laminated wood table where Lily had eaten many a church supper. “There’s only one item on the agenda tonight,” he said gruffly. “Getting our message out at the Blueberry Festival. It’s the perfect opportunity to not only hand out the leaflet but to buttonhole people too. So we’re going to need as many volunteers as we can get.” His thick brows pulled together into a unibrow as he frowned, shifting his gaze around the room. “I expect everybody here to sign up.”
“But Jack, there are some folks here who are for the car ferry,” Dottie Buckle piped up. She shot a scathing glance at Town Selectman Albie Emory, one of the island’s elected politicians.
“Dottie, I meant everybody who supports our position,” Gallant said patiently.
“Then why the devil didn’t you just say so, Jack?” lobsterman Rex Fudge said, after removing his unlit pipe from his mouth. “You got to be clear about things—otherwise a fellow can get confused.”
Lily swallowed a laugh. Rex was a sweetie but not the sharpest hook in the water.
Gallant turned to Miss Annie, fidgeting with her usual bottled-up energy as she kept squaring the edges of the stacks of flyers in front of her. “You and Lily can hand out the flyer and that other thing,” he said with a boat captain’s authority. He turned to face the audience again. “You’ll each get one copy now, but you have to pick up your share of the rest of the flyers on the way out.”
Lily and Miss Annie got down from the platform and quickly distributed the flyer and that “other thing” Gallant had mentioned—a set of talking points aimed at helping the volunteers make their case in one-on-one conversations over the festival weekend. While Lily was largely responsible for the content of the documents, she’d asked the local schoolteacher, Tessa Nevin, to do the actual wordsmithing.
When she got back to her seat, Lily pretended to read the documents like everybody else, even though she had them down by heart.
“Okay, Lily,” Gallant said after it was clear most people had finished reading. Only Rex still had his head down, tracing words with a nicotine-stained index finger. “Over to you.”
Lily had no intention of making a speech. Hell, people could read, couldn’t they? “I think everything you see is pretty straightforward. If you’ve got any questions, ask them now, because I’m sure lots of folks would rather be down at the Pot than sitting here on these awful chairs.” She smiled at Father Mike, the town priest, sitting quietly at the back of the hall. “Sorry, Father. You know how much we appreciate the use of the hall.”
But I’d rather be soaking in a tub of hot water and bubble bath, a glass of red wine in one hand and an Amelia Peabody mystery in the other.
“You got that right, Lil. The part about going to the Pot, that is,” head EMT and town carpenter Brendan Porter said from the back row. Then he grimaced and looked behind him. “No offense, Father Mike.”
Fellow EMT Boone Cleary snickered and gave Brendan a fist bump.
Cal Merrifield held up his hand. Morgan’s father, who used to own the Pot, now ran the B&B. “I hate to bring this up, but I think the flyer is a little one-sided,” Cal said in a slightly high-pitched, worried voice.
Miss Annie bounced in her chair. “Oh, for God’s sake, Cal, of course it’s one-sided. We’re trying to win the damn vote, not hold a college debate!”
Cal ignored the laughter that rippled through the hall. “Everybody knows a car ferry would bring a lot more business to the island. That would benefit everybody. This group is supposed to be about smart development. To me, that means we should be trying to preserve our way of life, but moving forward too.”
“Ah, Cal, my friend,” Lily’s grandfather, Preston, said quickly, leaning forward and patting Merrifield’s shoulder, “it sounds to my old ears like you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want the car ferry because you think it’ll bring more guests to your inn, but you don’t want the big resort they’re talking about building on the Flynn land. The way I see it, though, you’re just not going to get one without the other.”
“You got that right, Preston,” Forrest Coolidge said to Gramps from the seat beside him. “And that’s why we better make sure we get off our duffs and win this vote. Hell, some of our families have lived and worked on this island for the better part of two centuries, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some greedy mainlanders wreck it.” His craggy face was grim. “Not on my watch.”
As the room broke into applause, Lily couldn’t help smiling at her grandfather and Forrest, by far the two oldest men in the room and perhaps the most ard
ent in support of the cause. She thought she’d like nothing better than to be just like them, still working hard to preserve the beauty and serenity of the island way of life well into her seventies and eighties.
Suddenly, one of the women in the room made a squeaky gasp as she glanced at the doorway. When Lily looked over, her stomach did a couple of backflips.
Aiden leaned against the doorjamb, casually dressed in a tight, white T-shirt and old jeans that did wonders for his brawny physique, an easy smile on his oh-so-handsome face as he stared at the head table. Stared at Lily. Heat crawled up the back of her spine and neck.
“Aiden,” Jack Gallant barked, “are you lost?”
Some people laughed, but it died as they caught Miss Annie’s lethal glare.
Aiden’s eyes shifted to Gallant. “I just heard about the meeting a few minutes ago, and I figured maybe I could learn something by sitting in.” He smiled as he let his eyes roam around the room. “That is, if you folks don’t mind. I know some Flynn mug shots might be hanging on local dartboards these days, so if you don’t want me here…”
“No, you should stay,” Lily interrupted to forestall any more discussion. “Everyone is welcome here.”
“I appreciate that,” Aiden said.
He doffed his Phillies ball cap and sat down next to Tessa, who gave him a shy smile. Aiden towered over Tessa’s slight form.
When Aiden smiled back, a stab of irritation jabbed Lily hard. Schoolmarm Tessa was young, cute, smart, and unmarried. Because she wasn’t a native of Seashell Bay, she and Aiden wouldn’t know each other.
Yet, her mind whispered. And the smoldering jealousy that made her gut burn told her everything she needed to know about how much she still wanted Aiden Flynn.
Aiden had driven to the church fully prepared to bust Lily’s chops for lying to him about what she was doing tonight. Too tired for meeting him at the Pot, but not too tired to help run a meeting about the future of Seashell Bay. Or lack of a future, it seemed to Aiden, since most of the locals seemed hell-bent on keeping the island in some kind of retro time warp.
When Bram told him about the so-called Smart Development Coalition and their meeting at Saint Anne’s tonight, Aiden’s irritation had briefly flared, thinking that Lily had deliberately not told him about the meeting. Did she figure he was so closed-minded that he wouldn’t even listen to what her group had to say?
But then he calmed down and realized that it probably wouldn’t have crossed her mind that he might be interested in attending a meeting of a group that was trying its best to throw a monkey wrench into the Flynns’ plans.
He’d listened to the discussion, and it hadn’t taken him long to figure out where almost everybody stood. After that, he’d focused on the other reason why he’d subjected himself to the local gabfest in the first place—the auburn-haired beauty at the head table, still driving him crazy after so many years.
Well, if seeing Lily again meant staying to the very end, he’d suck it up and do it. Lily was worth it.
Besides, he wouldn’t mind talking to the girl seated next to him—the blonde that somebody had called Tessa. If he didn’t miss his guess, she was a mainlander, or at least had been for most of her life, and he’d always been curious about people who actually chose to move to the island. It might give him some useful insights into the development question.
Finally, Jack Gallant—one of his dad’s old drinking buddies but now supposedly a teetotaler—banged his gavel down and adjourned the meeting after inviting everyone to head out into the foyer where the church ladies had set up refreshments. Lily quickly slid behind Gallant and started helping Miss Annie distribute small stacks of the flyers to people who lined up at the front of the room.
“I’m Tessa Nevin,” the pretty blonde said with an inviting smile as she extended her hand. “I teach at the school.”
Aiden returned her smile and shook her hand, even though part of his focus remained on Lily, intent on making sure she didn’t slip away from him.
“Nice to meet you, Tessa. When I went to school here, my teachers sure never looked…” He bit off the politically incorrect comment midstream. “I mean they were all quite a bit older than you.” And not nearly as attractive, that was for damn sure.
Tessa’s blue eyes sparkled with humor and understanding. “I just love it here in Seashell Bay. Even after several years, some days I still feel like I’m living in a dream world.”
That had Aiden mentally blinking. For anyone under the age of sixty, Seashell Bay had always struck him as a place to escape from, not actively seek out. “I guess the lifestyle suits you,” he said, as they made their way out to the foyer. The church ladies had set up a table with coffee, tea, and trays of homemade chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins.
Tessa grabbed two paper cups. “I’m sure Lily will be along any moment, but in the meantime, can I get you some coffee?”
Aiden winced. “Sure, thanks. But was I that obvious?”
Tessa’s laugh was gently mocking. “Uh, yeah. I think poor Lily might have a few scorch marks on her clothing from your X-ray vision.” She filled one of the cups from the big aluminum urn. “How do you take it?”
“Black,” he said, a little embarrassed. “So are you and Lily friends?”
She nodded. “Lily is friends with everyone on the island. Well, almost everyone.”
“Everyone but the Flynns, you mean?” He sipped the coffee. It was lukewarm but hit the spot.
“Your words, not mine.”
Aiden grimaced. “Stupid damn feud.”
Tessa flicked a worried glance at the other folks in the room, all caught up in intense discussions. “Absolutely, but a lot of people think it’s going to get worse before it gets better, given these development issues. What do you think, Aiden? Did you learn something this evening?”
“I’m sure Aiden doesn’t want to be put on the spot like that, Tessa.” From behind them, Lily’s voice was rich and darkly sweet, like the local honey that came from the island. Aiden had always loved listening to her talk, even when she was giving him a hard time.
“After all, he’s only been back a short time,” Lily added as she sidled between him and Tessa.
“You’re right, Lily,” Tessa said with a nod. “I’m glad you came tonight, Aiden. Hope I see you around.”
“Don’t forget to pick up your flyers, Tessa,” Lily said. “And if you could sign up for duty time at the festival, that would be great. The list is by the door.”
Tessa gave her a cheeky salute. “Aye, aye, Captain. All hands on deck for the festival, right?”
“I wish.” Lily sighed as Tessa hurried away.
“Coffee?” Aiden asked. “Or better yet, can I get you to change your mind about having a drink with me at the Pot?”
She shook her head. “I can see you’re still like a bulldog about some things, but I’m afraid not.”
“Well, when I know what I want, I go for it,” Aiden said.
Lily’s brow creased in a slight frown, as if his response puzzled her.
As she reached for a cup, he stared at smooth shoulders and arms showcased by a dark pink tank top that seemed vaguely familiar. How she’d managed to fish for all those years and still retain such… femininity, he supposed might be the word… was a mystery. He’d seen evidence of Lily’s strength as they loaded her skiff, but the years of demanding physical work hadn’t diminished her beauty one whit. If anything, they’d given her an air of quiet competence he found incredibly attractive.
“Thanks for getting me off the hook with the schoolteacher,” he said.
Lily waved it off. “Everybody is curious about what you think and what you might do. So you can’t blame Tessa for that. But if I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want people bugging me about it everywhere I go.”
Combined with what he’d heard at tonight’s meeting, her words stirred something inside Aiden, something that had been brewing ever since he got to the island. “I appreciate that, Lily, but can y
ou really put yourself in my shoes?” he said after a moment. “Because it feels like you’re absolutely convinced there’s only one right answer—your answer.”
She jerked back slightly, but he wasn’t backing down now that he’d laid it out there. Sure, it might cause a blowup, but this was too important to ignore any longer.
“Not everybody is buying into your vision,” he continued. “I could see that here tonight, even at a meeting of your own supporters. This stuff is complicated, not black and white—not for anyone and certainly not for my family.”
Lily frowned as she searched his face for several long seconds. “No, I just don’t buy that, Aiden. Saying something is complicated is usually just a way of ducking responsibility for taking a position.”
Ouch. The girl could throw a solid counterpunch.
Still, what she said was crap. “Didn’t I hear you just tell Tessa that I shouldn’t be put on the spot? Or was that just bullshit?”
Lily took a step back, her eyes widening at the bite in his words. “No, it wasn’t bullshit. I meant that you shouldn’t be put on the spot tonight. But you’re obviously going to have to make a decision soon enough. That’s why you came back here anyway, right?”
“Nobody needs to remind me of that.”
“Yeah, well, sitting on top of that fence must be pretty uncomfortable.”
“I didn’t ask for this mess, but I’ll deal with it my own way, Lily. In my own time. You should be happy I didn’t sign on to the damn deal already.”
Lily shook her head slowly, as if exasperated. “Whatever, Aiden,” she finally said, her gaze shifting toward the meeting room where only Gallant, Miss Annie, and a couple of others remained. “Excuse me. I should get back in there and pack up.”
Lily was clearly itching to get away from him, which sucked, but he had only himself to blame. “I guess I’ll see you at the festival tomorrow then,” he said.
She’d started to turn away, but his comment brought her back around. “Really? And here I thought you might be tied up working on your boat.” Her eyes narrowed to emerald slits. “You and Roy, that is.”