by Liz Johnson
His truck skidded on the gravel as he pulled up beside the cement driveway of the yellow bungalow. A flash of white fabric in the window beside the front door caught his eye. He didn’t have to see her to know that Meg stood behind the curtain.
Now that he was here, knowing what he’d face on the other side of the door, he spent a few long seconds considering turning around and going back for his mom’s stew. But sitting there was only giving Meg more ammunition. She could argue that he wasn’t sure he wanted the boat. If he wasn’t willing to fight for it now, what would make her think that he’d fight for it later? That he’d get up early every morning? That he’d invest in the boat and Kyle, Whitaker’s longtime deckhand? Besides, avoiding the inevitable wasn’t going to change Whitaker’s mind.
Oliver jerked the door open and stepped out, staring straight ahead, shoulders back. In case she was still watching, he kept his stride even, unhurried. Schooling his breathing to follow suit, he reached the door, certain that he looked every bit as calm as he wished he was.
His hand was still raised to knock when the door swung open. Meg stood there, her eyes narrowed and lips pinched. “This was not my idea.” It was all she bit out before her dad called from deeper inside the living room.
“Oliver, come in. Let me get you something to drink.”
Meg stepped back only enough for him to squeeze past her as he slipped into the rich aroma of shepherd’s pie. “No thank you. I’m fine, sir.” But the growl low in his belly reminded him that he had to hurry back if he wanted to beat Levi to a second helping of stew. “What did you—” He bit his tongue as Whitaker motioned for him to take a seat in the quaint living space.
Whitaker and his wife sat side by side on the sofa, her gaze on her hands folded in her lap. Meg walked around him and slid into the rocking chair. She crossed her legs and then crossed her arms over her waist.
That left him only one option—the oversized recliner across from the couch, pointed directly at the rocker. Directly at Meg. Her mouth hadn’t relaxed, but the hardness in her eyes had eased. And he hadn’t even apologized to her. Yet.
Maybe there was hope for them.
Oliver nodded to Mrs. Whitaker as he lowered himself into the chair. “Ma’am.”
Her smile was a little lost but still genuine. “Good to see you, Oliver.”
Whitaker cleared his throat and leaned his forearms against the worn legs of his jeans. His head hung low, the weight of the decision visibly exhausting him. “I’ve been thinking about our predicament a lot these last couple days. Seems like there’s no easy way about this. I have to step back from the business. And I’m going to hand the reins over to one of you.” With a half smile, Whitaker looked at him. “I know I can trust you with my business, Oliver.” Then his gaze swung to his daughter. “But it’s always been in the family.”
Meg blinked her big blue eyes once, the lines at her throat drawing tense. She knew what was coming.
“Still, I don’t think Meg knows what she’d be getting into by taking this on.”
While Whitaker took a haggard breath, Oliver fought the well of hope that bubbled inside. It wasn’t his just yet. Clearly there was more to come. More that had Meg looking like she’d rather have a lobster clamped to her backside than hear whatever her dad still had to say.
“Here’s what I propose. I’ll wait to make my decision until after this season—during which you’ll work the business together.”
Whitaker kept talking, but Oliver heard only the ringing in his ears. Three syllables clanging like church bells. To-geth-er.
Meg didn’t so much as twitch a muscle, and he steeled everything inside himself from reacting too.
He didn’t know what was worse—losing the chance of owning his own fishing business or having to work the rest of the summer with a woman who hated him, with no guarantee of getting the business. His fingernails bit into his palms, and only then did he realize his hands had formed fists. Relaxing them one finger at a time, he took a deep breath through his nose and held it. He met Meg’s gaze.
Her eyes flashed with something he couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t anger or rage or anything he’d expected. But it was fierce. It was fire. And it communicated clearly enough that she intended to win.
He almost nodded to himself, accepting her challenge. They’d both be competing. Meg needed to prove herself a worthy, capable fisherman. Oliver had already proven to Whitaker that he was.
No, Oliver had a different goal. Meg was the one standing between him and his dream. But if he could somehow show her he wasn’t the man she thought he was—or the boy he’d been—maybe she’d stop fighting him. Maybe she’d allow him to take over the business. She wouldn’t fight her dad’s decision or pretend to want a business she’d never shown any interest in.
That had to start with a real apology. But if the fire in her eyes was any indication of her current feelings toward him, it was probably better to wait.
Winning over Meg Whitaker was his challenge. He didn’t need her to like him. He just needed her to stop hating him. He had to show her what her dad saw in him. It might take the rest of the season, but he had no intention of losing.
three
You can’t be serious! You’ve already signed your contract for the school year. I was counting on you.”
Meg cringed at the high-pitched squeal coming out of such a tiny woman. Sylvia Tremblay, going on thirty years as the county’s high school principal, had a habit of raising her voice an octave or three when upset. And Meg had certainly upset her that morning.
But there was nothing to be done about it except let Sylvia holler, because Meg had already made up her mind. She needed an extended leave of absence. It was that simple. It was that problematic.
She’d spent a week considering every option. There wasn’t another. She needed the time off.
“Where on earth am I going to find a qualified replacement?” Sylvia didn’t sound particularly interested in hearing a response.
Meg tried anyway. “Maybe Howard could fill in—”
Sylvia’s head snapped around so quickly that one of her gray curls flopped across her forehead. “No. He’s retired. Besides, he’s not qualified to teach physics.”
“But it’ll only be a few weeks. Only through the end of the lobster season.”
“No.”
Meg nodded. She’d hoped one of the former teachers could step in, but apparently there was a history she didn’t know. And she wouldn’t begrudge Sylvia holding a grudge of her own. “What about a long-term sub?”
Sylvia looked like one of her students, eyes rolling north. “And where are we going to find someone willing to work then? Let alone someone qualified.”
Okay, she hadn’t fully thought that through. Most of their pool of subs worked other jobs during the busiest season of the year. Actually, most of the town did. Between fishing and theater and tourists, summer and early fall in Victoria were full for everyone. Which was why Sylvia lived and breathed contracts for her teachers.
But Meg wasn’t going to give in that easily. Maybe her ideas so far hadn’t been great. That didn’t mean she couldn’t come up with something. Drumming her fingers on her jeans at her crossed knees, she stared through the window over Sylvia’s shoulder toward a row of tall pine trees.
“What if . . .” Meg’s tongue failed, her idea dissolving.
Clamping her too-pink lips into a thin line, Sylvia pressed her palms against the metal desk between them. She opened her mouth, and Meg’s stomach swooped. Whatever Sylvia was going to say, Meg didn’t want to hear it.
Bumbling for words, Meg spit out the ones on the tip of her tongue. “What if . . . what if Janelle took my classes?”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “And who’s going to teach hers?”
And they were right back where they started, except whatever hope Meg had started with had deflated, dispersed like the air in the balloons she used to teach her classes about the states of matter. Staring at her folded hands i
n her lap, she let out a long sigh through tight lips.
“I’m sorry.” She meant it. She was sorry to put Sylvia and her school in a bind. But she was sorrier that Oliver Ross had ever entered her life. If she’d only been born a couple years before, or even a few years later, then her path would hardly have crossed his. He’d be just the man who sat a row behind her every Sunday in the little white church down the road. Nothing more or less.
But regardless of how much she regretted the situation, it couldn’t change the facts.
“Can you work with me at all?” Meg asked.
Sylvia’s gaze was hard, and even her sagging eyelids couldn’t soften the intensity there. Her nose twitched a few times, and she folded and unfolded her hands. Finally she stretched her fingers across the top of the desk next to stacks of binders and cleared her throat. Her voice was raw but strong when she did speak. “I can let you out of your contract.”
“What?” Meg grabbed the arms of her chair, needing something to hang on to as the whole world spun upside down. “No. I don’t want to be let out of my contract. I just want to delay my start.”
Sylvia nodded, but her mouth was firm and tight. “I know what you want. But I don’t control the start date of the school year. And my students deserve more than a mishmash of instructors to launch the year.”
Her words cut, and Meg blinked hard against a sudden burning at the back of her eyes. She’d all but implied that Meg didn’t care about her students. She did. She always had. She wanted the very best for them. And she was the best option for them.
She wrapped her arms around her middle and doubled over, unable to look at her principal while she sorted through the truth of it all. Sylvia was right—the students deserved more than Meg was offering. She sucked in a quick breath, not quite a sob, but not far away from one either. She’d been so focused on doing what she needed to that she hadn’t thought about how it might affect everyone else.
The beginning of the year was important—as much for her students as for their teacher. How could she assess where they were if she wasn’t there? How could she build any rapport with them if she joined them eight weeks into the semester? How could she set the tone for a great year if she wasn’t there?
What a stupid suggestion she’d made. Sylvia was right to refuse her.
Sylvia pushed back her chair, the wheels squeaking across the industrial carpet, and stood. “I’m going to make a phone call from the front office. When I come back, I’ll need your decision.”
Meg nodded.
When Sylvia reached the door, she paused. “If I have to find a new teacher this year, I’m not going to save your position for next year.”
The door closed behind Sylvia with a click, and Meg leaned her elbows against her legs and buried her face in her hands. Through her fingers she inhaled the smell of paper and old textbooks, whiteboard markers and freshly sharpened pencils. So familiar. The smells of school. So much sweeter than the fishy scents of the bay or the smell of sweaty men hard at work.
Was she really going to give up her teaching career—everything she’d worked for the last three years—to take over the family business?
It wasn’t even guaranteed to be hers. She was going to have to prove herself to her dad. And to Oliver. Not that she cared what Oliver thought. But he’d never back down, never stop pestering her dad if she didn’t show him she could do this.
It would be so much easier just to let it go. Let him have the business. She didn’t want ridiculously early mornings and pinching lobsters and feeling nauseous every single day. But she also didn’t want to lose everything generations of her family had worked so hard for.
And more than all of that, she didn’t want to upset whatever tenuous hold her mom had on reality. What would happen if the Whitakers no longer owned Whitaker Fishing? If their life changed so much that her mom no longer recognized it?
Her memories and her grasp on words were already thin. The doctors had said it wasn’t Alzheimer’s. They’d ruled out Parkinson’s. They’d figured out exactly nothing else. But they’d said to keep her calm, to avoid major changes. Could a change like selling the business send her into a spiral?
Okay, Meg was probably the one more likely to feel out of control. But how could she not, when everything was flying apart?
Besides, if the doctors did finally diagnose the disease that was stealing her mom away, she might need treatment elsewhere. Expensive treatment. There was no way Meg could pay for that on a teacher’s salary. And her dad’s savings wouldn’t last long. Not with Oliver taking five years to pay back the loan. How could her dad not have thought ahead? Why hadn’t he planned for the what-ifs?
She wanted to jump in her car, drive to her dad’s, and shake his shoulders until he saw how foolish he was being. But she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t be that person. She wouldn’t let her own grief spill onto her parents. She’d be the strong one. The tough one. She had to be. For them.
A painful ache started behind her left eye and then shot along her temple until it wrapped all the way around her skull, twisting tight like a vise. Leaning over, she rubbed two fingers against each side of her head, but it didn’t help. Nothing eased the pressure building inside her, nor the reality of what was to come.
She had two options. Give up the legacy and risk her mom. Or give up her job and lose her steady paycheck.
Meg had never planned on being a teacher. She’d definitely not expected to love it. But when her dad had called during the last term of her master’s degree to say that her mom had fallen more than once, Meg had set aside every one of her dreams and moved back to PEI. At twenty-four, she’d held on to the hope of returning to the University of Ottawa. Now, at twenty-seven, she knew she wouldn’t go back.
She’d fallen in love with teaching her high school students, and her dreams were for them much more than for herself. Could she walk away from them now?
She was nowhere near answering her own questions when the door to the office creaked open and Sylvia’s shoes shuffled against the floor.
“So? What’s it going to be?”
“Um . . .” Meg looked up, fearing her face was as twisted as her insides felt. Even with her crooked lipstick, Sylvia’s gentle smile confirmed that worry.
“Honey.” Sylvia pressed her hand to Meg’s shoulder. “I want you to stay. And not just because I don’t want to have to find a new physics teacher.” With a gentle pat on her back, Sylvia strolled around her desk and sat down. “You’re a great teacher, but I have to put my school—my whole school—first.”
Meg managed a wobbly nod before ducking her head again. Taking a deep breath, she wasn’t quite sure what she was going to say as she opened her mouth, but she knew what mattered most. “I have to take care of my mom.”
Sylvia nodded. “We’ll miss you.”
Meg’s stomach sank as she pushed herself up from the chair. Now she’d done it. Now she had to prove to her dad that she deserved the Pinch. She’d just lit her only safety net on fire.
Oliver stretched the net across the inside of the lobster trap, securing it into place on the frame. Testing it with a tug of his finger, he nodded. It was strong enough to hold for the season.
Running a hand across the square corners of the wood, he smiled. The lines were as clean and sharp as Whitaker’s own traps. Then again, Oliver had spent hours watching the seasoned fisherman build them, measuring and sawing and squaring the wood. Securing the nets and leaving escape routes for the undersized lobsters. Meeting the government regulations.
The stack of finished traps at the end of his table had the same structure—flat on the top and bottom. They didn’t look like the lobster traps sold at antique shops or the ones pictured on the front of the Prince Edward Island tourism brochures. Those traps had domed tops, straight sides, and flat bottoms, the wooden slats of the ceiling curving down to the netted sides.
Oliver should have known. He’d grown up on the island, after all. But he hadn’t realized until he’d st
arted working for Whitaker that some fishermen didn’t use the traditional traps. Not when the homemade flat traps stacked, stored, and traveled so much better.
Just as he was shifting the trap to attach the netting that would catch dozens of lobsters that summer, the sound of a car approaching made him look toward the road. His mom’s home was set off the pavement by a few dozen meters, but the sedan parked at the end of the drive and didn’t even approach the house.
He squinted at the tall, slim figure as she pulled herself from behind the steering wheel and straightened her top. Meg. She stopped halfway through adjusting her shorts, her eyes locking on his. He could feel her animosity from there. Could practically see her mentally preparing to face him down.
He wouldn’t blame her. After all, he hadn’t given her a real apology.
This was his chance. It might be ten years late, but he wouldn’t let it slip by. Not when it was just the two of them. Not with the next two months spread out before them. Apologizing was step one to smoothing things over—step one to winning the boat.
Meg’s long legs marched down the drive, her arms pumping, neck and back straight. Her blonde ponytail whipped from side to side, and her eyes never wavered.
He dropped his hammer beside the trap, and she blinked. The closer she got, the more he became aware of what she saw, how this compared to her dad’s workshop. She’d probably watched Whitaker make thousands of traps in his day. Her dad’s tools were all neatly organized around his work space in the garage. She likely hadn’t seen a piece of plywood resting on two sawhorses in the yard—a makeshift table. He wished he had a pegboard wall, tools hanging within easy reach, instead of the rusted red metal box crushing the grass at his feet, hammers and wrenches and screwdrivers jumbled together.