by Carrie Elks
She smiled right back at him.
“Ember?”
The voice was like a cold bucket of water being dumped on her from a height. She whipped her head around to see Janice Martin, her hand hovering in the air between them as though she wasn’t sure if she should touch Ember’s shoulder or not.
“Hello, Janice.” Thank goodness there was a smile already on her face, this way she didn’t have to fake it.
“It’s so lovely to see you.” Janice exhaled a whole chest full of air. She seemed as nervous as Ember. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come, I’m glad you did.”
“Me too.” Ember’s throat tightened. “I always liked helping out at the fair.”
She could remember the first time Janice had asked her to help. She’d only just started working at Angel Sands Elementary – a new teacher who was still learning to control her class. She hadn’t wanted to admit how hard she was finding it, not even to Will who always seemed to find life so much easier than she did. Yet Janice had somehow known she needed somebody to talk to. After the first meeting they’d gone out for coffee and she’d gently pried all of Ember’s anxiety out of her, reassuring her that as time passed she’d find things so much easier.
And in many ways she’d been right.
She’d filled a role in Ember’s life that nobody else quite could. Her own mother, while caring, always worried too much. Brooke and Ally were her best friends, but like Ember, they were busy trying to build their own futures. There was never any judgment from Janice, just a reassuring smile.
“I missed you,” Janice’s voice lowered. Not quite a whisper but not far off. “We both have. I’m so sorry about everything that happened. I tried to call but…”
But Ember had ignored her, the same way she’d ignored everything in those first few weeks. And then her father had died and it was like a body blow. She hadn’t been able to fit anything else in.
“I saw you at the funeral,” Ember said softly. “I’m sorry I didn’t come and speak to you.”
“It’s understandable, I just wanted you and your family to know we cared. We still do.” She lifted her hand again, hesitating for a moment before she finally allowed herself to touch Ember’s shoulder. It was tentative, as if she was expecting to be shrugged off. “How are you doing now?”
“I’m fine.” Ember nodded as though to underline the truth in her words. “Busy, of course, with school and everything else. How about you and Richard?”
“We’re doing good, too. Richard is busy playing golf, of course, and I have my committees to keep me busy.” She let out a little sigh. “And then I have our annual party to organize; there’s no rest for the wicked.”
The Martins threw a party every summer to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Ember didn’t need to count backward to know that this year they’d be marking forty years together. “I’m sure you have it all under control.”
“Will you come?” Janice asked her. “You don’t have to answer that now, I’ll pop an invitation in the mail and you can decide later.”
“Janice, I think we’re all here. Let’s get started.” Frank Megassey’s deep voice cut through the air between them.
“Oh, of course, Frank.” Janice nodded at him, then took a final look at Ember. “I’ll speak to you later, dear.”
“Sure.” Ember watched as the two of them walked to the front of the room and took their seats at the table set up there, before she turned and made her way to the back where she hoped to find a seat at the end of a row. She’d stay long enough to hear everything, then be the first to leave. As lovely as it had been to see Janice, she wasn’t ready to talk to her again.
Strange that neither of them had mentioned Will, he was still the elephant in the room. She found a seat and sat down, inhaling a deep breath to center herself.
“Mind if I sit next to you?” A deep voice asked her.
She didn’t need to look up to know who it was. “No problem,” she said, pulling her legs to the side. “Sit right down.”
9
Lucas sat down on the seat next to Ember’s, angling his long legs so they didn’t push against the chair in front of him, before he turned to look at her. “How’s Carter doing?” he asked her.
She smiled at him. “He’s absolutely fine. And of course he’s pretty much hero-worshipping you guys. He tells everybody he meets he wants to be a firefighter when he grows up, you may have created a monster.”
Lucas laughed. “Glad he’s okay. He seemed like a nice kid.”
“He is,” Ember agreed. “Lively, but lovely.”
For a moment his gaze lingered on her thick lashes as they swept downward. “And are you okay?”
“I’m good. Why wouldn’t I be?” She gave him a puzzled smile.
“You just… ah… froze up there a little, that’s all.” He wanted to kick himself for bringing it up. The smile dissolved from her face, leaving a couple of frown lines behind. “Anyway, Carter’s doing well, that’s all that matters,” he added quickly.
He took a deep breath. Time for a change in direction. “Is this your first time on the committee?” he asked.
She slowly shook her head. “I’ve been helping out for a few years. But I guess it’s your first time, I haven’t seen you here before.”
“I got roped into it by Frank Megassey. He’s been helping me out with some renovations I’ve been doing, so I really couldn’t say no.” He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not usually one for meetings like this. I don’t typically have time to sit on committees.”
She blinked at him. “What do you do when you’re not volunteering for the fire department?” she asked him. “You said you’re doing some renovations. Are you in construction?”
He smiled. “No, I’m a full-time firefighter. I’m based in White City, but I’m taking some time off.”
“You’re taking some time off firefighting, so you volunteered to be a firefighter?” Ember raised her brow. “Doesn’t sound like a vacation to me,” she teased.
He laughed. “I guess it does sound a bit crazy, but it made sense at the time. And we don’t get called out that much. Right now I’m renovating an old cottage I own on the waterfront.”
“And sitting on committees,” she added.
“Yeah, that as well. And this is the hardest job of all three.”
It was her turn to laugh. “It’s not that bad, I promise. You just have to come to a couple of meetings, listen to Frank tell the story of the Captain and the Angel again, and then turn up on the day, which is the best part of all. It’s hard not to enjoy the fair. Everybody’s happy there.”
“You’re certainly selling it to me,” he told her.
“That’s what Frank pays me to do.”
His laugh was interrupted by Frank calling the meeting to order.
“Thank you all for coming,” he called out right as the last of the committee members hurried to take their seats. “As you all know, we’re here to make plans for this year’s Angel Day. It’s great to see so many familiar faces here.” He nodded at the collection of people sitting near the front. “And a few new ones, too.” He nodded at Lucas.
Ember leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Next up is the story about the Angel.”
Lucas bit down a grin, every child who grew up in this town knew the legend of the Angel. According to local lore, it was back in the early 1860s that Captain Paxton sailed his ship around the perilous set of rocks just north of what would become the town, and sighted the wide cove and golden beaches in front of him. So the story went, the sun came out right as he was staring at the beach, and an angel appeared before him, pointing toward the land.
Captain Paxton immediately set anchor and laid claim to the land, naming it after the angel who’d hovered in front of him that day. And ever since then, Angel Sands had celebrated Angel Day, in memory of the divine messenger that led to the town’s inception.
Of course, as they got older, the children would laugh at the story. And some of their parents would mention t
he large amount of rum Captain Paxton was reputed to have drunk, and yet the town still clung to the legend, making the most out of it as the tourists poured in. Whether you believed it or not, that angel was responsible for much of the wealth in the town.
“As you all know, Angel Day is very special to this town,” Frank began. “It’s the day when we remember Captain Paxton, and his encounter with the heavenly being that led to the foundation of Angel Sands.”
She nudged Lucas with her elbow, and it took everything he had not to laugh. Their eyes met again, and it felt like a kick in the stomach. A really pleasurable, soft sort of kick.
“We know what the day is for, Frank,” somebody whispered loudly.
Frank frowned and shuffled the pages of notes he had in front of him. Clearing his throat, he prepared himself to make another statement. For the next twenty minutes, he told them all about the arrangements for the day itself, and what they needed to do in the preceding three weeks. But Lucas was only half-paying attention, the rest of his concentration was on the woman sitting next to him. With the small amount of room between the rows of chairs he couldn’t help his thigh pressing against hers, and it was sending shoots of electricity up his spine.
Is this what coming home did to a guy? He had way too much time on his hands if he was having this kind of reaction to touching a woman.
What was it about her anyway? She was pretty, but he knew a lot of pretty women. Maybe it was the way she made him laugh, or the obvious care she’d shown for her student that day in the schoolyard. All he knew was that he could feel an attraction toward her he hadn’t felt in a long while, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
He was only there for a couple of months, and then he’d be heading back to White City; back to a job that consumed all of him, back to a lifestyle that had no place for things like committees, renovations, or beautiful elementary teachers.
Best to ignore it and ride his time out; that way nobody was going to get hurt. So when Frank called the meeting to a close and Ember hurriedly said goodbye he didn’t try to stop her.
Playing with fire was dangerous, he knew that all too well. It was his job to make sure nobody got burned.
Lucas was on his third lap of the beach before he really started to relax. Six miles to finally get the tension out of his shoulders, and open up his lungs. If it had been daytime he’d have taken his board out and rode the waves, but it was way too late for that.
Surfing at night was reckless, and he wasn’t about to put anybody else in danger just to rescue his sorry ass. But a long night stretched ahead of him in his empty beach cottage – on the camp bed he’d put up in the bedroom – better to work off his excess energy with a run, at least that way he might get some sleep.
Who was he kidding? He hadn’t been able to sleep properly for weeks. It was always that frozen moment between dreaming and wakefulness that caught him. That’s when his mind was free to wander, when images would appear in his head – images he’d managed to avoid all day by sheer force of will.
On his final lap, he looped around off the beach and onto the boardwalk that separated the oceanfront from the town beyond. It had been wooden once, but they’d long since concreted it over, widening it and painting a yellow dashed line down the middle to encourage cyclists and skaters, as well as tourists on foot, to stick to their side. It was empty now, save for the occasional meandering couple, and a few children giggling and laughing as their parents took them home for the night.
Only a few places were still open – the café had shut down at seven, and so had the surf shop, but there were a couple of customers still sitting outside the Heavenly Ice Cream Parlor. An old couple licking at cones, watching the sea as it danced in and out across the sand. A family squabbling over each other’s sundaes.
The last shop on the row was the Manna From Heaven bakery. He ran past it and turned the corner onto Main Street. Much wider than the boardwalk, and open to vehicles, it was lined on both sides with shops, their facades painted a myriad of pastel colors.
The first one was Books By the Beach; his mom had owned the shop since before he was born. He’d expected it to be closed up and dark, just like all the other shops around here, but instead he could see a light on inside. Frowning, he lifted his head to look through the window to check that everything was okay.
“Lucas?” His mom pushed open the door, a half-smile, half-frown on her face as she took him in. “What are you doing here?”
He was still trying to catch his breath. “I thought I’d check on the place while I was out running.”
The frown melted away from her brow. At sixty-two years old, Deenie Russell was an attractive woman. Her white hair was pulled back off her face, and though time had done its part to add the wisdom of years to her face, it was still surprisingly smooth. She claimed it was the effect of the salt air, that walking from her bungalow to the shop every day against the breeze was like a daily exfoliator for her skin.
“What are you doing here, more importantly?” Lucas asked her. “Didn’t you close at seven?”
“I’m changing the stock. It’s only a few weeks until we get busy again.” She flashed him a smile. “And your father’s been at a golf tournament, I thought I’d use my time wisely.”
Over her shoulder, Lucas could see crates of boxes, a few half-emptied but most still waiting to be opened. Some things never changed, he could remember his mom’s twice-yearly stock rotations taking place even when he was a small kid. In winter, she’d stock titles that would appeal to the locals, as well as a smattering of genre fiction and local history books that would draw the occasional tourist in. But in summer, Books By The Beach catered mainly for the visitors who flocked to the town. Full of paperbacks – the brighter the better – and coloring books to attract the children.
At first glance, people assumed that Deenie was some kind of free spirit, with her long white hair and the decorative scarves that trailed behind her wherever she went. But Lucas knew that her laid-back exterior was only part of her, she had a razor sharp business brain. She’d managed to keep this place going in spite of the competition from the out-of-town stores, and more recently the Internet.
“Dad’s still playing golf, then?” Lucas let a smile pull at his lips. Strange how he’d smiled more in the past few days than he had in the weeks prior.
“Yes, thank God. I’m so sick of him being under my feet. Did you know he even tried to interfere in the business?” Deenie asked him. “Said that I’d be much more efficient if I let him put a new inventory system in.” Her face softened as she talked about Lucas’ dad. “He was so disappointed when I told him I already had one put in last year.”
“Thank God for the golf course.”
“Amen to that.”
After working as a research scientist for more than half his life, Wallace Russell had retired earlier that year. Like so many of Angel Sands population, he’d been employed by Newton Pharmaceuticals on the outskirts of town. With its prestigious research facility and pristine factory, Newton Pharmaceuticals was one of the reasons Angel Sands was as prosperous as it was.
“You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize how alike you and your father are,” Deenie continued. “Neither of you can stand to sit around for a minute. It’s like you were both born with ants stitched into your pants. When you were a child, the only time you were still was when you were asleep.” Her smile widened. “And even then it didn’t last for long.”
Yeah, well tonight that restlessness had reached a whole new level. It itched at his skin like a rash. He looked over her shoulder again, then back at his mom. “You need some help with those crates?” he asked, not ready to go home despite having run for more than an hour.
What was there to go home for anyway?
She looked at him for a moment, her eyes full of questions. But then she stepped back and ushered him inside, pointing him at the crate closest to them. “Okay, you can start with that one.”
10
“That sounds too awkward for words.” Brooke grimaced as Ember told them the story of the committee meeting, and finally speaking with Janice Martin after all these months. “You poor thing, no wonder you were so stressed.”
“Did she mention Will at all?” Ally asked, turning on her side and propping her chin up with her hand. “Has he contracted some kind of disgusting disease yet?”
It was a rare Sunday when Ally didn’t have to work, and they’d decided to take their brunch onto the beach itself. The three of them – four if you included Nicholas – had set their towels and umbrella up a few yards away from the shoreline, close enough so they could keep an eye on Brooke’s son as he paddled and kicked in the shallow surf.
“Neither of us mentioned Will.” Ember flopped back on her towel, closing her eyes against the bright morning sun. “He was the great big elephant in the room that nobody wanted to mention.”
“Maybe she’s disowned him.” Ally sounded grimly satisfied with that thought. Ember couldn’t help but smile at her bear-like protectiveness.
“I don’t think so, you know how close knit they are. She was probably being kind.”
“Hmm.” Ally didn’t sound convinced.
It had been a good thing that Will had left town a few days after he’d ended his engagement with Ember, not that she’d felt it at the time. It had come as such a shock to learn that not only did he not want to be with her, but he’d spent the previous few weeks surreptitiously arranging a job transfer so he didn’t have to live in the same town as her.
It was as though everything she thought she knew had come tumbling down around her, she’d lost her fiancé and her future. It would have been a blow to anybody.
“I wonder if he’ll come back for Angel Day,” Brooke murmured. She was sitting up, her over-large sunglasses shading her eyes as she watched Nicholas jumping over the foaming waves.