Keeping Cape Summer (A Pelican Pointe novel Book 11)

by Vickie McKeehan

Simon finally rolled to his back. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Snuggled next to each other, entwined, they tried to sleep. But it eluded them. They napped but it wasn’t the same as that gateway to deep slumber. So when sunlight began to filter through the drapes despite their best efforts to ignore it, Simon cracked open one eye to snatch a look at the time.

  “Where did the last few hours go?” Gilly whispered hoarsely, yawning widely.

  He twined a blond strand of her hair around his finger, toyed with a bare breast. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  “Mmm.” She rolled over him, straddled him. “Want to enjoy yourself again?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she ravaged his mouth, his throat, moving down his chest, hungry to feed a primal greed that seemed to have come alive over the last two days.

  Their eyes locked. His hands reached out and laced his fingers with hers. They began a rhythm, a faster pace than the last as if they knew the sand drifted through the hourglass at a rapid rate and they didn’t have a whole lot of time.

  Gilly capitalized on that, made it her own. She wanted to give back to him before they had to wait until the next available opportunity presented itself.

  From her vantage point, she rode, taking the lead, intense and focused. Her mouth came down on his in fierce need. He lifted her, urging her on. Her blood pumped, pulsing toward that one goal, release. When pleasure flooded her senses, she let go, tumbling, spinning, into the brilliant bliss.

  He ran his hands down her hips. “You’re incredible.”

  She threw her arms in the air. “You’ve made me feel alive again. Even though I’m running on fumes, that was…exhilarating. Thanks for waiting for me outside the hospital. Whatever made you think of that?”

  He wasn’t about to cop to a ghost for inspiration. “I wanted to be with you.”

  She wriggled off him to plop back on her side of the bed. “How will we deal with no sleep today?”

  “You have to be fresh for your shift at four. That means, you’re gonna to stay here and get some shuteye.”

  “Simon, I can’t let you do that. Jayden’s a handful.”

  “Look, I got the planting all done until Silas gives me another task. No tours today from the B&B. I can catch a few winks when Delaney goes down for her nap.”

  “But Jayden rarely naps.”

  “That’s okay. Maybe my mom will entertain him. Don’t worry about it.” He stood up to get dressed. “But I probably need to hit the road while I’m able to walk.”

  She burst out laughing. “I’ll wear you out anytime you want, just say the word.”

  He planted a smoldering kiss on her mouth. “That’s a plan I can live with.”

  Twenty-Three

  Simon was shocked to hear the house so quiet when he walked into the living room. His mother had fallen asleep on the sofa and was slumped into the pillows, softly snoring. He tiptoed past her and into the bathroom to grab a hot shower. It only lasted a quick five minutes or so, but in that short amount of time, as he was drying off, he heard voices, one louder than the rest, ginning up for the day.

  He grabbed a clean pair of jeans and a shirt and opened the door to his bedroom, prepared to face the chaos. Pandemonium loomed. Jayden, ever the lover of anything with wheels, careened his cars into Delaney’s feet, causing her to lose her balance and hit the floor.

  “I’m sowwy,” Jayden hollered.

  Simon picked up the now screaming child and held her close. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  “I’m sowwy,” Jayden said again.

  Simon traded looks with his mother who stood back waiting for him to handle the situation. He took a seat in one of the living room chairs. “I know you are, Jayden. It was an accident. But you gotta be more careful around her. She’s younger than you are and doesn’t walk as steady as you do yet. She’ll get there, but right now she’s wobbly on her feet.”

  As Delaney sniffed and hiccupped in his arms, Jayden put his face close to hers. “I’m sowwy.”

  Her hand jabbed out fast with a quick right, aiming to hit him in the face in retaliation.

  “Delaney, none of that,” Simon calmly said. “You two should be friends. Jayden, I want you to give her a hug. Delaney, hug Jayden back. Now.”

  He watched as they made an awkward attempt to put their arms around each other. Forced as it was, it did the trick. “There. All better? Are we ready to eat breakfast now or do we still want to fuss at each other?”

  “Eat!” Jayden yelled.

  “Eat,” Delaney repeated.

  “Good because it’s too early for sniping. No more fighting or fussing. Delaney, do you want to get down now and play before breakfast?”

  She crawled out of Simon’s lap and made a beeline for Jayden’s cars. Simon waited for the blow up, but Jayden seemed to accept that he needed to share.

  Gretchen shook her head and marveled at the sight. “You’re actually pretty good at this.”

  “Who knew, right? I need caffeine.”

  “And sleep. You didn’t get a wink of sleep, I bet.”

  At the sink, Simon filled a decanter with water and poured the contents into the reservoir before measuring out coffee beans to grind. “What do you think? But then I didn’t go over there to sleep. My morning’s free and hers isn’t, so I’m keeping Jayden while she gets some rest since she has to be fresh for her shift this afternoon.”

  He removed a carton of eggs from the fridge and began to crack them into a bowl and then whipped them with a fork for scrambling.

  Gretchen remembered her coffee date with John. She could cancel. It wasn’t like it was set in stone. But then maybe there was a workaround. “Want me to look after the kids while you take a nap? I could take them to the park and let them run around there. Who knows? Maybe Jayden would take a nap.”

  “It’s not necessary unless you just want to spend time with Delaney. You still have a few days left. Your flight leaves Thursday, right?”

  “At eleven.” Why didn’t she simply tell him about the coffee date? It might make things easier. “I met someone in the park Saturday morning.”

  “Yeah? Who?”

  “A man by the name of John Dickinson. He asked me to have coffee with him this morning and I said yes.”

  Simon’s mouth fell open. He’d never thought about his mother’s social life including a man. But she was young enough, sixty was hardly having one foot in the grave. And he of all people knew how short life could be and ever-changing in an instant. Once the idea sunk in, the implication became clear. “And you want to keep this date, right?”

  “For coffee,” Gretchen emphasized. “Just to talk. I so seldom get to do that with people my own age anymore. Back home, if they don’t drop in to see me, I don’t go out of my way to see them. I slowly gave up doing my charity work after your father died, and without meaning to, I gave friends I’d known for years the impression I wanted to be left alone. Those contacts have slowly dried up for me. That includes most of my old bridge partners, who’ve chosen to avoid stopping by to visit. I’m not sure if it’s their circumstances keeping them away, or maybe they’re super busy, or maybe they really do want to avoid being around Lorraine. People are like that sometimes. They don’t know what to say, so they avoid saying anything at all.”

  He’d known all along what a challenge his mother faced every day taking care of his aunt. But he didn’t realize it had put a ding in her once active social life. He could see it now on her face. Maybe she was dreading going back home to that strained situation, one that had no good ending on the horizon. “Then do it. Don’t cancel this thing with John. But you don’t have to take the kids. I have to call that Margaret person in Boston and get the check thing straightened out anyway.”

  “But that’s just it. I could meet John in the park and bring the kids with me. Watch them while they play. And still have coffee with John.”

  Simon saw the eagerness in his mother’s eyes. “Sure.” A
s he scrambled the eggs, he prompted, “So tell me about this John guy. Who is he exactly?”

  “Small town and you don’t know? His daughter is the principal of the elementary school.”

  “Julianne McLachlan is his daughter?”

  “You know her?”

  “I’ve seen her around town. I know Ryder better. Good guy. He has a boatbuilding business over on Ocean Street. His wife also opened her own shop called Reclaimed Treasures, that store on Main that carries fashionable and trendy upcycled stuff. Julianne is the one who found my sofa. She’ll do that sort of thing if you ask her to look out for a certain hard-to-find item.”

  “John didn’t mention the store. But he seems like any proud daddy when he talks about his daughter.”

  Simon began to feel better about the man.

  After calling the kids to the table and getting them situated, he and his mother continued their conversation over coffee. “I should’ve realized how hard it was taking care of Lorraine all these years.”

  “She’s my sister. We used to do everything together. We’re barely a year apart. I wasn’t about to turn her over to strangers and let them take care of her. But…it’s been five years since she started behaving in odd ways, couldn’t remember where she’d left her car keys. And odd things would come out of her mouth. She’s gone steadily downhill in the last year. She doesn’t even know where she is most of the time, let alone recognizing me. Makes me wonder…about Connie. She’s acting a lot like Lorraine did before her diagnosis.”

  “But the doctors say Connie doesn’t have Alzheimer’s.”

  “Which is good. But I wonder if the shunt hasn’t had time to get rid of all the excess fluid yet and it’s still doing weird things to her brain.”

  “According to Gilly, her mother wasn’t like this until recently. It’s gotta be the right diagnosis.”

  “You’d think. What if this Boston lawyer didn’t make a mistake? You said the man Amelia was with was wealthy. What if that check is Delaney’s inheritance?”

  “A million-dollar inheritance?” He thought back to that summer on Cape Cod. There were indications Amelia Langston favored expensive things. She carried trendy handbags, the upscale kind made of Italian calfskin leather. But he hadn’t bothered checking the price tags. Why would he? He knew the camera she used to capture all those photos wasn’t cheap, somewhere in the neighborhood of three grand, maybe more. And her outfits never failed to get his attention. But again, he hadn’t bothered checking labels. He could admit now that he hadn’t paid enough attention to details that summer. He was too caught up in the escape, the newness of being out of the Army, the freedom to do whatever he wanted, not to mention all the sex an arm’s reach away.

  “It’s possible it isn’t a mistake,” Gretchen insisted.

  “It has to be. Things like that don’t happen to people like us,” Simon stated. He glanced at his watch, noted the time. “But we’ll know in a few minutes because Boston is open for business.”

  He shut himself off in the bedroom to make the call so there’d be less noise from the kids. After Tyler’s secretary put him through to her majesty, Simon went into all the questions he’d built up over the last three days.

  “Remember when you dropped Delaney off that day, you said something about Amelia’s estate totaling no more than twenty-five grand. That’s what I expected the check to read when I opened the envelope. How could you make this kind of error?”

  On the other end of the line, Simon thought the ice-cold Margaret Tyler seemed to squirm in her chair. “If you’ll recall, that day I had a lot on my plate. I might’ve misspoken. I didn’t realize at the time the true extent of her estate. Up until then I had been focused on getting your daughter situated. I would think you’d appreciate that fact first.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “The amount of the check isn’t a mistake.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Would I kid about this? That’s why I asked before sending that amount through the mail. But you were so insistent.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were talking about that kind of money?”

  He heard Margaret sigh into the phone. “I’m sorry there’s been this kind of miscommunication, but I assure you the only thing left is to sell the townhouse her…benefactor left to her. As it turns out, his grown children were attempting to file a lawsuit for their share of what he left Ms. Langston. I thought I was doing you a favor by going ahead and distributing the funds. I feel that little girl deserves what her mother left her. The only mistake she made was not putting the money in a trust so it wouldn’t have to go through probate.”

  “All right. Where do we go from here? Because that’s exactly my intent, putting the money into a trust for her is the only option. She won’t even know about it until she reaches twenty-one. Or maybe twenty-five.”

  “That’s good. At least she’ll know her mother cared enough to leave her everything she had. I would suggest you get a good trust attorney immediately to set up an ironclad fund that only she benefits from, no matter whom she marries, they won’t be able to squander away her inheritance. After you’ve done all the paperwork, send me a copy for my files.”

  He wondered if that last part was a dig at him. It didn’t sound like Ms. Tyler had any faith that he’d follow through on the plan, which is why he set up an appointment with Kinsey for eleven that morning.

  Having the kids with her made Gretchen feel more at ease. Not that she thought John was a perv or a weirdo or anything like that. But meeting up in the park with the children seemed to be the best way to gauge his interest and possibly his intent.

  She sat on the park bench under a beautiful clear sky, a soft ocean breeze on her face. Birds flitted back and forth like springtime. The difference in weather here was startling. Back in Rhode Island it would soon be cold and dreary, snow on the ground until March or April. How nice it would be to live here year-round. How great it would be to get up in the morning just to see Delaney’s little face more often than once a year.

  She was deep in those kinds of thoughts when John ambled up and took a seat next to her, holding two containers of coffee and a bag between his fingers. He handed one to-go cup off to her.

  “Thanks for meeting me here instead of the Diner.”

  “No problem. Better than your canceling on me altogether. Besides, I like the outdoors. Busy morning?”

  She let out a laugh and looked over at the energetic kids playing in the sandbox. “Those two make sure mornings aren’t boring. You didn’t say anything about grandkids.”

  “That’s because I think my daughter and son-in-law have been trying but…they’ve been unsuccessful so far, if you know what I mean. I find it best to avoid bringing up the subject at all. I refuse to play the role of nosy in-law.”

  “Good for you. Isn’t life strange, though? My son had Delaney and for almost sixteen months didn’t even know she existed. Now, it seems she’s his whole reason for getting up in the morning. Life can bring change in the oddest ways.”

  He nodded and held out the bag to her. “Max’s famous cinnamon rolls guaranteed to melt in your mouth. Try one.”

  Gretchen obliged, taking a bite out of the gooey pastry, then licking the icing off her fingertips.

  “Is your coffee okay?”

  “It’s fine. Good. Strong the way I like it.”

  “Margie makes the best coffee in town. Swears she cleans the pot every four hours to keep it from going stale. When you texted me with a change in plans I wasn’t sure if you were trying to ditch me or not.”

  “If I’d wanted to do that I wouldn’t be sitting here now.”

  “I’m glad. You didn’t ditch me, that is. Would you consider letting me buy you dinner before you go back east?”

  Flattered, she tilted her head to study him, more forward than what she was used to in her neck of the woods. A long-forgotten pull in the belly hit her. She barely recognized the tug, but it made her realize she was attracted t
o him. “Are we talking about a date?”

  “I am. Not sure what you consider it to be. We could be friends, but that’s not what I’m hoping for.”

  “Really? And what about the fact that we live on opposite ends of the country?”

  “I thought about that some. Is there any way we could keep in touch once you get back to Newport? Get to know each other better.”

  “You want to?”

  “We could email back and forth. Julianne taught me how to use Skype not too long ago. I could show you how to set it up and when we get the urge we could talk. It’s cheaper than long distance and you don’t have to eat into your minutes on the cell. Is that too forward?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “Don’t ask me. I’m no expert. I haven’t…” She’d started to use the word “dated” and stopped, realizing that might be presumptuous, even premature. “Whatever this is?”

  “I’ll be honest, I haven’t done much dating lately. I spent years raising my daughter alone. My wife took off not long after Julianne came along and left me to raise her by myself. I was way too busy back then to seek out company on a regular basis. Had a girlfriend a time or two, but they got tired of waiting for me to marry them. And I just…got cold feet every time I tried to think like that. You should know I’m a little gun shy when that subject comes up.”

  “That’s understandable, given your first wife. Now for me, as long as you know up front that I’ve only been a widow for two years, which means I have no idea what to expect from any kind of dating scenario. It sounds like you’re more the expert. Plus, I’m taking care of my older sister who’s getting worse every day. I seem to have no one to talk to about it because my friends have slowly distanced themselves from the situation over the years, especially since Lowell died. And now my son has given me this ultimate gift, a grandchild, who happens to be three thousand miles away from where I live. How unfair is that?”

  John smiled. “You’re right. Life is truly strange. It hands us all kinds of twists and turns we don’t expect. I don’t see what the harm is to having dinner before you go.”