Driftwood Point (30 page)

“I've told Cass that I wanted her to incorporate as much of the original woodwork and floors from the old into the new, just like she's doing in all the others she's designing.”

“So I'll still have the floors Gigi and Harold and Gramma Sarah walked on.”

“If enough can be salvaged, we'll use the old, and we'll try to match what we can't use to complete the floor. If not, we'll do counters, like I did for Ruby.” He rested his chin on the top of her head. “Cass drew up these plans for new construction if we had to go that way, but this is how I see the place after we've finished the renovations. There's no reason why we
can't use her plans and adjust them to restore the original building.”

She nodded. “All right. When does the work begin?”

“As soon as you say the word.”

“You've got it. Let's do it. Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow might be tight. We need permits, we need to see when Cam's schedule is free, we need to order supplies and equipment, and the foundation has to be shored up and—”

“Okay, okay. Do all that.” She sat snuggled next to him for a long moment, then asked, “Is there any way to make the front bedroom bigger?”

“Not if we stick to the original foundation. If we build an addition, it can be as big as you want, I suppose. Cass can adjust the floor plans. Why?”

“Because I'm thinking maybe I'll want to live here when it's finished. Maybe I'll want a big bed in there.”

“Big enough for two?”

“Oh, easily big enough for two. Big enough for two and maybe a big dog.”

“I'll talk to Cass first thing in the morning, before you have a chance to change your mind.”

“No way I'll change my mind. You?” she asked tentatively.

“Are you kidding? After all the time we've lost? You're stuck with me now.”

They sat quietly, caught up in their own thoughts of the future.

“Were you going out with her?” Lis asked.

“Going out with who?” He frowned.

“Cass.”

“Me and Cass? No. I think you might have me confused with someone who wishes he were dating her.”

“You mean Owen.”

“I fear he's smitten.”

“Owen is never smitten, and she's not his type. Or maybe he's not her type.”

“Don't make assumptions about her, Lis. She's really very nice. Get to know her.” He smiled. “Owen doesn't know what he's getting into if he's set his sights on her.”

“Might do him good to have to work for it for once. But that's his problem.” Lis wiggled out of Alec's arms and stood. “We need to go back to the store. I feel an ear-whipping coming from Ruby.” She waited for him to get up. “I have never in my life walked out on her when she called my name, and I know I am going to hear about it. ‘
Lisbeth Jane, you be taught better than that. You listen when I talk to you, hear?
' ”

“Lis, are we okay?” Alec stood at the door with it half opened. “Before we go, I have to know.”

“We are okay. More than okay. We're going to be okay for a very long time, Dr. Jansen.” She put one hand on each side of his face and kissed him. “We are as much okay as we were on prom night.”

“That was pretty darned okay.”

“Well, okay, then.” Lis went outside and walked toward her car. “I'll meet you back at the store. I'll be the one in the back room getting the lecture on respecting one's elders . . .'cause you're never too old for Ruby to ‘put some manners on you.' ”

Lis got in behind the wheel, started the car, and
slipped the gear into reverse, then paused. Alec walked to his Jeep, then raised a hand to wave to her, and in that moment she was overcome with gratitude. For the love she knew they would share in that cottage on the point and the years they would spend there. Even for the tongue-lashing she knew she was going to get, because it meant Ruby was still there with them, alive and feisty as ever. For whatever it was that had brought her back to this place that she loved with the people she loved. The family she had and the family she and Alec would make.

Know where you belong.

“I know, Gigi,” she whispered as she drove off. “I know . . .”

Epilogue

September

G
igi, you about ready for me to drive you over to the inn?” Lis stuck her head into the back room, where earlier Ruby had been watching the morning news.

“I been ready. Been waiting on you.” Ruby eased herself out of her chair with some difficulty.

Lis had to stop herself from rushing over to help. She knew it would have earned her a swat on the hands and a verbal rebuke. So she waited patiently while the elderly woman gathered her purse and the book she had borrowed from her friend Grace and was returning.

“Owen, you be sure to tell Tommy to take back that extra case of orange soda he left here last week.” Ruby stopped in the doorway and called to Owen, who was sitting in her chair at her table. “Don't know why he be bringing that here. Never did sell much of it.”

“Sure thing, Gigi.” Owen looked up from the newspaper he was reading.

Ruby stared, squinting at him from across the room.

“If you don't look like your great-granddaddy sitting there.” Ruby shook her head. “Hm-hm. Just like my Harold.”

“I do?” Owen put the paper down.

“You do. And I'm going to tell you 'xactly what I used to tell him.”

“What's that?”

“Don't be getting too comfortable in my seat.”

Lis laughed out loud and followed Ruby out the door.

“We can take our time,” Lis said as she opened the passenger-side door. “We're a little early.”

“A little early be better than a little late.” Ruby got into the car with minimal assistance, but she did need a little help with the seat belt.

Once Lis had Ruby safely strapped in, she started the car and drove slowly onto the narrow two-lane road that wrapped itself around Cannonball Island. They crossed into St. Dennis, the tires bumping along on the grate of the drawbridge.

“How old do you suppose that bridge is?” Lis asked after they'd crossed.

“Well, now, let me put my mind to that.” Ruby looked out the window. “I watched it be built, back in the day. Guess I be around nine or ten. So maybe 1925 or so. Before that, you couldn't go straight around the island. If you were in a boat in the river over beyond the store, you would have to turn around, go all around the point, then all along the far
side of the island. Guess at some point, someone got tired of it and said the bridge should open up.”

“Who built it?”

“The state of Maryland built it. They had a couple of engineers come around, studied the area. Built a bunch of those small drawbridges around the shore, I heard.”

They reached the turnoff for the Inn at Sinclair's Point and Lis made a left to follow the long, winding drive. Once they'd reached the back of the building, Lis found a spot close to the back door and parked, then helped Ruby from the car and across the parking lot without appearing to be helping.

“Hold my hand, Gigi.” Lis took Ruby's hand in hers.

“You think I need help walking?”

“I like to hold your hand, like I did when I was little and needed help crossing the road or walking on the jetty.”

“You think I don't see what you're saying there?” Ruby held Lis's hand despite her protest, even giving it a squeeze.

“I know you better than to think that there's anything that you don't see.” They reached the back steps and Lis waited for Ruby to climb them with her.

Alec was so right to move her downstairs when he did,
Lis thought.
Sooner or later, she would have killed herself, falling down those steps in the store. At the very least, she could have broken an arm or a leg.

They reached the landing and a bellhop rushed to open the door for them. After they stepped inside,
Ruby pointed to the grand staircase in the lobby. “Those be the steps Grace fell down last year. Broke her arm and her leg.”

Lis smiled to herself, no longer questioning how it seemed that Ruby could pluck words or phrases or thoughts from her mind.

“There you are, my friend.” Grace greeted Ruby with a broad smile and open arms. “I'm so glad you're here. I wanted your advice about something . . . oh, and Lis, dear. Happy to see you, too, of course. Can you stay and join us for lunch? The chef is making crab cakes with a little extra spice, just the way you like them, Ruby.”

“I'd love to join you, but Alec asked me to meet him at the cottage after I dropped Gigi off. He said he has a surprise for me.”

“Well, who doesn't love surprises?” Grace's eyes sparkled. “You never know what that nephew of mine has up his sleeve.”

“Knowing Alec, he probably got in a shipment of windows.” Lis laughed. Alec had been happily showing off the materials for the cottage's renovation as they were received.

“Is he ready to put in windows already?” Grace shook her head. “My, it seems like only yesterday he was telling Dan that he wasn't sure any of that place could be saved.” She leaned closer to Lis. “Of course, I knew he could do it. It means the world to him to be able to do this for you, you know.”

Lis nodded. She knew.

“And I can't wait to see it once it's finished, can you, Ruby?” Grace took the arm of her old friend.

“I know just how it be looking,” Ruby said simply. “Boy be doing it right.” She and Grace exchanged a long look that spoke volumes, but Lis couldn't understand a word.

Lis sighed. It was always like this when Ruby and Grace got together. The two women just seemed to
know
things.

“Well, I should get going, see what Alec wants to show me.”

“I'm sure it will be a happy something, whatever it is.” Grace smiled.

“Alec always makes me happy, Grace.” To Ruby, Lis said, “I'll be back around two or so. Call me if there's a change.”

Lis hummed all the way back to the island. It was still hot, still summer on the Chesapeake. While the mornings might have just a touch of crispness and the evenings might come just a little sooner, summer hadn't quite said good-bye to the Eastern Shore. Some of the maples and the oaks on Charles Street had begun to drop a leaf here or there, but fall was still a good month or so away. Maybe later she and Alec could take out a couple of kayaks or his old rowboat and head to the sound to do a little crabbing. They'd caught a couple of jumbos last week, and Grace talking about crab cakes made her think about catching a few more.

Up ahead on the left, a flashy little sports car was pulling into the old Mullan place behind a line of trucks. Lis waved as Cass got out of her car juggling her briefcase, a three-ring binder, and a cup of coffee. She returned the greeting with a smile and nod of her head.

“Looks good,” Lis called, pointing to the frame of the house that was going up, the first of the new homes to be built on Cannonball Island in many years.

She'd heard from Owen—who said he just happened to be walking past the Mullan place the other day when Cass just happened to be there—that they might use that first house as a spec house. Cass, he went on to tell her, was thinking about building one of those new places for herself, but she hadn't decided on a location yet.

“Maybe she'll want to buy Poppa's old place, next to the old chapel.”

“A, that place is mine, and B, that place is mine.”

“Yeah, I guess it would be a hard sell, being that it sits right next to a graveyard where the most reviled man ever to set foot on the island is buried.”

Owen had snorted. “I think Cass could handle Reverend Jeremiah Sharpe, on either side of the grave.”

Yeah, but can you handle Cass?
Lis wisely chose not to respond.

Lis was still smiling when she pulled onto the grassy area in front of the cottage and parked next to Alec's Jeep.

“Alec?” The front door stood open and she stepped inside. The walls were down to the studs and there were gaping holes where the new windows would be, but the floor beneath her feet no longer sagged.

She went into the kitchen, where the cabinets and the counters had been removed and the floor torn up. Here, too, as in the great room, the windows were
missing. With Cass's help, the redesigned kitchen included a bumped-out back wall that enlarged the space and made room for an island and a greenhouse window, and French doors opening to the back where a patio would eventually be built. The space would be bright and cheery, and Lis couldn't wait to cook on the new stove she'd ordered the week before.

Every inch of the cottage was going to be glorious, made more so because she would be sharing it with Alec.

She heard noise upstairs and took to the steps.

“Alec?”

“Up here, babe.”

“So it looks like we'll have windows soon.” She reached the top of the steps and looked around. Alec was standing in front of the cabinet where they'd found her grandmother's ball and jacks. “What are you doing?”

“I found something I must have missed when we looked in here before.” He turned around with a small box in his hand.

“Oh, what is it?” She peered over his shoulder. “Something that belonged to my grandmother?”

“No.” He turned to her and opened the box. “Something that belonged to my mom.”

“To your . . .” Lis looked down at the open box, at the sparkly ring that sat upon the dark blue velvet interior, and her mouth dropped open.

“It's the engagement ring my dad bought for my mother.” He took the ring from the box and dropped to one knee. “I know she would be so happy to pass it on to you. Will you marry me, Lis?”

“I . . . well, I . . . I . . .” She couldn't seem to get a word out that made any sense.

“Was that a yes
I
, or a no
I
?”

“It's a yes. Of course it's a yes.” Her hand trembled as he slid the diamond onto her finger. “Yes, of course . . .”

Alec stood and wrapped his arms around her. “Kiss me to seal the deal,” he said, and she did.

Lis held her hand out in front of her, staring at the pretty stone.

“It's beautiful, Alec. I love it. And I love it even more knowing that your mother wore it first. But how . . . where . . . ?”

“My aunt kept it in the safe-deposit box in the inn. I always knew it was there, along with some other jewelry of Mom's that Aunt Grace saved for me. It was just waiting for me to find the right girl.” He held her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. “It was waiting for you to come back. To come home.”

“I am home.
We
are home.
This
is home.” She smiled and looked into his eyes. “Ruby knew. She knew all along that I'd be back.”

“A wise woman, that Ruby Carter.”

“Oh.” Lis pulled away slightly. “
She knew
. About the ring. She and Grace both knew.”

“Of course they knew. I had to ask Aunt Grace for the ring,” he reminded her. “Do you care? That they knew before you did?”

“Grace and Gigi?” Lis laughed. “Knowing the two of them, they knew long before
you
knew.”