Finding Haven (13 page)

E
VAN SPUN
into his usual parking space near Silver Belle, and raced into the camper. It looked
like a tornado had blasted through the place. What was he thinking asking a girl over?
Two weeks of solitude were starting to take their toll on his judgment. He shook his
head and started hiding all signs of his bachelor lifestyle.

He pulled the trash from the bin and tied the sack. As soon as he exited the camper,
Charlotte stopped him. This was her usual time to hit the sand for beachcombing.

“Hey, stranger. Haven’t seen you all day,” she purred.

“Hey, Charlotte.” He didn’t have time for this. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”

“Oh shoot. I was going to ask if you wanted to come over for a beer after my walk.
I have your favorite. You drink that Texas stuff, right?”

“That’s real nice of you, but actually, I have a friend coming over tonight.” Maybe
this was the deterrent the woman needed. If she saw him with another girl, she might
take the hint.

“Oh, that’s too bad. But, baby, don’t worry. That beer won’t go bad. We’ll just do
it another time.” She patted him on the shoulder as she headed down to the beach.

Evan was convinced nothing would dissuade Charlotte. He clutched the trash bag in
his hand, and jogged to the dumpster near the office. He still had a few minutes to
jump in the shower before Haven arrived.

E
VAN LOOKED
in the mirror one more time and rubbed his palm against the smoothness of his jaw.
He looked more like himself than he had in weeks. He liked the beard, but it wasn’t
really him. It was a part of letting everything go in his life—his diet, his friends,
his career. He liked his face better this way. There was a small amount of cologne
in a bottle he had thrown in his overnight bag. Careful not to overpower the air,
he pressed halfway on the trigger. This was getting more and more like a date. He
couldn’t argue Haven had been the one to ask him to get dinner. He just took the reins
and asked her over here. He hadn’t set out to make a date with her or any girl this
summer. As far as he was concerned, he was off the market and only here to relax and
unwind. Tonight was all about having a good time.

He pushed open the camper door to check on the fire he had lit before his shower.
The coals were blazing red and orange. He hoped she like steak, because that was what
was on the menu. So many girls he dated ate salads and fat-free cardboard, he didn’t
know what real girls ate anymore.

A smile formed on his face, thinking back to her expression when they tumbled into
the creek. She was more real than any girl he had been around in a long time.

He rolled the sleeves on his plaid shirt and slid his feet into his new flip-flops.
He knew he looked like a combination of a Texas boy and a Carolina transplant, but
he felt comfortable in the khaki shorts and his old shirt. It was better than a tux.

He heard the music blaring from Pirate’s Booty. Charlotte must be back from her walk
to collect seashells. She had buckets of them all over her yard. He didn’t understand
why she brought new ones back everyday, but he didn’t understand much about his neighbor.

The fire blazed as he poked it a few times with a skewer. The moon was bright on the
horizon as he tried to pick out a few stars. The sky never looked the same as it did
in Texas. His heart hurt a little thinking about Texas and when life was easy and
simple. He missed his ranch. The pounding surf in the distance reminded him he wasn’t
done here. It wasn’t time to leave yet, even though he didn’t know who or what had
set the timer. It just wasn’t time.

T
HE LAST
time Haven had been at the Perry Campground was after the prom her senior year of
high school. A big group of her classmates had parked in the tent spaces, and then
tore off for the beach. It could have been the full moon or maybe the freedom graduation
offered right around the corner, but whatever it was, Haven and her friends splashed
in cocktail dresses, chased each other on the beach, and laughed harder than she could
remember. Prom night went down as one of her favorite nights, and here she was again,
more than four years later, meeting an almost total stranger for dinner.

She slowed the car along the gravel drive that bordered the horseshoe of camper trailers.
She didn’t remember the names being so funny.
Under the Seashell
? She might have to write these into a parody song.

There was Jay’s Jeep next to Silver Belle. She touched up her lip gloss again and
ran her fingers through her hair. This was only dinner with a new summer resident,
she told herself for the twentieth time as she climbed from her car and walked to
the silver camper.

All day she knew he had flirted with her, but it was different from the advances coming
from Travis. Jay was confident and sure of himself. He didn’t pout or punish her if
she didn’t flirt back. In fact, it seemed to make him smile more, the more she resisted
his innuendos.

It had been surprising spending the day with him. She caught herself laughing unexpectedly
and teasing him when she knew she shouldn’t. He took everything in stride and nothing
about the store stressed him out.

What she really wanted to know was how long he had been writing and if he had any
advice to launch her into the writing world. She needed any help she could get to
break into the music business. It was worth a shot.

She noticed two chairs arranged in front of the fire. She tapped on the door, feeling
a surge of nerves begin to take hold.

Jay swung the door open and greeted her with a smile and a smooth face.

“Wow. Hey.” She stood, staring at the once scruffy newcomer. “I—uh—you look good without
the beard.”

“Thanks.” He rubbed his cheek. “After the dip in the creek today, I thought it was
about time. Saltwater and facial hair are not a good combination. I’m not really a
beard guy.”

“Oh, I thought it was part of the whole writer thing.” She tried to make a joke to
cover her persistent staring. His face looked so different. So handsomely different.
And there were dimples when he smiled. It took restraint not to reach toward him and
touch his cheek.

“I’ve got beer. Want one?” He revealed two longneck bottles in his hand and stepped
back so she could enter the camper.

Everything was red and white like a perpetual picnic. Haven took a beer from him and
reached for a towel to twist off the top. These tops always hurt her palm.

“Nice place.”

“Thanks. It’s twenty-two feet of home for the summer. Want a tour? We can start dinner
in a minute.” He shuffled her to the center of the room.

“Definitely. Show me the chateau.” She looked around the small space, wondering where
he wrote.

“All right. This here is the culinary den of the place.” He pointed to the quaint
kitchenette. “And this is the breakfast nook.” She liked how the table and bench jutted
out, giving a better view of the ocean.

He walked toward the back of the camper. “The master suite, complete with a bed. Yeah,
that’s all that’s in here. And of course the master bath. If you turn just right,
you can fit in the shower. I think I’ve learned new contortionist skills this summer.”

Haven sized him up and the shower, and wondered how someone with such broad shoulders
managed to squeeze in there.

“Wow, looks like you have everything you need.” She took a swig of the beer.

“It is pretty damn perfect. This is the living room, I guess.” A red couch ran along
the inside wall. He walked two steps to the kitchen and retrieved a plate of steaks
from the mini-fridge. “You eat meat, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

He sighed. “Good. I was worried for a second. But this is what I’ve got. Come on.
Let’s get these cowboy steaks on the fire.”

“Cowboy steaks?” She had never heard of that kind of steak before.

“Yeah, you’ll see. Come on.” He led her through the door and motioned to one of the
chairs by the fire. “All right, so we just throw them on the fire, and in ten minutes,
they’ll be done.”

“You mean like on a roaster stick?” She looked around for the utensils they needed
to spear the steaks.

He laughed. “No, like this.” He grabbed one of the steaks off the plate and tossed
it into the center of the fire where it sizzled on the hot coals. “Want me to do yours?”

“No way.” She grabbed hers and chunked it into the flames right next to his.

“Nice throw.”

“Thanks.” She tipped the bottle back and watched as the steaks bubbled under the heat.

Jay settled into the chair. “So, tell me, songwriter, what kind of music do you write?”

Haven blinked. People didn’t usually ask about her music. They usually acted like
she didn’t write at all. Everyone on the island knew she wrote music. She’d been doing
it since the third grade, but that didn’t mean it was accepted as a way to make a
living. This was a chance to have an actual conversation about the words that swirled
in her head and seeped from her pores. “Anything and everything.” Ok, well that was
about as vague and shallow an answer as she could muster.

“Oh,
that
kind of music,” he teased.

She nudged him with her elbow. “I meant that I don’t really try to write a certain
song. I let the words hit me, and then I write it. It’s kind of hard to explain, but
I feel it, I don’t think it.”

She chugged on the beer, thinking maybe her first answer was better than her second.
That was too much. He would surely think she was some kind of abstract artist who
needed to be secluded in an artist-only loony colony.

“How did you learn to write lyrics?” He kicked at one of the logs with his foot. He
seemed comfortable with the fire.

“It’s not something I went to school for. I think of it like poetry, I guess. I see
the words together or feel them together.”

“Feel them?”

She twirled her bottle until she heard the beer sloshing. Jay had turned to face her,
and she realized he was listening. His eyes scanning hers and his forehead fixed in
concentration. “Yes, it’s a feeling, but it comes out as lyrics. It’s hard to explain.”

“It makes sense to me. Those are my favorite songs. The ones that actually mean something—not
just rambling strung together to fit a beat, but words with soul.”

Haven followed his eyes, wishing it wasn’t getting dark so she could see the flecks
of green. Right now, he was looking at her as if he understood everything she said
and more, and she wanted to capture that look in his eyes and memorize it.

He broke the silence. “If you didn’t go to school for music, what did you study?”

Haven rolled her eyes. “Oh, that? My major is actually education. My parents want
me to be a teacher. We compromised on me teaching music.”

“Well, that sounds like a sensible idea. You get to do both, right?”

“No, not really. All I want to do is write. I’m sending songs out every week to labels,
and any day I’m going to sell one. I really want a contract so I can move. I’ll pay
my dad back for college and I’ll be done with this nightmare.” She gripped the bottle
in her hand like she needed it to steady her. She didn’t mean to get so worked up.

“Nightmare? I guess you’re talking about what I overhead this morning on the docks.”
He turned to look at her. It wasn’t pity in his eyes. It was the same look he had
at the kayak stand—understanding and warmth. The kind of look the she wouldn’t mind
seeing more of. She liked the way it felt when he looked at her that way.