Sand Castle Bay (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,2
too.”
“I’d be obliged if you could get Tommy over there, but I’ll call the insurance people and there’s no need for a cleaning crew,” Cora Jane insisted. “I’ll be back first thing tomorrow with the girls. With them pitching in, we can clean the place up in no time.”
Boone’s heart seemed to still at her words. The girls could only be her granddaughters, including the one who’d dumped him ten years ago and taken off to start a better life than she thought he’d be able to give her.
“Emily, too?” he asked, holding out a faint hope that she wouldn’t be back here, in his face, testing his belief that he’d long ago gotten her out of his system.
“Of course,” Cora Jane said, then added a little too gently, “Is that going to be a problem, Boone?”
“Of course not. Emily and me, that’s in the past. The distant past,” he added emphatically.
“Are you so sure about that?” she pressed.
“I moved on, married someone else, didn’t I?” he said defensively.
“And lost Jenny way too soon,” Cora Jane said, as if he needed reminding of his wife’s death just over a year ago.
“But not our son,” Boone said. “I still have B.J. to think about. He’s my life these days.”
“I know you’re devoted to that boy, but you need more,” she lectured. “You deserve to have a full and happy life.”
“Someday maybe I’ll find the kind of happiness you’re talking about,” Boone said, “but I’m not looking for it, and it sure as heck isn’t going to be with a woman who didn’t think I’d amount to much.”
Cora Jane drew in a shocked breath. “Boone, that is not what happened. Emily never judged you and found you lacking. She just had all these pie-in-the-sky dreams for herself. She needed to leave here and test herself, see what she could accomplish.”
“That’s your spin. I saw it a little differently,” Boone said. “Maybe we’d better not talk about Emily. We’ve stayed friends, you and me, by keeping her off-limits. She’s family and you love her. Of course you’d defend her.”
“You’re family, too,” Cora Jane insisted fiercely. “Or as good as.”
Boone smiled. “You’ve always made me feel that way. Now let me make those calls and see what I can do to get this place back in working order before you get here. I know you’re going to want to plug in the coffeepot and open the doors as soon as the power’s back on. I should warn you that could be another couple of days. You maybe ought to consider staying with Gabi until it’s fixed.”
“I need to be there,” Cora Jane replied determinedly. “Sitting around here and worrying isn’t getting anything accomplished. I imagine we can get by on that generator you had installed after the last storm.”
“I’ll make sure it’s working and check the refrigerators and freezer to make sure things stayed cold. Anything else you need me to do before you come home?”
“If Tommy gives you a fair estimate on the roof, tell him to get started, okay?”
“You have my word, he’ll be fair,” Boone assured her. “And you’ll be first on his list. Like I said, he owes me.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” Cora Jane said. “Thanks for checking on things for me.”
“It’s what family does,” he replied, knowing it was a lesson he’d learned from Cora Jane, not from either of his own parents. Being supportive simply wasn’t part of their makeup.
As he hung up, he couldn’t help wondering if there would ever come a day when he’d not regret that his ties to Cora Jane and her family weren’t of a far more permanent variety.
* * *
It took Emily two frustrating days to make all the right connections from Colorado to North Carolina. More annoying than the time wasted in airports was imagining Gabi’s I-told-you-so when she finally landed in Raleigh on a clear day that bore no lingering evidence of the nasty weather that had blown through the state two days before.
But when she emerged from the airport with her carry-on luggage, it was Samantha who awaited her. Her big sister enveloped her in a fierce hug.
Though huge, fashionable sunglasses hid most of her face, and her artfully streaked hair was swept up in a careless ponytail, there was no disguising that she was somebody famous. It had always amazed Emily how Samantha could wear faded jeans and a T-shirt and wind up looking like a cover model. She just had that celebrity look about her, even