Chapter 19
Faith

Faith couldn’t get last night’s conversation on the porch out of her head. If you could even call it a conversation, she thought. She shook her head and dug into a sugary bowl of cereal. She knew she’d get a look from Mama for foregoing breakfast made from scratch in favor of Cap’n Crunch. But sometimes a girl needs her comfort food, she thought, even as the rough cereal scratched the roof of her mouth.

“I see you got started early,” Mama said as she breezed into the kitchen. One brow was raised in question at the bowl.

“Sorry, Mama,” Faith said. “I just had a craving.”

“I remember those,” Mama said with a sigh. “Brace yourself. They just get worse after a certain age.” Mama put on a fresh kettle and wrapped her morning robe tighter around her. “What are y’all’s plans for the day?”

“Oh, um, Alex and I are going into Savannah to meet up with Craig in his office.” Faith hated how Alex’s name felt in her mouth. But she was staying in his mama’s house, so she at least had to put on a front of nonchalance.

“Uh huh,” Mama said. “Think y’all will have time to go to that bakery I like? I’m running low.”

“Of course, Mama,” Faith said with a smile. A box or two of chocolates might do her some good, too.

As Mama went off in search of Jessie, Faith lifted the sugary bowl of milk to her lips and drank with abandon. Screw manners, she thought.

“Thirsty?” Alex’s voice broke through the drone of the kettle hard at work.

Faith set the bowl down with a thud and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “Parched,” she replied without a look in his direction.

Alex got two of his little, hard, low-carb slices of “bread” out of the cupboard and popped them in the toaster. As if on cue, Caleb came into the kitchen armed with plenty of crap to talk about Alex’s diet. “Mmm, whip me up some o’ them cardboard toast coasters,” Caleb said.

“Yeah, you could use some,” Alex said and pretended to inspect Caleb’s biceps.

Caleb laughed. “Don’t need no fake toast crap when you actually put in a full day’s worth of manual labor. Check these babies out,” he said. Although he presented his flexed biceps to Alex, Faith saw him as he stole a glance in her direction.

“I’ll pass,” Alex said. “By the way,” he called to Faith, “Caleb and Matt are coming with us to Savannah.”

“Oh!” Faith said. “Great, great.” It drove her mad that he acted like nothing had changed. Like they hadn’t had the best mind-blowing sex of her life just a few days ago. Is he just playing it cool in front of his family? Even if he didn’t feel anything for her beyond lust, how could he act like everything was the same as it was when she had arrived?

Or maybe he just doesn’t care, she told herself. That was one possibility she didn’t want to linger on for long.

“We got some business ourselves out that way,” Caleb told her. He sat down at the table with the leftover grits from last night, cold.

“Ew,” Faith said as she wrinkled her nose. “You eat them cold?”

“It’s like pizza,” he said. “I like all toppings, hot, cold, whatever. It’s all good.”

“Right,” Faith said. “I think I’ll stick with pizza.”

“I’ll come get y’all in about thirty,” Alex said. He grabbed his toast to go, wrapped it in tinfoil, and headed back to the cabin.

“Things movin’ forward with the property then?” Caleb asked. He ate like a little boy, full of gusto and without a care for how it came off.

Faith smiled at him. “I guess,” she said. “I don’t have any context, so I can’t say if it’s on schedule or not.”

“Ah, it’ll be fine,” he said.

Matt walked into the kitchen in a light-gray suit perfectly pressed. “Wow, fancy,” she said. For the first time, Faith really looked at him. Matt was handsome in his own way. Even dressed as a typical attorney, which she’d been surrounded by for so many years, there was something about him that was different. A softness, maybe a sort of southern charm, that wasn’t in California lawyers.

Matt shrugged. “Sometimes I can clean up okay.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Faith said softly. In the few weeks since she’d been here, she’d figured out Matt liked to cover his insecurities with sarcasm.

“Thanks,” Matt said. He picked through the bowl of fruit on the table for the ripest apple to slice into his oats.

“You’re not dressing up?” Faith asked Caleb.

“Me? Hell no,” he said. “Matt’s got the brains and the corporate looks. All I got to bring is the brawn.”

“Nice,” Matt said. He rolled his eyes as he sat down with them.

“Guess Gwen an’ Mama’s skipping the grand breakfast spread today,” Caleb said with disappointment.

“I think it’s because of me,” Faith said. “I told her this morning Alex and I were headed out. Maybe she knew y’all were joining us.”

“I like that southern accent on you, ma’am,” Caleb said with a wink.

Faith blushed. She didn’t mean to pick up their slang and accents, but she heard it as it slipped in occasionally.

“Y’all still eating?” Alex called from the front porch. “Hurry up! We don’t got all day.”

Caleb let out a huff and raised his eyes at Faith. “The timekeeper’s upset,” he said.

 

They arrived at the dock just as the ferry was about to set off. “Close call, y’all,” the ticket taker said.

The breeze was warm and the water just as gorgeous as always. Today, it was exceptionally crowded for the small ferry. “Market weekend,” Caleb told her. “Whole island heads to the mainland to stock up for the rest of summer. And to sell their goods,” he added.

Faith looked around. There did seem to be an inordinate number of bins and boxes on board.

For the entire ride, Alex stayed a few steps away from them. Faith watched him gaze into the distance and commanded herself to forget him.

If he is going to act like a brat, why should I get dragged down with him?

“So what kind of business are you guys going to Savannah for?” Faith asked. She pushed her sunglasses up her nose.

Caleb glanced at Matt. “Oh, just, you know. Property stuff ourselves.”

Matt cleared his throat. “Mama prefers us to handle estate planning and management at this point,” he said. “She oversees the paperwork from the inn.”

“Estate planning?” Faith was worried. Is Mama ill?

“It’s nothing,” Matt assured her. “Just precautionary, is all. When you have the kind of assets Mama does, you can’t be too careful. Plus, with the tourism industry exploding nearby, the value of her property is always changing.”

“Exploding?” Faith said with a laugh. “It’s rare if we cross another car on the roads on Saint Rose!”

“Yeah, well, you can’t imagine what it was like even five years ago,” Matt said. He shook his head sadly. “There was a time you knew the name o’ every person you passed. Every car. Heck, even every horse. But now?” He chewed his lip. “It’s just like anywhere else.”

“Did you, I mean did either of you ever meet Lydia?” she asked. Behind their sunglasses, Faith couldn’t read their expressions.

“I think I met her once,” Caleb said. “Yeah, ʼbout ten years ago? Lee and I used to manage a produce stand at a market on the island that’s defunct now. I think she bought some strawberries from us.”

“You think?” Faith asked. This wasn’t exactly the kind of insight she was looking for.

“Maybe it was blueberries?” Caleb asked.

“Right,” she said.

“I never met her,” Matt said.

“Big surprise,” Caleb said. “You’ve always had your nose buried in a book too deep to notice anyone else.”

Once they’d docked on the mainland, Faith was disappointed in herself when she realized she scanned the parking lot for the rednecks’ truck. Her heart rate slowed slightly when it was nowhere to be found. I’m not going to let those jerks get into my head.

“All right,” Caleb said as he slapped Alex on the back. “We’re Gonna take the Chevy. I’m guessin’ you’ll be in the Mustang.”

“You guessed right,” Alex said.

“Chevy?” Faith asked. “How many cars do you guys have here?”

“Enough,” Alex said, and Caleb let out a laugh.

The Chevy’s garage was right next to the Mustang’s. Faith watched as Caleb and Matt uncovered a pristine 1950s truck with glistening chrome trim. “Wow,” she said. “That’s beautiful.”

“Sounds beautiful, too,” Caleb said with a wink.

She tried to help Alex uncover the Mustang, but he whipped the cloth off so quickly it nearly seared her hands. “Hey!” she said.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

She thought he might have said more, but the roar of the Chevy drowned out everything else. He did look over and inspect her hands, briefly, before they set off. The touch of his skin on hers made it nearly sizzle.

In the Mustang, she waited to see if he’d reach for the convertible switch, but his hand remained firmly on the stick shift. Faith recognized some of the landmarks as they headed into the city. When they passed the exit for the barbeque joint, her stomach rumbled. The last time in Savannah seemed like ages ago. And we are farther apart now than ever. What had happened?

“Home Depot first?” Alex asked.

“Sure!” she said. Faith tried to sound upbeat, but it came off as fake even to her.

Alex parked far from any other cars in the expansive parking lot. He commandeered one of the bright-orange shopping carts and started to methodically go through the aisles. Faith tried to tick off the shopping list items she had, but it seemed like he had his own agenda.

“Doorbells!” she said as he barreled down the aisle. “Craig told me to pick one out. I guess Lydia never got around to putting one in. What do you think about—”

“Can’t you shop for this useless stuff another time?” Alex asked curtly. “We have some real high-need items to take care of.”

Faith had an oil-rubbed bronze doorbell in one hand and a brushed nickel in the other. It took all her willpower not to throw one directly at his head. “What’s your problem?” she asked coolly.

“My problem?” Alex glanced around the aisle, but they were miraculously alone on a Saturday morning.

“Yes. Your problem. Are you still upset about the other day?”

“The other day?”

“Oh my God. Are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, the other day. Look, you told me it was a mistake, and I heard you. Loud and clear.”

“Oh.”

Is he blushing? What the hell?

“You want me to be honest?” he asked. Suddenly any trace of embarrassment was gone.

“Yeah,” Faith said. “That would be nice for a change.”

“Yeah. I’m still kind of weirded out by the other day. And, Jesus, the other night just keeps replaying in my head. I know it was a mistake. You know it. But that doesn’t exactly make it easy to be around you.”

Faith was so taken aback she nearly stumbled. “Well. Thank you for being honest. And I’m sorry you feel like that.”

“Faith,” he said in dismay. He let go of the shopping cart and stepped toward her, but she matched his stride and kept her distance. “It’s not like that. Shit, I don’t know how to say this.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. She put back the nickel doorbell and tossed the bronze one into the cart.

“I am worried about it,” he said. “I know how it must seem—”

“Oh, do you?” she asked. “Good, then I won’t have to explain it.”

“Faith—I can’t. I can’t even look at you without thinking about how you looked that night—”

“I’m not interested in talking about this anymore,” she said. She brushed her hair from behind her ears to hide her crimson face. “I’m going to go look at floor tile. If you want to help, go pick up the bathroom piping Craig asked about.”

Faith stalked off into the depths of Home Depot without a clue of where she was going. She didn’t hear Alex follow her. After a few minutes, she glanced behind her, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Morning, ma’am.” A young, handsome salesclerk in an orange apron appeared in front of her. “Can I help you with somethin’?”

“Uh, yeah, thank you,” she said, and plastered on her brightest smile. “Floor tile?”

The man whistled. “Floor tile. That’s a big project. You doin’ it yourself?” he asked as he led her to the other side of the store.

She laughed. “I wish,” she said. “I have a contractor.”

“Your husband’s no good with his hands?” the clerk asked. “Or boyfriend?”

She blushed. It had been a long time since someone so overtly flirted with her. It was nice. Refreshing. “No husband,” she said. “Or boyfriend.”

“Well, ain’t that a shame,” he said, but his smile suggested otherwise.

Faith let the clerk flirt with her as he explained the difference in the tile. Still, she kept an eye out for Alex and kept checking her phone. Where the hell is he?

“There you are,” Alex said from behind her. He was armed with loads of plastic piping.

“Well, hey there,” the clerk said. He looked confused.

“I told you I’d be in tile,” she hissed.

“This what you wanted?” Alex asked as he raised the pipes up.

“I don’t know,” she said and stormed off again. This time, she left two men in her wake.

She might be a lot of things, but she was nobody’s mistake.