Chapter 18

 

Ry was poring over the architect’s sketches, still not having much of a clue about how he wanted his new house to look. Some days it all seemed too bizarre—Maine, Promise Island, and building some monster house that he really didn’t need or want.

Still, there was definitely one cool thing about Brides Bay—a certain hot concierge who’d managed to burrow far deeper into his heart than anyone in his life.

Stanley started to woof, and a couple of seconds later the doorbell rang.

“Hold on.” Ry got up and headed to the door.

He’d texted Carter and asked him to come to the house as soon as he got on site.

“Stanley, sit!” The dog stared up at him with baleful eyes but obediently plunked his furry butt down. “Now, stay.”

Thanks to Claire, the dog was a lot better behaved than when he first brought him home. He gave Stan a quick head rub.

He swung the door open. “Come on in, man. How about some coffee?”

Stanley wagged his tail like crazy and drooled but didn’t jump up on Carter. Progress.

“I’ll never say no to coffee.” Carter gave Stanley a little pat.

He joined Ry in the kitchen and leaned back against the counter. Stanley plopped down at the builder’s feet and gazed up at him with his typical goofy expression.

“You want me to check out the latest ideas from the architect, right?” Carter asked.

Ry poured him a cup and refilled his own. “I’d appreciate it.”

They headed to the living room, where the architect’s renderings were spread out over the coffee table.

“I bumped into Claire yesterday afternoon at the supermarket.” Carter’s tone was carefully nonchalant as he sat down on the sofa.

Ry cut him a sideways glance. “Uh, huh.” He had no intention of giving Carter any leeway when it came to that subject.

“Man, she was dragging, big time. It was a bit weird to see her that tired. She’s always such a dynamo.”

“You have a point you’re going to get to eventually?”

Carter gave him a mocking smile. “Got out on the wrong side of bed this morning, did we?”

Ry waved his hand in a get on with it gesture.

Carter said, “I couldn’t resist kidding her about it. Especially since she left the Dory pretty early Saturday night. With you.”

“Huh, I didn’t realize until now that you wrote for the local gossip column.”

Carter’s smile took on a hint of steel. “I’m only mentioning it to you, my friend, in case you forgot what I said about the folks around here taking care of their own. Believe me, I wasn’t the only one who saw you two leaving the Dory together.”

Ry stifled his irritation. “Speaking of forgetting, I guess it’s slipped your mind that Claire’s a grown woman. I’m sure she’d be the first to tell you she doesn’t need a town full of overprotective busybodies dogging her every step.”

“Yeah, you got that right. It’s just that we’d really hate to see her get hurt again after everything she’s been through.”

“Okay, but since I have absolutely no intention of screwing her over, you’re telling me this why?”

“Claire goes back a real long way with Landon, Colton, and me.”

“Yeah, yeah—so you keep saying. The Punishing Pierces, you’re all like brothers to her. I get it.”

“Not to be a meddling asshole, but we do things different here than in the big city. We don’t just stand around and talk it out when someone we care for gets hurt. I just thought you should be completely clear on that point.”

Ry snorted. “I can’t believe you just threatened me. But what the hell, okay. Message received. Again.”

A small part of him wanted to fire Carter’s ass on the spot, but that wasn’t the way he dealt with problems. Besides, it always impressed him that Claire inspired such deep feelings in her friends.

Carter quietly drank his coffee for a few moments before finally turning his attention to the sketches. He pored over them carefully and then said, “Okay, tell me what you don’t you like.”

Ry was glad to be switching the discussion to the house plans. He sure as hell hadn’t needed another reminder about everything that could go wrong between him and Claire. That was one reason why he didn’t plan on seeing her again for a few days. They both needed time to absorb what had happened.

Because it had rocked his world and then some.

“It’d be easier to tell you what I do like, since there isn’t much. I said the only thing I really wanted was to have multiple rear-facing decks, so that way as many rooms as possible would overlook the bay. Maybe it was a mistake not to give the guy more direction, but I figured it was better to give him free rein and see what he could dream up.”

Carter picked up a couple of the sketches that showed the house’s rear elevations. “He definitely managed plenty of decks, including the one way at the top of…that, uh, thing. Man, that cube stack looks like a sixty-foot tower.”

“Yeah, the Coast Guard could practically use it for a lighthouse. It looks like a giant Lego set to me. Just cubes stacked to make up a bunch of different levels.”

“Well, it’s probably a pretty functional design, and it’s definitely very…uh, forward-looking,” Carter said.

“I think you mean it’s butt ugly.”

Carter laughed. “I know one thing for sure. It would raise some eyebrows around here. There’s obviously nothing even remotely like it on the island or anywhere else.”

“Different is okay, but not this little exercise in weirdness. And while I like Derek’s place, I don’t want to build a cookie cutter replica of that either. He and Jane would kill me if I did.”

“You want something essentially classic and relatively simple in design, right?” Carter asked. “Not some uber-modern mansion, or something that looks like it should have a moat around it.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s about right.”

“Okay, let me think about it for a bit. And, look, if you think it would help, I’d be happy to sit in with you and the architect the next time you get together.”

“I’d appreciate that, man. It’s obvious that I’m way over my head here. I’m a hockey player, for God’s sake. Or was a hockey player. This is only the second house I’ve ever owned. After my divorce, I stuck to condos.”

Carter’s eyes moved around the rustic living room and then raised his eyes to take in the cathedral ceiling. “You know, I think you could do a lot with this place if you wanted to use it as a building block for your new home. I mean instead of tearing it down and starting over.”

Ry frowned. “But—”

Carter held up a hand to forestall his protest. “Yeah, I know that’s not your preference. I’m just saying it’s an option if you don’t find any plans for a new build that suit you. This place needs a lot of work, but it has good bones and there’s plenty of room on the property to expand. You could easily add another wing or even two.”

That twist surprised Ry and raised his suspicions. “Carter, to be blunt, is that your professional opinion as a builder, or did Claire have something to do with laying it out there?”

Everyone he’d talked to, and especially Derek, had strongly advised him to pull down the old house in order to maximize the property’s value.

Carter’s gaze went into the deep freeze. “Dude, you must not know me well enough yet. Nobody puts words or opinions in my mouth—ever.”

Ry had no trouble gauging the man’s obvious sincerity. “Okay, sorry. But from what I’ve been told, the new place should be at least three times the size of this one or even bigger. Do you actually think you could triple the existing footprint without making it look…well, weird? Jury rigged?”

“Sure. I can see some definite possibilities. It would probably mean going no higher than the existing two stories. No multiple sky decks overlooking the bay, because I can’t see how something with a lot of different levels could fit with the existing style. But, hey, you’re high up on the bluffs anyway. You don’t need a mini-skyscraper to have amazing vistas.”

Ry had a hunch Claire might be okay with that sort of design. While it wouldn’t end up looking much like her old family home, at least the house she loved wouldn’t be bulldozed into dust. Still, he couldn’t bet the bank on Carter coming up with a plan that would work.

“You could be right. If you can come up with some ideas for both replacement and expansion scenarios, I’ll be happy to think about them and talk to the architect.” He paused. “I just have one thing to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Don’t say anything about discussion to Claire, okay? As far as I’m concerned, your idea is a longshot, and the last thing I want to do is get her hopes up and end up having to smash them.”

“I get it. No problem.”

Ry polished off half his tepid coffee in one swallow. “Now, about the garage.”

Carter waved a hand. “Don’t worry, it’ll be finished in about a week. We’re down to interior details, that’s all.”

That’s what Ry had counted on. “Good, because I want to get my bikes out of that sad sack old garage before the roof caves in on them.”

“Speaking of the bikes, congrats on that big win in the Massachusetts race. I kept forgetting to say that. It was a damn impressive victory, especially for a guy who hasn’t competed much. Hell, as if you weren’t already a big enough sports hero around here.” His grin made it clear he was just ragging Ry in a friendly way.

“Thanks. Finally getting a win under my belt was pretty special. Now that the pressure’s off, I’m hoping there’ll be a lot more good finishes to come.”

“You’re really getting into it big time, huh? Even after all your hockey injuries?”

Ry bit back a sigh. People couldn’t seem to get what racing meant to him. He wanted to be on the track so badly that the interval between races was actually painful. Motorcycles were in his blood and bone, as was the drive to win. Racing his sportbike was the only thing that helped him forget his trashed hockey career.

Well, not the only thing. When he was with Claire, the old regrets faded too. Her touch, even just her presence, was pretty magic in that way.

“Is everyone in Brides Bay a little old lady when it comes to this sort of thing?” he asked sarcastically. “Your brothers found something to build a life around after hockey. That’s what I’m trying to do too.”

For a couple of moments, Carter looked like he might have more to say. But then he stood up and extended his hand. “I hear you. And I’ll be pulling for you every time out.”

Ry got to his feet for the handshake. “Thanks, buddy.”

Carter was a solid guy and a damn good builder. Sometimes he was annoyingly honest, but that only showed he was a straight shooter—a man who had the guts to confront a client who was giving him a lot business.

Derek aside, Carter Pierce was the closest thing to a pal Ry had found since he hung up his skates.

* * *

Shouting slogans at a protest demonstration was the last thing Claire had intended or wanted to do this afternoon. Painting, playing guitar—heck, even picking up dog poop at a client’s place—would have been preferable to getting involved in a hastily convened event at the Promise Island Bridge. But when Anson buttonholed her a couple of hours ago and told her she damn well better be there, Claire had very reluctantly agreed to head on down to the bridge. It was a small town and she didn’t have a good excuse to take a pass. Her absence would have been noticed big time.

She was already running late for the rally’s scheduled start, because her interview with Beth Brocklebank had gone on longer than she’d planned. Virtually the whole paper this week was going to be devoted to the Lobster Festival, and the editor was writing a feature article on the surprise performance by Claire and her guitarist. Since she knew Ry would hate that idea, she’d insisted on talking to him before Beth approached him for some quotes.

But when she called him, he’d said he had no interest in being interviewed and had no desire to see his name or his picture in the local paper. She’d bit back a sigh and hadn’t argued with him. She knew what he was like and couldn’t blame him for wanting to preserve as much privacy as possible.

Still, it stung that he hadn’t called her since Saturday night. No doubt he was still trying to process what had happened between them, both in his bed and under the stars. She sure was. The night had knocked her emotional equilibrium completely out of kilter, leaving her sure of only one thing—that she’d never felt for any man what she was feeling for Ry Griffin.

She forced herself to focus on the narrow, lightly traveled road to the bridge that connected Promise to the mainland and prayed the protest wouldn’t last long. The point of the event was to show that stuck up Carling Middleton, as Anson described her, that Brides Bay folks weren’t about to give up on free access to the island without a fight. Since almost everybody knew Mrs. Middleton took a yoga class at four-thirty, three days a week, he’d scheduled the protest to start at four. That way they’d catch her on her way to Spy Hill and have a chance to give her a firm but respectful earful about her misguided plans to gate the island.

A few homemade signs and plenty of chanting were intended to help get the message across.

In theory, it sounded like a reasonable way to make their point to the island residents, especially those who hadn’t yet made up their minds. Claire’s reticence was mainly due to her aversion to taking any risk of pissing off her island clients. Plenty of other people were in the same boat, depending like her on islanders for much of their business. Despite that, Pam and Tammy were going to be there, and probably Carter and a number of other friends. She figured if they could risk losing business by standing up for what they believed, she’d better be prepared to do it too.

As she neared the bridge, it dawned on her that she hadn’t yet passed a car coming in the other direction—into town from the island. Ever since the building boom got underway, Promise residents were constantly heading to Spy Hill to shop, fill up their tank, dine, go for a bike ride, or often just pass through on their way to Brunswick or Portland or somewhere even farther afield. To get anywhere, they had to cross the bridge and then drive down this short stretch of county blacktop. The fact that the road was deserted now sent warning chills down her spine.

Because she’d rolled down her window to take in some fresh ocean air, the noise from the rally reached her even before she rounded the final sharp bend about a quarter-mile from the bridge. She heard yelling and chanting, and then a car horn sounded, followed immediately by three or four more long blasts from different vehicles.

Now it was clear why she’d seen no cars coming her way.