I pick up the phone and dial the number for his Vancouver office, but his receptionist tells me he’s not in the office today. Fuck. Opening a new email message, I try to craft a suitable reply.
Mr. Devereaux,
My apologies for my late reply, you are correct that my responsibilities have kept me from answering you until now. I regret to inform you that the owner of Oceanside Resort will not be interested in selling. I would hate for you to come all this way for nothing.
Regards,
Ethan Monroe
Mayor of Dogwood Cove
It’s short and to the point, and I click send before I can second-guess my actions, or the outright lie I just told him. After all, I have absolutely no authority to tell him that Summer doesn’t want to sell. Then I sit and stare at the computer screen, willing a response to come through. Surely a business mogul such as Cole Devereaux is checking his emails constantly, right? But five minutes pass with nothing, then ten. One of the receptionists sticks her head in the door to remind me of the meeting for which I’m running late. I nod at her distractedly, still watching my screen. Nothing.
Shit. Okay.Try not to panic, Ethan. He said he was coming this week. Maybe he’s in a meeting and can’t respond right away. Check again after awhile. I give myself a pep talk as I stand and walk to the meeting room for the festival planning session, resigning myself to an hour of nodding politely while the committee work out whatever it is they want to do this year.
But when I get back to my office, there still is no reply. A knock at my door has me looking up to see Hattie Henderson walking into the room. “Mayor Monroe, I have an appointment with you,” she says by way of greeting.
“Mrs. Henderson. Please, sit down,” I gesture to the chairs in front of my desk, taking one for myself so that we can face each other. This is the last thing I want to be doing right now with the spectre of Cole Devereaux hanging over me, but I have no choice. “What can I do for you?”
The older lady folds her hands in her lap after adjusting the purple hat she’s wearing. Hattie and her hats. It’s something that makes everyone in town smile when they see her, because she seems to have an endless supply of different hats. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen her wear the same one twice.
“May I call you Ethan for this conversation? It really is more about you as a man than you as a mayor,” she says, and I’m a bit taken aback by her candid tone.
“Of course you may.”
“Wonderful. Now, Ethan. As I mentioned the other day outside of your sister’s bakery, this is about our Summer. You know I was close to her father, and to her when she was a young child. Well, there’s more that I haven’t told anyone yet, including Summer, and my hope is that you can help me find an appropriate way to discuss it with her.”
I nod slowly, even as my mind is screaming at me to run in the other direction. The last thing I need is more secrets to keep from Summer.
“Carl informed me of his plan to purchase Oceanside Resort long before he actually did so. He wanted an honest opinion on his plan, and I was happy to give it to him. When he retired from the postal service, he had a tidy retirement plan, but it wouldn’t have been enough to purchase Oceanside outright and pay for the renovations, which was his goal.” She frowns, looking down at her hands before bringing her gaze back to mine. I’m shocked to see her eyes are wet with tears. “Carl would have been devastated if he knew what a mess Summer had to face when she returned. He wanted to have the place all fixed up and ready to go before she came home. I saw him, you know, the day he died. He held my hand and made me promise I would see our deal through.”
“Your deal?” I interrupt, sitting up straighter. This is the first I’m hearing of any sort of agreement or deal about Oceanside. My heart starts to thump faster. Could there actually be an answer to Summer’s struggles?
“Yes, our deal. We kept it very quiet; Carl didn’t want to advertise my situation any more than necessary,” she replies primly. “My husband was a wealthy man, Ethan. He died before I moved here, and he left me with more money than any one person should need. I was at a loss as to what to do with it all, having no family of my own, until Carl and sweet Summer came into my life. Then, before I knew it, they became my family. When Carl approached me with his idea of opening Oceanside, I saw it as a chance for me to give back to him for all the companionship he’d given me over the years.” She sniffs delicately, withdrawing a handkerchief from her purse and dabbing at her eyes. “It’s lonely living by yourself. Carl would visit me often, help around the house, fetch me groceries, and we would talk about Summer all the time. How much we both missed her. I saw her as my kin, my granddaughter, from all those times I would babysit her. And now I want to help her the same way I was going to help Carl.”
I try to conceal my astonishment when Hattie Henderson reaches into her purse and draws out a cheque. She passes it over to me, and when I see the amount written there, my jaw drops.
“Mrs. Henderson, this cheque is for a hundred thousand dollars,” I stammer out.
“Yes, dear. That’s the amount I was going to give Carl, to be a silent investor, if you will, in the reopening of Oceanside Resort. Now that money is Summer’s.”
I’m dumbfounded. Shocked into silence. My mind is going a mile a minute, but I can’t formulate any words or even a response. I give the cheque back to her, noticing my hands are shaking.
“I’ll give it to her when she comes for tea tomorrow. I trust you can keep this to yourself until then?”
“Yes. Of course,” I gulp audibly. Only one day. I can manage one day of holding another secret from Summer. Hell, maybe I won’t tell her about Devereaux until after she talks to Hattie. Maybe that will ease the blow.
I walk Mrs. Henderson to the door and say goodbye before going back to my chair and sinking down into it. But before I can regroup at all, my office door flies open again. This time, it’s my sister. But she isn’t alone.
“What the fuck is that, Mills?” I shoot back up to standing, and stare down at the giant dog at her side. A length of rope has been lightly looped around his neck, and my sister is holding the other end.
“A dog, idiot. I need you to figure out our animal control situation. This guy was wandering the highway. No tags, no collar, nothing. He’s obviously tame, so who the hell dumped him? If we had animal control, we could take care of him. Instead, I have to.”
I arch my brow. “Youhave to? Or you want to.”
Mila huffs at me. “I’m not going to leave him abandoned to the elements, Ethan. And we don’t even have an animal shelter nearby. So, what, I drive him to Victoria? That’s pointless.”
I wave at her dismissively as I sit down again and open a new email that has just come through. “Okay, whatever, Mills.Shit.I need to find Summer.”
