Summer with the Single Dad, page 9
As reliable and helpful as Jagger could be, he also had a habit of just disappearing and being out of reach for a few hours at a time. It was usually only when the kids were all at school and Jagger was least in demand, but it was still peculiar. And when asked about it, Jagger told whoever asked to mind their own business.
They did find out recently that he was in a book club that met at the library, but being in a book club wouldn’t make him out of reach. He’d see the texts and reply.
No. His phone was off.
But, why?
“I’ll call around and see if we can rent some dehumidifiers on short notice,” Clint said, sifting through his contacts on the phone, having reemerged from the cabin. “Definitely, the floor will need to be replaced. It’s already starting to warp. As well as the baseboards and possibly some lower cabinetry. Need to dry everything out first.” He put his phone to his ear, then wandered back into the cabin. “Hey, yeah, it’s Clint McEvoy …”
Justine was on the porch and she locked eyes with Bennett. “I feel like this is my fault.”
He rushed to her, the railing of the porch between them, but he took her hands in his. They were soft and delicate, her fingers long and the nails perfectly trimmed short. “It’s not your fault. These things happen. It was a total accident.”
“But maybe if I’d been here when it happened, there wouldn’t be so much damage.”
“We definitely don’t expect our guests to stay in their cabins the entire time they’re here. That’s no vacation. You did nothing wrong, Justine. I mean it. But I want to do whatever I can to make you happy and keep up our end of the deal with regards to your vacation.”
She shook her head, her ponytail jostling slightly behind her. She glanced down at their hands and when she realized he was still holding hers, she pulled herself free from his grasp.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine.”
“I’m not trying to be inappropriate by offering you to stay in my house. You’re welcome to decline, but …” She lifted her gaze back to his, the brown so light and clear it was like sea glass in front of the sun. A few specks of white in her irises drew his focus, and he swallowed. “Just give me some time, please. I know you’re here to … find yourself again. And I know how important retreats like this can be. Just, give me a few hours, okay?”
She nodded, and unlike last time, she appeared to believe him … a little.
Smiling, he brought his phone back out of his pocket and started to make some calls, wandering back to his office to find more phone numbers that he didn’t have stored in his contacts.
Clint joined him in his office ten minutes later.
“Thanks, Bryce. I appreciate it so much. You’re a life saver. A true life saver.” Bennett ended his call and lifted his brows at Clint. “So?”
“Cam Arendelle was in construction before he moved here and started the distillery. He’s on his way over to assess the damage and give us a quote on what he thinks the restoration would cost. If it’s around the deductible, we’ll just do it ourselves. If it’s far north of the deductible, then we’ll eat Mr. Noodles and hotdogs for a few months so we can afford to fix it. He’s also got some dehumidifiers he’s going to loan us in exchange for a few cases of beer.”
Bennett exhaled. That was the second bit of good news. Good news that he needed.
“You called Bryce? Why?” Clint asked, making a face. Bryce McLoughlin ran another restaurant on the island. Another pub, actually, and he hadn’t been too happy when Bennett and his brothers opened up the brewery and Sound Bites a few years ago. He said the island wasn’t big enough for both places. Meanwhile, there were several other restaurants on the island and they all thrived. Bryce had been wrong, of course, but the brother’s relationship with Bryce remained a bit frosty.
“Because he has an RV on his property. It belongs to his in-laws who store it there until they snowbird down to Arizona for the winter. He called his in-laws and asked if they’d be willing to rent it out to us, which we will rent out to Justine.”
“What’s the catch?” Clint asked blandly.
“No catch.”
“There’s always a catch with Bryce. What’s the catch?” Clint narrowed his gaze at Bennett.
Bennett exhaled. “Fine, he wanted a twenty percent discount on our draft beer that he sells in his pub. I countered at ten. We agreed at fifteen. But only for the duration of the rental. And someone else is in the RV until Friday, so Justine can’t get in there until Saturday.”
Clint’s mouth dropped open. “Fifteen percent? After you just made me increase prices by ten percent. We’re going to lose money.”
“No. Because we already mark things up. We’ll come just above breaking even with him. He doesn’t buy that much from us anyway. Just a lager and an ale on tap. No bottles or cans or any of the small batch specials.”
“And he never fucking will,” Clint grumbled. “If people want my summer blackberry hefeweizen, they can come here!”
“Noted,” Bennett said, trying hard not to roll his eyes. Clint could be so sensitive about his beer sometimes. “But he’s saving our ass.”
“He’s saving your ass. We could easily refund Justine and just deal with the loss of revenue on her rental, then fix the place. Yeah, it’d suck, but—”
“We’ll still turn a profit. I ran the numbers on what we’re renting the RV for and charging her. Even when I offer her a discount for her troubles, we’ll still turn a small profit. A profit we need to fix the cabin.”
Clint growled and aggressively raked his fingers through his dark hair. “We did not fucking need this right now.”
“No. No we didn’t. But it happened, and now we need to deal with it.” Exhaling in exhaustion, defeat, and exasperation, Bennett stepped out from behind his desk. “I’m going to go find Justine and tell her the good news.”
Clint snorted and followed behind him. “Yeah, you think that’s good news?”
Bennett shot his older brother a glare over his shoulder. “It’s all I can offer her.”
“You just want her to stay.”
Stopping in his tracks and pivoting abruptly, Bennett got right up into Clint’s face. “We tried to talk you out of this shit with Brooke and moving her into your house. So don’t lecture me.”
Clint didn’t react. He managed to appear bored, if maybe a little amused. “I’m not lecturing you. But you need to acknowledge your feelings and own up to why you’re fighting so hard to keep her here. It’s not because you’re all about customer service and keeping our five-star rating.”
Bennett held Clint’s gaze—which remained bored—for another couple of heartbeats before he finally pulled away and stalked back to cabin five.
Justine was in the cabin with the front door open. She had her totes and suitcase open and on the living room couch and kitchen table. The plastic totes were on the damp floor as they’d be fine. She offered him a grim smile when he entered.
His heart constricted painfully tight in his chest at the thought of her packing up to leave. She couldn’t go.
“So, I, um … I’ve rented an RV—a nice one—a motorhome, I think. It’s not as spacious as the cabin, but in other ways, it might be better. More modern and I think it has a TV. Only, I can’t get it until Saturday. Friday night, maybe. But the person who I’m renting it off, his sister is staying in it until Friday.”
“Okay …”
“I know this is unconventional, but I would like to offer you my guestroom—”
“It’s more of a study,” Clint interjected.
Bennett glowered at his brother, who was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his chest. “Shouldn’t you be going to wait for Cam?”
Clint smirked. “Yeah, I guess I should.” Then he left, which allowed for Bennett’s shoulders to drop away from his ears.
“Yes, it is more of a study, as my brother pointed out. It’s downstairs and there is a two-piece bathroom downstairs. The shower upstairs would be shared with the—”
She cocked her head to the side when he paused.
“You know what? What the hell am I thinking? You can have my room. It has its own bathroom with a huge soaker tub and a walk-in shower. I can stay in the study downstairs and share a bathroom with the girls. It’s only for four days. It’s not a big deal.”
Justine’s bottom lip tried to plummet to the floor. “You’re offering me your room?”
Now he felt like an idiot.
“I … we’re all about customer service here. I don’t want your vacation ruined.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
This was so awkward.
He’d gone and made it awkward.
So. Fucking. Awkward.
“I’m fine with the study. It has a bed at least, right?”
“It has a futon, which is surprisingly comfortable. But I’ll stay on it. Please, let me at least offer you a room with its own bathroom. The girls are … their bathroom is a general disaster. I can’t put you through that.”
Her smile bolstered him a little.
He smiled back. Encouragingly. With hope in every cell of his body.
“O-okay,” she finally said. “Can you help me load my stuff into my car?”
Dear god, she probably thought he was a psychopath given how big his smile grew. He nodded vigorously and pried his feet from the floor, picking up the closest tote. “Absolutely. Of course.” He headed out to her SUV which was open, and loaded the tote just as a big white pickup truck backed up, blocking him in. Out hopped Cam Arendelle of Hardwood Distillery, and Clint from the passenger side.
“Heard you had a flood,” Cam said with a big toothy smile, offering Bennett his hand.
Cam was a tall man with floppy brown hair, amber eyes, and an easy smile. His eight-year-old daughter Cleo was in the same class as Emme, and Clint’s daughter, Talia.
“It never ends,” Bennett said with a sigh. “Thanks so much for coming on such short notice, man. You’ve saved our bacon with those de-hums.”
“Hey, I’ll pretty much do anything for free beer.”
Clint snorted. “You make your own booze. It’s also free.”
“Yeah, but sometimes I just want to crack open an ice-cold lager and chill on the porch. I don’t always want a spirit. So, if I can broker a deal where you borrow my de-hums and I get some of Clint’s Fuzzy Peach Sour, then hey, let’s do business together.”
“Oh, you’re a fuzzy peach man. Huh?” Clint asked. “Nice. I’ll go put together a few cases.” He wandered back toward the brewery while Bennett helped Cameron unload the big industrial dehumidifiers from the back of his pickup.
“Why do you still have these? If you’re not in construction anymore.”
“I held onto a lot of my stuff when I moved over here and closed my restoration business,” Cam replied. “Scaffolding, ladders, de-hums and other big industrial restoration and construction equipment. We built our own warehouse here, which I needed the equipment for. Since then, I make decent scratch on the side by renting it out to contractors who come to the island but don’t want to haul all their equipment on the ferry. Scaffolding and ladders are rented out right now, as Dr. Malone is getting a new roof and siding put on his house. But since it’s summer, the de-hums aren’t really needed right now. If you’d had a flood in November, during storm season, I might have had to ask for more than just beer.”
Bennett snorted. “Silver lining, I suppose.”
Cameron rolled two de-hums to the cabin. Bennett followed with the other two.
“They’re loud as fuck, so hopefully you have somewhere else to stay,” Cameron said, lugging the first dehumidifier into place in the kitchen. He found an outlet, plugged it in, but didn’t turn it on yet.
“She does,” Bennett confirmed, helping Cameron locate the outlet in the hallway in a closet so they could position the next de-hum facing the bathroom.
The last two were positioned in the bedroom, and the living-room-slash-hallway.
Then Cameron went around with his pad of paper and a pen and took an inventory of the damage. He had a moisture meter in his truck which he grabbed, but it was easy enough to tell just by sight and touch what was wet and what survived the flood.
Over time though, the water would travel up the drywall and into anything made of MDF. So they needed to get the de-hums running ASAP.
Justine had finished loading up her SUV and was just waiting outside by the time Bennett and Cameron exited the cabin. They turned the de-hums on before they closed the door.
“We’re busy at the distillery, but I’m happy to pitch in and help if you’re looking to cut costs and avoid a claim,” Cam said. “I can do up an estimate tonight and email it to you by morning.”
Bennett stuck out his hand and shook Cameron’s again. “Really appreciate it, man. You saved our bacon.”
“Just upholding the island way. Community and sticking together.” He flashed a big, almost corny, smile. “You guys aren’t really in the running for Bonn Remmen’s land, are you?” He glanced around, implying the vast acreage the brothers already had. “I mean, do you need it?”
The hair on the back of Bennett’s neck stood up. “Granted we have a considerable amount of land already, we would greatly like to expand. Build more cabins, grow our own hops, and build a bigger brewery space. Much like you guys, we’re outgrowing the space we have now due to demand.”
Cameron pressed his lips together into a less than friendly smile, but nodded in understanding. “I get it. We want what you guys have. A family-style homestead. Right now, we’re all on separate corners of the island with our warehouse in another location entirely. Living where you work would be so much easier, especially with young kids.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck with your proposal. Hopefully, even though we’re rivals in this regard, we can remain friends in every other aspect?” Bennett lifted a brow.
Cameron’s big smile returned and he chuckled. They were still shaking hands. He increased his squeeze just a touch, which prompted Bennett to laugh, then they released their grips. “Of course. Besides, we wouldn’t want you guys to stop carrying our spirits.” Then he winked and headed to his truck just as Clint came back down the lane with two cases in his hands.
“I already put three cases in your cab, but here’s two more to tide you over. Thanks again, Cam. We really appreciate it.”
Cameron waved at Clint and nodded. “I’m excited to sit on my deck tonight and crack a bottle of the peach. Thank you.” Then he drove away, leaving Clint, Justine, and Bennett standing out front of the cabin staring at each other.
“Okay, uh, just give me like twenty minutes to run home and change the sheets and clean the bathroom and stuff, okay?” Adrenaline surged through him at the idea of Justine not only coming to his house, but living there.
“Why don’t you run up and hide your blow-up dolls, and I’ll drive up with Justine and let her in through the gate,” Clint offered, laughing at Bennett’s obvious panic.
Bennett flipped his brother the bird, which just prompted Clint and Justine to start laughing.
“Okay, I’ll see you up there.”
“O-okay,” Justine stammered. “Really, Bennett, it’s okay. I’m okay finding somewhere else.”
“Oh, there’s no changing his mind now,” Clint said, just as Bennett got out of earshot.
No, there wasn’t.
Bennett was determined to give Justine the vacation of her dreams.
He was determined to keep her on the island.
He was determined to keep her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Everything happened so fast she could scarcely believe that she’d agreed to do it.
She was driving up the hill, with Clint McEvoy in her passenger seat, and she was preparing to move into Bennett’s house with him and his daughters, for the next five days.
She should have said ‘no.’
In fact, she did say ‘no.’
But Bennett refused to accept her ‘no.’
And the fact that he was still soaked to the bone and his gray T-shirt clung to his torso, defining every ridge and valley made it impossible for her to argue with him any further. Her tongue tied itself into a knot and her mouth got dry. So all she could do was nod, stare and fantasize about what he looked like underneath that T-shirt.
Besides, she didn’t want to leave the island.
She didn’t want to leave the property.
And even though she wasn’t sure what was going on between her and Bennett, she knew that she liked it and she wasn’t ready for it to end.
Did she feel guilty about the joy that he and the island brought her? Every second of every day. But she was too weak to let the guilt stop her from thinking about their next encounter. From picturing his smile and the cute V-shaped worry lines between his brows when he narrowed them in confusion.
“I’m beginning to think cabin five might be cursed,” Clint murmured as they rumbled up the gravel road toward the brothers’ houses.
“Cursed?”
She had to stop at a big gate and Clint jumped out to punch in a code.
The gate swung open, and he climbed back into her vehicle.
“Yeah, a few weeks ago that cabin had issues with the gas stove, and the people who were staying there when that happened leaked my girlfriend’s whereabouts to the media. She was in hiding because someone tried to kill her. Then those guests found out she was here, took a picture of her, and it went viral that she was here and alive in a matter of minutes.”
Justine’s bottom jaw dropped.
“Second house,” Clint said, pointing to the cute, yellow two story with white trim and a blue pickup truck parked out front.
“So should I even go back to the cabin?”
“Only if you believe in that stuff. I mean, I don’t usually, but it might just be a lemon of a cabin. No ghost, just a lemon. Or there’s a ghost. It’s really about your belief in the supernatural.”
“That doesn’t instill confidence in me to return to it when it’s fixed.”
