“Not you, too.” She threw her hands up in the air and headed for the door. “I’ll go on my own walk. It’s been thirty years. I’m not an artist anymore. Let’s move on.” She grabbed the old brass doorknob to wrench the swollen wooden door free of the frame, but she never had the chance. It flew open, hitting her in the nose and sending her tumbling back against the display. Postcards, key chains, and other junk scattered across the linoleum floor.
Her head hit the register table, and she was twisted around the wire rack when she settled into her final resting place. She looked up to see two men, smelling of diesel fumes and ocean air, disheveled and wearing stained clothes, shoeless, yet ruggedly handsome with soft eyes and horrified expressions. “If you came to rob me, you won’t get much. It’s off-season.” She untwined herself from the unladylike position straddling the wire display rack.
“No. I mean, I’m so sorry.” The man who spoke wrapped his strong hands around her arm and lifted her to stand. He was sunburned like a tourist but was dressed like a dockhand. The first man she’d seen under eighty but above eighteen in months. That did something to a lonely widow. It was like dangling a piece of cake in front of women at a Weight Watchers meeting.
“Are you in life-threatening need of some tourist paraphernalia, or do you just enter stores with brute force?” she asked, ignoring the hum inside her body she felt at his touch.
“No. I-I was chasing…something.” He released her and ran a hand through his head full of hair. An attractive trait for any man over forty. Good thing Bri wasn’t in the shop, or she’d have them on a date before sundown. An idea Julie wasn’t ready for now or ever.
“Chasing something?” She chuckled. “Sorry, no bikini-clad beach groupies in here.” With a rub to the back of her sore neck, the one with the ache that hadn’t gone away since she started sleeping alone at night, she gathered some postcards from a pile on the floor.
The front man, the one who’d been speaking, dropped to his knees with a thud. “Sorry. Let me help with that. I swear I’m not a Neanderthal who tosses women around.” He paused, a look of horror on his face. “Oh no, I’ve hurt you.” He reached for her face, but she retreated from his foreign touch. A swipe of her fingers to her nose revealed some blood, which explained the stranger’s wide-eyed expression.
She abandoned the mess and found the mirror behind the registration desk to check her face but discovered only a small cut across her tender nose.
He was at her side, scanning the desk as if to find a fix for his mistake.
“Relax, I won’t break.” She snagged a tissue from the back shelf and dabbed at the cut. The way he looked at her made her feel uncomfortable yet warm inside. It had been a long time since a man paid her attention, even if it was because he’d slammed a door into her face.
“I am so sorry.”
“You said that.” She eyed his hand wrapped in a dirty rag with bloodstains. “You appear to need more first aid than I do.”
“This?” He lifted his hand as if seeing it for the first time. “No. It’s nothing.”
“You should clean it at least. That dirty rag increases your risk of infection.” She raised her brows at him, waiting for him to explain what he wanted.
“I’m Dustin,” the other man said, “and my tongue-tied friend here is Trevor. Don’t worry. He’s housebroken most of the time.”
Julie laughed. “I’m glad to hear it.” She eyed Trevor, who was scowling at his friend with that sideways, you’re-dead-when-we-get-out-of-here gaze men shoot at each other before they pound on their chests. That’s what she imagined they did anyway.
“I’m Julie Boone.” She dabbed at her cut again. Seeing that the bleeding had already slowed, she tossed the tissue into the trash and returned to cleaning up the mess.
Trevor was by her side before she picked up the first key chain. “Let me help with that. If anything’s broken, I’ll fix it.”
“Nothing harmed. We’re good. Besides, no one’s going to be coming in here for about three more weeks.”
“Why’s that?” Dustin asked, deciding to join them in the clean-up effort.
“Because that’s when tourist season starts. Mostly returning families and couples. Well, we hope it will be. Hard to say since this area has taken a hit recently.”
“Three weeks. That’s not much time.” Trevor eyed Dustin.
“Time for what?” she asked, stuffing the key chains into the bottom basket of the display Trevor set upright.
“I’m opening a charter business. I have a catamaran and a speed boat to take guests out on adventures.” Trevor’s eyes lit up as if he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, something Julie envied. Yet, she didn’t like the idea either.
“Oh.”
“Oh? What do you mean by oh?” Trevor paused his clean-up effort and looked to her with a tilt of his head.
“Nothing. Just that the idea of touristy things in our little town seems so, I don’t know, panhandle-ish.”
Trevor scanned her souvenir shop. “You have a problem with tourists?”
“No. I just mean that the charm of Summer Island is that it’s different from other beach towns. It’s quiet and safe and family-oriented. Not full of noise and parties. We had a company here about a decade ago, but he retired and moved up north to live near his kids. It was a relief to give up the loud-music-playing booze cruises. None of us look forward to that returning.”
“Do you have a problem with fun?” Trevor chuckled, but she took it as an insult.
“Fun, no. Obnoxious people who damage property, yes.”
Dustin handed her the remaining key chains to put into the basket. “I think Trevor has a different business plan in mind. He came down here
