“Oh, stop. You’re not a curmudgeon.”
Tug walked over with a big grin on his face.
“I was referring to him.” Maeve shot him a look.
“She loves me,” Tug said as he led the group back inside to their table. Maeve didn’t take a seat but stood nearby.
“Someday she’s going to admit it.” Then he added, “Meanwhile, I just keep slinging hash. Feeding her breakfast and hoping she’ll tell me.”
“No luck yet?” Amanda watched the two of them. The banter was easy and fun. She wasn’t sure if it was more like brother and sister or a romance brewing, but either way it seemed to be in good fun.
“Not yet. But I’m not giving up.” Tug adjusted his ball cap.
Hailey motioned to Tug and curved her finger in the air. “C’mere.”
He leaned down where she was sitting, and she cupped her hands to the side of his head and whispered—well, it looked like a whisper, but darn near everyone in the place heard her—“If you like her, you’re supposed to give her flowers and chocolate.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing wrong? Guess that’s why it hasn’t worked.”
Hailey nodded, quite sure of herself.
“Don’t waste your money buying me flowers,” Maeve said. “Never was a fan of them.”
Tug lifted his brows and smirked. “I’d have gotten her if old Jarvis hadn’t asked her out first,” he said to Amanda. “I’m way more charming.”
“No one was more charming than my Jarvis,” Maeve said.
“Your order’s up,” the waitress called out from behind the counter.
“Y’all better eat before it gets cold,” Maeve said. “I’ll see you over on the beach later.”
“You’re still going to meet us for lunch, aren’t you?” Amanda asked.
Maeve walked over to the back door. “Absolutely.”
“We already made a fun meal and packed it,” Jesse shared.
“I can’t wait.” Maeve waved and said goodbye to Tug on her way out.
Next time she and the kids would find a safe route and walk here to eat. The exercise would do them all good.
13
When Maeve got back to her house, she pulled out her journal. Not a decorative one with a lock and key like the diary she wrote in as a child, just a simple spiral notebook she bought when school supplies went on sale. She had a mess of them stacked on the bookshelf. As she scrawled the date across the top line of the page, she noticed the last entry. It had been a while since she’d written.
There’d been a time when journaling had been her lifeline. An outlet for the words she wanted to convey about her emotions and health. It all went down in here—times in her life when she desperately needed strength, and prayer didn’t seem to be enough. She’d spoken the prayers, then recorded them in these journals. She wasn’t entirely sure why she kept them around. It wasn’t like she wanted to go back and revisit those days.
Then again, the notebooks were full of everything that had ever made her who she was. The best and worst moments of her life.
She’d sat down today to simply write one sentence about having met Amanda, Hailey, and Jesse. What she ended up with was three pages about it. She smiled as she wrote each memory, right down to the drip-castle building and their reaction to meeting Tug and The Wife.
She closed the notebook with a sigh, then tucked it into the end of the stack on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. All the rest of the volumes were spiral in, only the page edges showing, tattered and wavy from the changing humidity in the house through the seasons. It didn’t matter, though, because those pages represented time. Someday when she couldn’t remember, maybe she’d read them all again.
The ladies at the church had been the ones who’d inspired her to start journaling again. They’d given her a beautiful leather-wrapped diary. Long leather laces tied around it. Her name had even been embossed in gold on the front.
Of course, she’d never written in that one. It was too pretty to use. It still sat there on the end table as decoration, but seeing it had willed her to write sometimes.
She picked it up, the fine leather supple in her hands. So much had come as a result of this gift, yet no one would ever realize it by looking at it. She unwrapped the leather laces and bent the journal between her hands, thumbing the empty pages. Softened gold lines and the brown outline of a compass in the top corner skittered as the pages flipped.
Still carrying the leather journal, Maeve gathered a couple of things from the backyard, then opened the side gate and set out across the sand to meet with Amanda and her kids for lunch.
The sun warmed her shoulders. She was still a good hundred yards off when Hailey and Jesse screamed out her name.
“Miss Maeve!” Their hands in the air, they sprinted toward her like they’d been waiting forever for the reunion.
Choking back a joyful sob, she crouched to catch them as they flung themselves into her arms. “My goodness!” She laughed as Jesse tangled in her skirt. “That is a greeting.”
“We’ve been watching for you.”
Jesse’s hand clung to hers. His skin was as soft as the leather-bound journal she still held tight against her body.
Hailey slipped her arm around Maeve’s waist, tugging on her until she knelt down. Hailey hugged her neck, the young girl’s fingers gently patting Maeve’s skin at the pace of a tiny heartbeat. The sudden outpouring of love made her almost lose balance for a moment, as if the surrounding air had become so light that they swirled.
“Wow. I was excited to see you too!”
“I’m sorry.” Amanda had come over in the midst of the welcome. “They can be a lot of energy sometimes.”
“No. I’m not complaining. It was so sweet.”
Maeve watched as Amanda looked at her children like they were a miracle. She’d said she wouldn’t ask or push,
