Page 65 of Ten Beach Road

“It’s not a game,” Avery said. “And no, I don’t think you deserve . . .”

“I’m grateful that I’m only a bit player in the YouTube videos about the renovation someone’s been posting, because they aren’t the most flattering things I’ve ever seen,” he said before she could finish.

Avery’s mouth snapped shut. Kyra went very still, her camera blocking the expression on her face.

There was a long silence and it wasn’t the reverent kind that sometimes fell as they watched a spectacular sunset.

“What did you say?” Nicole looked up from the toast point piled with caviar that had been on its way to her mouth.

Madeline’s hand went to her hair, which she rarely bothered with anymore. She didn’t have to look down to know just how bedraggled she probably appeared.

Chase’s lips tilted upward. “I said someone’s been posting videos to YouTube. Along with a pretty scathing commentary. The boys showed them to me. There’ve been two so far.” He finished off his beer and tilted it toward Kyra. “I guess we should all be grateful that we’ve only gotten about ten thousand views. So far.”

Avery arranged the master bath fixtures in a cardboard box and carefully listed the contents, then handed the pair of curved legs that had supported the sink toward Nicole. “Do you mind driving? I think your car will make a better impression than mine where we’re headed.”

“Okay.” Nicole slung her purse over one shoulder and cradled the sink supports in her arms. “Where exactly are we going?”

Avery cut her gaze toward Chase, who was huddled with the carpenter he’d brought in to replace the missing balusters for the front stairs. “I’d rather not say right now.”

Nicole shrugged. They’d made it to the open front door and were about to slip outside when Deirdre’s voice reached them from the landing. “Whom can I ask to help set up the furniture I’m having delivered today? I’ve organized a few pieces for the master bedroom, so that I can give you your mattress and your privacy back. I mean it’s bad enough with all of us in the one bathroom.”

Robby, who had poked his head out of the downstairs guest bath, retracted it much like a turtle might pull back into its shell. Chase and the carpenter looked up.

Damn.Her escape thwarted, Avery turned to face her mother. “If you’re not happy with the accommodations, please feel free to check into a motel. Cottage Inn is next door. The Don is just down the road. A hotel in another city would be even better.”

“Now, darling, you know I’m committed to helping you here. And I know we don’t want to put in too much furniture before the upstairs floors are refinished, but there’s no reason for us to double up if we don’t have to.” As always, Deirdre managed to make whatever she wanted sound as if it benefitted others.

“Nicole and I will be gone for most of the morning. Maddie and Kyra have an appointment. I believe Chase has to check in on another job. Unless you’re planning to wander down the road looking for random muscle, that leaves you.”

Deirdre’s eyes widened in surprise.

“There are no supervisory positions available on this job, Deirdre. No opening for ‘queen.’ We’re all worker bees.” She was aware of Chase and the carpenter’s attention shifting to the conversation. “Or as Chase prefers to put it, ‘monkeys.’ You wanted in on this project and you’re in. Maybe you can get Chase or Robby to hang around until the furniture arrives given your advanced age and all.” She let that one sink in. “Or you can do it yourself. My concern is having this house ready and on the market by Labor Day, not where or how you sleep. Or how much you might have to shlep.”

Something she didn’t recognize flashed across Deirdre’s face before she turned and went back into the bedroom. If it had been anyone but Deirdre, Avery would have apologized. Her feelings simmered so close to the surface lately that she sometimes erupted without warning, a Mount Vesuvius of pent-up emotion.

Right now, she just wanted to get out of here before Chase noticed the box of chrome or the sink supports in Nicole’s arms.

“I wondered who had stripped the chrome out of the master bath,” he said before they’d made their dash to freedom. “Where in the world are you taking them?” He asked this as if she’d removed them for the hell of it and was even now planning to do something stupid with them.

She didn’t want to tell him what she had in mind because he was bound to give her a hard time or laugh at her or both—responses guaranteed to set her tectonic plates in motion. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out,” she blurted. The only thing missing from the childish response was the singsong “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.” Never had an open doorway seemed so close and yet so far.

“The last time you said that to me you were what, ten?” Chase came closer. Presumably so that he could tower over her.

“Look,” she said, reining in the automatic retort that sprang to her lips, “I’ve found a place I think can handle the re-chroming and I’m taking a sample there. End of discussion.” She tried, once again, to clamp down on her automatic urge to argue with him, but the need to wipe the dismissive look off of his face won out. “Is there something in the contractor’s handbook that says the contractor is the only one allowed to have a thought or idea?”

His eyes began to narrow. This, she now knew, precipitated increasingly terse replies.

“You know, if you toned down the sarcasm just a little, we might actually make it through a conversation without fighting.” His words were clipped and angry. Some might call them terse.

“And if you didn’t question every little suggestion I made and treat me like a complete imbecile in the process, sarcasm wouldn’t be required,” she said.

They were staring at each other in frustrated silence when Kyra came down the stairs, her video camera aimed right at them.

“Shit,” Nicole said. “I’ll be in the car.” She took the box from Avery and balanced the chrome legs on top of it. “I can’t be on YouTube right now. My lipstick’s all worn off.”

“Kyra, do you have to point that camera at Chase and me every time we disagree?” Avery asked, trying to hold on to her temper.

“Sorry. But it’s kind of hard to find a time when you’re not doing that.”

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