Page 16 of The Seascape Between Us

“That I’m uncharitable.”

“At no point did I call you uncharitable. I just thought delivering groceries might make for a dull Thursday afternoon.”

Maybe, but I wasn’t a child. I didn’t need an endless barrage of excitement to keep me entertained. “I do charitable things, you know.” Daniel finally looked my way, his brows lifting doubtfully—which was fair. “Well, I give to charities—my company does, anyway. But I choose them… based on my PA’s recommendations.”

His mouth twitched as if he might be struggling to hold back a smile. “I take it back. I’m sure you will find this entire venture a thrill, then.”

Silence settled between us for a moment, not entirely uncomfortable but far from relaxing. Finally, I said, “Look, I know this situation isn’t ideal—”

“I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t have time for this right now,” Daniel said, pulling up in front of a grocery store. “I’m on a bit of time crunch here. If you want to have a serious conversation about the hotel, then you should probably wait until I’m done.”

He didn’t give me a chance to respond. He hopped out of the truck and hurried inside. After several minutes, he emerged from the store weighted down with a half-dozen shopping bags clutched in each hand. After he carefully secured the bags in the truck bed, he climbed in behind the wheel.

“I could have helped you,” I said as he pulled back onto the road. “You didn’t have to carry all that out on your own.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “I’m used to doing it on my own.”

I frowned, trying to decipher if Daniel was being passive aggressive or just stating facts. I was pretty sure it was the latter. He made one more stop at a hardware store, where he bought a blind, then he was back behind the wheel and steering us up the steep hill, following the narrow road that wound through the residential section of The Square.

I tensed, dull panic coiling up my throat like some cold, slimy slug-like monster. I still hadn’t been up to my father’s house, the hotel playing both distraction and excuse. Besides, the college students would be out of his house in a little more than a week. I could go through it then. Given Finn’s connection to the men living there, if there was any extensive damage, they wouldn’t be hard to find.

Instead of continuing up the road, Daniel turned into the driveway of a small pink cottage and cut the motor.

He pushed open the car door. “I have to install a blind while I’m here, so I might be awhile.”

“I can help,” I offered, practically hopping out of the truck. “Because I’mcharitable.”

Daniel snorted before he could stop himself, but didn’t say anything more. Instead, he hoisted his toolbox from the back of the truck and one bag of groceries, which I took from him, and then the blind from the hardware store. I followed Daniel from the driveway up the flagstone path to the cottage’s painted white door.

Daniel knocked loudly, then cracked the door an inch. “Hello? Mr. Sullivan?”

“Oh, Daniel,” a skinny, wrinkled man called from where he sat on his sofa, his walker angled next to him. He might have been tall in his younger years, but now he looked stooped, his thinning white hair swept back from his wrinkled, gaunt features. “Come in, come in.”

At least, that’s what I thought he said. It was hard to hear him over the sharp, staccato barking from the tiny ball of white fur perched on his lap.

“Hush, hush,” Mr. Sullivan said to the dog, who paid him absolutely no attention and continued to bark as if two axe-wielding murderers had just strolled into the house. “Come say hello to Prince, so he’ll stop barking.”

Daniel grinned and set the toolbox and newly purchased blind on the floor by the front window, then crossed to Mr. Sullivan and gave Prince an enthusiastic scratch on the top of his head. Daniel was clearly a braver man than I. That dog looked like it was ready to take off a finger. Unlike Daniel, I kept a good three feet between me and Prince, then nodded hello.

However, Prince had no real interest in me. His owner, on the other hand, stared at me with unabashed curiosity while he and Daniel exchanged pleasantries.

“You’re new,” Mr. Sullivan said, giving me the once over while Daniel unpacked the man’s groceries in the tidy little kitchen open to the living room. “I’ve lived in this town nearly sixty years, and I know everyone, but I don’t know you.”

“This is Grey,” Daniel said, and I wondered if he’d intentionally left out my last name. “He’s giving me a hand today.”

“I’m glad to see it,” Mr. Sullivan said, grinning. “We can all use a hand now and then, and Daniel’s needed one for a while.” He let out a throaty chuckle at his own innuendo.

I grinned, but Daniel hurried out to the truck before I could get a look at his face to see if Mr. Sullivan’s less-than-subtle implication had registered, and when he returned, his expression remained stoic.

While Daniel hurriedly took down the tattered blind in the front window, the old man sang Daniel’s praises like the oldest living wingman. I might have been annoyed having to listen to his glowing review of all things Daniel, except that the man’s praise was clearly making Daniel uncomfortable. A red flush stained his cheeks, and he dropped his screwdriver twice. Eventually, Daniel got the old blind down that had clearly been badly chewed by Prince, and he started mounting the new one.

“You look familiar,” the old man said, staring at me shrewdly again.

“I used to vacation here,” I admitted, “when I was young.”

“Is that how you know Daniel here?”

I glanced at Daniel up on the stepladder, his attention fixed on screwing the new blind in place, his expression bland. As if he couldn’t hear me and Mr. Sullivan.

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