Page 53 of Happy Harbor
“No. You go on to school. We’ll handle it.”
Kendra nodded. “Okay. Sorry about your apartment, Grandma.” As she turned and walked back to her room, Josie wasn’t sure how she felt about the wordGrandma. Was it okay for Kendra to trust Diane? For now, she couldn’t think about that. Her focus had to be on getting the restaurant repaired.
“Is Walker already down at the dock?” Diane asked.
Josie shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. Let me throw on some clothes and walk over to the guest house.” She walked across the room and opened her closet door. “Here, you can borrow something from me if you want.”
Diane laughed. “I think I have to. This outfit isn’t exactly appropriate.”
Josie went into the bathroom and threw on the outfit she’d laid out for the day. She quickly texted Bear and told him to make a sign for the front door of the restaurant, letting people know what had happened and that they would be closed for breakfast, at least.
When she reemerged from the bathroom, her mother was standing in her room wearing one of her T-shirts and a pair of shorts.
“Is this okay?” Diane asked.
“Sure. I mean, you can’t wear it to work...”
Diane laughed. “I know, honey. I’ll grab some of my clothes when I can get back into my apartment.”
Honey? Did her mother just call her honey? It’d been many years since she’d heard her say that. “Okay. Well, I’d better go find Walker. Help yourself to some muffins in the kitchen. I bought some last night at the grocery store.”
Her mother chuckled.
“What?”
“Momma would have a fit if she knew you got store-bought muffins and put them in this house. You know how she felt about baked goods.”
The memory brought a smile to Josie’s face. “Yeah, she always said that people who didn’t bake their own cakes were probably serial killers.”
They both laughed together for a minute, and it felt kind of nice not to be at odds with her mother for a fleeting moment.
“I sure do miss her.”
Josie nodded. “I do too. There’s nobody else like her.”
As she left the room and walked downstairs, toward the back door, she heard a noise in the kitchen. To her surprise, it was Walker. He was standing there eating a muffin.
She couldn’t help but smile at how comfortable he was in her nana’s home. They had obviously been close, and she was surprised Nana never mentioned him. Her attraction to him was growing, but it was something she was having a hard time even admitting to herself. It felt like she’d known him for a long time, like he was familiar to her. But she couldn’t get that started because she was leaving in a few months.
“Excuse me, but what are you doing in my kitchen?”
“Eating a muffin,” he said with a slight smile. “I need my energy.”
“For what?”
“Fixing your restaurant?”
“How did you know?”
He popped the last bite into his mouth. “I ran into Kendra when she was leaving.” In all the hurriedness of the morning, Josie hadn’t even realized her daughter had left.
“Do you think you can help?”
“Probably. I’ve done a lot of contracting work. But I do have some boat repairs to do this week, so I’ll have to juggle a few things.”
“Why don’t we head over and survey the damage?”
“Sure. I’ll drive.”
