Chapter 25

Beau gives me the lowdown on his schedule for the next day’s Fourth of July activity while we eat our second round of ice cream and wait for our clothes to finish in the dryer. I probably could shadow him for the Fourth and come away with plenty of material for our little campaign.

Oh well.

The day starts bright and early with a pancake breakfast at the town square. I come prepared to eat and take pictures of Beau as he helps cook the eggs and sausage. Jane Hayes is trying to keep the pancakes coming as quickly as people are eating them, and it feels morally wrong to stand on the sidelines. I take some video and snap a few shots, then go help.

People are really pleasant, apart from a couple of people who’ve apparently heard our prospective buyer is an investor and feel the need to let me know their opinion on the matter. Partway through when I go to grab more pancake mix at the end of the table, I find myself facing Beau’s parents: Mark and Joy Palmer. My heart shoots into my throat as Jane quickly refreshes their memories on who I am.

“Hi, Gemma,” Joy says kindly. “How’s your family?”

“They’re doing well, thank you,” I say, thrown off by her politeness. I don’t know what I expected—frostiness, maybe?

Mark is just as pleasant, which is even more unexpected given the meetings I know he’s had about Grams with Tristan.

Either they’re really good at hiding their true feelings about us Sawyers, or they’ve moved past things. I’m not sure how to feel about either of those options.

Once things start to die down, I leave early with Beau, who has to block off the roads in preparation for the parade, which will end at the beach. Much to his chagrin, he’s charged with driving his golf cart as part of the parade, so I try to find a place to watch along the road once it gets underway.

The Seaside Oasis crew, including Grams, is here somewhere, but she’s not answering her phone, and the parade is already going.

Cat Keene motions me over to where she and a few others are seated. I recognize Ivy from the café and the girl who got hauled off from the adoption booth over Phoenix Park’s shoulder—I’ve since discovered her grandma is Lu Blakely from Seaside Oasis. There’s another person chatting with Ivy, and it takes me a second to recognize her. It’s Bridget Hall, the girl everyone at school wanted to be when I was living here.

I accept Cat’s invitation, grateful but nervous. I might’ve gone to school with these people, but that was a lifetime ago, and I’m not a Sunset Harbor girl anymore. They’re nothing but nice, though, making room for me to sit right smack dab in the middle.

“Hey,” Cat says. “How’ve you been?” The concern in her expression tells me she’s wondering how I’m holding up after the whole Insight fiasco since we texted about it a week ago.

“Better than expected,” I say. “Just trying to figure out my life, you know.”

“Sounds super simple.”

“Oh, totally,” I say.

“Does this mean there’s a chance you’ll stay in Sunset Harbor?”

“Ha! Good one. Unless Keene B&B has an opening for a high-salary PR person? That might get me to consider it.”

“Hey,” says the girl on the other side of me. She’s the one from the adoption fair. “It’s Gemma, right? My…friend is close with Beau, so I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Heat seeps into my cheeks, and I want to pry into what exactly she’d heard, but it seems like the wrong move. Besides, I’m intrigued by that pause before friend .

“Your friend Phoenix?” I ask. “I saw him carry you off at the adoption fair a couple weeks ago.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’ve been trying to forget about that.”

I laugh, keeping my eyes peeled for Beau’s cart. I don’t want to miss grabbing some video of him in the parade—preferably with a lot of islanders waving and smiling at him in the background. “Is that a regular occurrence?”

“I mean, not that specifically, but…yeah. Unfortunately, it’s not out of the ordinary.” She smiles and waves at someone in the parade. “He likes to run my life since I apparently don’t do a good enough job.”

“Maybe he can run mine instead,” I say. “It’s a massive mess. Oh, shoot. There’s Beau. Just a sec.” I go up on my knees and zoom the video until it’s centered around Beau and Xena, who’s on his lap. She’s having the time of her life with all the attention.

Beau lets go of the steering wheel long enough to do some Vanna White hand motions putting Xena on display, and the crowd erupts in louder clapping and cheering.

Of course he makes his appearance in the island parade about Xena. He hates the spotlight being on him. Ironic, since my brain’s spotlight is constantly on the hunt for him. When our eyes meet through the applauding crowds for a few seconds, my heart races. It makes me feel like a million bucks.

And that’s when it hits me. I didn’t just kiss Beau Palmer. I’m falling in love with him. Not the slow fall where I can put out my hands and catch myself. This is a slip, trip, and biff it on my face fall.

It’s so much worse than I’d thought. Than I let myself think. There are billions of people in the world. Why is my heart insisting on Beau Palmer?

After the parade, the plan is for games and food trucks at the beach. I go in search of Grams, who complains about the sun, the heat, and Mark and Joy Palmer.

Deedee mouths to me she needs a nap .

I wink at her, then heave a big sigh to Grams. “I’m exhausted. I think I’ll skip the beach games. Maybe we can get lunch at Seaside Oasis?”

Grams and Deedee both agree to this, and after letting Beau know the change in my plans, I drive the ladies there, reveling in the air-conditioned heaven that is the retirement center. Oasis indeed.

Once we’ve eaten, I force a yawn. “I need a nap.”

Grams shakes her head. “Kids these days. They just can’t hang. You can sleep on my bed, Gigi.”

But fifteen minutes later, it’s her who’s out for the count on that bed while I listen to her soft snoring and wonder if I should tell her about my feelings for Beau. If anyone could talk me out of them, it’d be her.

But it wouldn’t just be her talking me out of the feelings. Other things would come first. Major disappointment, for one. In fact, part of me wonders if she’d be so disappointed and feel so betrayed, she wouldn’t even yell or scold me. And that would break my heart.

Her thick glasses are askew—she didn’t take them off because she insisted she wasn’t tired—and I quietly go over and remove them. I stare down at her and swallow.

She looks so peaceful. For all her ranting and railing, for all her pretending like she’s invincible…she’s not. And neither am I. This island and the Palmer family in particular have hurt us both. The last thing I want to do is hurt her more. Grams has spent decades standing up for my family after what happened in Sunset Harbor. It seems cruel of me to pop onto the island for a sh ort stint and fall in love with one of the very people she despises.

And yet, the fact remains that I have these feelings. What am I supposed to do with them? Beau may be a Palmer, but he’s also an incredibly decent human being.

But it’s more than that. He’s one of the best people I know.

When Grams starts to stir, I hurry to the sofa chair and lay my head against the side, closing my eyes. I peek through a barely open eyelid a few seconds later, just long enough to see Grams looking around like she can’t remember how she got there. She grabs her glasses and works to get her legs over the bed, then holds the sides of her walker and lets her feet slide to the floor.

I wait a couple of minutes, then start to stir and pretend to wake up.

“About time!” Grams says. “I’ve been bored out of my mind waiting for you to wake up.”

I apologize meekly, then point out the part of her hair that’s matted on the back. She brushes it out without saying anything, and I try not to laugh, wishing Beau were here to appreciate it.

“What do you want to do now?” My mind insists on wondering what Beau’s up to and whether I’ll actually get to spend any time with him today.

“I want to go dancing,” Grams says without missing a beat.

I ignore the relief flooding me and pretend I’m indifferent to the fact that we’ll be heading back to where Beau is. Deedee’s still asleep, so Grams and I get a snack from the cafeteria while we wait for her to wake. It’s six o’clock by the time we get back to the beach. My gaze searches for Beau and finds him helping set up the stage with Jane and a couple other people.

I take a quick video. I’m pretty confident this isn’t part of his job description as a cop, but it’s perfect evidence of how much he puts into this island that he’s not being compensated for.

I head to the Beach Break Bar to get Grams and Deedee a drink, and while I wait, I notice the guests from next door. It’s hard not to notice them—a bunch of loud, shirtless guys with beers in hand at one of the tables in the sand. There are already a few empty bottles, but each of them is holding a full one as well.

Grams and Deedee are already getting down on the dance floor, joined by a few others from the retirement center. I hang out on the edges, observing for a minute with an irrepressible smile. Watching old people dance has to be one of life’s greatest joys.

Even then, I’m constantly aware of Beau’s location—at the table helping Jane, talking with Mayor Barnes, getting called away to help recharge a dead golf cart.

I quietly excuse myself from the octogenarian dance battle. It’s my job to get footage of Beau serving and protecting the community, and I take that job seriously. It’s the only one I’ve got right now.

He’s hauling the generator he keeps in the back of his cart, but his mouth breaks into a smile at the sight of me. I shouldn’t feel like my stomach is a butterfly pavilion at the sight—the man smiles at everyone and everything—but I do.

“Reporting for duty,” I say with a salute.

“I feel like I’ve barely seen you today.”

He’s telling me .

“Can I help?” I ask. “Aside from capturing you providing an invaluable service to Mrs. Billigan, obviously.”

“Help would be great, actually.”

Beau guides me through the process of connecting the generator and watching the charge climb until there’s enough for Mrs. Billigan to get home and plug her cart in.

Beau replaces his generator in his cart, then we walk back to where the dancing is happening.

“Do you have to get right back to Grams?” he asks when we stop at the edge of the dance floor .

I glance in her direction. She’s doing the Sprinkler, while Lu Blakely holds her walker at the ready.

“That’s a good friend right there,” Beau says, watching the same thing.

“Officer Palmer,” says a voice behind us. We turn and find Marge Wentworth smiling at him with her impossibly perfect dentures. She puts out a hand. “Can I have this dance?”

Beau’s gaze shoots to me, and I step back to show I’m a good sport about having him taken from me so soon.

“Gladly,” Beau says, putting his strong hand in her wrinkled one.

They dance to “Party in the U.S.A.” Beau’s not the best dancer I’ve ever seen, but my heart grows three sizes watching him spin Marge around and do ridiculous dance moves in a sort of challenge to her. Beau dips her as far as her eighty-year-old back will allow, and his eye catches mine. He winks.

Which is when I notice other eyes on me elsewhere in the crowd. People watching me watch Beau.

I head back to Grams’s circle and rejoin the people who I have no doubt will out-dance me tonight in both energy and skill.

“What are you doing?” Grams asks, speaking way more loudly than the volume of the music requires. “You should be dancing with a handsome young man.”

“I like you guys better.”

She snorts. “This island has a far higher ratio of attractive, available men than is statistically probable, so you’d better take advantage of it while you can.”

“I’m good,” I say, trying to compete with Deedee’s robot.

“Gigi,” Grams says, taking a break to talk sternly to me, “you listen to me here. You are forbidden to say no if you’re asked. I didn’t raise a granddaughter with bad manners.”

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly who she raised. She didn’t exactly lead by example in the good manners area. “This isn’t Pride & Prejudice , Grams. I’m allowed to say no if I don’t want to dance.”

“If you say no, Gigi,” she says, wagging her finger at me, “I’ll…”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll humiliate you with some hip pop.”

“It’s hip hop, Grams.”

“Not when I do it, it’s not. There’s no hopping, but there are definitely a lot of hip joints popping.”

The crazy thing is, I actually believe she’ll risk her hips for this. The woman is batty.

“Fine,” I concede. “I won’t say no, but I’m definitely not asking anyone.”

“Deal,” she says as gets back to boogying.

I stay on the edge of the circle as it slowly widens to include more of Seaside Oasis’s finest. Apparently, all the chair yoga is doing its job. These people can really get down.

Beau has left the dance floor, and I can’t see him anywhere. The sun starts to set, and apart from Grams sitting for a couple of songs while she has some fries, she doesn’t slow down—not even for the first slow song that comes on. That nap did her good.

Someone taps me on the shoulder, and I turn.

A man who’s forty-ish years old and has a shaved head stands in front of me, beer in one hand. He’s one of my current next-door neighbors, and he does a flourishing but drunken gesture with his hand as he dips into a bow. Some of his beer spills over, and he hurries to straighten the bottle. “Will you dance with me, fair maiden?” Some of his friends watching in the background laugh and imitate him.

I glance at Grams, who’s stopped dancing and is watching with a growing look of distrust on her face.

I raise my brows at her, as if to say Is my choice really between this buffoon and preserving your hips ?

Grams shakes her head subtly, but part of me wants to say yes just to teach her a lesson. This is what comes of telling girls they always have to say yes.

My hesitation lasts long enough that Drunken Dancer feels the need to repeat his bow, this time holding his beer way above his head—like that alone will prevent it from spilling.

I weigh my options. It’s just a dance, and it’s not often I get to stick it to Grams, but the mere stench of this guy is overpowering.

“I’m sorry,” says a welcome voice behind me. “Drinks need to stay at the bar and tables, sir.”