Chapter 33

I don’t go home. I walk to Seaside Oasis. It’s Grams I want to see right now. She’s the only one who will understand what I’m feeling. An email comes through on my walk, and my heart skips a beat at the email address: it’s from Starlight. They want me to interview.

I didn’t think they’d even consider my application, much less offer me an interview slot. So, why do I feel conflicted instead of completely over-the-moon?

I find Grams reading on her patio, and her mouth tightens a bit at the sight of me. But as her gaze takes me in, the wariness disappears.

“What is it?” she asks with concern, reaching for the empty nearby chair and pulling it toward her with a ghastly shrieking noise. “Sit down, sweetie.”

I do as I’m bid, my throat thick now that it’s time to tell her everything. I recount the last hour and a half, from the call to Beau about the meeting to the vote.

Her brow gets darker by the minute, and she shakes her head when I finish.

“Do you see now?” she asks. “Why I said you can never trust a Palmer?”

“It’s not Beau’s fault.”

I have to defend him to her, even though I’m still smarting from the feeling of betrayal. Logically, I know that’s not what happened. What did I expect him to do? Lie and say he welcomes more of the stuff he’s dealt with from the rental guests the last couple of weeks? To welcome that sort of thing in the house right next door to his?

Of course not.

Then why does it still hurt?

“I was talking to Beau right before that meeting about how a part of me wants to stay in Sunset Harbor. So, this meeting…”

Grams grabs my hand and squeezes it. She understands. I know she does. “Who cares what they want? You don’t ask permission to live somewhere, Gigi. You put your stake in the ground, and you claim what you want. If they hate it so much, let them leave.”

I try to smile, wishing I had her care-for-nobody attitude. But I do care. I don’t want to live somewhere where I have to fight against my neighbors and try to ignore their whispers behind my back and push through their attempts to make my life hard.

“Do you really want to live here?” Grams asks.

I swallow. “I did. I do. I don’t know. But it’s not an option.”

“Sure it is,” she says. “I have a house, don’t I?”

“A house you need to sell. And I can’t buy it because I have no job. I can’t qualify for a loan, especially one big enough to buy that place.”

“Then we don’t sell it,” she says. “We live there together.”

I shake my head emphatically. “No. No way. Sorry, Grams, but we can’t do that.” I’d never take her away from Seaside Oasis—not now that I’ve seen how much it suits her. I’m not trading Grams’s dream golden years so I can live on an island where half the people don’t like me. No, thank you.

“I need a nap,” I say, rubbing my eyes.

“Me too.”

I blow out a breath and stand up. “I’ll come see you tomorrow, okay?”

She nods, more subdued than usual .

With an attempt at a smile, I walk to the door that leads to her room, then stop. “Grams?”

She raises her brows at me, waiting.

“Beau is a good man.”

She stares, and I turn and leave.

Lying in bed the next morning, I stare at the text Beau sent me last night.

Beau

Don’t worry about the presentation stuff, okay?

I haven’t responded yet because I don’t know what to say.

Part of me wants to be the bigger person here and just do it. But thinking of presenting to the city council in a few days makes me sick now. I don’t have it in me.

Gemma

I’ll update the folder with the newest footage for you to use.

Thank you, Gemma.

I miss you.

I let my head drop back onto my pillow. I miss him too. So much it physically aches. And I know I don’t have to. We’re not fighting or anything.

I think my brain has just mingled Beau and the island too much to separate what happened at the city council meeting. And maybe somewhere inside, I’m scared that Beau will reject me like Sunset Harbor has.

It’s after noon when I get an email from Eugene. It’s a forwarded email—the report from the surveyor. I’m tempted to just send it straight to my trash folder. With the new short-term lease ban, what does it matter? Mr. Wallace won’t want the property no matter what the survey results are.

Eugene has a call scheduled to discuss things with Mr. Wallace later today. He thinks there’s a possibility he may still want to pursue the purchase and develop the property as a long-term rental. I hope he’s right because we have no other motivated buyers at this point. Apparently, the ones that wanted showings this week were all either investors with their sights set on short-term rentals, or they’ve found better options.

Too curious to leave the forwarded email alone, I open it. It’s got an attachment, of course, but there’s a bit written by the surveyor to Eugene, as well.

As you can see in the attached report, my findings show that the current fence sits approximately 16.24” past the legal property line and that the dock, in its entirety, falls outside of the property boundary.

I stare at the words, then reread them to be sure I understand correctly. Then, just in case my brain isn’t working—wouldn’t be the first time—I open up the attachment and scroll through until I see the plat maps. One of them shows the location of the current fence which, just like the email said, is well to the right of Grams’s actual property line. The true boundary cuts in a straight line from the front of the property, ending just to the left of the dock—putting it squarely on Palmer land.

Beau was right.

The dock isn’t ours. It isn’t just not ours as in not-the-Sawyers’, but also not ours as in not shared between the Sawyers and Palmers. It’s their legal property.

All these years, Grams has insisted the dock was ours. And she was wrong.

“You’re late,” Grams says when I reach her room at Seaside Oasis forty-five minutes later.

“Sorry,” I say. “Something came up.”

She looks at me through narrowed eyes, as though she thinks I was with Beau or something.

“Not that,” I say.

“Come on, then. I’m hungry, and today’s spaghetti. If we get there soon enough, the cook will slip me an extra portion of parmesan.”

I consider asking her to wait so we can talk about the boundary issues, but it’ll be better to discuss all of this when she doesn’t have an empty stomach, so we head to the cafeteria and get our plates of spaghetti—and extra parm.

Grams has a huge appetite, and I almost expect her to lick her plate clean. The whole time, though, I’m watching her and wondering whether she even knows she’s been championing a cause all these years with no ground to stand on.

“Let’s go play some checkers,” she says, putting out a hand for me to help her up. “I’m getting very good.”

“There’s not a ton of strategy to it, is there?” I support her until she’s standing.

“Hush,” she says, swatting my arm.

We go to the room where they keep all the cards and board games, and I pull out a checkerboard. Once it’s all set up, I gird my loins and broach the subject of the survey.

“We got the results back from the property survey.”

“Hm,” she says, lowering her glasses on her nose so she can properly see the black and red pieces. “Doesn’t matter much now, does it? I assume Mr. Wallet will back out thanks to the city council’s meddling.”

“I assume so, but it’s still good to know for the sake of future buyers.”

She doesn’t respond to this, moving one of her pieces one space .

“Who put the fence in?” I ask.

Her gaze flits up to me, lingers for a half second, then dips back to the board. “I did.”

Dang it. Part of me had hoped the fence location was a mistake by the Palmers. Or even the home builders.

I choose my checker piece and my next question carefully. “And what did the Palmers say?”

She scoffs. “What did they say ? They didn’t want it. Rick refused to pony up the dough. He was always a miser,” she mumbles as she moves her next piece.

“So, he didn’t want a fence?”

“Oh, he did. He just didn’t want to pay for it. He knew how much I wanted it, so he acted like he didn’t care whether or not it was built, and he let us pay for the whole thing.” She laughs softly as she takes two of my pieces like she’s enjoying some secret joke.

I watch her straighten pawns she won from me. “Grams…please tell me you didn’t do it on purpose.”

Her eyes flit to mine. “Do what on purpose?” But she knows. I know she knows.

“The fence is almost a foot and a half onto the Palmers’ property.”

“And it serves them right,” she says.

I don’t respond. I have no clue how to respond to that. She did it intentionally. She knew . Knew this whole time that the property line doesn’t run along the fence.

“What did Rick say when the fence was in?”

She shrugs. “Nothing.”

“What about the dock?”

“He said it was on their property. I said I was sure it was on ours. I’m certain it was meant to be on ours. What sort of idiot builders would give one house two docks and the one next door none? It was a mistake.”

“Why didn’t he have a surveyor come out to settle it?” It’s obvious why Grams didn’t—she knew she’d be short one dock if that happened.

“I’ve asked myself the same thing all these years, Gigi,” she says. “I suspect he figured not doing it was some sort of apology to me for how he treated me.” Her mouth turns down in disgust. Apparently, she doesn’t agree. “He just made a fuss about the fence and the dock, and so did his son—accusing me but never doing anything about it. Rick likes a good fight just like I do.”

I’m still trying to process the fact that Grams did what she did—that she fed the fire so much fuel. I’ve always felt like we Sawyers were somewhat blameless in this whole thing. Mostly innocent victims.

Which is kind of crazy, now that I really think about it. This is Grams we’re talking about, after all. I just didn’t realize she’d go that far. It goes to show how hurt she must’ve been by Rick.

“You could get in serious trouble,” I say. “Legal trouble.”

“Maybe so,” she says, finally abandoning the checkers game and looking at me. “But Rick and his spawn more than had their revenge on us later. Believe me. Mark Palmer never wanted to run for city council until your dad expressed his interest. And who do you think made all our campaign signs disappear? Who chose the exact piece of property your father most cared about to build their precious retirement center on? And went behind our backs to sway the city council into approving it?”

She’s right, of course. Except that now I’m wondering what the rest of the story is on all of that too. Maybe it’s more complicated than I’ve allowed it to be. I love my family, but I’m under no illusion that any of us is perfect.

But what might’ve happened if Grams had just let things go? Maybe the angst and frustration would’ve fizzled instead of simmering and then boiling over with the whole community pool issue. Maybe my family would still be here. Maybe I wouldn’t have wasted so much time resenting this place—and fighting what I felt for Beau.

But that’s not how it happened. It’s not the situation I’m dealing with. Instead, I’ve got all this hurt and anger at the city council and the island that I don’t know what to do with.

The one I’m most worried about in all of this, though, is Beau. His presentation to the city council is in two days. It’s his career in the balance. I might not feel comfortable going in front of the city council after what happened the other day, but I can at least keep my word to him and make the presentation.

Once I leave Grams, I pull out my phone and open my short text thread with Beau.

Gemma

Have you already put together the presentation?

I walk to the golf cart and sit down as his response comes in.

Not yet. I was planning on working on it tonight, but I’m handling something else right now. Should be public knowledge in a few days.

I want to do the presentation. I’ll send it over tomorrow so you have time to prepare what you’ll say.

Gemma, you really don’t have to.

I want to. Good luck with things tonight.

Thank you, GG.

I stare at his text for a second, my heart thrumming, then I type one last text.

You’re welcome.

PS I miss you too.