Brothers of Paradise Series

“Who would walk Atlas, who had or hadn’t completed their chores, who ate the last Coco Pops…” She trails off. “I used to think you two were so stupid. You were lucky enough to have siblings, and all you did was fight.”

“We’ve gotten over that stage now,” I say, and nudge her carefully with my shoulder. It feels like one wrong move and she might retreat back into herself. “Besides, nobody fought like you and me. Remember?”

“We did, didn’t we?” Jamie says, and she sounds almost proud.

It makes me grin. “Yeah. I haven’t forgotten all of our bouts, James.”

“James,” she says. “Gosh. High school was rough.”

“You were tough, though. Lily was always lucky to have a friend like you.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. She turns to her daughter and carefully wipes her bare arms clean. Emma obediently stretches out one arm after the other, her cone devoured, munching on sprinkles. Her legs swing softly off the bench.

I wait for Jamie to find her words.

“The yacht club is doing well,” she says finally. “I never knew you wanted to buy it.”

“Neither did I, to tell you the truth. I was working in Boston up until a few years ago. Rhys sent me the link to the yacht club listing, when it went on sale, and I… well. It felt right in a way that nothing had for a very long time.”

“It suits you,” she says.

“Yeah, you think?”

“Yes.” She looks at me, an eyebrow raised. It makes her look like the teenager I remember. “The golden son, the ultimate sailor, the pride of Paradise. It’s like you’ve come full circle.”

I laugh. “The pride of Paradise, Jesus. You used to call me a lot worse names than that.”

“I hoped you’d forgotten that.” She reaches up to run a hand over the back of her neck. Her ice cream is finished, too, and Emma is digging at the bottom of the cup for the last sprinkles. “It’s been a long time since we were teenagers.”

“Yes, but time stands still in Paradise Shores. You know that.”

She snorts. “It sure seems like it. Except some things, I guess. You’re hiring a new chef at the restaurant. You’re not scared of inciting a rebellion by changing the menu?”

That’s the Jamie I remember. “I think this town needs to be shaken up a little bit,” I say. “You know, go from one sauce with the fish and chips to two.”

She half-laughs again. It’s tantalizingly close to an actual laugh, but I haven’t heard one of those yet.

“So you’re modernizing?” she asks.

“Trying to, at least,” I say. “I’m actually looking for a web designer and a graphic artist right now. The website needs a complete overhaul. It might actually be better to build a new one base up, with a booking system for classes as well as the restaurant.”

“Oh.” She scrunches the napkins into a ball. “I’ve done some of that in the past.”

“You have?”

“Yes. I worked remotely for a while, and that was something I could do.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

Jamie nods and reaches for Emma’s empty sprinkles cup. The little girl is swinging her legs violently now, bored and all sugared up. “Yes, I did.”

“Well, are you in the market for an extra job?”

She looks up at me. “What do you mean?”

“Do you want to design a new website for the yacht club? I’d pay you, of course. And we could reduce the hours you work as a waitress to make sure you don’t work overtime.”

“Oh. I don’t know… Parker, I only did it for a few clients.”

“But it turned out well?”

“Yes, they seemed happy.”

“That’s good enough for me. Think about it, okay?” I ask. The hesitation in her doesn’t make sense to me, but I know better than to barrel on. “I’ll ask you again at work in a few days. If you don’t want to, no worries. If you start to work on it and can’t finish, that’s fine, too. But it would be very appreciated.”

Jamie nods. A faint tan plays across her skin from her bike rides to and from the yacht club. She looks feminine, and soft, and has a smattering of freckles on her right shoulder. I look away from the bare skin. “Okay. That sounds good. Thanks, Parker.”

“Anytime.”

She rises from the bench and brushes off her sundress. Emma steels herself and jumps off the bench, landing with her feet together and a smile on her face. Her wispy ponytail bounces with the impact.

“Ready to go, sweetie? Grandma will have started lunch.”

Emma nods and takes her mother’s hand. With the other, she hands me the cup that had once contained rainbow sprinkles. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

I take the empty cup with a smile. “You’re very welcome, Emma. And welcome back to Paradise.”

Jamie gives me a half-smile. “Thanks.”

“Does it feel good? To be back?”

Her voice turns thoughtful. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” I say. “It feels good to have you back, at least.”Property of Nô)(velDr(a)ma.Org.

JAMIE

“This is where you work?” I stop at the threshold of the back office. It’s a small room, crowded with two desks and a large map of the coastline put up on the wall with tacks. Beside it is a framed picture of a wooden sailboat, someone’s autograph scrawled across it.

Parker leans back in the chair. “When I have no other choice, yes.”

“It’s… busy.”

“And tiny,” he says. “I prefer to work from home or out in the dining room, but it has its perks.” He nods to a board with lists on it, rows and rows of the summer’s sailing lessons. “Neil has a good overview of things.”

“Everything’s still analog?”

“It sure is,” Parker says with a grin. “That’s where you come in.”