That Summer at the Shore. Callie Endicott

EYES, awakened by the persistent noise from her BlackBerry cell phone.

      No one, repeat, no one had the right to call before eight in the morning, particularly when she’d spent most of the night doing her silver casting. Not that anyone else knew she was short on sleep. She focused on the caller ID to see if it was her ex-husband. Tim had begun phoning her last winter, though she’d changed her cell number twice to avoid him. It was jarring to know his voice was a single button away, so she’d stopped listening to messages and never answered unless she recognized the caller.

      She switched the BlackBerry off without answering and dropped a pillow on top of the landline extension. Rolling onto her side, she fell asleep.

      A heavy pounding on the front door woke her an hour later. Didn’t anybody respect a woman’s right to sleep in? Apparently not, since the pounding continued. She dragged herself out of bed and donned a clean bathrobe.

      Swell. It was Zack Denning and a blonde woman in a business suit.

      “Coming,” she yelled over the racket, waiting until it stopped before turning the knob.

      The woman was finely coiffed and sculpted, a sharp contrast to Jamie’s faded pink terry wrap and messy morning hair. It probably accounted for why Denning was staring at her. Tough. She was done with trying to impress men with clothing and makeup.

      She smiled sweetly. “Can I help you? The vegetable stand isn’t operating yet, but I can put you on a reservation list for strawberries. How many flats can you use?”

      Denning’s lips thinned and she could have sworn she saw a vein throbbing in his forehead.

      “Ms. Conroe?” the woman queried.

      “That’s me, aside from the part I left in my bedroom.”

      “Please excuse us for waking you, but I’ve been calling for several days. I also tried your mobile number after my assistant got it from your business license. You never answered so I left a message, but maybe you weren’t able to get back to me.”

      “If that’s a nice way of asking whether I bother answering the telephone, the reply is usually no, unless I know who’s on the other end. Basically, that means no blocked numbers. And I don’t listen to messages.”

      The woman blinked. “Oh. I was working from home and should have considered that.”

      Jamie tightened the belt on her robe. “Not everyone has my bias about it—and you still haven’t explained who you are.”

      “I’m Kim Wheeler, Zack Denning’s lawyer.”

      “You mean a macho tycoon actually hired a woman as his attorney? But I bet he was the one hammering dents into my door. Those manicured hands of yours never did anything so rude.” To Jamie’s satisfaction, Denning’s jaw clenched.

      “Ms. Conroe,” he said, “you’ve delayed resolving this too long already and name-calling is hardly appropriate under the circumstances.”

      “I didn’t call you a name, but I’d like to know when you think it’s appropriate to throw one around.”

      “That’s...”

      The lawyer’s elbow hit him in the ribs, cutting his words short. Interesting. It was a safe wager that Kim Wheeler and Zack Denning knew each other quite well.... They were the classic image of a power couple.

      “Please ignore him, Ms. Conroe,” the woman said. “Mr. Denning is impatient concerning this matter since his resort is nearby. I agreed to bring him if he...”

      “Kept his trap shut?” Jamie cheerfully completed the sentence.

      “I told him to let me handle things.”

      “Good luck.”

      The corner of the attorney’s mouth twitched. “May we come in and discuss the problem regarding your property lines?”

      “It isn’t my problem. It’s his. Or do you think my grandfather’s will could have been probated for a piece of property he didn’t own? This is a waste of effort.”

      “Can we try?”

      Jamie scrunched her bare toes and shivered. “You’ll have to wait a few minutes. I don’t argue real estate while wearing a bathrobe.”

      “Wait?” Denning exploded. “So that you can duck out the rear while we’re standing here?”

      The woman’s elbow slammed his ribs again and Jamie laughed. “I like you, Ms. Wheeler. And because of that, I’ll invite you—and only you—into my living room. After I get dressed we can talk without testosterone getting in the way.”

      Denning started to say something, and Kim shook a furious finger in front of his nose. “Zip it,” she ordered.

      Laughing some more, Jamie gathered her bathrobe close and unhooked the screen door, then secured it again once the lawyer was in the foyer. “There’s a porch swing you can use,” she offered to the glowering man outside. “Fair warning, though, the cushions may be coated with cat fur. I’ll give Ms. Wheeler a ride when she’s ready if you want to head back to your resort.”

      Or I’m ready to kick her out, Jamie added silently. No, most likely that wouldn’t be necessary. She guessed that Kim Wheeler, Attorney-at-Law, would be on her best behavior.

      Jamie shut the door and motioned toward the main room. “Go on in.”

      “Is the furniture furry there, too?” Kim inquired with a friendly tilt of her head.

      “It isn’t as bad. I regularly vacuum the house, but admitted defeat on the porch. Marlin’s fur is overwhelming in the middle of his spring shed.”

      “Holy Toledo.” Kim gazed at the massive black cat lying in a patch of sunlight on the hardwood floor. Marlin stretched, lazily flexing his claws. “Is he a special breed?”

      Jamie gave Marlin an affectionate stroke with the arch of her foot. “Officially, he’s a house cat. Unofficially, I heard that a panther ran away from a wildlife park and spread his genes before being caught, except that might be a tall tale. I’m not sure if there are bobcats in this region. Supposedly they can interbreed with domestic felines, so that’s another possibility.”

      “Maybe he’s a mutant.”

      “Could be.”

      Leaving Kim to get acquainted with Granddad’s aging companion, Jamie shuffled to the bedroom and stared in the mirror, wondering what she could wear. Should she retrieve the remaining clothing from her previous life, a time when her ex-husband had expected her to wear outfits as fine as Kim Wheeler’s? She’d sold the majority through a consignment shop, but she had some left in a box at the back of the closet. The right apparel made an undeniable impact—look how she felt with Ms. Wheeler sitting on her couch, garbed in a high-priced suit.

      Pulling out the box, Jamie suppressed a wave of nausea. The green evening gown on top was strapless and too taste-specific for the consignment shop. She’d worn it once, the night they went to the company Christmas dinner, the year prior to the divorce. Tim had admired how chic and sexy she appeared until they got to the banquet hall and he saw the CEO’s wife dressed in a similar color. She couldn’t have known what the woman would wear, but he’d told her if she’d had a speck of sense she would have chosen black, same as the other wives. His cold fury had made her shrivel inside.

      Suddenly Jamie crammed everything into the carton and booted it across the floor. She refused to be intimidated. An expensive suit collected cat fur the same as her jeans, but jeans didn’t need dry-cleaning.

      * * *

      ZACK LEANED AGAINST the solid porch pillar after seeing the volume of cat fur on the cushions.

      He’d supposed Jamie Conroe would be living in a ramshackle beach shack, not a large and well-maintained home from the early-twentieth-century Arts and Crafts era. It was an architectural style he liked, though he’d emulated an earlier