If for Any Reason (Nantucket Love Story #1) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,91

for you—no matter what.

Will they make you feel like a walking disaster? Maybe. But in spite of that, there is still a lot of love.

I just thought you should know.

Love,

Mom

CHAPTER 32

EMILY STOOD AWKWARDLY IN THE DOORWAY of the kitchen. She still held two plastic cups, and she stared into the room imagining how awful it looked to her grandmother. After all, her job wasn’t to demolish the house; it was to make it better—and right now, it looked a whole lot worse than it had when she arrived.

“I must say, Emily, this was not what I was expecting.” Grandma waved a hand toward the wall.

“I was thinking it would open up the lower level, let in more light, make it more conducive to family functions—that sort of thing.”

She could hear herself floundering. She sounded like an idiot. Suddenly all of her plans for the house felt misguided and silly.

And she’d been so sure before.

“Is my room still intact, or did you knock down walls upstairs too?” Grandma’s smile was terse.

“It’s still intact. We’ll be painting it, though. I already picked out the colors—you can see the swatches taped to the wall.”

Grandma raised an eyebrow, looking at Hollis as if seeing him for the first time. “I didn’t realize you had a . . . friend on the island.”

One thing Grandma was never quiet about was her disapproval of Emily’s boyfriends. There hadn’t been a single one Grandma had liked, unless you counted William Justus (Emily didn’t), the grandson of a wealthy couple who ran in the same social circles they did. Grandma decided he was a perfect match for Emily in the tenth grade and tried to set them up on numerous occasions.

Sadly, Emily didn’t take to William, a sensible boy Grandma hoped would talk Emily out of traveling the world. She still hadn’t decided if it was William’s body odor or his lack of manners that turned her against him permanently, but regardless, she and her grandmother had different ideas about who would make a good match for Emily.

“You remember Hollis, Grandma. His family always rented the cottage next door,” Emily said. “They own it now.”

She threw that last bit in there as if owning the cottage made Hollis more respectable. Not just a renter anymore, Grandma. An owner. But she didn’t want to cater to her grandmother’s snobbery. She silently told herself to knock it off.

“Good evening, Mrs. Ackerman,” Hollis said like the perfect gentleman he was.

Grandma gave him a nod. “Hello.”

“Hollis played professional baseball,” Emily heard herself saying, as though she needed to give her grandmother a reason other than sheer goodness to accept this man in her home. Of all the people she’d known in her life, Hollis needed the least amount of talking up. He was genuinely kind and good all on his own.

But those things rarely mattered to Grandma.

She was doing it again. Presenting her choices with a spit shine so Grandma would approve. Stop defending yourself. Stop apologizing for who you are.

“I’m tired,” Grandma said abruptly. “I’m going to sleep. We’ll talk about the house in the morning.”

And just like that, Eliza Ackerman walked out of the room, leaving Emily to wonder when exactly the other shoe would drop.

She turned to Hollis, wide-eyed.

“Did you know she was coming?” he asked.

Emily shook her head, then spoke quietly, just in case Grandma was outside the room listening (because there was a very good chance she was outside the room listening). “I had no idea. I’ve mostly avoided her calls, but when I talked to her the other day, she didn’t say a word.”

“Why have you avoided her calls?” Hollis whispered back.

Emily took a step closer to him, which she quickly realized was a mistake. He smelled like heaven—or some kind of woodsy aftershave, though those two things might be identical. He looked at her with those crazy beautiful hazel eyes and not a speck of judgment, even after she’d confessed everything.

Why was she surprised? She should’ve known Hollis was safe. He’d never done anything but try to protect her.

Like the time he punched a day-tripper in the face because he didn’t like the way the kid talked to her.

He had bright-red hair, pale skin, and freckles all over his face and arms. Hollis, Hayes, and Emily were minding their own business down at the beach and this “punk kid,” as Hollis called him, started making chicken noises as they walked by. At first, the trio thought the kid was just goofing off, but then he