Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,55
that wall of green that hit your nose the moment you walked in the door. That was the smell of the end of the school day, the smell of summer. The smell of family.
The bells on the door drew her from her memories. “How was Holden?” her mother, first through the door, asked.
Boring. “Great!”
“Did you eat?”
“He was tired, so no. But I’ll get something on my way back to the inn.” Or, more accurately, she’d have some granola bars in her room.
Soon she and her brother were manufacturing enthusiasm over the new software. Or at least she was. Ro’s actually seemed genuine.
“This is a huge improvement, Dad,” he said. “And if you have bigger orders where the payments are being spread out, you can set this up to automatically generate the invoices.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize that. I don’t think I’m going to bother learning a new system at this point, though.”
“Right. Of course.”
“Hey, you said you had an agent coming in to look at the building,” Maya said. “Will the new owner keep the store open?”
“I told the agent I’m happy to sell all the contents if by chance the buyer is interested in the store, too. But it’s unlikely.”
“But what about the wishing flowers?” Rohan said.
“I’ve thought of that,” her dad said. “Maya’s idea for Ben Lawson to start selling a few flowers at the bar actually made me think about why I personally was deriving all the profits from the wishing flowers. I definitely don’t want the town to lose the tradition. What if all the businesses in town—or all who wanted to—sold flowers? I’m planning to talk to the town council about it.”
“That’s an interesting idea,” Rohan said, and Maya could see his entrepreneurial brain firing up as he and their dad chatted. She listened to them for a while, letting the familiar strains of their voices wash over her. It was nice to all be together for a while.
But her happiness was tempered with uncertainty. Maybe she should just call it on the theater. What were the chances she was going to get that grant? What were the chances Holden was going to be the magic bullet she was hoping for?
Maybe she was confusing recklessness and confidence?
Worse, maybe she had been all along?
Maya was going to win the sandcastle competition this year. She was ready.
“Builders, you know the rules,” Pearl, who was head judge this year, called out to the assembled throng. “You’re allowed two buckets and two shovels, and you can use anything you find on the beach. You have two hours. You may begin.”
A couple years ago, Benjamin had trounced her by interpreting “anything you find on the beach” to mean “anything you found on the beach at any time in the past” and had walked away with first place based on a castle decorated with a ton of sea glass he’d collected. Then last year he’d won with a creation that was more driftwood than sand.
No more. She was ready with a back-to-basics strategy that was going to blow whatever he had planned out of the water. Also: there wasn’t a lot of stuff on the beaches of Huron. This wasn’t an ocean beach. No cute starfish or shiny seashells here. Unless he was planning to redo sea glass or driftwood—and a rerun was as good as an admission of defeat—he was out of bells and whistles. And who was the one who had aced set design in school? She cracked her knuckles and unrolled her diagram.
“Is that a blueprint?”
Maya smiled at the approaching Eve. “You’d better believe it.” No more freestyling for her.
“And,” Pearl called, finishing her instructions to the builders, “You’re allowed two helpers. Spectators are welcome but may not participate unless they are designated helpers.”
“Where’s my other helper?” Maya asked, looking around the crowded beach for Nora, but also for Benjamin. Why wasn’t he here yet? Usually Maya and Benjamin were among the first arrivals, and they spent some time trash-talking each other.
“I’m here!” Nora came jogging up—she was pregnant enough now that she was almost at the waddling stage. Jake was with her, which was odd, because usually he helped Benjamin with his castle—which wasn’t fair because Jake was a construction genius. But that was okay, because Maya was ready this year.
“Where’s Benjamin?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“He was doing sandwiches out front of the bar when we came out of the clinic,” Nora said. “He seemed like he was by himself.”