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If she wanted to play it safe, she’d hide in her office and tally the numbers in the accounting books. But she was more than a CPA. And she was ready to show her family she had more to offer than just accounting skills.
She cut the ribbon and watched the ends flutter to the water before seasonal employees on the docks reeled them in. This marina project would open. Soon. For today, she was taking June’s advice and making nice with the press as long as the sun shone.
* * *
CAPTAIN SCOTT BENNETT idled the fire truck in the Starlight Point parking lot as he waited for the line of cars to pull out of the marina. Despite his refusal to issue an occupancy report for the marina buildings until a few fire-safety measures were taken, he’d seen no reason to prevent the grand opening ceremony from taking place. The Hamiltons had worked hard on the project and it was a nice addition to the resort.
Except for the fact that someone had treated the fire codes as if they were an afterthought. The realization made him feel ill.
He opened his eyes. Traffic had thinned, cars escaping for drier territory as the skies opened up in a drenching afternoon shower. He pulled onto the outer loop road to drive around the Starlight Point peninsula to the fire station located on the opposite side of the amusement park. In the off season, he might have driven straight across the peninsula, but it was the first day of June and the park was in full swing. No way would he open a gate and drive past the carousel and the hotdog stands. Unless it was a life-or-death situation.
Scott was new to the fire department at Starlight Point and he wondered how many life-and-death situations a mile-long peninsula filled with rides and food stands could have.
Right now, he focused on the road. The ancient windshield wipers on the fire truck smeared the raindrops and a missing piece of rubber left a streak. Scott made a mental note to change the blades before someone got in an accident due to poor visibility. Maybe he should also check the two ambulances, small pumper and pickup that made up the Starlight Point Fire Department fleet.
He squinted through the rain. A woman in a soaked white dress was walking along the outer loop despite the numerous signs prohibiting pedestrians. He activated the flashing lights on the fire truck and pulled as far to the side of the narrow road as possible. He reached across and opened the passenger door.
“Get in,” he said.
The woman was tall and slender. Her hair was probably blond when it was dry, but right now it hung down in dark streaks against her white dress. She held a pair of high-heeled shoes in one hand as she stepped onto the running board of the fire truck.
She leaned into his truck and looked over at him. Her huge smile was like a streak of sunshine and he temporarily forgot she was violating an important safety code. Not something he took lightly.
“I don’t usually accept rides from strangers,” she said.
He reached under the seat and pulled out a roll of shop towels. He tore off three and handed them to her.
“I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers in the fire truck,” he said. “But I can’t allow you to walk along this road. It’s dangerous.”
Her focus dropped to the name tag on his uniform shirt.
A Starlight Point Fire Department patch was sewn on one shirtsleeve and the Maltese cross typical of fire departments across the country was sewn on the other. His navy blue button-down shirt tucked into navy blue pants was the uniform for the safety forces here. It wasn’t much different from the one he wore on shift at the Bayside Fire Department. With two jobs, he lived in a uniform.
“Scott,” she said. “You must be new this summer.”
He watched her towel off her face and bare arms. It was a warm day, but goose bumps covered her skin.
“Seat belt,” he said.
He reached over her, pulled the door shut, and then watched her click her safety belt. Switching off the emergency lights, he scrutinized the side mirrors for traffic as he pulled the truck onto the road.
“This is my first summer at the Point,” he said. “Do you work here?”
She laughed.
He didn’t think it was a silly question considering he’d found her walking along the outer road where pedestrians were forbidden for good reason. The road was barely wide enough for two cars. There was no shoulder on one side where it edged right up to the tall fence surrounding the amusement park. The other side had only stacked boulders between it and Lake Huron. There was no room for walkers or bikers.
“I’ve worked here for years,” she said.
He glanced at her. “You don’t look old enough for that to be true.” He knew he sounded surly, but the rainy windshield was driving him nuts. There had better not be any more hitchhikers on this road. The thought of causing an accident made his gut feel hollow.
“I started very young. My name is Evie, by the way.”
He looked at her again before turning back to the smeared windshield. Evie was an unusual name. He had just heard it somewhere else recently. Where have I run across that name?
“Why were you walking around the point?” he asked. “If you’ve worked here for years, you know that’s prohibited.”
She raised her hands over her head and fluffed her hair, running the long length of it through the remaining shop towel.
“Shortcut gone bad. I was going from the marina to the corporate office and thought I’d just dash across the road and through the gate behind the train yard. But it was locked. So I was walking up the road to the next gate.”
“Why didn’t you go through the guest entrance by the marina?”
“I didn’t have a ticket,” she said. She laughed again.
He had no idea why that was funny.
He tightened his grip on the wheel. “I can take you as far as the gate behind the Scrambler. That will get you close to the corporate office.”
“Thank you.”
Despite the wisdom of it, Scott rued the ten-mile-per-hour speed limit. He turned on the defroster, hoping to clear the windshield, which was now steaming on the inside from their breath. It was going to take at least another ten minutes on the slow crawl around the Point.
“How old is this truck?” Evie asked.
“Older than both of us.”
“Maybe we should get a new one.”
We? She said she’d worked here a long time. Maybe it was the royal we. Or maybe she was crazy. After all, he did pick her up walking in the rain in a see-through white dress.
He was trying not to look at the dress.
“New trucks are expensive,” he said.
“How much?”
Okay, so we’re going to discuss the price of fire trucks. Fine. He could talk about that all night. Or at least for the next nine minutes until he could unload his beautiful but strange passenger.
“In my opinion, Starlight Point should get a ladder truck. Something close to a hundred feet tall just in case of an accident on a coaster. It would also be good in case of a hotel fire. The center structure of the Lake Breeze is ten stories, so you’d need a hundred-foot ladder.”
Evie nodded. “And how much does a ladder truck like that cost?”
“Easily half a million if you buy a new one.”
His passenger laughed.
Doesn’t she realize new trucks come with insurance savings and, more importantly, the potential to save lives?
“There’s nothing funny about fire safety,” he said.
Evie sighed. “So I’ve heard. Sadly, I don’t have half a million bucks buried on the beach or hidden under the Silver Streak.” She swiveled in her seat and faced him. “Can you believe some picky new fire inspector from Bayside is giving us all kinds of grief on the marina project?”
Scott’s insides felt like an ice-cube tray someone was shuffling to break up the cubes. And why was she saying us like she owned the place?
“Grief?” he asked.
“Fussy stuff. Signs, some valve, something about an electrical panel, and a fire lane that’s too narrow.”
“Those sound like serious problems,” he said.
Evie cranked her window down a few inches. Apparently she didn’t care about the stray raindrops coming in since she was already soaked. Maybe it would help the steam problem they were having.
Anything would help right now.
“The previous fire inspector approved the whole plan,” she continued. “Everything. I thought we were fine until the new guy crumpled up my dream project like last week’s newspaper.”
She rolled the window all the way down. Waved at people inside the fence. Waved at more people and called them by name.
Does my hitchhiking passenger know everyone at Starlight Point?
Scott slowed as he approached the hotel gate and came to a full stop when the police officer held up his hand.
The old man stepped onto the running board and leaned in the window. “Thought I saw you in there, Evie. Big day for you with your new marina opening.” The officer patted Scott on the shoulder. “Take good care of my girl.”
Scott pulled away and headed for the gate outside the Scrambler.
“How long did you say you’d worked here?” he asked.
“All my life. My parents owned Starlight Point until a few years ago when my father died. My brother and sister and I run it now.”
Evie Hamilton. That was the name on the paperwork for the marina project. A project he’d stalled after uncovering fire code violations the previous inspector hadn’t noticed or didn’t care about.
“I’m Evie Hamilton,” she said.
“I figured that out—now.” He reached across and shook hands with her without taking his eyes off the road. “Scott Bennett.”
“Nice to meet you. And thanks for the ride. I hope you like working here for the summer.”
“Me, too.”
“Are you full-time somewhere else?”
He wasn’t ready to tell her all about his full-time job. Not while he was trapped in a truck with her. Only a quarter of a mile to go.
Evie leaned toward him and cocked her head, obviously waiting for an answer.
“What I mean is that most of our summer firefighters have other full-time jobs. I was just curious.”
“I’m full-time for the City of Bayside.”
Evie nodded. “I live in downtown Bayside. I just moved into my own place. Maybe I’ll see you there. But I’m more likely to see you around here.”
Scott nosed the truck up to the gate and put on the parking brake.
“Close as I can get.”
“I know. I don’t mind a short walk in the rain. I’m wet anyway.” She picked up her shoes from the floor of the truck.
“You should put those on. You could step on something sharp.”
She laughed. “Thanks for the safety tip. But putting wet feet in wet shoes is almost as lousy as feuding with the local fire inspector”
Evie opened her door and slid out. Gave him a little wave. And slammed the door of the fire truck.
At least she left the window down so he could see in the side mirror as he backed slowly away from the corporate office where he knew he’d be about as welcome as a mosquito bite right now. As soon as Evie connected the dots and realized the fire inspector from Bayside who’d rained on her parade also worked part-time for her own company, he’d better be ready to hand in his employee badge.
Scott thought of his baby sister, twenty years old and working at Starlight Point for the summer. He had to keep this job if he wanted to keep watch over the only sister he had left.
CHAPTER TWO (#uad0c0979-609f-5530-9a3c-8835618016cc)
EVIE TOOK OFF her name tag, dropped it in her purse and settled into her usual seat behind the ferry’s tall wheelhouse. From the backward-facing seat, she could watch Starlight Point slip away. On the short trip from Starlight Point to Bayside, she was just another passenger. Not an owner of the amusement park that had been in her family since before she was born.
Evie loved Starlight Point like she loved her sister’s smile, her brother’s eyes, her mother’s laugh and the memory of her father. But tonight she just wanted to enjoy the twenty-minute-ride home.
Home. The third-floor flat above Aunt Augusta’s Downtown Bakery was still new to her. But she was starting to call it home. Too large a space for one person, the flat had two rooms—a spare bedroom and bathroom—that were completely empty. Her brother’s house on the Old Road at the Point used to be a half-barren bachelor pad, but he’d traded houses with their mother. He was now living in their parents’ house with his wife. Already the rooms were filling with the contraptions that seemed to go with babies, and the baby shower coming up would add even more.
Maybe her empty apartment wasn’t so bad. It was quiet, organized...and the first place she’d ever lived alone.
Evie pulled off the band holding her hair back and ran her fingers through the long strands. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the center island of the ferry, feeling the hum of the boat’s motor. The bay was calm, the breeze light, the June evening warm. If her old blue sedan actually had any life left in it, she’d be missing this beautiful ride and making the daily drive in traffic to the Point.
After a twenty-minute trip, the ferry docked and Evie waited for the other passengers to leave. The moms and dads, friends and teenagers were in more of a hurry than she was. They headed for their cars parked in the wide downtown lot. She hoped they’d had a wonderful day at Starlight Point. Judging from their flushed cheeks and sleepy-eyed kids, it looked that way.
“Good night, Evie.”
She turned. Smiled.
“See you tomorrow, Ken,” she said to the retired navy officer who had ferried Starlight Point guests for at least a decade.
“I hope you never get your car fixed so I can keep seeing you every day,” he said. “Although I could come take a look at it for you if you like. Can’t be much different from a battleship.”
Evie laughed. “I think it’s just the battery. I’ll get it fixed on my day off.”
“Which is?”
“October something.”
Ken smiled and propped a foot on the bench seat. He shoved his captain’s hat back and gave Evie his full attention.
