Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) Read online

  Besides, now that he knew their contractor was an alcoholic, he had zero faith in his ability to get the job done on time. At least one of them needed to be there to supervise the workers and make sure the renovations were still on track, despite the fact that they didn’t know where the money was going to come from to pay them now.

  Thirty minutes later, oyster shells crunched under his tires as he passed the hedge of flowering blackberry bushes and pulled into the circular driveway in front of the inn. Several work trucks were parked in the lot reserved for guests, and he could hear the whir of a power saw and the crack of hammers echoing over the water. Rolling to a stop beside Will’s SUV, he watched his friend walk out the front door of the house to greet him.

  Colin cut the engine and stepped out of the truck, pausing for a minute to let the circulation come back into his leg. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Will said, closing the distance between them.

  Neither man smiled as they shook hands. Will’s short brown hair was mussed, a beard covered his jaw, and his brown eyes looked tired and wary.

  Colin eyed the long gash on his friend’s left forearm. “What happened there?”

  “I got into an argument with a cameraman who wanted to get a shot of Taylor coming out of school yesterday.”

  Colin felt a new wave of frustration. “Did he get the shot?”

  “No,” Will said. “But he’s threatening to press charges now.”

  “Why?”

  “He might have accidentally hit his head against the side of his news van and broken his nose afterwards.”

  Colin’s lips twitched. He couldn’t help it. He knew Will wasn’t very happy with him at the moment, not only because he’d kept the news about the school from him, but because he was the one who’d talked him into leaving the teams to come back home and open the veterans’ center. He couldn’t have it falling apart before it even got off the ground. “I’m sorry, man. About everything.”

  Will shook his head. “I had no idea dealing with reporters would be as bad as some of the terrorists we’ve dealt with.”

  “Yeah,” Colin said, shutting his car door. He’d dealt with reporters all his life. He’d left that world purposefully, choosing a branch of the military that was as far from the limelight as possible. When he’d gone to the recruiting office in NYC after 9/11, the most attractive part of the SEALs had been that they were the shadow warriors, the ones who got the job done under the cover of night, the ones who shied from the attention. He felt terrible for exposing his friends to this world—the world he had wanted so badly to leave behind.

  “I need to hit the road soon,” Will said, checking his watch, “but I wanted to get another look at the place before I left. See how much progress they’d made patching up the foundation.”

  “How’s it look?” Colin asked, as they walked back toward the front door of the old farmhouse.

  “I don’t know,” Will admitted. “It’s a bigger job than I expected. Are you sure we’re making the right decision to rush things like this? Maybe we ought to back off, give Jimmy’s crew some time to catch any other mistakes and fix them now, before we open. Besides, after everything that happened yesterday, maybe it would be best if we let things cool off for a few weeks, see how the dust settles.”

  It wasn’t an unreasonable suggestion, Colin thought, following him inside, past the stairwell, and into the living room, where a gaping hole in the wall beside the fireplace now offered a view out to the backyard. Two men were laying concrete in a trench that had been dug in the ground to grant them access to the base of the structure. He nodded to the two men, who he recognized as members of Jimmy’s original crew. They nodded back, before going back to work.

  Colin had kept a pretty close eye on the renovations over the winter, but he knew it was possible that Jimmy could have overlooked something if he’d spent most of the past few months in a drunken haze. But then he thought about their investors, the ones who hadn’t pulled out since hearing the news yesterday, and all the people who were planning to fly out for the big showy patriotic opening on Memorial Day—most of the guys from their former team in San Diego, the wives of the two teammates they’d lost in Afghanistan last year, dozens of men and women he’d met at Walter Reed. “No,” Colin said firmly. “That’s not an option.”

  Will studied his friend’s face for several moments, then motioned for Colin to follow him out the back door, and down the porch steps to the dock, where they could talk without being heard by the rest of the construction workers. “What are we going to do about the donation from the casino owner?”

  “We need to give it back,” Colin said.

  “You’re sure that’s the right move?” Will asked. “Maybe we should wait it out, do a little digging into the situation on our own. If the money’s not dirty, we don’t have to give it back.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Colin said, shaking his head. “As long as the rumor is out there, it can hurt us. We need to distance ourselves from it, make it clear that whether or not it’s true, it has nothing to do with us.”

  “Where are we going to get the funds to replace it?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Will dipped his hands in his pockets, pausing when they got to the edge of the pier. The tide was high, only inches below the planks at their feet. “Are you sure what that guy’s saying about your father is even true?”

  “No,” Colin admitted.

  “Have you talked to him since the press conference?”

  Colin nodded. “He’s denying it.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Colin looked out at the water, where a red-tailed hawk soared overhead, gliding gracefully toward the tilted lighthouse a few miles offshore. “I don’t know. I saw the bank statements Goldwaters’ campaign leaked. My father’s name is on them. It doesn’t look good.”

  The clang of hammers behind them mingled with the peaceful sound of the water lapping at the pilings. “Annie thinks we should ask the Hadleys for the money.”

  “The Hadleys?” Colin glanced back at Will, surprised. He hadn’t even considered asking the Hadleys. Taylor’s grandparents on her father’s side had only found out about her existence last fall when their good for nothing son had tried to come back into Annie’s life and had almost succeeded in splitting Will and Annie up for good.

  The Hadleys owned one of the biggest hotel chains in the U.S. and, last fall, Lance Hadley, Taylor’s grandfather, had had his sights set on buying Will’s grandparents’ inn. Will had almost sold it to him, before he’d realized that Lance was planning to tear down the house and turn the property into a resort as soon as the deed had been transferred into his company’s name.

  Will’s decision to come home and start the veterans’ center had saved the inn from that fate. But Colin didn’t like the idea of having the same man who’d once been interested in buying the inn for his own company suddenly becoming one of their top investors. What if Lance had a different idea for the place or wanted to have more control over the operations and tried to exercise that power as soon as he had a financial stake in it? “How do you feel about that?”

  “I don’t feel comfortable asking him for money,” Will said.

  He wouldn’t either, Colin thought, if he were in Will’s shoes. But if they couldn’t find anyone else to offer it up, they might not have a choice. “How did he take the news about the school?”

  “Not good,” Will said. “He called each of the board members at home as soon as Annie told him what was happening and offered to fund the school himself to keep it open.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They said the district would be happy to accept a donation, but private funds aren’t allowed to pay for regular operating expenses—books, day to day upkeep, teacher and staff salaries.”

  Colin shook his head, feeling even more frustrated.

  “Lance is pissed,” Will went on. “We all are. But the board’s arguing that if he wants to invest in his granddaught
er’s future, he should support the elementary school in St. Michaels, rather than pour funds into a school that’s just going to shut down eventually anyway.”

  In the distance, a sailboat cut through the open Bay, its tall silver mast glittering in the sunlight. The winds from the night before had calmed down, and the sky was dotted with puffy white clouds. Under different circumstances, Colin would have been happy to hang out here all day, soaking up the view. Instead, all he could think about was how it was his fault that his friends were in this mess. “How’s Taylor doing?”

  “She’s pretty shaken up,” Will said. “Riley’s gone to school with her every day this week. The dog won’t leave her side, which means that even if she’s pretending everything’s fine, it’s not.” He checked his watch again. “I wish I didn’t have to leave her. Or Annie. But I should hit the road soon. We’ve got a team deploying tonight and I need to be there to help them get ready.”

  That was why he looked so ragged, Colin thought. It wasn’t just the news about the school and the veterans’ center. It was that he had to leave Annie and Taylor in a time of need. Annie and Will weren’t legally married yet, but anyone who saw the three of them together knew that they were already a family.

  He felt a twinge of envy for that bond, that closeness. I want that, he thought, then clamped down on the feeling. He had more important things to worry about right now. Turning, he walked with Will back to where their cars were parked. “I’m going to keep making calls today, see if I can round up some more donors. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something.”

  Will nodded. “I’ll call the rest of the people on the list you sent yesterday, make sure they know that there’s nothing to worry about, that we’re still planning to open by Memorial Day.”

  Colin looked at the gaping hole in the exterior of the inn, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake by not considering Will’s idea of pushing back the opening, of waiting to see how the dust settled. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sacrifice everything they’d worked so hard for. It would be like admitting defeat.

  “Ryan said he’d keep an eye on the café for the next few days,” Will said, as they rounded the side of the house. “Could you keep an eye on the school? I think most of the reporters have gotten the message by now, but you never know.”

  “Of course,” Colin said. He would be happy to give any reporters who came to capture the story about Taylor a similar welcome to the one Will had given the cameraman who was threatening to press charges now.

  Will stopped outside the door to his black SUV, pausing for a moment to look back at the inn. He was quiet for several moments, as if deciding whether or not to say what was on his mind. “Look, man,” he said finally, “I know things are crazy right now, but I’ve been talking to a lot of people about what we’re doing. They want to get involved, maybe start something similar in their own hometowns when they get out. I’ve heard from at least a half a dozen former team guys in the area who are working with troubled vets at shooting ranges, and they want to do more. I’ve gotten a few calls lately, asking if I could sit down with them, talk them through some of the steps of opening a nonprofit. I told them they should talk to you, since you’ve done most of the legwork to get this place up and running.”

  “Sure,” Colin said, wondering why Will seemed hesitant to tell him this. He’d talk to anyone who wanted to start a program for vets and wanted to know how to get started. “Tell them to give me a call.”

  The whir of a power drill cut through the silence, and Will continued to stand there, not reaching for the handle of the car door. “Do you remember a guy named Austin Turner?”

  Colin nodded. Everyone knew Austin Turner. He was a legend in the special operations community. He’d been a SEAL for over twenty years, retiring as a Master Chief Petty Officer from Team Six, the exclusive counterterrorism unit out of Virginia Beach, about five years ago. He had moved to L.A. afterwards, and opened a private security company, and made a ton of money by offering his services to high-profile celebrities who needed protection.

  “He recently purchased a ranch in Colorado,” Will said. “He’s thinking about doing something similar to what we’re doing, but on a much larger scale.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Will nodded. “He called the other day, said he’d heard about what we were doing, offered to fly me out there and pay me an insane amount of money to give him some tips on how to get started. I told him if he wanted to pay someone for start up advice, it should be you.”

  “I’m sure I can tell him whatever he wants to know over the phone,” Colin said, though the idea of meeting a legend like Austin Turner was very appealing. “I doubt he needs my advice anyway.”

  “Actually,” Will said, “after I told him about you and everything you’d been doing over the past six months, he wanted to know if you’d be willing to come out there for a while, help him set the place up, organize the funding. He wants someone on the ground to run things so he can keep working in L.A., and only has to check in from time to time. I said you were taken, but it’s up to you, man. If Austin’s program is a success, he wants to open more places like it, all over the country. That’s a hell of an opportunity. You’ve done an amazing job here—raising money, hiring everyone, overseeing the renovations, organizing the programs, building our network for businesses willing to hire vets. But you don’t need to be here to run this place once we get it off the ground. You’ve already done all the heavy lifting. I can take it from here, if you want.”

  I can take it from here? The words rang in Colin’s ears.

  “Assuming we can find the money to replace what we have to give back to Henry Cooper, and we can convince the rest of our early donors that we didn’t know anything about your father’s alleged agreement with him,” Will continued, “we’ll be good to go.”

  Another drill screamed to life, closer this time. It felt like it was inches from Colin’s ears. Good to go? What was Will saying? That he didn’t want to work with him anymore? That he wasn’t needed here?

  Holy shit, Colin thought, as the realization dawned. Maybe Will thought he was a liability now. Maybe he was trying to get rid of him by offering an opportunity that was practically impossible to refuse. He kept his body perfectly still, his expression carefully neutral, as his mind jumped to a dozen different conclusions all at once.

  Yes, it would be amazing to work with Austin Turner. Not only because he had a huge amount of respect for the guy—every SEAL did—but with Austin’s access to celebrities, they could tap into a network of funding that would put his current network to shame, and that money wouldn’t be tainted by politics. The idea of opening private centers like this all over the country would be a dream come true. He thought about all the veterans he could help, all the men and women who would get a second chance when they needed it most.

  He thought about the pride he had felt standing with Nate Murphy and the rest of his team the day before, when they’d been waiting for his father to walk out of the State House and announce the jobs program they had created, how good it had felt knowing they’d done something to help the people who had fought beside them overseas. There was no question in his mind that that was what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing.

  But taking Austin’s offer would mean leaving. Leaving the island, leaving this place where he wanted to put down roots, where he wanted to have a home and start a family one day. But what if that was just him being selfish? He thought about what Becca had said that first night in Annapolis, when she’d said she’d assumed the inn was just a stepping-stone for him, the first of many projects he would launch for veterans in the future. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just a stepping-stone.

  It wouldn’t be the only thing she’d been right about lately. He hadn’t given her an answer the night before, when she’d asked if his mother was behind Richard Goldwater sabotaging his father’s announcement, but he knew, without a doubt, regardless of whether or not his father was guilty, that there w
as only one person who could have tipped the other party off to that information—his mother.

  And if his mother was behind everything that had happened yesterday, it was possible she wasn’t just coming after his father anymore; she was coming after him now, too. She might be targeting this island simply because he had decided to move here, to settle here, to build a life here. She had already gone after the elementary school. Now she was going after the veterans’ center. What would she go after next?

  If he took himself off this island, out of this partnership with Will, maybe she would stop coming after his friends. She would still try to go after his father, but she could find other ways to do it. And his father could handle himself.

  Looking up as a bald eagle soared over the pines that bordered the marshes, he thought about Annie and Will and Taylor and Becca and everyone on this island who would be affected if these two businesses failed. Maybe it would be best for everyone if he left.

  Taking a deep breath, he looked back at Will. “I need some time to think about it.”

  Will nodded, opening the door to his SUV. “I figured you’d say that.” He climbed into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and rolled down the window. Leaning his arm out, he added, “I imagine you’ll be hearing from Austin pretty soon though, and heads up, he can be pretty convincing.”

  Colin nodded. He didn’t doubt it. However, he didn’t think he’d need much convincing at this point anyway.

  Will started the engine and glanced down at his phone to check his messages before putting the SUV into gear. When he paused, frowning down at a message on the screen, Colin assumed it was another donor pulling their funding.

  “Who is it?” he asked.

  “It’s Annie,” Will said, typing a message back and slipping his phone back into his pocket. “There’s this thing at the school today—all the kids are supposed to bring a parent with them. Annie’s there now with Taylor and I guess there’s a kid in her class who’s been having some trouble at home lately.”