Under The Boardwalk

Betty licked her palm once more as a long shadow crossed the sidewalk. Gus glanced up. Way up. The kayaker who liked cookies stood over her. He looked even better in the daylight. And in a button-down oxford with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.

Betty leaped from the wagon and put her paws on the man’s knees. He picked her up, ruffling her furry face and ears.

“I’m guessing you and Betty have met before,” Gus observed.

“We’re old friends.”

“You have a lot in common,” Gus said. “She’s tempted by my cookies, too, and I’ve caught her trying to steal one.”

“Still haven’t forgiven me?”

Gus shrugged and smiled. “I was never mad in the first place. I make sweets, people eat them. Sometimes they even pay me. I’m hoping to build a business on that idea.”

He glanced at her apron. “Are you taking a break right now?”

She pointed over her shoulder. “Aunt Augusta’s in charge at the moment.”

He leaned close to the window, looked in and waved. Turning back to Gus, he bent and placed Betty in the wagon.

“You know my aunt?” Gus asked.

“Nope, but I know my mother. I told her I’d pick her up downtown after she delivered her notes.”

Betty settled in with a sigh and put her nose on the edge of the wagon where she could see everything, including the door of the shop.

“Since I’m pretty sure we’re not cousins, there’s only one explanation,” Gus said. “If Virginia is your mother, and Betty loves you like family, you must be—”

“Jack Hamilton,” he said, extending one large sun-browned hand.

So the impatient kayaker who drove an ancient SUV was the new owner of Starlight Point? Of course she knew about his father’s sudden death a few weeks ago—the whole area had been shocked that such a relatively young man had been taken by a heart attack. She had met Ford Hamilton twice to discuss the contract for the three bakeries she would lease at Starlight Point this summer. In her downtown bakery, there had been a lot of speculation about the future of the amusement park, but the counter talk focused on the twenty-six-year-old son who was ready to step in.

Gus had returned to Bayside only last fall to put down roots, but her aunt and Jack’s mother were old acquaintances. Although Gus had seen Virginia a number of times over the winter, she hadn’t met any of the three Hamilton children.

Until now.

Gus took Jack’s hand and pulled herself up. A rush of endorphins whirled through her like a scrambler ride. Maybe it was his smile. Maybe she’d stood up too fast. She held on to his hand.

“Augusta Murphy,” she said. “Most people call me Gus.”

“Why?”

“When I was young, it was because Gus is a much cuter name than Augusta. These days, I think it’s so I don’t get confused with Aunt Augusta.”

“Who would make that mistake?” he said, grinning and keeping a firm grip on her hand. He inclined his head toward the door of the shop. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee to make up for ruining your cookie experiment?”

“My experiment failed anyway,” she said. “I ate the rest of the cookies Saturday night while I watched the TV shows I’d recorded all week.”

“All baking and cooking channels?” he asked.

“Nope. I only watch comedies and reality shows that are nothing like actual reality. I can’t take television seriously.”

“What do you take seriously?” he asked.

“Birthday cake.”

He nodded. “Cake can make or break a good party.”

“Cake is the star of every birthday party and wedding,” she said. “It’s the guest of honor.”

Gus smiled, liking the way the sun picked up the lighter brown in Jack’s dark hair. He smiled back. At that moment, she wondered what it would be like to run her fingers through the hair that waved away from his high forehead.

“Jack,” Virginia said as she came out the shop door. “I see you’ve met the most talented lady in Bayside.” Virginia turned to Gus. “He’s had a love affair with sugar since he could walk. Used to drive the bakery vendor at the Point nuts all summer.”

“He did steal one cookie,” Gus said. “Right out of my van.”

“I’m not surprised,” Virginia replied. “He couldn’t help himself, I’m sure. You have to admit, you’ve got baking in your blood. I was just talking to your aunt about having you be the STRIPE sergeant this summer.”

Aunt Augusta stood in the doorway behind Virginia, hands held out in a gesture of innocence, eyes huge.

“STRIPE?” Gus asked, raising an eyebrow at Jack.

“You don’t want to know,” he said, leaning close to her as his mother turned to say goodbye to Aunt Augusta. “But whatever she asks you to do, I suggest you say no.” He wrinkled his brow and leaned back, cocking his head. “Wait a minute. Are you working at Starlight Point this summer?”

“Yes. Didn’t you know? I...”

Virginia sailed between them, took Jack’s arm with one hand and grabbed the wagon’s handle with the other. Jack stared at Gus as if he was trying to figure out a puzzle, but his mother’s momentum tugged him away.

“We’ll talk,” Virginia said over her shoulder. “Later. I need a strong woman for my mission.”

Betty’s sleepy glance lingered on Gus as she rode in the wagon behind Virginia and Jack Hamilton. Jack turned and looked back, too, and Gus wondered what it would be like to see him every day at Starlight Point.

CHAPTER THREE

GUS PARKED IN front of her bakery on the Starlight Point midway. The wide concrete avenue had snack and souvenir shops down both sides with skyway cars running overhead. A few rides and a theater were mixed in among the shops, most notably a historic carousel right in front of her bakery’s new pink awning.

The back of the van, usually outfitted for transporting wedding cakes, held three large convection ovens. One for each of the bakeshops Gus was leasing for the summer. She had another location in the Wonderful West and one in the Lake Breeze Hotel.

Last year the Point’s baker retired only weeks before Gus came home to Bayside. It seemed like a sign from the baking universe that she should make the leap. Now, though, with the sudden death of Ford Hamilton, she needed to get the paperwork in order to confirm the verbal contract they’d negotiated. Not usually the nervous sort, Gus wondered what changes Jack Hamilton might make.

She opened her van doors and stared at the ovens, hands on hips. She glanced at the side door of her bakery.

“How are you planning to unload all that?” The newly familiar voice sent a ripple through her.

Gus had wondered the same thing. Optimism could only get a girl so far. She needed muscle.

And Jack appeared to have plenty of it.

“I’m taking suggestions,” she said. She could use all the help she could find. Getting three bakeshops equipped, staffed, supplied and running in the next ten days would be as easy as teaching a cat to shave.

He shrugged off his dark gray suit jacket and slung it over the open van door. Gus thought he should shed the crisp white dress shirt, too, just to be on the safe side. But he rolled up the sleeves instead.

“I’m not busy right now,” he said.

Gus laughed. She gestured at the chaos everywhere around them. Maintenance trucks and crews crawled along the midway like ants over ice cream spilled on the sidewalk. Other vendors parked in front of shops and hauled merchandise. The skyway cars groaned into action overhead, shaking off their winter’s rest.

“Right,” she said. “This place probably runs itself.”

Jack looked at the overhead cars and then rubbed his eyes with the heels of both hands. “Sure. How about we trade? I’ll put on an apron with those little bells, and you can wear my name tag, which pretty much asks for trouble.”

The cell phone in his coat pocket rang, vibrating loudly against the metal van door.

“Are you going to answer that?” she asked.

“Can’t. I’m busy helping a vendor I just met. I wondered who would replace our old baker. I grew up stealing sweets from him.” He gestured toward the pink awning. “I like the improvement already.”

Gus pulled a two-wheeled dolly out of the van. “I’m just getting started. I should have been here weeks ago, but I’ve been busy with spring wedding season.”

“How are you going to manage summer wedding season?”

“One cake at a time,” she said as she climbed into the back of the van.

Gus shoved the first boxed oven to the rear and Jack manhandled it onto the cart. She held the door and watched him muscle it right into a corner of her midway bakery.

“Can I talk you into coming to my bakeries in the hotel and the Wonderful West? I still have two ovens in the van.”

She figured there was zero chance of this happening. The owner of Starlight Point wasn’t likely to waste any more of his countdown-to-opening-day time. Especially since he hardly knew her, but now he knew how heavy those boxes were.

Jack glanced at the wall clock. Its hands were stopped, the unplugged cord swinging beneath it. “Looks like I have plenty of time,” he said.

A few of the other vendors waved and then paused, a puzzled expression on their faces as they saw Jack Hamilton toss his suit coat on the floor of the van, shut the back doors and climb in the shotgun seat with Gus at the wheel.

“Do you usually help vendors move in?” she asked.

“There is nothing usual about this year,” he said, unrolling his window. “Turn just before the Scrambler and we can squeeze out the beach gate and drive down the boardwalk to the hotel.”

It was too early for anyone to be tempted by Lake Huron’s cold waters, but lifeguards swept the beach and set up chairs as they passed by.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Gus said.

Jack kept his head turned, watching the beach and lake. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Gus wanted to ask how he planned to manage the park and if she would see a contract anytime soon. She regretted the handshake and verbal agreement she’d made with Ford Hamilton. She’d planned to sign the papers a month ago, but then everything changed.

The financial risks she’d taken woke her up in the night, but her problems were nothing compared to Jack’s. Losing a parent and gaining a huge family business in one fell swoop? That was a sleep stealer.

“Should be a quick drop-off at the hotel bakeshop. And I bet you know a shortcut through the Wonderful West to my bakery.”

“We could take the train,” he suggested, turning to her with a hint of a smile. “But there’s a shoot-out on the tracks right behind the Last Chance. I hope you don’t mind listening to gunfire all summer.”

She laughed. “That wasn’t in the contract.”

Jack’s smile faded and he returned to looking out the window as she maneuvered the van into the hotel’s loading dock. He was quiet as they shoved the second box out and deposited it in the bakeshop.

He directed her through a back gate and she drove from the outer loop road straight into the Wonderful West. She dodged queue lines, trees and maintenance trucks as she drove on “The Trail.” A tall, slim girl with a messenger bag slung over her shoulder walked along the trail, her back to them.

Suddenly, Jack reached over and blew the van’s horn, brushing his fingers over Gus’s on the steering wheel.

“My sister,” he said, grinning.

Hand over her heart with an expression of surprise mixed with homicide, the tall girl mouthed the word jerkface as they passed her.

“That was loud and clear,” Gus said.

“Evie loves me. I’m way less irritating than our sister, June.”

“Should I stop?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Evie’s on a mission right now. And so are we.”

“Is she your...um...copresident?”

“No. Still one year left of college. She’ll work here for the summer, but just a regular job. Not as an owner. She deserves one more carefree summer.”

His voice was low and joyless, like an echo outside a funeral. Was it really so bad owning an amusement park?

“Does Evie like to bake? Maybe she could work for me?” Gus asked.

“I doubt she can bake—she certainly wouldn’t have learned from our mom. She’s majoring in accounting. Getting her CPA.”

“Even better. I might just hire her to manage the accounts for my three shops. I need someone strong I can trust, or I’ll never make it.”

“I know what you mean,” he said.

They pulled up to the Last Chance Bakery and wrangled the final oven across the uneven planked porch. Evie swung through the saloon doors just as they slid the oven into place. She had a beautiful smile and looked a lot like her brother, with a few exceptions. Her hair was several shades closer to blond and her eyes were almost green.

“I’m Evie,” she said, sticking out her hand for Gus to shake. “And I didn’t mean you were a jerkface. I know who blew that horn.”

“I’m glad. And glad to meet you. I was just talking to your brother about snapping you up before someone else does.”

“A job?”

“Managing the books for my bakeries here.”

“I would love it,” she said. “I usually work for a vendor because there’s less conflict of interest. Speaking of which,” she continued as she rummaged through her bag, “I’m out delivering contracts to all the vendors right now.”

“Gotta go,” Jack said. “My secretary’s called fifteen times and she’ll probably get on the PA system if I don’t show up.”

Without another word, Jack speed-walked across the bakery’s porch and headed up the trail to the front of the park. Gus wondered why he’d ignored the phone calls for the past hour, but she imagined there was a lot she didn’t know about Jack and his business. Perhaps Evie showing up was the convenient exit he’d been hoping for.

“I’ll come by later when I’m done,” Evie said. “This is the best job offer I’ve had. Especially since the airbrushing stand didn’t work out last year and I’m no good at scooping ice cream. Numbers I understand.”

* * *

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Jack locked the men’s room door and leaned against it, eyes closed, for a full minute before heading for the sink. Cold water rushed over his hands as he scrubbed them mercilessly. Warm water would’ve been better for washing away the grease and construction dust he’d picked up on the latest inspection of the Sea Devil, but he needed to cool off. He stared at the rivers of water rolling over his fingers, imagining all his problems sluicing away.

“Gotta get a grip,” he said. Jack dried his hands, smoothed down and buttoned his sleeves, rolled his shoulders. He refused to look at his own face—his father’s face, thirty years younger—in the mirror.

Dorothea waited for him outside his office door. Her desk straddled the space between his office and the one that was formerly his father’s. No one used Ford Hamilton’s office now, leaving Dorothea half-adrift.

“One of the vendors stopped in to see you while you were out on the Sea Devil.”

“Which one?”

“Augusta Murphy.”

Jack considered Dorothea for a moment. She had to be in her late fifties and had worked for Starlight Point for decades. Maybe if he asked her advice? Maybe she knew all the things his father hadn’t told his own son about the way he was doing business. Doubtful.

“Very tall and very pretty.”

Jack smiled for the first time in hours.

“She also seemed very mad.”

His smile vanished.

“Is she coming back?”

“Wants you to come to her bakery in the hotel. Seems to think she can tell you what to do with your time,” Dorothea said. She grinned at Jack. “I thought that was my job.”

“I planned to stop by the Lake Breeze this afternoon anyway. I want to see if it’s close to being ready for opening weekend. Guess it wouldn’t be much out of my way to see what she wants.”

“I told her not to count on it.”

“Thank you, Dorothea. I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

WHEN JACK ZIPPED over to the hotel on one of the many loaner employee bicycles they kept all over the Point, he hoped to have a chance to talk to Gus alone. He’d been up late worrying about the vendor contracts. His father had always negotiated those, giving Jack only a vague idea of where that income fit into the general scheme of things. He hadn’t even known Aunt Augusta’s was replacing the retired baker until he’d grilled his mother over lunch downtown. Sadly, he was beginning to realize his mother had only a cursory idea of how Starlight Point ran.

Looking in from the outside, everyone probably figured he was privy to all his father’s business decisions. If they only knew. To write up the formal contracts, Jack had researched some boilerplate industry standards, pulled out five years’ worth of Starlight Point contracts and run the ideas past the foods manager. Jimmy Henry had raised his eyebrows when Jack wanted to review the fees and profit share from the vendors.

“Never looked at those before,” he’d said. “Your father only asked me when he thought one of them might cut into our sales. Generally, we get the sit-down business and the vendors get the stand-up. Full-service restaurants are ours, snack and drink stands are theirs. Worked that way for years.”

“I know, but what do you think of the rent and the percent of the profits we charge? Could we get away with raising them?”

“Search me. Can’t speak for any of them and haven’t seen their returns. Maybe they’ve been making out like bandits all these years. Maybe you’ll break ’em if you raise the rent and they’ll all pull out. Wish I could help you, but I run our sit-downs and only get involved if someone competes with my restaurants,” he’d repeated, as if washing his hands of the issue.

“Worried about any of these vendors competing with us?”

“Are they the same ones as last year?”

“All except for the three bakeries. New owner.”

Jimmy had shrugged. “Bakers are bakers.”

When Jack entered the hotel lobby, he wondered if Jimmy had ever met Gus. Perched on the check-in counter addressing a group of twenty or so people, Gus did not look like an average baker.

The room shifted in his direction when he entered the lobby. His tie was loose, his suit coat flapped and he had a rubber band securing his right pant leg. Like his father, he always wore a suit at work, but getting his pants caught in the bicycle chain two summers ago had been enough to teach him a lesson.

He sat in a plush lobby chair, pulled off his black dress shoe and jerked off the rubber band. Everyone watched him. It was as if the guest of honor had entered a surprise birthday party half an hour before anyone expected him.

Gus strode across the lobby, the group right behind her, and stood so close Jack couldn’t get up without looking really awkward. He hadn’t gotten his shoe back on, and now he felt exposed, trapped. Please don’t let there be a hole in my sock. At five foot eleven, Gus was already imposing. And gorgeous. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed, hair a little wild.

“Thank you for coming to our meeting,” she said tersely. Each word dripped with ice.

Jack relaxed in the chair, draped an arm across the back and crossed one leg over the other. His black dress shoe knocked against Gus’s shin but neither of them gave an inch. If she wanted to unleash some kind of righteous fury on him about the contract, he wasn’t backing down in front of a lobby of vendors.

“Didn’t know it was a formal meeting,” he said.

“It is now. We want to talk about these terms.” She waved the contract at him. The twenty or so other vendors behind her had similar white papers clutched in their fingers. No one looked happy. Even the ones who’d been here for years. Maybe he’d gone too far. But now he was stuck.

“Go ahead,” Jack said coolly, his glance returning to Gus’s face. “Talk.”

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. Jack would’ve liked to tell her she was beautiful when she was angry, but the last thing he wanted was to look flushed in front of a group of ticked-off vendors. Why did Gus have this effect on him and why the heck had she set him up like this? He would have liked a private conversation with her about the lease terms. But this felt more like a sneak attack than a negotiation.

“Twenty thousand for the space and twenty percent of the profits is not the deal I negotiated with Ford Hamilton last fall,” she said.

Other vendors fanned out behind her so they formed a half circle. They nodded in agreement, entrapping Jack in a back-down-or-be-a-butthead situation.

“In case you haven’t noticed,” he said slowly, “Ford Hamilton is dead. His verbal contracts are null and void.”

Several of the vendors—Bernie from Bernie’s Famous Boardwalk Fries and Tosha from Tosha’s Homemade Ice Cream—gasped and shook their heads. They’d known him since he was a little boy climbing on their counters and begging for free samples. They’d worked with his father for two decades or more. Maybe he was making a mistake...

“So...?” Gus prodded. “You really plan to renege on the deal we all thought we had—ten thousand and ten percent—on a technicality?” The hard lines of her mouth showed no signs of softening. She plucked the rubber band from the arm of his chair and started snapping it with her fingers.

Jack felt her words like a punch to his chest, knocking his breath away and spiking adrenaline through his veins. “My father’s death is a lot more than a technicality. If you don’t like the deal, don’t take it. Nobody’s forcing you to sign.”

Her mouth dropped open a little and she stepped back. Only a small step, but enough to give him room to stand. He topped her by only four inches, and together they looked like giants in front of a pack of smaller villagers, all angry. Seeing the accusatory faces of the vendors didn’t do a thing for Jack’s mood. He knew he should save face, make a graceful exit, schedule an actual meeting to discuss the situation. But not now. Hard retreat was the only way his tenuous grasp on his emotions wouldn’t crack.

He stared at the lobby wall behind the group, anger, pain and frustration tightening his jaw and spine. He couldn’t look them in the eye. Wouldn’t. It was going to be a season, maybe several, of tough choices. He’d have to get used to it.

“I’ll give you until tomorrow afternoon to sign the new contracts and return them to my office. You are under no obligation to lease space at Starlight Point. If you don’t return the signed contracts by this time tomorrow, I’ll assume you’re backing out and replace you immediately.”

Jack turned and headed for the beach entrance, only pausing a second when he felt the sharp zing of a rubber band on the back of his head as he slid through the doors.

CHAPTER FOUR

TOSHA PUT HER arm around Gus, her head barely reaching Gus’s shoulder. “I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or turn him over my knee and spank him,” she said.

“You got a good aim,” the hot-dog vendor said. “I say we elect you as our official leader.”

“I’m the newest one here,” Gus objected.

“But you’ve got three bakeries,” Bernie said. “And I’ll bet you’ve got as much riding on this season as the rest of us.”

Gus thought of the payments on her business loan. No kidding.

“What do we do?” she asked, dropping into the chair vacated by Jack Hamilton. “Tell him to go jump in the lake and take his extra ten thousand and ten percent with him?”

“That’d sure be nice,” Hank said. He tugged at his butcher’s-style shirt, which had Hank’s Hot Dogs embroidered on it. “But I was planning on going to Florida this winter with the money I make this summer. Arthritis is getting to my wife.”

“If we all walk, he won’t be able to replace us in time for opening day, will he?” Gus asked.

The other vendors shifted nervously and exchanged swift glances.

“Probably not right away,” Hank said. “It would put the hurt to him for a while at least.”

“But he’d replace us eventually and we’d be out,” Bernie said. “Permanently.”

“Nobody wants to walk away,” Tosha said. “This has been our summer home for years. We all loved Jack’s father, and those Hamilton kids have practically grown up under our noses. They’re like family. Right?”