Unfortunately, he could come up with only two people on the island who might be able to help him.
And he was in no hurry to dredge up the past with either of them.
CHAPTER TEN
“WHAT DID THE COASTIES WANT?” Alyssa had returned from the Cape and now stood in the office where Louisa had set up her Big Dream whiteboard.
The whiteboard had been with her for years—it was a staple in her creative process. Anything and everything she thought of could go up on the whiteboard. Even if an idea didn’t make it past the board, it often cleared the way for an idea that did.
Currently the whiteboard was empty.
“You could’ve told me it was the Coast Guard I was meeting with,” Louisa scolded.
Ally looked sheepish. “You might not have taken the meeting if I’d done that.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“So what did they want?” Ally stood in front of her, looking put together and proper, as she always did. Somehow she managed to put up with Louisa’s tendencies toward the opposite, and Louisa was grateful. She knew The Good Life would really be floundering if it weren’t for Ally’s business sense.
Louisa filled her in on her meeting with Duncan and Cody, and when she finished, she drew Ally’s attention to the blank whiteboard.
“I see you’ve made progress,” Ally said.
Louisa sighed. “I think almost dying was bad for my creativity.”
“You think?”
The door opened, and Maggie walked in. “You’ve been back here for hours. You need to take a break.”
“I need to figure out a fundraiser idea for the Coast Guard,” Louisa said.
Maggie furrowed her brow, and again, Louisa wondered what would be the least offensive way to buy the woman a pair of tweezers.
“What’ve you got so far?” Maggie plopped down as if she’d been invited to do so. Louisa wondered if the old woman ever planned on going back home.
Louisa glanced at the whiteboard.
“What are we raising money for?” Ally asked.
“Jackson Wirth’s family,” Louisa said.
Ally frowned. “That’s a bad idea.”
“Why?”
“Because the Wirth family has been very outspoken against the Coast Guard.”
“Right, so we’re taking the higher ground here,” Louisa said. “It’s good PR.”
“Good PR would be doing that interview with McKenzie Palmer.” Ally sat on the couch and crossed one leg over the other.
“How do you know about that?” Louisa moved to the other side of the desk and sat. She didn’t like feeling cornered.
“She called me,” Ally said. “Look, the Coast Guard needs to expand their reach in the community, but so do we, Lou.”
“I agree, but not at my expense.” Louisa’s accident made her feel foolish—why would she want to plaster that all over the Internet?
“Well, we at least need to get it out there that you and Cody are working together on whatever this is.”
“No, we don’t.” Louisa leaned forward, arms on the desk. “That’s the last thing we need to do.”
“Are you kidding? People will go crazy for the idea. You working on a project with the man who saved your life? People will eat it up. Everyone loves a good romance.”
“This is not a romance,” Louisa said. “This is business. Right now I need you to focus on ours.”
“Fine, but you’re missing out on a great opportunity.”
“And a great guy,” Maggie added.
Louisa disagreed. She needed to think. She needed to fill the whiteboard with ideas, the same way she had a million times before. “Can we focus, please?”
Both women hesitated, then finally relented.
“We could do a ‘Men of the Coast Guard’ calendar?” Alyssa suggested. “I’d buy that.”
Maggie waggled her fur babies. “Me too.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. All right, so she was on her own.
For whatever reason, that intimidated her for the first time she could remember.
On Friday morning, after hours of brainstorming, Louisa drove toward the Coast Guard office, eager to present the men with several options she’d finally come up with for potential fundraising ideas.
Every Valentine’s Day, the Coast Guard held a community dance, and it was always a big hit—that was the kind of event they needed here. Something that would draw in the community, make the Coast Guard look good and effectively raise funds for a very worthwhile cause.
She had a handful of ideas, but one in particular that excited her.
The idea had been Maggie’s. Apparently the old woman had been inspired by a rerun of Gilmore Girls.
“Did you ever watch that show, Lou?” Maggie had asked her as she shoveled a spoonful of coleslaw into her mouth.
“’Course I did,” Louisa told her.
“Then you’ll agree my idea is a winner.”
In the end, Louisa did agree, but she wasn’t about to say so. Instead, they spent another two hours brainstorming possibilities, and all she could think was Cody isn’t going to go for any of these.
Now she parked her teal Vespa outside the Coast Guard station at Brant Point and inhaled a sharp breath. Before she could remove her helmet, she glanced up and saw McKenzie Palmer standing outside the building—and at her side, Cody Boggs.
Louisa wanted to run for cover, but it wasn’t like her Vespa was easy to hide. Did these sweet little motorbikes come in camouflage?
She watched with a little too much curiosity for a long moment as McKenzie tossed her head back, flipping her perfectly styled long blonde waves and resting a hand on Cody’s bicep.
Gross. How obvious could she be?
But even as she had the thought, it occurred to her that Cody was smiling. At McKenzie Palmer. And they looked really lovely together.
She got off the bike and pretended to be searching for something in her cross-body bag, purposely turned away from the scene playing out in front of her.
“Louisa Chambers, as I live and breathe.”
McKenzie had a Southern accent. It was curious because as far as Louisa knew, the woman was from Iowa, but who was she to judge? Though she thought if a person was going to fake an accent, it would be smarter to pretend to be British. That accent was simply delightful. But this put-on drawl of McKenzie’s? No thank you.
Yet the woman had influence in the community and especially online. Louisa couldn’t afford to make an enemy of her. Not that Louisa had enemies.
She turned to face McKenzie.
“Did you come down to thank your hero in person?” McKenzie’s smile spread across her face like cream cheese on a bagel.
Great, now I’m hungry.
“I’ve already thanked him,” Louisa said.
“He sure is hunky,” McKenzie said. “Single, too. I asked.” She raised her eyebrows. Unlike Maggie, McKenzie Palmer had invested in a pair of tweezers. Her neatly coiffed brows matched her perfectly groomed everything else. She looked like she’d just stepped off a magazine shoot. And judging by her blog, she most likely had. Sometimes Louisa wondered if McKenzie had hired a photographer to follow her around all day, snapping photos of her posing on the cobblestone streets of Nantucket. Seriously, who took those photos?