Why had she agreed to this lunch?
“Louisa, Eric has some great ideas on how to make your business legitimate,” her father said.
“I’m sorry?”
“A business manager might not be a bad idea.”
“He’s a hotel manager. Not a business manager.” Louisa’s stomach churned. Could she leave without appearing too rude? “And I think Alyssa and I are doing pretty well for ourselves.”
“Of course,” her dad said. “It’s just a thought.”
“I’ll leave you to your meal,” Eric said. He turned to Louisa. “Maybe we can get coffee sometime? Catch up?”
Louisa mumbled a response and Eric walked away.
“Such a nice young man, Louisa,” her mother said. “I still don’t understand why you ended things with him.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would,” Louisa said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Louisa inhaled. She didn’t need to have an argument with her mother. While she wished her parents—and Eric, for that matter—would view her as an adult, an intelligent adult who was perfectly capable of running her own business, they didn’t. The only way to change that was to act like an adult. And that meant not throwing a tantrum or lugging around her childish feelings.
“It was good to hear from you,” her mom said. “I wasn’t sure when we would get to see you—you’re always so busy.”
“You didn’t tell me you were back.”
Her mother draped her cloth napkin on her lap, then glanced up at Louisa. “Of course we did.”
“You actually didn’t.”
Her mother’s eyes moved upward as if she were searching a mental memory bank. “Hm. I could’ve sworn I told you.” She waved her perfectly manicured hand in the air. “Oh, well. How are things? How is your little business doing?”
“It’s not a little business, Mother.”
Her dad laughed. “Louisa, when are you going to come to your senses and go back to work at the hotel? Or here? Eric said he’d hire you back in a heartbeat.”
“You asked Eric if he’d give me a job?”
“It came up in conversation. Nobody understands what it is you have against him. Sounded like he’d be willing to give you another chance on the romance front too.” Dad smiled as if he’d just issued the best news ever.
Should she try to explain herself? Should she tell her parents that she didn’t want to be with someone who made her feel like her ideas were silly and frivolous? Should she tell them she didn’t like it that they sometimes made her feel that way too?
“Should we order?” Louisa asked.
They picked up their menus and looked them over in silence.
“I heard you ran into Cody.” Louisa didn’t look up from her menu.
Neither did her father. Her mother, on the other hand, slapped hers down on the table. “Cody Boggs?”
“Oh yeah,” her father said. “I saw him at a coffee shop. They were giving him a standing ovation for saving someone’s life.”
Cody hadn’t mentioned that part.
“He saved someone’s life?” Mom asked.
“Someone who wasn’t wearing a life jacket.” He punctuated his sentence with a knowing What have I always said? look.
Louisa lifted the menu a little higher. Cody had refrained from ratting her out. That made her heart squeeze a little. Gosh, she loved that man.
She closed her eyes behind her menu and finally blurted out, “It was me.”
She had their attention.
“What was you?” her mom asked, the lilt of her accent slightly more pronounced.
“The person who forgot the life vest.”
“Oh, Louisa, what have we always told you?” her mother said. “You could’ve died out there.”
“I know, Mom,” she said.
“Are you okay?” her father asked.
“Sure, I’m fine. The wind took a turn and the current took me out farther than I expected it to. But I learned my lesson.”
Her mother shook her head. “Really, Lou. Sometimes I think you should move back in with us. You simply cannot be trusted to make wise decisions.”
Louisa’s eyes dipped back to her menu. There was nothing worse than proving her parents right—and she seemed to have a knack for getting herself into situations that did just that.
No wonder nobody took her seriously.
Eric reappeared in the restaurant, caught her gaze, and held it. Still no butterflies—only the horribly uncertain feeling that she’d left a trail of mistakes behind her. And she didn’t know how to clean it up.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE FOLLOWING DAY, CODY MET WITH LOUISA at the station for an update about the Coastie auction. He gave her a list of men prepared to participate, along with the details he’d collected about each one.
She flipped through them hurriedly, scanning the facts. Today she was all business. He knew he’d hurt her feelings. He should apologize.
“Is that what you needed?”
She tucked the pages inside her padded notebook. “Yep.”
“Louisa—”
“Just make sure that everyone is there on time Friday.” She pulled another sheet of paper from the notebook and handed it to him. “Dressed in uniform and looking sharp, please.”
He took the page. “I will.”
“We’ve sold a decent number of tickets, but anything you can do to help spread the word would be great too.”
He nodded in agreement.
She steeled her jaw. “The next hurdle is a big one.”
“How can I help?”
Louisa straightened and pushed her hair behind her shoulder. The simple move drove him crazy. He wanted to run his fingers through those long red waves, which was ludicrous considering what a stellar job he’d done ticking her off yesterday.
“We need to go see Jackson Wirth’s parents.”
Cody frowned. “Why?”
“We can’t do a fundraiser for them without their permission,” she said. “It just feels wrong.”
“Giving someone money feels wrong?”
She looked at him then, and he felt like he’d just been zapped by an electric current.
“It’s about more than that,” she said. “We’re dragging him back into the limelight. Mr. and Mrs. Wirth might not appreciate that.”
“And if they say no?”
Louisa drew in a breath. “There are lots of great causes out there.”
“When do we go?”
“I’m going tomorrow,” she said. “Alyssa set up a meeting, but she didn’t give them any details.”
“I can make that work.”
“We have to take the ferry,” Louisa said. “He’s in a hospital on the Cape.”
A twinge of excitement coupled with a wave of nausea raced through him at the idea that he would be spending the better part of the day with her.
“I’ll be there.”
A pause hung between them, and finally she tucked her notebook inside her bag. “Great. I think that’s everything. I’ll see myself out.”