CRISIS AVERTED, EVIE THOUGHT. But when would the next one come? The daily life of Starlight Point was madness. A beautiful madness that ran through her veins like sunshine. And sometimes rain.
The employee dorms would remain open, but she had no doubt Scott Bennett would sweep through with his book of fire codes whenever he thought their guard was down. Following him through the dorm, floor by floor and room by room, made for the most exhausting morning she could remember. With every door they knocked on, her spirits sank because she dreaded the tangle of extension cords they’d find. Or the doors half blocked with furniture. Or the furtive hot plates. Ashtrays. Candles.
It was a disaster waiting to happen.
Scott was right about the reckless habits of summer staff. He was right about the vulnerable condition of the aged building. Of course he was. But there was something bubbling just under the surface of his determination that made her wonder what force drove him and when he would boil over.
She’d watched his smooth, confident stride as he authoritatively made his way down the halls of her building. His stern profile as he’d waited for doors to open. His mouth drawn in a tight line as he’d replaced a missing fire extinguisher in a hallway.
He’d be handsome if his dark eyes weren’t tainted with anger and his square jaw weren’t set quite so sternly. But there’s something about him…
Evie’s shoulders sagged as she passed through the marina gate and headed for her office. The sun shone brightly and the midway was dotted with lunchtime crowds.
“You need ice cream,” Tosha called out, leaning over the counter of her stand. “No one as young as you should look so serious.”
Evie stopped. Smiled politely. She liked Tosha, had grown up with the woman and her pink apron, and had even worked for her the summer she was fifteen. But why did everyone suddenly want to point out how young she was? At twenty-three, wasn’t she old enough to get through a day without a well-meaning old friend trying to offer her an ice-cream cone as if she were a lost child? When Jack had taken over the park a few years ago at the age of twenty-seven, had people offered him lollipops and cookies?
Probably. His sweet tooth was notorious.
“Running Starlight Point is serious work,” Evie said, keeping her tone level.
“Nonsense. Look around.” Tosha swept an arm at the blue sky, which was only obstructed by graceful trees swaying and the cable cars gliding overhead. “Couldn’t ask for anything more than this.”
Evie stopped under the pink awning with an ice-cream cone painted on it. “Do you have mint chocolate chip?”
“Single or double?”
Evie glanced at the clock on the stand’s wall and did the math. “If I have a double, it’ll count for lunch, too. Saves me time in the long run.”
Tosha laughed and shook the water drops off a silver ice-cream scooper. “You always were a practical girl, even when you were a kid. I remember you coming in here with dollar bills clutched in your little hands and figuring out the best deal for the money.”
Evie laughed. “I think you always gave me more than I deserved.”
“No,” Tosha said. “You deserved every ounce.”
Evie slid her hand into her pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill.
“No way,” Tosha said, handing a two-scoop cone across the counter. “This one’s for luck.”
“Do I need luck?”
“With all the big plans you have this summer, you need luck, time, good weather and ice cream. Not necessarily in that order.”
Evie took a bite of the ice cream and lingered under the awning for a moment. Her eyes fell on a shiny red fire extinguisher mounted on the wall next to the side door of the stand, a giant reflective sticker pointing to it. And there was another reflective sticker on the door that said Exit.
Those signs are serious overkill.
Tosha noticed Evie’s glance. “Like my new safety equipment?”
Evie nodded, reserving comment as she waited for what she knew Tosha would say next.
“I had a visit from the new fire inspector who’s trying to fill out his new boots by puffing himself up. I’m not the only one, either.”
“Didn’t you already have a fire extinguisher?” Evie asked.
Tosha shrugged. “Had a bucket of water. Worked for years.”
“Well,” Evie said. She hesitated, wondering if she should tell Tosha that Scott Bennett was the bane of her existence, too. Maybe not. It probably wouldn’t help, anyway. “I hope you never have to use the bucket of water or the fire extinguisher. Thanks for the ice cream.”
Tosha waved her away and Evie took a walk along the midway. When she was younger, she would walk hand-in-hand with her father and they would play Visitor. He would take off his name tag and they’d pretend it was their first visit to Starlight Point. As a child, Evie thought it was a fun game devised for her entertainment, but she had taken up the habit this summer and realized her father had a brilliant ulterior motive.
As she walked past the theater, she looked at it as if she had never seen it before. Fresh eyes. What if she didn’t own the place? What would she notice? The heavy old marquee hanging over the theater entrance had been transformed during the winter. There were still flashing lights, but it was a computer screen that could be changed quickly to advertise shows, park events and times. No more black letters slid onto a white track.
Was it an improvement? Evie gazed at it. Yes. Her sister, June, would certainly think so. Coming home last summer and revitalizing both the theater buildings and their live shows had been June’s achievement. And she hadn’t slowed down. This year’s shows in the Midway Theater and the Starlight Saloon in the Wonderful West would open in a few days. And they would be even more spectacular than last year’s Broadway-themed performances. The new scrolling sign advertised a “Salute to Summer Extravaganza” with a promise of music and dance to celebrate the season.
June saw the fruits of her labor every day. Her music, choreography, costume choices and overall vision had made live shows more than an afterthought or just an extra offering at the point. Exit surveys from the previous year suggested there were guests who returned just to see the shows. June’s effort and sacrifice had paid off. She had given up her career on Broadway to come home and be part of the family business, and she didn’t appear to regret it for an instant.
What am I giving up if I devote my life to Starlight Point?
The carousel lurched into action with a burst of organ music, and Evie watched the horses blur past, going up and down on the same track they’d been on for decades. She glanced at the concrete beneath her feet. The same path she’d walked with her father for years.
There was no place else she wanted to be, but her path now was not the one she’d imagined as a girl.
* * *
SCOTT HANDED HIS SISTER Caroline a fifty-dollar bill. “That’s for food. If you insist on being a security guard, you should bulk up a little.”
Caroline laughed. Her slight build looked even slimmer in the all black uniform of the Starlight Point Police Department. Only twenty, she wasn’t licensed to carry a gun. Yet. But she could still do foot patrol. Direct traffic. Keep an eye on the summer crowds.
“You’re an excellent big brother,” she said, snapping the crisp bill from his fingers before he could play keep-away. She slipped it into her pocket, picked up a plastic tray and cut in front of him in the cafeteria line. “I’ll report to Mom that I’m keeping an eye on you and you’re behaving very well.”
Scott raised an eyebrow.
“You’re still buying lunch today, right?” Caroline asked.
He nodded as he shoved a tray along the line at the employee cafeteria. “This is probably the only day this month we’ll have the same schedule, so I can afford your grilled cheese and salad.”
Scott took a cheeseburger and fries from under the warming lights, added a pudding parfait from the cooler and filled a paper cup from the soda machine. He paid for his sister’s tray and his and followed her to a table by the window.
The employee cafeteria was industrial in furnishings, but the view from the wall of windows added a shot of beauty. Situated between the employee entrance along the beach and the backside of the Lake Breeze Hotel, the staff cafeteria and recreation center offered glimpses of Lake Huron through the trees. The cafeteria served inexpensive food for the minimum-wage summer workers who lived at the Point and counted on three meals a day.
“Are you still insisting on living in the employee dorm or have you decided to do the smart thing?” Scott asked. He took the radio off his belt and set it next to the tray.
“Living with my overprotective big brother in a bachelor pad in downtown Bayside is the smart thing?” Caroline took her radio off her belt and set it next to his, mimicking his action and smiling at him.
“Safer thing. I almost had to close the dorm a few days ago because of fire code violations.”
“Of course you did,” she said, smiling at him. “I was working at the time, but some of my friends reported a very grouchy fire inspector writing up violations and confiscating their extension cords.”
Scott took a deep breath and reserved comment.
“If I lived with you, I’d have to find a way to work every day,” Caroline said.
Scott chewed his burger and watched his sister squeeze dressing over her salad. “There’s a ferry.”
“Takes too long. Sometimes I might get called in on short notice if something exciting is happening.”
Why does my sister have to be so difficult?
“Like a big fight or a gun-toting maniac,” Caroline added, grinning at her brother.
“You know I hate this,” he said.
“You hadn’t mentioned it.”
“If you lived in Bayside, you could use my truck. I walk to work in Bayside and take the ferry here. How about that?”
“Is that your final offer?”
“I’ve offered you everything I have.”
Caroline reached for his pudding parfait and Scott snatched it. He snapped the plastic lid off and gave her one of the two spoons he’d picked up.
“You’re the best,” she said.
“And you,” he said, sharing his dessert, “are driving me nuts.”
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Who do you think watches over me in college?”
Scott sucked in a breath. Caroline only had one year left before she graduated with a criminal justice degree. She was completing her police officer’s training concurrently and, in less than a year, she would be putting her life on the line as a cop.
“You should get a dog,” he said. “A nice German shepherd.”
“I don’t need a dog. I can take care of myself. This job will be great experience and, who knows, maybe I’ll come back next year and work here so I can shoot you if you get on my nerves.”
She dipped her finger into the whipped cream part of the parfait and dabbed a dollop on Scott’s nose. “Or maybe you’ll need me to protect you someday,” she added.
Caroline glanced over at the drink machine where a tall blond woman was filling a soda cup. She waved and caught the woman’s attention as she snapped a plastic lid on her cup.
How does Caroline know Evie Hamilton? And why is she coming over here?
“Evie,” Caroline said as soon as she approached. “Sit with us.”
Evie stopped next to the table but didn’t pull out a chair. “I’m on my way to the Wonderful West to check on a guest complaint about the shooting gallery.”
“Pacifists?” Caroline asked.
Evie laughed. “No. A matter of economy. It seems our machines are eating quarters at an alarming rate. Highway robbery.”
Caroline smiled and pointed at her brother. “This is my brother, Scott.”
Scott locked eyes with Evie and his pulse throbbed in his neck. Her eyes were green like summer leaves. He had noticed them before.
“And this,” Caroline continued, gesturing at Evie, “is Evie Hamilton. She owns the place so you have to be nice to her.”
“We’ve met,” Evie said, her expression neutral.
“Was he nice?” Caroline asked.
“No.”
Evie thinks I wasn’t nice? Was I supposed to be nice about slipshod safety?
“I’m not surprised,” Caroline said. “He’s been known to be too serious. Although the whipped cream on his nose makes him more approachable.”
To his horror, Evie zeroed in on his nose while Caroline took a swipe at him with her napkin.
He had to change the subject.
“How did you two meet?” Scott asked.
“Self-defense training,” Evie said. She pulled out the chair next to Caroline and sat on the edge. “I happened to sit in on the early season orientation for the police department because the safety forces here are under my jurisdiction.”
So that was why she’d wanted to talk about the price of fire trucks. And why she’d been the one to walk through the employee dorms with him. She was not only his boss as owner of the place, she was also in charge of the safety department. His department.
“I was about to take down a guy twice my size,” Caroline said, “but I volunteered to spar with Evie because none of the other guys would touch her.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Scott said. “Who wouldn’t want to risk his job by tossing his boss to the mat?”
Not that he had much room to talk considering how difficult he was making things for Evie and the rest of the management at Starlight Point. Sparring with Evie is not the smart way to keep my job.
Caroline shrugged. “They were probably afraid of losing. Evie’s tougher than she looks.”
In build, Evie was much like his sister. Long, willowy limbs, delicate bones. He pictured one of the burly police officers grappling with her and it made him go cold, just like the feeling he got when he made the mistake of picturing his sister at work.
Evie laughed. “Let’s just hope I’m tough enough to handle kids who lost their allowance to the shooting gallery machines.”
“I hope you have a bag of quarters in your purse,” Caroline said.
“Even better. A preloaded card good for five hundred rounds of ammo. Their trigger fingers will wear out before they run out of bullets.”
Evie took a sip of her soda and settled into the seat a little more.
“I’m curious,” she said. “You two aren’t from Bayside, are you?”
Caroline shook her head. “About an hour away. We used to come here sometimes, though. School field trips and a family trip once a summer.”
“So how did you both end up working here?”
“Scott got a full-time job for the Bayside Fire Department over the winter. He’s my only family in this area since our parents retired and moved to Arizona. They think Scott keeps an eye on me so they can be happy in the sunshine.”
“Lucky for them,” Evie commented.
“I was looking for a summer job and some of the guys in my police academy class told me about working security here. I thought it would be good experience. Maybe I’ll come back and be a bonded officer next year.”
“That sounds terrific,” Evie said. “We could use a full-time female officer on our department. Do you live with your brother in Bayside?”
“No,” Caroline said, sending Scott a crooked grin. “I live in the employee dorm by the marina.”
“Really?” Evie turned a raised-eyebrow glance on Scott. “What do you think of the dorms?”
Scott wasn’t sure if the question was directed toward him or his sister. Caroline saved him by jumping in.
“It’s fun. Like living in a college dorm. But I don’t want to say too much in front of—” she jerked her head at Scott “—you know who. He already hates the fact that I’m living in the dorms instead of staying at his house where I’d be expected to brush my teeth and go to bed at nine o’clock every night.”
Evie laughed. “During the summer, I’m lucky to be in bed by midnight.”
No one said anything for a minute, the silence awkward in the loud cafeteria buzzing with conversations all around them.
He should say something. Ask her how her day was going. Mention the weather. Ask her when the tree obstructing the fire lane at the marina restaurant was coming down.
“I heard we’re expecting a record crowd this weekend,” Caroline said. “I’m on toll booth and traffic duty on Saturday.”
Evie laughed. “Good luck. Saturday mornings around ten are notorious. People have been driving for hours. They’re hungry. The kids in the backseat are picking at each other. They hate the way our cones are set up. They don’t want to pay for parking. It gets ugly.” As she listed the problems, she ticked them off on her long fingers.
“I may ask to be reassigned.”
“No way. We need someone rational at the toll booths when tempers flare,” Evie said. Her smile turned serious. “But you have to be careful. We’ve had officers and traffic attendants hit by cars. It’s a dangerous combination of orange cones, heat, anticipation and horsepower.”
Scott pictured a station wagon mowing down his sister.
“Why can’t you work in Kiddieland instead?” Scott groaned.
“Are you kidding?” Evie asked, meeting his eyes, a smile lighting her face. “You should see the stuff that goes down there. Parents fighting about the strollers, kids cutting in line for the motorcycles. And the crying. Holy smokes. The crying. I stay far away.”
“Little kids give me the willies,” Caroline said. “I’m never having any.”
“You’re not?” Scott asked. When had his sister decided that? Sure, she wasn’t dating anyone—at least not anyone he knew of—but she wanted a family. Didn’t she?
Did he? Maybe it was just an abstract idea right now…
“I’m going to try being an aunt first,” Evie said. “When my brother’s baby arrives this summer, I’ll see how I do at that. Right now, I’m headed West for a showdown. See you later, if I live.”
She picked up her drink, directed a tentative smile at Scott and wound through the tables on the way to the door. Scott watched her stop and exchange quick greetings with several staff members. She left the building and passed in front of the wall of windows, her long blond hair picking up the sun.
“She’s so nice,” Caroline said. “And lucky. I can’t imagine owning this place. What a fun job.”
“I’ll bet it’s harder than you think,” Scott said. “And when did you decide you’re never having kids?”
“Yesterday. When I was stuck on patrol at the entrance of the kiddie coaster.” She shook her head and forked some lettuce. “It was horrific.”