No Judgments: A Novel (Little Bridge Island Book 1)

Four Months Later

Time: 8:22 P.M.

Temperature: 72ºF

Wind Speed: 5 MPH

Wind Gust: 0 MPH

Precipitation: 0.0 in.

The Mermaid was lit up for the holidays.

Christmas lights of every color imaginable had been strung not only around the windows and doors, but all across the ceiling, in and around the mermaid Barbies, and especially around the counter and serving pass-through, too.

The place was packed, even though it was only a Thursday night . . . but it was the Thursday night before Christmas, and Little Bridge was stuffed near to bursting with visitors from the mainland, anxious to escape the winter cold up north. The Little Bridge tourist council had worked overtime to advertise the fact that the island had fully recovered from Hurricane Marilyn and was ready to take the vacation dollars of anyone willing to spend their winter break in the Florida Keys.

And it had worked. There was not a single vacancy to be found in any hotel on the island. Even the RV park was packed.

And I was loving every minute of it.

“How’s it going?” Drew asked as I flitted past his counter stool for a third time in as many minutes.

“Um, kind of weird. I just sold another one.”

He lifted his beer. “Why is that weird? I’m not the type to say I told you so—”

“Except you so are.”

“—but I told you so. You should have priced them higher.”

I collapsed onto the stool next to his—the only reason it was empty was because he was guarding it. Otherwise, it would have been filled in a second, the place was so packed with happy revelers.

And the only reason I could sit without Ed yelling at me was because I wasn’t working at the Mermaid.

Oh, I hadn’t given up my breakfast shift. Angela and I still toiled away every Tuesday through Saturday from six in the morning until two in the afternoon—although school had started, so Nevaeh had joined her fellow tenth-graders in class. I only saw her when I went to the Hartwells’, or when she filled an occasional shift.

I was at the Mermaid tonight not to work, but because it was a special occasion—the café’s very first art opening. And the art was mine.

And it was selling.

Probably a little too quickly. Drew was right, I’d priced my paintings too low. Since they were small and therefore, as he’d suggested, highly portable in a carry-on bag, and also depicted exactly what tourists—and let’s face it, all the rest of us—loved so much about Little Bridge, the beautiful wide blue sea and colorfully clouded skies, they were selling fast.

This was an ego boost, certainly.

But it was also confirmation of something my donor mom had told me—we emailed occasionally. Not too much, since she really wasn’t, as she’d said, the maternal type. She was simply a nice friend to have, who knew a lot about the kinds of things I was interested in, like one half of my genetic history, animals, and art:

“Find what it is you love to do,” she’d advised, “and then do that thing as much as you can. . . . That really is the meaning of life. I love to paint, too, but I wouldn’t like to make a living at it. I think that might spoil my love for it. But if that interests you, you should go for it.”

Now someone told me.

Not that I didn’t still appreciate my birth mother. I spoke to her on the phone practically every day. She’d planned on being here, in fact, for my first “gallery” opening, but a nor’easter in the New York area had prevented her plane from taking off.

I was secretly a little glad. I had enough to worry about without entertaining Judge Justine for the holiday weekend.

“Seven.” I held up my fingers to show Drew how many paintings I’d sold. “I’ve sold seven already, and it’s not even eight o’clock.”

“See?” He grinned with happiness for me. “Aren’t you glad you held some back? I bet if you took the rest to a real gallery, you’d make even more—”

I waved a hand to silence him. “Shush. I’m not trying to make a career out of this yet. I just want to have fun with it for now.”

“When do we ever not have fun?”

It was true. Since the morning after the storm, I’d been having nothing but fun with Drew Hartwell—with the slight exception of that incident with Kyle and Caleb.

But there’d been no fallout from that. I’d never heard from either of them again and didn’t expect to. I was living a new life now, and wished them nothing but luck with theirs . . .

Unless, of course, I heard they were making life miserable for someone else. Then I might have to take action.

“But do you think people are buying them because they’re good?” I asked him. “Or because I’m the girl that saved so many people’s pets after the hurricane, and they want to show their gratitude?”

Drew rolled his eyes. “Bree, look around. Half the people in here aren’t even from Little Bridge, and don’t know who you are. They’re buying them because they’re good.”

“I don’t know.” I chewed my lower lip. “I mean, it’s fine either way. But it would be really great if people were buying them because they actually thought—”

“Byotch!” Daniella appeared as if from nowhere and wrapped her arms around my neck. She was wearing a pair of light-up reindeer antlers, a sequined baseball jacket, and fishnet stockings under a green minidress. “You’re so fricking awesome! The paintings look so great! I miss your stupid face so much!”

“Thanks,” I said, trying to unwrap myself from her stranglehold. “I miss your stupid face so much, too. But you seem to know where to find me.”

“Yeah. It’s okay.” She smiled blearily at Drew. She may have consumed a few too many of the café’s special holiday drink, a Mermaid Moscow Mule. “I like your stupid face, too.” Daniella directed this to Drew. “So you can have her. And the Gare.”

“I promise to take good care of them both,” Drew faithfully swore, raising his beer in a solemn oath.

“You better.” Daniella saw something behind me and pointed. “But her! I love her stupid face!”

“I should hope so.” Angela came up, a Bloody Mermaid in her hand. “Bree, have you seen how well those paintings of yours are selling? You’re going to get famous soon and leave us to go back to New York to become the next celebrity artist, aren’t you?”

I looked at Drew and grinned. “Um, I don’t think so. But I appreciate the thought. How’s my apartment?”

Angela smiled. “It’s my apartment now, thank you very much. And it certainly beats living with my mother. Although I will say there’s never a dull moment with this one. How’s it going, Daniella?”

“Frickin’ awesome.” Daniella looked down at the glass of water Ed had just silently handed to her over the counter. “What’s this?” She sipped the water. “Ooh! Refreshing.”

“You little sneak.”

I looked up to see Patrick and Bill standing in front of me, wearing clashing Christmas sweaters.

“How could you not tell us,” Patrick demanded, “that you’re a classically trained artiste?”

“Um,” I said. “I wouldn’t say classically trained—”

“Nevertheless,” Patrick said, “we’ve purchased one of your paintings—Sunset Over Sandy Point, I believe it’s called.”

I stole a quick glance at Drew and saw that he was smiling. “Good choice,” I said. “That’s one of my favorites.”

“Yes, I thought it was the best. We’re going to hang it over the television. That way, whenever we’re tired of watching the news or whatever dreadful thing it is that’s on, we only have to look up, and we’ll be instantly soothed.”

“I think that’s a great idea,” I said.

“And every time we look at it,” Bill said, “we’ll think of you. How is our favorite feline friend doing over in his new digs?”

“Very well, actually.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Gary had pretty much taken over Drew’s house. His many years of living at the animal shelter must have given him plenty of experience in keeping other animals in line, including dogs, because from the outset, he’d shown no fear of the Bobs. Instead, he’d quickly asserted himself as the new alpha, with a paw to the muzzle of any dog he felt had disrespected him. He alone slept with the humans in our bed, though he did allow the dogs to pile onto the couch beside us.

He had no interest in the beach, however. The deck was his domain, where I was growing a small bed of grass for him—a suggestion from the animal shelter, where I now volunteered several times a week—since he’d so enjoyed chewing and rolling on the grass beneath the dear, departed frangipani.

“You’ll have to bring Brandon Walsh and the girls over for a visit sometime,” I said. “I’m sure Gary would enjoy seeing them.”

Patrick gasped. “We’d love that!”

And then they were swallowed up in the throng of new well-wishers who came hurrying up to congratulate me on the show, which by the end of the evening had sold out. As Drew and I walked along the festively lit harbor toward his pickup to go home, he reached out to take my hand.

“Happy?”

“Of course!”

“But?”

“There’s no but.”

“Then why are you so quiet? You’re not still worrying that all those people only liked your paintings because you saved their pets, are you?”

“No.” I looked out at the marina, where a lot of the boat owners had decorated their boats with Christmas lights, turning their masts into brightly lit angels or Christmas trees. “I just . . . I was just wishing my dad was still alive, so he could have seen this. And met you.”

Drew stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, his expression soft. “I was thinking the same thing about my parents, and you.”

We looked up at each other in the twinkling lights as nearby, the water gently lapped against the harbor wall.

“Don’t judge me,” I said, looking up into his handsome face, “but sometimes I feel like my dad knows. Does that sound weird?”

Drew reached out and gathered me into his arms. “No,” he said. “That doesn’t sound weird at all.”