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Ismay didn’t comment. She felt bad disparaging her future brother-in-law, but he was pretty darn insufferable.
“So where are we going now?” her brother asked. “We should probably wait a while before heading over to that side of the island.”
“Yeah. Just in case he doesn’t go in right away or walks over to Bo’s to check on the repairs. You never know.”
“Should we go ahead and check in with Mom and Dad?”
That had been an excuse, but Ismay thought it was a pretty good idea. While they sat in the Jeep, they called them on Bluetooth.
Their mother answered right away. “How are you enjoying the island?” she asked after they’d said their hellos.
“It’s beautiful here,” Jack said.
There wasn’t much enthusiasm behind her brother’s words, but Ismay had to respect that he was trying. “He’s lucky he got here after the storm.”
“What storm?” Betty asked.
“We had a bad one.”
“It felled a lot of trees and that sort of thing,” Jack explained. “I’ve been helping the Windsors’ caretaker fix his bungalow. There was a significant amount of water damage.”
“I’m glad you’re doing your part,” Betty said.
Jack moved the seat back to accommodate his long legs. “Can you get Dad on the phone, too?”
Ismay got the impression her brother was homesick and wasn’t surprised. Other than leaving for college, which was only a half hour away, or maybe driving down to Salt Lake or up to Boise to see friends, he’d never been away from Tremonton.
“What’s it like there?” Buzz asked when Betty used her speaker function to allow their father to participate in the conversation.
“It’s different. Feels almost like colonial New England to me,” Jack said with a laugh.
“I’d like to see it one day.”
That comment took Ismay by surprise. Her father wasn’t much for travel. “You two should come out,” she said.
“Can’t do it right now,” Buzz told her. “Too much work to be done here.”
Ismay had expected a refusal. It was harvest time. And her parents kept a tight budget. They still had a lot of children to support.
“I’ll send plenty of pictures,” Jack said.
Their parents asked about Remy and when he’d arrive, where Jack was staying and what he planned to do with his time. He said he’d try to find a job after the bungalow was finished and the fence surrounding the garden was mended. Then Jack asked what he’d probably wanted to ask from the very beginning.
“Any word from Ashleigh?”
There was a brief silence before his mother answered. “I saw her in the grocery store the other day. But she wouldn’t acknowledge me.”
He shoved a hand through his thick dark hair. “Was she alone?”
“No, Jessica and the kids were with her.”
“Did she seem happy?”
“I couldn’t tell, Jack,” Betty said. “As soon as she spotted me, she grabbed their cart and shot down a different aisle.”
He let his head fall back on the headrest. “Wow. They’re out grocery shopping together...”
Ismay knew he was still hoping Ashleigh would come back to him, that he wouldn’t really be stuck in the nightmare in which he found himself.
