A Shore Thing by Julie Carobini

brother, can suggest for them to do?”
    “Yeah, they could come up with the money within the next six weeks in order to be safe.” Jim threw both hands up and gave me his signature “See-it-my-way” expression. He did that whenever he had decided that a particular conversation was nearing its end. “Listen, Callie, you can’t help them on this one. They were foolish in signing this.”
    I shook my head. “An old couple’s home is at stake, Jim. We have to come up with a way to help them.”
    “Says who?” Jim let out an obvious sigh, the kind that told me that even if he could help, he wouldn’t. It wasn’t worth his time. “Callie, this is the same song and dance we’ve traded since you were a kid. Stop trying to save the world. It can’t be done.”
    I crossed my arms again and cradled my elbows. “I’d like to think that it could.”
    Jim stood. He leaned both fists on his desk until his body stretched across its surface, causing me to take a backward step. “I wasn’t going to be the bad guy and point this out, but weren’t you the one who came tearing into Sunday supper last week ready to take the Kitteridges down?”
    “I was just stunned by what those goons had said and how they treated me.” I lowered my head until all I could see was the plush, ebony carpet at my feet. “I-I really hadn’t had a chance to think of the Kitteridges’ part in all of it at that point.”
    “Even though, technically, it was their property you were so bent out of shape over.” He was bullying me. I could tell by the tone of his voice and I hated it. Why, after so many years, did I let him get away with that?
    I lifted my head until our eyes met, which meant that I had to rise to my toes and crane my neck. “So what you’re saying is that this is too tough for you to handle.”
    Now I’d done it. If skin could look warm, his had begun to sizzle. His silence roared through the office, taunting me to apologize. Instead I stood there. And waited.
    His smile returned, the same patronizing smile I had seen as a child every time I asked to go along with him and his friends to a movie, or an ice cream. Even a trip to the grocery store would have been nice. Jim’s normal skin tone had returned, and he lowered himself into his wide-armed chair. “My suggestion to you is to save all your money from your camp job and hope it’s enough for a down payment.”
    “Down payment?”
    He tossed the stack of Kitteridge documents to the edge of his desk. “Yeah, for a nice ocean-view loft at Otter Bay.”

    GAGE

    GAGE PERCHED UPON A rock, his arms wrapped around his shins, one hand gripping his other wrist, as he stared into the far-reaching expanse of watery jade from the edge of Otter Bay. Moments like this, when the air and water kept reasonably still, reminded him of his childhood, a time when he’d run his dog Luke down a path through pine and scrub until they’d come to the edge of the lake. Lake Forever may have had a glorified name, but it was merely an oversized pond.
    Still, he liked to go there and let Luke tear around wild while he rested on a rock and contemplated the ripples on the water. Much like he was doing now. Only this time the water reached farther than his eyes could see, and the ripples crested every once in awhile when the wind decided to blow.
    The irony of his growing fondness for this spot, which was slated for development under his direction, was not lost on him. If only he had the resources to buy this plot himself, he would build something respectful and harmonious with the land—and then leave the rest wide open. For what, he didn’t know. Squirrels to skitter about? Otters to coast by without worry over debris dropping off high-rises built by overzealous developers hungry for the profit margin that came with density?
    Or maybe . . . a family?
    Not now. He couldn’t entertain such a proposition, because for one his sister and nephew depended on him for survival. Neither he nor they had