She smoothed down her flowered print dress, the dress that came down to her calves that she'd paired with sheer pantyhose and navy ballet flats like she'd seen on TV, the uniform for a schoolteacher in a Hallmark movie.
The blond man looked in her direction and smiled. She knew what he saw: a young woman with hair she'd dyed back to its natural black. Dark, wary eyes framed only by red glasses, instead of the layers of makeup she usually wore. Used to wear, she reminded herself. Teresa Soto, with her garish hair and vibrant makeup worn as a shield to make her appear hard and streetwise and older than her twenty years on this planet, was all gone. In her place stood Teri Forest. As long as she was Teri Forest, she could join this world. As long as no one found out, this place was open to her, and she wouldn't be rejected.
So she smiled back at the golden boy.
The man headed her way, but first stopped by the window seat where the boy with the guitar sat.
He gestured toward the guitar. "That's a beautiful instrument. Will you play us another song?"
The boy jumped back like the man had hit him. Abuse, she immediately thought.
The man clearly recognized it, too, because he took a step back and put his hands in his pockets, giving him more space. "I heard you busking at the wharf yesterday," he said softly to the boy. "I think everyone would love to hear more of your music. You're very talented."
The boy scowled as if the man had been following him around, stalking him.
The man smiled warmly at him, not taking it personally.
He turned back to the kids clustered around the now-completed ping-pong table. "We don't have any classes scheduled in here for the rest of the afternoon, so if you'd like to play games, or listen to music, or whatever, feel free."
While his back was turned, the boy slunk out of the room.
She heard a door bang shut behind him, and out the window she saw him heading away at a brisk walk, clutching his guitar in front of him like a shield. She hoped he would come back. He probably needed this place more than any of the kids here.
"I blew that," the man said, and she turned back to him.
"He has a thick shell around him," she agreed. "I hope he comes back."
"Me, too," he said. "I think he's one of our homeless kids."
"Homeless kids?"
"Yeah. There's a camp somewhere down by the railroad tracks, just outside the city limits, and the word must have gotten around, because they've been coming by for the free snacks all week."
She hardly heard what he was saying. She was captivated by his eyes.
So many books described characters with gray eyes.
Surely they really meant blue, or hazel, or some other mundane color. It was just a figure of speech, a way of making a hero sound larger than life and almost magical, out of the ordinary. But not real. Surely not real.
But this man really had gray eyes. A clear, cool color, almost silvery, with no hint of green or blue or brown in them. Luminous, startling against the dark tan and the blond of his hair. A character out of a fairy tale: a tall man with sun-kissed skin, golden hair, and those pure gray eyes.
He smiled. "You must be our new literacy tutor. I'm Logan Rios."
He put out his hand and she shook it. Firmly, the way she imagined professional people did.
But his hand lingered on hers, until she drew hers away, put it in her pocket.
"Sorry," he mumbled. Then he smiled again, a ready grin that made her automatically smile in return. He seemed a bit taken aback. "I just wasn't expecting someone so…."
"Young?" she said. "I know I'm a bit young for the job, but—"
"—Oh, I know you're a college grad and all that. You were hired on the sheriff captain's suggestion, but I did get a look at your resumé. You don't have to impress anybody—you come highly recommended. But, to be honest, I was going to say I wasn't expecting someone so pretty, if you don't mind me saying it."
"I don't mind," she said. And she didn't. She was used to being judged by her appearance, but this didn't feel the same somehow. His smile didn't seem to be denying her humanity, but appreciating it.
"Still," he said. "I didn't mean to be rude." He cleared his throat. "So, Ms. Forest, I should show you around."
"You can call me Teri," she said, still finding Ms. Forest uncomfortable.
"That's good," he said. "Then there's no danger of me calling you Ms. Silva by mistake."
She took a step back. "Uh, Silva?" she said, playing dumb.
"Sorry," he said again. "Silva means forest in Portuguese."
"In Spanish, too," she said, wondering if he also knew that Soto was another word for forest, and had been the reason Detective Graham had picked the name for her.
"Anyway, you can call me Logan," he added. "We're not really formal here, but I'm new, too. So I don't want to get started on the wrong foot."
"Oh?" she said, glad to change the subject. "How long have you worked here?"
"Just since it opened. Three months. We're still getting things in order, starting programs, all that." He led her through the main room toward the back.
There was a massive stairway at the rear of the house, the kind a princess would descend when she was all dressed up in her ball gown for the evening dance. Big picture windows stepped up the wall beside it, and with the afternoon light beaming through, they created pools of brightness all along its length.
Logan led her to a door off to one side. "Excuse the mess. I imagine this was the owner's study back in the old days. It's a bit stuffy, but seemed the most central spot for my office."
He motioned her inside, then followed. The office was round, and the walls were covered with dark paneling that absorbed the light from the single window. The window had heavy burgundy velvet curtains that had faded where the sun had caught them. Deer heads formed a circle on the round walls above them, looking down in disdain.
"I don't think he was a hunter," Logan said when he noticed her looking up at the disembodied heads. "I think it just went with the Gentleman Of The Estate vibe he was trying to cultivate. He was actually the son of a day laborer from down in Wharf Flats."
"This must be part of the turret I saw from outside," she said.
"Yup. There are three rooms like this, one on each floor."
There was a massive desk in front of the window, made of carved wood, designed to impress. It was covered in papers about a foot high. Logan switched on the desk light to fight the pervading shadows cast by all the dark wood and heavy furniture. And clutter. All over the room were tools, board games, balls and bats, and paper files, along with stacks of boxes. All in no discernible order. "As you can see, we're not super-organized yet. I think there's another fireplace back there somewhere in that corner."
"Another fireplace? You mean there's more than one?"
"There are about seven in total, including one in each turret room. I think. I'd have to look it up. Would you like to drop your bag here?" he asked. "I assume you just got into town."
She nodded, gratefully slipping the straps off and setting the pack on the guest chair in front of the desk.
He rustled around on the desk for a bit. "Found it." He handed her a heavy iron key. "That'll fit the front and back doors, as well as your office door."
She nodded. She saw his excavating of his work space had uncovered a name plate. She picked it out of the clutter and set it on the edge of the desk in a place of honor: Logan King Rios, Manager.
"Are you any relation to the house?" she asked jokingly.
He looked surprised. "You must have taken French in college."
"In college? Um, no. But I've read a couple of history books. Roi Soleil was Louis XIV, the Sun King, right? The house name is a play on that, I assume?"
"Well, I'm not as well read as you, obviously, but I know the story of the house. Yeah, that name goes with the house." He paused. "And my name goes with the house, too."
He grabbed his cell phone off the desk, along with a set of keys. "I'll give you the gr
and tour. Let's go."
At the base of the stairs he pointed back to the big ballroom. "That's the ballroom," he said.
"It is? I mean, it really is a ballroom? I thought that when I first saw it."
He laughed. "I know. It's a bit ridiculous. This is small-town California, not some European castle. Who puts a ballroom in a house? But the original owner liked to entertain, and he wanted the biggest, most impressive house in the village. His problem was he also wanted it built by Jefferson Stockdale."
"Who's that?"
He waved his hand around. "This. These cottages. They were all built by a local guy. They're actually really famous—people come to Pajaro Bay just to see them. He made up the style, and then his wife, whose family owned the local tileworks, added all the colored tile roofs and the fireplace tiles."
"Fireplace tiles?"
"You'll see," he said. "Anyway, the owner wanted to have the biggest house in town. So Stockdale added the turret to make the building taller than anything else in the village."
He led her through the big open area in the back of the house. "So, to get you oriented here: we're holding large classes and meetings in the former ballroom. There's a little room that was a butler's pantry beyond it, and that is the office manager's space, Kate DiPietro. She only works three mornings a week. You'll go to her for timesheets, payroll, pretty much anything administrative. To our right past the stairs is the kitchen."
She got a glimpse of black-and-white tiles and stainless steel counters through an arched doorway.
"We're going to use that for fundraisers and dinners, and probably move the senior center meal program to it by spring if we can get it up to professional code. Beyond is a formal dining room. We'll probably make that a permanent location for the senior lunches as well. Back in this part of the house, my office is the base of the turret. Bathroom, utility room, and other stuff like that are back down the entry hall."
"Okay…," Teresa said doubtfully, trying to keep it all straight.
He grinned. "There'll be a pop quiz later. Really, I'm just giving you a sense of the layout so you don't get lost trying to find your way around. So that's the first floor. And then up we go."
They headed up the grand staircase. She climbed quickly, but then realized she was leaving him behind.
She turned back to see he was holding onto the oak railing and taking one step at a time.
"Don't mind me," he said. "An old baseball injury."
"Not from football?" she asked.
"Nope," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"The old man I met at the gate said his was from football."
"That's our maintenance man. Jack. So you're already meeting people. That's good."
"Only Jack," she said.
"And me," he said with a smile. He looked up at the ten more stairs in front of him and sighed. "Here goes."
At the top, there was a landing with a window that overlooked the front lawn. From here she could see the courtyard with the fountain she had passed before.
"Los Colores," he said. "Significantly, it was built for the Madrigals."
"Why significantly?"
"Because the old dude who owned this place wanted to look down on them. They're the town founders. He had a bit of a chip on his shoulder."
"He must have, if he built this whole place just to spite them."
Logan opened the door to the left of the landing. It was another round room like the office downstairs, but all in pink, like a little girl's room, with ruffled lace curtains and an amazing fireplace. The fireplace was framed by hand-painted tiles depicting a blond girl with round cheeks gazing across the firebox at a golden sun on the opposite side.
"It's so cute," she said.
"It's going to take three coats of paint to cover the pink, I think. But this is supposed to be the new computer center, so I think the pink and ruffles will have to go or we'll never get adolescent boys to set foot in it."
He closed the door. "The other rooms on this floor are all storage space at the moment. So now up to the top level."
"We don't have to. You can always give me the tour after your leg gets better," she said.
"You'd be waiting a long time for that. It's a Grade III MCL."
She must have looked confused because he said, "I was going to be a pro baseball player, but I slid into home plate and tore up my knee. So I switched my major to social work and here I am." He started up the stairs. "This is as good as my knee is going to get. Oh, don't worry about it," he added at her expression. "I'm not bummed about it or anything. Working with kids in my home town is pretty much my dream job, and I'm starting at the top as manager of the whole center."
They got to the top of the stairs. "And you'll be starting at the top, too." He opened the door to the third-level turret room and led her in.
"Wow."
"Yeah," he said. "It's definitely a wow room."
They were in another round room. The only furniture was a few chairs, seemingly picked at random, along with a big cedar chest plunked down in the middle.
The floor was covered in a deep navy blue carpet, plush as velvet. The walls were of a deep velvety blue as well, what little was visible of them. The ceiling was dark blue, too, almost lost in shadow about twenty feet over her head, with a brass medallion in the center which she first took for a ship's compass, but then realized was a stylized sun, continuing the theme of Roi Soleil.
The room's walls were divided exactly in half. One half circle was lined completely with bookshelves built to follow the curve of the wall. These were about ten feet tall, made of warm golden oak, and were filled almost completely with books. There was a sliding library ladder attached to a curved brass rail that followed the top line of the bookcases, enabling one to reach the very top shelf.
The other half of the circular room was all rank upon rank of double-hung windows, framed by heavy drapes of white sailcloth with navy velvet trim. These were tied back by jute rope to brass hooks on each side.
From this height she could see the whole village, and the bay beyond it.
Logan went to the nearest window and pushed it up to open it. It gave with a screech, then he used a length of broomstick resting on the sill to prop it into position. "Like I said, we still have a few things to fix around here."
"It's like a lighthouse," she whispered. "A library lighthouse."
"Pretty much," he said. He sank into a plush chair and put his feet up on the cedar chest.
She wasn't sure which way to turn. The view out the windows was thrilling, but the other half of the room was floor to ceiling books. She saw Shakespeare and Dickens, Bradbury and Asimov, Rachel Carson, Stephen Hawking…. She started on one end and began to work her way across, then realized she had completely forgotten why she was here.
"Sorry," she said. "I got distracted." She turned around in a circle, trying to take it all in, then realized that there was another thing she'd missed: there was a fireplace in one corner matching the one downstairs. This one had similar tiles, but the little girl depicted here was older, and this time she was on the beach, with a blue bucket and sand shovel. The same sun hovered nearby like a watchful parent, standing over her, glinting her hair to gold and warming her bare shoulders to a blush tint.
"It's like a Renaissance painting," Teresa said softly.
"Ramona Robles-Stockdale. She's the one who created the tiles. I said her husband built the houses? Well, she was the one who added the art to them." He paused, and she saw he was staring at the fireplace. "They say her ghost still haunts the house."
"Ramona Robles-Stockdale's ghost?"
"No." He nodded to the little girl on the tiles. "Hers."
"How tragic. I wonder who she was," Teresa said.
"My mother," Logan said matter-of-factly.
"That's your mother? Really?"
"Yeah. Really."
She looked at the tile image of the little blond girl in the sunshine, then back to the tall blond man. "The same nose, maybe," she said.
He laughed.
"But her ghost? Really? Or are you just putting me on?"
"Nope. For real. Well, I don't think the ghost is for real. But that is a painting of my mother. And she did die twenty-five years ago and supposedly cursed the house before she went."
Chapter Four
Teresa went to the fireplace. She brushed her hand over the girl's long blond hair. "What was her name?"
"Soleil. Soleil King."
"Roi Soleil," she echoed in French. "Of course." She turned back to him. "So you're French then."
He shook his head. "Nope. Like I said, my grandfather had delusions of grandeur. He thought it was fancy, and he wanted everything to be fancy. To be just picture-perfect."
"Your grandfather? Of course. The man who had the cottage built would have been your grandfather. Now I get it. So you're Logan King Rios, and your mother was Soleil King, and your grandfather was…?"
"Langston King. Son of a day laborer in Wharf Flats, and an attorney by trade. And the mayor. Briefly." He leaned back in the plush chair and looked up at the sun on the ceiling. "For something like twenty-three days, I think it was."
"What do you mean, for twenty-three days?"
"It's a long story."
"But fascinating." She sat down in another chair, this one an upright chair of oak, with a padded seat covered in fabric of navy twill with ship anchors embroidered in gold thread. She, too, put her feet up on the cedar chest, noticing her ballet flats were dusty from all the walking she'd done. "So are you and your grandfather close?"
"Not really."
"Why not? He sounds like an interesting character."
"I'm sure he was. But he died two days after I was born."
"Oh. What a sad coincidence. So he never got to meet his grandson?"
"He jumped off Bixby Bridge. And it wasn't a coincidence." He peered at her. "You really want the whole gory story?"
"Not if it upsets you."
He laughed again, that easy, confident laugh. "It doesn't bother me at all. Any excuse to sit here with you for a bit longer is fine by me."
"Oh, yeah. You must be dreading the walk back downstairs. I hadn't thought of that."
Sunshine Cottage: A Pajaro Bay Mystery Page 4
