The Cottage on Rose Lane

by Hope Ramsay

  He shrugged in spite of himself. “I don’t know. Because you’re not from around here and you just told me you’re a Buddhist. So, does that mean you’re also into yoga and crystals and chakras and all that woo-woo stuff?”

  She straightened her shoulders and jutted out her chin. “And what if I am?”

  He closed his eyes and scrubbed his hands over his face. “You are into yoga and chakras and crystals, aren’t you?” he muttered.

  “I’m into transcendental meditation. But you can relax. I’m not into chakras or crystals.” She picked up the menu and scanned. “And I’m good. There’s a surprising number of vegetarian menu options. I think I’ll have beans and rice, mac ’n’ cheese, and a serving of collard greens…and maybe a hush puppy? I’ve never had a hush puppy.”

  “It’s fried corn bread. You’ll like it.” He paused a moment, suddenly curious. “So, have you found enlightenment?”

  She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Man, he wanted to touch that hair so bad. It was such a pretty color and so thick and wavy and sexy as hell. Was that why the resort company had sent her? Or was she telling the truth? It was so easy to believe her. Talking about transcendental meditation didn’t seem like the sort of thing a corporate spy would do.

  “Enlightenment doesn’t work that way,” she said.

  “No?”

  She shook her head but continued to avoid eye contact. “My teacher at the Indian ashram where I studied would say that the path to true enlightenment takes many lifetimes.”

  “Wow, and they call my people crazy for believing in root doctors.”

  “Root doctors? You talked about that at the hearing. So, what are they? Like wise women, or what?”

  “Root doctors are part of the Gullah people’s spirituality. They call it Hoodoo.”

  “Like Voodoo?”

  “Yeah. Both are the remnants of ancient West African religions. The root doctors around here were herbalists mostly, but some of them were what we call conjurers. You could go to them and ask for luck or a curse or whatever. The root doctors are mostly gone now, like everything else. The old culture’s being torn down.”

  “Not entirely,” Jenna said.

  “No?”

  “Not here. Not in this restaurant.”

  He smiled. “No, I guess not.”

  “And I was listening the other night when you and the professor were talking. Didn’t you say that most of the houses up north of town have blue shutters? Isn’t that to ward off curses or something?”

  He shook his head. “Haints.”

  “What?”

  “In English you’d say haunts. People paint their shutters heaven blue to keep them away.”

  She laughed. “Maybe someone should tell Ashley Scott that.”

  He blinked, showing his surprise. “You know Ashley Scott?”

  “I’m staying at Rose Cottage. Didn’t you know that?”

  He shook his head. “I thought you were camping out at the state park.”

  She smiled. “No. I’m staying in town, and I’m starting to think the rumors about Rose Cottage being haunted are true. Some weird things have been happening. And then there are the dreams.”

  “What kind of dreams?”

  “About sailing mostly. There’s one dream—a nightmare really—that I’ve had a couple of times. I’m all alone, standing on the deck of a big sailboat—you know, one with more than one mast. A storm is raging around me, and waves are coming over the sides of the ship…what do you call them?”

  “Gunwales.”

  She nodded. “The rigging is twisting in the wind, and I’m worried that the boat’s going to come apart at the seams. It’s awakened me two or three nights now.”

  “And you still want to learn how to sail?”

  She shrugged. “Learning how to sail seems like a logical way to address my fears. Although I didn’t have any fears until that moment when Bonney Rose turned over on me. Maybe you traumatized me.” She gave him a sly smile.

  Boy, she was one tough nut. He stared into her brown eyes while he tried to come up with some new way to trap her into revealing the truth. He was about to take the conversation back to Buddhism, sure she was just feeding him a line, when Harry Bauman walked into the restaurant.

  Damn. Harry was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.

  But the old guy saw him and immediately headed in his direction, his soaked foul-weather jacket leaving a trail of rainwater as he crossed the dining room. He stopped in front of Jude’s table, his brown eyes dancing with curiosity behind his trifocals as he glanced from Jude to Jenna and back again. Did Harry know who Jenna was?

  “How are you doing, son? Hope you’re not letting all the gossip get you down. I swear it’s all my wife’s been talking about for three days solid. Take my advice: Don’t ever marry a church lady.”

  “Yes, sir, uh…I mean no, sir. Um, are you talking about my zoning petition or something else?”

  Harry snorted a laugh. “Well, the council will be voting on the petition at our next scheduled meeting. So we won’t be keeping you in suspense for very long. But it would be unethical for me to talk with you about that. No, I was referencing your brother’s return to the island. He has the Heavenly Rest Altar Guild up in arms over the state of the vicarage. Thought you should know.”

  “Uh, thanks.” It was all Jude could muster. The last person he wanted to talk about was the brother who had abandoned him and the family half a lifetime ago.

  Mr. Bauman gave Jenna a glance. “Are you going to introduce me?” he asked.

  Jude’s face heated. Damn. As much as he respected Harry, he didn’t want the old guy nosing around in his personal life. Not that Jenna had anything to do with his personal life, but he had just kissed the woman. And damned if he didn’t want to kiss her again.

  But he couldn’t afford to be rude to Mr. Bauman, seeing as they were friends and he was the deciding vote on the council. And also, he owed Mr. Bauman for a lot of things, up to and including his life.

  He gestured toward Jenna. “Mr. Bauman, meet Jenna Fairchild. She’s visiting from Boston. And you won’t believe this, but I’m teaching her to sail.” He looked Jenna in the eye. “Harry Bauman is the man who taught me everything I know about sailing a boat.”

  Jenna’s heart slammed into her rib cage, and blood surged up into her cheeks. This is what her teacher at the ashram would call synchronicity. He was forever saying “We are all merely ripples in the fabric of the cosmos that our own intent helps to weave.”

  Which was his way of saying that sometimes coincidences were like signs. And then it occurred to her, with another jolt, that if her teacher was right, then somehow Jude was a part of the fabric of her being. A thought that wormed its way deep, leaving a hot trail behind.

  She smiled up at her uncle, who was dressed in all things Ralph Lauren except for the Helly Hansen rain jacket. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Is he doing a good job?” Harry asked.

  It took a moment for Jenna to parse the question. She’d been so busy trying to cool her reaction that she’d almost lost the thread of the conversation. Right, they were talking about sailing lessons. “He’s very thorough,” she said. “He took me out yesterday to practice capsizing the boat. Like, ten times.”

  “It was only seven. And the last time we managed to save the boat without anyone going overboard,” Jude said.

  Harry started taking off his coat, which was still dripping from the monsoon outside. “Good for you,” he said. “When I taught Jude, that’s exactly where we started.”

  “Hey there, Commodore. You sitting down or just visiting?” Annie asked as she came up to the table bearing plates.

  This was Jenna’s chance. “Why don’t you join us?” she asked. “I’d love to hear stories about Jude learning the difference between a rope and a line.”

  The older man’s face brightened. “Well, I wouldn’t want to interrupt and—”

  “Please,” she said.<
br />
  “All right.”

  Her uncle hung his raincoat on the hook beside the booth and slipped in beside Jenna in the space she made for him. She glanced at Jude.

  Uh-oh. By the hard look on Jude’s face, she’d definitely screwed up by inviting Harry to sit with them. But then, Jude had convinced himself that she was working for the resort company. He probably thought this was some kind of lobbying effort on her part. She would have to make certain she stayed away from talking about his petition.

  Meanwhile, Annie set their food orders on the table: three bowls heaped with Jenna’s vegetarian options and a gigantic plate filled with a fried pork chop and heaping amounts of rice and lima beans for Jude. The food smelled heavenly, with its own unique mélange of spices. She drank in the aroma. This was what Jude considered comfort food.

  “I’ll have what he’s having,” Harry said, pointing at Jude’s chop. “And don’t you dare tell Patsy about it, you hear?”

  “No, sir,” Annie said with a smile and a head shake.

  When Annie had bustled away, Jenna turned toward Harry and asked, “So, do you give lessons often?”

  Harry barked a laugh and gave Jude a man-to-man glance. “Why? Are you looking to change teachers?”

  “Oh, no. I’m just curious.” Yeah, more curious than the proverbial cat who lost one of her lives. She had hundreds of questions, most of which she couldn’t ask without revealing her true identity.

  Harry shook his head. “I’ve taught a few people in my time. I’m not a full-time sailing instructor, though. I used to be a banker, but I retired. And since I always had this thing for politics, I somehow ended up on the town council. I saw you there. You have an interest in history?”

  “I do. But I don’t think it’s kosher for us to talk about that, is it?”

  He shook his head. “No. I suppose not.”

  “So, do you still sail?” she asked.

  “When I can. But not dinghies anymore. You get bruised in those small boats. I’ve got a J/24 that I take out when I’m in the mood for cruising.”

  “A J/24 is a small keelboat,” Jude explained. Good thing, too, because she was clueless.

  “So, how’d you end up teaching Jude?” she asked.

  “I caught him admiring my Lightning, which is a small boat, when he should have been trimming the hedges. He was a kid with an attitude then.”

  “He caught me red-handed when I was fifteen,” Jude said. “I’d been hired by the yacht club to keep the weeds down and mow the lawn, but the sailboats fascinated me.”

  “He was a pretty curious kid.”

  “So, you dropped everything to teach him?” Something warm and fuzzy ignited in her chest. She could like a yacht club member who would take a moment to teach the African American lawn boy how to sail.

  “I guess.” The older man turned away, blinking his eyes. Maybe there was more to it. A shiver worked down her spine. There were currents and eddies in his terse reply. Something he didn’t want to talk about.

  “He’s being polite,” Jude said, jumping in to smooth the sudden halt in the conversation. “I was screwed up at that point in my life. My older brother Colton had just been picked up for smoking pot and had been sent to the juvenile detention center. Given what was going on with Colton, it’s a miracle the yacht club wanted anything to do with me.” Something invisible but powerful passed between the two men. There was a connection here that neither of them wanted to discuss.

  “You’re not your brother,” Harry said with a long sigh as he returned his gaze to Jude. “Take it from me, siblings can be a bitch.”

  Jenna focused on her collard greens. Being an only child, she had no concept of what it might be like to have a sibling. But it didn’t take a genius to hear the emotion in Harry’s voice.

  “Yes, they can,” Jude said as he cut a huge chunk out of his chop and popped it in his mouth.

  “So, has Micah gotten in touch?” Harry asked.

  Jude shook his head and chewed.

  “Well, when he does, you tell him to go fly a kite.”

  Jude swallowed. “Go fly a kite?” His mouth tipped up at the corners.

  “I would’ve been more explicit, but there’s a lady present.” Harry turned his gaze on Jenna. “So, you’re from Boston, huh?” he drawled.

  Uh-oh, she needed to change the conversation quick. She didn’t want him putting two and two together. She nodded. “I am. But I’m an only child. So, I take it you have issues with your sister? Brother?” It was a risky question.

  “My late brother. Who started out as an optometrist and became a retailer and manufacturer of high-end optics. He made a lot of money, and he was forever telling me that I was wasting my time as a banker. Like Jude here, Robert wanted me to join him in business. He was always asking me to move up north and go to work for him. But I loved Jonquil Island too much.”

  Annie arrived with Harry’s food, and the conversation turned back to sailing, and as much as Jenna wanted to push it in other directions, she held back.

  Jude and Harry had a lot of stories to tell. Most of them about bad things happening in a sailboat. They both seemed to think their stories were hilarious, but to Jenna they seemed horrifyingly dangerous. She couldn’t help but think about her father, who’d gone out in a boat and had never come back.

  Jude had just finished telling Harry about their recent mishap with the hiking strap. The table was littered with empty plates and a couple of slices of pecan pie. Then Harry let out a long sigh.

  “I remember that time you lost your pants,” he said, and started laughing. Harry had an old man’s laugh, wheezy and deep in his throat.

  “You lost your pants?” Jenna asked, meeting Jude’s gaze. But he wasn’t laughing. His gaze was surprisingly sober, and he gave his head a little, almost imperceptible, head shake. As if to say, this story didn’t happen.

  “Oh yes, he lost his pants,” Harry said, when his laughing fit ended.

  “How did that happen?” Jenna asked, despite Jude’s suddenly tense posture.

  “He’d just brought the Lightning to the dock, and the boom came around unexpectedly and knocked him right into the water. He was wearing those baggy swim trunks, you know? And when he tried to climb back into the boat, the water sucked those big shorts right off his ass.” He laughed again.

  “And the worst thing is that they drifted off and sank. So, there he was bare-assed right in front of a bevy of girls watching from Rafferty’s.”

  The old man blinked a few times and let go of a sigh. “She was there.”

  “Who?” Jenna asked.

  “That girl. That Terri girl.” He shook his head. “Funny how a stupid thing like losing your pants changes everything.”

  Oh. My. God. He wasn’t talking about Jude. He was telling a story about her father.

  And her mother. But her mom had never been to Jonquil Island, had she? She’d met Jamie Bauman when she was a sophomore at Boston University and he’d been a student at Harvard.

  And then Jude spoke in a gentle voice that knifed right into Jenna’s heart. “Harry, that wasn’t me. Remember? It was Jamie who lost his pants.”

  Chapter Nine

  Harry eventually got tired of telling stories, grabbed his coat, and headed out the door after paying for his own lunch.

  When he’d finally left, Jenna looked up from the credit card bill she was signing and asked, “Are you annoyed that I asked him to sit down with us?”

  Jude shook his head. “No. I told you. Harry is a good friend.”

  “Who might not vote your way?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. My own father and brother aren’t on my side. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

  “You care about Harry, don’t you?”

  Jenna’s gaze narrowed in an avid, focused way that made Jude wonder if this was mere curiosity or something more. Some effort to get at Harry Bauman in order to influence his vote.

  He hadn’t thought about that before. The people at
Santee Resorts would know everything about his connection to the Baumans. And they’d be smart enough to use their mutual love of sailing to get at him, and then Harry.

  Damn. Every time he started to like Jenna, something would come up out of nowhere to make him doubt.

  He’d have to avoid talking about the zoning petition. He’d have to choose his words carefully. “I do care about him,” he said, sending a clear message. “In fact, there are times when I feel like my life is tangled with his.”

  “Tangled?” She leaned in, avid. A clear indication of her ulterior motives.

  “It’s complicated. Our paths have crossed at key moments of my life.”

  “Oh. I see,” she said. “My teacher in India would call that synchronicity.”

  “Synchronicity? Really?”

  She shrugged and rolled her eyes as if to say that she didn’t take herself seriously. “Okay. I know it’s a pretentious word. But it means that, if you think you’re tangled up with him, then you are. Put another way, if you think it’s true, then it will be.”

  He shook his head. “Um, that makes no sense to me.”

  “I know. It always sounds circular. But there’s some truth to it. So, when did this feeling of being tangled up with Harry start?”

  She was good at prying out information, wasn’t she? She threw her BS around and made you think she cared by looking serious out of those big brown eyes. But he wasn’t about to delve into his complicated relationship with Harry and Patsy Bauman. He’d stay with the basics—what everyone in town already knew. What she already knew, if she was here to spy on him.

  “It started when I was two years old and fell overboard without a life preserver.”

  “What? How did that happen?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t remember, and it’s a story Daddy won’t talk about. He swears I had a life vest on when I got on the boat, but when I toppled over the side, I didn’t. And he didn’t notice. He was piloting the boat, and he thought Momma was watching me, and Momma thought Micah, my oldest brother, was watching me. But it turns out no one was watching me.” He paused a moment, regrouping. Why did this story always affect him down deep in some weird way? He didn’t even remember the incident. But everyone else did.