by Dana Mentink
Bitsy acquiesced and went inside.
Rosa considered Pike’s brooding profile in the distance. He’d deserved a stapler to the lip and maybe even the crack about kissing up to Eva. But he had done nothing to deserve the accusation of hurting his aunt.
She turned to go join Bitsy, to put her bad behavior behind her and try to forget about it. In many ways, she was that high school teen still, hot tempered, impulsive and yes, trying to prove something. Her body tensed for a quick escape.
Instead she did an about-face and trudged over to Pike.
He didn’t look at her, though she was sure he heard her approach over the rough sand.
“Fetched your stapler, did you?” he said, gazing at the surf.
“No.” She tried deep breathing to put some strengthening oxygen behind the words. “I came to apologize.”
No answer. He plucked a strand of sea grass and began to tear it into little pieces.
“About thinking you were out to profit off Bitsy. That was wrong. You love her and you were trying to help.” Everything came out in a rush. “I apologize and we’ll try to help Bitsy pack and move, once she...” Rosa felt an unaccountable lump in her throat. “Once you and she pick out a new place.”
He turned finally, hair ruffling in the wind, head slightly cocked. “That was hard for you to say, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “But I’m a big girl. Sometimes I can do the right thing.”
“I don’t think you’re a girl anymore.” His voice was soft, just audible over the sound of the dancing waves as his eyes roved her face. “All the things you struggled through and overcame made you into a bona fide grown-up. I didn’t notice until just now.”
Her cheeks flared with heat. “Dunno about that. Still impulsive, hot tempered, with something to prove, just like you said.”
He laughed. “I know the feeling.” He scooted over, an unspoken invitation for her to join him. She found herself doing so, her arm pressed against his, feeling the ripple of muscles there as he tore the grass.
“What do you have to prove?” Rosa noted the way his knee was pressed against her and how it made little tingles erupt under her skin.
“That I’m not the jerk I was in high school?”
She smiled, shivering as a cold wind buffeted them both. “I still think you’re the jerk you were in high school.”
“And you’re probably right, but at least I’ve got ‘Aunt Exploiter’ off my plate. I owe Bitsy big time.” He finished ripping the grass and wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pressing her close. “Cold?”
No, her mind said. “Yes,” her mouth contradicted. He began to rub his hand up and down her arm, which only added another layer of goose bumps.
“I’m sorry that the contest isn’t going to work out.” His fingertips trailed steadily along to coax some warmth into her.
“It’s okay. We’ll survive somehow. Dollars and Sense is more than a business to me. I am... I was so sure I could make it a success.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help...” he started. She got a glimpse, just a tiny flash, of pity in his eyes as he no doubt reviewed in his mind all the failures stacked up at her door.
She stiffened. “I don’t need help.”
“If you say so.”
“I don’t,” she repeated firmly, standing up so quickly her vision blurred for a second. “Contest aside, I’ve got a business to go back to.”
“And now you’ve got a sick father to support.” He grimaced. “Why did I say that? Sometimes my mouth doesn’t consult my brain. Inappropriate.”
“It’s not my job to support him,” she said. But who would? She’d been so focused on the contest, the notion hadn’t occurred to her. Her father had some money put away, ostensibly, but what good was money if you were going to mentally lose your way? No spouse to care for you. No community ties. “I don’t owe him anything, Pike. He left us.” Again, that annoying wobble in her voice. She swallowed.
Pike stood, reached up and pushed aside the strand of hair that fluttered in her face. She felt the brush of his warm fingertip and it seemed to move through her and touch an aching spot deep in her heart.
“It’s too bad, isn’t it, that we don’t get to pick the people we love?” he said.
He moved closer and for a moment, a terrifying, heart-stopping, exhilarating second, she thought he was going to kiss her.
“I think I hear Bitsy calling,” she bleated. And then she was running, flat-out sprinting, back to the sheltering wings of the Pelican.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS AGAINST Rosa’s principles to leave a wall half-painted, even if that wall was going to be torn down in short order. The next morning, as the sun began to wrestle with the fog over the horizon, she was once again in the sitting room, hoisting a paintbrush as if it were a lead weight. She recalled her close encounter with Pike, heart still hammering over the near kiss, or what she’d imagined might become a kiss. Surely the man would not want to kiss her with all the past angst between them. And surely, in spite of the flush of electricity pulsing through her body, she would not want him to. Would she? After Foster’s treacherous kisses, which she had believed were as ardent as her own?
Cy had similar principles about finishing work, because he and their father had nearly put the window seat back together, replacing the rotted boards. The love letters, some ten of them along with a couple of fragments, had been carefully removed and spread out on the dining room table. The missing portion of letter number four had probably long ago exited the digestive system of the wayward squirrel. The remainder was chewed in some places, ripped in others and some sections looked as though they’d been through a food processor. A local TV reporter had stopped by and done a quick interview with Bitsy about the letters, which would supposedly air on a local channel.
Bitsy was still trying to read the handwriting on the tattered papers, perhaps more to distract herself than anything else. They were still waiting for a call from Lassiter’s Realtor.
Pike arrived, kissed his aunt and strolled into the sitting room. Sometime in the wee morning hours, he had gone into his office. This had necessitated a change into slacks and a blazer over a pale green shirt that was completely devastating against his dark hair and eyes. If it was true that clothes made the man, Pike was a prime example.
She saw his gaze flicker over her faded jeans and her well-worn painting shirt. We can’t all afford to be prissy about clothes, she thought.
Still, she found herself sneaking looks at Pike, who had rolled up his sleeves and armed himself with a roll of packing tape to assemble flattened cardboard boxes. The sight of a well-dressed man wielding a tape dispenser appealed to her more than if he’d held a dozen long-stemmed roses.
What is the matter with you, Rosa? she wondered as she almost fumbled the paintbrush for the sixth time. So he was handsome. Sheesh. She wasn’t a ditsy high school girl anymore. You’re a business owner. Start acting like one.
Rocky emerged from the kitchen, Baggy under one arm and Cy trailing behind.
“Where’d you find him? I thought he was under the sofa again.”
“Stu spotted him in the garden.” Rocky bent to place the little dog on the floor and Rosa caught sight of another man behind Rocky. Thick glasses covered Stu’s eyes and he stood ramrod straight, fingers clasped tightly around a newspaper-wrapped bundle.
Stu was a good four inches taller than Rocky, paler and had much less hair on his head. He was maybe a few years older than Rocky, but the two were undoubtedly brothers. Rosa recalled seeing Stu only sporadically when she’d lived at the inn.
Pike excused himself to take a phone call.
Bitsy smiled at Stu as she crowded in, the sitting room suddenly at maximum occupancy. She approached as if she meant to hug him, but stopped short of physical contact. “I’m glad you’
re here, Stu. The chrysanthemums we planted last year are just bursting with blooms, even the purple ones. Did you see them?”
Stu nodded, his gaze still riveted to the floor.
“We will win the fall blooms contest at the festival again this year. I’m sure of it.”
“He fixed it,” Rocky announced.
“Fixed what?” Manny asked, wiping his forehead as he joined them.
“The stained glass from the estate sale,” Cy put in. “Remember, you dropped it, Rosa? Rocky said Stu was pretty handy and he’d give it a try.”
She put down the paintbrush to get a closer look as Stu unwrapped the paper and carefully held up the piece. It was a gold miner, bent down over a river of blues and whites, a sparkling gold nugget shining in his pan.
“Oh, man,” Cy said. “That’s even better than the original. It was just an abstract before. I’m digging the gold miner thing. You’re a genius, Stu.”
They all stared until Stu walked to the window and held it up. A beam of morning sunlight streamed in and brought the colors to life, and it was almost as if the river rolled into motion. Sparks appeared in the glass, and what had been an odd collection of broken pieces was now a story, told in vibrant color.
“How’d he ever come up with the idea?” Cy mumbled.
“Heard about Mr. Herzberg trying his hand at mining and I told Stu,” Rocky said. “Guess he was inspired.” He nodded to his silent brother and Stu meticulously rewrapped the stained glass, reapplying the tape exactly where he had unstuck it.
Rocky gestured to Stu. “’Member I told you they’re selling the inn? Miss Bitsy is moving and we aren’t gonna be coming here anymore.”
Stu nodded gravely.
Rocky saw Cy’s inquiring gaze. “Gotta start telling him now so it will sink in.”
Bitsy began to cry. “I’m so sorry, Rocky. I know how much this job means to you and Stu. I’ll bet we can find something else for you somewhere.”
He shook his head and held up a hand to stop her. “We’ll be okay. Gonna look at the garden. Mums need deadheading.” He jerked his head at Stu, who took his hand, and the two brothers made their exit. Rosa heard the kitchen door bang shut behind them.
“Doesn’t talk much?” Manny said.
“Neither one of them does, but Stu doesn’t talk at all to anyone but Rocky.” Bitsy sighed miserably. “And he doesn’t like people to touch him, either. What’s going to become of them? Rocky is Stu’s guardian and Stu needs to see the doctor often for his eyes. What will they do with Rocky out of a job?”
“Where did Stu go when Rocky was in the Gulf?” Rosa asked.
“He lived with a cousin, but he couldn’t tolerate being away from his brother. Someone told him one day Rocky would sail home on a big ship and Stu ran away every chance he got and headed right for the nearest beach to wait for his brother. It’s a good thing someone was waiting for Rocky,” Bitsy grumbled. “Goodness knows his fiancée didn’t stick around.”
Rosa thought about the food Rocky had taken earlier. Her eyes stung. “You feed both of them, don’t you?”
“I supplement between paychecks. It’s not charity. Rocky helps himself to anything, but he brings more back than he takes. He’s got beehives and two goats, and he makes the best cheese. He picks peaches during the early summer at an orchard in exchange for parts for his truck, and he brings me bushels of the surplus.” She sighed. “There were times when pipes needed repairing and the toilet backed up and Rocky took care of all of it and never asked for a penny of extra pay.”
Rosa hugged Bitsy, the only thing she could offer. “We’ll find something for them,” she said. Hollow words and they both knew it.
Pike’s expression, Rosa noticed, had darkened with each passing moment as he listened to the caller. Finally, he clicked the phone off, wrenched open the door and retrieved the town’s tiny answer to a newspaper. He snapped it open and read, his lips moving along until he let out a groan and flung it down on the table. Bitsy scrambled to keep the love letters from flying to the floor.
Rosa perused the front page of the Pacific Trail, Cy reading over her shoulder.
“‘Historic Pelican Inn, home to a decades-old love story,’” she read. “Finley has a way with words.”
“Yeah. Keep reading,” Cy urged.
Rosa was relieved to discover that Finley had not used the photo of Manny standing on a chair. Instead, he’d gone with a picture of the Pelican’s front facade and an inset of one of the mangled letters. “He mentions our company by name,” she squealed. “‘Dollars and Sense Design team of Rosa and Cy Franco.’”
Cy laughed. “Except he misspelled it. Look closer. We’re Rosa and Cy Freako.”
“Oh, no.” Rosa gripped the paper, holding it close. “Our one minute of fame and the guy calls us Freako.”
“That’s not the point,” Pike interrupted. “Check out the last paragraph.”
Rosa found her place and started reading aloud again.
Though the letters have survived nearly a hundred and fifty years of weathering, squirrels and the relentless march of time, it seems their writer’s legacy could now be destroyed for the sake of modernization. Architect Fred Lassiter has expressed interest in purchasing the Pelican for the purpose of leveling the place and building a more modern structure on the property.
Inquiries addressed to Lassiter’s Realtor go unanswered. A news report that aired today invited calls to the station. Will Herzberg’s legacy of love, which started in the gold fields of California, meet its end here on the shores of Tumbledown? As Herzberg said in his last letter, “Who knows what fate awaits us? Only our God-given love for each other is a surety.”
Rosa looked up. “Wow. He really does know how to put an article together, even if he can’t spell our last name.”
“Do you think this will affect the sale?” Bitsy asked, chewing her lower lip.
“The love letter thing will blow over,” Pike said.
Rosa was about to offer another opinion when the house phone rang and Bitsy picked it up. “Er, no. I don’t think so right now. Thanks very much.” She hung up. “That was another reporter wanting to do a follow-up story before the Pelican is plucked, so to speak.”
“Great,” Pike groaned.
The phone trilled again. “I’ll take this one,” Manny offered. “Phil’s Pizzeria,” he said into the receiver. “Nope. Unless you want pizza, we can’t help you. Sorry.” He ended the call. “That’s someone from the Coastal Preservation League who wants to stage a protest. They said they’ve already deployed some troops to camp out at Lassiter’s place.”
The color drained out of Pike’s face.
Rosa felt hopeful that something good might come out of it for Bitsy and her Pelican.
Cy whistled. “Who knew so many people read the Pacific Trail and watched local TV?”
Bitsy sighed.
A knock sounded like a cannon shot against the front door.
“Should we answer it?” Bitsy whispered.
“Of course we should answer it,” Pike said, striding to the door. “You have every right to sell this place to a buyer who wants to do whatever suits his fancy, and I’ll be happy to tell that to anyone who needs clarification.” He wrenched open the door in time to see the enormous fist of Julio Mendez raised to strike another blow on the wood.
“Hello, Julio,” Bitsy called. “Come on in.”
Julio’s bristly mustache was as lush as ever, though the crown of his head shone bald as an onion. He greeted Rosa and Bitsy with a bow and old-fashioned kisses on their hands. To the men, he offered something like a salute.
Bitsy gestured him into a chair that Rosa was not certain would support his bulk. “I imagine you’ve been reading the paper?” the older woman said.
“Every morning I read the New York Times, the W
all Street Journal and the Pacific Trail, cover to cover, including the classifieds.”
“That many?” Rosa asked.
“Of course.” Julio tapped a sausage of a finger on the counter. “It’s our duty to uphold the sanctity of the printed word. These days it’s like trying to revive the dodo bird. All this ebook and electric blog nonsense. Our founding fathers would never have built this great country via texts and...” he shuddered “...Tweets.”
Rosa hid a smile. Julio was just as passionate about books as she remembered, and as for eccentric, well, he might have a corner on that market, too. He was probably the only bookstore owner in the United States of America who wrote down his sales on a yellow legal pad and issued receipts penned in cursive on wide-ruled index cards.
“So every morning,” he continued. “I do my part to uphold the mighty power of print by reading three newspapers with a side of coffee and eight eggs.”
“Incredible,” Manny said.
“Mrs. Mendez seems to think so, too, but I’m a big man, I require extra protein. She’s trying to sneakily cut me down to five eggs with some of that fake liquid egg stuff mixed in. Some hogwash about cholesterol. I tell her a man needs his eggs. Don’t you agree, men?”
Rosa watched in amusement as the male persons nodded in agreement.
“I’ve got six books in the shop touting the health benefits of the noble egg, but Mrs. Mendez refuses to hear it, citing that four of the authors are dead, so what could they possibly know about nutrition?”
“Good point,” Manny chimed in.
Julio surveyed the letters on the table. “So here they are,” he said in hushed tones. “The Herzberg letters. When I read the article, I headed here immediately to see them. Mrs. Mendez, as you know, is the Empress of the Historical Society. Our headquarters are attached to the bookstore.”
“The Empress?” Cy said.
Julio jerked, his three chins wobbling in response. Pink glazed his cheeks. “Oh. Did I say that out loud? I meant to say president, of course. Empress is just a little pet name, not for public consumption. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. To peruse these bits of history. And besides,” he added, voice gone hoarse with emotion, “I feel the burden of responsibility since the Herzberg portrait was stolen from our Historical Society headquarters all those years ago.”
