But it was too beautiful a morning to spend inside. The sun shone bright. A new nest of robins serenaded them from the row of cypress trees lining the driveway. Jordan took a moment to listen to the birds before inhaling the fresh air coming in off the ocean. Times like this, she loved this place almost as much as Scott had. But she knew things were about to change. She steeled her spine, stood up a little straighter. Despite her determination though, nerves made her stomach clinch with dread. March was right around the corner and would soon turn into April which brought her smack dab up against a deadline she’d been avoiding for a year. Thinking about losing this place sent Jordan fighting the panic fluttering in the pit of her stomach. She had to get the house ready to open as a bed and breakfast. She needed to show the bank that The Cove was a real business venture with a real cash flow. If she couldn’t pay that first bank note she’d lose everything Scott had loved, everything he’d fought and died for, everything that had been important to him, the reason they’d moved back to Pelican Pointe in the first place.
She contemplated all the work she still had left to do. The dilapidated porch needed sprucing up. She’d put that off long enough. Today was the day. She didn’t want potential guests driving up to their anticipated lodging only to get a good look at the porch and decide they’d made a terrible mistake. If the porch looked shabby they might think the whole place did. No way did she want unhappy guests asking for their money back. She didn’t want to start out with a hassle right up front. Success depended on keeping revenue coming in and guests happy…and willing to come back.
She could have easily left and headed back to San Francisco to the comfort of her family and let the bank have the house. She knew her family would make room for her and Hutton. But the bed and breakfast had been Scott’s vision. She wouldn’t abandon his dream, their dream, she corrected, because she was afraid of what the next few months might bring. Scott had probably been scared in Iraq, she reasoned, and with justification. Scott hadn’t given up and neither would she.
Her resolve to make this work grew.
“We’ll be cutting it close, Hutton. But we can’t give up now. Mama has to get this old porch sanded today, and then re-stained so the guests will see a nice place to sit outside, a place to enjoy the view. I took four new reservations this week. That makes six in all. Okay, it isn’t much, but opening day is still a ways off. We’ve got time to make this work. It’s a start. We have to stay positive.”
As she reached down to Hutton and swung the baby up to her hip, she swiped at the baby’s runny nose again, telling the toddler, “Your daddy would be so proud of his girls.”
Imitating her mother, Hutton reached out and touched her mother’s nose, gave a little squeeze. “Ma-ma.”
“That’s right, baby girl.” Jordan bit her lip to keep from crying. Scott might not have come back from Iraq, but she had part of him right here in her arms. She felt his presence in this place, this house he loved so much, every single day.
“We have to be strong for daddy. We can do this Hutton. We have to.”
Doing a steady seventy-five, Nick cruised along the Coast Highway and blew right by the city limits sign of Pelican Pointe, an old-fashioned wooden marker touting a meager population of two-thousand-eight-hundred and seven. Just to prove a point, mainly that he did not want to be here in this particular town he gunned the engine. The noise turned a few heads as he flew past the strip of fishing village to his left that snuggled up against the bay. He followed the sign directing him to the town’s business district, and headed down a tree-lined Main Street. He breezed past another sign in front of the Community Church on the corner, proclaiming they’d had seventy-five people in attendance the previous Sunday. He didn’t slow his speed until he reached the heart of downtown. He eased past a bank, a pharmacy, a hardware store, a beauty shop, along with a spattering of neatly trimmed little houses lining both sides of the road. By the time the diner caught his eye, his stomach rumbled. He remembered he needed to eat. He spotted the market and decided it would have to do. He wasn’t ready to sit down yet and mingle with the good people of Pelican Pointe. Even though he needed caffeine like an addict needed a fix, he’d forgo the diner and make do at the convenience store. At that moment he would have given fifty bucks for a couple of shots of espresso. Eyeing the convenience store, he grimaced at the idea of having to settle for a cup of crappy coffee. But he reasoned, he could avoid people in the store. The diner might be more difficult.
As he pulled to a stop in what looked like the newly paved parking lot of Murphy’s Market, he reluctantly cut the engine and sat there looking around at the sad little excuse for a town. So this, he thought, was the infamous Pelican Pointe Scott had bragged so much about. To Nick it pretty much looked like any number of small towns along the coast he’d passed on the trip here. But this town seemed in worse shape, as if it didn’t see enough tourists to make stopping here worthwhile unless you had to. And there was no denying it was a helluva long way from the interstate. So why would anyone bother?
It sure as hell wasn’t L.A.
When his stomach growled again, he grudgingly crawled off the bike and headed inside to see what he could rustle up for breakfast.
The place was larger than it looked from the outside, no convenience store at all, but rather a tidy compact market. Even though the store was whistle clean, the narrow, cramped aisles seemed as if the owner had packed so much into the undersized space, a sudden panic of claustrophobia descended. Nick fought for control three feet inside the glass doors, pretending to orient himself to his surroundings. He started forcing in deep, calming breaths, putting his mind to relaxing his need for air. When the breathing exercises began to quash the anxiety, he nervously picked up a brown, plastic basket to gather his breakfast. Calmer now, he circled the aisles, picking up an array of mostly junk food, a couple packages of donuts, a bear claw, a bag of Doritos, before spotting the self-serve coffee pot on the side wall hiding near the deli counter. He grabbed the largest to-go cup he could find and filled it to the brim. Letting the black liquid cool, he sipped the strong brew before finding a lid to fit the top. He’d tasted worse, he decided as he headed to the checkout.
For the first time he noticed the small, gray-haired clerk standing behind one of two checkouts stands. The fifty-something man stood a mere five feet in height. He wore a starched dark green apron tied around his neck and middle. He reminded Nick of an aging leprechaun minus the suit. And wouldn’t you know it, his name tag read Murphy. According to Scott, this was the mayor and owner of the only grocery store in town.
“Wouldn’t you rather have a hot biscuit with bacon and egg instead of that junk food?” Murphy asked jovially. “Two sausage biscuits with egg for three bucks. Can’t beat the price. Best deal in town.”
Nick’s eyebrows went up. “Competing with the Hilltop Diner?”
“Baked fresh from the Diner this morning, Margie sees to that, delivers them hot seven days a week even on Sunday.”
“Sold,” Nick said, absently letting go of the basket filled with junk food and leaving it on the vacant check-out stand nearby. He watched as Murphy went over to a microwave on the front wall under a bank of windows, threw in two wrapped biscuits, and hit a couple of buttons on the panel.
“Just passing through?” Murphy asked to make conversation, as he waited for the biscuits to warm.
“Actually, I was wondering if you might know where I could find Jordan Phillips.” Nick had no sooner gotten the words past his tongue when he noticed the man’s friendly demeanor vanished. To Nick it looked as if he was sizing him up. He supposed he couldn’t blame him. After all, he was a stranger who had driven up on a loud, big-ass Harley.
Even though Nick towered over him, Murphy put on his sternest face and gruffly asked, “Who wants to know?”
Nick shifted his feet, uneasy, hesitant to say too much. But he did need directions. “I...know she runs a bed and breakfast around here called The Cove. Thought maybe you could tell me
how to get there.”
“So, you’re looking for a place to stay? Ah, well, she hasn’t opened up yet. Since her husband died in Iraq, Jordan’s struggled to get it going. They sunk all their money into that place before his reserve unit got called up. The bank’s extended her out as far as they can, if she can’t get a cash flow going, they’ll have no choice but to put the place up for auction. She’ll lose everything. Shame too, after Scott didn’t come back.”
Murphy scrubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. “You know Jordan?”
“Not really. I knew Scott.” Now why had he volunteered that? But it was too late. He saw Murphy’s ears pick up, watched his curiosity peak before the microwave timer dinged.
“That a fact?” Murphy asked as he rang up the biscuits and the coffee. To Nick the man seemed to be pondering which tack to take. So it was no surprise when Murphy asked, “How’d you know Scott? Same reserve unit maybe?”
Nick nodded.
“You down here from the Bay?”
The man was too nosy, Nick thought, so much for slinking through town without announcing his presence. What would prevent this guy from picking up the phone and giving Jordan a heads-up that a stranger was asking about her? She’d be expecting him then. He’d be committed. Something about that pissed him off. So much for unobtrusively stopping and getting directions, thought Nick. He pulled a ten from his wallet. “No,” he finally answered, as he tossed the bill down on the counter. He had no intention of answering anymore meddlesome questions. He’d already said too much. But instead of giving up, the man surprised Nick and went into a detailed account of Jordan’s predicament.
“It’s been a rough year for her and the baby, out there alone, trying to fix that big old house up herself. Doing what she can anyway, can’t afford to hire any help. If you ask me, she’s in a helluva hard place right now with the balloon payment coming due. She could use a friend.”
As Nick waited for Murphy to count out his change, he listened intently as the guy started telling him the best way to get to Jordan’s.
As soon as he got outside, Nick removed the wrapper from his biscuits. Leaning on the bike he scarfed down breakfast all the while brooding over Murphy’s words. If the man knew Jordan needed help, why wasn’t he rallying the good people of Pelican Pointe to step up to the plate and help out Scott’s widow? After all, Scott had painted the townspeople as a bunch of home-grown good Samaritans. Didn’t sound like that to Nick.
As he headed out of town, the question nagged at him. He did his best to shrug off the why. Jordan Phillips wasn’t his problem. He was here for one reason. And it wasn’t to get drawn into the woman’s problems or do a good deed for anyone but himself. He didn’t give a rat’s ass about anything in Pelican Pointe, least of all Jordan Phillips. He didn’t need anyone else’s problems right now. He had enough of his own. He certainly didn’t want to hear that Scott’s wife had fallen on hard times. What he had to say to the woman would take no more than an hour, two at the most. He was sure of it. Once he explained what happened, his conscience would be clear. A couple of hours, a long talk, maybe a shoulder to cry on and he would be done with Jordan Phillips. He could head back to L.A., and get on with his own life.
Maybe then Scott’s ghost, or whatever it was, would leave him the hell alone.
Following Murphy’s directions, he took the Coast Highway until he spotted a narrow turnoff heading farther west toward the ocean. In the distance, down the winding road, at the end of a long paved driveway he spotted a freshly painted apple-green and white sign that read, “The Cove Bed and Breakfast, Scott and Jordan Phillips, Proprietors.”
As he drove past the sign, seeing Scott’s name there gave him a jolt. Despite the fact that Scott had described the place more times than he could count, Nick hadn’t expected that. Slowing the bike, he took the time to glance around at the surrounding woods. Some thirty yards ahead, he noticed the grove of trees that guarded an old house and then suddenly the rundown-looking Victorian came into view. Just like the town, the house looked like it had seen better days. It needed a fresh coat of paint, new shutters, maybe a new roof. The wooden porch sagged, the rotted wood of the railing needed replacing. From the end of the drive, he spotted some kind of activity on the porch he couldn’t quite make out.
As he got closer, it wasn’t the condition of the house that caught his attention and held, but rather the striking woman about five foot six with caramel-colored, honey-blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, standing on the wraparound porch struggling mightily with a large commercial sander. Trying to keep a steady hold on the constant motion, she was fighting the machine or maybe the machine was fighting her. Either way, the battle raged on and it looked like the sander was winning.
Pulling up beside the porch, he quickly shut off the engine to the cycle. Before he could slide off the bike, however, the woman lost control of the machine. The sander became airborne, flew through the wooden railing, sailed another five feet in the air and landed with a grinding thud in the middle of a bunch of flowers. Pink and purple blossoms shot out from every angle, along with green vines going every which way. The sander sat there among the flowers, whirling, spewing forth enough dirt and noise to deafen the neighbors or scare a baby.
From somewhere on the porch, Nick heard the wail of a small child. The harried woman rushed over to a mesh, crib-like box where she bent down to scoop up the unhappy little bundle dressed in pink overalls. Clutching the baby to her chest, she began bouncing her up and down trying to soothe the little girl. Over the din, Nick heard her say, “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Don’t cry now. Hush now. It’s okay. Shhhh. It’ll be okay. Mama’s right here, she didn’t mean to scare you.”
Nick bent down over the sander, located the switch, and flipped it to the off position, silencing the deafening noise. Hauling the machine out of the bushes, he set it upright. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Jordan simply dropped down on the porch steps with Hutton on her lap as if exhausted, defeated.
During their time together in Iraq, Scott had forced countless photographs from home on Nick, whether he wanted to look at them or not. Now, snapshots of this woman, this child flickered through his head in rapid-fire succession. He realized, the photos hadn’t done either of them justice. The baby, no longer an infant, had grown. The woman had features he didn’t recall from pictures, which told him how little attention he had paid to them at the time. He certainly had not remembered Jordan’s warm expressive, big brown eyes. Or her long narrow face with the high cheekbones. Or that sweetheart-shaped mouth. Or those long legs in a pair of jean shorts.
And she’d lost weight.
Nick stood back long enough to let her go through the rituals of calming the baby. But once he felt it was okay to proceed, he approached both with caution. “Are you okay?”
Sniffling, cuddling the child, Jordan stared at the stranger as if he’d lost his mind. “Do I look okay? They shouldn’t rent that thing without detailed instructions on how to keep it under control.”
In spite of her meltdown, Nick couldn’t help but chuckle at her words. Wisely though, he hid his smirk by leaning down to check the damage to the wood-splintered porch railing.
“That’s just one more thing I’ll have to fix,” she sobbed. “I’ll never get this place ready to open.” Turning to Nick, her shoulders slumped. She sighed. “If you’re looking for a place to stay, we aren’t open yet.” Her earlier morning optimism and pep talk forgotten, she groaned, “Looks like we may never be.”
How to proceed, he wondered before taking a long look around at the picturesque surroundings, those huge cypress trees guarding the house, their peeling branches swaying in the soft breeze from the ocean. You could smell the water from here. He breathed in the fresh air heavy with some indistinguishable sweet mixture from the blooming buds lining the rest of the walkway. Without thinking, without preamble, he heard himself slide out the words, “Murphy at the store said you might need help out here.”
“H
e did?”
Nick noticed she seemed bewildered at that. Her big brown eyes grew even wider. She actually stammered before her voice evened out. “I…I…well of course I need help, but I can’t afford to hire anyone right now. Murphy knows that. He shouldn’t have told you there was work. I can’t pay you, not until I open up anyway.” Staring at the man, her heart suddenly raced with undefined hope. She so needed things to go her way for a change. “Are you looking—for work, I mean?”
He squinted into the distance at a flock of seagulls circling overhead, refused to meet her eyes. He hadn’t come this far to lie to her. That’s the last thing he wanted to do. But at the moment, he couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of his mouth. “Seems I am. If you know a place for me to stay, I could ride it out, until you get open.” He didn’t have a clue what had happened to the man who had all but chanted the entire way here, “I refuse to get involved.”
In the blink of an eye, her anticipation turned cautious. “Why would you do that? I don’t know you from Adam— you come riding up here on a motorcycle—out of the blue. You aren’t in trouble with the law, are you?”
Nick shook his head. He contemplated how not to lie because he’d never seen a woman more in need of help than this one. Murphy had been right about that. And damn it, how could he turn his back on her now? Even he wasn’t that cold. He heard himself say, “Nope. I’m a fair carpenter. I can handle a hammer, a saw...and I can handle that sander.” Eyeing the condition of the place, he added, “But at this point, I don’t think you can afford to be too picky. Murphy says you’ve got a deadline approaching.”
Promise Cove (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 1) Page 2
