Lighthouse Reef (A Pelican Pointe Novel Book 4)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “That’s what Logan said, too. You think Jordan might go for that? Putting several of them out on display?”

  “I don’t see why not. Lilly Pierce’s drawings are hanging in every guest room. And Jordan displays Drea’s line of jewelry there. Why not your artistic endeavors?”

  “You know what, Kinsey?”

  “What?”

  “I was pretty down when I came in here. But you made me feel better.”

  Kinsey grinned, bumped his shoulder again. “Anytime.”

  Troy checked his watch. “I better get moving. Don’t want to be late on my fourth day.”

  When he started to put a dollar down on the counter for his coffee, Kinsey shook her head. “My treat, Troy. Now get out of here.”

  “Thanks again, Kinsey. You have a good Sunday.”

  Because the curious had thinned out since yesterday, Kinsey’s second day was much quieter. Murphy had let her open up so that he could sleep late, a rare occurrence for him.

  But once church let out, a little past noon, customers began to trickle in to pick up milk and other staples for Sunday dinner or dessert.

  One of those was Janie Pointer, who was there to pick up the makings for chocolate sundaes. The other, was Myrtle Pettibone, who loaded up her cart with cat food. As Kinsey scanned the items in Janie’s cart, she looked up, spotted Aaron Hartley standing in line behind Myrtle. His arms were folded across his chest. There was no ignoring his defiant gesture. The man had no cart, no basket, and no groceries, which told Kinsey she’d been busted.

  Aaron didn’t wait for her to finish with Janie’s groceries. Instead he blurted out, “Girl, what in the hell are you doing here?”

  “You watch your language, Aaron Hartley,” Myrtle warned. “And on a Sunday, too. Is that why you weren’t in church this morning, couldn’t wait to come here to yell at your new girl. What does it look like she’s doing, you fool?”

  “I’m yelling at her because I put her to work as an attorney in this town, not to check groceries again in Murphy’s Market or pound on a piano for Perry Altman.”

  “Looks to me like she can do lawyering, you old fart,” Myrtle harrumphed before slapping cans, one by one, onto the conveyor belt.

  Through his rant, Kinsey noted Aaron’s face color kept inching up from pink to red. The fact that he looked as though his blood pressure had risen twenty points in a span of a few minutes had Kinsey concerned for the man’s health. Not only that, she suddenly realized he looked as though he might seizure. And his hands were shaking.

  “Aaron, please don’t make a scene here. Let’s talk about this. Calmly,” Kinsey pleaded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me to my face what you were planning to do? You’ve known since Thursday and didn’t say a word.”

  “This is exactly why. I knew you’d be upset,” Kinsey snapped back.

  About that time Murphy came out of the back to see what the commotion was all about. “Okay, okay, everyone just take a deep breath. Aaron, surely you don’t begrudge me hiring a stellar employee that I didn’t even have to train.”

  “I thought she’d put this behind her. I thought Kinsey Wyatt wanted a chance at becoming this town’s lawyer, to dedicate herself to a profession she claimed to have a knack for.” Aaron pointed an accusing finger at Kinsey and demanded, “You decide what it is you want, to check groceries or practice law. You…can’t…do both,” he wheezed out. With that, the old man stormed past all of them and sailed out the automatic door.

  Murphy waved his hand. “Go,” he told Kinsey. “Go explain things to him now, else he’ll just stew about it the rest of the day until you get to work tomorrow.”

  Kinsey scooted out the door and down the street to catch Aaron.

  She found him slumped against the bank building next door. With a shaky hand, he was desperately trying to dab at blood running from his nose with a wadded up handkerchief. All the while he gripped his own shirt in a fist so tight his knuckles were a pasty white.

  Kinsey saw him clutch at his chest. She looked around, started waving her arms to get the attention of a passing motorist driving a champagne-colored pickup truck. The driver screeched to a halt. When Kinsey saw who sat behind the wheel, she shouted, “Logan, call 9-1-1! Hurry! I think he’s having a heart attack.”

  Logan ran up, holding his cell phone to his ear, explaining the situation, detailing where they were. “Main Street, First Bank Pelican Pointe. You can’t miss us.”

  By this time, Kinsey had eased Aaron onto the ground. “It’s okay, help’s coming. Stay with me, Aaron.”

  “I…don’t…want to…go…alone,” Aaron gasped.

  “You won’t be alone. I’ll go with you. What’s taking them so long?”

  “It takes time. You want to get him in my truck?”

  About that time, Murphy came jogging up. “Let’s get him over to Doc Prescott’s. It’s closer.”

  Logan and Murphy started to lift him when sirens blared in the distance. “We’ll let the paramedics decide where to take him,” Logan reasoned. “I don’t think the office is open today anyway. It’s Sunday.”

  About that time the red emergency vehicle with the gold and white lettering pulled up at the curb in a screech. Two men got out, grabbing their gear. Murphy seemed to know them, but then Murphy knew everyone.

  “Deacon, Brian,” Murphy acknowledged with a nod.

  A man with caramel skin, nodded back. “Murph, what’ve we got here? What happened to him?”

  “We think he’s having a heart attack.”

  “He got upset in the store,” Kinsey started to explain with her hands still clasped in one of Aaron’s. “He ran outside. I found him standing right here, clutching his chest. We got him to lie down. That’s what he’s doing on the ground.” Kinsey had to let go and take a step back as soon as the man Murphy had called Deacon started to work on Aaron taking his blood pressure and other vitals.

  “It’s…not…my…heart,” Aaron choked out.

  “Have you taken any meds?” Deacon wanted to know while Brian started an IV drip to stabilize the elderly man.

  “I…I…take…cytarabine...among…other things.”

  “I see.” Deacon and Brian exchanged looks. “We need to transport him to the hospital in Santa Cruz.”

  “No,” Aaron rasped out. “Murph…get me over to…Doc’s. He’ll know…what to do.”

  “It’s a Sunday, Aaron,” Logan pointed out. “Doc’s office is closed.”

  Murphy looked none too happy about the decision of where Aaron should be transported falling on his shoulders. “If he needs medical attention now wouldn’t it make more sense for you guys to take him two streets over though instead of all the way to Santa Cruz? What’s wrong with him anyway?” Murphy asked Deacon.

  Deacon shook his head. “That’s not for me to say. If he wants Doc Prescott to look at him, I don’t have a problem with taking him there. I’ve got Doc’s number on speed dial. I’ll give him a call right now, ask him to meet us at his office.”

  Kinsey watched as the two EMTs transferred Aaron to a stretcher, rolled him to the back of the vehicle and loaded him inside. The entire scene was so reminiscent of what she’d seen happen to her mother more than once that Kinsey didn’t realize she was crying until Logan thumbed away a tear rolling down her cheek. Automatically she stepped into his chest.

  Logan suspected she was thinking about her mother. He did his best to make her feel better. “Kinsey, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

  But Kinsey shook her head, unable to say anything. She might not be a nurse, might not have a regular college degree, but years of taking care of a cancer patient that routinely underwent treatment, Kinsey knew exactly the reason Aaron had been prescribed cytarabine. She thought back over the last three weeks. Aaron had been frail and weak from the get-go. He often left the office in the middle of the day for a nap. But now Kinsey suspected it wasn’t his age making him so tired. Once a week, he disappeared for two or three hours, ostensibly to “stretch his legs.�
� More than likely, he’d been going over to see Doc.

  When Brian came back to pick up his gear, he looked at Kinsey and said, “He wants you to make the ride with him.”

  Kinsey glanced up at Logan, then at Murphy, who bobbed his head in the direction of the ambulance. Kinsey took off and crawled into the back with Aaron.

  At his coastal ranch north of town, Jack Prescott, or rather “Doc” as he was affectionately known around town, was just sitting down to leftover stuffed pork chops for lunch when his phone rang. He gave his wife a knowing glance and answered the phone.

  He’d recently celebrated his fifty-ninth birthday. After spending twenty years as chief resident of emergency medicine in one of San Francisco’s busiest ERs, Jack had burned out early. Needing an escape, he’d decided to retire. He’d packed up almost eight years earlier and moved to Pelican Pointe on ten acres of coastal ranchland to ride his horses, go fishing and spend his retirement years in relative peace.

  But in a little town where the sick and injured had to traipse over to San Sebastian or Santa Cruz for medical care, it didn’t take long for word to get out that they had a physician, a noted surgeon, living among them. Once that happened, people started showing up at his house at all hours of the day and night for medical treatment or advice about everything from the stomach flu to needing broken bones fixed or gashes stitched up.

  It didn’t go over well with his wife, Belle. When Belle grew tired of the constant traffic and people coming and going at all hours, she put her foot down. She encouraged her husband to come out of retirement to open a clinic with regular hours.

  Turns out, Doc found he enjoyed his little practice much more than he’d ever enjoyed the aura of emergency surgery.

  It didn’t take Deacon five minutes to make the trip to Doc’s clinic. Kinsey didn’t even have a chance to apologize to Aaron before the ambulance pulled up in the driveway of a renovated Mission-style house, two blocks off Main Street. All Kinsey knew was that Aaron looked pale and weak. Sick. She’d seen sick too many times to be put off by it.

  Before she knew what was happening, Deacon and Brian hopped out when a Jeep Laredo came to a stop and parked beside them. As the EMTs unloaded the stretcher, Doc unlocked the front door.

  Kinsey followed them into a front room designated as the waiting area. It pretty much looked like any other typical doctor’s office. There were a dozen uncomfortable banquet chairs to sit in, tables littered with magazines, and the obligatory reception counter. Deacon and Brian wheeled Aaron down the hall and into one of three professionally furnished exam rooms.

  Kinsey knew because she’d been curious and peeked in. She’d been surprised to see it contained the same state-of-the-art medical equipment as in much larger doctor’s offices.

  Doc spotted her and said, “Go grab yourself a soft drink out of the kitchen. I need to talk to our patient here.” And with that he closed the door in her face.

  By the time she found the small kitchen in the back, Deacon and Brian were already digging out their own cans of soda from the refrigerator.

  “You’re the new lawyer,” Deacon declared as he popped the top on his can of Pepsi.

  “Yes. How’d you know?”

  “Word gets around. Besides, I’d remember you. Your eyes, they look like Heidi Klum’s.”

  Kinsey smiled, recognizing the come-on. “And what do Heidi Klum’s eyes look like?”

  “Hazel with less green, more brown. Deacon’s right, just like yours,” Brian reiterated moving closer to check them out.

  “We’re having a raffle next month for charity. Can I put you down for a couple of tickets? Bring a friend.”

  “What’s the prize?” Kinsey wanted to know.

  “Us,” Brian said with a smile.

  “Well, one of us. You bid on a date, Brian or me,” Deacon said.

  “So this is your pitch?” Kinsey surmised.

  But about that time Doc motioned from the doorway. “Kinsey Wyatt, you can come in now.” She followed him down the hallway. All the while he gave her an update. “I’ve started him on another IV. He’s weak but he wants to talk.”

  The minute she walked into Aaron’s exam room, she knew for certain what was wrong. There was no doubt he was very ill. “You scared the life out of me,” she blurted out. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my other jobs. But…knowing my mother had cancer for years, that the disease took her life, you should have said something about how sick you were.”

  “I…know…we both…need to make a better…effort at talking. I admit…I over…reacted. I should’ve paid you more…to start. It was a probationary period. I wanted to see what you could do.” Each word was an effort for him.

  Because of that, because Doc Prescott still stood to the side, Kinsey turned to the doctor for answers. “What does he have? Exactly. What type of cancer?”

  “Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The disease affects the bone marrow. When the bone marrow doesn’t work correctly there’s an increased risk of infections and bleeding, the healthy blood cells diminish and the cancer progresses.”

  “And the prognosis?”

  “His lymph nodes are swollen, so are his liver and spleen. He’s anemic. He’s on a cocktail of chemo and antibiotics.” Doc shot a look Aaron. “If he takes a lot better care of himself than he did today, he’s got about six months.”

  “What about a bone marrow transplant?”

  “He had one, about a year ago.”

  Kinsey bit her lip, crossed her arms over her chest. She turned back to the patient, prepared to still do battle. “My mother’s hospital bills are killing me financially. If you weren’t so cheap I wouldn’t have had to commit to these extra jobs in the first place. Now that I have, I won’t disappoint Murphy and Perry. They’re counting on me, Aaron, just like you are. I think I can pull it off, do all three jobs without a hitch. But if you give me an ultimatum like you did just now at the store in front of everyone in town, then I’ll have to start sending out resumes and looking for another job.”

  Aaron met Doc’s eyes. “I told…you…the girl…had spunk.”

  Doc nodded in approval, slapped Kinsey on the shoulder. “Sometimes he needs a good, swift kick in the ass. Something tells me you’re just the one who can do it, too.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kinsey didn’t get back to the market until after two o’clock. When she did walk through the doors, Murphy was full of questions she couldn’t answer truthfully. She evaded because she had no intentions of letting on that Aaron Hartley had stage 4 cancer. That was something for Aaron to divulge when he was ready for people to know.

  Although it did seem odd to her that no one around town seemed to realize that Hartley looked gaunt and ill. How long before she got here had he been fighting the disease on his own. How was it possible in such a little town that they hadn’t recognized how he’d changed? Kinsey looked back over the last three weeks. Hell, hadn’t Aaron changed in the short time she’d been in town? Were folks so used to what Aaron looked like that no one had taken the time to really “see” him? Surely people realized he’d dropped weight.

  When her shift at Murphy’s ended the last thing Kinsey felt like doing was sitting around playing in front of a room full of people. But she couldn’t very well call in sick.

  She changed into a flowing, tea and candle skirt in bright blue. It wasn’t as elegant or as a dressy as her previous two outfits, more like festive. But if she had to sit and play piano tonight after what she’d learned about her employer, then she wanted to do it wearing bold colors.

  In spite of her determination, once she got to work, she found she couldn’t shake her mood. Her tastes in selections ran from melancholy to broody. As she began to play James Horner’s One Last Wish, Perry came over to prod her into livening things up a bit.

  She switched to Bach.

  About seven-thirty she looked up to see Jolene leading Logan to a table to the left of the piano under the bank of windows with a view of the ocean.

&nb
sp; For some stupid reason just one look at him had her heart racing. That pull in the belly every time she was around him was getting to be a habit, a bad one and had to stop. Damn it, what was he doing here anyway? The meals at Promise Cove were included. Why the hell didn’t he eat there like all the other guests?

  Logan ordered a glass of red wine and noticed Kinsey staring at him. When her lips curved, he was glad to see it. She hadn’t been the same since Hartley’s heart attack earlier. But here she was, sitting at the piano just as she had been the night before.

  He ordered grilled salmon and felt guilty nibbling on it while Kinsey worked. So after taking several bites, he had the waiter box it up.

  By around ten-thirty the crowd in the dining room had thinned out with only a few stragglers lingering over dessert. The people left in the bar had dwindled down to only Logan and Wade Hawkins, who sat two stools apart, nursing their glasses of wine.

  “You settling in?” Wade asked Logan as he hopped from one bar chair to be closer to sit next to Logan. “There’s a lot to bringing back that old lighthouse. Glad to see someone taking the time to do it right though, lot of history there. You’re doing a good thing.”

  Logan looked at the man with the wild head of white hair. “Settling in okay. Been busy getting things ready to kick off for real come Monday.”

  “So you like it out at Promise Cove?”

  “Sure. It’s one of the best B & Bs I’ve ever had the pleasure of staying at. Nick and Jordan run a first-rate inn.”

  Wade nodded in agreement and peered at the sculptor over his wine glass. “So…no unusual sightings of any kind yet?”

  Chills bumped along Logan’s spine. He wasn’t sure if it was the subject matter or annoyance that Kinsey must have opened her big mouth about something he wanted to keep private. In spite of that, Logan tried for a casual tone. “Sightings? Like what?”

  “I guess not. It’s just that I’m writing a book about the paranormal, specifically right here in Pelican Pointe. I was hoping to get your take about all the ghostly activity out at the B & B.”