Pelican Pointe Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 (A Pelican Pointe Novel)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Fine,” Jordan said. “Heard about the fight you two were in last night.” Jordan all but snickered. “Nick’s elated that Sal finally got thrown in jail and that Hayden had the foresight to wield a whiskey bottle as a weapon.” Jordan turned to Hayden and added, “Nick and Sal have tangled before. Last spring in that very bar Nick broke Sal’s nose.”

  “Well, Sal won’t be tangling with anyone for a while, at least not on the outside. Judge refused to set bail. He’ll be locked up until his hearing.”

  Ethan stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels. “So you’re interested in Autumn’s house?” Even though he was staring at Hayden when he asked, she said nothing and seemed content to let Jordan do the talking.

  “We’re thinking about it,” Jordan said after a lengthy silence.

  “It’s available to lease. You know Autumn ran a business out of here.”

  “I was just telling Hayden the story about your grandmother’s boutique, the gift baskets she made.”

  “I think she’d like knowing someone was making use of the house. A bookstore, isn’t that what you were thinking about, Hayden?”

  This was silly, Hayden decided. She’d have to talk to the man eventually. “That’s the plan.”

  “I appreciate what you did for me last night. Picking up that bottle probably saved me from a gash. Bashing Sal’s head in took seventeen stitches to close up.”

  “Good. The man deserved it, sneaking up on you like that. He was going to jab you right there in the bar with that broken beer bottle.”

  Ethan grinned. She really was a fascinating woman with so many sides to her he couldn’t keep up. “That’s one of the reasons he’s looking at two to five years courtesy of the state. Two dozen witnesses or thereabouts will testify to his attempted assault on a cop.” He stared Hayden squarely in the eye and asked, “Are we okay now, Hayden? I’d like to go back to the way things were.”

  Hayden smiled, too. “Sure. We could do that.” She held out her hand. “Friends?”

  Ethan reached out his hand, tilting up her chin. “That’s a start.” Then when he turned to leave, he added, “You let me know about my grandmother’s house. I guarantee I’ll make you a good deal.”

  After dropping Jordan back at Promise Cove, Hayden took the directions she’d downloaded off the Internet and headed over to San Sebastian.

  She had errands to run.

  Almost an hour and one wrong turn later, Hayden crossed into the city limits of the little town which was twice the size and population of Pelican Pointe. It took her three stops before she was able to locate a store that sold the cell cards she needed to boost up her phone. And when she found them, she purchased four more just in case she couldn’t persuade Murphy to stock them. After taking the time to key in the card info, she felt better knowing her phone was good-to-go.

  When she got hungry she stopped at a sidewalk bistro café that reminded her of one back in Chicago off Lake Shore Drive and ordered the special of the day, half a club sandwich and a cup of vegetable soup.

  After lunch, she spent two hours perusing the shelves at the San Sebastian Library, wishing she had a card so she could check out some of the books, especially a few on making your own candles and growing herbs in containers. For some reason, Jordan’s story about Autumn Lassiter kept rolling around in her head. Maybe adding homemade candles to her book inventory would give the place more of a boutique/gift shop feel.

  Before leaving the rows and rows of books behind, Hayden asked the woman at the front desk for directions to the bookstore and was shocked to learn it had gone out of business in August. Not a good sign, thought Hayden as she asked the librarian what she needed to provide in order to get a library card.

  When the woman told her she needed proof of residency, she asked for directions to the nearest DMV. Luckily there was one four blocks away.

  After placing a phone call to Jordan to get the exact address of the studio apartment so she could fill out an application for a California driver’s license, she sat in a room with a ton of other people for forty-five minutes waiting for them to call her up to the counter.

  Once she took and passed her written test, had her vision checked, gave her thumbprint, surrendered her Nevada license, they took her picture.

  When they handed her the paperwork for her brand-new license, even though she’d have to wait two weeks to get the real piece of plastic in the mail, she whooped and hollered and did a happy dance right there in the DMV.

  Within minutes, she made her way back to the library where she applied for a card, and checked out all the books she could carry on candle making and growing herbs in small spaces including container gardening and apartment balconies.

  Loaded down with books, she headed back to her car. From the moment she’d learned about how the San Sebastian bookstore had failed after only a short time in business, Hayden began to have serious doubts about the bookstore idea.

  As she drove back to Promise Cove, she considered the fact that if a store couldn’t make it in a town the size of San Sebastian with a good five thousand people, how successful would it be in an even smaller market like Pelican Pointe in a bad economy. Pondering the question, she wondered if everyone ordered their books online these days. Surely there was still a need for a local bookstore where one could walk inside four walls, browse up and down rows and rows of books, flip open the pages, read the book covers, and weigh the storyline.

  When she got back to the B & B she’d have to look up the statistics on how many people were going digital these days and buying eBooks.

  She racked her brain to think of other business possibilities. It brought her to what Scott Phillips had said about new beginnings. On some level she had Dochenko to thank for this new beginning. But then he was also trying to kill her.

  For some reason she couldn’t let go of Autumn Lassiter’s candle shop and gift boutique. It kept spinning around in her head. She glanced at all the books on the front passenger seat and wondered how hard it could be to learn how to make candles and grow herbs.

  It hit her then. Her thought process was all over the place. So much that she had to laugh at herself.

  By the time she reached the turnoff to the cove, she decided to go over the ideas with Nick and Jordan and get their take. Maybe the three of them would be able to come up with a few fresh “possibilities.”

  It took Hayden less than two minutes in the house to determine that Jordan looked exhausted and could use an extra pair of hands in the kitchen. Hayden got to work peeling potatoes and carrots and making iced tea, all things she could do without fear of ruining something.

  While she watched in awe as Jordan rolled out pie dough from scratch for pot pies, she told her about the San Sebastian bookstore closing.

  “I’m wondering if we should go another route.”

  “How about becoming a tour guide?”

  “What? Where did that come from?”

  “You said yesterday you liked to hike, liked spending time outdoors. You were asking me this morning about taking out the dinghy. Maybe you could start some kind of tour business taking the guests we get here on nature hikes. In the past they’ve expressed an interest in seeing the local sights, such as we have. Last summer we had a young couple from Ireland who came to California to hike the area around Big Sur. I’m sure they might’ve stayed longer if we’d offered some kind of tour of the area.”

  Hayden opened her mouth to speak but didn’t know what to say. That was actually not a bad idea. But she hadn’t told a single soul here or anywhere else about her early desire to be a forest ranger. And how stupid was that idea at this late date. For chrissakes, she’d be twenty-seven years old in six months, a little late to start thinking about the forest ranger angle. But a tour guide? That might be doable and not a bad idea.

  “You could take people out to Treasure Island.”

  “What’s Treasure Island?”

  About that time Nick came in carrying Hutton. “Treasure Island is
the nickname Scott gave a small island due west of the cove about half a mile offshore. I’m sure you’ve seen the little dot of land in the distance. And local legend says there’s a shipwreck south of there. Do you dive, Hayden?” He asked as he settled Hutton into her high chair.

  “No. Why?”

  “For starters we could use someone to motor guests out to Treasure Island during the spring and summer months. Maybe as we grow we could include taking the guests out to dive and explore the shipwreck. It was Scott’s original plan for this place.”

  “That sounds great for spring, but what about now? I need a viable plan now.”

  “True. Well, we’ll keep brainstorming until we hit upon the right thing for you. Don’t worry something will pop. You’ll see.”

  Over dinner, Hayden told them about getting her driver’s license. “They mail the actual piece of plastic out within two weeks. So, now I’m legal.” Then she told them about getting a library card and all the books she’d checked out.

  When she noticed they were staring, she thought it was because she’d monopolized the conversation.

  “I guess that means you really are planning to stay then?” Jordan asked, a bit emotional.

  Hayden smiled. “I am. And it feels good to decide that.” Eyeing Jordan’s hormonal state, she didn’t want to make her cry or upset her further, so she changed the subject. “Do you guys ever get tired of having people underfoot? I mean, do you ever resent having to share your house with so many strangers?”

  “Sometimes. I don’t know about Nick but after having spent such a long time out here alone, it’s nice having other people around to talk to.”

  “Some people,” Nick agreed. “But then you get the ones who are difficult the minute they step through the door and make demands at every turn. Like the group from Cincinnati we had here in June for a retreat. They had both Jordan and me running ragged for them, insisting on a particular kind of cheese, fussy about the wine, particular about everything from soup to the main course. Personally, I was glad when their five days were up.”

  “They were a challenge,” Jordan admitted. “I doubt we’ll see them again, anyway. They thought we were a little too remote for their tastes.”

  “And bitched about it for five days. What I couldn’t figure out is the woman in charge of booking the whole thing had checked us out the month before. When it was just her and her husband, she didn’t seem to mind the accommodations then or the food.”

  “I bet I know,” Hayden offered. “When she was here before with her husband she didn’t have an audience to impress. But with the group, she hoped to impress them, wanted them to ooh and aah over every little thing. When they didn’t…”

  “Now that I think about it, you’re probably right.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it time and time again with Jeremy. He’d try to impress his clients, people around him, wait for their reactions and when he didn’t get it he’d throw a temper tantrum and—” Hayden stopped talking when she realized what she’d said.

  Jordan patted her hand. “It’s okay, Hayden. We aren’t going to run to Ethan and tell him you slipped up.”

  “I’m terrible at this.”

  “You mean you aren’t good at pretending?” Nick offered. “Or lying?”

  “I’d say that’s a plus, not a problem,” Jordan finished.

  “It would be,” Hayden said, before adding, “If it weren’t so important.”

  After supper, Hayden cleaned up the kitchen and did the dishes. She’d dried the last pan, when she looked over and found Jordan staring at her.

  “Thanks for cleaning up.”

  “You cook, I clean. Do you think it’s crazy that I would want to learn how to make candles, grow herbs, and learn to cook at this late date?”

  Jordan laughed. “You’re young yet. Before I met Scott, my major was education. I planned to be a teacher like my dad, maybe cater in my spare time if I needed some extra cash. Then Scott swept me off my feet and I ended up here. You can plan and plan all you want, but life has a way of throwing you a curve. Life is all about change. You have to be willing to look at new avenues. Learning to cook isn’t that difficult. You follow a recipe, use the right tools, terrific ingredients, and before you know it, you’ve got yourself a meal.”

  “You make it sound so easy, so simple. In fact, you and Nick both do.”

  Jordan smiled at that. “Stop being so hard on yourself, Hayden. Everything will work out. You’ll see.”

  Luka Radovan had worked for his boss as a loyal employee for almost twenty-five years. He had begun his illustrious career as an errand boy at the age of sixteen and was now Dochenko’s right-hand man. He’d moved up in the ranks because he was an unrelenting, ornery bastard with a deadly aim. And it helped that, like any paid hit man, he had absolutely no conscience. He liked what he did for a living. After a quarter of a century in the business, he was good at it.

  It had fallen to him to locate the whereabouts of one Emile Reed, the straight-laced accountant who had taken off after his lackey had dropped the ball in that parking garage and sent her running.

  Luka shook his head. He should have taken care of the problem himself. But he’d sent one of his up-and-coming underlings on a simple job. Taking care of Emile Reed’s demise should have been a piece of cake. The plan had been to make it look like a random mugging. The robbery angle had worked before. Eliminating Saul Raymond had been a walk in the park. He’d slipped inside the man’s condo that night and―no more business partner to worry about spilling everything he knew to the feds.

  Because of that screw up, Luka had personally taken care of the underling. The man who had failed to get rid of Emile Reed had been disposed of that very night. Failure wasn’t an option. Dochenko would never tolerate the inability to contain the government’s key witness. Even Luka knew that. He’d sent his minions to stake out her sister, Sydney Reed, in St. Louis, and the mother in Pellingham, New York.

  Time would tell if either produced results.

  So far, they’d turned up nothing. But in his line of work, patience, as well as a certain amount of persistence were qualities you could never have too much of, especially when you were in pursuit of someone who didn’t want to be found.

  Luka knew in order to be successful you had to be thorough.

  There were all manner of ways to locate Emile Reed. Dochenko seemed to think she’d stay in contact with her family, either by e-mails, texts, or phone calls. As soon as he could get inside the homes of her sister and mother, he intended to find out which.

  He’d already arranged to get inside the woman’s condo, to fool the real estate agent into thinking he was interested in purchasing that little cracker-box. Of course, he would string along the agent as long as he could, maybe until she gave up whatever information she had on Emile Reed. If that turned out to be nothing, then he’d drop the buyer angle.

  Because when it came to locating the accountant, Luka Radovan would leave no stone unturned.

  Chapter 11 Book 2

  On Tuesday morning Hayden discovered she hadn’t lost her ability to get along with a two-year-old, at least one in particular. After agreeing to babysit Nick and Jordan’s daughter, Hutton, while they attended Edmund Taggert’s funeral service, she could admit now she’d been nervous at the prospect of being alone and solely responsible for a toddler. Another something she hadn’t done since her college days when she’d picked up extra money at the university day care center taking care of other people’s kids.

  At first it had been a challenge to figure out what Hutton was trying to say to her. As good as Hayden had been at learning college French, after twenty minutes she’d discovered that two-year old-speak was a good deal more difficult to grasp.

  As she sat on the living room floor reading Hutton her fifth story book, she realized mothers should come equipped with mindreading capabilities or built-in translators. The little girl was trying to add her two cents to the storyline. What it was exactly, Hayden could only guess. But i
t didn’t take her long to realize Hutton possessed the same easy-going personality as her mother. Or perhaps the little girl had gotten her even-tempered nature from Scott. She certainly had her father’s eyes.

  And wasn’t it weird that Hayden knew that firsthand. But after having a conversation with Scott the other day, she figured she could make the comparison.

  If anyone had told her six months ago, she would willingly sit and talk to a ghost, she’d have laughed them into oblivion. But the truth was something about Scott pulled at her. While his spirit seemed content enough, it also hinted at an undefined restlessness. There were issues at play, she was sure of it. She just wasn’t certain what they were.

  Either way, she turned her attention back to the little girl, who continued to babble on about the pink polka-dotted rabbit in the storybook they were reading. For a few brief minutes the colorful, furry little thing had come to life for Hutton, mainly because it was so different from all the other bunnies.

  Hayden couldn’t help but make the comparison. For a span of minutes out in that cemetery, Scott Phillips had been real to her. She could only wonder why and what it all meant.

  The Community Church at the corner of Main and Inlet Bay overflowed to capacity for Edmund Taggert’s funeral service.

  Dressed in his official uniform, Ethan stood at the back of the chapel near the double doors in case he got a call and had to make a quick exit. Surveying the crowd, it seemed as though the entire town had turned out to pay their respects. He looked around at the sea of faces, faces as familiar to him as his own family.

  Murphy and Carla Vargas had shown up. Nick and Jordan were here. Will and Francine Foley had tears in their eyes. Wally Pierce had brought Lilly Seybold. Margie Rosterman sat in the front row with Max and Flynn McCready, who seemed to be with Janie and Abby Pointer. No doubt about it, old Edmund would have been pleased at the turnout.