The Kiss on Castle Road (A Lavender Island Novel)

by Lauren Christopher

  “I’ll get her some clothes,” Dr. Sherman said gruffly, taking off for the bedroom.

  Natalie watched him fly out of the room.

  “He’s the sweetest,” Alice whispered with her eyes closed, and then giggled.

  Dr. Sherman came back with a pair of sweats, a thick pair of socks, and a wrinkled “Dolphin Dash” T-shirt, which he handed to Alice awkwardly and then stole away again.

  Alice yawned and started to slink down farther in the chair, but then sat up and sleepily unzipped Natalie’s hoodie. She handed it back and let Natalie help her get the warm clothes on. The fire created a peaceful snapping sound.

  “How long have you been dating?” Natalie whispered, her curiosity getting the best of her. She reached down to help Alice with the socks.

  “This is our first date.”

  Natalie’s hand stalled. She couldn’t help but gape up at Alice. But she finished her task. This was none of her business. Alice was none of her business—now that she knew she wasn’t in danger. And Dr. Sherman, especially, was none of her business. Not how he managed to get a first date naked by the ocean, not whether he enjoyed skinny-dipping in the black Pacific, not why he had two different dates in two nights, not why he was renting this old-person-furnished ocean-top mansion. And definitely not the cute, perplexed way he looked at Alice from beneath the bangs that fell in his eyes.

  “Here you go.” He came back into the room with a steaming mug of something, a glass of water, and an aspirin, then put them all on the fireplace hearth for Alice, backing away as if he were feeding a feral cat.

  Natalie reached for the mug and helped Alice drink a few sips of whatever it was, since Dr. Sherman didn’t seem to want to come closer. It looked like tea. Alice grimaced but took a few gulps anyway.

  “Would you like anything?” he asked Natalie.

  “No. I should be going. Could I use your phone again? To call my sister?”

  “Sure. Do you want a ride home?” His face seemed to light up at that. He really had beautiful eyes.

  “Looks like you’ve got your hands full already.”

  “No, I can take you home. It’s the least I could do.” His hair fell into his eyes again as he seemed to search for keys.

  “They’re over by the door. But, no, really. I’m close by. I just need to call my sister first. I’m staying with her.”

  “Where does she live?” He handed her his phone.

  “About ten cottages that way. We’re on C Street.” She motioned with a nod outside his windows, with their incredible view, and punched in Olivia’s number. “Liv?” she whispered into the phone. “Just me . . .”

  When she handed the phone back, Dr. Sherman was staring at her from beneath his bangs; the firelight played along the side of his face.

  “Thank you,” he said. “You seem to have a Good Samaritan gene.”

  “I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “I’m sorry if I interrupted your . . . plans. Or . . . date. Or whatever.”

  They both looked at the slumbering Alice.

  “Yeah, I’m a great date,” he deadpanned.

  Before any more flashes of Dr. Sherman on a date went through her head, Natalie whirled toward the sliding door. “Can I go out this way?”

  “It might be slippery through the ice plants.”

  But she was already halfway through the door. “I’ll be fine.”

  Once her feet hit the sand, she wrapped the damp hoodie around her front and jogged back up the beach, eager to get away.

  Dr. Sherman was not her type.

  And she was on a mancation.

  And he was on a date.

  The ocean air felt good against her face, calming her foolish, thundering heart.

  By the time Elliott got Alice into his car, drove her all the way home, came home, got the torture lenses off, cleaned up the dinner, and called Nell, it was close to three a.m. He definitely wouldn’t get any work done tonight. And he couldn’t stop thinking about Natalie.

  “Are you kidding me?” Nell asked into the phone. “That’s not the Alice I know!”

  Elliott sat on the edge of his bed, exhausted. He ran his hand through his hair. “Well, that’s the Alice who was here tonight.”

  “Elliott, I’m sorry. That’s not the kind of person you should be with. You need someone who will take care of you, not the other way around.”

  “No one needs to take care of me, Nell.” He scanned his bedroom desk. Maybe he could get a few notes in if he stayed up until five or so. “Look, maybe we should cancel the rest of the dates. I don’t want to do this dating thing. I have so much work to do, and—”

  “But that’s part of the problem. You work too much. You need to poke your head out and look at the world around you.”

  “I’m looking at the world plenty, at least where it concerns me. And right now, the sea lions concern me. I don’t work more than Jim does.”

  “You most certainly do!”

  He sighed. He could hear his baby nephew cooing near the phone. Nell often nursed at two or three in the morning, and if he texted or called, she’d sometimes pick up, as she had tonight. Plus, they were both hopeless insomniacs.

  “I need to help at the center and put in some time to figure out what’s going on.”

  “It’s only a few more dates, Elliott. Please. I think these next women might be just right. Let’s find someone who will keep an eye on you.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose to stop the headache from coming on. “I don’t need someone to keep an eye on me.”

  They’d had this argument a million times, but Nell was getting more and more desperate as her Italy departure loomed. She’d always looked out for him—always saw it as her responsibility, ever since that terror-filled night when they’d sat huddled in the closet.

  “Just a few more dates,” she begged.

  He sighed and let the familiar sense of guilt overwhelm him. He’d been seven, and Nell had been ten. The gunshots had woken them first. Their mother’s screams had shot ice through their veins second. Elliott had frozen, barely able to move, clutching his stuffed elephant to his chest. But Nell had been fast and clearheaded, and she’d whisked them into the tiny closet behind the laundry chute, where they’d crouched in their pajamas, listening to the intruders stomping through the house and flinging open doors. He’d tried to keep his ragged breaths from being too loud, tried to keep from moaning in fear. Nell had held his hand. The terror of waiting for the intruders to leave—listening to them upturn every blanket, every drawer, every door to find them—was second only to the horror of discovering, two hours later, their parents shot to death in a sea of blood.

  “How many dates are you talking about?” he asked into the quiet of the room. Only his clock ticked gently in the background. He liked to fall asleep to the sound.

  “I have three more set up.”

  Elliott groaned.

  They’d gone to live with their granddad and grandmother after that, far away in Kansas, sometimes being shuttled to various aunts and uncles in Illinois or Wisconsin for a month or two when either of their grandparents’ health was bad. When their grandmother died, it was just him, Nell, and his granddad, trying to make things work in their strange little family of three. He and Nell had switched schools frequently. Elliott had never made friends well. He’d been paralyzingly shy, and Nell had always tried to protect him from bullies, always tried to watch over him.

  “Maybe I met someone on my own,” he finally said into the phone.

  “You did?” He heard his nephew gurgling and cooing again. “Hold on, Elliott.”

  He waited while Nell switched sides, or switched phone ears, or whatever she was doing. He was happy she was happy. Her new baby and Jim were long-overdue lights in her life. She’d lived in dark clouds f
or so many years, always haunted by fear, always afraid of potential danger. They were both spooked by the dark, by scary sounds, by anyone approaching them the wrong way. Although their parents’ killers were caught almost immediately, they’d lived forever with the unthinkable images they’d stumbled across that morning. They’d lived forever with the nightmares. Nell had lived forever with the need to protect Elliott. And Elliott had lived forever with the memory of how he’d frozen. If it hadn’t been for Nell, he knew he’d be dead, too.

  “So, who is this woman you met?” she asked between coos to his nephew, Max.

  “I don’t know her, per se, but . . .” He let that trail off. He didn’t even know what he was talking about. He was thinking of Natalie, but he was just conjuring this up now. Natalie probably thought he was some deranged lunatic, abandoning dates on his patio or getting them drunk and letting them wander, naked, into the freezing Pacific.

  A wave of mortification had gone through him when he’d realized that Natalie had doubted Alice’s safety. He’d seen her eyeing Alice warily when she’d first approached. But once that disturbing realization had passed, he’d taken a deep breath and admired the gesture. Most women—or even men, for that matter—would probably have let the whole scene slip right past them, assuming it was what it was: a date splashed with too much alcohol and going a bit awry. But, in truth, admiration swept over him that Natalie hadn’t been afraid to intervene and possibly come to the rescue of another woman. Which was why he’d let her come inside and analyze as much as she wanted.

  “Well, what does she do?”

  “I’m, uh . . . I’m not really sure.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “A few houses down, I think, on the beach?”

  “How old is she?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe my age?”

  A deep sigh sounded. “Elliott, this sounds like someone you saw, not someone you met. Please, let’s just get through the next three dates. Trust me. These are good, caring women. I saved the best for last.”

  “Nell, let me take care of my own dating life. I need to get back to work, and—”

  “If you wait until you have a break in work, you’ll never meet anyone. Please, Elliott. Just these last three. I already set them up. After that, I promise I’ll back off.”

  Elliott ran his hand through his hair. “Really?”

  “I’m that confident.”

  “Okay.”

  Having Nell finally back out of his business would be a relief. Maybe then she’d just go to Italy with Jim and live the life they were meant to live. And he could stop feeling guilty for being such an albatross around their necks.

  “Three then,” he said. “But I have to work until seven tomorrow.” Beautiful visions of quietude to study his slides danced before him.

  “I’ll make you reservations at a restaurant so you don’t have to do the whole thing at your place. How about eight o’clock?”

  “All right.”

  That might be less stressful. He could pay the check when they were done and leave. The whole thing could be contained to just an hour or two.

  “Good night, Elliott. Don’t stay up all night . . . Sunrises.”

  He smiled.

  “Sunrises” was what he and Nell used to say to each other when they were kids to get each other through the night. She’d told him to always picture the sunrise, to know it was coming, to conjure it behind his eyelids, and to watch as it came up over the ocean. It had worked. It had gotten him through two decades of nightmares.

  “Sunrises, Nell.”

  He clicked off the phone and turned to his notes, where he always felt safe.

  CHAPTER 6

  Natalie spent the next day trying to be a mini-Olivia. She waited with Lily in front of the red-tile-roofed first-grade classrooms until the first school bell rang, and chatted with the other moms; she arranged with another mother to drop Lily off for a playdate after school; she popped into a cute little craft store on Main Street to find foam letters for a Brownies project and met the woman who owned the shop. She picked up Olivia’s dry cleaning and chatted with Mr. Hale the dry cleaner, then stopped at Jon’s post-office box to pick up his mail, where Mrs. Conner, the post-office worker, asked all about Jon and Olivia.

  The only kink in her day came when she had to take the midmorning ferry all the way to the mainland to look at phones again. After the two-hour trek, she stood at the kiosks, staring at possibilities.

  “What can I help you with?” asked the phone technician. Young guy, kind of geeky like Dr. Nerd. Only he didn’t look at her intensely. Or with curiosity in his eyes. His empty gaze went straight to her breasts.

  “I’m just looking for a replacement phone,” she said. “I’m trying to decide between these two.”

  He pulled himself together and explained the features. His voice had a condescending note to it, as if she didn’t understand pixels or SIM cards.

  “I’ll think these over,” she finally said. She needed one more day to weigh everything. Two-year contracts made her break into a sweat. But she had to do something.

  As she rode the ferry back, she found herself breathing in the salt air along with a sigh of relief as she came upon the welcoming, palm-tree-lined roads of the island. Lavender Island did have a cozy, accepting feel about it. Natalie adjusted her earbuds, turned up the Jack Johnson tunes on her MP3 player, and leaned over the ferry railing.

  Okay, here’s what she would do about the phone: She’d borrow half the money from Olivia. But she’d pay her back. They’d write up a contract and everything. It was a step in the right direction, at least. Or a half step . . .

  She hustled off the ferry and over to the golf cart, then gunned it up the hilly, winding road out of the harbor. She was proud of herself for looking straight ahead, not even glancing at the road that led to the Friends of the Sea Lion center, not even letting Dr. Nerd enter her thoughts for more than ten seconds this time.

  She spotted the entrance to the island’s only supermarket and pulled over sharply behind a large wooden wagon filled with fresh flowers. She’d pick up a few groceries before heading back to Olivia’s. First up were some Froot Loops.

  As she wandered through the aisles, basket on her arm, she heard two women giggling. She turned the corner and ran almost basket-first into none other than Doris, who was standing with another woman, heads bent over a row of paperbacks.

  “Have you read this one?” Doris was asking. “It’s not quite erotica, but I love it anyway. The hero is a cowboy, and he rides the heroine like—oh! Natalie!” She made room for Natalie in their semicircle. “Hello! It is Natalie, right?”

  “Yes. Hi, Doris.”

  “I was just telling Marie here about this hot, sexy novel. Marie, meet Natalie. She’s the beauty who came to see Dr. Sherman yesterday. Natalie, this is Marie. She volunteers at the center, too. Do you read Madame X?”

  The last question was directed at Natalie.

  “No, I—”

  “I highly recommend these!” She threw a copy into Natalie’s basket, then turned to get another one and shoved it toward Marie. “Your boyfriends will thank me!”

  The other woman—at least seventy, like Doris—nodded.

  Books were not in Natalie’s budget when she was scraping pennies for a phone. She pulled it out of her basket.

  “Doris, thanks for the recommendation, but I can’t afford this right now.”

  “Oh, honey, are you coming upon hard times? Let me buy that for you.”

  “No! No, I don’t need you to buy it for me, but I’m just trying to stay on a budget these days. I—”

  “I understand! This economy is so hard on you young people. Are you looking for a job? I know of at least two openings.”

  Natalie’s head snapped up. A job? That could give her the money she needed for the new phone without having to rely
on Olivia. Maybe she could work extra hours while Lily was in school. And, coming from Doris, maybe this job was even at the center? She tried to ignore the little flutter in her chest.

  “Is it at the center?” she asked, trying to hide the embarrassing lift in her voice.

  “One of them is. But that job requires a yearlong commitment. Will you be staying here a year?”

  Natalie felt as if she physically shrank an inch. A yearlong commitment? Who knew what she’d want to do in a year? In six months? In two months, even? And who could live on an island for a whole year? Well, besides Olivia and Jon, of course.

  “What’s the other job?” she asked.

  “The other is better paying,” Doris whispered behind her hand, as if it were a big secret there on aisle four. “It’s at the retirement apartments Casas del Sur, where Marie and I live.”

  Marie’s coif bobbed in agreement. “Ooooh, she’d be perfect for that. Do you Zumba, dear?”

  “I—I don’t think I’ve ever actually—”

  “They’ll train you!” Doris interrupted. “They need a part-time activities assistant. But one of the activities is driving the volunteer golf cart to the Friends of the Sea Lion center, so it’s the best of both worlds.”

  Natalie perked up at that. “I can drive a golf cart.”

  “But the biggest part of the job is that they need someone to help us plan the big Senior Prom in three months. Like an event planner of sorts.”

  “I’d be interested in that. My mom is an event planner, and I’ve learned a lot from her. You think they’d hire me without showing a portfolio?”

  “I could get you hired.” Doris waved her hand.

  Natalie frowned.

  When Doris caught her puzzled expression, she shrugged. “I have some pull with the director. I taught him when he was a boy. If I recommend you, he’ll hire you.”

  “Oh. Well, I would love that job. Right now, I’m watching my little niece every day, but she’s in school from eight until two, so I’m free then.”

  “Perfect!” Doris scribbled a name on a piece of paper and handed it to Natalie. “Here’s his name and number. If you’re free right now, you should go down there and meet him. I’ll text him and tell him you’re coming.”