Sunshine Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "You didn't have to come up the stairs," she said, remembering his knee, but he said it was nothing, and followed her down.

  At the bottom, there was no car parked on the street.

  "I usually walk," he said.

  "Even with your leg?" she asked

  "It's not far," he said. "And I can't just stop moving forever because of a limp."

  So they walked through the clear autumn twilight down to the wharf. Along the way they chatted about the cottages they passed, the plans for the community center, and the weather, and she was overwhelmed by the simple happiness of it all.

  When they got to the tin roof shack his parents had lived in since he was a kid, his four brothers were overwhelming in a different way. All had dark hair and eyes like their parents, but with the same humor in their eyes and warm, open smile that Logan had.

  He called them "the boys," though they ranged from seventeen to twenty-one. They were as old as she was, but they were definitely boys. And it was like being in the middle of a football match when they saw the dog.

  Soon all four were rolling on the back lawn with the dog, who seemed to be remembering his puppy days as they threw a stick for him and shouted and laughed.

  Then the door to the house opened, and Alastor came to his feet and trotted to the door at his best speed.

  Then his ears went down and he sagged back into being an old dog when he saw it was Logan's father coming home.

  "He's looking for Austin," Logan said, and she agreed.

  "You'll see your boy soon," she told the old dog, and hoped it was true.

  Then they all sat around a big dinner table scratched and scarred by years of service, and they laughed and passed the soup and rolls, and his mom scolded the boys for putting their elbows on the table and for not finishing the salad, and everyone told about how their day went and shared stories and laughed some more.

  And she looked around at the brood of noisy boys and the happy parents in the tiny cottage with the sound of the water outside the windows. And she thought of the great big Roi Soleil Lord of the Manor house that would have been Logan's if things had gone differently.

  And she thought that he had been right about not wanting it. It probably couldn't be better than this.

  After dinner the boys bussed their plates and argued about whose turn it was to load the dishwasher.

  And then they sat out in the back yard and his dad set a match to the dry applewood in the chiminea and they all leaned back in their chairs and looked up at the stars and listened to the water in the distance.

  "Going to be foggy tomorrow night," his mother said.

  "How do you know?" Teresa asked, thinking there must be a Pajaro Bay grapevine for weather reports, too.

  But then his mother said, "Weather Kitty app," and they all laughed.

  Logan walked her home. They each had a container of soup and some rolls wrapped in foil to carry.

  "Are you sure your family is fine with keeping Alastor for a while?" she asked.

  "You saw my brothers. The only danger is that the dog will get exhausted from all the play time he's going to have." They turned the corner, and he said, "gotta drop off these leftovers before we head up the hill." They stopped in front of a tiny shack, all white with navy blue trim and a rope sign spelling out Sea Breeze by the front door. A black cat greeted him with howls of protest.

  "The milk thief, I presume," Teresa said.

  "Yup. I'm lucky I get anything to eat in this house with Rasputin around."

  The cottage was almost as tiny as her apartment, with dark wood floors, massive ceiling beams, and whitewashed walls.

  "I'm renting it," he explained. "But I hope to buy it eventually if I can hold onto my job."

  "No plans to buy a fancy cottage up the hill?" she asked, and he shook his head.

  "I'm a wharf rat through and through," he said. "I plan to live here forever and raise a family here, if I can find a woman who would like the same thing."

  The silence hung in the air after that, and they each studiously looked the other way.

  By the time they arrived back at her apartment stairs, Logan's limp had gotten very bad.

  But when she commented on it, he said, "I had a wonderful time."

  "Me, too," she said. "But we'd better call it a night. We both have work in the morning."

  "Yeah," he said. "Goodnight." He turned to go, took five steps down the street, then strode back, cradled her face in his hands and kissed her.

  "Oh," she said when they came up for air.

  "Goodnight," he whispered.

  She flew up the stairs.

  Inside the apartment, she set the soup and rolls on the counter, then went to the French doors and threw them open.

  She stepped out onto the tiny balcony and looked down.

  He was still there, his hair glinting in the moonlight.

  "Goodnight," she called down to him.

  "Tomorrow?" he called back. "I still have the tickets for Feuille d'automne."

  "I'd love to," she said, and went inside and shut the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning she headed into work with a light step.

  Last night had been wonderful, with Logan's family being so warm and welcoming, and the walk home feeling like a fairy tale that ended with a kiss before the princess ascended to her balcony.

  Her work was going well, Austin was stable and hopefully getting better, and Logan….

  Logan was starting to be more than just a fantasy prince. He was a guy she could really care about. There was still the minor detail of him thinking she was Teri Forest. But on this crisp autumn morning, with the birds twittering in the sunshine and a romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant waiting for her tonight, all her problems seemed far away.

  "Excuse me," a man's voice called out to her just as she was opening the gate that led from the little alley to the back garden of the community center.

  She turned around.

  Her hand clenched the iron gate handle, and she took a step back.

  The man must have realized he'd shocked her, because he tried to smile and act friendly.

  "Sorry," he said. "I guess you didn't hear me walking behind you."

  "You—you just startled me," she said, and was annoyed that her voice was shaking. She had lost her edge, being here in Pajaro Bay. She didn't have that acerbic tone to her voice that would stop men in their tracks. She used to be able to give one glare, one sharp comment, and men on the street would back away and leave her alone.

  But that wouldn't work on a man like this.

  The tattoo on his arm said he was from the same gang as Vicario. That didn't mean he knew him, didn't mean anything more than they belonged to the same club of thieves and killers, the biggest gang that controlled the prisons and trafficked in drugs and people and stolen goods all over the country.

  He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, like any tourist on holiday in a beach town. But even the most naive small-town tourist would be startled by the tats. They wouldn't know what they meant, but they'd know this was a man to stay away from.

  She looked down at her hand on the gate. Her own tattoo, the simple one that said she was part of that world, but not a major player, was freshly hidden by the Dermablend.

  It didn't matter. She was caught. She was standing in an alley, with no one else around, and facing a man who had tracked her down to kill her.

  "Sorry," he said again, and he smiled in a reassuring way. "I shouldn't have come up behind you like that. I just wanted to ask you a question."

  "A… a question?"

  What's my favorite casket? What music do I want at my funeral? Would I prefer to be shot in the face or the back?

  "What kind of question?"

  He pulled something out of his jeans pocket, and she shrank back against the gate.

  It was a phone. He called up an image, then held the phone up to her. "You ever seen her?" he asked.

  "Seen her?" she repeated stupidly,
her heart pounding out her panic as the adrenaline rushed through her system, making her shake.

  "Yeah. She's my niece. We're here on vacation. I haven't seen her for a few hours and I'm getting worried."

  "I… see." Her voice still sounded faint and squeaky, but she realized he was acting so unconcerned about her weird behavior because he expected a small-town girl to react to him that way.

  The realization gave her the strength to let go of the gate, to even take a step closer and examine the photo on the phone with apparent interest.

  "She's cute," she said, proud that her voice wasn't shaking anymore.

  "Has she been around? She's supposed to meet me for breakfast and I can't seem to find her."

  Teresa shook her head. "Nope. Sorry. Never seen her. Maybe you should look down at the amusement park?"

  He put the phone away. "Well, thanks. If you do run into her, let her know her uncle's looking for her."

  Teresa nodded. "What's her name?"

  "Ximena," he said. "She goes by Mena."

  "Okay," Teresa said casually. "I'll keep an eye out for her."

  She watched him walk away, and a long time after he had disappeared around a corner, she finally noticed her back was hurting.

  She was leaning against the hard iron bars of the gate, and trembling.

  Only then did she realize the entire conversation had been in Spanish, and that the man's eyes roving over her body, which she had taken for a rude assessment of her attractiveness, had been a check to see if there was a crack in her carefully designed facade. Was she really the clean-cut, small-town schoolteacher she seemed to be? He had scanned her for tattoos, looked over everything from her short fingernails with their pale pink polish to her low-heeled, sensible shoes.

  But her invisibility cloak had held. She was Teri Forest, innocent literacy tutor. She had never seen a man like that before. She had no idea that the two solid teardrop tattoos on his face announced the number of people he'd killed, and that the one hollow outline of a teardrop meant he'd shot a man who had unfortunately survived the attack. Teri Forest didn't know that the dots on his neck marked the gang fights he'd been in, or that the spider mark on his hand meant he belonged to the same multinational gang as Vic Vicario, who she had witnessed methodically cleaning up a dingy hotel room after murdering the man inside.

  "I need to talk to Sandra Murphy."

  She knew her voice was cracking with stress, and tried to take deep breaths as she stood there in Santos' Market, waiting for the familiar voice to come on the line.

  She almost cried when she heard his calm voice. "Hi, girlfriend," he said, in that silly, high-pitched way. And she lost it, right there in the store, sniffling and wiping away the tears that rolled down her face.

  "What's wrong? What is it?" Detective Graham sounded panicked, and that, ironically, made her calm down to answer him.

  "I'm okay. I'm not hurt. It's not about me at all," she reassured him.

  She heard a huge creak on the other end of the phone line, and could picture him leaning back in his chair the way he always did when he relaxed. "You scared me for a second there, Teresa. Don't do that. You almost sounded like you were crying."

  She wiped away the last of the tears. "Nah. Nothing like that," she said.

  "Hey," he said when a store announcement came blaring out of a speaker over her head. "Does Santos' have a special on those steak enchiladas? I could sure go for a couple of those."

  "I dunno," she said.

  "You dunno?" He laughed. "Not like you, kid. You always speak like a walking dictionary." When she didn't laugh along, he said, "are you sure nothing's wrong?"

  "I just got startled a bit."

  "Startled about what?"

  Someone came down the aisle to examine the laundry products. She took a deep breath. "Well, I met a distant cousin today. At least I think he was."

  "A cousin?"

  "He had the most interesting tattoos."

  "Oh." There was a world of meaning in that simple syllable. "What happened?" She could hear the tension ratchet up in his voice.

  She looked around. The customer had left. No one else was nearby, and the music coming over the speaker would drown out what she was saying unless someone got very close to the pay phone.

  "It's not about me—him being here, I mean," she said. "I'm sure I've never met him. He didn't recognize me at all. But I thought I'd mention it."

  "What specific gang?

  "I couldn't tell. A distant cousin, at least."

  "All right." She heard him muttering to someone else. "I'm having someone put in a call to Ryan. He'll come get you. You're at Santos', right?"

  "Wait!" she said. "Stop. It's not like that. I said it's not about me. I could have just gone to Captain Ryan if I needed help."

  "If someone from Vicario's gang is looking for you in Pajaro Bay you do need help."

  "That's not what I said. I didn't say he was a close relative. Just that he was"—she looked around, then whispered—"in the life. That's all. Same family. Not necessarily same neighborhood."

  "That's it. I'm pulling you. I'll get Ryan and he'll clear out your apartment and we'll move you to Bakersfield."

  Bakersfield. That hit her like a punch to the gut. "No," she said. "I don't want to go."

  "I don't care whether you want to go. I'm not leaving you out there like a sitting duck for some—"

  "You didn't let me finish," she said. "This has nothing to do with me. I was just calling you because I needed a little reassurance, and you go all—"

  "—All what? All cop?"

  She was going to say all overprotective father, but "yeah. All that. It's not necessary." She got hold of herself and tried to explain. "This guy was just some random relative of one of the kids at the community center. It just spooked me. But he was just looking for his little niece, and it caught me off guard. I'm not in any danger."

  "We're dumping this identity," Detective Graham said.

  "No!" Dumping Teri Forest? Dumping her little lighthouse library office and her students? Dumping Logan King Rios? Dumping the best breakfast competition and the sunsets and the Surfing Puggle and the tai chi chih and the funny dude who called her pretty lady and the chakras and—

  "No," she repeated. "We're not dumping anything. It's fine. I just told you what happened. I just got scared when I saw his tats."

  "Well…."

  A skinny old man came down the aisle holding a pineapple and a bathroom plunger.

  "No," she said firmly. "I'm not giving up Pajaro Bay."

  The old man looked at her, and she gave him a friendly smile. "No, Sandra. I like my new hairstyle. I'm not giving it up."

  The old man went out of earshot.

  "The tats guy looked me right in the eye and thought I was a kindergarten teacher," she said. "There's nothing to worry about. He was looking for his niece. It has nothing to do with me. I shouldn't have said anything."

  "But it scared you."

  "It scared me because he's the first person from that world I've seen since I've been here. But I tell you, he was looking for his niece."

  "You know this niece?"

  "She's just a kid from where I work. Not a gang kid. A sweet little girl who probably ran away because she had a crush on the boy who ODed. That's all. She's the one who's in trouble, not me. I didn't want to tell the cops and make it worse for her. Her uncle's looking for her. It's a family thing. Not like he wants to hurt her or anything."

  "This is getting out of hand, Teresa. It's fine that you want to help, but if there is a gang connection it could lead to you."

  "The girl is not a gang member. I'm sure of that."

  "She just has family who are gang members. I don't like it."

  She whispered into the phone, though there wasn't anyone around. "Don't you think this could happen just as easily in Bakersfield? At any moment I could run into some random stranger who's from that life. But they don't know my name."

  "They've got a ten-thousand dolla
r reward out for you."

  "No. They have a ten-thousand dollar reward out for the hooker who's supposed to testify against Vicario. They don't even know it's me. You promised me that."

  "I did. And as far as the word on the street goes, they just know there's an eyewitness. There hasn't been a single rumor naming you."

  "So they can't recognize me. Right?"

  "Right," he said reluctantly. "But this is it. No more getting involved. Don't speak to this girl again. Don't have any contact with these people. All they have to do is figure out you're lying about your identity, and they'll start asking why."

  She hesitated, and he drove the point home.

  "Keep your head down and don't get involved. Or you're moving to another city."

  "Got it," she said. "I promise I'll stay out of trouble."

  They hung up, and this time she didn't make any crack about those being the kind of famous last words she would say just before getting herself killed. The joke wasn't funny anymore.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Logan knocked on the open door of her office. "We've gotta get an intercom," he said with a wince.

  "Your poor leg!" she said. "What's up?"

  "Austin's awake. Got a call from Dr. Nico. Thought you'd want to know."

  Teresa looked up at the ceiling. The gleaming brass sun winked back at her. "He's awake," she whispered. "Wow."

  "Yup. You saved him."

  She glanced down at her notepad. "My next student is Jenny. But that's after her track practice. That gives me some time. Want to head down there right now?"

  He shook his head. "You go first. The elevator guy wants to cut through a support beam and the building inspector is about to strangle him. So I'll have to see Austin later."

  Austin was sitting up in bed when she arrived. She half-expected Mena to be sitting there with him, but she wasn't there, and the nurse said the girl hadn't been around all day.