Then came the town center.
It wasn’t quite “blink and you’ll miss it,” not after the adventure tourism boom and the locals making the most of the adrenaline junkies who flooded in during the season. It had the police station, a small supermarket that sold groceries and other essentials as well as souvenirs, the pub that had probably been around since the first gold miner put his boots on the ground, a café, a dual-level B&B, a veterinary care center, a restaurant that opened up when the café closed, and the local doctor’s examination room—which everyone referred to interchangeably as the surgery or the clinic.
At the far end of the town’s main strip was a white-steepled church, an outdoor shop the last business prior to it. Across from the shop sat the fire station, the local tourism center facing it. It functioned as the base of operations for all the charters and tours that ran out of Golden Cove. The list of activities on offer was a long one. But, as the business council was eager to point out, Golden Cove had a “prominent place in the arts scene,” too, courtesy of the artisan pottery boutique founded by a fifty-something local who’d made her name in Italy.
That was pretty much it.
There were a few other businesses run out of homes or garages, but this was Golden Cove’s main street. The post was delivered regularly, but the town had no post office of its own—if you wanted to mail something, the supermarket had the ability to sell you stamps and packaging. The farming supplies store was in the next town over.
Right now, with the autumn chill heavy in the air and the waves too dangerous for even the most extreme surfers, the street boasted no beat-up tourist vans or muddy rental cars. The only new vehicle was the dark green Jeep. It was parked in front of the Golden Cove Café.
3
Anahera had seen the cop stop by Nikau’s place. She should’ve stopped, too. She and Nik had been friends once—before distance and bitterness and loss changed them both in different ways. But she wasn’t about to make Nikau Martin the first person to whom she said hello in Golden Cove.
Getting out of the Jeep in front of Josie’s café, she shut her door and, taking a deep breath of the permanently salt-laced air, walked into the cheery warmth of a café that seemed out of place in this gray landscape full of cloud and mist.
“Ana!”
Face glowing, Josie threw her arms around Anahera almost before Anahera saw her coming. Her friend was shorter than her by a good six inches, but her height had never stopped the force of nature that was Josephine Wilson. No, it was Josephine Taufa now. Anahera had missed Josie’s wedding for reasons too painful to think about, so she shoved them away and hugged the soft and curvy form of the best friend she’d ever had.
Josie’s hard belly pushed into her stomach as Anahera held her close.
When they broke apart, Josie waved over a little boy who was sitting and coloring at one of the tables. “Niam’s three already, can you believe it?” Her fingers in the child’s thick black hair. “You know Anahera, Niam—you’ve seen me talking to her on the laptop.”
The boy, his skin a warm brown that came from his Tongan father, smiled shyly at Anahera before running back to his coloring.
“Come, sit,” Josie said, taking Anahera’s hands and tugging gently. “The café’s quiet today with the weather predicted to turn nasty, so we can have a catch-up.”
Anahera let herself be led to a table near the window, in no hurry to go to the cabin. She had plenty of time to be alone with the memories, dark and brutal. “I brought you a gift,” she told her friend as they took their seats. “It’s in a suitcase, though.”
“You’re the gift, Ana.” Josie’s voice was as warm and gentle as always. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
Home.
Such a loaded word.
Josie glanced over her shoulder with a smile as Anahera’s attention was caught by the arresting photographs mounted on the left wall of the café. “Miri, can you grab us a couple of cappuccinos? Decaf for me.”
It was only then that Anahera realized her friend wasn’t alone in the café. A slender long-legged girl, with a face so radiant that it stopped the heart and made Anahera suddenly, viscerally afraid for her, smiled back at Josie from behind the counter.
“Anything for you, Jo,” the girl said, moving to the gleaming coffee-making apparatus with a dancer’s grace. “Kia ora, Ana.”
Anahera returned the greeting with a wave of her hand. It had been so many years since she’d been around people who said kia ora as easily as they said hello that the words stuck in her throat, rusty and old.
“You guys want cake, too?” Miri asked. “We’ve still got that carrot with cream cheese icing.”
“Oh, twist our arms, why don’t you.” Josie laughed before turning back to Anahera. “Miri’s been working for me for a while now. I mentioned it during our calls, remember? But six more weeks and she’s off to the city lights of Wellington to take up an internship.”
“You’re Auntie Mattie’s girl.” It had taken Anahera’s brain several seconds to make the connection between this striking creature and the skinny child named Miriama Hinewai Tutaia whom she’d known so many years ago and whom Josie had hired. As if time had slipped while she hadn’t been watching.
“Auntie still has baby photos of you,” Miriama warned, her eyes sparkling. “Don’t worry, I told her it’d be bad form to frame them and stick them on the living room wall. Can’t promise she won’t pull them out if you visit, though.”
Anahera laughed and the stab of fear rooted in a long-ago summer slipped away. Often, a person that genetically blessed felt no need to make the attempt at humor—or even civility. But maybe it was Miriama’s very distinctiveness that had shaped her; the girl was a haunting beauty now, but that same bone structure had given her a markedly odd appearance as a child. As if parts of her were already adult sized, while others continued to grow.
“Who’s the internship with?” Anahera asked, digging through fading memories for more than faint impressions of the child the nineteen-year-old had once been, but there wasn’t much. Ten years’ difference in age had been too big a divide for them to cross.
A smile so bright, it was as if the sun had come out. “A collective of professional travel photographers who want to support those wanting to get into the industry. I get to travel with them, learn from them.”
“These are hers.” Tone humming with pride, Josie pointed to the images on the café walls.
All featured Golden Cove residents caught in moments of laughter and joy. Nikau, the black curves of his tā moko defined with crystal clarity by the sun and his handsome face dipping a little as he grinned while thrusting a hand through his hair. Mrs. Keith throwing back her head and laughing so hard that you could almost hear the boom of sound. Josie, smile soft as she looked down at her baby bump, her hand curved under it.
“These are incredible.” Anyone could do bleak West Coast landscapes—the landscape itself called for it, posed for it. But to get Nikau to grin like that when, from all Josie had told her, he’d changed in brittle, angry ways from the boy she’d once known, that took skill, and patience. Not only had Miriama managed the feat, she’d captured the moment in stunning color.
And it hadn’t escaped Anahera’s notice that Miriama had juxtaposed her subjects against backgrounds that posed unspoken questions about public and private faces, about the truth of happiness itself: torn pages and wadded-up paper strewn across a floor, a room crammed full of dolls, a lonely stretch of beach. “You have a gift.”
“Thank you,” Miriama said in open pleasure, as she brought over the two coffees. “My favorite is the one of Josie. It’s pretty hard to outshine the ocean, but she did it like a pro.”
“No need to butter me up.” Josie scowled. “It’s not as if you’re going to ask for a raise.”
Laughing, the young Māori woman with deep, dark eyes and black hair pulled back in a bun leaned down to hug her sun-kissed arm
s around Josie. “I love you, Jo. Sorry I’m being a disloyal brat and running off to the city.”
“Just so long as you remember me when you’re rich and famous,” Josie said, patting the girl on the arm with sisterly affection.
“Always. Let me get you the cake.” She brought over two generous slices. “Shall I walk the last piece over to our local tall, silent, and mysterious hunk?” A waggle of her eyebrows. “You know he has a weakness and he always pays.”
Josie nodded. “The constabulary,” she added after Miriama walked out.
“I think I met him.” Anahera told Josie of her breakdown. “How long’s the police presence been a thing?”
“Three months. His name’s Will. Came from Christchurch.”
“Christchurch?” That was the biggest city in the South Island. “What did he do to get banished to Golden Cove?”
Josie shrugged. “No idea—but I saw his name in the papers before that for solving some high-profile cases, so it must’ve been pretty bad.” She turned slightly to call out to her boy. “Baby, do you want some cake?”
Engrossed in his coloring, Niam just shook his head.
“It’s so good to have you back, Ana,” Josie said afterward. “I’ve missed my best friend so much. It’s finally back to how it should be.”
Anahera smiled, but she knew that it was impossible for things to ever be the same. “It’s good to be back,” she said.
In truth, she’d had nowhere else to go, and here, at least she had Josie.
“Will you miss London?” Josie asked after swallowing a bite of cake. “You had such a glamorous life, going to all those premieres and shows, and performing your music in those huge concert halls.” Her face glowed. “I showed the articles to everyone. My friend, the star classical pianist.”
Anahera took a bite of cake to give herself time to think of an answer that wouldn’t shatter Josie’s illusions. “Holy cow,” she exclaimed in honest surprise. “This cake!”
“I know—amazing, right? Julia is a magician.”
“Julia Lee? Didn’t she become a lawyer?”
Josie set off on a welcome detour into the life of the other woman, but led back around to her question afterward. “You will, won’t you? Miss London.” In her eyes was another question she didn’t ask—Anahera had said she didn’t want to talk about Edward and Josie was good enough a friend to give her silence on that topic.
“It was nice while it lasted,” Anahera said.
It had been nice until she’d realized her entire life was a lie, that, for six years, she’d been a prop in someone else’s play. “The music… yes, that was wonderful.” Even though it was now ashes inside her. “And I got to see the most amazing shows, meet so many incredibly talented people.”
Anahera had used to joke that the theater was Edward’s mistress, never imagining she had a flesh-and-blood rival. “But a girl can’t live on premieres and concert halls when her whānau is back here.” Anahera’s husband was dead and so was her mother, which left Josie the only family she acknowledged.
Sometimes, it wasn’t about blood ties.
If Josie had seen her at Edward’s graveside, she’d have known that something was horrifically wrong, something more than Anahera’s young and gifted playwright husband being dead.
The little bell over the door rang.
When Anahera looked over, it was to see Miriama walking in. She gave them a thumbs-up. “He took the cake and we’re five dollars richer.”
“She’s beautiful,” Anahera said quietly to Josie as the younger woman went to ring up the sale.
Josie caught the question in Anahera’s statement. “Thankfully, she’s managed to avoid the usual small-town traps—she’ll be leaving Golden Cove before autumn falls into winter.” A low murmur. “If she ever decides to come back, it’ll be like you, on her own terms.”
Anahera knew Josie’s words didn’t apply to Josie herself. Her friend was exactly where she’d told Anahera she wanted to be when they were only fourteen: married to Tom Taufa, mother to his babies, and owner of her own café.
“Hey, Jo, you mind if I bug out a little early?”
Josie nodded at Miriama. “Going for a run?”
“Need to stretch out the legs.”
Anahera glanced at her watch after the girl left. “I better head out, too,” she said. “I want to have some time at the cabin while it’s still light.”
Josie frowned. “Ana, I didn’t think you were serious about staying out there, otherwise I’d have asked Tom to fix it up a bit. I made up my spare room for you.”
Anahera’s cold, hard heart threatened to crack. “I need to go there,” was all she said.
4
Josie had made her a care package because, despite her hopes, she knew Anahera.
Anahera was putting the box of supplies into her Jeep when she felt a prickling at her nape; she glanced back and saw the cop watching her from outside his post. Keeping an eye on the stranger in town.
How could this city cop know that Golden Cove was branded into every cell in her body, that even when she’d slept in a soft bed in an expensive terraced house in London, while manicured grass grew in their shared city garden and designer gowns hung in her closet, she’d dreamed of this tiny town perched on the edge of an ocean so pitiless it had taken more souls than the devil?
Box stowed, she turned to hug Josie again, then got in the Jeep to drive toward that same pitiless ocean, and when she passed a narrow road that led inland, she deliberately didn’t look its way.
There was nothing for her down there.
The old-growth forest on the edge of town closed in around her for five minutes before it began to thin out, let in flashes of the sea. But the cabin that stood on the far side of that growth, overlooking the sand below the cliffs, was shadowed by a huge rata tree. Sunlight only speared through on the brightest days, but that was all right. There was plenty of light on the beach once you made your way down the precariously narrow track.
Bringing the Jeep to a stop facing the side of the cabin, she just sat and stared for a long while, but nothing changed. There was no one there. No one would come out with a big smile and wave her in for a cup of tea. No one would invite her for a walk on the beach. And when Christmas came and the rata bloomed as scarlet as fresh blood, no one would sit with her under its shade.
She swallowed the lump in her throat, then made herself open the driver’s-side door and get out. Leaving her stuff where it was, she crossed the short distance to the cabin and walked up the steps to the small porch. Leaves crunched underfoot and she saw a spider, legs furred and long, scuttle across the wood. Thick spiderwebs hung on the eaves, a thinner web around the doorknob.
Turning it, the mechanism stiff, she opened the door.
And walked into a thousand memories.
5
Will took a long drink of his beer, while beside him, Nikau nursed his. “She’s something, isn’t she?” the other man said.
Will didn’t have to ask to know who Nikau was talking about; he’d learned quickly enough that there was only one woman in town who put that tone in a man’s voice. “She’s a little young for you, Nik.” He looked over at where Miriama Hinewai Tutaia held court, her hair flowing past her waist and men buzzing around her like bees around a honeypot.
A woman that attractive to men didn’t usually have many female friends, but Miriama did. They buzzed around her, too, wanting her attention, wanting her laughter. She handled their need with generous ease, giving just enough that no one felt left out, no one felt as if they weren’t enough. And so that the black-haired man with thin wire-frame spectacles who had his arm possessively around her waist felt as if he mattered the most. “Dr. de Souza has also beaten you to the punch.”
“You realize he’s older than I am?”
“Only by a couple of years.” Far too young a doctor to end up a general practitioner in a desolate West Coast town, but when Will had checked up
on Dominic de Souza, he’d found no black marks, no problematic history. Seemed like the man was here for exactly the reason he’d said: in a big city, he’d have been the junior in a big practice, but in Golden Cove, he got to be his own boss.
“She’ll get tired of him sooner or later,” Nikau predicted. “A woman with that much life in her, she’s not going to be happy with a podunk doctor. She’ll want wilder and I’ve got it.”
“Hate to break it to you, but the podunk doctor lives in a nice part of town and owns a flash European car. Have you seen the state of your place?”
Nikau shrugged. “If Miriama just wanted money, she’d have hooked up with one of the rich tourists who pass through here.”
Will couldn’t argue with that. Even in just three months, he’d seen more than one out-of-towner take a single look at Miriama and fall at her feet. Not all were young backpackers, either; Golden Cove also got the rich travelers who came for the pottery or to stay in the refurbished B&B, which had recently earned a place in a high-end travel guide as a “hidden gem.”
“I hear she’s leaving.” That was the thing with this town—the way the gossip flowed, you’d think you knew everything. But there were secrets here, a thick tide of lava beneath the surface. Will felt them, and once, when he’d been a detective who dug and dug and dug, he’d have begun to poke around. But if he’d still been that man, he wouldn’t be here, so the point was moot.
“Six weeks to go.” Nikau took a sip of his beer. “Plenty of time.”
Snorting, Will returned his gaze to the bottles behind the bar. There was no fancy lighting here, no glass shelves. It was dark wood and solid, the bottles lined up neat as soldiers. “She’ll burn you up.” Will was grateful he’d never felt a tug toward Miriama; she was too young, too shiny, too innocent.
Will had lost his innocence so long ago that he barely remembered the taste of it.
A Madness of Sunshine Page 2