by Edie Claire
He watched as an interesting progression of emotions flashed across her face. First there was disappointment, then frustration, then a queer sort of hopefulness, followed by resignation.
“I was just thinking about walking around Tofino,” she said finally. “I’d like to wander through a few of the shops… you know, typical tourist browsing. Nothing strenuous. Just a chance to get out for a few hours.”
Jason considered. She didn’t appear to be lying, although she was clearly giving select information. “Well, if that’s all, I think I may have a solution for you,” he said with a smile. “I happen to know that a few of your fellow lodgers are getting ready to leave for town right now. You could ride in with them, and then I could pick you up as soon as my shift’s over. You want me to ask them?”
Her face flushed with pleasure, and the sight warmed him. Way too much. “That would be awesome,” she replied brightly. “Would you mind?”
Would he mind? His inner alarm bells were clanging all over the place, but next to her guileless smile his defenses didn’t stand a chance. “Of course not. It’s nothing.” He shook his head at her as he came out from the behind the desk and crossed to the common room door. “Be right back.”
***
Laney paused at the street corner and took in a deep, satisfying breath of the cool, moist air. When cold rain was not pouring onto it, Tofino was an appealing little town. Her head was feeling almost normal, even as the sun shone down over the sweeping green tree tops. And if her goal for the afternoon was to concoct a workable plan for getting to know Gordon and Joan Tremblay… well, wasn’t a little window shopping at least as likely to inspire a brainstorm as sitting in her tiny room?
She knew she was deluding herself. But it felt good to be out on her own again, especially now that she knew what she was about and had a reasonably clear head. Was it so wrong to pretend for a little while that she was an ordinary tourist enjoying a vacation? God knew she’d had little enough cheer in her life lately. A touch of frivolity sounded splendid.
She strolled at a leisurely pace through the quaint, festive tourist district. Wooden storefronts, patios, and porches were bedecked with surfing paraphernalia, blooming potted flowers, Christmas lights, and indigenous art. SUVs rolled by with kayaks and canoes strapped to their roof racks; surfboards were carried in various ways by pretty much anything on wheels. The streets were hilly, narrow, and chaotic, and much of the district was perched on a slope leading down to the calmer waters of the Clayoquot Sound.
She passed many businesses that were shuttered for the winter, and she could hardly imagine how bustling the town must become when all the whale watching, charter fishing, bear viewing, and hot springs touring companies were operating at full speed. Even in January, there was no shortage of businesses selling and renting surf equipment, as well as offering lessons, and Laney marveled at how Jason had managed to carve out a place for himself amidst the competition. She passed by his main equipment shop and surf school, which he’d built on the site of the original surfing hostel he’d rehabilitated soon after graduating from college. She admired a good head for business. If her Grandpa Auggie had had a better one, her Gran’s future might be more secure…
A heavy weight of sorrow threatened to engulf her, but she managed to beat it back. She would take care of her Gran, no matter what. May Burgdorf’s future was secure.
Laney passed a colorful shop with a hand-painted sign advertising local crafts and organic espresso. Sold. She opened the door to a pleasant tinkling of windchimes decorated with a carved driftwood whale.
“Hello,” a woman about her own age called out merrily from behind the register of a small coffee bar to her right. There were a few pub-height tables and chairs inside, but it appeared that most of the cafe business was conducted through the window to visitors enjoying the covered patio. Despite the cool and rainy weather, most every dining place Laney encountered touted an outdoor seating area.
She returned the shopkeeper’s greeting and ordered a latte. So far, she was very much enjoying the Tofino vibe. It was laid back and comfortable, yet so very alive. How could it not be, with so many people coming and going, enjoying the ocean and the spectacular scenery? The whole area was like an adult playground.
“You here to surf or to storm watch?” the woman asked pleasantly as the coffee machine whirred.
“Neither exactly,” Laney answered without thinking. “But now that I’m here, both are tempting, to be sure.”
The woman laughed. “I bet. Where are you staying?”
“The surf lodge.” She hadn’t intended to gab, but one had to be polite.
“Jason’s place?” the barista asked with another smile. Was Laney imagining it, or did this smile pack some extra baggage? “Out on Chesterman Beach?”
Laney nodded.
“Ooh, lucky you,” the woman continued, topping off the latte and handing over the steaming cup. “He’s a hottie, isn’t he?”
The question was light-hearted enough, and given that Laney had grown up in a small town, it shouldn’t have been unexpected. So why did she suddenly find herself tongue-tied? Her only reply was a nervous huff of laughter.
She was relieved to find her response drowned out by the laughter of another shopkeeper, who unbeknownst to Laney had been working on the far side of a shelf a few feet away. “You are so bad, Gina,” the clerk chastised good-naturedly, moving into view. She also looked to be in her mid-twenties, with a pretty face and long blond hair trailing down her back in a loose pair of braids. “What if Ryan hears you talking like that?”
Gina grinned. “Oh, he knows.”
The other woman laughed again. “Well, there’s no harm in looking, right?” She threw a smile in Laney’s direction. “Don’t get us wrong. Jason’s a good guy. He’s a lot of fun, actually.”
“You should know,” the barista chided.
The blond smiled crookedly, leaving no doubt as to her relationship with the hostel owner. “Can I help you find anything?” she asked Laney, dismissing the topic.
“No,” Laney replied quickly. Perhaps too curtly. “I’m just browsing.”
“Well, just let us know,” the shopkeeper answered, not seeming offended.
Laney commenced browsing. She found a rack of knitted scarves and fingered through them absently. She was irritated. Why was she irritated? Tofino was a world of young and beautiful people. The fact that Jason had slept with half the women in town should come as no shock.
The clerks had disappeared from view. Laney moved to a display of carved wooden sea creatures, then realized that the women had dodged into a nearby doorway for a private chat. Unfortunately, their voices carried farther than they seemed to think.
“I seriously would do the man if I could get away with it,” the barista said. “I mean… Oh. My. God!”
The blond with the braids guffawed.
“Is he worth it?” the barista pressed.
Laney leaned closer, but couldn’t hear a response. She suspected a confirming smirk.
“Oh, my God,” the barista repeated. “If it weren’t for Ryan…”
“I already told you, you’re not his type,” the clerk said confidently. “You have a boyfriend.”
“But if we broke up—”
“It doesn’t matter! He knows you want a boyfriend.”
The barista sucked in a breath of understanding. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Did you refill the nutmeg?”
Laney backed away from the doorway. As the shopkeepers returned to their posts, chattering about coffee now, she spent another three minutes pretending interest in handmade tea towels, coasters, and pot holders before smiling her way out the door.
The smile changed into a frown as soon as she stepped outside. She continued down the street, thinking. So, Jason avoided women looking for boyfriends, did he? Clearly, he had no intention of committing himself. To any woman. That figured.
She halted her steps as a squabble broke out a few paces ahead of her. Not be
tween people, but between crows. Two of the ubiquitous black birds were wrestling over what looked like a piece of biscotti, and neither was backing down easily. Laney sidestepped the spectacle, shades of both Edgar Allen Poe and Hitchcock clouding her thoughts as the crows’ rooting sections cawed loudly from the trees and rooftops above.
So, how’s that master plan for Ucluelet coming along?
Oh, shut up.
She passed a gallery with gorgeous paintings in the windows of stormy skies and breaking waves, but she didn’t go inside. She couldn’t even afford to look at original art. But the next block offered a shop more her speed. It sold everyday clothing and shoes, the practical, weatherproof kind that every Vancouver Islander would need. A selection of rainboots sitting on a portable shelf outside drew her eye. Her sneakers had eventually dried out, but every wiggle of her toes reminded her that the glue binding them together had been compromised. She would wear her snow boots if she could, but like her food cooler and jumper cables, they had been abandoned with her car in Vancouver.
She could see now why everyone around her wore either the lightweight rain boots or — if they were used to the climate — sandals. She located a likely pair of the former and checked the price tag. Then she set the box down and kept walking.
What she needed, she thought with dismay, was a job. Any job she could get, from the moment she returned home until the happy day she could get her fellowship reinstated. Maybe after that, too. At least until the inheritance was settled.
If the truth comes out, it may never be settled.
Laney stopped walking and looked up. Blue skies always calmed her. They might be boring from a meteorological perspective, but they brought her joy. And clarity.
Figure out what you need to do here and just do it, dammit. Then get back home and get to work.
She sighed. The answer was clear enough. She didn’t have to like it.
She walked the remainder of the town’s business district at a slow, measured pace, then sat down on a bench to finish off her cooling latte. She had come all this way to meet — or at least lay her eyeballs on — Gordon and Joan Tremblay. No matter how ill-conceived her original plan might have been, she intended to see it through, if for no other reason than justifying the funds she’d already spent. The only question was how.
She needed to start by finding out more about them. Where did they go and what did they do all day? If she knew of an event they attended, or a group they belonged to, she could arrange to be in their company in an anonymous fashion. That would be far safer than knocking on their door with some flimsy excuse that would — given her acting ability — likely get her arrested. But how could she find out what she needed to know? She’d exhausted the obvious internet searches already. What she needed was a human connection. Specifically, a local angle. The very thing that she, as an outsider, lacked.
Jason.
A slow smile spread across her lips. Jason knew everybody, and everybody knew him. At least in Tofino. Surely he would have contacts in Ucluelet as well? Other business owners, surfers, suppliers… personal friends. He could open doors for her. He could be indispensable.
Her smile broadened. She didn’t like depending on other people. She felt like she had imposed on Jason, in particular, way too much already. The idea of asking him for more help should be anathema. But it wasn’t. It was highly appealing.
Perhaps she could offer to pay him… not in money, but in labor. She could run the desk for him, give him more time to go surfing. She could work in the equipment shop, answer phones, run the cash register. Her list of minimum-wage job skills was long and comprehensive — she’d pretty much done it all.
Why would he not be willing? She would have to protect herself, of course, come up with a plausible reason for needing the information other than the truth. That part could be tricky. Under no circumstances could she let on that she was in legal peril. But surely, she could think up something!
She drained her latte, rose, and threw away the cup. With a jolt of warm caffeine in her veins, she headed downhill to the water’s edge to soak up more beautiful views.
She would figure it out, and she would get this thing done. With Jason on board, the whole sordid business was looking… well, much less unpleasant.
Chapter 19
Jason finished checking in his last guest of the day, locked up his office a little early, and headed back to town. He was anxious about Laney, fearful that she had randomly passed out on a street corner and gotten hauled back to the ER. He also worried that she was having a lovely time and would greet him looking healthy and cheerful and so incredibly sexy that he would have to invent a reason to stay away from her.
The second scenario, though obviously better for her, was equally concerning.
It isn’t easy to manage a friendship with someone you’re attracted to when you’re both single… His mind flashed with an image of Ben, smirking at him with that annoying “I know more about women than you do because I’m married” look. Jason’s brother Thane did the same thing. Where did they get off, anyway? Jason had more experience with women than the two of them combined!
He ground his teeth as he continued up the Pacific Coast highway. He was perfectly capable of managing a platonic friendship with Laney. All he needed to do was be careful, be sure he wasn’t unwittingly giving her the wrong idea. Because if she fell for him, she was bound to get hurt, and he would hate to add to her current trauma.
He would simply pick the woman up, have a few laughs, enjoy her company, drive her wherever she wanted to go, and drop her back off at the lodge. Then he would go out on a real date, with another woman. If Laney knew it was happening, so much the better. It would clarify their relationship, clear up any ambiguity.
Perfect.
He should call the vacationing Aussie surfer. She’d been sending him increasingly suggestive texts over the last twenty-four hours, making clear that both her motives and her expectations were in perfect concert with his own. She had a beautiful figure, a smashing tan, and beguiling long blond hair… What color had her eyes been? He thought they were green and tried to picture them. But the eyes that popped into his head were a cool, clear blue, set to either side of an adorable, slightly uptilted button nose…
Dammit!
He could do this. Really, he could. Everything was cool.
He swung into the shopping district, planning to park somewhere and text Laney to find out her location. But there was no need. He saw her almost immediately, window-gazing at the local bookstore while nibbling on what looked like a chocolate surfboard from the nearby candy shop. He pulled into a space across the street, rolled down his window, and waved. “Ready for a lift?” he called out. “Or are you having too much fun to stop now?”
She smiled at him. Then she pocketed what was left of the chocolate, checked the traffic, and jaywalked to his car. “Both,” she answered, getting into the passenger seat. “It’s been lovely, but I do need to get to work now. Thanks for the lift.”
She looked considerably more upbeat than when she’d left the lodge earlier. The near-permanent lines of tension on her forehead had smoothed, and there was even a ghost of a twinkle in her eyes. “Work?” he asked, immediately regretting the question. She’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t trust him, didn’t want him involved with her personal business. But before he could apologize, she surprised him.
“Yes!” she said cheerfully.
Too cheerfully.
Jason squelched a sigh. She was lying to him again.
“I guess it’s obvious that why I came up here is a sensitive matter,” she began. Her tone was almost normal, but nervousness sped up her delivery. “But I’ve decided that I need help, and I have a proposal for you, if you’re interested.”
Jason seriously couldn’t remember ever encountering a worse liar. Never mind that nothing she’d said so far even seemed untrue. The motherlode was clearly on its way. “Go on.”
She took a breath. “I have a frien
d back in Oklahoma with a problem. It’s a family issue, having to do with a will that’s being contested, and some business or other that was supposed to go to one person, but now may go to someone else. My friend thinks his parents are at risk of being taken advantage of by these distant cousins or whatever, but he doesn’t have the cash to hire a lawyer or a private detective either one to find out, and neither do they. When he told me about all this, I made a deal with him. I said I’d go up to Canada myself and do some amateur sleuthing for him if he’d comp my rent in one of his sublets. His aunt owns a house in Norman, you see, and she’s been letting him stay there and sublet the extra rooms. Well, he jumped on it. So here I am. And I know I don’t seem like a likely candidate for this sort of thing, but I did have the time on my hands and nothing else to do. The only problem is, since he’s not paying me up front, I don’t have any cash to spend. The other problem is that since I don’t know anybody up here I’m kind of at a loss as to where to start asking questions.”
She paused for another breath. Jason said nothing. They were still sitting in his car on the street with the windows rolled down and a cool breeze off the Clayoquot wafting through. He tried hard to keep his face impassive as she added more shovelfuls to the pile.
“So, here’s the deal. I may not know anyone around here, but you do. I was thinking that if I gave you these people’s names, maybe you could call around and find out some things about them. Ideally, I’d like to run into them somewhere and get a read on them myself, anonymously, of course. And if you’ll help me, I can help you by working at one of your businesses. I can cover your shifts at the desk, clean rooms, sort merchandise at the surf shop… whatever. I’ve done retail. I have references. I know it’s a little weird, but what do you say? Am I tempting you at all?”
Jason required a deep breath of his own. Not only was her delivery abysmal, her storyline was ludicrous. As if any sane person would hire her as a private detective! There were other holes in her plot as well, but he saw no need to enumerate them.