Gossip in the Garden

by Kathi Daley

  “I’m excited to see her and to hear about her adventures over the winter,” Georgia said. “I know that in the end, Mylie and Riley decided they weren’t meant to share a happily ever after, but when I spoke to her about the reservation, she didn’t sound sad or upset. She told me she had a wonderful time and cherished the memories she’d created. She also said that she and Riley parted as friends who’d simply come to the conclusion that ultimately, they wanted different things out of life.”

  “I’m really happy to hear that. I enjoyed spending time with Mylie. I’ve enjoyed all our guests, but Mylie really was one of my favorites.”

  “Mine, too,” Georgia agreed. “Along with Noah, Christy, and Haley, who stayed in the area and are now neighbors.”

  I bent down to pick up the weeding tools I’d been using before Georgia arrived. “Do we have anyone other than Mylie checking in today?”

  “The couple from Sweden who was staying in suite three checked out, and a man named Austin Brown is checking in. I guess he is in town to interview for a teaching position at the elementary school.”

  “I’m anxious to meet him. It sounds like if everything goes well, he may become a new neighbor as well.”

  “He sounded really nice on the phone,” Georgia added. “I put him in suite four on the third floor. Amy is still in suite five.”

  Amy Hogan was in Holiday Bay to spend time with Georgia. She was a budding chef who had seen Georgia’s television show Cooking with Georgia and wanted to learn from the best, so she saved her money and booked two weeks at the inn. Georgia’s show had really taken off, and she’d actually developed quite a following. Amy was young and enthusiastic and a lot of fun to be around, although I suspected that by the end of her stay, she will have driven Georgia quite crazy with her abundance of enthusiasm and over willingness to help.

  “Are David and Barbara still planning to be here for Hannah’s birthday this weekend?” David and Barbara Danson were the paternal grandparents of Annabelle’s best friend, Hannah.

  “They’ll be here tomorrow. We also have a man named Jason Rivers checking in tomorrow. The couple who I had booked in suite one had to rebook after the wife fell ill, so at this point, that suite is empty, but I’m sure we’ll be able to fill it with a walk-in.” Georgia glanced toward the inn. “I think I’m going to head in and check on Nikki.” Nikki Peyton was our part-time employee. “She was cleaning rooms when I left for my walk, but I imagine she would welcome some help.”

  “Okay, I’m going to finish up here and then clean up.”

  After Georgia left, I returned to my weeding. Jeremy had taken Annabelle, Hannah, and Haley to the beach a couple of hours ago, but I expected them to return at any time. When Annabelle first moved in, I wasn’t sure how it would be to have a child underfoot all the time, but as it turned out, in many ways, Annabelle was one of the best parts of my life.

  I continued to weed the flowerbed nearest the forested section of the estate for another hour. Eventually, I decided my back had had enough, so I began picking up my tools in anticipation of heading inside for a nice cold glass of iced tea. Rufus was still sleeping in the hammock, and both dogs were sleeping on the grass in the shade under a tree. I took my bag of weeds to the garbage can and then called to the animals and headed toward the cottage. After grabbing a quick shower and changing into clean clothes, I grabbed a glass of tea and then headed back out to the deck to check my messages and enjoy the nearly perfect afternoon.

  Turning on my phone, I started with my text messages.

  Lacy had texted to confirm that she would be going out to the Chadwick house the following day and wanted to know if I still wanted to tag along. I texted back and told her that I’d been looking forward to it and still planned to make the trip. After speaking with Patrick, I was more anxious than ever to see if I could find the journals that came after the one that first mentioned Sebastian and, of course, the fact that Lonnie was finally going to open up the wall leading into what we suspected was a secret room had my imagination in overdrive.

  The next text was from Vanessa Blackstone, the woman who owned Firehouse Books. Vanessa wanted to confirm that I still planned to do a book signing and author talk at her bookstore next week. I texted back and let her know I was all set.

  After that, there was a text from a woman on the local events committee asking if The Inn at Holiday Bay would host the beer garden at the upcoming Lobsterfest. The same Lobsterfest, I realized, which would kick off the festivities in just ten days. My first reaction was to text her back and tell her there was no way we could get ready for an event like that in just a week and a half, but then I decided to talk to Georgia and Jeremy about it before I turned her down. It would be a lot of work in a short amount of time, but it would be good publicity for the inn.

  And finally, there was a text from my good friend, Colt Wilder, asking me to call him when I had the chance. Colt and I had been dancing around the topic of the status of our relationship for months now, which I had to admit made even casual interactions somewhat awkward. Colt was a good friend, and I couldn’t imagine my life without him, but the natural progression of our relationship had become interrupted, leaving us both feeling sort of ungrounded. In the beginning, I hadn’t been ready for a relationship that was any more intimate than a simple friendship having suffered the loss of my husband and infant son in an accident not all that long ago. But as time passed, my pain became more manageable, and I was finally to the point where I was ready to move on. Colt and I had even had plans for Valentine’s Day. Plans that were interrupted when he had to work. Then I had a book launch to deal with, and he had work to keep him occupied, and after school let out and summer arrived, his niece and nephew came to stay with him, which made it difficult for us to spend any one on one time together. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still friends. Good friends. But the question of what, if anything, might come next for us, seemed to be in some sort of permanent stasis.

  Still, I wanted to nurture what we had and keep the lines of communication open, so I called his cell, but it went straight to voicemail. Realizing that he might simply have his ringer off, I called his office line.

  “Hey, Peach,” I greeted his receptionist. “It’s Abby. Is Colt around?”

  “Actually, he’s out on a call. I can take a message, but it might be a while until he gets back to you.”

  “That’s okay,” I responded. “I’ll just leave a message on his cell. I’m home today, so he can call me back whenever it’s convenient.”

  “Well, like I said, it might be a while.” Peach lowered her voice. I could almost picture her leaning in as if I was actually standing there, sharing the latest gossip with her. If there was one thing Peach loved, it was her gossip. “The call he’s responding to is a call relating to a homicide.”

  “Homicide? Do we know who the victim is?”

  “We don’t, but I know the call from central dispatch mentioned an address right here in Holiday Bay.”

  “And you are sure the call was for a homicide?” I asked, hoping Peach had gotten it wrong.

  “I’m sure.”

  Well, that was worrisome.

  After I hung up, I texted Colt, asking him to call me when he could. We didn’t have a lot of murders in Holiday Bay compared to the number of incidents in many of the larger cities in the area, although it did seem, at least since I’d lived there, that the murder per capita ratio was a lot higher than it should be.

  Once my text messages were dealt with, I decided to tackle my emails. Most of what I received via email was junk, but every now and then, I’d receive something from my agent, publisher, or sister. Today, the only email of any real interest was a request for an interview on one of the local cable news shows. The email said that they were interested in hearing about both my career as a New York Times Bestselling Author, and my experiences as the owner of an inn that was quickly earning the attention of travel bloggers from around the globe. The interview wasn’t for another two months, and I w
asn’t sure what my life would look like when the date finally came around, but I went ahead and sent an email, letting the guest recruiter know that I would be happy to appear on the local news show.

  After I’d gone through and deleted pretty much everything else, I decided to grab my flip flops and head over to the inn. If Mylie was arriving today, I wanted to be around when she arrived. I had to admit that I was excited about seeing her.

  Chapter 3

  Colt still hadn’t called me back by the time Mylie arrived, so I settled in on the patio with Georgia, Jeremy, Amy, Annabelle, Hannah, Haley, and Christy to hear all about Mylie’s grand adventure. Prior to her stay at Holiday Bay this past December, Mylie had spent the previous decade caring for her ill grandmother. After her grandmother passed, she found herself at loose ends, which led to the soul searching that helped her decide that what she really wanted to do was settle down and raise a family. Her goal this past December had been to find her soulmate, the man she was certain she was meant to spend the rest of her life with, but then she met Riley, and somewhere along the way, she’d decided to trade in happily ever after for a whirlwind tour of Australia, Spain, Italy, and other countries on Riley’s itinerary.

  “It was fun. So much fun,” Mylie confirmed after Hannah asked her how her trip had gone. “And Riley was great, but after a couple of months, I started to wonder what it was I was doing. My goal had been to find a husband. A man who wanted to settle down, have babies, and build a family. I’m still not sure how I ended up with a jet setting blogger, but I guess I don’t regret it. I had a wonderful time and was able to assemble a whole lot of wonderful memories. But now I think it’s time to get back to my original plan.”

  “So, do you still think you’ll find your soulmate here in Holiday Bay?” Christy asked.

  “Not necessarily.” She shifted slightly so Haley could climb into her lap. Annabelle and Hannah were sitting on either side of her, and it seemed apparent that the youngest friend didn’t want to feel left out. “When I was here in December, I made the trip because a psychic told me to. She told me I would meet my soulmate here if I came over the holiday, and maybe I did. Maybe Riley was exactly what I needed at that moment. Just because he wasn’t my forever after soulmate doesn’t mean I’m not a better person for having met him. I used to think we each had one soulmate out there in the world just waiting to find us, but if there is one thing I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that you can need different things and different people during different phases in your life. I really think that if I had jumped right into marriage and babies directly after having spent a decade taking care of my grandmother, I would have ended up regretting it. I think Riley was my soulmate for the moment. He helped me to do what I needed to do in order to really be ready for the next phase of my life.”

  I supposed that made sense. When she explained it that way, I could see how Riley really had been the perfect guy for her at that moment in time.

  “So, what’s your plan now?” Georgia asked.

  She shrugged. “I still have the house Grandma left me to go back to if that’s what I decide I want, although I’m not sure there’s really anything there for me. I’m leaning toward selling the house and making a new start somewhere, but I have no idea where that might be. I loved traveling with Riley, but I feel that I’m done with traveling at this point. I do want to settle down and, even though I don’t really need an income at the moment, I know I will want to have a job of some sort once I figure out where it is in this world I am supposed to be.”

  “So you just need time to be alone with your thoughts and figure it all out,” Jeremy said.

  “Exactly. Time to just sit and think. I spent some time during the end of my tour with Riley trying to decide where it was that I wanted to do this sitting, and every time I asked myself that question, the image of this inn and everyone who lives here immediately came to mind.”

  “Maybe you should just live here,” Annabelle said. “In Holiday Bay.”

  Mylie smiled. “I guess that is something I can consider.”

  “I love it here,” Annabelle continued. “When Uncle Jeremy first brought me here, I wasn’t sure how it would be to move away from my friends, but then I met Hannah and Haley, and I realized the friends I have here are much better than the friends I had when we lived at my mom’s house.”

  “Friends are important,” Mylie agreed. “And probably because I lived with my grandmother for most of my life, I really never had any friends that were just mine.”

  “She didn’t let you have friends?” Haley asked.

  “No. It wasn’t that. After my parents died and I went to live with Grandma, she tried to get me to make friends, but I guess I was too broken. I went to school, made good grades, but never really participated in extra-curricular activities no matter how hard my grandmother tried to get me to open up a bit and let others in.”

  “What about later? After you went to college?” Georgia asked.

  “I guess I made a few friends while in college, but then Grandma got sick, and I dropped out to take care of her. Grandma was very sick for a very long time. She couldn’t do much of anything for herself, and she couldn’t be left alone for more than an hour or two at a time, so I mostly just stayed home and took care of her. I suppose I could have hired someone to help. It was suggested that perhaps I should do just that, but when I first returned home, I really did think our remaining time together would be brief, and I didn’t want to become involved in anything that cut into the hours we had left. As it turns out, in the end, she actually hung on for ten years. Not that I regret the time I had with her. Not for a minute, but when she died, I realized I had no one. And then I came here.” She smiled. “And now I have all of you.”

  “And we are so happy to have you here,” Christy said.

  “And has it worked out for you?” Mylie asked Christy. “Moving to Holiday Bay? I know at one point, you were less than certain.”

  She smiled. “It has most definitely worked out. I love this town, and I love my job. The people are wonderful, and Haley is able to spend time with her grandparents every single week.”

  “And she likes kissing Noah.” Haley giggled.

  Christy blushed. “Yes. And I like kissing Noah.”

  Noah Daniels was the pastor at the local community church, and I suspect he was the real reason Christy had decided to move here in the first place.

  “So tell us some more about your trip,” I said, deciding to come to Christy’s rescue. I knew how it was to be teased about feelings you hadn’t worked out completely.

  “I have so many stories,” Mylie said before launching into a funny story about a woman she’d met on a train in Italy. One of the first things I’d noticed about our vivacious guest was that she was both kind and outgoing, and if provided the opportunity, would take a moment to speak to anyone and everyone who might wander into her orbit.

  “So once you helped Lola find her Antonio, you never saw her again?” Amy asked, as Mylie described a woman she only knew as Lola.

  She shook her head. “I never did. I guess I should have asked for her phone number or at least enquired about her last name, but I think the forty-eight hours I spent helping Lola to track down the man she insisted she was destined to marry were hours well spent. Riley was busy with his blog, and helping Lola gave me something to concentrate on.”

  “So you met this woman on a train, and she tells you she’s heading to this tiny little town in Northern Italy to try to track down a man she dreamed she was destined to marry, and you actually changed your itinerary to go to a small village with this woman to help her?” Amy asked as if trying to grasp the reality of the situation.

  “That’s exactly what happened.”

  “And once you helped Lola find her Antonio, you got on a train and went to meet up with Riley?”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  Amy grinned. “No wonder everyone here at the inn loves you so much.”

  “Tell us
another story,” Hannah prodded.

  “Well, there is this one story about my trip to Germany with Riley,” she began.

  I slipped my phone out and checked to see if I had a message from Colt while Mylie shared her wild adventure. He hadn’t texted back, but I really was curious about who the victim of the homicide he’d responded to might be. I was tempted to sneak away and call him again, but I knew he was probably busy, so I put my phone back in my pocket and forced myself to follow along with the story.

  “Of course,” Mylie laughed. “Once Riley and I realized the beer garden and sausage cook-off was actually a private party that we’d just crashed and not a public event as we first suspected, we grabbed a sandwich for the road and got ourselves out of there.”

  Annabelle giggled. “Did anyone say anything to you when you first showed up?”

  “There was this man, who said something to us when we first arrived, but he spoke only German, and neither Riley nor I knew German. He was probably asking us who we were and what in the heck we were doing crashing his party, but we just assumed the beer and food were for everyone, so we smiled and helped ourselves. It took us a while, but we eventually realized that everyone at the gathering knew each other, and we were, in fact, the only outsiders, so Riley asked one of the children in attendance, who spoke English, what exactly was going on, and she told us the gathering was a birthday party for one of her uncles.”

  “Those people probably thought you were crazy,” Hannah laughed.

  “Probably,” Mylie agreed.

  “Speaking of beer gardens,” I jumped in now that I’d been reminded of the discussion I needed to have with Georgia and Jeremy. “I received a text from the Lobsterfest committee asking if the inn would be interested in hosting the beer garden this year. I guess the inn that was going to host has been suffering from plumbing issues and decided to close for a few weeks so they can get a new system installed.”