Songbird Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  He just sanded the board smooth, and listened, and she felt herself opening up to him, and telling him about how it hurt deep inside to know she had relatives who'd lived and died in this very town and she never even got a chance to meet them.

  "And it's all led you to this point," he said softly, stopping to examine a splinter on his hand. "Like a fairy tale, leading you to Pajaro Bay, and your birth family."

  "Not a fairy tale," she said. "Just a sad story about how all these people died along the way, but I lucked out and got adopted by a nice woman."

  "Why not a fairy tale?" he asked. He looked over at her. "You're like the princess who finds the key to the past in a picture, and now you're following the clues to some perfect ending."

  Robin scoffed. "Right. And the fairy princess lives happily ever after in a cottage by the sea with a—" She stopped. She'd almost said a handsome prince, but that hit too close to home.

  "Sounds about right," he said. "You're entitled to be the heroine of your own story."

  He turned back to the boards, cutting the next piece into a curve for an arched cap on the bookcase.

  She watched the muscles of his back as he worked, and thought about what he'd said.

  Chapter Eleven

  Later that morning, Robin parked her BMW coupe at the same spot in the middle of Songbird Lane where Dylan's rugged old Jeep had stood the day before.

  She got out and looked around.

  Her poor car hadn't made the trip down the rutted road as easily as Dylan's had, and it was covered in dirt, as well as dings from rocks and gravel.

  She pursed her lips and looked at a big scratch in the tanzanite blue metallic paint. She'd heard the gruesome scraping sound at one particularly narrow spot when a branch had—she would swear—reached out and deliberately taken a swipe at the car just for spite.

  What a bummer. If she was really going to buy Songbird Cottage, more than her address was going to change. She wondered if 4WD pickup trucks came in any cute colors.

  She looked down at her Gucci spike heel ankle boots, which she'd thought would be appropriate to wear out here. They already looked a bit ragged, even before she'd slogged her way up to the cottage itself. She was going to have to let go of her perfectionism and get something more practical to wear, too.

  She went over to the locked gate, and realized she hadn't asked Dylan for the key. She pulled out her phone to call him and ask if she could swing by and pick it up.

  No signal. Great. Well, she'd come all this way. She'd just have to climb over.

  She had one leg swung over the rusty old thing, and was inwardly lamenting the damage to her wool trousers, when she saw a battered pickup with faded green paint lurch to a stop behind her car.

  A woman around her age, with casually styled blonde hair and skin ruddy from working outdoors, got out and came over to watch as Robin eased herself back over to the street side of the gate.

  "Hi, Ava," Robin called out, recognizing her as Gavin Kelly's wife and someone she'd met occasionally at village functions. "What are you doing out here?"

  Ava Kelly laughed. "I was going to ask you the same thing. Don't tell me this old field is finally going to be sold."

  Robin brushed off her pants and followed her back to their cars. "Yeah. Dylan Madrigal's listing it. But I might actually be buying it myself."

  Her face lit up. "Really? That would be great. It's so lonely out here. Are you going to build a house?"

  "There's actually already a house on the land, but it needs work," Robin said, figuring it was too late to keep it a secret.

  Ava looked startled. "You're not talking about that old barn? You plan to convert it to a house?"

  "It already is a house," Robin said. "An unfinished one that was boarded up a long time ago." She didn't want to go into the story about it being a Stockdale, or about her family's connection to it, so she just left it there.

  "Wow. That's wonderful. I can just see the little barn—or house, I guess—from the north end of our field. I always thought it looked so forlorn sitting out there in the weeds by itself."

  "From the north field?" Robin said. "You mean you own the strawberry farm at the end of the road?" Ava's husband Gavin had a construction business in town, and the couple had two little kids. She'd seen the family at many of the village events, but she'd never known exactly where they lived.

  "My family's been on this land for three generations. Want to come see the farm? I'm pretty proud of it."

  "Sure. I mean, I'm on my way to look at the place, but after—"

  Ava laughed. "I'm sorry, Robin. I'm trying to be polite. I can't get past your car, and I doubt your BMW is able to turn around in this narrow space, so I kind of meant: did you want to drive ahead of me to the end of the road and turn around up there, so I can get home?"

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  Ava smiled. "Don't be. It's just that I'm so thrilled to have a couple of hours off while the kids are in preschool. I have to leave at one to pick them up, and I'm dying for a cup of tea and a chance to catch my breath before the chaos descends again."

  Robin started to stammer out an apology, but Ava laughed again.

  "Come on. I'm buying. Tea and real scones. And you can tell me all about your new house."

  Robin led the way in her little car. It was making an awful squeaking sound as it went over each bump, and she had the feeling some auto repair bills were in her future.

  Her car's squeak was echoed by the rattle and grumble of the old truck following her down the lane. The back of Ava's pickup truck was piled with stuff, and she could hear it all sliding and banging around with every bump and turn in the road. From the looks of the truck, she wouldn't be surprised if the truck itself was slipping to pieces. But it made the half mile to the farm okay, and came to a lurching stop in the gravel in front of the farmhouse just behind her own little BMW.

  They both got out.

  "My car has a lot of trouble on that road," Robin said. "I may need to get something like your old truck."

  "It may not look like much," Ava said, "but I couldn't live without it. It's my command central. It's carrying everything from spare batteries to fire extinguishers, chicken feed to snacks for the kids, and it can handle just about any kind of road we've got out here in the boonies."

  "If I'm going to be out here, I need to do something similar." Robin was beginning to wonder if she was taking on more than she could handle with this cottage. It was different from just buying a house in town. This was a whole different lifestyle.

  "I've got to learn how to be a lot more self-sufficient out here, I think," Robin said, and Ava nodded.

  "Yup. Gavin's out of town visiting his cousin in Albuquerque for a couple of days, so it's just my dad and me right now—and the rug rats when they get out of preschool in a couple hours. You learn to be on your own a lot on a farm." Then she grinned. "So it would be great to have a neighbor—especially one who knows the difference between shabby chic and Scandinavian styles. The guys just don't get it."

  They both laughed.

  "Come on," Ava said, grabbing a shovel out of the back of the truck. Robin followed her across the gravel driveway to a classic red barn.

  Robin looked around. "So you own all this land?"

  "Right up to there," Ava said, pointing up a steep little hillside. "See that little old tree at the top of the hill?"

  Robin nodded.

  "I think that's the edge of your property." When they reached the barn, Ava set the shovel in its place along the wall, then turned. "Want a tomato?"

  "Sure," Robin said.

  There was a kitchen garden in the lee of the barn, where, protected from the ocean wind, tomatoes and green beans were producing like mad.

  Ava picked a tomato that seemed almost as big as a melon and gave it a sniff. "This one's good." She handed it to Robin.

  Robin sniffed it. It was gloriously scented, and perfectly ripe. "Wow."

  "Yup. There are advantages to living out here."

/>   "So what are those?" Robin asked, pointing to a cluster of bushes filling the field between the driveway and the strawberry field in the distance.

  Ava puffed up proudly. "Those are my avocado trees. There won't be any fruit for another five years or so, but once they start, we'll have a second crop to take to the farmers market when the strawberries are out of season. It will help us diversify and have more sources of income. We're just at the edge of their range, so it's a bit of a risk, but we'll pray for no frosts and hope for the best. And the payoff if I succeed—"

  "Avocado toast!" they both shouted in unison, and dissolved in laughter.

  "Endless avocados. What a luxury," Robin said in wonder. "How many will an orchard that size produce?"

  "Enough that, if you move in next door, you'll never have to buy an avocado again."

  "It's a deal," Robin said with a laugh.

  "Come on inside and I'll get us a cup of tea."

  As they headed toward the house Ava kept swiveling her head from side to side, and at one point, she stopped in the path to call out, "here, kitty, kitty!"

  Then she shook her head sadly and went on. "I've been feeding a feral cat who was obviously nursing kittens, but she's been missing for a couple of days, and I'm afraid something got her." She sighed.

  "Something?"

  "We've got everything from raccoons to foxes to snakes out here. That's the other side of country life. Not everything's farmhouse chic and garden fresh produce."

  She ushered Robin into the house. "Ooh," Robin said. "You were saying 'farmhouse chic'?"

  Ava looked around proudly. "Yeah. Not bad, huh?"

  It wasn't bad at all. In fact it was gorgeous.

  The house was old, and modest in design, but the wainscoting was glossy cream beadboard, and the floors were old, scratched up oak, and the house was painted in a warm peachy tan—

  "—Mandarin Cove is the name of the color," Ava said. "Great, isn't it?"

  It was. It was warm and welcoming, but not overwhelming. Like being wrapped in a sunny day.

  "It's my version of farmhouse chic. So what do you think?"

  "I love it," Robin said honestly. "An oceanfront farmhouse. Amazing."

  The side of the house that faced the sea was almost all windows. Beyond the farmland was the endless ocean, and with the windows open, as they were today, the sound and smell of the Pacific mingled with the look of barnwood and the warmth of the old house to create an oasis of easygoing, unfussy beauty.

  There was another scent in the air as well. Ava led the way to the kitchen and once there, they were overwhelmed by the smell of strawberries. Not the sickly-sweet scent of strawberry candles or strawberry air freshener. But the real thing. Fresh, ripe strawberries.

  "That smells so good," Robin said, her mouth starting to water. "Oh, hi," she said with a smile to the old man sitting in one of the kitchen chairs finishing up a cup of coffee.

  "Robin, this is my dad, Russ. William Russell. Dad, this is Robin Brenham—you know, she's the real estate lady."

  She had gotten her looks from her dad. He was ruddy-cheeked and fair-haired. But after a friendly smile, he seemed a bit doubtful. "Farmhouse chic?" he said.

  "That's the style," Robin said, prepared to go into her real estate spiel, but Ava laughed.

  "Dad knows all about it. He has to listen to me go on and on. He just doesn't appreciate all the decorating stuff. This is a working farm," she added gruffly, in what was obviously an echo of something he often said. "Not a fan of my blog, either, right, Dad?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "I've got a field to plow. Don't have time for any old computers."

  He said a polite farewell to Robin, then left by the kitchen door, muttering under his breath about froufrou stuff….

  Ava and Robin both laughed. "He thinks it's a waste of time," Ava said. "But my blog brings in quite a bit of ad income. He's not very tech savvy, so all he thinks about is how to increase crop yields."

  "So what do you blog about?" Robin asked.

  Ava waved her to a seat at the rickety table, and Robin sat down.

  "Everything. Today it's going to be the recipe for strawberry sauce in the Instant Pot, which is what you're smelling right now. I'm always looking for things to write about."

  "So lifestyle stuff."

  "Sometimes. Also more serious things. I talked about how Gavin and I adopted our two kids. Other stuff like that."

  She bustled around the kitchen, making a pot of tea in a chipped teapot with tiny pink roses on it. "Was my mom's," Ava said. "So I can't bear to give it up. Pour carefully, though—that little crack in the handle's going to give out any day now."

  She set fluffy scones on the table, with strawberry sauce in a blue glass jar, and a cow-shaped creamer filled to the brim. "Courtesy of our Guernsey, Hazel."

  "Hazel?"

  "Our cow. She grazes in the avocado orchard. Keeps the grass down, and so far has shown no interest in bothering my little trees."

  Robin took a scone and cup of tea and was just ready to take a bite when Ava said, "Wait!"

  She almost dropped the scone.

  Ava held up her phone. "Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. But the strawberry jam and the blue glass jar—it's all perfect."

  Ava leaned over the table and took a picture. She moved the little cow dish an inch to the left, so it sidled up close to the chipped teapot and the mound of scones. The camera clicked again.

  "It needs something," Ava muttered.

  Robin grabbed the blue flowered napkin Ava had handed her and bunched it next to the plate of scones. "How about that?"

  "Perfect! Ava took another pic. "It's not quite right. Do you mind being in the picture?" she asked.

  Robin shrugged.

  "You can pour the tea. Your red shirt will look perfect against the antique Mason jar."

  So Robin sat, turning this way and that as she held the tea pot, until Ava announced, "Done. Got it. That's going to be just right."

  "Just right for what?" Robin asked.

  "Oh, sorry. You can set the tea pot down. For my blog."

  Robin set down the little teapot and picked up her scone. "Thank goodness. I'm starving." She took a big bite.

  A little while later they both sat back in their chairs and surveyed the wreckage. "I ate too much," Robin said.

  "Me, too. But it was fun. If you move out here, we'll have to find some lower calorie recipes to try."

  "It's a deal."

  "So what made you decide to move out here, anyway? I picture you as more of a city girl. You're from San Francisco, right?"

  Robin hesitated. But Ava seemed genuinely interested, so she explained, "it's the house. The cottage on that piece of land."

  "It spoke to you," Ava said. "How romantic."

  "Sort of," Robin said. "It means a lot to me." She took the plunge and shared: "I discovered the cottage belonged to my grandmother."

  "Wow," Ava said. "Then you're meant to have it. That's amazing."

  Robin nodded. "That's what it feels like. You see—" she said, then stopped.

  "Yes?"

  "My mother died when I was a baby, so any chance to have something connected to her…." She trailed off.

  "I know what that's like," Ava said. "No, really," she continued in response to Robin's skeptical look. "My mother died when I was a baby, too."

  "I'm so sorry," Robin said.

  "She committed suicide. Oh, don't be shocked," she added when Robin almost dropped her teaspoon. "I talk about it a lot. On my blog in particular. When I was born, she developed postpartum depression, and she ended up dying when I was only about a year old. So now I am focused on educating people about the condition with my blog, and that helps me make peace with it."

  "That's wonderful—not that your mother died, of course. But that you're using your platform to try to spread awareness."

  "I think it's important to find a way to use the pain to do something positive. Otherwise the grief is just…." Now it was Ava's turn to trai
l off.

  "Overwhelming," Robin said, completing the sentence.

  They both sat in silence for a minute, looking at their tea cups.

  Chapter Twelve

  Robin parked in the now-familiar spot by the gate, this time facing toward the highway. She realized she'd have to hurry if she wanted to explore the cottage some more.

  She got out of her car in a rush and, no longer feeling as fussy about her clothes, climbed over the gate and headed up the hill.

  She was dying to see the cottage again. Her cottage. It didn't matter if someone else was bidding on it. She wouldn't let that stop her. She had become convinced this was her family legacy, and she was going to pay whatever it took to buy it.

  She came up out of the trees to find herself in that open field again. But after seeing it from Ava's farm, she now had a better sense of exactly where it stood in relation to the ocean. She was sure there would be a wonderful view from the far end of the property.

  She made her way through the dry brush to the gnarled little tree Ava had pointed to from the barnyard.

  When she got there, she realized the aged tree stood at the top of a small hill, with an impassable slope from there down to the strawberry farm below.

  That's why the ocean couldn't be seen from the cottage itself—it stood in what was almost a little valley, cupped in a shallow depression in the land that made it virtually invisible from anywhere outside.

  But from where she now stood she had an amazing view in both directions: back toward the cottage, and then out toward the farm.

  Ava's farm was clearly marked by neat rows of whitewashed fencing where the cow grazed between clusters of young avocado trees. A narrow dirt road, just wide enough for a tractor, meandered between the trees, leading the way to the big agricultural field, which was carefully plowed and planted with the strawberries.

  Beyond the farm to the west was the sea. The water was steel blue from this angle, and its depths stretched out all the way to the horizon and beyond. She stood for a bit, mesmerized, watching the flow of the waves rippling toward the shore in an endless cycle.