"Matteo?"
"Yes, ma'am." He pulled his attention away from the door. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude."
"That's all right, son. I just wanted to discuss a problem with you."
"Yes. I've heard about the hot tub." Some software tycoon had bought one of the cliff cottages and was threatening to put a hot tub on the front lawn. "I'm sure you ladies can handle the tragedy."
"It's not that. It's that." She nodded toward the bay, where the lighthouse island sat. "We need to name a permanent lighthouse keeper in preparation for next year's tourist season. All renovations are done, and we need someone who knows boats, can give tours, and can cook for the guests when the lighthouse becomes a bed and breakfast."
"Mm hmm," he said absently, glancing back at the door.
"We were thinking of Lori."
He laughed. "No offense, Ms. Zelda. But your great-niece isn't the best cook I've ever met."
"Oh, you'd be the cook and handle the boats. She'd give the historical tours."
"Thank you, ma'am," he said. "But you know with my reputation as a criminal the council would never approve such a thing."
"Oh." She smiled sweetly at him. "Haven't you heard?"
"Heard what?"
She just smiled and wandered off into the house.
Alec O'Keeffe finally showed up, a big stack of newspapers in his arms.
"Are you ready?" he asked Matt.
"Well, my mom's annoyed because we aren't having a church wedding, and Lori's parents are mad that she's marrying a bum like me, so yeah, I think we've covered all the bases."
"This ought to help," Alec said, handing him a paper from the stack. "Think of it as an extra wedding present...."
The Shadow is Undercover Hero , the headline read.
"I had a bit of help from Ms. Zelda, and Dr. Lil, and that character George," he said, nodding to his partner, who was still fighting a losing battle with Shadowfax over the bow tie. Alec grinned. "George decided that now that you are an ex-secret agent, it's time your friends knew the whole truth. I had to agree."
"Mabel Rutherford will have a cow," Matt said.
"Mabel Rutherford bought twelve copies. Claims she knew it all along."
Her mother. How strange that Lori had never noticed how much alike they were. She could see Aunt Zee in mom now. They were all so alike. An unbroken line from her grandmother, Aunt Zee's sister, to her mother, to her. All struggling with how to live with these thunderstorms in their brains. Trying to figure out how to just live.
The others had left the bedroom and she was alone with only her mother there. It still felt awkward, knowing her mother didn't approve, but was gritting her teeth and putting up with Lori's choices because she could no longer control her.
She turned to face her mother, wondering what to say to convince her that this was really the right decision. That this was where she belonged.
Her mother had tears in her eyes, and all Lori's tough resolve melted. She hugged her close and said, "I'm so sorry you're unhappy, Mom."
"Unhappy?" Her mother shook her head. "Oh, honey. I'm not unhappy." She fumbled with a little something and then held her hand out to Lori.
Lori took what her mother was offering to her. It was a little locket on a chain, gold, with an image of the Eiffel Tower etched on it. "Oh, mom! It's my something old!"
"No," said her mother. "Aunt Zee will be here in a minute with your something old."
"Then I don't understand...."
"This is your something borrowed." The tears spilled over onto her mom's cheeks. "Open it, Lori."
She did. Inside was a tiny picture of a man. He looked serious, with dark eyes in a lean face, a scraggle of a young man's beard, and a a mop of too-long, sunbleached hair.
"I don't understand. Who is he?"
"He is my Matt. When I was eighteen he asked me to run away to Paris with him, to become an artist like I had dreamed of doing."
"But—"
"But I was afraid. Afraid to go against my parents' wishes. Afraid to take a risk. Afraid to be out in the world with my epilepsy always there, ready to stop me, to embarrass me, to possibly kill me."
I did this for you, because I didn't do it for your mother , Aunt Zee had said.
"So you didn't go."
"I didn't go. I stayed with my parents. I let them decide what was best for me. I married your father, a man they picked out for me."
She looked at her mother, surprised.
"Oh, don't get me wrong. Your father and I have been very happy together. We care very deeply for each other. He is a wonderful man. Kind and decent, loving and supportive. I can't say a single thing bad about him."
"I know."
"But it has never been that kind of love. The kind of love that would make you run off to Paris with a man." She kissed Lori on the cheek. "The kind of love you'd find when a man washes ashore on your island and steals your heart."
Then her mother straightened up and wiped away the tears. "I am very proud of you, Lori. Don't ever forget that."
Now Lori was the one with tears. "I never knew."
"How could I tell you? Your father doesn't know. No one knows. Except Aunt Zee. And now you."
"I'll never tell," Lori said. She let her mother slip the locket chain over her head and her mother nestled it under the neckline of the gown, close to her heart.
"Are you all finished?" asked Aunt Zee with her usual perfect timing.
"All done," her mom said brightly.
"Ready for the something blue?" Aunt Zee asked. She handed her a black velvet case. Lori opened it, and gasped.
The earrings were sapphires, a shade that matched Aunt Zee's eyes, and so matched her own. She put them on, then looked one last time in the mirror. In the glass she saw Aunt Zee, her mother, and herself. Three generations of strong women, all at peace with the decisions they'd made in life. All ready to go forward from here.
"Ready?" Aunt Zee asked.
Lori nodded. She was ready.
Deliver a dog to its new owner, they said. It'll be easy, they said. They didn't say anything about murder. Bree has to solve the secret of the Little Fox Cottage in the next Pajaro Bay Mystery, available now.
The Pajaro Bay Mysteries
Welcome to Pajaro Bay, the little California beach town where the cottages are cute, the neighbors are nosy, and it's always possible to find your personal Happily Ever After. The novels can be read in any order, or follow along from the beginning to see how the world develops:
Honeymoon Cottage
A tiny beach town, a handsome sheriff, and a chance for a fresh start. Sure, there's a serial killer on the loose, but no place is perfect, right?
Boardwalk Cottage
Hallie thought she'd spend a fun summer at a funky old amusement park. She didn't expect to become the key to solving a kidnapping plot!
Lighthouse Cottage
Alone at a lighthouse with a handsome, sweet… murderer? Lori had better figure out what he's hiding before they both end up as shark bait.
Little Fox Cottage
Deliver a dog to its new owner, they said. It'll be easy, they said. They didn't say anything about murder.
Rum Cake Cottage
Roxy spent 10 years in prison for a crime she didn't commit. Now she's got 72 hours to find the real killer, or she'll lose her daughter forever.
Songbird Cottage
The abandoned cottage with her grandmother's portrait on the wall is the first clue. Will Robin find the others before it's too late?
Sunshine Cottage
Witness protection in a small town. If Teresa's cover is blown, she'll lose the best life she's ever known. Oh, and she'll die. That, too.
Riverstone Cottage
A cynical private investigator (and former secret agent) finds himself in the sweet little village of Pajaro Bay, sipping blackberry tea with a hippie chick who raises goats. But when danger arrives in town, he has to figure out if the killers are after him—or the bohemian artist he
's falling in love with.
And more to come. Click here for the latest booklist.
The Carita Cove Mysteries
Maggie McJasper is starting over in a little California beach town. She has a craft shop, a nice circle of friends, and a handsome movie star who keeps flirting with her. Life would be pretty great if she could just stop stumbling over dead bodies….
Maggie and the Black-Tie Affair
A bored trophy wife. A cynical movie star. One evening to save an innocent girl from prison. None of them will ever be the same after this Black-Tie Affair.
Maggie and the Inconvenient Corpse
A handsome movie star in her kitchen, and a corpse in the swimming pool. Just your typical Monday morning.
Maggie and the Mourning Beads
Can Maggie find the real killer when her teenage student threatens to strangle someone with a jet-black necklace... hours before the woman is found dead?
Maggie and the Empty Noose
When the handsome movie star renting Maggie's house is accused of murder, she's the only one who believes he's innocent. Now all she has to do is prove it.
Maggie and the Hidden Homicide
Maggie faces her most confusing case yet when she finds a treasured beaded knife–in someone's back! Can she figure out what happened before anyone else ends up dead?
Maggie and the Whiskered Witness
Maggie's dog-training buddy drops off her German Shepherd for a play date–then disappears. Soon Maggie begins to wonder if her friend could be leading a deadly double life.
Maggie and the Serpentine Script
A nasty paparazzo is accused of murder, and Maggie is torn between relief that he's out of her hair—and worry that the police have captured the wrong man.
Maggie and the Rattled Rake
Maggie's friend Nora is charged with trying to murder her younger boy toy husband, and Maggie is sure it's a bum rap. But to clear her friend's name, she's going to have to break a few laws herself….
And more to come. Click here for the latest booklist.
Barbara Cool Lee writes the kind of books she likes reading: fun and heartwarming romantic mysteries where the good guys treat people with kindness and you can always count on a happy ending.
She lives in a cozy cottage by the sea on the California coast. While she's writing her next book, she's got a loaf of sourdough bread in the oven, a pot of veggie soup on the stove, and the fog is billowing outside the windows.
Be sure to sign up for her newsletter to get all the free short stories and be first to find out when the next book is released.
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No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. —John Donne, Meditation #17 from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623)
Lighthouse Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Mystery Book 3) Page 19