Laurel Cove

by Sarah Turtle

  Summary

  Willa Barton has established herself as a successful author and screenwriter, residing in New York City, a stark contrast from her childhood upbringing in the small island community of Laurel Cove, Maine. Twenty years have passed since Willa’s best friend, Brynn, kissed her, which resulted in Willa accidentally causing permanent injury to Brynn. After being shamed out of town for destroying the future of Laurel Cove’s star athlete, Willa kept her distance; that is, until she receives a call that her father has passed away.

  Willa’s plan is simple—she is only going back long enough to tie up loose ends for her father’s estate, sell his house, and attend his funeral. What she doesn’t account for are the past grudges that still exist, a love that was never completely lost, and prospects of friendship. Can Willa right past wrongs to fulfill a promise from the grave so her father can be laid to rest?

  Laurel Cove

  Laurel Cove

  Sarah Turtle

  Sapphire Books

  Salinas, california

  Laurel Cove

  Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Turtle. All rights reserved.

  ISBN EPUB - 978-1-948232-54-8

  This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission of the publisher.

  Editor - Kaycee Hawn

  Book Design - LJ Reynolds

  Cover Design - Fineline Cover Design

  Sapphire Books Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 8142

  Salinas, CA 93912

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition – March 2019

  This and other Sapphire Books titles can be found at

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Dedication

  For Kamalei.

  Acknowledgments

  The single most important element to the writing process for myself is time. I can have stories in my head, but if I don’t have time to get them out on paper, then my creativity is trapped in the confines of my mind. Kamalei has graciously offered for me to have all the time I need to bring my stories to life on the pages of books and for this I will be eternally grateful.

  I was fortunate to have a whimsical childhood in which my parents encouraged me to explore my imaginative side. They supported my love of books with weekly trips to the bookstore. They provided me with a collection of stories that filled shelves as well as my mind with ideas, which in turn shaped the future of my love of writing. I will be forever thankful that they have always supported my decision to become a writer.

  Lastly, every aspiring author needs just one publishing company to take a chance on them. I thank Christine at Sapphire Books for this opportunity to publish my debut novel, and to Kaycee for making the editing process an easy one.

  Chapter One

  Willa slid off her glasses and rubbed at her eyes before replacing them and typing rapidly at the keyboard on her laptop. In the time it took her to read over the new lines she just wrote, she quickly swept her flowing blond hair up into a messy pile at the top of her head. It didn’t look pretty, but at this hour of the night, no one was left in their offices to notice.

  Those employed at the publishing company teased Willa at how odd it was for her to have requested an office space in the building, when all the other authors prided themselves on having the ability to work from anywhere they pleased. Willa decided early on in her writing career that she needed the structure of going to a workplace if she intended to get anything done with the least amount of procrastination possible. Her publisher most certainly did not complain because Willa paid rent for the space and was always early for hitting deadlines.

  A buzzing sound, followed by a chime, went off on the cell phone that Willa tore her eyes away from the computer screen to glance at. She scowled at the unknown number flashing and pushed the button to send it to voicemail. Her dark eyes fell once again into a deep state of concentration as she focused on completing the chapter she was writing.

  Less than a minute passed when the cell phone once again lit up with the same unknown number. Willa growled in frustration at the distraction and resorted to shutting the phone down completely to avoid dealing with it going off during her most productive writing session of the week. This time, though, her mind continually shifted back from her story to the reason why two calls in a row without a voicemail were necessary. It took twice as long as it should have for her to type the next sentence due to the worry that started to settle in the back of Willa’s mind.

  A shrill sound that made Willa jerk up in her seat, rang from the corner of her desk. The office phone that had been installed but never used was now going off for the first time in all the years she had been there. Not being an actual working employee of the publishing company made it so that the phone was really quite useless, but the building required it for emergency purposes. Willa peered out at the multiple empty desks that were visible from her office space and then back at the phone as if it was a forbidden act to answer it.

  She picked up the receiver from the charging cradle and fumbled her fingers over the buttons. Willa couldn’t even remember the last time she had used a landline phone and the keypad was like a foreign object in her hand. She pushed the green talk button and raised it to her ear. “Hello?”

  The caller on the other line hesitated for a moment and then responded. “Am I speaking to Willa Barton?”

  Willa sighed heavily, already annoyed that somehow a call had made its way to her office. She craned her neck to try and see if anyone out in the reception area could have possibly transferred the call into her by accident. Knowing full well she was alone other than the occasional cleaning person or security officer that passed by, she groaned and answered. “This is Willa, but I’m not sure how you got through to this extension. You need to speak to my agent for booking interviews or events. I’ll send you through to her voicemail.” Willa reached over to the phone base and frantically tried to figure out how to get rid of the caller as soon as possible.

  Before she could decipher the phone system, the voice of the elderly woman stopped Willa’s actions with just a few simple words. “Willa, this is your Aunt Beth.”

  It would have been an inconvenience to have to deal with talking to a member of the press or someone else looking to interview her, and even more annoying to talk with a fan who somehow slipped through the phone system. This caller, however, was the one person that Willa always feared might contact her someday. With her mind racing with emotions, she steadied her voice and said something that wouldn’t express how scared she really was. “I’m sorry; I didn’t recognize your voice.”

  “It’s understandable since you were quite young the last time we spoke.”

  “Yes, I was.” Willa closed her eyes and rubbed a circle around her nauseated stomach. “Is everything okay?”

  The lingering time it took for Beth to respond was all the answer she needed to know that this was not a simple social call between long lost relatives.

  “Oh, sweetie, it’s your dad…”

  “What happened?” Willa hoped he was just injured or sick and she could do something to help him through his recovery.

  “It was his heart; he’s gone.” Beth paused for a moment when her voice started to crack. “Willa, you need to come home. Come back to the Cove.”

  The rest of the phone call was a formality of necessities when making arrang
ements after the passing of a loved one takes place. Willa didn’t really pay attention to much of the conversation. All it did was leave her with a tightness in her chest as she suppressed the tears that needed to fall, but she wanted to exit the building and pass the watchful eyes of the security cameras before allowing herself to break down.

  She hurriedly packed up her laptop and made her way out to the parking garage before crumpling up into the seat of her car.

  It was nearly dawn by the time Willa composed herself enough to pull out onto the streets of New York towards her apartment to pack for her unexpected trip back to her childhood home, and only four hours later, she crossed the state border into Maine. Willa was aware she had been speeding most of the way, but now that the scenery had shifted from a highway to small towns as she navigated the slower paced track up Route One, she dropped down to mirror the rest of the local traffic.

  After one last stop for a coffee refill, Willa stretched her arms over her head and massaged her right calf muscle to prepare for the last leg of her journey. An hour and a half later, she passed by a sign that read, ‘Laurel Cove.’

  The small island community was a quaint seaside village area that flooded Willa with childhood memories the instant she entered its borders. As she passed by inlets of water, rows of oak trees, and little cottages that hadn’t changed a bit since the day she last drove through, a history she worked so long at forgetting came rushing back. She pushed back the images of anyone that wasn’t her father. She was here for him and no one else mattered now.

  Her compact sports car was clearly out of place in a town that had a pickup truck in every driveway. She turned the air conditioning off and opened up the sunroof to inhale the salty aroma of the sea into her lungs. It was a refreshing change in comparison to the smog weighing down the air in the city.

  Willa pulled into the yard of a small house. It was bittersweet to see the front porch decorated with old buoys and lobster traps. Her father was equally proud of his boat and his home so he had intertwined the themes of them together into one.

  With her hand on the doorknob, Willa felt oddly both familiar and strange opening the door to the place she had lived in for eighteen years, but had not returned to since. She wasn’t sure if she should knock first, knowing her aunt was inside, and yet realizing she was now the sole owner of this house. Releasing her fears in a deep breath outward, she pushed the door open, and the scents she associated with her dad and the happiest years of her life overcame her.

  A pair of tall rubber boots sat just inside the entryway, which reeked of low tide mud flats, but past that, the smell of men’s cologne and aftershave surrounded her like a hug from a man that would never be able to comfort her again. Just as this thought entered her mind, an embrace came from out of nowhere as her Aunt Beth squeezed her from the side.

  Willa endured the awkward hug for longer than she wanted to, so as not to insult her aunt, but they had never been very close in the past and she would have preferred to be alone with her sorrow. When the tiny, gray haired woman finally released her, she shut the door, took the few steps into the center of the living room, and slumped down onto the old leather couch that felt like an old friend.

  Beth settled into a wooden rocking chair across from Willa and picked up a photo album that was laying on the coffee table between them. “I was going through these and if you don’t mind, I’d like to bring some to the library to have copies made for myself?”

  Willa smiled to herself, pondering that the simple act of copying a photo was technology that every person had in their homes, except for the older generation, especially here on Laurel Cove, where people still lived simple lives. “Just keep the album. It’s one of the older ones from before I was born. Most of the people in it I’ve never even met.”

  “Well, I suppose it won’t be too long until you’ll be inheriting it right back from me again.”

  “Aunt Beth, don’t say that.”

  “I hope to have many years left in me, dear, but my younger brother was taken before me, and I never thought that day would come either.”

  “That’s what years of eating nothing but steak, potatoes, and ice cream will do to you.” Willa felt another surge of emotion well up inside of her as she recalled eating dinner on the fold up tables in front of the television while they watched football games together. Not wanting her aunt to see how the memory was affecting her, Willa held back the tears by covering them up with a yawn.

  “You must be exhausted after such a long ride. You should go take a nap. I freshened up your bed with clean sheets.”

  “My bed?” Willa stood and made her way down the short hallway to a door that still had her name written on it with wooden carved letters. Upon opening the door, she gasped at the sight of a room that remained unchanged since she was eighteen years old.

  Beth had come up from behind her and smiled brightly as she watched the amazement on Willa’s face at the room that stood frozen in time. Willa ran her fingers over the certificates framed on the walls for writing awards and certificates for completions of advanced placement classes. She picked up a glass jar filled with movie tickets and concert stubs, then flicked the tassel on her cap from graduation that was wrapped in the valedictorian cord.

  Willa turned to her aunt. “He left everything right where it was when I went away.”

  “Not just you, sweetie, you were too young to remember, but just about everything inside this house is just as your mother had left it after she passed.”

  Willa looked at Beth with a glazed over expression. She had never really thought about it before, but now she understood why her father refused to replace any of the old furniture, decorations, or even kitchen utensils with new items. It was all he had left of his wife and now he had done the same with his daughter.

  Willa gripped her fingers around the edges of her dresser to steady herself. “I guess I just expected it would be different with me.”

  Beth rubbed the palm of her hand up and down the length of Willa’s arm. “He loved you dearly, no matter what the circumstances of you leaving were.”

  “I should have come back here to visit him.”

  “Don’t fret over things you didn’t do. He enjoyed bragging to the men on the docks about having his daughter fly him out to the big city a few times a year.” Beth dropped her hand and backed out of the room. “I’ll be on my way and let you get some rest now.”

  “Aren’t there things we should go over before you leave?”

  “No, I’m in the process of making arrangements for the cremation.”

  “I should help you with that.”

  “There are so many other things that you will be busy with this week. I promise I am following the instructions according to Henry’s will, as he requested.”

  Willa nodded. “I’m sure you are. Thank you for everything, Aunt Beth.”

  Beth waved a solemn goodbye as she backed out of the driveway. Willa sighed heavily, glad to be alone finally, because grieving in the presence of someone who was practically a stranger to her was not an option.

  She reached into the trunk of her car, pulled out two rolling suitcases from inside, and set them on the ground just as a large pickup truck slowly rolled past the driveway. Willa lifted her head up at the sound of the roaring engine, to see the passenger, a woman who she instantly recognized, with her piercing blue eyes and short dark hair, staring intently at her.

  Willa’s eyes widened with a nervous excitement and she started to raise her hand up to wave, until the driver, a man with matching blue eyes and dark hair, leaned forward in his seat to give a menacing glare directed at Willa. She sucked in and almost choked on her own breath.

  The truck tires spun and they took off rapidly down the street and out of sight around the corner.

  Willa slammed the back of her car shut and roughly ran her fingers through her curly hair before grasping at the back of her neck and kicking the tiny wheel of her suitcase. In a matter of a few seconds, every reason why she ha
d never returned to Laurel Cove just crossed her path again and reminded her that she shouldn’t be here now.

  Chapter Two

  Packing up the house in preparation for placing it on the market was too overwhelming to deal with right now, and her attempt at taking a nap was unsuccessful, so Willa made her way into the heart of the little town. She chose to walk the two miles, because she had always done it that way as a teenager, and taking a different route by car just seemed wrong. It would also make up for the fact that she missed her morning workout session due to her long drive to Maine.

  The rows of tiny summer cottages intermingled with the few year round residential houses were just as she had remembered them. Strict regulations on development along the seacoast caused a lack of growth to the area, so she wasn’t surprised at how everything seemed to have paused in time. It was refreshing for houses and buildings that reached a maximum of two stories in height to surround her. Skyscrapers surrounded the view from her apartment in New York City, which blocked out all views of nature, and left not just a grey backdrop, but also a dark void in her soul. Not a day passed when she yearned to be in the open, airy atmosphere of Laurel Cove.

  Willa crossed the road and walked along the strip of businesses that bordered the sea. A narrow wooden walkway led to the back deck of a pub called The Anchor, where anyone who wasn’t preparing their own food at home would go for a meal, and every lobsterman would stop by for a beer after ending a tiring day on the water.

  The warm summer temperatures had the deck tables full, but Willa wanted to hide within the confines of the dimly lit bar anyway.