Return to Magnolia Harbor

by Hope Ramsay

  Kerri Eaton, her hair unusually awry, walked out onto the porch with him. She advanced to the steps. Then she turned and stepped into his arms.

  Good grief. The old biddies watching from their parlor windows were getting one heck of a thrill. Kerri and Colton played tonsil hockey for a good minute and a half while his hands roamed all over Kerri’s long, lean, shapely body.

  When they broke apart, Kerri turned, looking like a woman who had been satisfied six ways to Sunday. She drifted down the porch steps to her car across the street while Colton watched, his gaze locked on Kerri’s swaying backside.

  Jessica leaned back into the headrest as the tension in her neck relaxed. A laugh bubbled out of her, and once she started, she couldn’t stop. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks and her belly started to cramp.

  She was still laughing when Colton knocked on the passenger-side window. Jessica unlocked the door, and he climbed in.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked in a tone that sounded half-outraged, half-embarrassed.

  That sobered her up. “I’m so glad you and Kerri found each other.”

  “You’re laughing at me, aren’t you?” he grumbled.

  “No. Yes. Maybe a little. But really, I’m very happy for you. I think Kerri is terrific.”

  “Yeah, well. After you sent me away last week, I got to thinking that maybe you were right.”

  “It’s my red-letter day,” she said, the irony intense. “I can’t remember the last time you told me I was right about anything.” She rolled her head to give him a serious look.

  “Yeah.” The word exploded from his mouth. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been pushing you lately. I apologize. It’s just that I want you to succeed.”

  “I want to succeed too,” she said. “And I need your friendship for that. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I came to have a serious conversation with you about…stuff. But it looks like the crisis has passed.”

  “About what I said the other day…” His voice trailed off, and he scratched at the back of his head, clearly embarrassed.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad we’re back in the friend zone.”

  “I guess I was just feeling lonely, you know. Like it was time to think about settling down. And then you were living out there alone in your grandmother’s house. And I thought I could…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Take care of you.”

  “I can take care of myself, thank you.”

  “Can you? I worry about you.”

  “Stop. Really. I’m okay. I even replaced the P-trap in the kitchen sink.” She didn’t say one word about how Topher had helped.

  “I knew that sink was going to give you trouble.”

  “Well, it’s fixed now, okay?”

  “Good for you.”

  Silence welled up between them for a moment before he spoke again. “I guess wanting to take care of you isn’t exactly the same as having the hots for you.”

  Colton had a definite way with words. And there was no doubt that he had the hots for Kerri. “So, you going to see Kerri again?”

  “Uh. Yeah. I guess.”

  “You guess? You like her, right?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I do.”

  It was typical Colton understatement. Sometimes the man could be so cool that he was hard to read.

  “Well, I think she’s great.”

  “Thanks. So I heard you saved Topher Martin’s life.” He was changing the subject. She decided to let him.

  “It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as it sounds.”

  “You still designing his house?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And I have other news.”

  “Oh?”

  “This architect from Miami called and offered me a job.”

  “What? You moving away?” He seemed upset about that.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see.” For the first time since Damon Brant had called her, she seriously entertained the idea of moving on. Maybe that was the best way to deal with the gossip. She’d thought that stuff was in the past, but clearly it wasn’t.

  She turned and faced him. “Um, there’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

  “Oh?” He sounded worried.

  “Colton, do you know what people are saying about us? About how we had a baby together?”

  “Um…” He gave her a funny look.

  “So you know about this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I know. But it’s a very old story. I heard it back when I was in juvie. My daddy came to visit, and he was all over me about getting you pregnant.”

  “So it wasn’t just something people at school were saying?”

  “I think Jude heard the story at school and he told Daddy, and Daddy came down to the center and ripped me a new one. He was ready to make me take responsibility for the kid until I told him it was all a lie.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “Of course he did.”

  Right there was the story of her life. Even Colton’s father, who would never win any awards for Father of the Year, had believed his son when he’d told the truth. She pushed the pain away as she stared out the windshield fighting her own personal demons.

  “Jess,” Colton said softly into the silence, “it’s just an old rumor that was laid to rest a long time ago. Who did you hear it from?”

  “Topher,” she said.

  “Oh crap. I’m sorry. He hasn’t lived here in a long time.”

  “Yeah, I guess. And you don’t have to be sorry. I keep telling you, none of this was your fault.”

  “I guess.” He didn’t sound too sure.

  “Well,” she said on a very long breath, “I think I know how we can put an end to all this talk about the two of us.”

  “You do?”

  “I think you should sweep Kerri Eaton off her feet with a bunch of public displays of affection like the one I just witnessed. So keep it up.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Friday had been a good day. Maybe the best day since the accident. Topher had gone swimming. He’d cleaned the cottage. He’d walked to town twice. And his leg, while not entirely pain free, was feeling less stiff than it had in weeks.

  He made a printout of the photo he’d taken of Rose’s letter, but he’d been unable to get a word with Ashley before sending the kid home. As his granddad might have said, Ashley was busier than a one-armed paperhanger with the hives.

  The buzz at the inn made him yearn for those old days out at the yacht club. He sat for an hour on the porch until he couldn’t sit still a moment longer. He’d never stopped paying his dues to the Jonquil Island Yacht Club. Maybe it was time to show his ugly face there.

  So he called to see if he could charm his way into a dinner reservation at the restaurant. He certainly hadn’t lost his touch over the phone. Plus the maître d’ had known him since he was sixteen and was happy to find him a spot as a longtime member from one of the island’s oldest families.

  His tie felt like a noose, though, when he climbed the steps into the brick building that had housed the club for eighty years. The place was filled to overflowing with sailors, their cheeks ruddy from a day fighting the wind and an evening downing alcohol.

  He made his way through the foyer without anyone recognizing him, although he collected more than a few odd looks. It wasn’t until he reached the entrance to the dining room that he ran into Harry Bauman and had to stop and endure the man’s stare.

  The conversation was beyond awkward and involved a few sentences with phrases like “good to see you” and “how was today’s sailing.”

  Five minutes after he’d escaped, he found himself sitting at a corner table hiding behind the menu. This had been a bad idea. Maybe if he’d invited Jessica it would have—

  No. It would not have been better. And besides, why would she have wanted to be seen with him here?

  He ordered the fried shrimp and pulled out his cell phone when the waiter took away his menu. He didn’t have a boatload of email messag
es the way he once had, when he’d been running CEM Investments. So he pulled up Facebook and cruised the fake news.

  “Topher?”

  He looked up, bracing for another uncomfortable encounter. Caleb Tate stood by his table dressed in the yacht club formal uniform of gray slacks and blue blazer. The man looked good. Unlike so many of their teammates, he hadn’t put on a lot of extra poundage around the middle.

  “Hello, Caleb,” he said, tamping down the urge to tell the man to leave him the hell alone. Or better yet, rip him a new one for what he’d said to Jessica all those years ago.

  He couldn’t say that he really remembered the encounter though. But he sure as hell remembered the pain in Jessica’s voice when she’d talked about what had happened. Yeah, they’d both been jerks in high school.

  The question of the moment was whether Caleb had evolved.

  “I heard you were in town,” Caleb said, pulling out the facing chair and making himself comfortable. He waved his half-empty glass of scotch at a passing waiter. He got a deferential nod from the man.

  Clearly, Tate was comfortable being the big man on campus, and now that Topher thought about it, Caleb had always loved being the center of attention. Topher, although the captain of the team, had been happy to let Caleb bask in all that stupid adoration.

  “It’s nice to see you again, man,” Caleb said, giving Topher the stare.

  Look at me, Topher wanted to scream. “It’s nice to see you too,” he said, hanging on to civility by a gossamer thread.

  The waiter came by with Caleb’s drink and put Topher’s shrimp in front of him. Caleb settled in, elbows on the table, as Topher dug into his meal. He was surprisingly hungry. Maybe because he’d been out and about today. Or more likely because he’d grown weary of frozen dinners.

  “So, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Did you get my messages?” Caleb asked.

  “Yeah, I did. But I’ve been busy. And while we’re talking about this, do me a favor and leave my architect alone.”

  Caleb’s gaze narrowed. “Ah, Jessica Blackwood. For a mousy little thing, she’s kind of cute. I bet she’s a hot little number in the sack, given what people say about her.”

  Topher’s right hand closed into a fist. So Caleb had not evolved, and it was all he could do not to reach across the table and ram his knuckles into his mouth.

  Caleb had always been an asshole. The guy was always talking about girls, boasting of the ones he’d screwed. Back in high school, talk like that was considered the usual fare for the locker room. But Topher had learned his lesson about “locker room” talk.

  He’d tolerated it back then because trying to stop the guys from saying stupid things would have been futile. And besides, they were on a run for the championship. It was stupid, of course, but when a team gets on a run like that, you don’t do anything to mess up the vibe.

  But he hadn’t liked that kind of talk when he’d quarterbacked the team, and he sure as hell didn’t like it now. Because he had evolved.

  He forcibly relaxed his fist. There were better ways to bring jerks like Caleb down. Maybe this was part of his penance.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” Topher asked, dropping into a charm offensive. He was definitely off his game, what with the state of his face, but he’d managed to charm the maître d’ over the phone. So he still had something left. Besides, he didn’t need to be all that charming. Caleb was undoubtedly more interested in his money than his manners.

  Caleb leaned forward and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. “As a matter of fact, there is. I’ve been trying to reach you because I wanted to talk to you about our plans for Magnolia Harbor.”

  “Whose plans?”

  “There’s a consortium of developers who think this little town can be turned into the next Hilton Head. I thought you might want to get in on the ground floor. There’s a lot of money to be made.”

  Topher had to bite his tongue not to tell the guy he didn’t want to see Magnolia Harbor turned into the next Hilton Head. But for Jessica’s sake, he played along.

  “Really?” he asked. “Tell me all about it.”

  * * *

  Saturday morning was a zoo at Howland House. The inn was filled to overflowing with sailors who needed to be fed and out the door no later than seven. Their boats had to be rigged and sailed all the way out into the bay to the starting line for the races, which began at nine in the morning.

  So Ashley, who usually got up at six in the morning, found herself down in the kitchen an hour earlier. Her assistant, Judy McKenzie, was also on the scene early, making up box lunches for everyone. It was an extra service Ashley had added this weekend when almost all of her rooms were taken by sailing enthusiasts.

  Ashley’s sour mood didn’t make the early-morning rush any easier. She made what seemed like endless batches of biscuits, fried up several pounds of bacon and sausage, and boiled up a gigantic pot of oatmeal, all the while waiting for the morning to move on so she could march down to the cottage and give Topher a piece of her mind.

  Yesterday evening Jackie had returned from the library brimming with the news that Rose Howland knew all about Captain Bill’s ghost. He even had a murky printout of a photo to prove it.

  “We’re going to go to the library again tomorrow to read more of the letters,” Jackie had informed her.

  Ashley had been so angry with her cousin that she’d sent Jackie to bed early and marched out to the cottage and banged on the door.

  But the cottage had been dark, and further investigation had shown that Topher’s BMW was not in the parking lot.

  Wow. He’d gone out for the evening—a turn of events that might have encouraged her, but at that moment she’d been doubly enraged. How dare he not be around for her to give him a piece of her mind.

  She needed to sit the man down and explain how the ghost was merely Jackie’s coping mechanism for having lost his father three years ago. And the sooner Jackie grew out of his fantasy, the better. Her son’s therapy sessions were costing Ashley a fortune. The last thing she needed was her cousin, who was having his own issues with fantastical thinking, undoing all of that work.

  She slammed the frying pan down on her new eight-burner Vulcan stove and swallowed back a curse. There was no way in hell she was letting Jackie go back to the library with anyone, much less Topher.

  She should have known better from the start. She remembered the summer when Topher had insisted he’d seen the ghost and Grandmother had explained about how Topher was sad because his mother had died and his stories about the ghost were just his way of getting added attention.

  Jackie was doing the same damn thing.

  “We need two more bowls of oatmeal,” Judy said, carrying dirty dishes as she came through the swinging door to the dining room. She dumped the dishes into the big sink and turned. “Reverend St. Pierre has made his usual Saturday-morning appearance, and Jackie has come down early.”

  Ashley moved to the big pot of steel-cut oatmeal she kept going every morning. Funny how oatmeal had been the last thing on her menu when she’d first started this business. But the Rev liked oatmeal, and he popped over for breakfast quite frequently. So she’d started making it every morning. The number of guests who opted for oatmeal instead of the usual eggs and bacon, waffles, or pancakes had been a revelation.

  She filled two bowls while Judy loaded a tray with butter, cream, walnuts, raisins, honey, and brown sugar. “I’ll take it out there. You watch the biscuits and bacon,” Ashley said, putting the bowls on the tray.

  “Okay.” There was an uncertain tone in Judy’s voice. Usually she did the running to and from the dining room.

  “I need to give the Rev a piece of my mind.”

  “Oh?”

  Ashley was tempted to tell Judy to mind her own business, but she clamped down on the snippy comment. Her assistant wasn’t responsible for her morning funk. But Micah St. Pierre certainly bore some responsibility for it.

  She’d asked Mica
h to talk to Topher, not enlist him in some harebrained scheme to help Jackie with his Heritage Day project. The trip to the library may have gotten Topher out of the house, but at what cost?

  She pushed through the swinging door and scanned the dining room. The long table was mostly empty, except for a couple of women who were married to sailors participating in today’s races. They sat at the near end of the table chatting and lingering over their coffee. At the other end of the table, Micah St. Pierre leaned forward, listening with grave intent to Ashley’s son.

  As usual, Jackie was chattering away like the proverbial box.

  “Really?” Micah said as Ashley approached.

  “Yup. Rose wrote it all down in her letters,” Jackie said.

  “You don’t say.”

  Ashley slammed a bowl of oatmeal down in front of the minister.

  He gazed up, piercing her with an amused look. The little smirk annoyed her to no end. “Good morning,” he said in an irritatingly cheerful voice, and turned toward his oatmeal.

  “Good morning,” she said in a curt tone.

  “Mom’s ticked off,” Jackie whispered.

  “Is she?” Micah asked, turning his gaze on Jackie.

  “I don’t think she’s happy about discovering that Cap’n Bill is real. But it’s okay. I’m not surprised. Topher said she’d be ticked off.”

  “He did, did he?” Ashley asked, putting her fists on her hips and resisting the urge to grind her teeth.

  Jackie nodded. “We’re going back this afternoon to read some more of the letters. They won’t let us make copies on the machine, which is kinda weird ’cause they’re not the real letters. But Topher took a picture of the letter Cap’n Bill wanted me to see.”

  “So Captain Bill went to the library with you?” Micah asked, his tone deadly serious.

  Ashley’s head was about to explode. Jackie hadn’t given her all these details last night, probably because she’d sent him to bed early. Oh, good Lord, this was much worse than she’d thought.

  “Yup,” Jackie said with enthusiasm. “And you know what? I think Topher knew the cap’n was there.”

  “He did not,” Ashley said in her best mom voice.