by Dana Mentink
“And you don’t want to sell,” Rosa said. “But Pike thinks you should.”
Pike stared at Rosa and put down his fork. “I’m going to come right out and say it. I think it would be better for her to sell than participate in some cockamamie contest that, at best, will disrupt her life and, at worst, bring in more guests than she can handle.” He sat back. “That’s my position and I’m working toward getting the Pelican sold. With Bitsy’s permission, I might add.”
“Your position is wrong,” Rosa snapped.
“You’ve been here all of three hours and you think you know what’s best for my aunt?”
“Maybe I do,” she retorted.
“You’re not a lawyer, remember?”
“Hang on,” Bitsy said, an offended gleam in her eye. “As far as I can tell, I’m still in the room. I love the Pelican and I want to see her spread her wings again. I’m not a spring chicken, but I’m not dead quite yet.”
Rosa and Pike both started to speak, but Bitsy held up a hand and silenced them. “We will finish out this contest and see where things lie, but in the meantime, I want everyone to try and get along. Is that clear?” She directed a stern, blue-eyed stare at Rosa and Pike.
“Yes, ma’am,” Pike said, after a moment.
Bitsy gave them an impish smile. “I’m not sure that sounded sincere. You’ll both get along for the sake of your cherished aunt, won’t you?”
Rosa sighed, thinking it would probably be easier to negotiate peace in the Middle East.
“For you,” Pike said to Bitsy, “I will try.” He extended a hand to Rosa across the table. “Truce?”
A temporary one. Rosa reluctantly stretched out her own hand and Pike clasped it. His palms should be clammy and soft, she thought. Reptilian, perhaps. Instead, they were strong and warm, sending an electric shock through her body. She pulled her hand away and hastily shoved some chicken into her mouth.
Cy began to happily wolf down every morsel that passed near his plate except for the chicken, which he declined on account of his longstanding vegetarianism. He stopped chewing only for a moment when his phone chirped, indicating a text. “I think it’s from Dad,” he said, consulting the screen, “but it makes no sense. He hasn’t gotten the hang of text speak.”
Pike stiffened. “So what is your old man up to these days? Falsely accusing other families?”
“Pike,” Bitsy warned. “We just agreed to a truce, remember?”
Rosa glared at him. “And I thought we weren’t going to bring up family business.”
“Guilty conscience?”
She dropped her fork with a clatter. “I don’t have anything to feel guilty about, Pike.”
“You agree with your father, then? You think my family and I set out to commit fraud?”
Rosa bit her lip. “I don’t have to agree with him to defend him. He’s my father.”
“Oh, yeah,” Pike said. “And he’s done such a great job in that role. When was the last time you saw him?”
Rosa clamped her mouth closed.
“Too far, Pike,” Cy said, his customary smile gone. “Back off.”
Rosa felt the tears gather. Her brother was her stalwart defender, the only man she could rely on. She abruptly shot to her feet, determined not to let Pike see her cry. “I’ve got plans to sketch,” she said.
Pike half rose as she bolted past, as if he meant to stop her. To apologize? Not likely. She stomped up the stairs, stomach knotted, knee throbbing from her spill at the estate sale. He had no right. Arrogant, self-important jerk. In the little attic room, she tried to quiet her breathing. Just do what you know, Rosa. Do what you’re good at and don’t let Pike derail you.
She pulled out her stack of well-thumbed magazines, a book full of fabric swatches and her favorite stubby pencil with the paint chewed off in the middle. Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure up the essence of home.
* * *
ROSA WAS STILL wondering what she should do about Captain’s Nest the following morning, after she’d emailed the landlord of their rented home in Danville to collect the papers and mail during their absence. Too bad he wouldn’t allow them to skip the rent check, which she forced herself to write and send out. If money didn’t start coming in soon, she and Cy would be out on their ears.
In her fuzzy pajama pants and T-shirt, Rosa paced the attic’s worn floorboards, ignoring the chill that seeped in through the ill-fitting window casement. Her watch read six thirty. Baggy tracked her movement with his steady eye. Cy was no doubt out for a run on the beach. And Pike? She didn’t have any idea where he was. Nor did she care, she told herself firmly.
Downstairs, someone knocked at the front door, sending Baggy galloping in excited circles until she opened the door and let him out. The knocking continued, but she ignored it. Should she try to talk to Bitsy again? Or let the subject of Captain’s Nest drop?
The knocking resumed.
Bitsy was probably out gardening.
She waited another minute, hoping the visitor would go away.
Another round of knocking destroyed that hope.
Blowing out a breath, Rosa headed downstairs, more to stop the incessant pounding than out of any real interest in whoever was on the porch. Her thoughts flipped through a mental Rolodex of design topics. Striped ticking slip covers to freshen up the sofa in the front room rather than reupholstering would free up some cash for airy curtains. Her mind stubbornly insisted on picturing these imaginary curtains hugging a certain window in a certain Captain’s Nest, despite Bitsy’s odd reticence about the room.
Knock, knock.
Her slippered feet flew down the stairs. “Stop knocking. I’m coming.”
Baggy leapt up and down as much as his stubby legs would allow.
“Hold on to your kibble, Baggy. I’m on it.”
She pulled open the door, letting in a swirl of air sharp with the tang of the sea. The man on the step stood with his callused hand raised to knock again, a shock of thick white hair hanging over a creased forehead. She blinked hard. Did she actually see the scar on his forearm, or was it a memory from long ago when he’d absentmindedly crashed into a sliding glass door?
A door in the place they’d rented in Tumbledown.
A place she’d finally dared to believe was home.
Home with the father who now stood before her on the porch, watching his daughter watching him.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS BAGGY who succeeded in breaking the silent stalemate as Rosa stared open-mouthed at Manny Franco, who smiled steadily back at her. Baggy, having waited patiently for some word of introduction, stood on his hind legs and pawed at Manny’s knee.
Manny appeared confused for a moment as he considered the beast before him. “Ah, a dog. Thought it was some kind of gigantic mole or something.” He patted Baggy’s head. “One minute, dog-o. My princess gets her hug first.”
And Manny proceeded to wrap Rosa in a hug that smelled of mothballs and bacon. Rosa’s heart coursed with too many emotions to be contained properly in the now sporadically pumping organ. Her mind teemed with memories, both sweet and serrated, starting with her father’s famous bacon-and-cheese omelets, which they ate every night for a straight week when Rosa’s mother endured the first of her many hospitalizations for cirrhosis of the liver. Cy ate his sans bacon. The succulent omelets were always accompanied by a side of sage advice their father doled out with the wave of a spatula.
“Bacon is good for you,” Manny proclaimed to a protesting Rosa who was deeply under the influence of a school nutrition class. “Don’t see many pigs with pacemakers, do you?”
He’d smiled through it all, the omelets, the hospitalizations, the biopsies, the burial. Smiled when he’d kissed the kids the night before he left. She loathed that smile with the part of her that did not leap at the sight o
f it.
Now she stood, ramrod stiff, as he hugged her and pressed a dry kiss to her temple. “You look fantastic, Rosa, like a flower about to blossom.” He stepped away to hoist the oddball dog into his arms. “All right, dog-o. Your turn. Can’t say you look fantastic, but you’re an original and that deserves a scratch at least.”
Was her father really there, standing in the golden morning light, dropping compliments on daughter and dog? Perhaps it was a dream induced by too many hours spent poring over paint palettes when she should have been sleeping. She wanted to scream “Why are you here?” It was the same way she’d felt when he graced them with his presence for her high school graduation. Only she hadn’t been there. Cy, of course, had attended, being deeply in love with fellow senior Eva Lassiter, blonde president of the Cupcakes for a Cause Club. But Rosa had no use for the ceremony, though Bitsy had pleaded with her to attend.
“Where’s Rosa?” her father had apparently said, when he didn’t see her face amid the sea of caps and gowns.
“Where’s Rosa? I’m not the one who’s been missing!” she’d screamed to her bewildered father later, when they’d caught up with her at the beach. Now she wanted to let him have it once again. In the recent past, she’d seen him only a handful of awkward times. Why are you here, Dad? Why here? Why now?
Instead, she found herself saying, “His name is Baggy.”
“Weird name for a dog. Better suited for a mole. No offense, Baggy.” He took in the front room of the Pelican, breathing so deep his spindly chest widened with the effort. “Still the most beautiful place on the beach.” His expression went suddenly timid. “So, where’s Bitsy?”
Bitsy arrived as if on cue, clutching an armful of pillows, eyes rounding in surprise over the cushioned stack. “I thought I heard...” She stopped. “Manny?”
He put Baggy down and held him steady until the dog synchronized his paws. Then he went to Bitsy and waited while she put the pillows on a chair. A long moment stretched between them, and Rosa tried to read the messages unrolling in that silence. Bitsy’s cheeks pinked, and her hand went to her throat. Manny hooked his thumbs in his pockets. Rosa wondered if Bitsy’s heart pulsed with similar feelings of outrage. As far as Rosa knew, Manny had not bothered to visit Bitsy on more than a handful of occasions since the disastrous high school graduation, not even for Leopold’s funeral. And he’d never, to Rosa’s knowledge, thanked the woman for raising the two children he was incapable of parenting.
“Hello,” she said quietly.
“Hey, Bits,” he said. “You’re looking well.”
“Thank you, and you are also, Manny.” She hugged herself, as if she’d felt a sudden chill. “We weren’t expecting you.”
Rosa found her voice again. “No, we weren’t. Why are you here, Dad?”
He scrunched up his face. “Just found myself in town.”
“Last I heard, you were fossil hunting somewhere.”
The phrase seemed to click something to life inside his head. “That was a blast, but after a while you get tired of digging up stuff more ancient than yourself. Cy wrote me that you had a project here, so I popped in. Where’s my boy, these days?”
“He’s here, too,” Rosa snapped. “But we’re busy. Working on a decorating job.”
“Swell.” Manny heaved in a breath. “Cy?” he bellowed. “Come say hello to your Pops.”
“He’s out for a run,” Rosa said. “We’ll find him on the way to the car.”
“Car?” Manny blinked.
“You drove here, didn’t you?”
“No. Took a cab,” Manny started. “Don’t have a car just at the moment.”
“No matter.” She forged ahead. “I’ll give you a ride back to your trailer.”
Cy had helped their father secure a trailer on one of his in-town jaunts, and somehow Manny managed to pay for the rental space in the Seascape Trailer Park some fifteen miles out of town. Or so she’d heard. Rosa had not visited the place her father called home.
“Don’t think that will work,” he mumbled.
“Of course it will.” Rosa grabbed her purse. Above all things, she wanted to remove her father from the inn before a certain arrogant lawyer arrived. She didn’t need any more distractions to delay the design work. It was bad enough having Pike around as both an obstacle and a painful reminder of her past.
Bitsy shook her head. “You’re still in your pajamas, Rosa. Go put some clothes on, at least.”
“No need,” Rosa chirped. “I won’t even be getting out of the car. Just a quick drive and drop.”
“At least let the man stay for breakfast.” Bitsy began to gather up the pillows in such a hurry they slid from her hands and scattered across the floor. Manny helped her gather them up again.
“He doesn’t need breakfast, and we’re really busy. Only three weeks until this place has to be shipshape, remember? It’s nice that you wanted to visit, but it’s really not a great time. We’ll reschedule for next month.” Rosa touched his shoulder. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.”
The door slammed open and Rosa’s heart shot to her throat, but it was Cy who barreled in, glistening with sweat from his run, curls tousled wildly by the wind.
“Pops,” he said, a wide grin obliterating the fatigue from his face. “Did you come to root for us in the contest?”
Rosa would have kicked him if he’d been in closer proximity. She didn’t want her father involved with their design endeavors in any way, shape or form. “He was just leaving, Cy.”
“What’s this about a contest?” Manny asked. “I thought it was a regular decorating job.”
“You can tell him all about it over breakfast.” Bitsy moved toward the kitchen. “Cy, I know you can’t handle bacon without upchucking, but would you mind collecting some eggs? Rocky had to go into town to run an errand for me.”
“Sure thing, but last time Esmerelda, the chicken queen, took a dislike to me,” Cy said. “She pecked my, er, nether regions. I tried to explain that I don’t even eat her kind, but she wasn’t in a receptive mood. You can’t reason with fowl.”
“Not a female fowl.” Bitsy laughed. “It was a love peck. That’s the way chickens show affection.”
Cy raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need that kind of affection.”
Manny sighed. “We all need a little love, Cy. Even us old-timers.” His gaze wandered over the knotted pine table and came to rest, ever so lightly, on Bitsy.
Rosa watched helplessly as Cy ambled out to the chicken house and Bitsy, always the graceful hostess, put Manny to work setting the table. Rosa tossed like a ship in the storm. Manny could not—must not—be allowed to stay, her roiling nerves shouted, yet she was helpless in the face of Bitsy’s overwhelming graciousness.
Breakfast only. Then he’s gone.
Maybe, if she was lucky, Pike wouldn’t arrive until later in the day.
Cy returned from the chicken house fifteen minutes later with a clean-shaven Pike in tow. “Look who I found in the henhouse. He’s got a way with Esmerelda. Either that or he threatened her with a lawsuit.”
If it weren’t for bad luck, Rosa thought, biting back a groan, I’d have no luck at all.
Pike did a double take when he caught sight of Manny. He shot an irate look at Cy. “You didn’t disclose that your father was here.”
Cy shrugged. “I was busy guarding my nether regions, and my dad is free to come and go as he likes.” He carried the eggs off to the kitchen where Bitsy and Manny were installed at the stove, frying pancakes. Rosa fired off a preemptive round.
“I didn’t know Dad was coming. He just sort of appeared.”
Pike turned to her, brown eyes like liquid chocolate. “He doesn’t belong here.”
“I’m taking him home right after breakfast,” she returned through gritted teeth. “But why don’t you finish yo
ur thought? He doesn’t belong here and neither do his children. The contest is a bad idea, and you wish we would all just go away.”
He clenched his fists and placed them on his hips, which fit very well in his expensive jeans. “You know how I feel about the contest. I made no secret of it.”
“That’s not the part that hurts, Pike. It’s....” She broke off in horror. What had she said? Did she just give voice to the deeper issue that rankled inside? Her father’s presence had upset her, loosed her self-control from its moorings, caused a crack in her good sense.
He cocked his head. “Rosa, I never said you weren’t welcome.”
She raised her chin. “Hmm. I wonder how I could have confused the welcome mat with the ‘don’t let the door hit you as you leave’ sign.”
His mouth quirked, and then a smile drifted across his lips like a wave breaking across the shore. He laughed.
“What do you find amusing, exactly?” she said, her heart thumping at his grin.
“You. I always liked that quick wit.”
Rosa’s cheeks warmed. He liked something about her? She took a step back, covering up uncertainty with bravado. “You don’t like anything about me. Let’s not pretend.”
His smile dimmed. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
Bitsy called to them. “Breakfast is served.”
“I’m not staying, Aunt Bitsy,” Pike said, eyeing Manny. “I’ve got some work to do in the office.”
She frowned. “You need breakfast. Come sit.”
He raised a placating hand. “No, really, I have to go.”
“Pike,” Bitsy snapped, her voice sharp. “We’re all going to settle down here around the table and eat like normal people and leave the past behind us for a moment. You can do that—we all can, with a little effort.” She swallowed. “Please.” Her pale skin was stretched taut across her cheekbones. Suddenly, Bitsy closed her eyes and gripped the chair, fingers trembling.
Pike was at her side in a moment. “Are you all right?”