Last Chance Harbor

by Vickie McKeehan

  Logan grinned at his reaction. “Yeah, not really like any principal I ever had either.”

  “There’s a compliment in there somewhere,” Julianne reasoned as she held out her hand to Ryder. She met the man’s ocean-blue eyes with a wide smile and did her best not to stare at his strong jawline and his coal-black hair that curled up at the ends.

  “Thanks for taking on this disaster area. I’m hoping your skill will help turn it from the relic of the fifties into the ultramodern vision I have for it.”

  She was the vision, thought Ryder. Wide chocolate eyes with little vanilla flecks floating around the edges stared back at him, giving off a doe-eyed innocence. His eyes darted to the little brunette’s left hand. Her ring finger was bare. Of course, that didn’t mean anything he reminded himself—and thought of Bethany. That put the kibosh on his attraction. When he noticed Logan was talking to him, he pulled out of his daze, feeling like an idiot. When would he ever learn?

  “But hey, why don’t you give Julianne the tour of the areas we’ve gutted so far, show her the blueprints. Maybe get her take on the layout we’re planning.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  “Because you have better manners than Drake or Paul in mixed company. And Zach and Troy are in the back unloading a shipment of dry wall and flooring,” Logan returned easily.

  “Ah, okay.” Ryder steered her away from the auditorium slash cafeteria to the front of the building where the administrative offices would get a revamp. He figured the woman should at least get a good look at where she planned to spend most of her day.

  His principal certainly hadn’t resembled Julianne Dickinson. Not even close. As Ryder recalled Mr. Pointer had possessed a big nose to go with his pot belly and a mean streak toward boys who broke the rules. Even in fourth grade, Ryder had a tendency to break the rules. Which meant he had done all he could to avoid landing on Mr. Pointer’s radar.

  He looked over at the pretty brunette walking beside him. “I was just thinking about my own days spent in the principal’s office. You look nothing like beak-nosed Mr. Pointer.”

  She stifled a chuckle. “Ah, and what did Mr. Pointer look like?”

  “Mean, with beady eyes. I’m sure he was into something seedy and sinister. Of course, that’s the take of a ten-year-old who was usually in trouble for something or other. I’ve matured since then.”

  This time she burst into a laugh. “Oh, I can see you’ve moved on.”

  “You’re much too young to be a principal,” Ryder observed. “You must be coming from another school.” Okay, that might’ve been one of the dumbest things he’d said to a female since sixth grade. Why all of a sudden did he feel like the biggest half-wit within seventy-five miles?

  “I’m from Santa Cruz. And right now I teach first grade.” Inexplicably nervous, she went on, “I think they gave me the job because my experience is with young children. And let’s face it. Pelican Pointe is brimming with a good many kids enrolled in kindergarten and first grade for the fall classes. But that’s a good thing because they’ll get to progress together year after year for the duration they’re here. It’s the upper grades, fifth and sixth, that we’re having trouble filling out and which may prevent us from becoming the public facility we want. And you probably don’t want to know any of this,” Julianne huffed out.

  “On the contrary, anything that pertains to the school is our priority-one for the next six months.”

  “Then I’ll need a place to do interviews. I’d like to take the potential candidates on a walk-through of the place, have them get a feel for how wonderful it’s going to be.”

  He took out the schematics, went over the design. “How about setting you up right about here, near the side door for now, so you can have easy access during business hours?”

  “That’ll work.”

  “Will you be disappointed if it turns out the school becomes a private institution?”

  “Not at all.”

  About that time, someone shouted, “Hey, Ryder, over here. Look what I found.”

  Ryder wheeled around and stared at Troy who held out a rectangular, wooden box about fifteen-inches long and eight-inches wide.

  “What is it? Where’d you get that?”

  “I found it under a pile of bricks near an interior wall we knocked down. See how beat up the top is. According to the old drawings it was in the area that used to be a classroom, third-grade, I think.”

  “Julianne, this is Troy.”

  “Hi,” she said with a tilt of her head, studying the man toting the mini trunk. But it was the ornate carvings on the rounded lid that held her attention. “Could it have been hidden in a wall all this time? Is that even possible?”

  Ryder tapped the layout of the master plan they’d been poring over. “Could be, or it was tucked away in one of the lockers that lined the front hallway, right about here. This building sat vacant for so long, anyone could’ve walked in at any time and stuffed it there for safekeeping.”

  “What do you suppose is in it?” Julianne wanted to know. “Looks like a miniature treasure chest, doesn’t it?” She reached to touch, ran her hand across the top. “And check out the tiny ceramic inlay along the sides, beautiful work.”

  Troy grinned. “A treasure chest was my first thought, too. It was the decorative insets that caught my eye underneath all the rubble.”

  “Maybe it contains gold doubloons,” Julianne cracked, eyeing the intricate turquoise design around the sides. “This woodwork took some time to create.”

  Troy had thought the same thing.

  “Wouldn’t that be something if it had treasure in it? Did you open it up yet?” Ryder asked.

  “Nah, I didn’t look, but Logan went through it already. There are some old papers, a few photographs. Some of them are class pictures. You know, like the ones you take as a group with your classmates and teacher.”

  Julianne smiled again. “Lined up by height with the tall kids either sitting in chairs in front or standing in the back, lording their height over all the short kids.”

  Her sense of humor made Ryder laugh. “Let me guess, you represented the short stack down in front.”

  “You got it. And you probably led the pack in the back.” She turned to Troy. “Both of you did. What are you going to do with the box?”

  “Logan said since you’re the principal I should give it to you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yep. He said you might want to use it to display in the trophy case for later. You know, like those time capsules they dig up. Some of those pictures are really old. Here,” Troy said, pushing the mementoes toward the teacher.

  “What a cool idea,” Julianne agreed, latching onto the dusty box. “I’ll plan on doing just that whenever the school opens. I’ll make sure to put the relic of a box where everyone will see it, too.”

  Chapter Two

  Once Julianne left the construction site, she made a right on Ocean Street so she could check out the cottages and bungalows in the neighborhood. Creeping along at a crawl, she took out her phone to make notes. Whether or not the property was for sale didn’t matter. She had a habit of pulling over to admire the lawns or the front porches or the architecture of anything that caught her eye. She could always find something interesting to appreciate in other people’s tastes or eclectic styles. Besides, she knew what she liked.

  She didn’t often get to splurge on her decorating ideas though, at least not on her meager teacher’s salary—even if she did have a knack for finding discarded things and fixing them up for resale. In fact, it was one of the ways she managed to stretch her paycheck from month to month with a second income. It’s one of the reasons she drove the van, a 1967 refurbished minibus, she used to haul around her finds.

  Not many people appreciated old things that could be upcycled. Julianne did. Thank goodness, Danny Panguino, a mechanic and her longtime boyfriend had, too. She remembered the day Danny had found the Volkswagen in the middle of a salvage yard, rusted out and needing a secon
d chance, or maybe a third.

  The couple had spent hours and hours together restoring it to its former glory—Danny concentrating on what was under the hood while she focused on its interior.

  Remembering Danny always brought her tremendous pain and sadness. She supposed the despair would always be there. If Danny hadn’t crossed paths with a drunk driver at the age of twenty-three, she wondered how many kids they might have had by now.

  What good did it do to get bogged down in old memories though? Even if they were the best part of her, she made herself shake off the glum mood. She patted the dashboard of the van they’d nicknamed the Turtle because it wasn’t exactly a speedy mode of getting from one place to another. “Just remember, you’re a part of everything I do, Danny. You always will be. I loved you for so long I feel like you’re so much a part of me.”

  Danny was one of the reasons she’d started her side business back in college. They’d called it, Reclaimed Treasures. It wasn’t much. It didn’t even have a location outside the garage in her rented house. In spite of that though, over the years she’d picked up a following, a string of loyal repeat customers.

  Every week she used Craigslist and a website she’d started to post photos of what she had for sale—like those dining room chairs she’d refinished and sold to a couple of newlyweds looking for a bargain. She’d have to remember to ask the mayor, or maybe Nick, if she had to give it up. She hoped not. Reclaimed Treasures was more than a part-time interest to her. Since working her way through UC Santa Cruz with an assortment of odd jobs, she’d been able to turn a hobby she adored into extra cash. And she’d never have done it without Danny’s help.

  She passed the Pueblo-style adobe house belonging to Brent Cody, who was now Pelican Pointe’s police chief. The two had gone out a few times but in spite of Brent’s mother’s best efforts to hook them up, nothing ever came of it. No spark, she grumbled as she thought of the forty-year-old cop. Sometimes a pairing just wasn’t meant to be. And now, they guy had found the archaeologist, River Amandez, who had a little three-year-old boy named Luke. The child would no doubt, in a couple years, be a student walking through the doors of her school.

  Funny the way life circled around to the right finish. That thought made her lips curve up.

  She’d almost driven the length of Ocean Street when she fixed her gaze on the hideous pink Cape Cod cottage with the purple trim sitting at the very end of the block. The yard was overgrown—the house practically wrapped in a jungle of wild honeysuckle vines. The poor thing looked as though at one time it had been an ugly Christmas decoration or had just popped out of a Hansel and Gretel nightmare. Either way, it obviously had seen neglect over the years. But despite its shabby exterior, a Martha’s Vineyard charm oozed out of the two-story gingerbread framework. But it was the overall architecture—the long porch, the columns, the lattice trim that dripped from the roof, along with its potential—that made her stomp on the brake so hard it almost caused the van to fishtail even at twenty-five miles an hour.

  Pulling the van into the driveway, she realized there was no for sale sign anywhere. In fact, it looked as though the town had done its best to forget the house existed.

  But to Julianne, the long-abandoned place needed her.

  She got out, ignored the sagging porch and rickety steps, walked up to the arched front doorway and took hold of the handle. It was almost as if she heard someone whispering in her ear to go on in, explore the place to its full advantage. But she wasn’t quite ready to add B&E to her resume.

  Instead, she stepped to the windows, peered inside, or tried to. The pane of glass was so dirty she had to use her fingertips to wipe a clear spot so she could see beyond the shadows. When she realized it was empty, she all but did a happy dance.

  After inspecting the foundation and deemed it solid enough, she frowned in the direction of a man walking around the corner of the house, his hands stuffed down in the pockets of a pair of khaki shorts. When she saw his friendly grin and the hand he lifted in her direction, it went a long way to putting her more at ease. She hadn’t heard a car drive up or footsteps. Startled at his presence because it seemed as if he’d appeared out of nowhere, it took her a few seconds to recover and wave back.

  As soon as she did, she introduced herself. “Hi, I’m Julianne Dickinson. Are you the owner?”

  “Not me,” the man responded.

  “Would you happen to know who is then?” She went on, a bit bothered that he hadn’t introduced himself.

  “The Jennings family owns the property, a man by the name of Landon Jennings. It backs up to The Plant Habitat, the garden center, over on Landings Bay. You can’t miss it. The place takes up the entire block around the corner. The house hasn’t had anyone living here for some time, not since the 90s when Eleanor died. Before that, she and her three kids called this place home.”

  The idea of a single mom raising her children here alone made it even more appealing to Julianne. It reminded her she probably needed to call her dad. “It doesn’t look like they’ve been using it for anything other than storage lately.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “Do you think this Mr. Jennings would part with it?”

  “What about living so close to McCready’s? Have you thought about that?”

  For the first time, Julianne considered the pub down the street near the wharf, noted its proximity. “The house is at the end of the block. It’s not that close.”

  “Close enough. Although come to think of it, the joint only gets really loud one night a week on Saturday evenings when Flynn allows live music.”

  “Well then see that won’t be much of a problem.”

  The man stared up at the house. “It’s in pretty sad shape, the worst house on the block.”

  She ran her hand across the peeling paint on the porch and assessed the wood. “I can fix it up, get it from ugly duckling stage to its beautiful swan phase. By the time I get done with it, it’ll be a showplace, best on the block. You’ll see.”

  “Like you did the Turtle?”

  She blinked in surprise but blurted out, “I had help with the van. This time around I’m on my own.”

  “Not for long,” the man muttered.

  Because his comment hit home, she started to ask him to clarify what he meant, to ask how he knew about her minibus, but she found herself staring at empty air. The man had vanished as if he’d never been there at all. In his place, a gust of wind kicked up causing a chill to move over her.

  “Hey,” she shouted after him. No response equaled a wall of silence. Her eyes darted around the yard. There was no movement, no stranger.

  As the sun dipped over the harbor, she forced herself to shrug off the incident. What choice did she have? But the nippy breeze from the water had her taking the eerie feeling back to the car to grab her sweater.

  Once she’d stretched it on, she headed around the house to search out the garden center. As the neighbor had directed, she found a ten-acre plot of land that took up most of the block along Landings Bay. The Plant Habitat consisted of a greenhouse and several outdoor growing areas with rows and rows of fragrant flowers and ornamentals. After wandering through the grounds for almost half an hour, a customer finally pointed out Landon Jennings to her.

  The man, in his late fifties, was in the middle of hosing down the concrete walkway when she introduced herself and explained why she was there. He looked reasonable enough, maybe that’s why he surprised her with his obstinate reaction.

  “You want to buy the house on Ocean Street? Are you nuts? No one’s lived there for years, not since my sister died.”

  “Eleanor, right? That’s what one of your neighbors told me. Anyway, I’m getting a job here.” She went into the specifics and then added, “If I find the property I want, I could start fixing it up right away. I’ve already been approved by the bank here in Pelican Pointe for the loan. And I have my down payment. I’m a viable buyer, Mr. Jennings. I’d have three months to work on it before the
school year’s finished at the end of May. I have it all planned out. I’d spend my weekends putting in the sweat equity and then I’d have the additional summer months before the fall semester starts to complete the work. See how important it is for me to do this now, in February, and not wait until I get here?”

  “Look, I encourage you to make your home here. It’s a great little town. Bringing back the school is a worthwhile way to grow the community, which I’m all for, but I’m telling you that house is not right for you. It isn’t livable. I ought to know. Before we started using it to store tools we didn’t want to get wet and rusted out, we used it for a break area. Inside it’s a mess. The floors are dirty and—”

  “If I could just see the inside for myself I’d be able to determine how much work it needs, I’d be able to go on to another property if it isn’t what I want. We’d have to come to a fair price, of course,” Julianne reminded him before he could do too much more objecting.

  “Listen to me. I wouldn’t feel right selling you a house that needs that kind of major renovations.”

  “But would you consider it?” Julianne insisted, just as stubborn.

  Landon ran his hands through his hair. “I’d have to ask my wife and get her take. But I really don’t think it’s a good idea. The place would need an expensive remodel.”

  “That’s okay. I’m used to refurbishing stuff so I’m up to the task.”

  “There are other houses in the area. Why this one?”

  How could she make him understand? “I don’t know exactly. I guess because it just called to me.”

  Back at the site, Ryder packed up his borrowed tools for the day. But unlike the other crewmembers who headed home for a relaxing evening, his job wasn’t finished yet.

  Working at both the construction site and Taggert Farms allowed him to stay busy, the busier he stayed, the least amount of time he had to spend thinking about Bethany. Thinking about her only got him pissed off. It wasn’t every day a man allowed a woman to play him for such a fool.