Lauren swallowed down the lump in her throat and hauled the pet carrier to the door. Marsh growled at the movement and his weight shifted the carrier off balance. She set the carrier down on the front porch so she could unlock the door. After pushing the key into the lock, she had to jiggle the key until it finally turned in the lock.
Inside, the cottage smelled slightly musty from months of sitting empty while the estate paperwork was processed and assets divided among what little family Cora had. An afternoon with the windows open would have it smelling as fresh as the wildflowers growing outside.
The one room cottage hadn’t changed a bit. The furniture was arranged the exact same way as Lauren remembered. The floral loveseat was still pushed up against the window so Marsh could sit and look out at the birds. Two worn end tables painted with the leftover green paint from the shutters sat on either side of the loveseat. In the dining area, there were mismatched chairs pushed under a small, sturdy oak dining table. In the corner was a wrought-iron bed covered with a faded calico quilt. The bookshelf by the bed was crammed with field guides and art books. Around the corner, a small bathroom had a pedestal sink and claw foot tub. In the sunny kitchen, floral curtains framed the window. An ancient stove and refrigerator were flanked by a small square of a countertop. The cupboards were filled with mismatched china, cups and saucers. Even though everything was mismatched, it all fit together to make the cottage cute and homey.
Aunt Cora had been a conservationist who was intent on saving the wetlands, as well as an amateur photographer and a talented artist. Her photographs and sketches hung in mismatched frames all over the cottage. The mismatched frames only added to the quaintness and charm of the room. Unfortunately, Lauren hadn’t inherited her aunt’s artistic genes. She couldn’t sketch a bird any better than she could snap a photo of one without it turning out blurry and off-center. As much as Lauren wanted to capture them in photographs through the lens of a camera, nothing beat seeing birds with her own eyes. They always moved too quickly for her to get them on film and her photos didn’t do justice to their beauty. Whatever her calling in life might be, it wasn’t a photographer—that much was for sure.
Everything inside the cottage looked the same as it always had. The only difference was how empty it was without Aunt Cora. It looked like she had just stepped out for a moment and would return as soon as she captured a white-faced ibis on film. Her reading glasses still sat on the beat-up coffee table next to a dainty floral teacup. Her old slippers, so worn they had a hole in one toe, lay on the floor next to the sofa.
Lauren wished with all her heart that Aunt Cora could be here. She wanted to tell her about what happened with Daniel and to listen to her aunt’s trusted advice and words of wisdom. No one else understood her like Cora. Regret welled up and twisted its cold fingers around Lauren’s heart. She had plenty of excuses but no one was around to hear them.
She sighed and set the cat carrier down in the middle of the room. “You can come on out now, Marsh,” she said as she opened the metal door. “We’re home.”
She made soothing sounds and tried to coax him out, but no matter what she said, the cat wasn’t having any of it. Only after Lauren stepped aside did Marsh finally scurry out like his tail was on fire. All she saw of him was a flash of mottled fur before he disappeared under the bed. For as old as he was, Marsh was surprisingly fast and agile. Aunt Cora had had the moody old cat for as long as Lauren could remember. In fact, she didn’t remember him ever being a kitten.
Lauren chuckled as he tucked his tail out of sight. “We’ll have plenty of time to make friends later,” she told him.
She put the carrier aside and set the paperwork Mr. Templeton had given her—the deed to the cottage and her aunt’s diary—on the coffee table to read later. She found Marsh’s food dishes, washed them out and filled them up with fresh water and food. Next, she went into the kitchen to open the window and begin airing out the house. A hummingbird feeder hung outside the little window in the kitchen and hummingbirds buzzed around it and zoomed away when they found it empty.
Lauren frowned. In all the time she’d spent here, she’d never once seen any of the birdfeeders empty. That was something she’d fix just as soon as she had a chance to run in to town for supplies.
Immediately, the warbling song of a house finch caught Lauren’s attention. She grabbed the binoculars from her suitcase and hurried outside. The minute she stepped through the door, she was once again surrounded with the sounds of the refuge. No wonder Aunt Cora chose this place to live. It was a birder’s paradise.
The house finch was perched in a nearby tree and Lauren focused her binoculars on the small bird. It was a female and her plumage was brown instead of the pink-red that was found on the males. It wasn’t fair that most of the males got all the good outfits!
Before long, the finch flew off and Lauren noticed two empty bird feeders sitting like lonely ghosts in the backyard. Birds landed, looked forlornly at the lack of seed, and flew away disappointed. A white-crowned sparrow kicked around the bark like a chicken looking for grub.
Lauren made a mental note to add birdseed to her grocery list. No bird would be disappointed as long as she lived here. No siree. Every winged creature would leave the cottage with a full belly and a song on their beak. Squirrels too. Lauren never understood squirrel-proof feeders. The cute little critters deserved a snack too. She’d add peanuts to the list just for them.
Around the side of the cottage was an aviary where Aunt Cora used to take care of wounded birds. As well as an advocate for the wetlands, she’d been a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Growing up, Lauren thought of her aunt as a Snow White of the wetlands, singing to the wildlife and caring for them, minus the twelve dwarfs of course. Aunt Cora’s prince never came into her life, though. She never married and died alone. It was the one thing Lauren didn’t envy her aunt.
As much as Daniel’s escapades had left Lauren with a bad taste in her mouth, she was still hopeful when it came to the romance department. Everyone needed a companion. Someone to watch sunsets with and drink morning coffee with. Someone to snuggle with in the middle of the night and share adventures with during the day…
Lauren thought she’d found her Prince Charming, but he turned out to be a toad. A promiscuous, cowardly toad. Daniel was charming enough, he always had been, but Lauren had been foolish to think he could ever settle down with just one woman. Was a happily ever after too much to wish for these days?
Well, even if Aunt Cora had never found the love of her life, at least she had her birds, Lauren mused. It was impossible to feel alone with so much wildlife around. This place definitely was food for the soul.
Being an ornithologist had been the only constant, fulfilling thing in Lauren’s life and she would have happily chucked it out the window in the name of love. That love had turned out to be a fraud and any long term plans she’d made based on that deception had crumbled away on that day three months ago.
No, she told herself. She wouldn’t dwell on the past. Not right now at least. There was too much to do here. The cottage needed a good scrubbing inside and out, she needed to shop for supplies, and there was yard work to do.
Lauren went back inside and started a grocery list. She tapped the pencil against her chin and concentrated. She’d need more cat food, maybe some treats to lure Marsh out from his hiding place, some birdseed and suet for the birds, food for herself of course, peanuts for the squirrels, lots of sugar for making hummingbird nectar…
Lauren set the pencil down and got to work.
Chapter Three
Dust
JD Mason had met Darla Smyth at a charity fundraiser for kids. As cliché as it might sound, it was indeed love at first sight. Until he met Darla, JD thought love at first sight was a bunch of hooey fabricated by romance novelists and greeting card companies. But from the very first moment their eyes met over a crowded room full of kids, JD knew there was something uniquely special about Darla. She came up to him and intro
duced herself as the event coordinator, and as they say, the rest was history.
Their friends and family teased them about having the kind of love fairytales were made of and neither one of them argued. They were the ultimate couple. He had his burgeoning hockey career and she had her charity work. Numerous dates followed that first encounter and a few months later, Darla and JD were married in an intimate ceremony in Napa Valley.
Darla came from a wealthy family who spent their time giving back to the community. Her father made a fortune in the advertising business and his two daughters had devoted much of their time to volunteering for worthy causes. When their parents passed away, they left their fortune to Darla and Sloan, and the two sisters invested every dime back into the community. JD respected and admired what Darla did. It made him proud to have a generous wife who cared about others less fortunate than her. She made a difference doing what she loved and he got to play hockey for a living. The couple couldn’t have been happier. Except maybe if they had children to share all that happiness with.
After deciding they were ready to start a family, they began trying to get pregnant. It was the next natural step in their relationship and they couldn’t wait to be parents. Darla wanted to be a mom more than anything and JD liked the idea of having someone to pass his hockey skills down to. At first, the trying was fun, but then after a year of being unsuccessful, they became discouraged.
JD was tested and relieved to find he wasn’t shooting blanks. When it was Darla’s turn, the discovery the doctors made was not one of infertility or not, but much, much worse. The diagnosis was two ugly, unexpected words: ovarian cancer. Suddenly, their lives went from being about menstrual cycles and planning afternoon sex around her most fertile days to that of basic survival. JD didn’t care about her infertility. They didn’t have to have kids. None of that mattered anymore. That wasn’t a deal breaker. Losing Darla to cancer was.
JD was familiar with a challenge. More than once, he’d beaten insurmountable odds while playing hockey. His team had come out victorious against teams that were better and more prepared. He’d recovered from near career ending injuries. He’d come from behind when the scoreboard predicted the story of the other team winning. But none of those battles could compare to fighting surface epithelial-stromal tumors. Caught in the early stages, patients had better odds of beating the cancer, but unfortunately Darla’s had already progressed to stage four.
JD felt worthless sitting by while Darla underwent surgery and treatment. There was absolutely nothing he could do to help except make his wife as comfortable as possible. That was the hardest part—standing by. He was a pro-athlete type of guy with a take charge type of mentality who took action and asked questions later, if at all. He was never very good at standing on the sidelines or sitting on the bench. Putting his trust in a team of medical professionals wasn’t his cup of tea either, but he did the best he could.
Not only were the odds disheartening, but it was also difficult for both of them to give up any claim they had on their future together. They had spent plenty of time planning for the future—for a family, for their careers, financially with solid investments —but that all became irrelevant with that grisly diagnosis.
When she became too sick and had to give up her charity work, JD’s heart broke for her. He retired from hockey and he and Darla became teammates. “We’re in this together,” they said. “We can beat this.” It was Team Mason vs. Team Cancer. But the gimmicks and games were useless. They’d been in it together until the end and now JD was left all alone. A team of one.
Darla had been calm about the diagnosis. She’d hammered out a game plan with her doctor and fought the cancer the only way she knew how—with charts and graphs, numbers and figures. But all of those graphs, numbers and figures revealed a stark and negative truth: the cancer was winning. Round after round of chemotherapy didn’t have any effect on the cancer and Darla succumbed after five short months. No amount of time would have been enough to prepare JD for what life without her would be like. But five measly months? It was a blink of an eye. More like a practical joke delivered by Mother Nature herself than something that could happen in reality.
Besides his mother, who had died when he was young, Darla was the only woman JD had ever loved. As much as Darla had tried to prepare him for her passing, it did nothing to prepare him for the gaping hole he now had to step around for fear of falling into. What used to feel like quicksand pulling him under was now just plain old cement holding him in place. His sorrow prevented him from taking a step forward and moving on.
It had been a year since Darla passed away and his memories of her were already starting to fade. That’s what scared him the most—losing her all over again. As a result, JD ended up hanging on tighter and tighter and that probably made things even worse.
After Darla’s death, JD stayed in Red Valley, but after a few months it was clear he needed to move somewhere else. Without hockey, there was nothing keeping him in there and he couldn’t bear to stay. The house they had lived in together was loaded with too many memories. As much as he hated to sell it, he couldn’t stay there. Not alone. And not with Darla’s essence embedded in every square foot. The move to Hayley’s Point had been a no-brainer.
He couldn’t bear to drive by the hospital when he was in town running errands. To think of all the time she’d spent there hooked up to machines that pumped poison needlessly into her veins. He didn’t want to see the restaurant on the river where they’d celebrated their first Valentine’s Day together. Or the bistro downtown where she liked to eat Sunday brunch. It was best to leave the city altogether.
Darla left behind so many friends and family members that he was always running into someone who knew her. He couldn’t even go to the grocery store without the stark reminder of how much he’d lost. They meant well with their sympathetic eyes and kind, reassuring words and sympathy cards, but it all made JD feel more like shit than he already did. He didn’t want to deal with their well-meaning questions and the looks of pity. They were like landmines just waiting for him to take a step forward and blow him backwards. They meant well but it was just too painful.
What made things worse was that they never knew exactly what to say—who would?—and he didn’t either. What was he supposed to tell them? How agonizing it was to wake up in bed all alone, the space next to him cold and empty? How hard it was to eat breakfast by himself with no one to discuss the morning news with? How, out of habit, he still made more coffee than he could ever drink by himself? How he didn’t have the heart to tell TiVo to stop recording her favorite shows, so he sat and watched them by himself in the dark? No, he kept those things to himself and did the only thing he could think of and moved away. He forked over the cash, signed on the dotted line, and began his life of solitude.
Luckily Teal Manor came furnished, because JD didn’t want his and Darla’s furniture as a reminder either. The mansion came complete with large opulent armoires and cabinets he had no use for and an ornate ten person mahogany dining set he never sat at. He ate all his meals in the recliner in front of the TV and had become an expert at balancing a bowl of cereal on one leg and the remote control on the other. The four other bathrooms, besides the one in the master, went unused as well. He kept the doors to the spare bedrooms closed. He didn’t go into any of those rooms and they just collected dust. Once a week his housekeeper Veronica—who drove in from Red Valley so he paid her double—cleaned and dusted them and that was the only activity they saw.
Frankly, he didn’t need all that space. It was eerie sometimes when the sound of Mel’s paws on the floor echoed throughout the massive house’s walls. It was a home meant for entertaining guests, throwing lavish parties, and showing off its magnificent grounds. Playing touch football on the manicured lawn, enjoying a glass of brandy in the library followed by a ten course meal in the formal dining room…
It was a shame for such a magnificent house to go mostly unused, but JD didn’t dwell on it. The reason he�
�d chosen this house was strictly for its remote location. If a smaller house on twenty acres had been for sale in the area, he would have purchased it instead. Fortunately, cost wasn’t an issue. He’d had a lucrative career playing hockey and could afford to throw his money around. And why not? You couldn’t take it with you.
Teal Manor lived up to JD’s expectations of it. It was secluded, quiet for the most part except for the birds, and so far off the beaten path that no one ever bothered him. Darla hadn’t been big on nature, so he knew it wouldn’t remind him of her. She was a city girl, right down to her French manicured toes.
JD kept all of the windows in the house closed tight. It was as if he was afraid to let any fresh air inside in case it brought with it new life. He kept the sunlight out too, and made sure the heavy drapes were always pulled shut. Once a week, Veronica would open them, babbling on about something in Spanish. He couldn’t understand what she said and didn’t really want to know. She was good at her job and saved JD from having to clean a 3500 square foot house himself.
A few months after the move, the phone calls from his agent and teammates tapered off. What could he say to them? Everyone wanted a piece of him and he had nothing left to give.
For a while, JD’s only reason for getting up in the morning was to feed his dog, Mel. It still was his only reason for getting up in the morning, he supposed. Only now, he actually stayed out of bed and accomplished something. He ran a few miles on the treadmill, he watched the news, and he ate when he was supposed to. It wasn’t much, but it was something. At least he was eating and taking care of himself. He could have easily let himself go and drown in the bottom of a bottle of liquor, but he didn’t. He ate regularly, exercised and looked after his dog.
What was that saying that people liked to throw around? Oh yeah. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Well, JD didn’t feel strong. He felt cracked and dry and brittle, as if he’d crumble and his bones would shatter if someone so much as looked at him the wrong way.
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