Chloe quickly dried her hands on a towel and hurried through the foyer. Probably another former guest who hadn’t heard that the place no longer operated as a bed-and-breakfast.
The woman knocked sharply. Chloe opened the door, meeting the stranger’s cool gaze.
“Yes?” she inquired politely, taking in her visitor’s manicured nails, glossy brown hair fastened in a neat roll at her nape and the long skirt worn with sandals.
“Is Ben here? They told me at the post office that this is where he’s staying.”
“Well,” Chloe said, “he actually lives in the annex. He has his own entrance down by the dunes.” She inclined her head to indicate direction.
“Oh,” said the woman, clearly distressed. “I’m sorry to cause you any trouble, Ms—? I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name.”
“It’s Chloe…Chloe Timberlake. I’m looking after the inn for my aunt and cousin. If you’d like to come in, I’ll call Ben.”
“Yes,” murmured the woman as she stepped inside. Her sweeping glance encompassed the gleaming parlor, the newly cleaned library, the elegant chandelier overhead.
“Who shall I tell him is here?” Chloe asked.
The woman hesitated, then met Chloe’s eyes squarely. “Emily Derrick. I’m Ben’s ex-wife.”
Chloe was stunned. Ben had mentioned that his ex lived in Colorado. “I—I’ll tell him,” she stammered, hurrying out. Behind her, Emily settled on the wide Victorian sofa, folded her hands in her lap and commenced staring at the ocean in the distance as if it were the most fascinating sight in the world.
Chloe didn’t stop to knock at the door to the annex. She flung it open. “Ben! Ben, are you in here?”
“As it happens, I am,” he said amiably as she burst into his living room. “I’m polishing up my day’s treasure-hunting finds. Sit down and join me.” He indicated a stool beside the kitchen counter.
Chloe ignored the fine but tarnished locket that Ben was rubbing with a soft cloth. “Someone’s here. She says she’s your former wife.”
The locket clattered to the floor, but Ben didn’t notice. “Emily?” he exclaimed, striding around the counter. “She’s here?”
“In the parlor,” Chloe said as he rushed along the hallway and into the kitchen of the inn. She could barely keep up with him.
At their approach, Emily Derrick rose. Ben halted in the archway between parlor and foyer. Chloe stood frozen behind them, knowing that neither was any longer aware of her presence. They had eyes only for each other.
“Ben,” Emily said, stepping forward. She held out her hands. Chloe’s first instinct was to leave, but at the moment, she found herself totally incapable of movement.
Ben clasped Emily’s hands in his. “Emily. I didn’t expect you.”
Emily smiled slightly. “I was surprised to learn you were back in Sanluca. After—after you said you were leaving for good.”
“I should have left immediately after the fire. Then nothing would have happened to Rick.”
“He’s well and working for an oceanographic institute in Maine. His boys are getting big. Trevor is six, and Lang is ten.”
“And you, Em?”
She bit her lip. “My life in Colorado is unexpectedly fulfilling, and I’ve made a lot of new friends.”
“I’m glad.”
“How are you, Ben?”
“I still don’t have my old job back, but if I can stay sober, I believe Andy will hire me again.”
“I hope so.” Emily hesitated. “I’m here to tell you something. I’m going to be married in the fall, to a wonderful man I met in Colorado. He owns a ski-rental business, and he has two children, a boy and a girl. They’re delightful kids, and we get along great. I’m finally going to have that family I wanted.” Her eyes sparkled.
“That’s good, Em,” Ben said, though his words fell flat.
“One other thing, the most important.” Emily’s eyes searched his face. “I came here to forgive you, Ben. I’m beginning a new life, relegating the past to the past. I don’t want to start my new marriage under shadows of bitterness.”
“Em—”
“Please stop blaming yourself for what happened. If I can forgive you for our daughter’s death, surely you can forgive yourself. Please, Ben?”
Chloe’s mind reeled as Emily spoke. Ben was a father? Had a daughter who had died? Ben was speaking now, but Chloe couldn’t hear his words over the rush in her ears, and all she wanted was to get out of there. She backed into her workshop, groped for the door handle and pulled the door closed behind her. She leaned against it and closed her eyes.
In all the conversations they’d had, all the times that Chloe had congratulated herself on their open and honest relationship, Ben had never mentioned a daughter. Dear God, from what Emily said, Ben must have been responsible for her death. But how? And why?
Ben had always been a man of mystery, even going back to that summer when she’d first met him. Then, he’d lived at the inn for a couple of months, charming the other guests, earning the admiration of two teenage girls who hung on his every word and disappearing without a word to anyone. Now, when she thought she knew this man, it turned out that she didn’t at all.
The murmur of voices rose and fell in the parlor. Chloe sat down and tried to work, found it difficult to concentrate. She buried her head in her hands. After a while, a tap on the door startled her.
When she opened it, Ben stood there. “Chloe, I have a favor to ask,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Emily rented a vacant RV from Ducky Hester, but I hate the idea of her staying there. She’ll be glad to pay you if you’ll let her room at the inn for a few nights.”
Chloe herself would have hated to stay at Ducky’s, and Emily wouldn’t be here long. Still, she fumbled around for an out.
“The girls are going to start cleaning upstairs next week. There’ll be a lot of noise and mess.”
“Tara and Jill could rearrange their schedule while Emily is here so that they’re working in the annex instead of upstairs.”
“As long as Emily understands that the inn isn’t ready for guests, I suppose I wouldn’t mind,” Chloe said reluctantly.
Ben’s face lit up. “Thanks, Chloe. I know she’ll appreciate it. Say, would you like to have dinner at the Sand Bar with Em and me? She has a thing for their hamburgers, always has.”
Chloe shook her head. “I’ll be cooking for Tara tonight. Afterward, we’re going to go over the information she found about the oceanography program at Florida State.” She’d expected Ben to be here while she and Tara examined the brochures.
“Tara could join the three of us at the Sand Bar.”
“She’s excited about studying oceanography, Ben. It wouldn’t be wise to put this off.”
“Well then, which room do you want Emily to take? Driftwood?”
This was the one directly across the room from hers, and probably the cleanest, except for the chameleon living under the dresser. “Sure. Ben—” She broke off her sentence.
“Yes?” He regarded her with mild interest.
Chloe wanted to say, Don’t you think you have some explaining to do? She wanted to blurt out her doubts and concerns; she wanted to talk with him. But she could see that he was itching to get back to Emily.
“Nothing,” she said.
“I’m sorry you won’t be going with us,” he told her.
“We need to talk,” she said evenly. “About—”
“About my daughter? About Ashley?”
Chloe had never heard that name before. “Yes,” she said evenly. “About Ashley.”
For a moment that all-too-familiar desolate expression flitted across Ben’s features. “We will,” he said. “After Emily leaves.” He brushed her cheek with the knuckles of one hand. She wanted to lean into that touch, be held in his arms. But she kept her expression neutral. This wasn’t the time for that.
Later, she watched as Ben and Emily drove away. She felt betrayed. Not because
Ben had taken Emily to dinner, but because he had been less than forthright about his past. She’d accepted his status as a recovering alcoholic, and it didn’t bother her that he had been married. But she was accustomed to being manipulated by men, and she’d been determined to avoid such situations in her new life. If Ben had omitted mentioning such an important part of his history, what else wasn’t he telling her? What skeletons were likely to tumble out of his closet later on?
AFTER DINNER THAT NIGHT, when she and Tara were sifting through the many materials about the oceanography program, Chloe found it difficult to pay attention even though Tara was enthused about her new direction. Chloe couldn’t help but notice that Ben and Emily had been gone a really long time, and maybe they were dancing to blues music on the Sand Bar’s tiny scuffed dance floor, and then they would drive back to the inn and…
No. Emily had said she was getting married. Surely she wasn’t here to make a play for her ex-husband.
“Chloe? Did you hear what I said?”
Chloe pulled herself back to matters at hand. “Something about maybe you wouldn’t have to live in a dorm your first year at Florida State.”
“Would Gwynne mind if I lived with her?”
“She’ll have finished work on her master’s degree by the time you start college, but you could ask. She may intend to stay in Tallahassee and work.”
“Mom said that she and Dad would be supportive of my plans to go to Florida State even though they’d have to spring for out-of-state tuition. I bet I could get a paying job at the treasure museum next summer to help out. They said maybe they could use me in the lab where they clean the treasure they’ve brought up from the wrecks.”
“You’re planning to come back to Sanluca? For sure?”
“I could live with you here at the inn again.”
“Tara, dear, I may not be here that long.”
Tara’s brow wrinkled in dismay. “But you have to stay, Chloe! You have to! Aren’t you planning to run the inn as a B and B again?”
“We’ll see,” Chloe said faintly, but if her relationship with Ben went sour, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity. She’d go somewhere else—maybe even back to Farish. That was something she had never even vaguely contemplated before, and the fact that she’d even consider it certainly was an indicator of her present distress.
Tara surprised her by enveloping her in a big hug. The burst of affection heartened her, but it didn’t quite make up for Ben’s going off with Emily. Even if his absence was only temporary, it still rankled.
“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, Chloe. Ben has moved his former wife into the inn?”
“Uh-huh,” Chloe said, picking at a loose thread on the bedspread as she talked with Naomi. She lay on her stomach across the bed where she had a good view of the beach through the window. Ben and Emily were there, walking and earnestly engaged in conversation. Ever since Emily had arrived yesterday, they’d been together. Except for last night. Emily had disappeared into her room early and hadn’t emerged until morning.
“You should have your head examined,” Naomi told her.
“Thanks, Naomi. I needed to hear that.”
“Isn’t this just another manifestation of your rescue personality? Emily has to have a place to stay, so you help her out?”
“Ben asked. I could hardly refuse, considering that there’s really no decent motel around here.”
“And now the two of them are on the beach together, holding hands and—”
“They’re not holding hands,” Chloe said unhappily. “They’re actually about three feet apart. Emily’s pointing out at something in the ocean. A freighter, most likely. Ben’s shaking his head. She’s—”
“I don’t require a blow-by-blow description of the action,” Naomi said. “Let’s talk about where you go from here.”
“Maybe back home to Farish. There is something wrong with a man who doesn’t mention that he had a daughter who died. How many other things hasn’t he told me?”
“Who knows? Who cares?”
“I do,” Chloe said unhappily. “This is my life we’re talking about.”
“You and Tara could drive back to Farish together at the end of the summer. You’re invited to stay with us until you find a place of your own.”
A picture of Farish flashed through Chloe’s mind. The big courthouse, the church steeple, rough guys in cowboy boots ogling her at the supermarket. Farish would be her last choice.
“No, Mimi. I’ll find someplace where I can make a fresh start,” she said unhappily.
Naomi, sounding exasperated, asked to speak with her daughter. After Tara took the call in her own room, Chloe stared broodingly at the couple on the beach. There was nothing like a little well-placed jealousy to clarify matters in one’s mind, and Emily’s reappearance in Ben’s life certainly had done that. Watching Ben and his ex-wife on the beach from her bedroom window, Chloe decided, was not the best way to spend her day, so she phoned Zephyr and asked her if she could come over.
“You’re welcome any time,” Zephyr said firmly. “What’s happening?”
“A lot,” Chloe said. “Too much.”
“You might as well get on over here and tell me what’s on your mind.”
Chloe gave one last long, exasperated look at Ben and Emily and hurried to get her car keys. “I’m leaving right now,” she said.
Chapter Thirteen
Zephyr lived on the mainland only a few miles from town past acres and acres of orange groves. Even though she’d invited Chloe to visit many times, Chloe had never gone. Now she was glad of a place where she could escape Ben, Emily and her own dire imaginings about what might be transpiring between them.
Once across the bridge and past the groves, the landscape was taken over by stands of palmettos and sweet bay, with a few plant nurseries thrown in for good measure. At a scruffy mailbox painted with a loggerhead turtle, Chloe turned off the highway and continued down a bumpy driveway to the house.
Zephyr lived in a typical tin-roofed cracker shack, painted shiny white and featuring a wide porch running around three sides. When Chloe drove up, her friend was sitting in the shade on a lawn chair placed under a spreading oak hung with a few long wisps of Spanish moss.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Ben had a daughter?” Chloe asked no sooner than she’d sat down beside Zephyr, who was shelling peas.
“It was none of my business,” Zephyr said.
“He could have mentioned something. All the time we’ve known each other, all this time we’ve been falling in—” She stopped, horrified at what she’d been about to admit. She hadn’t even admitted it to herself.
“Falling in love?”
A lump in her throat, Chloe nodded.
“It would be easy to fall for Ben,” Zephyr said as she tossed another hull into a brown paper bag. “He’s a nice guy.”
“Oh, sure,” Chloe replied with irony. “Ben’s a recovering alcoholic who almost killed a man and is responsible for the death of his daughter. Why do I keep finding these people?”
“You don’t find them. They find you,” Zephyr said succinctly. “At least, I suspect that’s what happens.”
“Do I have a sign across my forehead that says, ‘Make me do something stupid’?” Chloe said, exasperated with herself.
“No, but you have an empathetic attitude. You act as if you care about other people.”
“Well, I do. But I’m tired of fixing things for everyone else and screwing up my own life in the process.”
“You haven’t exactly done that. Yet.”
“Oh, Zephyr. I’m like one of your baby turtles. I’ve headed in a whole bunch of wrong directions, and I need to be set on the right course.”
“Hatchlings find their own way. Turtles have magnetite in their brains. It’s an iron compound that draws them to the North Pole like a compass and helps them navigate. That’s how female turtles manage to return to the same nesting beach over and over again.”
“I don’t
have any powers like that,” Chloe objected.
“You came back to Sanluca, didn’t you? Something drew you here.”
“Zephyr—”
“Listen to me, Chloe. You’d better depend on your own self, because I can’t offer magic spells to get you out of trouble. I certainly wish I’d had magnetic navigation or voodoo, one or the other, when I fell in love with a cowboy from Okeechobee City.”
Okeechobee City was located inland in a major cattle-growing area of Florida, and Chloe had gone to a rodeo there once with Tayloe and Gwynne. “You’ve mentioned a cowboy before,” Chloe recalled.
“Uh-huh. Want to hear about it?”
“Sure,” Chloe said.
Zephyr reached for more peas. “I fell for my cowboy over a dinner of catfish and hush puppies at the Sand Bar, and he invited me to move closer to him so we could explore our mutual interests. Mutual interests! That’s highfalutin talk for a cowboy. Like a fool, I did it. Closed up this house, packed all my stuff, and took up residence in an apartment over a Laundromat near the ranch where he worked. Dumb thing to do,” she said.
“Maybe not, since you were in love with him,” Chloe pointed out.
“I suspect he was having an ego trip and liked the idea of some woman—any woman—following him to the ends of the earth, which Okeechobee might be, though it’s a pleasant enough little town.” Forgetting for a moment about her task, Zephyr stared reflectively off into the distance.
“You were telling me about the cowboy,” Chloe reminded her gently.
“His ex-wife showed up one day.”
“Like Emily?”
“Not quite. Ex Mrs. Cowboy weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, and she said he owed her money. She tracked him down at my place and, like a fool, I let her in the door. She hit him upside the head and sat on him until he turned purple. Then I gave her the money and she went away.”
“Didn’t he pay you back?”
“Nope. He didn’t see a need to do that. Knew I was in love and would do whatever it took to keep him.”
“What happened after that?”
“I figured that for the amount of money I paid to get rid of his ex-wife, I could have bought me a decent guy. Kicked the cowboy out and moved back to Sanluca. My second husband followed me from Okeechobee and proposed the day after he arrived in town. We were married thirty years, God rest his soul.”
The Treasure Man Page 17