Cora had blushed in the dark. Eliza, though, had pulled back her long gray hair with one hand and had crouched in the sand, blowing on the faint glow. “Sometimes,” she said, “the wind on the beach makes this easy. Tonight, our breath will make the magic.” After another long deep breath blown outward, Eliza said, “You give it a try.” So Cora had knelt and had blown into the fire, laughing as it grew brighter. The glow gathered, growing large and noisy, and the fire had begun to leap, dancing the same way Cora’s heart had, that night so long ago on this very same beach.
In the wind tonight, as Cora stacked her wood, she could smell something under the salt water and seaweed – the light scent of lavender Eliza had carried with her. And even with everything else – her betrayal of Logan, Mac’s own betrayal of Trixie and Olivia, Royal with his damn land dreams, and the aching knowledge that she’d gone beyond poor right into broke – Cora felt, for one moment, buoyed. Loved. She closed her eyes and imagined Eliza was next to her.
And she was. Cora knew it. Joy, even through everything else, lifted her heart and she sat, hands folded, perfectly still as she let the feeling fill her. The last line of orange color at the horizon was fading into the deep blue of the sky above and the sea below. Soon the only light would come from the fire and the regular flash from the light house a mile down the shore. Clementine ran the shoreline, rapturous, darting into the surf to bite at the waves, then dodging out again with small happy woofs.
The fire grew, and the lovely smell of charred creosote and timber filled her nose. Such a heady scent – tomorrow it would still be in her hair and in her sweater. She’d worn her old sheep-feeding Aran for this very purpose. Bonfire smoke was Cora’s favorite perfume.
“You look like you’re calling on the four winds or something. Shouldn’t you be stirring a cauldron?” Mac’s voice came from behind her. She’d been so focused on the fire, she hadn’t heard him coming. For one second, from the base of joy that had settled into her stomach, she let herself feel warmed as she looked at him. That same red flannel shirt – did he have ten of them? – over a thin black tee, his broad chest, oh, those Wranglers… Her Mac. He filled her eyes just right.
Then reality slammed back into her.
“I can’t believe you just called me a witch,” she said and poked the fire with a longer piece of oak she’d brought with her from the house for this purpose. “Didn’t know you’d be coming.” She should have, though. If Valentine and Louisa wanted to talk about the property, Mac would be in on the conversation. He, after all, would have to sell his land, too, to get what he wanted. “Where’s your partner in crime?”
“Royal’s out with Trixie. Again.” Mac dropped into a cross-legged seat next to her on the sand. “Fire looks good.”
“You don’t mind your boss dating your baby’s mama? Don’t think that’s kind of confusing?”
Mac leaned back on his hands easily. “Fine by me. I think they really dig each other.”
His voice was so casual – how could he be that easy with this new truth? Had he and Trixie talked?
“Besides,” he continued, “this should be just family. He’s the investor. This meeting is none of his business.”
Meeting. Business. Cora had to keep that in the forefront of her mind – that’s all this was. The fact that the last time they’d talked – fought – he’d kissed her as he left, as much as she hadn’t – or had – wanted it, this was business.
Money.
“Where are the sisters?”
He gestured with his chin up the road. “A minute or two behind me.”
“Ah.” Cora forced her gaze away from his lips back to the fire. She was so furious with Mac. So angry that he’d let everyone down the way he had. She couldn’t, wouldn’t ever, think about those kisses. She wouldn’t think of all that had happened so ill-advisedly in her bedroom. All that heat, all that passion… his mouth, his hands, the way she had wrapped her fingers around the muscles where his biceps joined his shoulder, the way his sweat had tasted against the tip of her tongue… Jesus.
“Cute dog you got there.” He gestured at Clementine who was dragging a piece of driftwood across the damp sand.
“Humph.” The dog had snuggled cozily against Cora last night, keeping her warm. Mac didn’t need to know that, though.
Mac had abandoned Trixie. Worse, Olivia. With Cora, he’d betrayed Logan. And the ways in which he’d let Cora down didn’t even come into play. She just had to keep Olivia’s face in her mind. Just fatherless Olivia.
“Cora –” he started.
“No.” Cora was quick to stop him. “Do we have to talk? Shouldn’t we wait for them?”
He moved sideways so that he was facing her, still cross-legged, and put his hand on her thigh, heavy and warm. “This isn’t about them. This is about –”
“No,” she said again, standing quickly, brushing the sand off her backside, not caring that the wind carried it directly into his face. “There is no us.”
He blinked and wiped off his eyelashes and nose. “But –”
“There’s only you, Mac. You and your life, which isn’t here, and that’s the whole problem I have with it, actually.”
“You want me here?” he asked in a low voice.
“No! What I want is for you to take some responsibility for what you left behind here. Even if Trixie kept it from you, you should have guessed. You should have had some kind of idea. Jesus, Mac.”
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but a light bobbed behind him on the path.
“Yoohoo!” called Valentine.
Thank God, their arrival would let her avoid whatever he was trying to say until he was gone again. She waved at the women, feeling both grateful and disappointed. “There you two are,” she called back, with a cheer that made her teeth ache. “I have cold roast chicken and sweet potatoes. We’ll eat with our fingers.”
“And wipe them on our pants,” said Valentine happily. “We brought s’mores! And wine!”
As she trudged through the cold sand to meet the women, Clementine racing to greet the four tiny dachshunds, Cora thought the idea of s’mores should cheer her up more, but it didn’t. That, in itself, was enough to break a heart. Good thing hers was already broken.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
I’ll never tell you outright that knitting makes things easier. (But it does.) – E.C.
This is delicious,” said Mac’s mother grudgingly, taking a second helping of chicken. Mac liked seeing how eating with her fingers made her uncomfortable, and that she did it anyway. Maybe his mother was coming along.
“How did you roast this?”
“Like I normally do, with that German red garlic I grew,” said Cora, taking a bite. Around chewing, she added, “And lemons and rosemary.”
“Everything from your own garden!” said Aunt Valentine in delight. She raised her plastic cup of wine toward Cora, who sighed, as if something about that thought bothered her.
Louisa continued, “The chicken is a little tough, though. Did you cook it too quick? Maybe you should have brined it.”
“Well, it was quick, all right. Scrappy little sucker. Miss Honey was brave right up to the last minute.”
Mac gaped at her. “This is one of your chickens?”
She nodded and appeared to swallow hard.
“I thought you said…” Cora had said she’d only kill a chicken if she was flat broke.
“The Gilroy pickle gig really and truly fell through. They closed in the middle of the night, leaving only bills behind. I bet my pickles are still sitting on their bankrupt shelves.” She waved a bone at him. “I’m sure you’re pleased that I’m at the chicken-killing stage. The procedure was worse than I thought it would be, by the way. Do you like that too?”
She looked like she might cry, her eyes glittering in the light from the fire. God, Mac wanted to take care of her. It was all he wanted.
And she’d never let him. There was just one way he could help.
“I hate it,”
he said. “But since we’re on the topic, we should deal with it. Mom and Aunt Valentine want to sell.”
Valentine glanced at Cora as she pushed two tiny dogs off her lap. “I don’t really want to, dear child. But Louisa needs the money.”
“Wait, Louisa does? Not you?” said Cora.
“Mom?” said Mac. What was she talking about? Wasn’t Aunt Valentine the perennially broke one?
His mother wiped her fingers carefully on a tissue she’d pulled from her Coach handbag. “It’s something I wasn’t comfortable talking about.”
“But the life insurance from Dad. We invested it. My half’s doing just fine. You said you needed money, but I thought that was just you wanting another tummy tuck or something. What happened to your half of the insurance money?”
His mother craned her neck, looking up at the stars that had blinked on overhead. “I don’t have it.”
“It was a lot of money, Mom.”
“Don’t blame her, dear,” said Aunt Val. “It’s a disease. We all know that.”
“What are you talking about?” This was getting weirder, fast. Only one disease had ever cost his family money. And yeah, his mother used to gamble, but she’d only ever done that with his father.
Lifting her hands, his mother said, “Don’t be mad. It was just a little bit for a long time. I had it under control. But last winter, when I bought the new car, I didn’t have quite enough to pay cash for it. So I played a little extra up at the Indian casino. I’ve had trouble with the payments ever since even though one was such a sure shot…” Her voice trailed off and for a terrible moment, Mac wondered if his mother was going to cry. He had never seen tears in her eyes. His mother was too tough, too strong for that.
Jesus. Should he be angry at her? He was too upset for that right now. He was so… disappointed in her.
“I’ve been helping as much as I can,” said Valentine apologetically. “But I try just to live on the interest of what Skully left me in that piddly old will of his. We were just lucky he hit it big right before he died, and I put it away in the coffee can. And those pies that Cora sells for me actually bring quite a bit more than you’d guess. My pin money, I call it. But I’m out of pin money. And interest.”
“We’ll all be happier if we sell,” said his mother, still sounding stubborn though she kept her eyes down. “All of us. God knows Cora needs the money, and we could still find a place inland, stay together, stay close.” Her voice turned surprisingly fierce. “I want to stay close.”
“But…” Cora started, her voice slow. She clutched the long piece of wood like she would wield it as a weapon if she had to. “I’m sorry to have to ask this. But why would I want to be close to you anymore, Louisa? You’ve treated me like less-than for so long, and I’ve let you, because you were Logan’s aunt. My family. But you want me to give up my home, my perfect home, the one that I love just so you can live a better life? Because you gambled yours away?”
“Darling,” said Valentine, her voice soft, “you had to kill a chicken. Wouldn’t this help you?”
“Sure. Sure it would,” said Cora. “But so would me getting a job waitressing at Tillie’s.”
“Waitressing?” said Mac. She wasn’t serious.
“Shirley said the job was mine if I ever wanted it. And I’d be good at it, too.”
She would. He could imagine her, serving coffee and pieces of pie with a smile that would knock the tourists’ socks off. If she was ever his waitress, he’d leave her a huge tip. Maybe he’d flirt with her, hoping for her phone number.
And she would shut him down like a puppy mill.
“So you’re going to relegate me to poverty?” His mother’s voice shook.
Cora poked the fire again with the stick. “I didn’t put you there.”
Clementine barked upward at the shower of green and blue sparks that flew into the night air and then leaned against Mac’s legs. The warmth was welcome.
“Darling,” said Valentine gently. “Think about what you’re doing.”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve thought about almost nothing else since this all came up,” Cora said, sounded choked. “I want to make you happy, Valentine. For Logan’s sake. And Louisa, no, of course I don’t want you to struggle. You’ve never been easy on me, but that’s fine. Whatever. I just want to take care of the one thing that I love. The one thing that was entrusted to me.” She closed her eyes and leaned forward. “How do I make you understand this?”
Mac longed to reach out, to touch her, but he couldn’t. So he balled his fists and shoved them into his pockets.
“My home is… It’s not just the shell I keep around me. You’ve always thought that’s what I was doing: protecting myself. But it’s more than that. My home is my soul. I’ve invested everything I have in it, every piece of energy, every scrap of love. It’s where I grew up, for real.” She looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “The walls breathe around me and the house goes to sleep at night when I do.”
Aunt Valentine made a strangled noise in the back of her throat.
“I’m sorry,’ Cora said quickly. “But doesn’t that mean anything to you? The place your son lived? The home he rebuilt with his own hands?” She turned to Valentine. “Your home, where you held him as a baby. Where he took his first steps.”
Then her glance took in both his mother and himself. “Louisa, your home where the boys played. Those stairs. Logan told me he could ride down the banister in less than three seconds if you’d recently polished it.”
“It’s just wood,” said Louisa, but her voice still trembled.
“It isn’t,” Cora said. “That’s what I mean. It’s memory. It’s life. It’s our life.”
Mac thought of something, an idea that might carry weight with Cora. “So what if The Big One hits?”
“What?” A single tear streaked her face, breaking his heart as it slipped its way down in the firelight.
It would hurt more, but he needed to try. “What if the earth opened up? A big nine point oh? All the buildings fall, and those that don’t fall, burn. We’re left with nothing, and it’s not your fault.”
He could almost see her mentally flipping the pages of her What If book. Before she could decide on the right answer, he said, “Or what if we suddenly, right now, hear the water being sucked out. We sit here on the beach, and watch the tide be drawn back half a mile or more.”
Cora blinked and she picked up the stick again, holding it tightly. “Tsunami,” she whispered.
“Half an hour later, the water comes back in and keeps coming. Where’s the only safe place, Cora?” Mac knew she must know.
“Top of Mount Selina. Or anywhere on 35, at the highest points.”
He nodded. “Everything down here will be lost. Everything.”
His mother and Aunt Valentine stared at him. Val said in a warning voice, “Mac. She doesn’t do well with –”
“With random worries? Free-floating anxiety about nothing she can do anything about?”
Cora shook her head but kept her mouth shut.
Mac went on. “Say the coast starts to burn. It’s the hottest summer on record, and everything from the manzanita on down catches fire. It spreads from Big Sur to Mendocino. Thousands of firefighters from all over the country can’t put it out – it’s the burn of the century.”
He could almost see the images of devastation forming in her mind. “Yeah, you’d stand on your roof with a water hose, keeping the building wet until when? Until those eucalyptus behind the house exploded? Because they do that in high heat, did you know that?”
She gave a slight nod. Of course she did.
He went on, mercilessly. Jesus Christ, he was an asshole. “And then the pump on the well goes out, because the power won’t stay on, you know that. You have to evacuate. Leave the house to burn.”
“No.”
“You wouldn’t leave? To save yourself?”
“I mean, no. Stop this.”
“Why? It’s everything you worry about.
”
“Mac…” She rubbed her hand over her eyes, and when she took it away, her face looked hollow. Haunted. “I can’t be sure of hanging on to anything. Ever.”
“That’s not what I –”
“So when I can, when I have any say in the matter, I make the choice to hold on. That’s why I have those plans. You think I don’t know I could lose everything in a second? That I haven’t spent countless nights worried about exactly that? I have. Too many nights. Which is why, when I have a choice, I’ll hang on. God can take this away from me. I know that. The natural world, the universe can smack me down and leave me with nothing. But you? And Royal? You two can’t take away the life, the soul, that I’ve built for myself.”
Cora stood and looked down at the fire, her bare foot digging into the small hole she’d dug. “I’m sorry that I can’t please you three. You can sell your plots, and I’ll give Royal right of passage through my land if he needs it. But even if my house needs to back up to a parking lot, at least it will still be my house.”
“Cora –” Mac didn’t know what to say next, but there had to be something that would stop her, that would change her mind.
“I’m sorry to leave you with the fire. Just dump the wet sand on top when you leave. Make sure nothing sparks. I’ve got my basket – you can have any leftovers. Clementine…” She paused, looking between the dog and Mac, pausing as if making a decision. “Clementine, come.” She snapped and Clementine ran obediently to her side.
She held her canvas shoes with one hand, her basket in her other, cutting her way through the ice plant path with that absolutely determined walk of hers, the dog leaping in and over the plants next to her. Mac didn’t think, didn’t stop his feet from following her. It was difficult running over the dune, but he pushed, hard. At the top of the path, where the sand dipped back toward the road, he caught up with her and took her hand.
Cora's Heart: A Cypress Hollow Yarn Page 24