by Lia Riley
“Thank you,” Pepper said sincerely. “I’m not used to attention.”
“Well, you’re doing me the favor sitting with us. I needed adult conversation. If I hear any more about bad dreams I’m going to scream.”
“Bad dreams?” Pepper knew one or two things about those.
“Nightmares,” Will mumbled. “We keep getting ’em.”
Kate leaned in, wiggling her sticky fingers. “About a scary hamster.”
Pepper pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh in their small, serious faces. “Oh?”
“Henry. Their pet hamster escaped the cage last week.” Elizabeth gave her a look that said the horror, the horror. “He hasn’t been found.”
“We think he died and his ghost is haunting us.”
“I see,” Pepper nodded gravely. “Then there’s only one solution.”
“Call Ghostbusters?” Will fired off an imaginary blaster.
“Great idea, but mine’s better.” Pepper flipped over her paper mat. “May I borrow a crayon?”
Kate passed a red one.
Elizabeth propped her chin in her hand, curious.
“Whenever my sister and I used to have bad dreams, we’d come up with Nightmare Action Plans,” Pepper explained.
“Nightmare Action Plan.” Will pounded a fist on the table. “Yes! Perfect! What’s that?”
“You guys keep dreaming about Henry, right? What exactly is he doing in the nightmare?”
“Trying to bite us.”
“Of course he is.” Pepper drew a picture of a devilish-looking hamster, added in bloodshot eyes for good effect and a gaping mouth full of pointy teeth. “Does he look like that?”
Kate squeaked, covering her eyes as Will nodded solemnly.
“What would you say if whenever Henry made a scary appearance, you took out a slingshot and fired baby carrots? And then, boom! He chews those instead of you.” As Pepper spoke she drew out what she described.
“Yeah!” William shouted. “Nightmare Action Plan.” He made more gun-shooting sounds with his mouth.
“But does it work?” Kate cut to the chase.
“I’ll give you one guess who’s the brains of the operation,” Elizabeth muttered with a wink.
“Of course it works,” Pepper said. And the twins stared as if she was a magical being.
She stared back.
They smiled. She smiled.
“You’re pretty,” Kate mumbled, eyes wide.
Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Look at that, your own fan club.”
“Thanks.” Pepper ducked her head, pleased, but uncomfortable with the attention. “I needed an ego boost. And talking about pretty, tell me more about your successful photo shoot.”
“My mouth hurts from smiling.” Kate popped a cherry into her mouth and flung the stem at her brother.
“Sorry, the ads were for what again?” Pepper broke off as the waitress came over. She ordered a pizza to go. This was fun, but better to eat away from prying eyes and too-loud whispers.
“I’m the marketing coordinator for city hall,” Elizabeth explained. “The Village Pillage is a week of fun, the county’s oldest and largest summer event—”
“The medallion hunt!” the children shrieked.
“That’s what the photo shoot was for today. Getting ads out is my responsibility.”
“What’s the deal with all the pirate trappings in town?” Pepper glanced around the Smuggler’s Cove, making eye contact with a stuffed parrot. “On the surface Everland plays up the romance factor, it’s like such a…such a…”
“Sweet, safe community?” Elizabeth raised a brow. “Maybe even boring?”
“Not in a bad way though. Cute boring.” Pepper made a face. “Sorry, I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease. There isn’t a cure.”
“That’s all right.” Elizabeth’s grin revealed a deep-set dimple. “You aren’t the first to describe us that way, and you won’t be the last. But looks around here can be deceiving. Many of the so-called respectable locals have pirate blood flowing through their veins. Our coastline used to crawl with them. The nearby islands provided safe havens, and the riverways provided the perfect hiding places for treasure.”
“Interesting.” Pepper sat back, fiddling with a napkin. “And all news to me.” This town had been nothing but a means to an end; she’d never spent time wondering about its people or history.
Elizabeth cocked her head, taking her measure. “How long have you been here?”
“Two days.” Strange. It felt like a lifetime.
“My goodness, brand new.” Elizabeth exclaimed. “All right then. Will? Kate? Who wants to tell her our story?”
Kate’s hand shot up fastest. “Three hundred years ago Cap’n Redbeard was the mostest feared pirate on the seven seas.” She sounded as if she recited a tale that she’d heard a thousand times. “He plundered ships, took gold, and left no prisoners.”
“And then—” Will interrupted.
“Hey!” Kate brandished her spoon like a natural. Maybe Elizabeth was right and they did all have pirate blood.
“He hid his treasure where no one can find it,” Will said.
“Here.” Kate jabbed a finger on the table. “In Everland.”
“The General says Redbeard paddled up the river and buried it under a full moon.”
“But no one knows where ’zactly. Redbeard told only two people about the secret spot.” The girl held up fingers for emphasis. “His first and second mates.”
“Then English soldiers caught him.”
“He got shot—”
“Stabbed—”
“And his head…” Kate made a neck-slashing gesture that left little to the imagination. “Stuck on a spike on Four Skull Island as a warning to others.”
Pepper’s head spun and ears rang. These kids definitely didn’t know the meaning of inside voices.
“The first mate founded Everland. The second mate, Hogg Jaw. As far as we know, neither of the men ever told a soul about the location,” Elizabeth interjected.
“Or if they did, they chopped out their tongues.” Will shoveled in another scoop of ice cream, relishing the bloody tale’s more gory aspects. “Each town says they have the missing treasure. The General’s been hunting it for how long?”
Kate shrugged, scratching the side of her nose. “Long as Mama has been alive.”
“Yeah, like eighty years.”
“Hey, now! That’s enough of all that.” Elizabeth squeezed the slice of lemon into her sweet tea. “They don’t realize that I stopped counting at twenty-nine,” she said with a wink. “Twenty-nine was a good year.”
“Isn’t that when you had us?” Kate asked.
“That’s right.” Elizabeth’s smile was one of a woman who enjoyed everything her life had to offer.
The sight turned Pepper a pale green. Aspirational pangs were the worst, the art of comparing herself to other women and coming up lacking. It triggered nothing but paralysis, and she was stuck quite enough, thanks very much. She huffed a sigh. Instead of letting icky jealousy eat her up, she’d channel her energy into more productive areas, like demolishing the delicious-smelling “Landlubbers” pizza—mushrooms, peppers, and black olives—that the wenched-up waitress brought to the table.
Pepper opened the box and handed slices to the kids. Elizabeth suggested they’d wash down well with wine, and they quickly discovered a shared love of Zinfandel. When at long last the check came, her insides were full to the brim and not by what was truly excellent pizza, even by New York standards. How nice to hang out with someone who didn’t require anything from her but easy conversation. Elizabeth didn’t need money, favors, advice, or coddling. She just wanted to dish about the latest celebrity divorce scandal and the last juicy book she’d read.
“Thanks for asking me to hang out,” Pepper said after Elizabeth refused for the third time to let her pay her share. “I needed a…it.” She almost said “a friend,” but caught herself. Better to avoid rushing to whack
a label on their relationship and scare Elizabeth off by looking overeager and—
“Honey, we all need friends.” Elizabeth squeezed her shoulder. “I can tell from this past hour that you’ll fit right in around here.”
“Oh, I’m not staying,” Pepper said automatically. The happy “made a new friend” feeling leached from the moment.
“I see.” Elizabeth’s expression didn’t match her words. “What’ll you do?”
“I’m working on figuring that out.” She swallowed the sharp pain in her throat. “Top of the list is to find Redbeard’s missing treasure and buy a penthouse back in Manhattan.”
“What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?” Kate tugged on her skirt.
“ARRRRRRRRRR!” Will crowed.
“She didn’t get a chance to guess, stupid,” Kate said.
“Your face is stupid.”
“Your butt is stupid.”
They dissolved into helpless giggles.
Elizabeth shook her head. “You call me if you need anything, anything at all. Now I’m going to take these two home before I have an all-out mutiny.”
“I want to go to bed and dream about Henry,” Will shouted.
“Shoot carrots at him!” Kate said. “Nightmare Action Plan!”
“This was fun,” Elizabeth said, standing. “Let’s hang out again.”
“I’d like to.” And the thing was, Pepper meant it.
And without warning, the day felt brighter.
Chapter Six
Rhett returned to the clinic and de-mited Alma DeWitt’s potbelly pig, treated the bulldog that had stumbled upon a neighbor’s rat trap, put an IV in a rabbit, and set the broken wing on a mourning dove that had hit Sweet Brew’s front window.
The best part about being a small-town vet was how no two days were ever the same. He’d worked with species ranging from dogs and cats to llamas and ostriches and once performed a cesarean on a cow tied to the back of a tractor during a Cat 2 hurricane. He laughed and grieved with clients almost every day. Each time he stepped through the clinic doors it was a privilege. A privilege to be trusted with the care of such precious family members.
Funny thing was, Dad used to say much the same thing about his own practice.
Their shared love of work should have served as a bond, not a wedge. The cords in his neck tightened as he locked the front door at the end of the day.
Pointless wishing for something that wasn’t meant to be. Besides, he didn’t regret his career. He didn’t do regrets.
Except one.
He blinked, his eyes tired and scratchy. “Not going there,” he muttered before whistling for Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Fitzgerald. They bounded after him with grins so wide that he couldn’t help but return the favor. How could his pretty new neighbor not love dogs? He’d had one or two his whole life.
He glared at the sky. Better not to ponder the whys, or Pepper’s stray-puppy eyes, or, damn, that body. Curvy in all the right places. Impossible to resist a second, third, hell, even fourth look.
Except he would. No other option. The town biddies had bloodhound-caliber noses for gossip. They’d sniff out details if he emitted so much as a waft of interest. Better to shove her out of his mind, too.
Done and done.
It wasn’t until after he picked up Beau from city hall and they idled at the town’s lone stoplight that there was a disturbance in the force.
“Who is that?” Beau lowered the smartphone that seemed as connected to him as another appendage and whistled under his breath.
Rhett pressed his lips tighter. Pepper crossed the street, still dressed in that cute-as-hell skirt that hugged her in all the right ways. “Lawyer from up north,” he muttered.
“How the hell do you know her?” Beau gave him an expectant look.
“Dude. I know lots of women.”
“Yeah? Then how come you’re a monk?”
The light flicked to green. Rhett accelerated. He wouldn’t glance in the rearview mirror.
He glanced in the mirror. She yanked open the heavy door to Smuggler’s Cove.
“I talked to her,” he used a carefully casual tone, the same way he’d say “I’ve got to grab gas.” A statement of fact. Nothing important. Moving right along.
“Talked? You. To her. Of your own free will?”
Shit. Typical Marino to poke the hornets’ nest with zero fucks.
Rhett scowled at the double yellow line, making a conscious effort to relax his jaw. The last thing he needed was to go and trigger another damn headache. “Got something to say, Mr. Mayor? Spit it out.”
“All right. I will. You need to get laid.”
The pothole came out of nowhere.
“Jesus, man.” Beau grabbed his smartphone as it flew from his hand.
“Sorry.” Rhett steered back into the lane. “Didn’t realize I was driving Miss Daisy.”
“You’re a funny guy, know that?”
He tipped an invisible hat.
“Funny looking,” Beau muttered, returning to his phone.
Rhett reached for his travel coffee mug and guzzled. “Don’t you get sick of staring at that damn screen all day?”
“About as sick as you get of chopping off dog balls,” Beau fired back. “Besides, I started a mayoral Twitter account and it gets a shitload of interaction. Hard to keep up.”
“Twitter?” Rhett chuckled under his breath. “Who the hell in Everland’s on Twitter?”
“Try a thousand new followers since I opened the account last Thursday.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m a man of the people, promised a—”
“Young, fresh voice. I remember. Had six of your yard signs at my house, and two at the office. What are people calling you these days?” He snapped his fingers. “The Prince of Everland?”
“What people? I know you started it.”
“Payback for Cupid.”
Beau grunted and returned to his phone.
“But come on, you can’t work twenty-four seven. ”
“If you don’t want to talk, don’t,” Beau said, flicking up an eyebrow. “But don’t pass the buck to me.”
“Fair enough.” After Beau’s wife drowned during a sailing trip in the Bahamas, he’d retreated further and further into himself. Rhett wanted to help but didn’t know how to help, except to give space and have patience. “But why sling crap on an afternoon like this? The clouds are moving on. The sun is out. We’re going sailing, and no one’s watching the clock for us back home.”
“Amen.”
The two traded fist bumps as they entered the covered bridge.
“Fuck!” Rhett yelled, slowing as they hit the other side. A small sedan had crashed into a tree. Thick, blue-gray smoke poured from under the hood.
“Call nine-one-one,” he shouted to Beau, leaping from the driver’s side.
“On it.” Beau had the phone pressed to his ear.
Rhett’s stomach muscles clenched at the familiar bumper sticker. RUFF LOVE PET WALKERS. Shit. No. Not Norma. She’d been Mama’s best friend. Practically family.
“Norma!” he shouted. “Norma, you okay?”
“Rhett?” a high quavering voice answered. “Rhett Valentine? Is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Norma was strapped in her seat. The airbag had deployed.
“It was the damnedest thing,” she mumbled, pushing back her purple sequined ball cap that read BAD HAIR DAY. “A dang armadillo tried to cross into the road. I swerved and this here tree was in my way.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Rhett waved two in her face.
“How ’bout countin’ this one instead, sugar?” She popped him the bird.
Rhett gave a relieved laugh. She appeared her usual feisty self. “Can you move?”
“My leg.” She grimaced. “I think it’s broken. And would you talk about terrible timing? I’ve signed on three new clients. What on earth am I going to do now? Mrs. Johnson is doing the chemo. She can’t be walk
ing Ziggy, he’s far too strong. Ol’ John Drummond has a kidney trouble and Wolfgang is a real pistol.”
He liked Norma. She reminded him of Mama, the way she always thought of others. No surprise that she’d be here with a busted leg worrying about her elderly clients. The thought made his gut ache. He couldn’t do much about the world’s problems, but he could put Norma’s mind at ease.
“Let me worry about the dog walking,” he said. “Right now I want you to focus on holding my hand, and if you see any light, stay the hell away from it, you hear?”
She laced her fingers with his and gave a squeeze. “You are a good boy,” she said, closing her eyes, jaw set tight. “Always were.”
As the ambulance siren rose in the distance, an idea formed. His brows drew together as he sat back on his heels.
Guess he’d have to start thinking about his new neighbor after all.
Chapter Seven
I seriously can’t stop eating these pickles.” Tuesday was out of frame, her phone angled to an unmade single bed and a poster for the musical Wicked. “I need an intervention.”
Pepper wrinkled her nose at her FaceTime screen. “Is that an innuendo, because TMI.”
“Nope.” Her sister angled the camera to showcase an actual large dill pickle. She took a noisy crunch. “I bought a jar at the Park Slope Farmers Market. They’re artisanal and fermented. It’s my new thing—the everything fermented diet.”
Ah, Tuesday. She’d never met a fad she didn’t love.
“Honey. They are pickles. Pickles that probably cost more than your rent.” Even as Pepper chided, her heart panged. Today, her high horse had shrunk to the size of a Shetland pony. The Georgia move had emptied her savings account. And what did she have to show for it? Nothing but a closet of discount business attire and debt.
“Remember Granny’s root cellar? All the canned beets, green beans, and tomatoes?” Tuesday’s leg shot out in a kickboxing round kick, narrowly missing a pile of scripts precariously stacked on her coffee table. She never sat still, even on FaceTime. During their marathon phone call she’d done a hundred crunches, polished off a bowl of oatmeal, painted her toenails purple, and plaited her long blond hair into a complicated fishtail braid. “She was the original hipster. I wonder if Dad still has her recipes. I could sell it to one of the big publishing houses as a retro cookbook.”