Destiny Bay
Page 4
“Oh, aye.” She handed Abby a bundle of lingerie, not even blinking at the intimacy of what she was holding. Abby did her best not to snatch it.
“Who is she?”
“The cottage is over two hundred years old, you see; she could be most anyone. A whaler’s wife, a sailor’s fiancée, a smuggler’s lady. All I know for sure is that the White Lady—whoever she may be—met with great misfortune during her lifetime. Perhaps even tragedy. You never hear of a happy ghost, aye?”
A chill snaked down her spine. “I suppose not,” Abby said, shrugging as nonchalantly as possible. “But you take for granted the possibility that I actually believe in ghosts in the first place. I can assure you that I don’t.”
Cora looked pointedly at Abby’s fingers as they drummed apprehensively against her thigh. “You do a fine imitation of someone who does.”
She stilled her fingers self-consciously, curling them into a fist. “I’m from the city. We don’t believe in ghosts.”
“Oh, my guess is that you will,” Cora said, her confidence enough to undermine Abby’s substantially. “Trust me on that.”
The wind rose around the cottage as Cora spoke, as if the White Lady was assuring Abby that indeed, they would meet. Abby shivered and shook off the ridiculous notion. “Say you’re right, just for a minute,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “What if I don’t want her here?”
Cora’s answering laugh filled the quiet cottage. “Why ever wouldn’t you? She’s helpful, as I’ve said. She warns people when danger’s a-comin’.”
“And who,” Abby asked, brow lifted eloquently, “warns people when the White Lady’s ‘a-comin’?’”
“No warning there, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, you’ll come to appreciate her, Abby.”
“Strangely, I don’t find that reassuring in the least.” She tucked the last of her clothing into a drawer. “So tell me, Cora, have you ever seen her? The White Lady, that is.”
Cora tilted her head, eyes shadowed. She stared at the wall behind Abby, as if conjuring the ghost from her memory. “Aye, long ago. She was floating over Briggs’ field, just before I was about to take a shortcut through so that I might get home early. I took the long way,” she said, her tone suggesting that any fool would have done the same. “Can’t imagine what would have happened if I’d gone through the field, but I’m glad I didn’t just the same.”
“What did she look like?”
Cora froze. “Beg your pardon?”
“The White Lady.” Abby was suddenly breathless. “What did she look like?”
Cora blanched, as if she were seeing the ghost all over again. “Why, she looked a bit like…oh, who can say? It was dark, aye?”
A sudden chill cooled the room. A trail of goose bumps prickled along Abby’s skin, as if an unseen presence had brushed against her. Abby felt an inner tension, as though strangely, impossibly, the end of Cora’s sentence was going to be: she looked a bit like you.
If she could have, Abby would have given herself a good shake. She was clearly exhausted, and not dealing well with it at all.
“Right, then,” said Cora, dusting her hands as if to rid them of excess flour. “You’re all set. Come see me to the door, and we’ll have a chat about this lease, just in case you decide you’d like to move out after all. I’m thinking perhaps you’d be more comfortable in one of my apartments downtown. I have a lovely one—fresh painted and all— that looks right over the bay. A very pretty view, to be sure.”
“It sounds great.” Abby’s stomach growled loudly, as if to inform her that she hadn’t eaten since early morning. “Cora, if you’d be so kind as to recommend a restaurant, I’d be indebted. I’ll need a place to have dinner. You know, I recall seeing a place called Rum Runner’s on my way here. How’s the food?”
Cora’s eyes bulged. “Oh! You don’t want to be goin’ there, dear!” She led Abby down the stairs, where she rummaged in her purse for pen and paper. “The Surf side is where you want to go. The food is tasty, and—” Cora’s cheeks reddened. She lowered her face hastily, as if to concentrate on the directions she was writing for Abby. “Your mother once worked there as a waitress. You know, when she was living with Dougla—with the artist. She, uh, did a fine job, if I remember rightly.”
A thrill bloomed within Abby, thoroughly eclipsing Abby’s questions regarding Cora’s peculiar demeanor. “Oh, Cora, thank you!” She accepted the hastily scrawled directions to the Surfside, held them over her heart and swiped her suddenly tearing eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m a mess. This is all so overwhelming.”
“Aye, that it would be,” Cora said, her tone gentle.
Abby followed her into the late afternoon light that flooded the verandah. She took one look and stopped dead in her tracks.
It took her precisely half a second to come to the realization that a sunny day in Destiny Bay was just this side of magical.
She stood for a peaceful moment, letting the auburn light unfold around and within her.
Late summer was thick in the air, and evergreens seemed to stretch and yawn to the late-afternoon sounds of nature. Their shadows fell beyond the cool expanse of sand, dabbling their skinny tips in the hissing surf.
Abby inhaled a lusty portion of sweet, ocean air, deciding, as she did so, that if she could figure out a way to bottle the stuff, she’d be in the running for a Nobel Prize.
Between the weathered planks she stood upon, Abby could see tangles of vegetation and the gray boulders that supported the house—so similar in color to the sun-washed, silvery wood beneath her feet. Beyond the polished banks of stone, the surging ocean was a dither of sapphire and diamond.
A flood of impossible remembrance filled her thoughts. It was as if she had been here before, had waded through the water and trailed her fingers through the surf, rippling its surface with her passage.
Perhaps her mother had been so moved by this place that it had changed her in some way, had interwoven itself in the double helix of her DNA. And now, it was in Abby. Thumping with her heart and blood.
Abby closed her eyes against the swell of emotion that engulfed her. Her mother had lived here, had loved here, had breathed this air and swum in this ocean. She had slept beneath the very roof of this apple red cottage—and somehow it all seemed so much more intimate a connection with her than the house in Regency Park had ever been.
Abby looked at Cora, who was smiling knowingly. “I think maybe I’ll stay on. Just for a bit.”
“Aye. I thought you might,” said the woman. Her mouth lifted at the corners, eyes gone soft with the knowledge of what it meant to be swept up in the spell of Destiny Bay. “Most of our settlers landed here because of shipwreck—in other words, completely by accident. I always thought it interesting that they all chose to stay.”
“Perhaps they had no means of getting off the island once they got here.”
“Oh, it had nothing to do with that,” Cora said wisely. “There’s a reason it’s called Destiny Bay, aye? Folks have always said that the island chooses who comes here and who doesn’t. The island drew my folks’ ship off course over a hundred and fifty years ago. I’m here because I’m meant to be.” She patted Abby’s hand. Abby felt a subtle yet definite kinship arise between them, as delicate as a spider’s web, and every bit as tenacious. “And like it or not, my dear, so are you.”
Chapter Four
Abby shut the door of her car, trying to ignore the loud rumbling in her stomach. The tea she’d consumed after a short rest at the cottage had done nothing to appease her hunger. She’d amazed herself by finding her way back into town, which was nothing shy of a miracle considering her distracted state.
Her brow furrowed as she recalled Cora’s flushed face, the way she had dipped her head when she’d mentioned that Celeste had worked at The Surfside. Why had Cora reacted that way?
In fact, many of Cora’s reactions were downright confusing. She seemed to be a lovely woman—warm, welcoming, cheerful and generous. And yet, there was someth
ing undeniably enigmatic about her. It was as if a constant undercurrent of loss and secrecy eddied and pooled around her, leaving Abby feeling completely perplexed.
Was it a natural distrust of strangers? The island was isolated. Did that make islanders suspicious of strangers, no matter how innocent the motives behind their visit?
She sighed quietly, hoping that she was wrong. If they were mistrusting of newcomers, her quest would be thwarted before it began.
It’s nothing a little kindness and determination won’t overcome, she assured herself, forcing her mind to her present goal of finding something to eat at the restaurant her mother had worked in, and perhaps even a person who might remember her.
She amazed herself a second time by making it across the impossibly narrow cobbled street without losing the heels of her Jimmy Choos. She looked up and felt her jaw drop.
The timbers of the building were old, and were stained black. The front bay window looked as if it had been snatched from a sea captain’s cabin of yesteryear, and a crow’s nest soared from the roof. An amply endowed figurehead held a sign over the door that waved on rusty hinges, and her bulging eyes seemed to look down at the curlicue script that read: THE SURFSIDE RESTAURANT.
Warmth and music spilled into the street as people exited the building. A delectable aroma wafted toward her, along with the sound of laughter and a faint ribbon of smoke. She picked up her pace with designs on whatever menu selection was responsible for the marvelous smell now purling over the cobblestones…as long as it wasn’t that. Her eyes locked on the chalkboard placard declaring the chef’s special: SEAL FLIPPER PIE.
Abby stifled a gasp. They were kidding, right?
Another group of patrons passed by her, all of whom paused on the large front step. A thunderous volley of stomps and a chorus of “A curse on you, Jack!” filled the still, evening air.
Abby stared, dumbfounded.
“Well, give it a stomp!”
She looked up at the man holding the door for her. He nodded encouragingly.
“Right,” she said, utterly confused. “A stomp.”
Abby rose gingerly onto the front step and stomped.
“Oh,” he said, a look of disgust on his thin face. “You can do better than that.”
She stomped again and looked up expectantly.
“That’ll do, I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “You’ll have to try a mite bit harder, though, if you don’t want Black Jack giving you nightmares tonight.”
“I’ll, uh, keep that in mind,” she said, even though she had no idea what he was talking about. She followed him through the door and blinked, knee-deep in unfeigned amazement.
“Oh, I hardly heard you come in,” said the hostess, who stood, menus in hand, at the front door. She was tall, stout, and crowned with the thickest mane of bluish white hair Abby had ever seen. “You’d best practice that stomp. Bit tentative, it was.” The woman handed her a menu and tossed her head to the left. “There’s a table over by the helm. I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The helm?
Abby spied a slightly raised platform, complete with wheel. She made her way toward it, gazing around the interior of the building—the bulk of which, she suspected, had known its heyday in the grand old age of sail. Menus printed on aged parchment and floorboards that bore the warp and stain of seawater only added to her initial suspicion.
A haze of smoke swooned beneath the lazy turning of ceiling fans, and the sounds of camaraderie, clinking glass and accordion music filled the air.
Abby seated herself and unrolled her menu.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” The hostess had returned, breadbasket in hand.
Abby looked up into extraordinary eyes, green as ocean glass. They reminded her of two marbles that had been pushed into a dried apple, and she wondered how she’d failed to notice them earlier. “No, I’m not. I just arrived today, in fact.”
“I thought as much. I’d remember a fine-looking woman like yourself. Gotta keep my eye on the competition,” the woman said with a wink. “Your waitress will be Ronnie Morgan, owner of the Surfside. She doesn’t usually wait tables, but thanks to Marie-Claire’s second hangover this month, she’s slogging away with the rest of us,” she said merrily.
“Oh…how nice. I mean, about having the owner as a waitress, not about Marie-Claire’s hangover,” Abby said, deciding once and for all that this was undoubtedly the most peculiar place her travels had ever brought her.
“Would you like to hear about our specials?”
“I noticed them as I came in,” Abby said cautiously. “That pie isn’t really made of seal flippers, is it?”
The woman—whose name tag read Rose—cocked her hip. “Well, what else would it be made of? And a right fine job chef has done on it, too. Shall I ask Ronnie to order you a piece?”
“No! No, thank you,” Abby said quickly.
“The cod tongues and cheeks are nice.”
Abby bit the inside of her cheek. And her tongue— pitying the cods that had given up theirs for the Surfside. She glanced hurriedly at the menu. “Um, how’s the cedar-planked salmon?”
“Dreamy, m’dear. I highly recommend it.”
“Heavens be thanked,” she said under her breath. “I’ll have that.”
“Oh, a fine choice. I’ll tell Ronnie—where has that girl got herself to, for mercy’s sake?” Rose asked, glaring around the dining room.
“Uh, Rose? May I ask you one more thing?” Abby’s pulse was suddenly galloping in her chest. “Have you been working here long?”
“Oh, aye—since Miss Morgan’s folks owned the place. Celebrated my fortieth anniversary last month!”
Abby’s spirits rose a little. So did the corners of her mouth. “Oh, congratulations!”
“Thank you kindly. Ronnie and her parents got me a right lovely watch and a full week in Boston! I saw a play, threw a crate of tea into the harbor. Oh, I had me a fine time, indeed.”
“I’m sure you deserved it.” Abby smiled, wiping her hands down the length of her pants. “There’s just one more thing. Uh, I was wondering if you might happen to remember a woman who worked here a long time ago. Her name was Celeste Rutherford.”
Rose’s face changed from open welcome to barely concealed hostility. “Oh aye, I remember her. You’d be wise not to go remindin’ folks of that business.” She patted her heavily sprayed bouffant hairstyle primly. “Why are you even asking, if you don’t mind the question?” She looked at Abby through narrowed eyes that suddenly widened with recognition. “Why, you must be her…”
“Her daughter,” Abby said icily. She wanted to shout at the woman, but nothing could move past the tightness in her throat. Beneath the tablecloth, her hands fisted.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought…that is to say…I must get this order to the kitchen!” Rose babbled at last.
Abby let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. How dare that woman behave so rudely, and how dare she refer to her mother as that business? What on earth was that supposed to mean?
She glanced around the dining room in search of the owner. She had half a mind to complain about Rose to this Ronnie woman.
Heads lowered quickly throughout the dining room. Abby caught the gaze of at least four other patrons, and all had been staring at her with mingled fascination and disdain.
She forced herself to nod in greeting though her mouth quivered and her stomach heaved within her. Her legs twitched with the desire to escape the suddenly claustrophobic room. Something very strange was going on here, and Abby knew that it had everything to do with her mother.
Kindness and determination, she reminded herself.
Abby gritted her teeth and smiled.
“Here you are, miss.”
Abby looked up at her waitress—a tall, willowy woman with soft brown eyes and hair that could only be described as burgundy. She placed the mouthwatering plate of salmon, grilled vegetables, and rice pilaf in front of Abby with a flourish.
“Thank you,” Abby said, shaking Ronnie’s hand and suddenly remembering how famished she was. “I’m Abby.” Should she say something about Rose? She decided against it. If Ronnie Morgan and her parents had treated the obnoxious woman to a week in Boston, they likely thought she hung the moon.
“More mozzarella sticks?” A thunderous voice, followed by a stream of obscenities, floated from the kitchen.
Abby sank in her seat, though a quick glance at the unruffled patrons led her to believe that shouting and swearing were not such an uncommon occurrence here at the Surfside. She hoisted herself upward, deciding that it wasn’t all that far removed from stomping and cursing pirates.
“Don’t mind Chef,” Ronnie said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “People order the mozza sticks just to give him a fit. He thinks he’s too good to prepare common fare. Bit arrogant, but he’s earned a few braggin’ rights, talent that he is. I was a genius to hire him,” she said, surprising Abby by sitting down opposite her.
Abby’s mouth watered at the enticing aroma wafting from her plate. She popped a morsel of salmon into her mouth, completely at a loss as to what the dictates of etiquette demanded in the event that a waitress seats herself at your table. At present, she was hungry enough not to care. “You are a genius!” Abby said. “And so is your chef. This is the finest salmon I’ve ever tasted.”
“Of course it is,” Ronnie remarked offhandedly. “Just caught this morning, he was. Gave Uncle Ned a wicked fight, at that. Landed him flat on ’is arse! Old codger charged me extra for that. Imagine!”
Abby blinked. “Is that so?”
Ronnie leaned forward, filling Abby’s glass. “’Tis. Old Ned’s as slippery as a fish, himself. I only buy from him to keep Aunty Jane in bingo cards, bless her soul. That’s his wife, aye?”