David stepped forward and wrapped his long arms around Heather, dwarfing her. “You’re going to do wonderful work here. I know you will.”
“Thanks, Dad. I have to admit it’s the perfect place for me to do my work on shorebirds. If I can’t do it here, I can’t do it anywhere. You know”—she hesitated—“I haven’t properly thanked you for finding this beach house for me.” She laughed. “And renting it.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“I think they are. I was so caught up in my fear over leaving home that I didn’t tell you how grateful I am. My work is important to me, so I appreciate your support. I’ll do my best. I promise you.”
“That’s enough thanks for me. I have confidence in your talent. And in you.” He paused. “I’ll miss you.”
Heather offered a tremulous smile, holding back tears. “I’ll miss you, too.”
“We’ll come for a visit soon.”
“Don’t wait too long.”
Her father straightened and took a step back. She was stunned to see his eyes were misty.
“Call or text me when you get back,” she told him. “No matter how late.”
“Who sounds like the parent now?”
She looked into her father’s eyes and was overcome with a sudden rush of love for this man who was still raising her, caring for her, worrying about her, even though she was well past grown. It was about time he found some peace, she reflected. Impulsively, she offered him the kindest farewell gift she could think of.
“Send Natalie my love.”
AFTER HER FATHER left, Heather closed the door and leaned against the wood. In the resulting quiet she slowly let her gaze sweep the softly lit beach house.
She was, Heather fully realized, truly alone. She paused, expecting to feel some tremor of anxiety. But to her surprise, she felt none. Just a slight sense of unease at being in a strange place. Perfectly normal, she told herself. Just new smells, not knowing where everything was. Everything unfamiliar. She pushed away from the door, eager to get busy.
She went first to the kitchen to take stock of the groceries her father had brought with them from Charlotte. Her heart softened at imagining him pushing a cart through the grocery store, something he wasn’t accustomed to. Heather and her mother had always done the housework in their traditional home. That he had offered to “pick up a few essentials” for the trip had meant the world to her. David had been a single father for eight years and they’d regularly cooked and shared meals during that time. No one knew her tastes better than he did, and her stringent scrutiny for organic products.
She pulled out a can of vegetable soup and, rummaging through the wooden cabinets, found a dented pot and dumped the soup into it. After a few tries, the gas stove lit. A good start, she told herself. The fridge was sparkling clean, always a relief. From it she pulled out a bag of prewashed organic lettuce and kale. While she waited for the soup to heat, she found the corkscrew and uncorked a very nice bottle of Cabernet that her father had selected. Mentally thanking him for his generosity, she found where Cara kept the wineglasses and poured herself a liberal amount. Good wine, salad, and the heated soup—an adequate dinner for a first night in one’s new home, she thought. She put everything on a tray and carried it out to the sunporch.
The sun began its slow descent, drenching the sunroom in magenta. The birds were restless at the light change of a day’s end, hopping back and forth on their perches. The sound of their evening song was comforting, like whispered good nights from dear friends. She didn’t feel so alone with their persistent chatter. She went from cage to cage offering them small bits of kale after the long trip. Like her birds, Heather picked at her food, too restless to eat. As the sky slowly shifted from lilac to purple to indigo she grew increasingly aware that she was alone in a big, dangerous world. Looking out, she hadn’t anticipated that at night the ocean was one vast, unbroken blackness. She rose and one by one she closed all the shades. Then she went from room to room turning on lights. The soft yellow light immediately warmed the living room and made it feel cozier, not so empty. Glancing at the clock on the wall, she saw it was already nearly 9 p.m. Not that late, but it had been a very long day. Tired, she covered her birds with cloths and bid them good night, then went into her room.
The master bedroom was connected to the sunroom by French doors and decorated in crisp white and mahogany wood, like an old Jamaican inn she’d once stayed at with her parents. A tall mahogany four-poster bed dominated the room. It was luxuriously outfitted in crisp white cotton sheets, a fluffy white down blanket, and several pillows. A large painting of a beach scene with two children—a dark-haired girl and a blond boy playing with a shovel and bucket in the sand—hung over the bed. During the house tour, Cara had mentioned that her mother had commissioned the painting when she and her brother, Palmer, were children. Long white lace curtains fluttered in the evening breezes.
Yet as charming as the bedroom was, after Heather had changed into her nightgown, washed her face, and crawled into the spacious bed, sleep eluded her. She’d tried to follow Cara’s suggestion to leave all the windows open and enjoy the sounds of the ocean, but she only startled at every noise, shivering at every foreign murmur and echo. A feral cat was courting. A few cars drove past. Her imagination became a terrible thing, conjuring up burglars and worse. With a huff of frustration, Heather flung back the duvet and went from window to window in the house, closing each tight and locking it. Climbing back into her bed, she felt safer, more secure, even if the air grew stifling. She propped up a few pillows and began to read the book she’d placed on the bedside table, a love story. The night dragged on. Gradually, in the wee hours, her eyelids grew heavy and, too tired to fight against it, Heather relinquished her fears to a deep sleep.
She awoke from her sleep once, sometime before dawn, calling out for her mother. Sitting upright in bed, she remembered her dream. There was a mother—not her mother, she realized now, but someone like her mother with golden hair. And kind. Even loving. The air was filled with the scent of jasmine. This woman she didn’t know had smoothed back the hair from her face, then placed a tender kiss on her forehead. It was one of those dreams that had felt so real. She wasn’t frightened by it. On the contrary, she felt comforted, soothed. Even welcomed. She sighed, feeling the need for sleep overcoming her once again.
Part Two
GROWTH
Barbara J. Bergwerf
AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER
Oystercatchers are large, boldly patterned birds common to seacoasts in temperate to tropical parts of the world. Their heads and necks are black, and the wings and backs are dark brown, and have white breasts and bellies. Their distinctive, bright red, long bills are used for feeding on oysters, clams, and mussels.
Conservation status: Greatest Concern
Chapter Five
THE NEXT MORNING Heather felt refreshed, despite the sheen of sweat forming on her brow. The house was muggy and hot shafts of sunlight pushed through the slim cracks in the plantation shutters. She rose to sit at the edge of the mattress, then slowly yawned and stretched her arms over her head, blinking in the light. From the brightness, she could tell the sun was high. She reached over to grab her watch from the bedside table and was shocked to see it was almost 9 a.m. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so late.
A burst of birdsong from the porch brought a smile to her face. Her birds! The poor things, she thought, whipping back her blanket. They’re still under their covers. And they’re singing! What good sports. She slid off the mattress and hurried out her bedroom door that led to the sunporch. Part of her joy in having canaries was their cheery disposition early in the morning. It was as though they started her days off on the right note. Despite the drawn shades, she was surprised that there was quite a bit of sunlight filtering into the room. It was no wonder the birds were awake and singing.
“Coming, sweet friends,” she sang out as she rushed to the cages. One by one she lifted the white cotton covers.
The canaries were bright-eyed, jumping from perch to perch in the tiny travel cages. Their cheerfulness was contagious.
Heather hurried to the windows and sliding doors of the sunroom and opened them wide. Feeling the cooler air blow in she breathed in and knew she had to overcome her fears and leave the windows open at night as Cara had recommended. She paused to stare out at her first morning on the beach.
The sun was high in the sky and the great ocean glistened blue in reflection. It had rained during the night, no doubt the same fast-moving storm that she’d driven through, but it was far out to sea now, leaving in its wake a crisp morning sans humidity. She docked her phone in her speaker. In another moment she heard the rich baritone of Johnny Cash.
Heather stretched out her arms and began dancing to the beat. Music had the power to scatter her inhibitions and allow her to feel free. It filled the empty spaces of her life as a shut-in. She shared this love of music with her birds who sang exuberantly in the background. For her, music was better than medicine. It never failed to lift her mood and boost her energy. The strong backbeat had her feet moving and she laughed out loud with the joy of it.
MUSIC POURED OUT from the open doors and windows of the beach house when he arrived. Bo dropped his heavy bag of tools on the ground and rolled back his shoulders. His heavy work boots made imprints on the sandy soil as he walked around the frame of the deck, assessing what had to be done. Brett had explained the job thoroughly; a deck wasn’t rocket science. Still, Bo took pride in his work and wanted to build the best deck he could. Brett was his mentor and his friend. He’d expect no less from him.
Bo surveyed where the dunes ended and how much room he had to play with for his steps. As he walked, the shape of the deck formed in his mind. At least he’d be out on the island near the surf as he worked this job, he thought with pleasure. As with Brett, the ocean called to him. Whenever the waves were forming in the early hours of morning he grabbed his board and headed for the beach to surf.
He walked up to the deck to get started. The voice of Johnny Cash floated out from the house and he smiled, grateful for the choice of music. Then he laughed, hearing the song punctuated by the high trill of birdsong. Brett had told him he had a new tenant. A young woman with birds. He laughed again at the notion. She had to be weird. . . . Looking toward the house a movement inside caught his eyes. It was his custom to knock on the door and make his presence known. He didn’t want some freaked-out homeowner to call the police on him. He walked carefully along the narrow strips of wood toward the screen door. Then he stopped short, arrested by the vision of movement waltzing across the floor.
The young woman was beautiful. Damn gorgeous, in fact. Her arms were stretched out as her feet moved in time to the music, her long white nightgown twirling around her ankles, her blond hair loose down her back. She hummed as she danced and it took him a minute to realize she was talking to those birds, moving from cage to cage as she fed them. He wasn’t a voyeur. It wasn’t his style to peek inside windows at pretty ladies. But something in her movement, so uninhibited, told him this was meant to be private. He didn’t want to interrupt, or worse, embarrass her.
Without knocking he stealthily moved back and climbed down off the deck. He stood a moment, flummoxed. There was something about this girl . . . a spirit of innocence and joy . . . that he felt drawn to. Like a moth to the flame, he thought ruefully. This girl was here for the summer, Brett had told him. Then she’d be off again, back to Charlotte. He shook his head of fanciful thoughts and looked at the pile of lumber waiting to be installed. Mister, you have your work cut out for you and best get started, he told himself. He could make his presence known in a little while, after the lady of the house got settled.
The music changed. Now Bob Dylan was singing “Girl from the North Country.” One of his favorites. Bo took one last glance at the house then turned and began working, singing along with the song.
HEATHER PUT FRESH water and seed into the small glass containers. The morning routine of moving from cage to cage was akin to a dance with smooth movements that she’d perfected over time. As she fed the birds, she sang and called them by name, and they responded to her calls.
That done, Heather went into the kitchen and started the coffee. She was very particular about the way her coffee was brewed. She used only organic, free-trade coffee beans and ground them fresh for every pot. She filled the kettle and turned on the gas, ground the beans and lined the drip filter. While waiting for the water to boil she opened the window over the sink. This one overlooked the neighbor’s yard and the large 1920s Victorian-style house trimmed with gingerbread and painted a soft blue. A white picket fence corralled the property that, like hers, rolled down to Ocean Boulevard. A woman stood trimming the hedge with large, unwieldy clippers. She was tall with short white hair under a broad straw hat. She appeared to be rather old—in her eighties, perhaps—but vigorous. She was really going after those shrubs. Heather watched her for a moment, debating whether to go introduce herself, but then another woman stepped from the house and called the gardener in for breakfast. Heather thought she’d heard the red-haired woman address her as Flo.
The teakettle boiled, demanding her attention. She poured the steaming water in the filter and, humming again, cut up organic kale for the birds. They loved their daily greens and would greedily gobble them up in no time. When all was ready, she carried a tray with her cup of coffee and the birds’ kale back to the sunroom.
Three large boxes filled with metal birdcages took up much of the floor space, waiting for her to assemble them. It wasn’t easy removing the folded metal cages from the boxes. They weighed a ton and clattered noisily as she spread them out on the floor. They took up the entire room. The task suddenly loomed larger than she’d anticipated. She’d never been handy and didn’t know a screwdriver from a wrench.
An hour later, she sat in front of a partially assembled birdcage staring at the directions with utter dismay. They didn’t make any sense. She felt sure the maker had mistranslated something. Heather had no natural talent for building, and this mishmash of directions would take a master builder. In a fit of pique, she crumpled the offending pages and threw them across the room with a growl of frustration. She would have given up, except she couldn’t leave her birds in travel cages for the entire summer.
“Don’t you worry, boys,” she said out loud to the birds, more to encourage herself. “I’ll figure something out.”
A gentle knocking sounded on the sliding doors of the sunroom. Heather startled and jerked her head toward the door. A man was standing at the screen door. His hair was a shaggy blond, which gave him a youthful appearance, but even through the dark screen she saw that his physique was too formed, his stance too confident for him to be a boy.
Heather rushed clumsily to her feet, clutching the neckline of her nightgown, poised to run. What an idiot she was to unlock all the screen doors! There was nothing to stop him from coming inside.
“Hello?” The man called out in a friendly tone.
Heather paused at her bedroom door and cautiously turned toward him. He hadn’t moved from his place outside the screen door; he might even have taken a respectful step back. He was young, about her own age, she figured. He was casually attired in jeans and a black T-shirt; she couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark sunglasses he wore. She might have scurried off but for the aura of sweetness that rose up with his smile. It changed his face, like the dawn breaking the darkness.
“Ma’am?” he called out, lifting his hand in a quick wave. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to let you know I’ll be starting work out on the deck. My name’s Bo.”
Heather’s breathing returned to normal with the dawning of understanding. Right—Cara had told her that someone was coming to finish the deck this morning. She relaxed slightly but still clutched her nightgown close to the neckline. She was embarrassed to be seen by a man who’d come to work while she was still in her relatively revealing, flimsy nightie.
He smiled again, and this time he seemed amused by her reaction.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, then turned and departed.
Yes, ma’am? she thought indignantly. She was too young to be called “ma’am” by someone the same age as her. Was he teasing her? Or, she wondered with chagrin, was she behaving like an old woman? Her cheeks flamed; it was likely both. She retreated behind the doorframe, then peered from behind the slanted shutter to watch as he walked back to the edge of the deck and jumped with athletic ease down to the sand below.
When she was convinced his attention was otherwise occupied, Heather slipped back out to the sunroom and locked the screen doors. A woman living alone couldn’t be too careful, she told herself. Then she hurried to her bedroom to dress. She locked that door, too. The bathroom was small, but Cara had done a nice job renovating it all in white tile and upscale fixtures. The compact shower had a luxurious rain showerhead. As she scrubbed her long blond hair, Heather felt the miles she’d traveled swirl away down the drain. After drying off, she wiped the large mirror clean of condensation, and her large blue eyes stared back at her.
“Not a good start to your first day,” she told herself reproachfully as she pulled her hair up into a loose topknot and wrapped an elastic around it. “First you can’t figure out how to put together the cages, and then you freak out when some guy comes to work on the deck. Get a grip, girl.” She dropped her arms and gave herself a scolding look. “You’re the mistress of Primrose Cottage now.”
Beach House for Rent Page 7