Holidays at Crescent Cove

by Shelley Noble

  For an instant he considered leaving her there long enough to ransack her kitchen for food and get the hell down the road. But his better self reined him in and he made the slow ponderous turn back to where she was struggling to get up.

  As he reached for the pitchfork, she looked up at him, a zap of energy from clear blue eyes, full of challenge, anger, though whether at him or herself was hard to tell. And along with those two emotions, he saw something else, a flicker of fear.

  He hesitated. “Hey,” he said. “I’m one of the good guys.” At least he’d tried to be.

  He held out a hand to help her up. She just looked at it for a moment and finally took it. With David pulling and his captor pushing with the pitchfork, they managed to get her to her feet. He suddenly noticed how rosy her complexion was. Probably from exertion or embarrassment.

  She was tall, David was taller. And he was getting tired of being prodded with an oversized fork. He extricated it from her hand and struck off toward the house and warmth.

  “Hey,” she yelled, fighting to keep up with him. “You have to wait for me.”

  David would have smiled if he could get his lips to move. As it was, he just kept trudging onward.

  She lunged after him, pitched forward again. David gave it up. He tossed the pitchfork and his backpack onto the porch and went back to help her.

  This time when he pulled her to her feet, he didn’t let go. While she was getting her balance, he threw her over his shoulder and plodded toward the house.

  “Put me down. Are you nuts?” She squirmed and kicked and they both nearly went down.

  “No, but I might be a soprano if you keep kicking like that.”

  Her boots stilled. A few ponderously heavy yards later he deposited her on the kitchen porch.

  “Thank you,” she said between clenched teeth, but he thought she did that to keep them for chattering. He knew he was losing enamel, the way his were banging together.

  “And if you’ll call off your dogs, or husband, or both, I think it would at least be a nice show of appreciation to offer me a cup of coffee.”

  He reached for the door and was startled to see two little Asian faces peering out the glass window at him.

  The woman pushed past him and called out something that surprised him. She spoke in Mandarin or at least her version of it. The faces moved away. She opened the door and gestured him in.

  David entered the house, and the heat that hit him was almost painful, but it was a blessed pain. He let out a relieved sigh as he stood at the threshold and looked around. The children had disappeared.

  “Do you mind if I get out of these shoes and coat?”

  The woman was already shedding her jacket to reveal a pink flannel pajama top. “Crap,” she said as she realized he was watching her. She quickly shed her boots, revealing red and white striped socks with toes. She yanked off her hat, and long blond hair fell past her shoulders.

  Damn. Damn and damn.

  “You can take them off but don’t leave this room.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She ran past him still wearing her snow pants, which he surmised covered pink flannel pajama bottoms. He began removing his gloves; heard more execrable Chinese from the other room. He removed the rest of his outerwear and found a bathroom where he cleaned up the best he could and went back into the kitchen to find a coffeepot. Hopefully, she’d let him have a cup before the police came.

  He searched the fridge and cabinets while his toes and fingers burned as the circulation returned. He found a fine grind espresso in the fridge and was dumping it into a coffeemaker, finally feeling warmer than he had in the last twenty-four hours, when he heard someone behind him.

  He turned, the coffee scoop arrested in air. Christ Almighty, she was beautiful. She’d tied that amazing hair back into a low ponytail. In jeans and a sweatshirt, she appeared incredibly tall and thin. He frowned at her, trying to figure out if she was really the same woman who’d held him hostage in the barn.

  “I, um—” He held up the coffee scoop as explanation. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. Probably an early symptom of frostbite—or stupidity.

  She came into the room, moving slowly, her gait smooth now. Gait? Hell, she wasn’t a horse, she was a beguiling woman who exuded a kind of bewitching presence, like an actress or something. She was in her thirties, he guessed, though he’d never been that good at guessing women’s ages. She didn’t appear to be wearing makeup, but it didn’t matter in the least, she had close to perfect features. Hell, except for that slight limp, she could have been a model.

  “I see you’ve made yourself at home,” she said.

  “Sorry, I thought you could probably use a cup of coffee. I know I could.”

  She curled her lip at him. Ironically, it made her look more alluring.

  He turned back to the pot and began dumping coffee into the filter. Poured water and turned the coffeemaker on. He knew he was taking a lot for granted from this woman. But he was cold, hungry, and just too tired of the whole mess to care.

  He was like a horse sensing the stable, rushing to get this last duty fulfilled and head for home. Only he didn’t have a home, just a barn for the night and a woman with a pitchfork.

  The coffee started hissing.

  “Did you get someone on the phone?”

  “Yes. They’re all busy. Bunch of downed power lines. Hell, you’d think it never snowed in Connecticut.”

  Chapter Three

  BRI STOOD REGARDING David Henderson’s back. What the hell was she going to do with him? Now that he was inside, she couldn’t very well thrust him out into the cold again. The kitchen window thermometer said it was twelve degrees.

  A cold walk into town.

  But he couldn’t stay here.

  “I told the dispatcher you wanted to talk to Nick. She asked your name. She’d never heard of you. She asked me what it was about. I told her I didn’t know. She thought it was odd.” And so did Bri.

  “Look, I know you feel uncomfortable with me here. I don’t blame you. I don’t normally sleep in barns. I just couldn’t find a hotel and it was dark and cold, and I was tired.”

  “So you said,” Bri said, refusing to give in to his rationale. He could still be a psychopath, and she would have put them all at risk.

  David had been frowning at her, but now he looked past her and smiled. Bri turned to see Mimi and Lily peering out from behind the doorway. That was one of the problems with the language barrier. She’d taken them to their room and told them to stay. For all the good it did.

  “Zao shang hao,” David said, in what to Bri sounded like perfect Chinese. Her suspicion barometer shot to the danger zone.

  Mimi and Lily ran to Bri and hid behind her, but they peeked out at this new person, full of curiosity. She laid a protective hand on each little head and narrowed her eyes at him. Bri didn’t believe in coincidences. She’d never had a vagrant sleep in her barn before. Never met someone looking for Nick. And on top of that spoke something that sounded like fluent Mandarin At least it did to her, whose grasp of the language was basic at best.

  He spoke to them again, and the two heads nodded in Bri’s palms.

  “Did you just ask them if they were hungry?”

  “Yes. It’s morning, and I for one could use some breakfast.”

  “Where did you learn to speak Mandarin?”

  “I know bits of lots of languages. I can say hello, order food, and ask the way to the American embassy in at least ten.”

  Bri couldn’t help it, she smiled. Caught herself. “You’re not a spy the agency sent to see how I’m treating the girls, are you?”

  “No ma’am. Just a traveler who happened to stop for the night in your barn.”

  “How did you know Ben Prescott?”

  His eyes hooded over. “I’ll tell you over breakfast. I can’t rememb
er the last time I ate. Yesterday sometime, I think. Are your girls adapted to the new diet yet or shall we make congee and steamed eggs.” He’d spoken the last words in Mandarin, and Mimi and Lily squealed and repeated “steamed eggs, steamed eggs,” until Bri gave in and pointed him to the fridge.

  “I don’t suppose you’re better at steaming eggs than I am.”

  David shrugged, opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Depends on how bad you are.” His words echoed from inside the fridge.

  The girls cautiously left her side and tiptoed toward the open fridge door. They squeezed in on either side of him and looked inside, too.

  “I’m pretty bad, but they eat it . . . most of the time,” Bri said, then realized no one was listening. And she had to fight off a little pang of jealousy when she saw how readily the girls were taking to this stranger as he handed the egg carton and a container of rice out to them.

  Jealous and wary.

  “Then allow me. I’m a pretty decent cook. It’ll be pay for my night in your barn.”

  Bri acquiesced. That way she could keep an eye on him until Nick got here.

  The kitchen began to fill with the aroma of cooking. David found a package of bacon in the freezer and was standing at the stove, stirring rice, turning bacon and popping bread in the toaster like a short order cook. Which, Bri realized, was entirely possible. A man hitchhiking cross-country probably had to pick up odd jobs where he could.

  The windows had misted over and Bri and the girls drew funny faces on the frosted panes, but she still kept one eye on David while he worked.

  At first she told herself she was making sure he didn’t pull anything. But after a few minutes she just watched him as he moved from toaster to oven to fridge with a kind of choreographed grace, though he was a big man, tall, lanky, spare as if he’d been tempered in fire.

  And when the hell did she start waxing poetic in the morning? She shook herself. Got up and began setting the table.

  David announced breakfast, and the girls ran to their places, held their bowls in both hands and looked expectantly at him. It was one of the things Bri hadn’t gotten used to. Their fear that there wouldn’t be enough food for them.

  It broke her heart every time. And she couldn’t find the words to explain to them they would always have enough to eat, clothes to wear, a home. And all the love she could give.

  She met David’s eyes, saw that he understood, and she quickly looked away. She didn’t want to share that deep, soul-twisting emotion. It was too dear, too precious, too personal.

  And how did he know what she was feeling, anyway?

  He took the girls’ bowls, poured congee and eggs into them and took them to the table. Mimi and Lily followed close behind him, their mouths already open, like baby birds.

  He went back to the stove, filled two plates with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast and put them on the table. He motioned for Bri to sit, then poured two mugs of coffee and sat down across from her.

  Bri’s heart skipped several beats. It was a normal enough scene, played out in homes across the world. But not here. It would just be her and her girls. Every bad choice she had made in her life was because of a man, and after the accident that ended her career, she’d sworn to never let her fatal attraction be her downfall ever again.

  Mimi and Lily finished eating. Bri had been paying too much attention to the stranger sitting across from her and they’d gulped down the food.

  The girls had spent most of their lives worrying about getting food, and it was a hard fear to overcome. Usually she sat with them, reminding them to eat more slowly, telling them about lunch even when she hadn’t thought about what she was making for lunch. But today she hadn’t been paying attention and they looked a little confused.

  “Tell David thank-you for your breakfast,” Bri told them.

  Lily happily obeyed, but Mimi kept her eyes on her bowl.

  Bri sighed.

  “What’s your name?” David asked Lily.

  Lily straightened up and said, “Lee Lee.”

  “A very pretty name,” he said.

  “Lee Lee.”

  He chuckled and repeated his comment in Mandarin. Lily smiled.

  He turned to Mimi, who ducked her head until her face was almost buried in her Princess Jasmine sweater.

  David ducked down, too, tilted his head until he was on the same level as her and could see her face. She glanced up at him from beneath jet black lashes.

  “Do you have a pretty name, too?”

  A tiny little nod.

  “Let me guess. Dia?”

  She shook her head, a tiny movement.

  “Hmm. Not butterfly. Let’s see. I’ve got it. Hua.”

  Mimi looked up quickly, shook her head.

  Bri wished she could understand what names he was saying. Hoped they weren’t anything to make Mimi even shier and more frightened than she already was. Lily, being younger, had adapted to her new life faster than Mimi. The adoption agency people said this was to be expected. Mimi had spent more years in the orphanage than Lily. It was a life she was accustomed to, she knew no other, and it was harder for her to try new things.

  “Wait, don’t tell me.” David frowned, knitting his eyebrows together. Then he smiled. “Nangua?”

  Mimi pouted her bottom lip at him. But Bri could tell she was trying not to smile. “What does ‘Nangua’ mean?”

  “Goose.”

  Bri smiled.

  “Me Me Boy,” Mimi whispered.

  “Mimi boy?” David glanced a question at Bri.

  “Boyce,” she said, “Mimi Boyce.”

  “Ah, and that would make you Mama Boyce?”

  Bri nodded.

  “Well, Maomi. What is Mama’s name?”

  Mimi’s pout reluctantly changed to a smile. “Bee.”

  “Bee Boy. Mama,” David said.

  “Mama,” Mimi said.

  “Okay, girls,” Bri said. “Why don’t you go turn on the television? Five minutes.” She held up five fingers.

  Both girls slipped off their chairs and hurried to the door.

  “Hey,” David said. “Lily and Maomi.” He rattled off something that Bri couldn’t begin to follow. He just knew how to order food and ask directions, her eye. The guy spoke pretty fluently.

  Both girls immediately came back to the table, took their bowls over to the counter and placed them next to the sink.

  “Thank you,” he said, this time in English.

  They smiled and ran into the great room. Bri listened for the sound of the television coming on. When she heard cartoon voices, she turned to David, not knowing whether she should be angry that he was trying to usurp her position with the girls or thankful for encouraging them to do more.

  He took his plate to the sink and came back with the coffeepot.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For breakfast and for reaching out to my girls. And my name is Brianna. Brianna Boyce. Bri.” She shrugged. “Or Bee.” She smiled.

  “Hmm. How long have you had them?”

  “Since the beginning of November. About six weeks.”

  “They seem pretty well adapted.”

  “You think? It’s been a giant learning curve. For all of us.”

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “Is that the voice of authority?”

  He huffed out a sigh that might have been a laugh. “Hardly. I just wondered . . . Are you dong this alone, or is there a Mr. Boyce?”

  “No there isn’t.”

  “A significant other?”

  She frowned at him. “No. And since I’m not intending to have one, I decided to adopt them myself.”

  “Hey. I wasn’t making a judgment, just conversation.”

  “Who are you?”

  He raised both eyebrows. “Just a guy trying to do what he sa
id he would do and finding no room at the inn. Actually, not finding an inn at all. Nothing more or less.”

  “There are no hotels in Crescent Cove. A few B and Bs that open in the summer. But the motels are out on the highway.”

  “Not at the exit I came from.”

  “You hitchhiked here from where?”

  “Most recently from the New Haven bus station. Met a guy driving up to Rhode Island and he gave me a ride to the Crescent Cove exit. Thanks to the kindness of some strangers. At least you didn’t run me over last night.”

  “I—”

  “I recognized the SUV. I don’t blame you. You shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers.”

  Bri shifted uncomfortably. She wasn’t exactly afraid of him. Not anymore. But he seemed awfully . . . something. She couldn’t put her finger on it. Though at home came to mind first. Followed quickly by and not telling the whole truth.

  She reached for her coffee mug mainly just to have something to focus on. “You were going to tell me how you knew Ben Prescott.”

  He picked up his coffee mug. Held it in both hands. Looked into the dark liquid as if he might find the answer there.

  “I met him in Afghanistan.”

  “I figured that much. Were you a soldier, too?”

  “No, I was working . . . on an aid team there. Ben was leader of the squad assigned to provide escort to the supply convoy that serviced us.” He stopped and frowned as if conjuring the image of their shared past and not liking what he saw.

  A shiver shot up Bri’s neck.

  “We got to talking.” He glanced up. “That’s all.”

  “But he gave you a letter for his brother. Why?”

  “A lot of guys did. You know, write a letter they hoped no one would ever have to send.”

  Bri cut back an unexpected sob. Embarrassed, she stared down at her hands clutching her coffee mug. “He was my first crush.”

  “Really? Was it . . . serious?”

  She shook her head. “Only if giggling near the lifeguard stand is serious.”

  He smiled.

  She hadn’t meant to tell him that. “So he gave you this letter.”

  “Yes. I hoped I would never have to send it. But—”