Adele pulled the sheet up to her chin and thought hard. This could really work.
Molly could come and run the café. She was a nutritionist – that wasn’t so far away from meal-planning, was it? It was a similar thing on a different scale. Molly would be so good at it. She was a wonderful cook and even better with people. Adele could imagine it now – Molly greeting customers with menus and a huge smile and seating them with a laugh. Barbecued oysters and grass-fed burgers would be brought to beach-tired tourists, like the old days.
And Lana – she was so good with – well, okay, she wasn’t that good with people. But she’d done that stint on the stage crew, insisting it was more fun to build their sets than it was to write songs. A whole six months, Lana had been either under the stage, building it for the night, or on top of it, singing her heart out to sold-out crowds. Of all three sisters, Lana was the best at construction. She could tear apart and rebuild the hotel. Couldn’t she?
Adele stretched across the bed, feeling her body ache in places it hadn’t for a long time. She rolled, her cheeks hot as she remembered the night before, and pressed her face into the pillow. It was the wrong thing to do. She could smell him there. Involuntarily, her fingers clutched the pillowcase.
Nate.
In reaching for her dream (it was new, but it was her dream – it felt so familiar to her that maybe she’d always had it and just hadn’t known it), she’d be taking Nate’s away. Completely.
But that wasn’t fair of him, was it? He’d wanted to buy the place, but he’d also known Hugh had hoped the girls would come home. Surely there were other run-down saloons on the coast for sale? (No, there weren’t. She knew there weren’t. Something else, then?)
Or she could talk him into staying on as bartender.
And then what? Would she continue sleeping with the hired help? Was that fair? Would he leave for good? And why did her body feel so empty and cold at the thought?
Adele rose, her legs shaky below her. She showered, trying to force out the images of the night before. The towel he’d used on both their bodies was still lightly damp. She took two aspirin for her head.
A new chapter. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head. Nothing like a new chapter for stirring up the heart. Mama had loved a new chapter, whether she’d been reading them Little Women or moving to yet another town where she might hit it big.
There were lists to be made. Shopping to be done. Old wood to be ripped out (those awful built-in seats that ran under the front windows of the saloon) and new carpentry to be put in. Paint. A new drinks menu. Entertainment to be hired.
And Adele wasn’t done quite with Uncle Hugh’s apartment. She’d get the mattresses today, and she could be moved out of Nate’s room by tonight.
It was exciting. She should feel nothing but eagerness. Enthusiasm.
Instead, she thought of Nate’s mouth against her body, the way his lips and tongue had toppled her, the way his weight had crushed her so sweetly.
Don’t think about Nate.
She reached for her cell phone and did her best to ignore the deep dread rolling through her stomach.
Molly answered, thank God. ‘What’s up?’
‘I want to keep it.’
‘Keep what?’
‘The Golden Spike. All of it. The saloon, the hotel, the café.’
‘I thought you wanted to sell it.’
‘I thought so, too. But now I want to keep it.’
There was a silence on the end of the line. ‘I don’t know, Adele. I was kind of counting on that money.’
‘You’re practically itinerant.’
‘So?’
‘You don’t have bills.’
‘I have some debt.’
Adele knew how close Molly lived to the bone, but she also knew how hard she had worked to stay debt-free. ‘How much?’
‘I don’t – I can’t talk about this right now. I need the money, Adele. And you already made it sound like a nightmare there.’
Adele moved outside and sat. ‘It’s not a nightmare at this exact moment. I’m sitting on the porch swing in front of room one. Remember when Uncle Hugh and Daddy hung it?’
Molly snorted. ‘Mama kept telling them they were hanging it crooked and they wouldn’t listen so Mama made Daddy sleep on it that night.’
‘He was fixing it by dawn.’
‘I miss you.’
‘Then come. Help me.’
‘I thought you said there were no rooms except the one you stole from Hottie McHotterson.’
‘There aren’t. Not yet. But with your help there could be.’ Adele could almost see Molly’s worried look. ‘You could have the café! Fix it up! We could do it together.’
‘Have you even been inside it?’
Adele had been too scared of what she might find to ask Nate for the key. ‘Not yet. But it can’t be that bad.’
‘An old, crappy restaurant. Closed for years. Think about the size of the rats living inside there now.’
Adele pushed with her legs, making the old swing creak. ‘Mama never proved that was a rat she saw.’
‘Oh, come on. She knew a rat when she saw one.’
‘Come home.’
Molly laughed again. ‘Home? What are you smoking over there? Have you gone full-California on me now?’
‘Remember how Uncle Hugh always said it?’
Molly ignored her, her words tumbling down the line more quickly. ‘Just because the locals light up doesn’t mean that stuff is safe for a country girl like you.’
‘Fly home.’
‘Stop.’
‘I just realised it last night. That this was home. Nate –’
‘The bartender, yes? There’s a way more interesting subject. The handsome Nate helped you realise this? Did he do that naked?’
Adele choked but managed to say, ‘No.’
‘Liar. I can hear it in your voice. You got super-sexy cuddles from him.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Fast cuddles.’
‘Molly.’
‘You did. You go, girl. How long has it been for you, anyway?’
Indignant, Adele said, ‘You’re forgetting Mitch.’
‘No, I’m not. You said sleeping with him was like taking a nice warm bath.’
‘I like baths.’
‘No one likes baths that much, unless you’re putting your coochee right under the stream of water, in which case it turns from relaxing into –’
‘Molly.’
‘I’m just saying. You needed to get some of the good stuff. Was it good?’
Adele folded her lips. She was not going to say this. She could barely even think of the night before without her lower parts tightening, clenching.
‘Ah. It was. Good girl. Is this the same guy who wanted to buy the Spike, though?’
‘Um. Yeah.’
‘Have you mentioned this harebrained scheme to him?’
Adele stayed quiet, the swing moving gently under her. The ocean’s foggy breeze caressed her cheek, and for a second, she could feel Nate’s touch on her skin.
‘Ah. You did, and it didn’t go well.’
‘If you’re just going to guess everything, why do I bother calling you?’
‘I have been taking fortune-telling lessons from the ship’s palm reader. I could read yours, if you want. You could just send me a picture of it. I’m not quite sure if –’
‘Fly home.’
‘Stop saying that.’
Adele hated the way tears thickened her throat. ‘Please come home.’
‘It’s not my home.’ Molly’s words were sharp. ‘It was a place to go in the summer. You know why we went there?’
‘Because it was where Daddy was from.’
‘Because we never had enough money to stay wherever we spent the school year.’
Adele knew that. Did Molly think she didn’t know that? ‘Whatever.’
‘No Darling has ever been good with money.’
Adele wasn’t bad at it, ac
tually. ‘Are you really in debt?’
There was a fumbling sound on the other end of the line. ‘Look. You know Lana will never agree. Can you just sell to him? It’s got to be worth some cash, right?’
‘But I think this could be good for us.’
‘You can’t fix us.’
The pain was sharp and swift, a blade sunk deep, just under her ribs. ‘Yes, I can. We can fix it.’
‘It’s too broken.’
‘No.’ That couldn’t be true. Adele had never accepted it. The fight that broke up the sisters had been a nuclear blast of heat, an impetuous bout of screaming brought on by their father’s death and their grief – that was all. Didn’t her sisters know that? It was time to fix it. All of it.
There was a long pause. Adele heard a clicking on the line. It made Molly feel even farther away.
‘Look –’
Molly interrupted her. ‘We’re not the Darling Songbirds. We never will be, not again.’
‘But if we came together –’
‘I’ve forgiven you. Mostly. But Lana hasn’t. You know that.’
The blade twisted. In a moment, it would pierce Adele’s lungs. ‘Oh, good. I’m glad you’ve forgiven me for just doing my best.’
‘You pushed us on the stage that night. You know you shouldn’t have done that.’ Molly made a strangled sound. ‘No, I am not going to rehash this with you again. I’m done with it.’
‘We had to –’
‘You thought we had to feel the same way you did. You couldn’t see that we were different people from you.’
‘Doing that show was the way to bring us back together. To be us again.’
‘You couldn’t fix us, Adele, no matter how much you wanted to. You still don’t know why we’re still hurting, do you?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘What?’
‘You say you’re sorry, but I think you’re sorry we couldn’t make the tour.’
‘That’s not what I mean – but I thought if we could just do that one show –’
‘I was too sad to sing. Lana could barely stand up.’
‘That was the pills, not her legs.’
There was another pause, followed by a click – an astonishing, empty, heartbreaking click – as the line went dead.
‘Molly?’
But her sister had hung up on her.
‘Shit,’ she whispered.
There was a loud creaking above her. Adele craned her head to look. The noise was coming from where the swing’s chain bolted into the beam above.
The swing dropped an inch. She gasped and started to stand but then the whole damn thing crashed to the deck, first on the left side, then the bolts on the right side ripped from the beam, too. Adele was thrown off the porch, and down the two shallow steps. She landed on her right elbow and her left knee, her shoulder knocking into the yellow April Moon rose. Her mother’s rose. She was stabbed by at least three thorns, and she felt the blood start, sharp and hot.
She wouldn’t cry. Adele stood slowly, shaking out her limbs. Nothing was broken. She was bruised badly, but she would live.
And she would not cry.
Instead, she held her breath until she saw black spots dance in front of her eyes like whole notes. When she was a child, she’d had fever dreams that she had broken the whole house. She didn’t know how she’d done it, but she’d known she was to blame, and even her mother’s cool hands on her forehead hadn’t helped.
She knew it was just a porch swing. Just some wood and chain and bolts.
But honestly, it felt like she’d just brought the whole Golden Spike crashing down around her ears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nate held the plastic bag tight in his hands and knocked on the door of Dixie’s motorhome. It was early, and a seagull squawked sleepily overhead.
‘Go away!’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you open this door.’
‘I’m fine!’
She wasn’t fine. The message that Dixie had left on his cell phone, asking if she could have the night off, had not sounded okay. She’d been crying, or not far from it, and she was pretty damn tough.
‘Open the door or you’re fired!’ he yelled. ‘And I’ll tell Phil to shut off your electricity! He owes me one!’ Or course, Nate would do neither. He liked the fact that Dixie was parking her motorhome in Phil Martino’s mobile home park next to the marina. Phil was nosy enough to keep the whole place (full of elderly snowbirds, mostly) safe and sound.
The flimsy door of the wheeled house slammed open. He only saw half Dixie’s arm, and then heard a floof as she jumped back onto the sofa. She’d already pulled a blanket over her head by the time he entered.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing! You have to go open the bar!’
‘A few minutes late won’t hurt anybody.’ Let Adele open it. Let her just try. Anger twisted his stomach.
‘I’m just going to die under here. Alone. Go away. You can have my guitar, but it’s a piece of junk, worse than your Martin. Send my ukulele to my sister in Arkansas, it’s not half bad.’
‘Look, lady. I have a pint of chocolate peanut butter ice-cream, a brand-new unread People magazine, and a bag of barbecue chips.’
‘Chips?’ Wild brown curls, then one eyeball showed. ‘Gimme.’
‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘I lost a cat.’
‘You had a cat? Didn’t you say you were allergic?’
‘Mildly. I was just helping out a friend. Pet sitting for a couple of days. But it ran under the sink and hid, and then I forgot it was here. I opened the door to go for a walk this morning and it shot out like it was chasing a mouse made of tuna. Took a right and went up the hillside, and I haven’t been able to find it.’
‘So you’re hiding instead of looking?’ Nate yanked open the bag and passed it over. Then he put the ice-cream in Dixie’s mini freezer.
‘The cat won’t come to me. There’s no chance. It has no idea who I am. What am I supposed to do, go yell at an animal that’s nothing but scared and lost?’
‘Whose cat did you say it was again?’
Dixie’s face dissolved into tears.
‘Ah,’ said Nate. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Georgia.’
‘And she is where now?’
‘In Hawaii for a week.’ Dixie cried harder. ‘She loves that stupid cat.’
‘Colour?’
Dixie frowned and hiccuped. ‘Huh? Why would that matter?’
‘Not Georgia. The cat.’
‘Oh. Black. Small. Young.’
Of course. That wouldn’t make finding it easy. But if he could get Mrs Suthers’ damn cockapoo back every time he ran off, he could do this. ‘Name?’
‘Taco Sauce.’
Nate shook his head. ‘No. Just nope. I’m not calling for a cat named after a condiment.’
‘She found it crying next to a taqueria’s trash can.’
‘Oh, my God. Fine. Give me some canned cat food.’
It took Nate forever to find the damn thing. He was pretty sure when he got back to the Spike, Norma would be blacked out on the floor, the till empty, ravaged by some opportunist passer-by. But he kept searching. ‘Taco Sauce! Where are you? C’mere, Taco Sauce!’ On the other side of the marina, he could hear Dixie calling, too, but she sounded feeble, as if she’d already given up.
‘Taco Sauce! Come on, Little Spicy!’ He ignored the fishermen’s laughter, giving Terry Dunlap a sturdy middle finger before he scrambled into the crawl space under the marina office.
Three hours later, Nate came back to Dixie’s motorhome. He was sweating and covered with sticker burrs. Two slashes ran down his left arm. Dixie sat on the tiny sofa, a spoon dug deeply into the ice-cream.
‘You got her.’
He released his grip on the squirming, furious little animal, and it sprinted back under the sink. ‘Do we even know it’s a her? No, I take that back. With the a
mount of trouble she is, she’s definitely female.’
Dixie launched herself at him, kissing Nate on the forehead with a smack. ‘Look at your poor arm. Now it matches your other one. Was that the cat?’
‘You mean Satan? Yes.’
‘Want bandages?’
He looked at his other cut, the one he’d gotten from the dishwasher. The cut Adele had patched up, when they’d kissed for the first time in the rose garden. The wound was almost healed now, even though it felt like a lifetime ago, instead of just four days.
He’d gotten that cut before he’d felt Adele slick against him, before he’d been inside her.
Before she’d decided to destroy his dream.
‘Nah. I heal fast. I’ll just wash it.’
‘Whatever you say.’ Dixie took a huge bite of ice-cream and then spoke around it. ‘Now I can work tonight, by the way. You should take the night off.’ She winked. ‘Like you did last night.’
He was not going to go into the night before. ‘So. This Georgia. Is she good enough for you?’
Dixie sighed and rubbed his arm a little too hard with the washcloth. ‘No.’
‘But you’re falling in love anyway?’
‘You know what I always say: there’s no fun in falling unless you’re falling off a cliff.’
Nate took a wild guess. ‘Ah. She’s in Hawaii with her girlfriend?’
Dixie’s eyes welled again. ‘She told me she’s going to leave her.’
‘You know, the women you date aren’t that much different than men. Why don’t you just date one of us instead?’
‘Because I find your type boring. And obsessed with sex. Speaking of which, how was the songbird?’
He wasn’t going to let her twist the conversation, though. ‘Seriously, Dixie. You’re too good for her. Just like you were too good for Elaine and Dari before that. Why do you let them treat you like the hired help?’
‘Hey.’ Dixie was obviously struggling to appear nonchalant. ‘The hired help get tips, just like at the bar.’
‘What’s your tip going to be for watching her cat?’
Dixie looked down at the washcloth. ‘She was going to spend the whole night.’
The Darling Songbirds Page 18