Sanctuary Cove

by Rochelle Alers

  She stood up when she heard a door slam, then Whitney’s voice, deep and resonant. When had it changed? “Whitney. I’m in the family room.”

  “Aunt Barbara told me you were back. I thought you weren’t coming home until Friday.” Tall and broad shouldered, seventeen-year-old Whitney had grown into a fine young man. He’d inherited his mother’s fine features and hair texture. Leaning down, he kissed his mother’s cheek, then folded his long frame down opposite her.

  “Um, Whitney, did you actually buy jeans with ripped knees?”

  “Yep. They’re awesome.”

  “Oh… well.”

  “Is it true we’re going to the Cove for New Year’s?”

  “Yes, Whitney. I thought it would be nice to bring in the New Year there.”

  He smiled and an elusive dimple shown in his right cheek. “I think it would be nice if we moved there now.”

  “I’m shocked you don’t want to wait until the house is sold.”

  “Why are you so surprised, Mom? It’s not as if we have to sell this house before we can move into Grandma’s.”

  “Go get Crystal and tell her to pack enough clothes to last the weekend and all of next week. You do the same. When we drive Aunt Barbara and her family back you can bring anything you want to use on the Cove.”

  Whitney stood and gave his mom a firm hug and kiss. “Thanks, Mom.”

  Deborah pounded his hard back. “You’re very welcome, Whit. Now, go and tell Crystal to come home and pack,” she repeated when he finally released her.

  Pushing to her feet, she walked over to the window overlooking the flower garden she’d begun the year Crystal was born. Each year for the past fourteen she had added another variety of flowers on Crystal’s birthday. She sighed, realizing the ritual would end when they moved.

  Celebrations would continue, but not in Charleston.

  Chapter Three

  Welcome to the new Parlor Bookstore!”

  Deborah opened the door, flipped the light switch, and stood aside to allow Barbara, Crystal, and thirteen-year-old Janelle Nash to enter the space that was to become her bookstore. Terrell, his son Nate, and Whitney were on their way to Jack’s to reserve a table for their pre–New Year’s Eve dinner. She had decided not to head over to the Abundant Life Church for the night watch service.

  “What do you think?” Deborah could barely hide her excitement.

  “It smells nice, Mom,” Crystal said, hugging Deborah.

  Deborah gave her daughter a tender smile. “Thank you.”

  “Can we look around, Mom?” Crystal asked.

  Deborah shared a glance with Barbara, who nodded. “Yes. But be careful when you go upstairs. There’s a light switch on the right wall. Make certain you turn it on before you go up.”

  “So, it’s real,” Barbara stated in a quiet tone.

  Deborah nodded. “It’s very real. I didn’t tell you, but I have a buyer for the house. A young married couple with twin boys and they’re paying cash.”

  “Damn! What are they into? Drugs?”

  “Be nice, though I have to admit I thought they robbed a bank at first,” she chided. “Her father just happens to own one.”

  Looping her arm through her soon-to-be ex-neighbor’s arm, Deborah steered Barbara to the door that led to the upstairs apartment. Crystal and Janelle were already there peering through the windows she’d spent time cleaning.

  “Oh, how charming,” Barbara intoned. “Once the kids are off to college, you could certainly live up here.”

  “Or it could be my first apartment if I decide to go to college in Charleston,” Crystal announced.

  Janelle gave Crystal an incredulous stare. “Why would you need your own apartment if you already live in a house?”

  Crystal returned the stare. “Once you go to college you need your own place.”

  “Hello!” shouted a man from the first floor.

  “Wait here,” Deborah told the others as she headed for the stairs. “Who is it?” she called out, walking down the staircase as quickly as she could without falling.

  “Is that you, Deborah?”

  Standing in the middle of the store was Jeffrey Hamilton, sheriff of Cavanaugh Island. Tall, dark, and handsome, the ex-Marine captain had managed to evade the advances of every single woman on the island since he’d returned to the Cove. He’d moved in with his grandmother, assuming the duties of sheriff after his predecessor retired.

  Resting her hands at her waist, Deborah gave him a warm smile. “Hey, Jeff.”

  Taking a step and extending his arms, he pulled her close. “Hey yourself, beautiful.” He sobered and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry to hear about Louis. He was an incredible human being.”

  Deborah kissed Jeffrey’s smooth cheek. “Thanks.”

  “How are your kids doing?”

  “Coping.” The single word spoke volumes.

  Jeffrey released her, his dark eyes meeting hers. “I was just patrolling the area when I saw the light and open door. I thought some kids who couldn’t get off the island decided to raise a little hell and break in and leave their tags.”

  Her eyebrows lifted a fraction. “We have a graffiti problem?”

  “No. Not yet. What we’re trying to do is stop it before it becomes a problem. A few of the fisherman have found tags scrawled on their boats. As soon as they paint over them the vandals strike again, then move to another location. I had the town council install cameras here on the Cove, but the folks in Angels Landing and Haven Creek claim they don’t want the law monitoring their every move.”

  “They’ve always been a strange lot.”

  Jeffrey smiled, lines fanning out around his large, deep-set eyes. “Don’t you mean breed?”

  “Don’t even go there, Jeff,” Deborah admonished. “My grandmother used to give me the look whenever I mentioned wanting to visit the other parts of the island to see if they were the same as the Cove. I guess she got tired of me asking when she told me that some of the people who lived there had tails and cloven hooves like goats. I had nightmares for years until I saw someone from Angels Landing and the only thing I found strange was the contrast of his light-gray eyes and his very dark skin.”

  “What are you doing in here?” Jeffrey asked, deftly changing the topic.

  “I’m renting this space. It’s going to be the new location for my bookstore. And before you ask I’m going to tell you that I’m moving to the Cove!”

  Jeffrey’s expression was sincere as he gently patted Deborah on the back. “Good for you. How about your son and daughter? How do they feel about leaving Charleston?”

  “Let’s just say they’re not crying about leaving.”

  “Good for them. I’ll leave…” His words trailed off as a woman followed by two giggling teenage girls joined them. Deborah made the introductions, Jeffrey shaking each hand and wishing them health, peace, and happiness for the coming year. He touched the bill of his baseball cap, turned on his heel, and continued his patrol of the downtown district.

  “We’ll meet you at Jack’s!” Crystal called as she and Janelle took off running.

  Barbara raised her hand. “Don’t—”

  “It’s all right,” Deborah interrupted, turning off the lights and locking the front door. “Nothing’s going to happen. Jeff’s going that way, so I’m certain he’ll keep an eye on them.”

  As they headed toward Jack’s, Deborah nodded to longtime residents as they strolled leisurely along Main Street. They’d reached the town square with its huge fountain and statue of patriot militia General Francis Marion atop a stallion, standing more than thirty feet high. It was the tallest structure on the island. The fountain was empty, but during the summer months people threw coins into the flowing water with the hope their wishes would come true. Stone and wrought-iron benches were crowded with revelers and those taking advantage of the comfortable nighttime temperatures. There was enough space on one of the wrought-iron benches for them to sit together.

  Deborah stared
at the line outside of Jack’s, waving to Crystal and Janelle when they turned in their direction. Janelle tugged on her father’s arm, pointing. It appeared as if half of the Cove had turned out to eat at Jack’s before attending the night watch service.

  Barbara also waved to the girls and her husband when he raised his arm. “How long will it be before we can get a table?”

  “Probably about twenty minutes, judging from the length of the line.”

  Deborah saw the man who had been in the Muffin Corner the first day she’d returned to the Cove. He sat a short distance away on a stone bench. Their eyes met and again they shared a smile. “Happy New Year, Mr. Monroe.”

  He nodded. “Happy New Year to you, too.”

  “Who is that?” Barbara asked sotto voce.

  Deborah leaned closer to Barbara, while shifting her gaze to an elderly couple. “His name is Asa Monroe, and he’s a snowbird.”

  “He’s delicious,” Barbara whispered again.

  Deborah chanced a surreptitious glance at the man, who was sitting with one leg crossed gracefully over the other. He appeared totally relaxed, his right arm stretched out over the back of the bench he shared with a trio of teenagers.

  “He is handsome,” she agreed. And he was. Asa’s smooth skin, even features, salt-and-pepper cropped hair made him strikingly handsome, while he possessed an elegant sophistication some men spent their entire lives striving to perfect.

  “When did you meet him?” Barbara asked, continuing with her questioning.

  “We were never formally introduced.” Deborah told Barbara about seeing Asa when he’d walked into the Muffin Corner.

  “Don’t look now, but he’s staring at you.”

  “Stop it, Babs.”

  Barbara smiled. “It’s been a while since you’ve called me that.”

  Deborah exhaled audibly. “It’s been a while since I’ve felt this relaxed.”

  “Are you relaxed enough to start over again?” Barbara asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Barbara covered Deborah’s hand with hers, gently squeezing her fingers. “I know you just lost your husband, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop living and loving. You’re only thirty-eight and your son is seventeen. In eight months he’ll be off to college. And in another three years it will be Crystal. You’ll be what—forty-one or two—still a young woman who has the other half of her life in front of her. Do you plan to live it alone?”

  “How can you talk about me hooking up with a man when I buried my husband exactly four weeks ago today?”

  “I’m not talking about you hooking up with a man, Debs. I just want you to keep your options open. If a man shows an interest in you, I don’t want you to give him a screw face. Be nice,” she continued, her voice lower, softer. “There’s nothing wrong with going to dinner with him or even inviting him over for coffee.”

  Deborah knew Barbara was right. In another three years she would be in her early forties and alone. Both her children would be in college and she would encounter the empty-nest syndrome for the first time. “I’ll think about it. But there is something I need to tell you about myself, but that will have to wait until we’re alone.”

  Barbara nodded, then stood up. “Terrell is signaling us it’s time to go in.”

  She also rose to her feet, and when she turned she saw that Asa was no longer there. They were ushered inside Jack’s Fish House. To say the place was humming and jumping was an understatement. Every table was occupied and the noise level was ear-shattering. The muted televisions were turned to different stations, showing pre-holiday entertainment, and the platters of fried catfish, buttery, sweet cornbread, black-eyed peas, and rice made her mouth water.

  Deborah did get to see Asa again, this time inside Jack’s when he was seated at a table for six. She didn’t recognize any of the other four men or the one woman at his table. The Cove was only three square miles with a permanent resident population of eight hundred, and that translated into everyone knew everyone—if not by name then by sight.

  She thought about Mabel’s statement about the monies snowbirds spent that helped to sustain the mom-and-pop businesses throughout the winter season until the horde of tourists swelled the population to more than two thousand throughout the summer. Deborah knew it was risky opening a business in the Cove when so many were closing, but she had a slight advantage. The Parlor would be the only bookstore on Cavanaugh Island.

  What she didn’t want to think about was not making a go of her bookstore, and also of Asa Monroe—a stranger who had managed to intrigue her. She knew nothing about him other than his name, but there was something in the way he stared that made Deborah feel slightly off-balance. The last time that had happened was twenty years ago when she’d met Louis Robinson.

  Asa Monroe half-listened to the conversations floating around the table as he pretended to concentrate on the food on his plate. He sat with guests who were also living at the Cove Inn for the winter. He hadn’t wanted to join them, but it was either share their table or wait hours until a table for one was available.

  As the diners chattered around him, Asa stole surreptitious glances at the woman he’d first seen at the Muffin Corner, now seated a few tables away. He didn’t know anything else about her other than what Mabel had told him, but there was something about this mystery woman he mentally referred to as Sunshine that drew him to her like a powerful magnet. Her smile was mesmerizing, her sultry drawl hypnotic. Deborah Robinson was also the first woman in the two months since he’d come to Cavanaugh Island that piqued his interest. And in a town as small as Sanctuary Cove, Asa loathed asking too many questions about her. After all, he was a snowbird, a transient, and although he’d been warmly welcomed by everyone he didn’t want to raise a red flag when he made it known he was interested in a woman who could be married. The first thing Asa had noticed was she wasn’t wearing a ring, but neither had he when he’d been married.

  Asa speared another forkful of seafood rice, enjoying the piquant blend of bacon, onion, pepper, garlic, crabmeat, oysters, and shrimp. His expression softened noticeably when Sunshine draped an arm over a teenage girl’s shoulders and then pressed a kiss to her hair.

  She has to be her daughter, he mused. Asa knew the boy sitting opposite Sunshine was her son, because of their striking resemblance. He’d inherited her golden-brown coloring, the expressive black arching eyebrows, and even the shape of her eyes. He had usually never been one to engage in people-watching. But observing Sunshine was something Asa enjoyed and looked forward to doing again and again.

  Reaching for his mug of beer, he held it aloft when Sunshine glanced in his direction. Holding her gaze, he winked at her then took a deep swallow. A smile crinkled the skin around Asa’s eyes when Sunshine’s jaw dropped. He was hard-pressed not to laugh when he noticed she had raised her glass of tea in a silent toast. He mouthed Happy New Year, and he wasn’t disappointed when Sunshine inclined her head in acknowledgment.

  Chapter Four

  Why aren’t you asleep, Mom?”

  “Why aren’t you asleep, Whit?” Deborah asked, answering her son’s question with one of her own. “It’s after three.”

  Whitney stood by the doorway to the screened-in back porch in a tank top and pajama pants, staring at the flickering black-and-white images on the television. She’d muted the sound and closed captions appeared on the large flat-screen that sat on a stand on an oaken pedestal table.

  Deborah had continued a tradition begun after her parents had introduced her to the fantasy/science fiction television show made popular in the late fifties; she’d watched six half-hour episodes of the New Year’s all-day marathon of The Twilight Zone.

  “I got up to get some water and saw that Janelle and Crystal weren’t in their room.”

  Deborah had given Terrell and Barbara her bedroom, while Janelle shared Crystal’s bedroom and she’d paired Nate with Whitney. She’d bedded down on the queen-size convertible sofa on the back porch.

>   “They’re under the covers.” She smiled, gesturing to the bumps on the far side of the sofa bed. “They claim this episode is too scary to watch.”

  When Whitney entered the porch he saw what his mother was talking about. “Oh, this is the one with the talking doll.” He flopped down on a cushioned rocker. One of the bumps moved under the quilt. “I loved this one, especially when Talky Tina tells the little girl’s stepfather, ‘My name is Talky Tina and I don’t think I like you.’ ”

  “Hush, Whit. The girls can hear you,” Deborah chastised. “Why do you think I muted the sound?”

  “I can’t understand why they’re freaking over a silly looking doll. Now, if they were afraid of the seed of Chucky I’d see why they would hide under the covers.”

  “That’s enough talk about demonic dolls,” Deborah whispered even though she’d unmuted the sound as the episode ended. “The girls don’t play with dolls anymore, but they still have their collections.” Placing a finger over her lips, she winked at Whitney. “Girls, it’s over.” Their heads emerged from under the pile of quilts. “I think it’s time you go back to your bedroom.”

  Crystal gave her mother a sorrowful look. “Mom, please. Just until six o’clock.”

  “No, Crystal. You have to get enough rest because I want you and your brother to clean out the trunks in the crawl space. Something the two of you were supposed to have done over the Thanksgiving weekend.”

  “Can’t it wait until next weekend?”

  Deborah didn’t want to get into a debate with her daughter. Each and every time she asked Crystal to do something there was always a squabble because Crystal’s mantra was what you don’t want to do today can be done tomorrow. “No, it can’t. You know this house is smaller than the one in Charleston, and if there is something you want and it doesn’t fit in your bedroom, then it can be stored in the crawl space. If you don’t clean it out and there’s no room then I will donate your things to charity. Now, please get up, go to your bedroom, and go to sleep.”