Pelican Pointe Boxed Set Books 1 - 3 (A Pelican Pointe Novel)

by Vickie McKeehan

  “That’d be great, thanks,” she said as she wondered how long it had been since anyone pumped gas in her car and checked under the hood without having to take it to a garage for that very purpose. “Where I come from this kind of service is―nonexistent.”

  He grinned. “Let me guess, big city. Welcome to small town USA. Usually, I let the guys pump their own, but the women―whether they’re young or old or in between, if I’m not too busy putting in a new engine or carburetor, I try to make it a point to pump gas for ’em.”

  Hayden smiled. “Well, thanks.” Wally seemed friendly enough. If the rest of the town was like him, maybe she’d decide to stay.

  When the pump clicked off, he thumbed the air over his shoulder and told her with a wink, “You pay the good-looking brunette inside.”

  Hayden made her way into a narrow, cramped elongated convenience store where a counter held a cash register and all kinds of displays for lighters, candy and gum, breath mints. Packages of cigarettes, a huge assortment of brands, filled the slots behind the counter, along with cans of smokeless tobacco.

  A young, petite woman with glossy chestnut-brown hair punched some buttons on the register and announced, “That’ll be forty-two dollars, please.”

  Hayden cocked her head. “By any chance are you Lilly?” At that moment two little towheads popped up from behind chairs in the waiting area that emptied out through a door to the garage. The little girl held a naked Barbie doll in one hand and waved a miniature purple outfit in the other, while the little boy ran two matchbox cars around on the floor.

  Hayden handed the woman some bills to pay for her gas.

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Jordan Harris mentioned you were a friend of hers. I’m staying out at Promise Cove for a couple of days. She showed me your watercolors. You’re very good.”

  “Oh, that. Jordan is fantastic. Nick’s pretty good, too. They’ve both turned out to be such great friends to me and the kids. Are you down from the Bay? We get a lot of tourists here from the San Francisco area.” Lilly tilted her head to study Hayden. What she saw was a tall, stylish woman in trendy jeans with one of those celebrity-flattering, angled bobs that only a couple of women on the planet could pull off. This one definitely had the hairdo working for her.

  When Hayden saw Lilly staring, she asked, “What? Do I have something on my face?”

  Lilly laughed. “Sorry. I was admiring your hair. I’d love to wear mine like that but it wouldn’t look as good on me as it does on you. That’s the same way Katie Holmes wore her hair when it was short.”

  “Good eye. I’m pretty sure hers was the photo I brought into the salon to show the stylist what I wanted. I’m Hayden Ryan by the way,” she managed to toss out, a lot smoother than she had the night before.

  “The look definitely works on you. Are you just passing through or here to stay?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question. If I stay I’ll need a job, a place to live, and a whole lot of luck finding both. I’d planned on heading to Santa Cruz, maybe I still will.”

  “Hmm, I’ll be honest. It took me a while to find work around here. You have to have a ton of patience and be willing to think outside the box. As it is, I have two part-time jobs because I couldn’t find a full time one. I almost packed up and went back to Monterey, that’s where I’m from, but my kids have moved around a lot.

  “And after my mom died, there’s really no one there that I’m close to anymore. I decided to tough it out here. And you know what? I’m glad I did. Pelican Pointe isn’t the friendliest town, but Jordan and Nick are out to change that. Wally and I are, too. But because of Nick and Jordan I’m off state assistance. Believe it or not, Jordan has turned out to be my closest friend. She’s had a rough time of it, too.”

  “Jordan?” Hayden asked in surprise. That must be what she had alluded to earlier.

  “Yeah, but it isn’t up to me to tell you about it. You’ll have to ask her.”

  “I’ll do that. Well, it was nice talking to you, Lilly. If you hear of a job or a house to rent, could you let Jordan know? I’ll be at the B & B until the weekend.”

  “I’ll ask around. Wally grew up here. He helped me find my house within walking distance just a few blocks from here. If anyone knows what’s going on around town, it’s Wally. Good luck to you, Hayden. I hope you stay and I’ll see you around town.”

  “Maybe,” Hayden said as she waved goodbye to the kids. She left Wally’s and drove up Beach to Ocean Street, which ran north and south along the old wooden pier. Across from the wharf she found a parking place on the street in front of a row of cute little bungalows with well-maintained lawns, some decorated with little whirly windmills with neatly manicured flower beds.

  This area reminded her of the little town in New York where her mother lived.

  She got out and walked along the road admiring the houses with their neatly trimmed shutters and coats of colorful paint, their homey front porches and wondered if she could find one for rent, But after walking the length of Ocean and back again, there were a few that sat empty with for sale signs in the yards, but not a single one available for rent.

  Feeling somewhat deflated, she crossed the street determined to check out the shops, though most of them looked as if they were either geared to the local fishermen or tourists.

  There was the bait and tackle shop, which was a little too smelly and messy to her mind to stay for very long. But then she’d never had the desire to fish.

  She checked out the boat rental place and decided she might rent a canoe and go kayaking if she stayed in the area. When she came to the bar called McCready’s, it was a little too early in the day to go inside for a drink. She skipped that, and headed into a tiny T-Shirt shop that also stocked tacky souvenirs. There were shot glasses, ash trays and all kinds of sea shells crammed into plastic bags, along with beach essentials for the tourists who might have forgotten to pack their sun tan lotion, flip flops, or swim suits. The beachwear looked as though it was about three years behind in style.

  When she got back outside on the sidewalk, it didn’t take long to discover what Jordan had meant. Hayden passed plenty of vacant storefronts. There were as many here as she’d seen along Main. Some were in such bad shape though it would take a ton of money and plenty of elbow grease to bring them back to life.

  But something about the area appealed to her. Maybe it was the fact that it wasn’t Chicago and what she was running from. Maybe it was the quaintness of the narrow streets, or the tree-lined neighborhoods, or the row of small independent retail shops.

  But looking out at the spectacular view of Smuggler’s Bay and the ocean beyond, stretching out as far as the eye could see, she decided this was what lured her. The idea of living this close to the water.

  She couldn’t help it; she wandered down to the little strip of sandy beach below the retail area and began to gather seashells. Soon she had enough to fill her pockets. The sand along this stingy part of beach might not have been the most pristine like the kind she’d seen during the one trip she’d taken to Cancun. No, this beach contained a dirty brown top layer from too many tar balls washing up on shore. But then, no area was perfect.

  When her leg muscles started to burn from all the walking, she sought out one of the benches at the far end of the pier that looked out over the Bay and sat down to watch the boats bobbing up and down in the water.

  There was no denying how ancient the town looked or how much it needed a serious makeover. Rising from the ashes or coming back from the dead might be expecting a little too much.

  Sitting there taking it all in, Hayden simply wasn’t convinced she had anything to offer, or to contribute to the town’s resurrection.

  If she landed here instead of Santa Cruz what was the downside?

  She’d have to deal with the curiosity that she was sure to garner about any newcomer in a town this size. But then wasn’t that true no matter where she ended up. Could she handle the eventual Spanish Inquisiti
on from Deputy Cody? Now there was a dilemma, she decided. But who was to say she wouldn’t face the same thing in Santa Cruz.

  All Cody would have to do was make a phone call to his brother and bam! Hayden Ryan would be on some other member of law enforcement’s radar. Maybe she should head to San Francisco after all. But the exorbitant high cost of living there prevented her from even seriously considering that for longer than ten seconds. She reminded herself, once again, that Santa Cruz was an unknown.

  She sighed. Decisions, paths, forks in the road, whatever they were, it was time to take one and stick to it. Because what it boiled down to was that she really liked Jordan Harris. The woman added a big plus sign in the Pelican Pointe column.

  Hayden sat there a little while longer trying to shore up her courage to head over to the Hilltop Diner and fill out an app. The Hilltop Diner needed a waitress. It had been the only other employer in town, other than Springer Realty, that had advertised under the help-wanted section of the newspaper. Technically there had been three, but Hayden didn’t think she qualified to work on a fishing boat.

  She’d already decided somewhere between leaving Wally’s and talking to Lilly and walking around that it was time to dig deep and muster the nerve to start over somewhere. And it might as well be here in this little speck of a town. She wasn’t sure what appealed to her. It certainly wasn’t the town itself. Jordan Harris on the other hand, seemed nice and genuine. So did her husband, Nick. Add to that, she had met Wally and Lilly, who had been friendly enough to put a dent in that outsider resistance veneer. Lilly had even admitted to taking help from the state. Real people with real problems. Of course, none of those problems included a crazy Russian snake who wanted them dead.

  Letting out another sigh, she got up to walk back to her car and go back to Main Street and the Diner.

  Margie Rosterman had scraped together her savings and bought the Hilltop Diner in 2001, a ’50s malt shop knock-off that had been a Pelican Pointe staple since 1965.

  Margie was tall, almost six feet, with a wild head of graying red hair and huge blue eyes. Dressed in jeans and a white shirt, the woman looked sixty, but Hayden had learned within the first ten minutes her basic life story and that she happened to be ten years younger.

  “I haven’t had time to get a resume together,” Hayden explained. “Coming in here was impulse.” Hayden sat in one of the four red vinyl booths that lined the front wall with window views of Main Street and started having second thoughts. “I just got into town day before yesterday. For now, I’m staying out at the Promise Cove B & B. But I have references.” And Kate had lined every one of them up for her.

  “Good to know. Jordan’s good people. But resumes don’t matter much with me. Half the time people lie on them anyway. And don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve run my own place for so long references don’t mean a thing to me either. Half the time people get friends to say pretty much anything good about them when the opposite is true. Believe me, if you have what it takes to waitress I’ll know it, if you don’t, well, I’ll know that too. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to wait tables, but it’s no piece of cake either. I’ve had people think they could waltz in here and do the job with a blindfold, only to discover before the end of the day, they can’t cut the mustard. It’s harder than it looks.”

  “It is that. I have waitressed. It’s been a while, but I figure I can get the hang of it again.”

  “Good, ’cause I need someone to work the late shift, five days a week. That’s four to nine, Tuesdays through Saturdays. Twenty-five to thirty hours to start. That’s all I can offer for now, no benefits either, but you get a fifteen minute break and meals thrown in before your shift starts if you get here early enough to eat. Plus, the regulars tip real good. You get Sundays and Mondays off, which Abby Pointer covers ’cause the Snip ’N Curl is closed those two days.”

  When Hayden looked confused, Margie went on, “Abby works there the rest of the time for her older sister, Janie. Abby’s got a little girl. Most times it takes two jobs in this town to make ends meet. But it ain’t a bad place to live and this ain’t a bad place to work.

  “I open up at six in the morning, run the morning routine for two hours on my own until Eileen Faraday comes on at eight when business starts to pick up. She works until two. Eileen’s been with me six years come next spring. Two to four I cover myself ’cause the lunch crowd usually tapers off about that time of day. Still, we can get a few stragglers coming in to grab a cup of coffee and a piece of pie or cake, or get a burger to-go. I run a real nice place, clean, and I’m fair. Just ask Max, that’s my cook, Max Bingham. Been with me since I opened this place up ten years ago.

  “Truth is I have three reliable employees I can count on, Max, Eileen and Abby. The 4 to 9 shift is the one I can’t seem to keep filled. Every person I’ve hired comes and goes like this is some kind of a stopping off place for most of them. No one’s itching to spend their nights slingin’ hash their whole lives, believe me, I know.”

  Hayden looked around. The place wasn’t large. It had a black-and-white-checkered floor that was far from spotless. In fact, there were yellowed stains on the linoleum, maybe decades old that had worked permanently into the pattern. The black marble-looking counter was just as faux as the décor, which tried for retro but came off a bit on the tacky side instead.

  The eight padded red stools under the counter had seen a lot of wear and tear and at one time someone had tried patching a few of them with red tape, but the color was a tad off and some of the ends of the sticky stuff had long since curled up in protest.

  The dining area consisted of eight mismatched square tables and an odd assortment of chairs, plus the four booths along the front windows. At the end of the counter Margie had somehow managed to squeeze in a Wurlitzer juke box, which at the moment was blaring out Clint Black’s Killin’ Time.

  Hayden couldn’t imagine making much tip money here. But she was desperate. And she’d decided that a small town might be better than Santa Cruz for keeping a low profile. After all, who on earth would believe straight-laced accountant Emile Reed would ever end up here?

  “When do you want me to start?” Hayden asked, as her stomach jingled with nerves.

  “Tomorrow would work for me.”

  Hayden reached across the table to shake hands with Margie. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon then.”

  The minute she parked her car in the driveway at Promise Cove, Hayden went in search of Jordan. She found her where she’d left her, in the kitchen preparing dinner, spreading marinade over some type of fish.

  “Guess what? I found a job!”

  “The Hilltop Diner, I know.”

  Hayden plopped down on one of the tall bar stools in front of Jordan at the counter. “Wow. News travels fast. Is that some kind of record even for a small town?”

  Jordan chuckled. “Margie called, said she forgot to mention you have to wear a uniform.”

  “A uniform? But…” Hayden frowned. “Margie wasn’t wearing one. She wore jeans and a button-down white shirt. I just thought…”

  “She’s the owner. She said you could stop by and pick it up in the morning before your shift. Seems like the last waitress left one behind.”

  “Ewwww. Someone else’s uniform? I’m not wearing that.”

  “Don’t blame you. We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you pick it up, see if we can come up with something similar? We’re about the same size and I have an outfit I used to wear when I catered, traditional black slacks white blouse. Oh my God, I just had a thought. Seems to me the few times I’ve been to the Hilltop, the waitresses there wear these God-awful, hot pink outfits.”

  Hayden’s face fell. “Hot pink? You’re joking.”

  Not wanting to heap anymore disappointment on her than was absolutely necessary, Jordan decided to change the subject. “What did you think of Pelican Pointe?”

  “I saw a lot of empty buildings.”

  “The town’s fallen on hard t
imes.”

  “I walked up and down the neighborhood near the pier, drove through town, and didn’t see a single for rent sign either. Which brings me to ask, I was wondering if you could discount one of the rooms for me? You know, like staying here thirty days or longer might get me a better price, at least until I can find a place to rent.”

  At that moment, Nick came through the back door, catching the last part of the conversation. “You didn’t tell her?” he asked Jordan.

  “I was waiting until dinner. Why don’t you do the honors?”

  Nick nodded. “We have a studio apartment over the garage. You’re welcome to rent it. It isn’t much. There’s no phone line and if you need to use the Internet you’ll have to make use of the computer here in the house for guests. There’s no AC, but with winter coming that shouldn’t be a problem. But hey, the shower works, the bed’s comfortable. Why don’t you go take a look and see if it will work for you until you find something better?”

  Hayden sat there with her mouth gaped open. “Just like that? I…I…don’t know what to say.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “Why? Why are you guys so nice to me?”

  Nick and Jordan saw the emotion on Hayden’s face about the same time. They exchanged looks. It was Nick who explained, “We’re a big believer in second chances, Hayden. And being good neighbors, helping one another out through difficult times. Times are tough for a lot of people right now, it might be financial, but then again it might be something harder to define, harder to talk about. Get Jordan to tell you about our situation sometime.”

  With that, he tossed his keys on the desk in the corner and walked around the counter to where his wife stood, placed his arms around her waist. “I didn’t kiss you hello, did I? Let me fix that,” he said, as if Hayden wasn’t even in the room. Hayden stuck her chin on her palm, leaned on the counter and watched the show as Nick gave his wife a killer smile before going in for a long deep kiss.