“How many do you have now?”
“It’s down to a skeletal three volunteers, plus Pete. Pete is always willing to go that extra mile.”
“He loved your grandfather.”
“He did indeed.”
“What kind of animals do you have in residence now, Keegan? Do you still have that cute little seal?”
Keegan snorted knowing how that cute little seal had grown to nearly three hundred pounds and almost ate them out of house and home. “We released the seal two months ago. Now we have a resident sea otter still recovering from starvation. We call her Minnie because she’s so small, kind of like Minnie Mouse. She’s pregnant, probably due any day now.”
“Really? That’s fascinating. How many do you think you’ve rescued over the years?”
“Me? Not that many, but granddad, he probably saved a thousand or more.”
“What you do is—extraordinary—and your place is awesome.”
“You think so?” Keegan asked. “Sometimes it feels a little like insanity.”
They walked along a ragged sidewalk marred with broken pavement and passed a number of abandoned storefronts until they reached the section of town even more derelict than the rest. Here a group of warehouses hadn’t seen an occupant in three decades.
Guinness trotted beside them, sniffing and inspecting every blade of grass and weed that sprouted up between the gaps in the cement.
When they reached a two-story red brick building originally built as a hotel back in the ’40s, Keegan stopped long enough to pull out a small remote control from her jacket pocket and pressed the button. An iron gate began to slowly slide on its wheels along a track until it fully opened wide enough that a vehicle could easily drive inside. They walked across a paved lot, what once had been a parking area for the old hotel.
But these days the former lodge was a mere memory. Porter Fanning had gutted the place in the ’90s and remodeled the structure into a marine wildlife hospital that rivaled those in bigger cities. Now it offered a state-of-the-art nursery with heated concrete floors, an exam room that doubled as an operating area, a small token office, and much-used laundry facilities.
Once inside the fence, the repaved area led to a renovated, modern compound complete with five roomy, outdoor cages all with their own in-ground pools so the mammals could exercise, swim and have plenty of space to move around.
At the sound of Guinness’ “honey, I’m home” bark, a young, college-aged female emerged from one of the enclosures and sent them a wave. “Hey, Keegan, did you bring me back that pup?”
Keegan squinted in the direction of Abby Anderson, a sunny blonde with a deep, abiding love for wildlife. Abby was one of the brightest interns out of the current crop of UC Santa Cruz marine biologist hopefuls Keegan had interviewed.
Keegan considered it her good fortune she had snagged the energetic, cheery volunteer since most would rather work at more popular places like San Diego’s Sea World or further north at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
“Nope. Couldn’t find him in the water—yet—but I’m not giving up. He might’ve beached himself already, that’s why I’m going back out as soon as I get a shower and put on dry clothes.”
“Hmm,” Hayden muttered. “I can see you out in the dark walking up and down the shore with a flashlight before you quit for the night.”
Keegan shrugged. “It’s better than leaving him out there stranded and injured.” She turned to Abby, “How’s the pelican doing?”
“Better.” Abby eyed the blanket Keegan still used against the chilly night air and asked, “Did you take a spill in the water or something?”
“Are you kidding?” Hayden burst out. “She saved a man from drowning in Smuggler’s Bay.”
“Probably some stupid tourist who decided to take a swim and didn’t know how dangerous the undertow is in that area.”
“Something like that,” Keegan mumbled. She turned to Hayden, remembering the woman’s ordeal last fall when she had people trying to kill her, and asked, “Will you be okay walking back by yourself or do you want Abby to go with you?”
“I’ll be fine. You go on and take a shower. I want to see the pregnant otter and the pelican first though. What’s wrong with the pelican?”
“Some good Samaritan brought him in last Saturday after finding him in the park in San Sebastian with a broken wing, starving to death. And you watch your fingers, Hayden Cody. Don’t go sticking them in through the fence. Some of these animals bite. And that pelican is in quarantine until we know he’s healthy enough to join the others.”
“Yeah, yeah…I know, I know,” Hayden muttered when Abby took off for one of the pens in the back to show her the injured pelican sitting away from the others in a cage by himself.
Keegan watched them go before following a walkway across the length of the complex and headed for the 1940 two-story Craftsman, painted a sunny butter color that sat on the other side of the property, away from the chaos and noise of the center.
The home her grandparents had occupied for almost half a century sported four squared stone pillars halfway up that turned neatly into wood trim they kept painting white for contrast. A huge dormer window, front and center, took up most of the sloped, second-story roof.
When she got to the bright red front door, a permanent reminder that Mary Porter had had a spirited, creative side, Keegan paused to stare down at her grandmother’s tidy flower beds, laden with a mixture of budding white gerbera daisies and bright yellow coreopsis. Daisies had been Mary’s favorite flower.
Since last November she had tried mightily to maintain the plants. But after four months of reading all sorts of books on gardening she’d picked up at Hidden Moon Bay Books, she didn’t seem to have the same kind of green thumb.
She shook her head at the blossoms, the droopy leaves. First chance she got she needed to head over to The Plant Habitat and get a serious heads up on how to grow daisies, otherwise they were all going to wither away and die—just like her grandparents.
She sighed. Okay, so maybe she knew a little something about depression. Losing her grandparents had been heartbreaking and difficult. But despair, no matter how deep, didn’t mean suicide was ever the answer.
She had to get the image of the man’s eyes out of her head. She didn’t want to consider how anyone could be that dead inside enough to want to end it all.
Because being down didn’t mean you had to give up. Ah well, what she needed now was a hot shower, a meal, and out of these damned wet clothes.
After all, Cord Bennett wasn’t her problem.
Chapter 3 Book 3
After four long months of having the house to herself Keegan still couldn’t quite get used to coming home to the silence of it sitting empty.
As soon as she opened the front door and stepped into the long, rectangular living room, Guinness barreled past her, sliding, as he always did, on the wide-planked cherrywood floors.
Wet and cold, she eyed the tail-wagging dog. “You have to be as hungry as I am. Okay fine, you get food first then I get a hot shower.”
She headed to the kitchen and the pantry where she stored the dog food. Scooping out a generous portion, she heaped it into his dish, and then made a dash for the stairs. All the way up she heard the sound of Guinness crunching his way through his chow.
Once she got to the bathroom, she turned on the water and began unlacing her shoes. She tossed them into the hallway and started peeling off her top then her jeans.
She stepped under the hot spray, and tried to calm down from the ordeal at the pier. It wasn’t everyday she played lifeguard and saved someone’s life, especially since that someone didn’t want to be saved.
What would make a person do that, she wondered as she used her familiar apricot scrub to get the sea water and salt off her skin.
She did her best to hurry because damn it, she was starving—and she needed to find the sea lion. But a little thought nagged in the back of her mind and wouldn’t let go. If she hadn’t bee
n out on the water looking for the injured pup, she never would have been around when Cord Bennett went into the water.
He could be dead right now, drowned from his own stupidity. There was something pathetic about that.
By the time Keegan emerged from the bathroom, warmer and cleaner, it was almost eight-thirty.
She pulled on a pair of clean jeans and pulled a soft, beige sweater over her head. She braided her wet, straight hair back into a tight tail and picked up the damp towels around her feet, then went back into the bathroom to hang them on the towel bar to dry.
For some reason, without meaning to, she couldn’t get past what Cord Bennett’s gentle brown eyes had looked like. But those dark eyes hadn’t just been glazed over with an alcoholic buzz. They had looked incredibly empty—and sad. She’d never seen eyes like that on a living thing so vacant. She realized now he might be the first person she’d ever been around who had actually tried to take his own life.
When she spotted the blinking light on her answering machine she knew exactly who had called. She hadn’t lived in a small town for two decades not to know how fast news travelled. She pushed the button on the machine and listened in sequence as half the town wanted to know how she was doing.
Small towns didn’t need to go national when they had their own network full of people who cared.
Keegan had known these people for most of her life. She knew they meant well. They’d been great after both funerals. But it didn’t mean her safety net wasn’t full of holes. People had their own lives, their own sets of problems. They didn’t need to dwell on hers.
Her stomach reminded her she needed to eat.
Even though she was craving a cold beer and that cheese sandwich and fries, she snagged a Snickers bar instead off the counter, grabbed a flashlight out of the laundry room and called to the dog. “You ready for another adventure. Let’s get the truck and the netting and go find us a sea lion.”
Sitting in the back seat of Ethan’s police cruiser, Cord wasn’t worried. This wasn’t his first ride to the drunk tank, and certainly not spending the night at the county’s expense. Nor was he too concerned about the psych evaluation. He’d seen at least half a dozen psychiatrists after he’d been released from the hospital and knew all the buzz words by heart, all those key phrases that would tell the shrink he was as sane as they were. He knew exactly what to say to push all the right buttons. He’d done it before.
“You gonna let me have a phone call, Ethan?” Cord grumbled. “I gotta call Nick and Jordan, let them know they’ll need to get someone to do my chores.”
“I have something better than that in mind. We’re making a stop at the Cove. You can tell Nick yourself, face-to-face, man-to-man. If we don’t stop, Nick will just make a point to drive all the way to Santa Cruz to pay you a visit. This way, I’m giving him the opportunity without having to leave his family on a Friday night to get in your face. You need help, Cord. That’s what I’m saying and that’s what Nick’s gonna say. This is your chance to get it.”
Cord watched as Ethan made the turn down a long driveway, past an apple-green sign that read Promise Cove Bed and Breakfast and pulled up beside an old Victorian.
At that moment, Cord didn’t know he could feel anymore chastised. But at this point he had no doubt that if you gave Ethan Cody twenty minutes with a nun he’d find a way to make the sister feel guilty as hell about something.
It didn’t help any that he knew he deserved it. So the minute Nick opened the door and Ethan came around to the back and pulled him out of the car, Cord prepared to go into apology mode.
He saw Nick step outside onto the porch and close the front door behind him. “Sorry, Nick. I…”
But Nick didn’t let him finish. “Save it. Because we talked about this a time or two already I’ll tell you straight out. You need help, Cord. Apparently it’s more than what Jordan and I can give you. It’s obvious we aren’t in a position to provide you with what you need. We’ve tried but you seem content in wallowing in your own misery. You told me you were going into McCready’s for a couple of drinks not to get drunk. I told you when you came to work for us I’d put up with a lot but I wouldn’t tolerate you drunk around Hutton or Jordan, that’s bottom line.”
Cord shifted his feet listening to Nick’s assessment. He knew Nick would be disappointed in him but this was a new way to go. Guilt. “I wasn’t drunk around Hutton or Jordan and you know it,” Cord put in.
“Ethan pulled me out of McCready’s, I admit to that. I went for a walk on the beach, decided to go for a swim and sober up, wandered a little too far out in the surf. People are making a big deal out of nothing.”
Nick pointed his finger and stated, “Right there is the problem. You really think I buy that. Keegan Fanning pulled your ass out of the bay not more than half an hour ago. With the rip tide you both could’ve drowned. You think she wanted to take an impromptu swim in freezing water tonight? Of course you don’t think of anyone but yourself and how miserable you are. You’re damned lucky she was around.”
Cord moved his shoulder around to show Nick his manacled wrists. “Ethan’s locking me up!”
“Because you had a gun! You tried to end it all! You seem to forget, not that long ago, I walked in your shoes. But despite all my guilt I never once tried to kill myself. Do something about it, Cord. Agree to counseling or find another job.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah, I do. It pains me but you get into grief counseling and a program like AA, maybe rehab or so help me we’re done. You have to want to help yourself. Maybe Jordan and I can’t make you go. But as your employer, I can, and will. As the owner of Taggert Farms, we have a liability if you have a drinking problem on the job and now it seems you’re suicidal.”
“Come on, Nick, I do not drink on the job and you know it. The Miller boy wanted to make a few extra bucks tonight to take his girl over to Santa Cruz next weekend. I gave him work, the evening milking and some other chores. He gave me a little free time tonight. I work my ass off during the week. A guy’s got a right to an evening out where he can blow off a little steam once in awhile.”
“And you headed straight to McCready’s, got drunk and then decided to what? End it all? Jordan invited you to dinner tonight. Remember? You didn’t have to go anywhere except right here. Instead of heading over here for dinner though, you chose to get drunk. Well, I get it now, Cord. Thanks for letting us know where Jordan and I fit into the grand scheme of things. You aren’t getting better. No, you’re heading toward rock bottom as fast as the wino in the gutter and I won’t stand around watching it happen.”
Cord sighed, ran his cuffed hands through his still-damp, shoulder length locks. For the first time he began to see the seriousness of it all. “Look, I had five whiskeys. Up to about three hours ago, I hadn’t had a drink all week.”
“And when you do you don’t know when to stop.” Nick let out a sigh of his own in frustration. “I care about you, Cord, so does Jordan. You and I, we’ve been through a lot together, something we shared while we trained, and once we got to Iraq that bond got stronger in war. But I need you to understand you can’t treat people like crap wherever and whenever you want. We understand you’ve had a rough two years. But until you decide we aren’t the enemy…” Nick’s voiced trailed off as he started to pace up and down the wooden porch.
“I had a momentary lapse in judgment and made a mistake. Everyone’s acting as though…”
Nick lost it then. “Getting drunk isn’t the only issue at play here. And you know it. Jordan and I understand you’re grieving. And we’ve formally offered our support by giving you a job and a place to live to get you through this rough time, but you have to decide just how far downhill you want to go. You have to take that first step to change your life. We can’t do it for you. We won’t babysit you anymore, Cord. Think about it while you spend the night in county lockup. Get your act together or don’t bother coming back to Promise Cove or the farm.”
“Let’s go.” Ethan took Cord by the arm and pushed him back toward the cruiser. To Nick he said, “He’ll get a hearing in the morning, probably see the judge on call for the weekend. I’ll make sure they order him to talk to a psychiatrist as a part of his release. Until then what should I do with him?”
“That’s up to Cord. Let me know what he decides.”
As soon as the police car disappeared down the driveway, Jordan stepped out onto the porch beside her husband. Six months pregnant, due in June, Jordan rested her head on Nick’s shoulder and ran a hand over her nice, round, baby bump. “Tough love is always difficult.”
“So you think I was too hard on him?”
“I didn’t say that. You’ve tried everything else. Who knows, maybe he’ll come to his senses sitting in a cell. It won’t be the first time though. Maybe we should’ve gotten tough a lot sooner. You sounded as if you were practicing for when we have teenagers.”
Nick paled. “God, I hope not.” He placed a hand over the one that rested on her belly, rubbed gently in a circular motion and said, “I’m not putting this little guy or Hutton in jeopardy by hoping Cord finally sees the light enough to change. He’s a ticking time bomb. Trying to commit suicide woke me up. Hell, I didn’t even know he had a gun. I knew he was messed up, but... What if Keegan hadn’t been around to pull him out?”
“Don’t think like that. Keegan was practically raised out on Smuggler’s Bay. What is the likelihood she’d be right there when Cord went in and needed help?”
“I don’t even know how she got the guy to shore. She must be a helluva swimmer.”
“I don’t know that much about her really. She was still in college when Scott first brought me back here. Then when Scott left for Iraq, I wandered around town one day and found myself inside the center. Mary Fanning gave me a tour. But let’s face it, both Keegan’s grandparents had their hands full with so much to do. Even then, they were well into their seventies so I’m certain they were preparing to hand off the reins to her to run the place. The only other time I was inside the center, Hutton was about a year old. I took her to see a couple of baby seals they had at the time. Noisy things, but Hutton loved watching them play.”
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