by Diane Moody
“Yes, she’s a King Charles Cavalier, so it seemed only right to—”
“—name her Charlie. Of course.”
The gentle dog sat beside her master, her tail wagging against the floor. “She was napping back by my desk, but I guess she wanted to . . . say hello?” A hint of kindness seemed to hide behind his almost-smile.
She swallowed again, though this time it had nothing to do with embarrassing thoughts or a dog’s tail thumping against her leg, and everything to do with the bookseller’s smile. It changed his entire countenance, transforming this odd duck to quite a handsome man. The fact that his nearness allowed her to catch another whiff of his cologne didn’t hurt either.
“She’s beautiful,” Olivia said, kneeling down. She held out her hand for the dog to sniff. “How old is Charlie?”
“She’s three. She’s also expecting. Aren’t you, girl?” The dog seemed to smile, her long tongue spilling out.
Olivia smiled. “Well, congratulations, little mama.” She scratched Charlie under her chin sending a back paw in a rhythmic frenzy against the floor. “You like that, do you?” Olivia glanced up at Trevor. “When’s the happy day?”
“Not for another four weeks.”
She gave Charlie another pat then stood. “I hope she has a healthy litter of pups.”
“Are you all right?” Trevor asked, a look of concern in his eyes.
“I think so? Why do you ask?”
He gestured toward her face. “You have tears in your eyes.”
“I do?” She brushed her fingertips below each eye. “Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just a little—”
“Here.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Please.”
She pressed her lips together, appalled at the emotions that had snuck up on her.
“Thank you,” she said, taking it from his hand. “I lost my little Sammy around this time last year. She was a Cav-Tzu mix. Her coloring was completely different from Charlie’s, but she had those same adorable eyes.” She wiped her runny nose, then realized she’d just wiped snot all over his monogrammed initials. “Oh, no. I’m sorry. I’ll get this cleaned. I promise.”
Compassion filled his eyes. “Keep it. Plenty more where that came from.”
“I feel like such a swoon carrying on like this. How silly of me.”
“Not at all.” He pushed his hands back in his pockets and glanced down at Charlie. “They wrap us around their little paws and there’s nothing for it.” He studied his shoes briefly. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
He glanced back at her, his eyes warm with understanding. But as kind as he’d been, Olivia wanted nothing more than to rush back to her room at the inn and have a good gully-washer of a cry, as Ellen called them. She took a final swipe at her nose and tried to smile as she raised the wadded handkerchief in her hand. “Thank you. I’ll be going now.”
As she headed for the door, she heard his footsteps behind her.
“You’d be welcome to join us for book club tomorrow night.”
She turned, surprised.
“There’s just a dozen or so of us. It’s very casual. And since you’ve read the book . . . that is, if you have nothing else to do tomorrow evening?”
The stupid lump in her throat blocked any semblance of a response, so she smiled as best she could, nodded, then turned again to go.
Hearing the door close behind her, she reached for her gloves and made her way across the street. His words echoed again through her mind.
You’d be welcome to join us . . .
Out of nowhere, the response darted through her mind. “Thank you, Trevor. I’ll mullet over.” Olivia laughed so hard, she had to grab a nearby street light to steady herself. She didn’t dare glance back over her shoulder. If he’d seen her outburst, he’d surely think she’d lost her mind.
And quickly rescind the invitation.
“Come along, Charlie. Best we get you back to bed for a rest.” The spaniel followed Trevor’s footsteps as he retreated to his desk. “There you go, girl. Snug as a bug in a rug and all that.”
Charlie curled up on her cozy pillow behind his desk. She rested her head on her front paws then let out a comforting sigh.
Trevor grabbed the mouse beside his computer and resumed his search for a book one of his regulars had asked him to find. He clicked from page to page, then stopped and glanced back at Charlie. “She was different, that one, wasn’t she?” He nodded toward the front. “A little strange if you ask me. All that starting and stopping, like she wasn’t sure how to put a sentence together.”
Charlie eyed him without lifting her head, her tail waving in response. With another sigh, both eyes drifted slowly shut as she settled in for a nap.
“Then again, what would you expect from a tourist who comes to Maine this time of year?” he mumbled. “She should fire her travel agent, if you ask me.”
Still, he couldn’t help remembering the sadness in her eyes as she spoke of the dog named Sammy she’d lost. He gazed at his own spaniel and couldn’t imagine losing her.
It’s part of life, of course. You live, you die. End of story.
But Charlie? Well, Charlie had stolen his heart from the moment he laid eyes on her. Three years ago, he’d taken a walk along the beach one summer evening as he often did. The breeze off the water, the cries of the sea gulls hovering overhead, the lap of the water hitting the shore, the pastel brushstrokes painted across the sky . . . it was his favorite time of day and his favorite place to spend it. But as he made his way back to his home on the beach, he noticed a young boy pulling a red wagon along the sidewalk. A woman, the boy’s mother, accompanied him.
“Hey, mister! Wanna puppy?”
Trevor wasn’t an animal person, so he shook his head as he headed toward his deck. “No thanks.”
The boy, who looked to be around ten or so, stopped the wagon and held up a brown and white ball of fur. “Are you sure? She’s awful cute. And she’s the last one left.”
“Now, Mickey, don’t be a bother,” his mother said. “Sorry,” she said, waving a hand in apology.
He had waved in response, then the strangest thing happened. He started making his way toward them. “You say she’s the last one?”
The boy’s face lit up. “She sure is.”
“Anything wrong with her?” Trevor asked the woman.
“No way!” the boy said. “She’s perfect. No papers or anything, but she’s a true King Charles Cavalier Spaniel. Tell him, Mom.”
“She is. Her mother is our sweet Charlotte. Her daddy belongs to a family over in Kennebunkport, but neither of them are registered. Just so you know.”
Trevor stood beside them and reached out to pet the pup’s head. “Well, now. She doesn’t seem to mind about any of that, does she?”
Mickey placed the puppy in Trevor’s hands.
“Oh, yes, well … I’ve never had an animal.” The puppy crawled up against his chest, nuzzling her black button nose against Trevor’s chin. He smiled, feeling the cold wetness against his whiskers. “Well, aren’t you the little flirt?”
“She really likes you, mister. I think you should have her.”
“Mickey, don’t be rude.”
“How much?” Trevor asked, startling himself.
“A hundred dollars? We sold her brothers and sisters for a hundred-fifty, but since she’s the runt—”
“The runt? You said nothing was wrong with her, right?”
“Oh, she’s fine. She was just the last one out, so she’s a little smaller. That’s all.”
“I see.” Trevor held the puppy mere inches from his face. “I’ll admit she’s a sweetheart. I don’t know, little lady,” he said, drawing her closer, “think you’d like to come live with an old guy like me?”
The pup whimpered then licked Trevor right on the nose.
Mickey laughed. “That’s how she says yes. I’m sure of it!”
He’d paid the lad, and thus began the love affair with the pup he affecti
onately named Charlie. Glancing back at her now, he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever lived without her. As for the day when he might have to say goodbye? No sense worrying about that now. Not with little ones on the way.
He scratched his chin thinking about the tourist who’d just left his shop. What had possessed him to invite her to their book club? It was one thing to invite a canine into his life, but since when did he ask a tourist of all people to visit their book club? Theirs was a closed club of locals.
“Oh Charlie, best keep an eye on me. Mustn’t go losing my stuffed shirt persona, now can I?”
Chapter 6
“Tell me everything,” Ellen bubbled. “How was your day? How do you like the MacVicar? What do you think of Caden Cove? Isn’t it charming? What’d you have for dinner? C’mon! Do tell!”
Olivia switched her cell phone to her other ear. “I’ll be happy to if you’ll let me get a word in edgewise.”
“Fine. Just don’t leave out a thing.”
“I promise. Let me see, where to start . . .”
For the next half hour, Olivia gave her best friend an accounting of her first day in Caden Cove. From her 4:00 a.m. soak in the tub to her breakfast at the inn and her visits to the pharmacy and bookstore, to the unforgettable dinner she’d just enjoyed.
“I had my first lobster roll, and you were right. To die for. Ohmigosh, Ellen, I wanted to lick the basket it came in.”
“Please tell me you didn’t.”
“No, but I wanted to. I may have to eat there again tomorrow before—oh! I almost forgot to tell you! They have a book club that’s meeting tomorrow night at the bookstore, and I was invited to attend. Not once but twice.”
“Wow. Who invited you, the innkeepers?”
“No, they aren’t members. And to be honest, they acted rather odd when I told them I was invited. Michelle assumed Molly invited me—you know, the sweet older woman who owns the pharmacy and coffee shop. She was the first to invite me. But when I told them Trevor also invited me, they both stared at me as if I’d grown a third eye.”
“Trevor. He’s the handsome bookstore owner you just told me about?”
“Yes, but I believe I called him ‘nice looking’ as opposed to handsome. But yes, same guy.”
“Why would that bother Michelle and Trig? Did they say anything?”
“Eventually. They’d talked about him earlier at breakfast, but apparently they think he’s full of himself and rather stuffy. Which he probably is, but he’s kind of . . .”
“Kind of . . . ?”
“Oh, nothing. Except that he has an adorable King Charles Cavalier Spaniel named Charlie, and she startled me at first, and I—oh, never mind with all that. I’m rambling. It’s not important.”
“Sure it is. I bet she reminded you of Sammy, didn’t she?”
A snapshot dashed through her mind . . . Ellen hugging her as the vet took Sammy’s lifeless body from her arms. Had it really been a year now?
Olivia shook her head to dismiss the memory. “Only in her eyes. But Ellen, I just lost it. Not so much at first, but the next thing I knew, I had tears running down my face, and he gave me his handkerchief which I completely slobbered all over—”
“Who? The bookstore guy? He gave you his handkerchief?”
“Yes. In fact, he insisted I keep it. But who could blame him, with it all nasty and—”
“Sounds like he’s both handsome and kindhearted. Any other descriptions you want to share with me?”
“None I can think of, silly. But I’m still baffled why Trig and Michelle reacted the way they did. You’d think I’d been invited to the prom by Hannibal Lecter or Jack the Ripper. It was bizarre.”
“Who knows. Small town like that, there’s probably all kinds of drama.”
“I guess. I keep getting strange looks and reactions from people here.”
“Probably the Martina thing.”
“Maybe. Even at dinner tonight at that little pub. I kept catching people staring at me. A guy at the bar actually pointed at me across the room then whispered something in his buddy’s ear.”
“What kind of bar were you in?”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Not a bar. A pub. The one you and Brent told me about. It’s called Grayson’s or Graham—something?”
“Grady’s? I love Grady’s! It’s down some stairs beneath another restaurant out on the water, right?”
“That’s it. All kinds of memorabilia on the walls, on the ceiling, everywhere.”
“Lot of sports stuff, as I recall. Mostly Red Sox, right?”
“Right. And lots of vintage political buttons and bumper stickers. The Kennedys would have loved it there.”
“Which is interesting since the Bush’s winter home is just a few miles down the road. Have you been by Walker’s Point yet?”
“Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Give Babs my best, okay? And the president too if you see them. But back to the lobster rolls. Just box up a couple crates of those bad boys to bring home to me, okay?”
“Anything else on your wish list?”
“Silly or serious?”
“Your pick.”
“Then I wish for you to have the time of your life. And if your first day is any indication, I’m thinking I might just get my wish.”
“Hey, it’s only one day.”
“Yes, but remember—today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
“Ellen?”
“Yes?”
“A little heavy on the cheese there.”
“G’night, girlfriend.”
“Night, Ellen.”
Chapter 7
As Olivia made her way downstairs for breakfast, she pulled on her cable-knit sweater. She couldn’t help smiling as she watched a light snow falling outside the windows.
“Morning, Olivia.” Trig nodded toward the window. “We ordered some snow for you. Anything to make our guests happy.”
“How nice! I’ll have to leave a good review on your website. ‘Most accommodating bed and breakfast.’ Five stars, of course.”
“Works for me. Last I looked the temperature was right around sixteen. Brrr!”
“Ellen warned me to pack some long johns. I’m glad I did.” She took her same seat at the table, already feeling at home here. “How are you this morning, Trig?”
“Couldn’t be better.” He poured coffee into her cup. “Though I’m hearing this one might be heavier than the original forecast.” He looked back outside. “Not a blizzard but enough to take note, that’s for sure.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we’ll stock up more than usual just to be on the safe side. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like me to pick up.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine. I might stop by Molly’s today for a couple of things. When is the worst of the storm supposed to hit?”
“Most likely overnight or early tomorrow morning. It’s a cumulative thing, of course.” He turned, pointing out the window. “See our snow gauge out there?”
Olivia spotted the marker, a flat metal pole resembling a giant yard stick stuck in the ground. “That green pole?”
“Right. We’ve already had three snowfalls this year that have buried it by a foot or more.”
Olivia slid him a sheepish grin. “Don’t hate me, but I love the possibility of that much snow.”
“Oh, I get that. You’re a Southern belle, so this is all fun and exciting for you. But stick around a year or two and you’ll take it in stride like the rest of us. Hey, how do Belgian waffles sound this morning?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Cinnamon apples and pecans on top?”
“Even better.”
After another mouthwatering breakfast, Olivia enjoyed a brisk walk to the pharmacy making no attempt to dodge the big flat snowflakes along the way, even sticking her tongue out a couple of times to catch a few. It all seemed so magical, as if she were part of a Currier and Ives print. The thought
made her smile.
The pharmacy bustled with activity, its narrow aisles congested. Olivia took a seat at the coffee bar, thinking she’d wait for the crowd to thin out before picking up a few things. Nothing she couldn’t live without, but she enjoyed watching the locals go about their business. A twenty-something named Cyndi served as barista, telling Olivia she was a part-time employee on busy days like this. She wasn’t quite as friendly as Molly, and Olivia had the same feeling the girl was studying her like so many others coming and going. But the girl made a great cappuccino, and for now that was enough.
When the crowd thinned, Molly joined her at the bar, taking a seat. “You’d think I’d be used to this, but snow days always wear me out.” She patted her elegant coiffure, then dabbed her forehead with a dainty handkerchief she pulled from the cuff of her sleeve.
“Is it always like this when a storm’s coming?”
“Oh yes. Everyone wants to be out and about, whether they need anything or not. We never know when we might be stuck inside for days at a time.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
Molly waved her handkerchief. “Doesn’t happen often, but always a possibility. It’s the cabin fever that gets you more than anything. So that’s why they come.” She nodded toward a couple of ladies chatting by the antacids. As she did so, the two stopped talking, gave Molly a knowing glance, then stared openly at Olivia.
She felt the heat creeping up her neck. She turned around to face Molly and lowered her voice. “Molly, could I ask you something?”
“Of course, dear.”
“Ever since I got in town yesterday, I keep noticing that . . . well, it seems like everyone is always staring at me or giving me strange looks.”
Molly tilted her head just so. “I’m not sure I follow. What do you mean?”
Olivia nodded over her shoulder. “Like those two just now. They stare at me, then whisper to each other.”
Molly folded and refolded her handkerchief. “Oh, nothing to worry about, dear. We have so few tourists this time of year. They’re probably just curious, wondering who you are, why you’re here. That sort of thing.”
“No, I think it’s more than that. In fact,” she began, then paused. “Yesterday when I first met you, I noticed a few peculiar looks in your eyes as we spoke.”