Moonshell Beach: A Shelter Bay Novel

by JoAnn Ross

  “Not to mention worrying Mom and Dad sick,” Cole broke in.

  J.T. thrust out his jaw when he wanted to lower his head in shame at that unwelcome news. “Low blow, bro.” He rubbed his stubbled face, trying to remember how long it had been since he’d shaved.

  Sax heaved a long weary sigh. Raked his hands through his hair. “Look, we both know it’s not easy.”

  “I had nightmares,” Cole volunteered. “Once, I even grabbed Kelli by the throat while we were sleeping. Scared her nearly to death.”

  “And I had ghosts,” Sax said. “Not just memories, but real ones who talked to me and followed me around for a while. Which, by the way, no one but Kara, Cole, and now you, knows about, and I’d like to keep it that way. But, like I said, we understand. So, if you’ve got PTSD issues, we’re here to help you get help. Before things get worse.”

  “Thanks. But I don’t have PTSD.” He’d read all the symptoms and none of them had said anything about turning into a ghost. “And I don’t need any stupid intervention.”

  He was just exhausted. And weighed down with a deep-to-the-bone sadness he couldn’t shake off.

  When he tried to snatch the bottle back, Sax pulled it out of reach.

  Frustrated by this entire situation, J.T. lunged.

  Sax dodged, threw down the beer, and connected with a strong left hook to the chin that caused bells to ring inside J.T.’s throbbing head. Which didn’t stop him from jumping on Sax.

  “Trust a damn SEAL frogman not to fight fair,” he said as he took another blow that had him staggering. As his knees buckled, he dragged Sax down to the floor, where they rolled, fists flying, elbows swinging.

  Cursing like the Marine he was, Cole grabbed J.T. by the shirt, and jerked him to his feet. “That’s enough.”

  “The hell it is.” At least he wasn’t feeling dead anymore. Every atom in J.T.’s body was in full battle alert mode. “He never would’ve gotten that first hit in if he hadn’t cheated and I’d been totally sober.”

  “Oh, we can take care of that problem.” Cole grabbed J.T. under the arms. “You take the kid’s legs,” he told Sax. “A swim should sober him up quick enough.”

  He’d definitely lost his edge. There’d been a time when it would’ve taken a helluva lot more than two guys to pick him off his feet.

  J.T. cursed and kicked as they carried him out the door and threw him unceremoniously into the bay, which was cold enough to have his balls rising up into his throat.

  He had just sputtered to the surface, determined to take them both on, when he saw Sax’s fiancée standing on the dock.

  “I thought you boys would’ve outgrown this stupidity by now,” she said.

  “He started it,” both Sax and J.T. said at the same time.

  She looked up at the drizzling sky, as if seeking patience.

  “Pitiful,” she muttered. “You’d think three grown men, one of whom is about to become a father”—she shot a hard look at Sax—“would have better things to do than get into brawls. Want to give me one reason why I shouldn’t run you all in for disturbing the peace?”

  “We were only trying to sober the kid up,” Sax said, sounding, J.T. thought, uncharacteristically chastened.

  “That’s another thing.” She turned to J.T. “You’ve been drunk for six weeks.”

  “Not drunk. Merely not entirely sober,” he amended when she gave a steely cop stare he imagined she used on perps when trying to get them to confess. Which, in this town, where hardly anything exciting ever happened, probably involved teenagers bashing mailboxes or spraying graffiti on the water tower. He boosted himself out of the water and onto the dock. “And I haven’t been driving.”

  “I know. I’ve received reports. You’re starting to scare tourists, the way you’re constantly running around in those combat boots.”

  “I couldn’t run if I were that drunk.” Though standing upright on the floating, bobbing dock wasn’t as easy as it should have been.

  She shook her head. “You know the trouble with you, J. T. Douchett?”

  “No.” But he had no doubt the former Shelter Bay High School valedictorian was about to tell him.

  “You need something worthwhile to do with your time.” Her tone suggested she didn’t consider running and drinking worthwhile pursuits. “And fortunately for all of us, the solution just came to me.”

  “What?”

  “You may not have read the flyers tacked up all around town, or noticed so many of the store windows are painted with displays promoting it, but Shelter Bay’s holding its first film festival. And I was just informed that none other than Mary Joyce is going to be the guest of honor.”

  “Good for Shelter Bay. And who’s Mary Joyce?”

  “Jeez,” Sax said. “What planet did the Marines assign you to the past three years?”

  “I’ve been a bit occupied.”

  “She’s only the hottest actress in Hollywood,” Cole said.

  “She’s an Irish movie star who plays the queen of the selkies in a blockbuster series,” Kara added.

  “And a selkie is?”

  “A seal woman,” Sax said, his tone thick with disgust at having such an apparently boneheaded brother. “You know, like a mermaid.”

  “But hotter,” Cole said.

  “I’ll refrain from telling your wife you keep coming back to that,” Kara said dryly. “Anyway,” she said to J.T., “she’s also acquired a crazy following of fans who dress up like selkies and reenact scenes. I’m assured they’re harmless, but since my department doesn’t have the manpower to handle additional security, I’m asking you, as a personal favor, to act as her bodyguard and keep them at bay with that hard, mean stare they teach all you Marines in basic training.”

  “No way.”

  “Way.” She folded her arms across the front of her stiff khaki shirt. “So much for trying to play the good cop and appeal to your friendship and family loyalty. So, let me put it this way, J.T. You may have been a big bad Marine, but do you really want to mess with a hormonal pregnant sheriff who’s armed and carries her own handcuffs?”

  “Plus, there’s the fact that if you upset my woman, I’ll have to shoot you,” Sax warned on something close to a growl. Although J.T. didn’t believe for a minute his brother would follow through on the threat, he thought back again on that pregnant woman he’d bought the sheets for and felt his resolve crumbling.

  “Well,” she asked, “do I hear a volunteer?”

  Damn. He’d had drill instructors who weren’t as tough as Sheriff Kara Conway. Knowing when he was outnumbered, J.T. managed, just barely, to stand at attention. Then he snapped a salute. “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

  5

  As her chartered plane approached Newport, on the Oregon coast, Mary was pulling on the shoes she’d kicked off upon boarding when she caught sight of the uplift of tree-covered cliffs visible through the fog blowing in from the Pacific.

  Mist was forming on the outside of the window. Mary pulled her champagne-colored angora shrug over the black tank top she’d tucked into a pair of wide-legged black pants, and wished she’d remembered to buy a Gore-Tex jacket. Which would undoubtedly give Leon, her stylist, who was originally from Atlanta, the vapors.

  Three men and a woman were waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs as she left the jet. One of the men was dressed in a brown corduroy suit, a blue checked shirt, and a brown and yellow polka-dot bow tie. Another had gone with khakis and a denim shirt with suede patches on the elbows, while one had gone totally casual in a Hawaiian shirt designed to blind and well-worn jeans. The sixty-something woman had opted for a middle ground, with dark slacks, a fitted red jacket, and a white blouse.

  A fourth man, clad in jeans and a smoky blue and gray plaid shirt open over a charcoal gray T-shirt, was standing next to the black Suburban, back as straight as a turf spade handle, arms crossed. Unlike the others, who were wearing wide smiles, he’d drawn his mouth into a tight line. Despite the gray day, he was wearing sunglasses, w
hich kept her from seeing his eyes. Even so, she had the impression he wasn’t a member of the Shelter Bay Welcome Wagon come here to the airport today to give her a fruit basket.

  The woman strode forward, hand outstretched. “Good afternoon, Ms. Joyce. I’m Colleen Dennis, mayor of Shelter Bay.” Her fingers were stained yellow, which went along with the cigarette rasp in her voice. Apparently not everyone in Oregon lived up to the state’s reputation of being populated by physical-fitness buffs. “And it’s an honor to welcome you to Oregon.”

  “It’s Mary. And the honor’s mine. I’m delighted to be invited, Mayor Dennis. I’ve known many people with the Dennis surname back home. Would your family have Irish ties?”

  “They certainly do,” the mayor said proudly. “My maiden name was McLaughlin, and John McLaughlin fought with the Jacobites at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.”

  “As did my ancestors,” Mary said, causing the mayor to beam to have something in common with the town’s celebrity guest. “It was a sad time for many.” The battle had established Protestant rule over the Emerald Isle, which lasted until the Anglo-Irish war in the 1920s.

  “I can imagine. My husband’s great-great-grandfather was born at sea while his parents emigrated during the mid-1840s potato famine. They were originally from Letterfrack, a small Connemara village few have ever heard of.”

  “I know it well,” Mary said. “I filmed a few scenes of Selkie Bride at the village’s Kylemore Abbey, as you’ll be seeing when we premiere my new film the last day of the festival.”

  It had been the studio’s idea to do a surprise sneak preview of the movie. An idea the committee had jumped to endorse, since it would bring the fledgling festival much-needed publicity and buzz that would help them build for next year. Which was vital when there were more than a thousand film festivals being held all over the world these days.

  “I’m so looking forward to that,” Mayor Dennis said. “I’ve visited the abbey, and being a gardener myself, I was blown away by the walled Victorian garden.”

  “A spectacular place,” Mary agreed, always happy to talk about her home. “Though it always leaves me feeling terribly inadequate, given my own pitiful black thumb.” Which was ironic, having grown up on a farm.

  “We’re looking forward to the honor of being the first to view your new film,” bow tie man, who’d apparently decided Her Honor had gotten enough of their guest’s attention, broke into the conversation. “While your appearance is decidedly last-minute, better late than never, and everyone’s excited to have you partake in our little event.” His grip as he shook her hand wasn’t nearly as brisk as Colleen Dennis’ had been. “Thomas Clark. I teach drama and musical theater at Coastal Community College.”

  His tone, at that announcement, was heavy with a self-importance that had Mary thinking it should properly have come with a flare of trumpets.

  “I saw your name on the brochure,” she said with a smile that ignored his little barb. She decided against repeating what the mayor had already been told about the letter going astray. “Teaching must be an extremely gratifying career.”

  His chest puffed out like a plump pigeon’s. “I like to believe I’m helping create the next generation of thespians. Which is why we’re so pleased you’ll be speaking and answering questions after tomorrow’s viewing of The Lady of the Lake.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Mary said.

  It hadn’t been that long since she’d been a student herself, and one of the things she missed about her university days was the passionate discussions of the art of filmmaking that often would last all night. In L.A. topics more often centered on the business aspect of filmmaking instead of on storytelling.

  “I was a bit younger than your students when I appeared in that film, but it changed my life.”

  Which was definitely no exaggeration. When Quinn had arrived in Castlelough for the filming of the movie adaptation of his novel, she’d been an overly emotional, tempestuous teenage girl adrift after a breakup that she had been certain had shattered her heart. She’d been cast in the film, first as a walk-on extra, but when both Quinn and the director declared the camera loved her, her part had been expanded. By the time the film hit the theaters, she’d forgotten all about the sex-crazed boy who’d dumped her right before the spring dance, and had decided to become an actress.

  It was later, while at university, that she’d become interested in screenwriting, and her first film, A Secret Selkie—a story of a motherless young child who discovers his selkie heritage, which his father’s family has kept hidden from him—won the award for best screenwriting at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

  Her second was based on the old Irish fairy tale of a young man, son of Conn of the Hundred Fights, who fell desperately in love with a fairy maiden and, ignoring warnings from others, ran away with her over the sea to the Plains of the Ever Living, and was never seen in Ireland again. That film had surpassed her first, garnering numerous international awards.

  When Siren Song, the first in her selkie queen trilogy, won an Audience Award at Sundance, a Toronto’s People’s Choice Award, and the Heineken Audience Award at New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival, topped off with a Best Screenplay award at the illustrious Cannes, Mary was, overnight, thrust from being a struggling, independent Irish screenwriter/filmmaker who’d originally starred in her films to lower the cast budget, to the big leagues of American cinema.

  Which was when she’d come to realize the axiom her grandmother Fionna was always quoting was true: Be careful what you wish for.

  She was shaking off the touch of pity party she had no business feeling, when the balding, ponytailed man in the Hawaiian shirt pushed forward to introduce himself. “I’m Bob Bodine,” he said. “But everyone calls me Bodhi, after Swayze’s character in Point Break.”

  “Not because you rob banks wearing a president’s mask, I hope.” The movie was one of her brother-in-law’s favorites. She’d enjoyed it, as well, though admittedly paid less attention to the plot than she did to Patrick Swayze surfing.

  The laugh rumbled up from his belly. “No. Because when I’m not running the Orcas Theater, where we’re going to screen your films, I surf.”

  It was Mary’s turn to laugh. “No! Really?” she asked with mock surprise. The shirt’s print featuring old woody station wagons with surfboards on their roofs had been her first clue. “Why, I never would have guessed that.” She glanced over to where the ocean was hidden by a stand of fir trees. “Isn’t it cold surfing this far north?”

  “Like the Arctic.” He winked. “But you don’t have to worry about falling asleep.”

  “And here I thought falling asleep was one of the things that happen when you freeze to death,” Mary said with a laugh, then turned to speak with the third man, who’d been patiently awaiting his turn. As she did, her attention was momentarily captured by the silent man still standing beside the SUV, his shielded gaze directed straight at her.

  Refusing to be intimidated, Mary threw up her chin and stared back. Then tossed her head and turned toward the third man.

  “You must be Reece Ryan.” The editor and publisher of the Shelter Bay Beacon. “I’ve read some of your articles.” Even as she could feel the driver’s eyes on her, she forced a smile. “They were very good.”

  He lifted a brow as he shook her hand. His brown eyes, magnified by black Elvis Costello glasses, were friendly and intelligent. “Thank you. And since I doubt the Shelter Bay Beacon is your usual reading material, you must have Googled the paper.”

  “I did. And, as I said, liked what I read. Especially the article on the ‘Great Pacific Cleanup.’ I use canvas bags for groceries, but realizing how many millions of sea turtles, seabirds, whales, and fish are strangled and suffocated by plastic pollution every year has definitely changed my shopping habits.”

  “Shelter Bay banned plastic shopping bags last year,” the mayor said. “Once people realized that something they might use for five minutes lasts
five hundred years in the ocean, they voted overwhelmingly for businesses to stop using them.”

  The man Mary assumed was the driver continued to stare at her. Hating that a stranger could prove so distracting, she forged on with the conversation. “It must be lovely to know you’ve made such a difference in the world. I assume we’ll be doing an interview?”

  “Our local paper hardly has the power to influence the world,” he said, showing himself to have less of an ego than the professor. “Though I try to enlighten my little corner of it. And while I may have worked the political desk at the Washington Post before moving to the West Coast, I still enjoy entertainment news. And you, Ms. Joyce, are definitely the hottest celebrity ever to hit Shelter Bay.”

  “Hell, she’s the only celebrity to ever hit Shelter Bay,” Bodhi said.

  Mary wasn’t surprised the newsman had once worked at a larger paper. Not only had the stories she’d read been well sourced, but the content was exceptionally strong for such a small town, where news often tended to revolve around local gossip.

  “Why would I be having the feeling that if you’d been editor of the Beacon back when my family visited Shelter Bay, my brother-in-law wouldn’t have slipped under your radar, Mr. Ryan?”

  His grin was quick and appealing. “Once an investigative reporter, always an investigative reporter. But, since I’ve never approved of paparazzi tactics to get a story, I would’ve waited until you all left town to run the story.”

  Mary smiled and wished that more reporters had such ethics. “I knew I liked you.”

  “Well,” the mayor said abruptly, as an airport employee drove over a luggage cart with Mary’s suitcases, “I’m sure you’d like to get settled into your hotel room and decompress a bit from the trip before tonight’s events.”

  Having seen the schedule, which began with a reception that night, then a parade the following day with her as grand marshal, and ended with her giving out the Golden Whale award for best festival film the final day, Mary knew that this would be no laid-back holiday like the first time she’d visited the town. Promoting a film for the studio releasing it was part of any actor’s job description. Having also written the screenplays, which had her even more invested in this new film’s success, she wasn’t about to complain.