Castaway Cove (5 page)

“Hell, I had no idea it had gotten so bad.”

“That was the point. I didn’t want to throw more problems on your plate.”

Mac’s father was a kind and generous man of sterling character. Despite his successes in so many areas, he’d always considered family the most important thing in his life. If Dr. Boyd Buchanan believed this was the best thing for
his
father, Mac wasn’t about to second-guess him.

“I’d like to be able to be with him,” Mac said. “Have Emma meet him.”
Before it’s too late.
He didn’t say the words aloud, but knew his father heard them.

“That pretty little girl would bring a smile to his face and sunshine into his heart,” Boyd agreed. “And there’s nothing I’d love more than spending time with my incredible granddaughter. Especially with the holidays coming up.”

It wasn’t as if Mac had anywhere else to go. And his father, who knew a lot more about parenting than Mac did, could help during this rocky transition.

“I’ll book the flights in the morning,” he said. “And, Dad—thanks.”

“I’m the one who should thank
you
. Your grandfather built this house with his own hands when he and your grandmother got engaged, then added on to it as each of his four kids were born. With my brothers busy with their own families around the country, I’m left here rattling around all alone in all these empty rooms. I’d be grateful for the company.”

With at least one thing in his life settled, Mac said good night, turned off the radio, and went upstairs to the bedroom, stopping to check in on his daughter.

Emma was lying on her side, clutching a spotted Dalmatian toy. Since it had been dark when he’d put her to bed, he’d forgotten to close the curtains. In the silvery moonlight streaming through the window, she looked so small. So innocent. So vulnerable.

Which had Mac feeling as helpless as he’d felt when that truck bomb had sent him flying through the air.

She’d kicked off her covers. When he bent to pull the Barbie-pink blanket up, he brushed a kiss on her cheek. She murmured something in her sleep, then rolled over onto her back, taking the stuffed animal with her. But she didn’t wake up.

Not wanting to smell his wife on the sheets of the bed in the master bedroom, Mac found a small guest room across the hall. After kicking off his boots, he fell facedown onto the too-soft bed.

His last thought, before he crashed into sleep, was that at least things had to go uphill from here. Because they damn well couldn’t get any worse.

Shelter Bay, Oregon
Eight months later

Located on one of the hills overlooking Shelter Bay, Still Waters didn’t look like your typical nursing home. Because, Annie Shepherd thought as she walked toward the building brightened by hand-painted murals of the Oregon coastal town, it wasn’t. Instead, it was a thoughtfully designed residential home created especially to keep diminishing minds active, while at the same time quieting them. Thus the name.

When Sedona Sullivan, who led the monthly cookie-decorating group at Still Waters, had first suggested she volunteer here, Annie had been hesitant. What did she know about Alzheimer’s? Other than that it was a horrible disease.

But then when she’d brought Sedona’s suggestion up at Adèle Douchett’s knitting circle, the elderly woman, who’d suffered her own form of dementia after a head injury, had been encouraging.

“Don’t think of them as Alzheimer’s patients, dear,” she’d said as her needles rapidly click-clacked away, creating yet another blanket for Project Linus, a children’s charity the knitting circle contributed to. “Think of them as individuals with years of life experience to share.”

As Adèle herself continued to do. While the older woman’s memory might not be as sharp as it once was, she remained a powerful force. “I started a knitting group at Still Waters while having cognitive therapy there, and I know you’ll fit right in,” she assured Annie. “And, as it happens, a widower I became friends with during my group therapy sessions moved in last fall. I’m sure you’d find his stories entertaining, and that you’ll brighten his day like a ray of sunshine.”

While Annie wasn’t sure about the sunshine part, though she did her best to remain unrelentingly upbeat—even on the days when she secretly wanted to weep—Adèle had been right about the elderly residents having so much to share. Perhaps because she’d grown up without any family of her own, Annie had, over the past months, begun to think of many of them as the grandparents and great-grandparents she’d never had.

After being buzzed in by the doorman—the building was kept locked to prevent residents from wandering away, which was one of the reasons people came to live here—she paused to pet the huge cat lying in a sunbeam atop the reception desk.

Still Waters embraced the growing belief among caregivers that people were less depressed and lonely if they lived with animal companions. Which especially made sense when you considered how many residents had been forced to leave their own pets behind.

Since Turtle, named for his tortoiseshell markings, had arrived, two other cats and a golden retriever (appropriately named Goldie), all rescues from Dr. Charity Tiernan’s shelter, had joined the residents of the memory care home.

Annie paused to chat with two women who were sitting in the brightly lit library and enjoying the view of the colorful garden out the tall windows, then skirted around Goldie to walk down a cheerfully painted hallway, stopping outside the room of a resident she’d become especially close to. The widower friend of Adèle’s.

After retrieving family photos from his son, together she and Charlie Buchanan had created the burlap-covered bulletin board posted in the hallway next to his door. At the top were his name and date of birth. Below that was a sepia photo of an outrageously handsome young man wearing the classic sailor uniform of white shirt, bell-bottom trousers, and “Dixie cup” hat. Tacked in one corner was a black-and-white snapshot taken aboard a ship. This time he was wearing a blue chambray work shirt and denim pants.

Below those was a wedding photo. The bride was dressed in a lovely white gown, while the groom looked proud, though a bit dazed, in that same Navy uniform.

“Good afternoon, Charlie.” She greeted him with a smile as she entered the room brightened by crayoned drawings she knew had been done by his great-granddaughter. They were taped to the buttery yellow walls. He was sitting in a chair by the window, looking out at the courtyard garden, where a profusion of red, yellow, and white tulips brightened the misty Oregon day. He was wearing a cardigan sweater that matched his faded blue eyes over a gray T-shirt, a pair of khakis, and sneakers. “How are you?”

Having apparently been taught by his mother to always stand up when a woman entered the room, Charlie managed to push himself to his feet as he always did, using a combination of arm pressure and momentum, even though she’d insisted it wasn’t necessary.

His brow furrowed for a moment as he tried to place her. While Charlie’s long-term memory was as sharp as a tack, his short-term memory was decidedly less so. Which was one of the things she’d been working on with him.

“I’m Annie,” she said gently. “Annie Shepherd.”

His expression cleared, just a bit. “Of course you are. You’re the nurse who has the same name as my wife.” His tone didn’t carry quite as much conviction as his words, as he lowered himself back into the chair, but not wanting to cause him any stress, Annie decided to focus on today’s plan rather than get bogged down in names and the fact that she was actually a volunteer, not a nurse.

“I thought we’d work on your scrapbook today,” she said, going over to the dresser where it lay open to a page showing a reprint of the wedding photo that was on the hallway burlap board. “Your wife was very beautiful,” she said.

“Annie was the prettiest girl in Shelter Bay.” He puffed out his chest with husbandly pride. “Let me tell you, she sure turned heads when she walked down the street. . . . Her parents didn’t want her to marry me, you know.”

“No, I didn’t realize that.”

He gave her a long look. “You must not be from here, then,” he said finally. “Because everyone in town knew her parents wanted her to marry Walter Mannington. His family milled nearly all the timber in three counties, which made them about the richest folks on the coast. While I was just a fisherman with a boat owned mostly by the bank.”

Annie pulled up a chair and sat in front of him. “But she chose you.”

“She did.” He chuckled, more to himself than to her. “Mannington was too stuffy. She liked to have a good time. Same as me. Good-Time Charlie, folks used to call me.”

“You’re still a charmer.” She smiled back at him. “A bit like Rhett Butler. But without the mustache.”

“Funny.” The laughter left his eyes as they became slightly unfocused. And shiny. “Annie used to say that. Since she had a thing for Gable in those days, I wasn’t about to point out that I was better-looking.” A deep, rich laugh rumbled up from his chest.

Enjoying the discussion, Annie laughed with him. Of all the residents she worked with, Charlie Buchanan was, hands down, her favorite.

“She made that wedding dress herself,” he said. “Out of a Japanese parachute I sent back home.”

“That’s a parachute?” Unable to stitch a straight line, Annie was more than a little impressed.

“Yup. I found it on one of the islands in the Pacific during the war. I sent it home to her, and since silk was rationed, she used it to make the dress. The veil was mosquito netting.”

“That’s ingenious.”

“She was a clever girl. She worked as a dressmaker for a lot of rich women in town. Including Mrs. Mannington. Walter’s mother. Which is how they met. He lived in a big house, and his boat was a rich guy’s Chris-Craft mahogany runabout that sure as hell didn’t smell of fish, like mine did. And he had himself a red Cadillac convertible, which I never figured made much sense with all the rain we get here. But the girls sure seemed to go for it.” Deep lines furrowed his brow. “Dang guy was used to getting everything he wanted without having to work for it.”

“But he didn’t get the most important thing,” Annie pointed out as she heard the edge of old grievances creep into his tone.

“True enough.” He narrowed his gaze and studied her. “What did you say your name was?”

“Annie. Annie Shepherd. I run Memories on Main. It’s a scrapbook and paper-crafting shop. We made this book together,” she reminded him. As she did every week. “And I brought some more photos of your trip to the Newport aquarium.”

“Why in the blue blazes would I want to go to an aquarium?” he asked. “I spent my life with fish. Don’t need to see any of ’em locked up in fancy glassed-in boxes.”

The trip had been two days ago. Regretting that she hadn’t switched her schedule around to come yesterday, when the outing may have been fresher in his mind, Annie forged ahead.

She ran tape over the back of the photos, inviting him to paste them onto a new page she’d prepared ahead of time, all the while keeping up a nonstop commentary about what she’d been told the group had done when they’d been at the aquarium.

“See,” she said, pointing at the photo of him standing next to a giant Pacific octopus exhibit. “There you are.”

“Seem to be.” He scratched his head. Then frowned. “This dang Alzheimer’s.”

“It’s difficult.” She placed a hand on his arm. “But a visit to the aquarium isn’t all that important in the great scheme of things.”

“Do you know the definition of Scottish Alzheimer’s?” he asked, not for the first time.

“No. What
is
the definition of Scottish Alzheimer’s?” She’d found that if she repeated words back, people were more likely to remember them.

“You forget everything but your grudges.”

She laughed, as he’d meant her to. “Well, you’re better off than that. You have lovely memories of your Annie.”

“Is she coming today?”

“She passed on,” she reminded him, as she did at least twice every week. “Ten years ago.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He said the correct words, but she could see a lingering doubt in his eyes. “You look a lot like her,” he said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She wasn’t nearly as dramatically beautiful as Annie Buchanan had been, but she wasn’t about to argue.

“It’s in your eyes,” he said. “They’re that same color. I always told her they remind me of the sun shining through the rain. . . . I should introduce you to my grandson. He’s a doctor.”

The stress caused by his struggle to remember the field trip, and the unwelcome memory of his wife’s death, seemed to drift off his handsome face, weathered by years of being outdoors on the sea. His eyes, clouded by the disease, brightened. “You could do a lot worse.”

Annie knew that his son was the doctor, while his grandson was actually deployed in the Air Force, but rather than correcting him, she merely smiled and patted his arm. “If he’s even half the man you are, Charlie, I’d definitely have to agree.”

They worked for a few more minutes. Annie felt a burst of optimism when, with a bit of coaxing, he was able to remember eating the ice cream in the photo taken of him at the seawall in town on the way back from the aquarium. She always sent an update to his son, Dr. Boyd Buchanan, after each of their sessions, and it was nice to be able to report positive news.

She was on her way out of the building when she dodged a scooter—whose rider had swerved to avoid hitting Daisy, a calico who’d jumped down from a chair—and plowed into a man who’d been entering the building. Distracted by a display on his phone, he hadn’t seen her coming.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she was brought to a sudden stop by the rock-hard wall of his chest. The wheeled bag carrying her craft supplies tipped over onto the floor.

“It was my fault.” Sounding anything but apologetic, he shoved the phone into the pocket of his jeans. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Although she couldn’t see his eyes because of the wraparound Ray-Bans, she could feel the laser glare he aimed at the cat. Who was calmly licking her paw, either unaware or uncaring of the potential disasters she’d caused. “Especially in this place with all the animals underfoot.”

His sexily beard-stubbled jaw was firm, his chin ruggedly square and marked with a deep, delicious cleft.

Although the local joke went that Oregonians rusted instead of tanned, his tan suggested he spent a lot of time outdoors. Maybe he was a fisherman, like so many men in town? Or in construction? After a real estate dip due to the recession, in the past few months you couldn’t go anywhere in town without seeing signs of a construction boom, mainly beach houses and condos for wealthy weekenders

He was tall, lean, and hard enough that she’d felt as if she’d run into a wall of unyielding steel when her chest slammed into his.

Annie took a step back and lifted her purse strap, which had slid down her arm, more securely onto her shoulder. “I take it you don’t like cats?”

“I don’t exactly dislike them.” He shrugged shoulders clad in a black T-shirt that showed off that muscled male body in a way that supported the idea that he did some sort of physical work.

And heaven help her, when he combed his fingers through his shaggy, sun-streaked chestnut hair, she had a moment of what the nuns who’d taught in her high school would’ve referred to as an “impure thought.” A picture of his broad, dark, workingman’s hands on her body flashed wickedly through Annie’s mind.

“I just don’t
get
them.” His baritone voice roughened with exasperation. “They’re not like dogs, who let you know exactly what they’re thinking.”

Damn. He might be testosterone on a stick, but with that disparaging comment, his sex appeal plummeted several degrees. Not only did Annie love cats, but she was currently owned by a twenty-pounder she’d adopted at Charity Tiernan’s Christmas pet fair.

“That’s part of their appeal. They’re mysterious.” She started to bend down to pick up her bag, but he was faster. “They prefer keeping their thoughts to themselves.”

Wasn’t she the same way? Life in the revolving door of the foster care system and then her failed marriage had definitely taught Annie to keep what she might be thinking to herself.

“More likely people just mistake stupidity for inscrutability.”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

Well, wasn’t he just Mr. Sunshine?

Deciding that the hottie in Ray-Bans was the male version of beauty going only skin deep, Annie felt sorry for whomever the man was here to visit. Feeling that she’d wasted enough time, she grabbed hold of her rolling craft bag, and after a momentary tug-of-war, he released it.