The Cottage Next Door (8 page)

Chapter Eleven

D
IANA SAT ON
a bench facing the ocean, saving their seats while Michael bought them fish and chips. She couldn’t decide if it was painful or embarrassing to be so wrong about so many things at the same time.

First was the gelato, which Michael had insisted she taste before they did anything else. She sampled several flavors and finally settled on the vanilla bean. As promised, it was smoother and denser and richer tasting than any ice cream she’d ever had, even the ones in special cases at the grocery store that were so expensive they came in tiny tubs to hide their per ounce price. Best of all
,
it was two-­thirds the calories of regular ice cream. In the simplest terms possible, even with the reduced calories, gelato was a distinct threat to the twenty pounds she’d lost in the past six months.

Second, she’d honestly believed she would be bored out of her mind at a boardwalk carnival. Seen one, seen them all, as her brother liked to say. He hadn’t been talking about carnivals at the time, but it still fit.

She was anything but bored. How much that had to do with Michael holding her hand as he dragged her from one ride to the next, she’d save to figure out later.

Michael returned, balancing two paper plates and a tall glass of beer. He put the beer between them on the bench, then handed her a mound of deep fried fish and French fries. “Sorry—­I could only handle one drink.”

“I’ll share,” she said, smiling sweetly.

He laughed. “Well, that’s mighty nice of you, partner,” he answered in a truly awful attempt to mimic John Wayne.

“What can I say? I’m a nice person.” She broke off a piece of steaming fish, and held it out to him.

Instead of taking it in his hand, he leaned forward and let her put it in his mouth, his lips touching her fingers. A flush raced up her arm and spread throughout her body like a flock of starlings fleeing from a hawk. With as much subtlety as she could pull off, she maneuvered away from him until she was sitting on the edge of the seat.

She struggled to find something for them to talk about that would put them back in neutral territory. “When Peter interviewed me for this job, he said you would be leaving as soon as he and your mother came home.”

“Leaving the galleries, not the area. I’ve been hired by the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary as an ecosystem scientist. The job doesn’t start until mid-­August, which left me free to help out at the gallery while my mom and Peter were traveling.”

“I’ve never heard of an ecosystem scientist. What do you do?”

“I’ll be assigned a marine species that’s exhibiting unusual behavior, usually one with dramatically decreased or increased numbers, and try to figure out why it’s happening.”

“That could get pretty depressing.”

“Not necessarily. But if it turns out the change is from global warming, we need to know how and why it’s happening to that particular species.”

“Is your brother a scientist, too?” From what Michael had told her about Paul, it appeared they were close.

Michael laughed. “He’s about as far away from it as you can get. He’s on the fast track to be an agent at the William Morris Agency in Los Angeles.”

“Wow. How did that happen?”

“He started out as a grunt in the mailroom and then moved up to be an assistant to one of the newer agents. It looked like he was going to be stuck there until one day he walked in with Chris Sadler as a bargaining chip.”

“The actor who owns the house on the cliff?”

“Who also happened to be a longtime summer resident of the house Jeremy’s working on. He and his mom had June and my family had August so we never met while we were here, but the summer renters were a small group with a lot in common.

“Paul and Chris met at a party and got to talking. One thing led to another and they became friends. Since then Chris has opened a lot of doors for Paul. And Paul made sure Chris had first crack at the role that got him the Oscar.”

Diana picked up her last piece of fish, started to take a bite, and put it back down. She was stuffed. “You do know all this food kills any possibility of getting me on any more rides.”

“Which means we’ll just have to come back.”

She smiled impishly. “Wow. You’d really do that for me? Most impressive.”
Ooooh . . . stupid statement
. She sounded like she was flirting with him. Which was something she definitely didn’t want to do, no matter how much fun it was.

“Not to take anything away from that heroic self-­sacrificing thought, but there is the gelato. I’ve been a fan since I was ten.”

He’d saved her. And he’d done it on purpose. “Yes, there is that.”

Remembering she’d promised her brother, Brian, pictures of the boardwalk, she took out her phone. Unlike her, he loved carnivals. He was her one sibling she knew she could count on to visit her in California, especially if she used the boardwalk as a lure. He was also the one sibling who would see the ocean and feel an instant connection the way she had.

Best of all, he would like Michael. She knew this as surely as she knew her mother would be a long time forgiving her if Brian came to visit and never went home.

Michael followed her as she moved to different locations. “You can get a good pano shot of the entire boardwalk from the beach.”

She glanced at her watch and saw that it was a half hour to closing. How could that be? “Looks like it’s something I’ll have to save for next time.”

“One last thing.” He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her to the carousel.

“I don’t know about this,” she said.

“Come on—­I’ve seen five year olds who went on this ride after eating deep fried Twinkies with a cotton candy chaser. Are you going to let them best you?”

“Now you sound like my brother Brian, the one who insisted I go on Ferris wheel after he’d fed me all that junk.”

“Is that bad?”

She considered the question. “Sometimes. But you’d have to know Brian. He’s my one sibling who thinks I can do anything.”

“I can see why he’d think that.”

She stopped to look into his eyes to see if he was teasing her. He wasn’t.

I wish I could see it
was the truthful answer, but it sounded pathetic, even to her. Instead, she said, “Brian has never cut me any slack. He’s the only one who doesn’t care that I’m the youngest and supposedly the ‘baby’ of the family.”

He was the only one in the family who didn’t commiserate with her when she lost the house. Instead, he’d been furious that she’d had such low self-­esteem that she’d allowed someone like Howard into her life in the first place.

Michael laughed. “I wouldn’t cut you any slack either.”

“All right. I’ll go on the ride,” she said with no real enthusiasm.

Michael gave her a thumbs-­up signal and went to get their tickets while Diana listened to the music coming from the throaty pipe organ. When he returned she got into line, and waited for the carousel to stop. As soon as everyone had cleared off, she started toward a gleaming chestnut horse with his head thrown back, carrying a blanket of yellow roses. Michael made a grab for her arm before she stepped onto the wooden platform.

“Not so fast,” he said. “There’s more to this than jumping on the first horse you see. See that arm over there?”

She nodded.

“For us competitive types, the goal is to snag a ring from the dispenser and toss it into the clown’s mouth. You get about a second and a half to do this, which means you have to be on the outside row and on one of the horses that moves.”

“And if I get the ring in?” She was beginning to warm to what she’d always thought of as a ride for little kids.

“The clown lights up and a bell goes off.”

“And then?”

“There is no
and then
.”

“That’s it? No prize?” She made a face. “I could use a new car.”

Michael laughed. “Me, too.”

She loved the way he laughed, free and spontaneous. She couldn’t help but smile in response. This had been a good day.

Slowly, as soon as all the riders were on board, the carousel came to life again. She stood on the sideline watching the horses, immediately spotting two that didn’t move and could make it hard, if not impossible, to snag a ring. She settled on a horse that had been patterned after a Lipizzan stallion, white with a black and gold and red saddle, its head tucked low, both front legs extended as if running at full gallop. “Okay, I’ve got my horse picked out.” She grinned. “Now all I have to do is elbow all the little kids out of my way.”

Diana didn’t have to knock anyone out of the way. Michael snagged the horse she’d chosen, and with effortless grace, lifted her into the saddle as if she weighed no more than one of the five year olds still waiting in line. He took the horse directly opposite hers, a stallion with its head up and teeth bared, sporting a red and blue and yellow saddle, with carved peacock feathers woven through his mane and tail, a true Black Beauty.

“You look like a knight about to ride off into the sunset at the end of a fairy tale,” she said.

“And you look like the princess.”

This time it was her turn to laugh. “Oh, gag.”

The carousel held almost as many adults as children when it started. Diana turned her head, acting as if she were studying the upcoming arm that held the rings, but in reality trying to hide a flush of pleasure. Twenty-­nine was too old to get this excited about tossing a ring into a clown’s mouth.

Michael leaned closer to give her tips on timing and how to aim. He let out an excited whoop when during her first attempt, the ring made it into the clown’s mouth without touching the sides. “You’re a natural,” he shouted over the music.

“I have two brothers who played any sport that had a ball. They made me practice with them every afternoon when they were supposed to be helping me with my homework.” For the first time ever, she was grateful for all the times they’d dragged her down to the empty field by their house to make her chase balls.

The ride ended with Diana two bells and lights to four misses. Michael lifted her off her horse, hesitating a second longer than necessary before lowering her to the wooden floor, turning the gesture into something startlingly intimate. He reached for her hand to guide her off the carousel. She purposely ignored him, stuffing both hands into her pockets and turning what might have been a simple courtesy into something painfully awkward.

The trip to the parking lot passed with inane chatter that Diana instigated and Michael worked to sustain. The car ride back to the cove bordered on agonizing. When Michael pulled into her driveway, he twisted in his seat to face her. “I hope you like it here.”

Her heart did a funny little skipping beat. “I do,” she answered. “So far.”

Realizing how easily the last could be misinterpreted, she added, “Really—­what’s not to like?”

He stumbled over his answer, starting with, “I’m glad you’re staying . . .” And ending with a simple, “Good.”

“Peter’s been calling me every day to see how it’s going,” he went on, then shifted in his seat so that he wasn’t facing her anymore. “He said he’d fire me if you changed your mind about the job and took off for Kansas.”

She hated forced laughter, but out it came, making her sound like a frog trying to throw up a bug. “Not much of a threat considering you’re quitting as soon as they get back.”

“What if I told you that I wanted you to stay, too?” he said.

No Michael,
she mentally screamed
. No, no, no. Don’t do this to me. “
I guess I’d say thank you.”

He stared at her for a long time, his look unfathomable. “Too soon?”

“Yes,” she said softly.

“Then forget I said it.”

Her eyes flashed a grateful smile. “Okay.”

She met his gaze.

He wasn’t going to forget.

And neither was she.

Chapter Twelve

M
I
CHAEL WAITED UNTIL
Diana was inside before he took off, cursing himself for being such an idiot. She’d told him in every way possible, short of sitting him down and writing it in the sand, that she wasn’t interested in anything beyond friendship—­with him or with any guy. What had he been thinking when he’d come on to her the way he had?

He pulled into the driveway too fast and tapped the brick wall Peter had installed to keep guests from going off the rock embankment.

Too bad there wasn’t a mental retaining wall that did the same thing.

He-­was-­such-­an-­idiot.

With nothing or no one waiting for him, Michael got out of the car and sat on the wall, facing the ocean. This was his favorite kind of night here, a thin line of foam pushed ashore by lazy waves, an almost full moon the only light in a neighborhood where ­people were either in bed or deep into their own thoughts, a soft breeze that carried smells to trigger memories yet unformed.

The quiet was shattered with the hideous sound of Aqua singing “Barbie Girl.” Whatever had made him think it was a good idea to keep the personal contact ringtone for Leslie that she’d put on his phone as a joke?

Leslie was the last person he wanted to talk to. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”

She was crying. “Can you talk?”

He could, but that didn’t mean he wanted to. “Sure. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just need someone to talk to. Luke and I had a fight.”

And she came to him? WTF?
“Was it serious?”

“You’re going to love this. He said I have a commitment phobia. Why does every guy I date want to tie me down? Why can’t they understand I need space to be the me they claim to love so much?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, Leslie,” he said, his words tinged with frustration.

She came on point. “I thought I could talk to you about things like this now. I thought we were friends.”

With stunning clarity Michael saw something in Leslie that he’d completely missed until then. “Friends don’t do what you did to me, Leslie. You had every right to say no, and every right to be angry, but you had no right to make me feel like the world’s biggest jerk for trying to show you how much I loved you.”

Completely ignoring him, she went on, “Luke told me he loved me and I told him I wasn’t ready and he said it was because I was still in love with you and I told him he was crazy, that I had never really loved you, and he said that I was lying to myself and that I had issues I had to take care of before he would even think of coming back.” She stopped to blow her nose. “I don’t know what to do, Michael. Tell me what I should do.”

He was too stunned to answer. Instead, he did what he should have done months ago and hung up on her. She called back. He didn’t answer. Next came a text. He ignored it. Then came another call, followed by another text.

Michael put the phone on silent and laid it atop the wall beside him. He jumped down, stepping from rock to rock, as he made his way down the fifteen-­foot rock embankment to the sand below.

It was a perfect night for running on the beach. Low tide meant that if he timed it right, he could ease past the cliff that guarded the south end of the cove and run all the way to Rollins Beach. Whether the tide was at ebb or flood when he made the turn would determine if he came back the same way or took the route through the housing tracts.

He managed to make it to Rollins and back in time to see the first waves of the turning tide lick the base of the cliff. Instead of wearing him out, he’d come home feeling fired up and ready to face a morning that was still hours away.

He stopped to check the damage he’d done to his bumper when he hit the wall. Luckily, it was only a minor addition to the scratch he’d left the last time he pulled into the driveway too fast, not enough to make a claim—­just enough to lower the resale value. Before going inside, almost as an afterthought, he remembered his phone was still on the brick wall.

As expected, he’d been bombarded with calls and texts from Leslie. She must have been at it the entire time he was gone, thinking she could wear him down. Assuming no one but Leslie had called, he didn’t bother checking his messages.

H
ESTER WAITED AN
hour for Michael to call her back, finally deciding he must have gone to bed and that he would get in touch with her in the morning. Michael wasn’t the type to ignore her call the way she had thoughtlessly ignored his, even knowing how worried he would be when he couldn’t reach her. He’d always been caring and thoughtful, the kind of young man you hoped your daughter brought home.

But morning came and still no return call. Knowing Michael always checked the voice mail at the gallery first thing in the morning, she left a message there, asking him to meet her for lunch at her house. What she had to tell him, she couldn’t do at work. And while it wasn’t fair to put him in the middle and dump everything on him, she couldn’t wait for Peter to come home, not with the new bookkeeper starting in three days.

Staring at the envelope she’d propped against the mirror on the fireplace mantel, she clasped her hands together to keep them from shaking. Every breath was an effort as the crushing weight of what she’d done wrapped around her like a hungry python.

There was enough money in the envelope for her to disappear. She could get on a train—­no one ever looked for someone on a train these days, it was all airports and rental cars—­and ride the rails until she found a quiet town where sixty-­three-­year-­old widows were accepted as part of the community, no questions asked.

If she just walked away she would never have to see the disappointment reflected in the eyes of the ­people whose trust she had betrayed.

But it wasn’t her money. It never had been. She’d borrowed it when she was desperate for a loan none of the banks would give her, refusing to consider how complicated it would be to pay back. All that mattered at the time was being able to pay the doctor at the cancer clinic. Without the treatment, any hope of a cure for David would be gone.

What choice did she have? Her dear sweet David, the love of her life, the man who’d asked her to marry him despite her reputation as a hand-­me-­down from the football team, had flatly refused to sign the papers to get a second mortgage on their home. Selling it was out of the question. He refused to die and leave her in debt, and she refused to accept that he couldn’t be saved. All they needed was a final fifty thousand dollars beyond the money Hester had already given them when she stripped her and David’s retirement savings accounts and cleaned out their regular savings. She would have sold one of her kidneys to help him. Or, she would do what she did: risk spending the rest of her life in prison.

The treatments they’d been assured would save his life gave him less than a year. A horrific year. She’d finally accepted that the footbaths to remove toxins were a sham. The constant colonic irrigations perforated his bowel. The bizarre diet of vegetables and raw liver left him in a constant state of nausea. The mysterious mixture of chemicals fed into his veins, touted as being an alternate, supposedly gentler form of chemotherapy left him so weak he needed help getting from the bed to a wheelchair. And still the tumors grew and spread.

David begged her to let him go home so he could die in peace. Hester begged him to try a little longer—­a day, a week, and finally a month. For her. She couldn’t bear the thought of living without him.

He gave in and continued the treatments. And died a terrible death with nothing peaceful or gentle about it. The doctor said it was David’s fault. Cures only happened when the patient had faith in the treatment, and David had stopped believing.

Hester was numb for months and then woke up. First she dealt with simple anger. Within a month the anger turned to fury. She filed a complaint with the Medical Board of California and followed it through the investigative process. She’d spent the entire past week, when she should have been at work preparing for the new bookkeeper, at the agency’s district office attending hearings.

Feeling confident she’d done what she could to guarantee no one else would be scammed by the doctor or his clinic, she turned to the debt she owed Peter and Katherine. She was counting on Michael to help her. He would be kind because it was his nature. And he would do what had to be done because that was his nature, too.

She’d picked up the check for the sale of her house at the title company the day before. There was enough to cover what she’d taken, plus interest. It was the part where she had to admit what she’d done, where she had to look Michael in the eye and see the disappointment that would haunt her the rest of her life that she feared the most.

She’d planned it this way. It was cowardly, but she simply couldn’t face Peter and Katherine. Not now. Maybe later when their disappointment had developed a protective shell of anger. They’d always treated her like family.

And this was how she’d thanked them.