The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) (19 page)

"When did you meet him?"

"When he bought the cottage, of course. Which is why I know you cannot sell it."

"Of course I can sell it. It's in my name." Was Miss Zelda going to stand in the way of what she needed to do? She crossed her arms and glared. "I have the right to sell the property... ma'am."

"Now don't get ruffled, young lady. Of course you have a legal right to sell it, that's not what I mean. I mean you cannot. It wouldn't be right, not for little Oliver, and not for you."

Camilla felt panic rising in her. She had to sell. She had to leave town. She felt the familiar panic—get away from the criticism, get away from the people who would judge her—and she had to take a couple of deep breaths to talk herself down from it.

Miss Zelda just watched her.

Finally, Camilla said, "I don't understand, Miss Zelda. Are you are going to make it difficult for me to sell?"

She put up one hand. "My dear, you are so impatient. Drink your coffee and have another cookie and I'm sure we will reach an amicable agreement. I am not here to make your life difficult. You are too quick to assume that you have enemies all around you." She reached down and scratched the cat behind the ears, and it glared back at her. "Ophelia here is the only one who is truly hostile. Everyone else is on your side."

"She looks like a nice cat," Camilla said dubiously, while the cat glared back at her.

"No, she's not," Zelda said matter-of-factly. "She's an awful beast. But we're used to each other. She was abandoned in a barn as a kitten and got her little mind pretty twisted by the time she was found and brought to the shelter."

Somehow Camilla wouldn't have pictured Miss Zelda adopting a shelter cat, and she told her so.

Zelda laughed. "Why not, my dear? I'm nothing but an old mutt myself. Miss Abigail Potter from a run-down truck farm in the Central Valley." Then that sharp look focused in on her. "You are what you make of yourself, Camilla. It's up to you to define yourself. Don't let others do it for you."

"I guess." Camilla leaned down to pet the cat, but it reached out and took a swipe at her. "Ouch!" She pulled away, and the cat hissed at her like it was the one who'd been attacked.

The cat glared at her with an expression exactly like her mother had always worn. "I've seen that look before," Camilla muttered, rubbing the scratch on her hand.

"Where?"

Camilla almost told the truth, but then shook her head. "It doesn't matter."

Miss Zelda shook her head. "Mabel Rutherford has her own problems that have nothing to do with you."

Camilla didn't correct her.

"But you have a lot of people rooting for you. Give us a chance to help."

Camilla straightened up in her chair. "Ma'am, I need to get your permission to do these improvements. Is that going to be a problem?"

Miss Zelda took another bite of her cookie. "These are very good. Does Santos' Market carry them? I will have Sandy buy us some."

"They're just store-brand cookies."

"Things don't have to be expensive to be good. Like this little place." She nodded toward the living room. "You've noticed the fireplace."

"Of course," Camilla said, giving up on directing the conversation and letting Miss Zelda go her own way, which seemed inevitable anyway.

"This is the very first Stockdale. Jefferson Stockdale's honeymoon cottage. He came to Pajaro Bay as a young man, and met Ramona Robles. Her family owned the Robles Pottery in town. They made dinnerware, Mexican-style tiles, that sort of thing."

Camilla nodded, trying not to be impatient. "The stuff on the fireplace."

"That came later. After they met. It was as if they freed each other. He had been building conventional houses on contract."

"He knew how to build regular houses?"

"Of course, my dear. Haven't you noticed that despite all the odd angles, the joints are perfect? He was a woodworker and a trained architect."

Camilla looked up toward the kitchen ceiling. No, she hadn't really noticed. She'd been so busy dealing with the problems that she hadn't really looked at how the ceiling beams had perfect dovetail joints. She leaned back in her chair and smiled. "I haven't been paying attention."

"Of course not. You've been too busy."

"But I noticed the fireplace tiles."

"Yes. Ramona had been working in her family's pottery, following the standard, mass-produced designs from which her family made a living. After Jefferson and Ramona met, he started making these cottages, first this one, then more and more as people fell in love with them. And she—well, you can see what she did. She started developing new arts and crafts designs and producing them in her family's kilns. There are Robles tiles in many of the California craftsman homes throughout the state, as well as in every Stockdale."

"They were meant for each other."

"Yes. But their son died in the war, and there were no heirs. So when Ramona finally passed about four years ago, the place sat empty. It hadn't been repaired in years, and it just fell to pieces. We in the historical society purchased it from the estate, but we hadn't gotten around to working on it, when Dennis came along."

Camilla perked up. "So you actually met Dennis?"

"Oh, yes. He was a fast talker, but I could see underneath the polish he really wanted the house."

He really wanted this house? That had never made sense to Camilla. When the real estate agent told her she'd sold Dennis the house and he'd insisted on putting it in Camilla's name, she at first didn't believe it. Now she knew it was true, but still... "Why? Did he say why he bought it?"

"For his son, of course."

"His son?"

Miss Zelda nodded, and took another sip of coffee. "This coffee really isn't that bad."

Dennis wanted the house for Oliver? That didn't fit with what she and Ryan had realized about Dennis's motives. She had believed Dennis was a doting father, but Ryan had corrected that misperception. She knew there must be more to the story, so she waited for Miss Zelda to continue the story.

"I see you don't believe me," she finally said after another bite of cookie and another sip of the awful coffee. "Well, that's all right, my dear." She patted Camilla's hand. "But this place is what you and Oliver need."

"No, Miss Zelda. What we need is the money we'll get from selling it. Then we can make a new start somewhere else."

"You must stay here. Dennis was adamant about that. He wants his son raised here."

The nerve of that man. He'd stolen from there, and then thought he could dictate what she did with her life? Was he completely crazy? But then she realized he might very well be crazy. After all, if he was everything Ryan claimed he was, he must be nuts. Still, he couldn't stop her from selling the house.

"He really was quite insistent on that point," Miss Zelda said, obviously reading the anger on Camilla's face.

"Well, we can't always get what we want," she muttered into her coffee cup.

"You want what's best for the boy." It was a statement, not a question.

"Of course I do. But I am not going to indulge Dennis's whims. He left Oliver in my care, and I have to decide what's best. Dennis is a criminal. He doesn't know what's best for his child."

She froze, stared down at her coffee. "Criminals don't make the best parents," she muttered.

"I'm sure they don't. But they can love their children, even if they fail in other areas. It's human nature to be able to hold several mutually exclusive opinions at the same time, my dear. That's Fitzgerald, I think, though I'm probably misquoting him."

"Whatever. Selfishness is not love."

"No, it's not. But Dennis's purchase of this place was not a selfish act."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm very old, young lady." Camilla glanced up and caught the twinkle in Miss Zelda's eyes. "I am not easily fooled by quick-talking scam artists."

"You saw through him?"

"Of course. He's what we used to call a gigolo. A fool who takes advantage of other fools."

"Ouch."

"Sorry, my dear. But I believe in being honest. You were a fool to trust him. You know that yourself—in fact I do wonder why someone as bright as you fell for such an obvious man...."

That sentence lay there for a minute while Camilla said nothing, thinking furiously about it herself. Why had Dennis fooled her? You would think she had seen enough dishonesty in her life to spot it. But there was something deeper there, something inside her she hadn't faced. She had been thinking about it ever since Dennis disappeared, but she kept turning her mind away from it instead of really facing it. Some time she would have to face it. But not now.

"No matter," Miss Zelda continued. "You were a fool to trust Dennis. But you are not a fool to love Oliver. And Dennis was not a fool to trust you with his son."

Camilla shook her head. "There's more to the story than that."

She tried to think of how to explain about the so-called accidents, but Miss Zelda waved her hand in the air, dismissing it. "I'm sure there are other parts to the story that I do not know. But I know what Dennis said, and what showed in what he didn't say."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me he was buying the cottage for his son, and for the woman who would be his son's guardian."

"Did he say that, or did you read that between the lines?"

She smiled. "He said that. The term 'woman who would be his son's guardian' stood out to me, as you might imagine. So he never intended you to be his wife."

Camilla shrugged. "It's not like I really loved him."

"You just loved his son."

She nodded. "Yes. And you're saying that's what Dennis wanted?"

"That's what he said."

"He's a born liar."

"True enough. But as I said, I don't believe what I'm told, I believe what I know is true."

"I'd like to be that way."

"You already are. You just have to learn to listen to your own judgment, and not be swayed by others."

"I felt it in my bones that Dennis loved Oliver, but then when Ryan told me he didn't—"

"—Ryan is a good young man, but why do you doubt what you feel in your own bones?"

That struck home. She wondered. Why had she assumed Ryan was right? You couldn't trust cops to tell the truth; they always had their own agendas. Why did she believe Ryan instead of herself? "Good question. Very good question."

Zelda nodded. "So. I will talk to Felix so you don't have to sell the cottage."

"No, Miss Zelda. I don't want you to do that."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're sure? Yes, I see by your expression you are."

"I pay my debts. I'm not a welcher. But I will respect the architectural integrity of the cottage when I make the improvements. I promise."

"I'm sure you will." She gathered Ophelia into her arms and stood up. Camilla watched as the cat went perfectly limp and buried its head in the crook of Miss Zelda's arm. The cat was a monster—and a gentle lap cat. Two contradictory things, depending on who she was dealing with.

"Finished, Sandy?"

The little man came back into the kitchen, nodded silently.

"You've seen the chimney sweep out?"

Another nod.

"Very well. I am sorry we will not be neighbors for long, Camilla. I have enjoyed our conversation, and I would have liked to get to know you better. I think you show a lot of promise."

That felt good coming from Miss Zelda. She had the nerve to call her a fool when she deserved it, and it made the compliment mean something. Honesty. Something she might want to think about.

"Thank you, Ma'am. But we haven't talked about what I'm changing in the house. Or about the historical society."

Miss Zelda waved the hand that wasn't holding the cat. "I don't think we'll have any problem approving your plans."

She and her tiny entourage swept out, and Camilla closed the door after them.

~*~

After Zelda left, Camilla took a broom upstairs to the tiny attic room and began sweeping furiously, kicking up dust everywhere. It's human nature to hold several mutually exclusive opinions at the same time, my dear. It may be human nature, but it was still wrong.

How could she be an intelligent, adult woman, and be fooled by an obvious con man? Even more, how had she been fooled by the type of man she'd spent her whole life dealing with?

She got angrier and angrier while she swept, until she finally sat down on the hardwood floor and had a good cry. The truth was there, right in front of her. But she'd been avoiding it for all these weeks.

That stupid cat looked just like her mother. It had been neglected until it became a bitter and angry little animal. She'd never thought of that side of it, being so focused on getting scratched that she never paid attention to what made an animal mad enough to attack.

But she was paying attention now. Her dad was Dennis. It hit her like a lead pipe to the chest. All this time she'd been so angry at her mother, blaming her for the coldness, the cruelty, the abandonment. But her dad had been the real problem.

She'd always made her mother the bad guy. But her mother hadn't started out a bitter, hateful old woman. Her mother had once been in love. She'd seen the old photos, years ago. She remembered how shocked she had been when she'd realized the beautiful, happy young woman clinging to dad's arm in the wedding photos had been her own mother. It was like her mother had been a completely different person then.

Of course she was a different person. She was a woman in love with a rising young executive who'd promised her the moon and stars.

All her mother’s dreams of a good life and social standing were wiped out when she found herself married and pregnant with the child of a con man. Her father wasn't an up-and-coming executive, but an out of work handyman who went from one get-rich-quick scheme to the next, lying and manipulating all the way. He used people, ripped them off, and smiled all the while he was doing it. Like it was a game.

But her dad had loved her. Worshipped her, really. His little apprentice. His little darling daughter. She had basked in that love, soaked up that adoration, at the same time trying to fight off the anger and bitterness—and hate—that her mother constantly spewed at her. Mutually exclusive beliefs. Love and hate.