Between Us Girls (7 page)

The kitchen was empty except for a few dishes and cups in the glass-front cupboards, a coffeemaker on the counter, and food from the picnic inside the fridge.

Even sparsely furnished, the bedroom surpassed her motel room when it came to cozy. A multicolored quilt covered the rollaway. On top of it sat a stack of fluffy sea-green towels. Soft light shone from a single reading lamp on a TV tray.

Clothes hung in the closet and toiletries were spread across the vanity in the bathroom. Piper, the beautiful young woman from Four who worked at a department store, had provided all of those things. Apparently clothes and cosmetics were her life, so she had plenty to spare and loved equipping others with them, but still…

It was so good it was almost bad.

Jasmyn giggled. Then she cried. Then she took a shower, slipped into a lavender cotton nightshirt that still had the tags on it, and crawled into bed.

Nine

Before any of her tenants had opened the blinds on their bay windows, Liv was out and about, making her morning rounds in the courtyard.

She smiled. Syd, her late husband, had coined the term
making her rounds
. He said she was doctor and security guard rolled into one. Through the years, other people had called her Mama Liv, angel, prayer warrior, crazy coot, and odd duck. And those were only the ones she knew about.

But, as young people said nowadays, whatever. She was fine with the labels because they suited her. Believing that those who lived at the Casa had been placed there for her to watch over was the axiom she lived by. She began each day with a stroll around the courtyard, a pause before each cottage, and a prayer for the occupant.

Facing the courtyard that still lay in shadows, Liv sat now near her front door on an Adirondack chair, a teapot and cup beside her on a table. All the cottages had similar chairs, their colors chosen to match each front door. Hers was holly red, Syd's favorite color on her.

Tobi, her RagaMuffin cat, purred on her lap. She was a beauty with her mouth and nose centered inside a triangle of white fur. Her right eye and ear were surrounded by dark fur, the left ones by orange.

Birds chirped their predawn song while Liv jotted notes on a pad. She needed to get to the market and the library and tend to those sad mums under the sycamore. The burned-out lightbulbs in the laundry room and the Templetons' drippy faucet were chores for Beau, her maintenance man.

She heard Eleven's door open and close, a swishing sound nearly lost in
the swelling birdsong. That would be the new girl now, trying not to disturb anyone. She seemed a bit on the mousy side with her soft, small voice. It was a wonder Liv had convinced her to spend the night at the Casa.

Liv leaned forward, eager for Jasmyn to appear. The cottages were not lined up in a straight row, but in a staggered circle around the courtyard. Each front door was set back in an alcove. The lovely design created corners and privacy, an excellent feature for such a compact area. But for an odd duck who moonlighted as a mama, it fostered impatience.

Liv waited her limit of three seconds and called out, “Jasmyn, dear?”

The girl peered around the corner of her cottage. “Liv?”

“Good morning!”

Jasmyn emerged, a mug in her hand and wearing a pale yellow robe that fit her to a tee. “Good morning.”

Liv patted the arm of the chair next to hers. “You look bright eyed and bushy tailed.”

“Do I?” Jasmyn sat and smiled. Even in the grayish light of dawn her almost-violet-colored eyes shone. Dimples appeared in her rounded cheeks. “I do, don't I?”

“You must have slept well.”

“Oh, I can't begin to tell you how well I slept. Did you know with the window open you can hear the surf from here?” She paused as she heard her own question. “Of course you know that.”

“It is lovely when the wind blows just right.”

“And the scent! Oh my gosh. Sweet flowers are right outside the window.”

Liv nearly clapped her hands. She hadn't thought of the large plant growing near the back corner of Cottage Eleven, the one she had pampered and coaxed into blooming again. “That's jasmine.”

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Isn't that funny? Well, between the smell and the sound, the room was so soothing. But still I can't believe I slept. I mean, on a rollaway in a strange house wearing someone else's clothes. How goofy is that?” She drew a deep breath, her smile and twinkle fading. “Especially since I haven't really slept in almost six months.”

“Six months?”

“There was a tornado.” She inhaled again deeply and blew out loudly. “My house is gone and everything I owned. Well, except for my bicycle because I rode it to work that day, and that's where I was when the tornado struck. It didn't hit the restaurant or the town, for that matter. I live—I lived on a farm.”

A tornado? The poor child. “I'm so sorry. You and your family weren't harmed?”

“No. I mean, I wasn't. I don't have any family. No siblings or cousins. My grandparents are gone. My mother died three years ago. There were only the four of us.”

“No dad?”

“Uh, my mom, uh, wasn't sure who he was. He was just passing through town. She was only eighteen.”

Oh my!
“I'm so sorry. But you had friends to help you after the tornado? A special young man? Oh, dear. I'm snooping. Bad habit.”

“That's okay. I think I need to talk. Friends, yes. Special guy, no.” She grimaced, as if to say there had been one at some point and that it had not ended well.

“These past months must have been about the worst in your life.”

“Yeah.” She breathed out the word, as if grateful for Liv's two cents' worth of sympathy. “I'd say
the
worst. So, you see? It doesn't make any sense why I could sleep here right after I lost everything again. But then, nothing has made sense since the instant I stuck my foot in the ocean and felt like I'd come home. Everything about San Diego is familiar. Even the freeways. Back home, Valley Oaks doesn't have one stoplight and the highways are two-lanes through farmland. The very first day I got here, I zipped along six lanes of traffic as though it were old hat and I drove straight to the Seaside Village beach without taking one wrong turn.”

Liv held the teacup to her mouth to hide a smile. On second thought, Jasmyn Albright was not in the least bit mousy.

“Then my things were stolen, but I was rescued and treated like a princess. I didn't even have to ask for cream for my coffee. It was right there in the fridge.
Poof!
Like magic. And I slept for the first time since my house was crushed into a pile of matchsticks. To tell you the truth, it's getting a little scary. And I can't believe I'm telling you all this.”

“My goodness, that is a curious chain of events, isn't it?” Liv set down
her cup on the small table between the chairs and cleared her throat. “Why did you choose the Seaside Village beach over the others?”

“I read about it online.” She shrugged. “It sounded like the prettiest one.”

“I think it is. Well. Would you like my take on things?” She had learned to ask permission. In her crazy coot days she'd had a tendency to jump in with both feet and splash others who did not want to get wet. They seldom came back for more.

“Okay?” Jasmyn's voice went up as if she asked a question.

Liv heard it as assent, though, and measured her words. If she said that the Holy Spirit prompted her to stand at the gate yesterday so that she would see Jasmyn in distress and be able to help, the girl might run off. If Liv explained that she had walked through Cottage Eleven, sprinkled holy water around, and prayed for Jasmyn to feel like a princess in it, the girl would hightail it out of there for sure.

Liv chose neutral territory. “Life is a mystery, and it hardly ever makes sense. All I know for sure is that you ended up here when you needed help. And it was Labor Day when no one was working, and we could easily pool our resources. Coco, by the way, donated the cream. She insisted that you have it because she uses it in her coffee.”

Jasmyn gave a little smile. “Why could I sleep?”

“You felt safe here.”

“I felt safe enough in my Valley Oaks studio apartment. I even felt safe at the Marriott. But I didn't sleep well in either place.”

Lord, have mercy.
The girl couldn't sleep well in those other places because deep down she did not feel truly safe, not yet. How could she? Six months was nothing. Last night happened only because…

Well, Liv knew why.

She jumped in with both feet and tried not to splash too much. “Then maybe you slept here because I prayed a special blessing on your sleep. It had been such a dreadful day for you.”

Jasmyn inched forward in her chair, no doubt preparing to skedaddle.

Liv smiled gently. “That sounds zany, I know. But I pray about everything.”

“Is this…” Jasmyn whispered haltingly. “Is this place a, um, a cult?”

“A cult?” Liv pressed her lips together before a burst of laughter escaped.
She cleared her throat. “My goodness. I've never been asked that before. No, Jasmyn, dear. We're not a cult. You just happened to catch us at one of our infrequent all-Casa parties. I suppose each of us is a little kooky in some way. No one, though, is what I would call off-the-chart strange.”

Jasmyn bit her lip and looked down at her mug.

Liv said, “Maybe you think I'm off-the-chart strange?”

She looked up, her eyes wide. “I don't know anyone who prays about everything and gets answers.”

“Well, now you do.”
Oops.
She hadn't meant to say that out loud.

To Liv's surprise Jasmyn scooched back in the chair and smiled. “Yes, now I do. So is it all right if I spend another night here?”

Liv grinned her reply, not wanting to give voice to the thought that was forming in her mind like a video on fast-forward.

Cottage Eleven was going to be Jasmyn Albright's new home.

Ten

Sam parked her black Jeep Cherokee and cut the engine. Despite the ibuprofen she'd taken while inching along the freeway in rush hour traffic, her head throbbed. She removed her sunglasses and covered her face with her hands.

Typically her days did not end like this. Typically work energized her. She arrived at the office early, left late, stopped off at the gym three days a week, and ran at the beach the other two. She went in on weekends. Her friends were those other people in the office early, late, and on weekends.

Work was her hobby, her passion, her social life, her
raison d'être
. She was content and satisfied.

Until today.

A sudden rap on her window startled her. She jumped and turned to see Charles Chadwick Rutherford IV grinning like a goofy little kid. Her heart pounded along with her head.

He mouthed a
Sorry
and made a rolling motion with his hand.

She turned the key and hit the automatic button to open the window. “Honestly, Chad!” He went by his middle name. Apparently after three variations on Charles, the family had run out. “What is wrong with you?”

His grin went sideways and he put a hand to his chest. “Rakish” should have been his middle name. “You know I can't pass up an opportunity to set you off, Miss Whitley. You are completely irresistible when you're exasperated. Your eyes are wild and you're blush—”

“Put a lid on it.”

The guy was too cute for his own good. Clear hazel eyes that always
made dead-on, disarming contact. Perfectly straight white teeth. Six feet tall. Broad shoulders that made white T-shirts look like haute couture. Slender face. Thatch of unruly dark brown waves. He was textbook material for a men's cologne ad.

He leaned on the car, his arms folded on the window opening. “What are you doing?”

She gave him her best
duh
stare. “Climbing Mt. Everest.”

“Seriously, Sammi, it's five thirty. You're not due home for hours.”

She glanced away. Chad was only twenty-five, a spoiled brat, and a pesky nuisance. He was also her best friend at the Casa.
Go figure.
“A huge project was just dumped in my lap.”

“What's the problem? You love huge projects, and they're always dumped in your lap, right?”

Right. But…

Sam gazed down the alley, trying not to see the excitement on the faces of Randy and her coworkers. Trying not to feel the hypocrisy in how she had matched them grin for grin.

The alley was bordered by fences, garages, an apartment building, and the Casa's high wall. Most of it was a no parking zone. She paid extra for her spot, only one of four next to the Casa's back gate. Liv used one, the Templetons and Riley leased the others. Except for Chad, who rented a garage for his little Audi, Casa tenants parked on the streets wherever they happened to find space.