Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (2 page)

For twenty minutes she scoured her apartment for him, but the kitten was nowhere to be found. She was impressed. It was essentially a four room home. Her bedroom, the cramped-but-functional bathroom, her parents’ bedroom, and the living space, with a single line of countertops and cabinets along one wall to hold the kitchen appliances. The dining table served as a visual separator for the room. When her efforts proved fruitless, she upped the ante. But a saucer of half-and-half and a bowl of chunk light tuna didn’t coax the little monster out either. It wasn’t until she went to the outside landing that she realized where he was.

The ghost of a smile played over her lips at the sight. Her furry friend had scaled another miniature landmark on the course. Not just any landmark, but the twelve-foot replica Easter Island head at the seventeenth hole.

Down again, out onto the course she went, grabbing the ladder from the utility room.

Amy spotted her coming. “He’s awfully cute. Will you keep him?”

“I’m sure the little beast belongs to someone.” Sofia propped the ladder against the statue and spoke to the three parties queued up at the tee. “Play through, folks. Amy will comp you all a soft-serve in the snack bar for your trouble.” Amy herded everyone through while Sofia surveyed the head, looking for the best path to get to her little pal, who batted a passing white butterfly and mewed at her from his perch.

~~~

“Well, I know what I’m going to call you when I find you.” Silas Wilde pushed up to standing, brushing a fine dusting of beach sand from his knees. He gave up hope that the little thing had only gone to ground under the sofa; he was fairly certain he was talking to an empty room. So far, the kitten his sister had given him at the beginning of the summer—a housewarming gift, or so Mallory claimed—had escaped his apartment no less than ten times, this last time managing, Silas feared, to get out of the building altogether.

He made a cursory examination of the bathroom and efficiency kitchen before taking the back stairway down to the Atlantis Market, the convenience store and gift shop that was his new livelihood, half-hoping the kitten was playing with the mops and brooms in the hallway. When his search disappointed him, he headed into the Market. His older sister’s oldest son, Theo, looked up from the register. He was ringing up a big sale: two beach chairs, a soft-sided cooler, and a picnic’s worth of bottled water, soda, and junk food.

Silas had developed a great affection for impulse beachgoers.

“Cat got out again,” he said.

Theo laughed. “I’ve got everything taken care of.”

Silas let himself out through the store’s front door, leaving Theo to handle the morning beachcombers in search of a snow globe of the Casino Ballroom, a new pair of flip-flops, or aloe gel. “Hopefully, I won’t be gone more than a half hour. I’ve got my phone.”

Silas had traced the New England coast north from New York City six months earlier, abandoning Interstate 95 in Boston to weave a northbound route along route 1 and 1A, in a Jeep Wrangler he’d bought from the Want Ads. A thousand times, his breath was stolen by the pewter sea and the rocky shoreline, peppered with stretches of coarse sand beaches and faded boardwalks, but something about Hampton Beach called to him. Following the tug, he’d checked into a motel a block inland, one of the few open in the frigid winter months, and fallen asleep to the north wind wailing over the snowy beach.

He’d thought Ocean Boulevard had stolen his heart in January, abandoned and near silent, save for some hardy year-round dwellers and a handful of businesses that defied the off-season. As he looked out over the summer expanse of state beach, pristine and already baking under a ninety-degree sun, the music of tourism and the magic of vacation coursed through him like the first swallow of a cold beer.

Had he still been in New York, sweltering in his Brooklyn walk-up or hunched over his desk in the maze of cubicles on the litigation floor at Stern & Lowe, he might never have known the heady mix of kitsch and tradition that was Hampton. Owning a convenience store in a summer town was a good, long way from the document review sweatshop of corporate law.

Not even ten in the morning, and his worn R.E.M. tour tee-shirt was stuck to the small of his back. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, and he wiped it with the hem of the shirt. A gaggle of teenage girls wandered by in bikinis, and one of them turned to give him a sassy grin, her eyes lingering over the flat expanse of his stomach. Silas watched them pass, doing his best not to appreciate the view too much. 

He walked the perimeter of his building, examining a patch of newer cedar shingles, not yet weathered silver, while he looked for the cat. The previous owner had taken care of the Atlantis, even if his taste in interior decorating was a blend of seventies aesthetic and thrift store pragmatism. Silas called to the kitten with the whistle and click combination he’d found seemed to attract the small adventurer.

It wasn’t long before he heard the meow from over the fence. The kitten was small, but he had lungs and feet worth watching. Following the cries, he arrived at the gate of Buck’s Landing. His next door neighbor’s building was taller, casting his apartment into welcome shade for most of the day. The owner, Jimmy Buck, had passed away about a month ago, leaving the whole property to his estranged daughter.

The jury was still out on the new Buck at the Landing, as far as Silas was concerned. She’d breezed into town in a slick BMW sedan, holed up in her late father’s apartment, and kept mostly to herself. He’d only seen her once in the three weeks she’d been in residence; she’d been hauling a huge suitcase out of the trunk of that Beamer. She had refused his friendly offer of help, called down over the railing from the porch roof that served as his deck. He’d watched Jimmy’s daughter drag that luggage up the two flights of narrow exterior stairs to the apartment with equal parts amusement and distaste. 

Silas recognized the young woman working the register at Buck’s. Amy had pounded pavement before the last frost looking for a summer job, even coming into the Atlantis Market to see if he was hiring. Turning her down had been tough, so he’d been glad to hear Jimmy had hired her on for the summer. Later in the spring when he’d run the numbers and knew he could afford a part-timer, he’d hired his nephew Theo at his sister’s insistence. Mallory was a persistent woman.

“Amy.” He smiled. She was reading one of those creased and worn steamy beach novels that passed from rental to rental. He imagined this one had been up and down the strip. Amy stashed the novel under the counter.

“Mr. Wilde. Can I help you?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve seen a kitten around the place this morning.”

Amy lit up like the Funarama on a Saturday night. “Seventeenth hole. He’s a troublemaker, huh?”

“You could say that. Thinking of calling him Houdini.” He peered around the building towards the course. “Seventeen, you said?”

“Go on through, Mr. Wilde.”

Silas couldn’t help inspecting Jimmy Buck’s Astroturf and the gravel paths that wound between the holes as he walked. Jimmy had been a good neighbor in the few months they’d known one another. The older man had introduced himself immediately following the first evening Silas spent in the apartment over the Atlantis; Jimmy had turned up on the welcome mat with a pair of to-go coffees and a half-dozen box of donuts. They’d grown close before his passing. Jimmy had told him stories about his family, mainly centered on his daughter’s childhood, and had often confided in Silas that he wished he had more time and resources to put into the endless maintenance the property required.

There were changes at Buck’s Landing, Silas noted. He had to admit, they were for the better. The paths were weeded, their gravel leveled. The turf and obstacles had been cleaned, and the greens patched in the worn spots. The music Jimmy had favored leaned toward classic country and western, so much so that Silas considered loaning the man his collection of Police and U2 CDs. Today he appreciated the thump of bass and electronic warble of Auto-Tune. The younger Buck knew what the kids listened to, anyway.

He heard Jimmy’s daughter before she came into view. Unlike the over-produced pop-princess voice on the sound system, hers was a smoky voice that belonged in a speakeasy.

He rounded the corner at the sixteenth hole and burst out laughing. There was Houdini, surveying his kingdom from the top of the Easter Island head, his posture comically regal. The cat watched his would-be rescuer hoist herself from a short ladder by using the statue’s left shoulder as a foothold.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she cajoled, that bourbon voice pitched low. With an arm wrapped around the statue’s head, she swung her leg over it, braced her other foot against its chest, and reached up for his cat.

Silas closed the distance between them and pushed his hair back with his sunglasses, the better to get an eye full of Jimmy Buck’s mini-golf heiress. Silas took in the khaki shorts stretched across a toned rear and the strong, tanned legs, and briefly envied the statue, with his cement face pressed against that body.

“That’s one lucky statue,” he said with a chuckle. “I see you found my cat.”

~~~

Arrogant bastard. Sofia’s cheeks went hot at the thought of how she looked, clinging to the impassive face of the golf course obstacle. There was a click and whistle from the man, and the kitten flicked its ears. With a flash of gray fur and a scrabble of little nails, he streaked down from the monolith.

“I think his name is Houdini,” the man laughed.

Sofia couldn’t tell if he was laughing at his own joke, at the cat’s name, or at her predicament.

She swung her leg towards the ladder. When she’d taken a leave from her position as the event planner for the DeVarona hotel in Washington, DC to return to Hampton Beach and sort out her father’s property, she’d expected a hot, miserable summer of tourists in cheap tee-shirts spilling ice cream all over the run-down course. She hadn’t been prepared for the changes to the old boulevard and the changes to Buck’s Landing. She hadn’t been prepared to get caught halfway up a Polynesian deity’s face by her surfer-boy next door neighbor, but she was accustomed to damage control. She could face some local guy who’d lost his cat. When her foot missed and kicked the ladder instead of landing on a rung, she swore roundly and hung on to the cement.

To her horror, a pair of male hands steadied her, holding the backs of her thighs. The cheery conversations from the parties playing the course were gone, replaced by giggles and whispering.

“Easy now. I’ve got you.” Her rescuer grasped her waist and lowered her to the turf. She sucked in a breath. It wouldn’t do to fly off the handle in front of paying customers. Spinning around, she got a good look at her next door neighbor.

“You must be Jimmy’s daughter,” he said. The little gray cat sat on his broad shoulder like a pirate’s parrot, delicately grooming one of his white-stockinged paws. “Thanks for helping out this little troublemaker. I’m Silas Wilde, your—“

“Next door neighbor, yes.” She leveled him with her coolest managerial look and held out a hand. “Sofia Buck.” His hands were big, she thought, watching hers disappear into his grip. And warm. His smile wrinkled his eyes, but she judged him to be near her age. From his shoulder, the kitten offered her his freshly groomed foot. His serious, whiskered expression charmed.  “And you’re Houdini.”

Silas reached up and plucked the cat off his shoulder. “He’s new, still getting the hang of being neighborly.”

“I’d suggest locking your door, but he got out of my locked apartment earlier.” She flicked an eyebrow at the pair. The gray kitten fit in his hand like a toy. “He’s already been up the tree at hole twelve this morning.”

Silas laughed, taking the measure of the so-called tree. Turning the kitten around to face him, he went nose-to-nose with his feline. “No more causing trouble for Ms. Buck. Though she does look fantastic stretched out on the moai.”

Sofia snorted. “I am standing right here.”

Silas turned his gaze on her. His eyes were the exact cool blue-gray of the Atlantic and his messy, honey-colored waves, pushed away from his face by a pair of sport sunglasses, were streaked summery blond. She felt his appraisal sweep over her. “So you are.”

“Excuse me?” A barrel-chested man in a Red Sox tee-shirt was tapping his putter on the gravel. “Can we play?”

Sofia suppressed a grin as the sunburnt woman at his side smacked his upper arm and shushed him under her breath. “Please. I was just clearing up a hazard on the hole.” She turned to Silas. “Mr. Wilde?”

“Silas.” He stepped off the turf, Houdini settled in the crook of his arm. “And I’ve got to get back to the store.”

Sofia flashed a smile at the golfers. “Enjoy your game.”

She followed Silas’s retreating form toward the gate, indulging in the fantastic view of his ass in hibiscus patterned surf shorts. When he stopped short, she very nearly crashed into him.

“Sofia,” he said. “Let Houdini and I buy you a drink tonight.”

She blinked. “No.” Her manners surfaced. “Thank you, but no.”

He scratched the cat’s chin. “You’ve made the lady angry, you monster.” His gaze was warm when he turned to her. “Another time, then.”

~~~

On his return, Silas helped a trio of shirtless guys, swim-trunked and sandy, on their way into the Market. “Mornin’, guys. Anything I can help you find?”