Lavender Beach (3 page)

“Stop saying that! I flew your ass to the nearest mobile hospital and unloaded my cargo. That was my job. I made the same trip hundreds of times. That’s it. You were the last pickup of the day. So what? How the hell did you find me, anyway? How the hell do you know about all that stuff?”

Her eyes, full of anger, darted from each man back to the other. “Who sent you here? And more importantly, after all these years, why bother looking me up now?”

Nick and Cord traded looks. Nick wasn’t prepared to reveal anything just yet. He doubted she would believe that Scott Phillips had sent them. Since Scott died that day in the desert, thanks to an IED that had blown up their Humvee, Nick thought it best to leave Scott’s name out of the mix.

Instead of any more disclosures, Nick went another way. “A guard buddy of mine named Ben Latham did an electrical job here in town a few months back. Your name came up then. Ben tried to look you up but discovered you were locked up—and not by choice.”

“So? It was a misunderstanding about back pay. I wanted what they owed me and they didn’t want to give it to me. I caused a fuss in a construction trailer and they called the cops for disturbing the peace. I spent one night in a holding cell. What do you plan to do about it at this late date? Go beat up the boss for old time’s sake and get my money back?”

“Not exactly. We’d like to take you back to Pelican Pointe with us.”

“You’re both crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you two.”

Cord shifted his feet. “Just hear Nick out.”

“Look, I don’t care what catchy name you use for a treatment center, I’m not interested. I just spent the last six weeks cooped up in one sharing my thoughts and feelings with a bunch of strangers and a lot of other touchy-feely crap agreeing to their twelve-step requirements. So all things considered, I’m sure you already know I drove here from rehab so I won’t waste time telling you what you can do with another recovery place. Are we clear?”

“Pelican Pointe isn’t a hospital. It’s a town five hours northwest of here along the coast. In fact, my wife Jordan and I own a bed and breakfast we call Promise Cove. Cord lives there too with his wife Keegan. That cop standing out by the curb is Brent Cody. He’s our chief of police.”

For the first time Eastlyn noticed the guy, dressed in khaki shirt and dark pants, a typical law enforcement getup, leaning against an official-looking Chevy Tahoe.

“You’re kidding me, right? You brought a cop with you? What are you gonna do? Use him to muscle me into the car? Arrest me? For what exactly? I’m clean. I’ve been pill-free for six weeks. I haven’t so much as taken an ibuprofen.”

Nick expected her defiant attitude. He needed to bluff like hell. He hoped it rang true. “There’s an arrest warrant out for you. It’s either pack your things and come with us or that cop is ready to do his duty and escort you to County.”

Eastlyn narrowed her eyes. “That’s bullshit. I want all of you off the premises or
I’ll
be the one calling the cops.”

Nick shifted gears, prepared to play dirty. “Remember that night before you checked into rehab? Remember those pills you bought from the bartender, Durke Pedasco, at Hotshots? Your so-called friend turned you in to an undercover informant for buying a controlled substance. You must’ve suspected something was up, otherwise you wouldn’t have chosen that particular time to duck into rehab.”

Nick could tell Eastlyn wasn’t buying the story. He could also tell her bravado was starting to falter, so he embellished even more. “Brent Cody over there is happy to cooperate with the Kern County sheriff’s department to let them know you’re...”

“Available for arrest?”

“Look, you could face up to a year in County and a thousand dollar fine for buying illegal prescription drugs. It’d be in your best interests to come with us and start over in Pelican Pointe.”

“And this threat endears you to me how exactly? Nice story, by the way. We both know that’s what it is. Durke Pedasco is no more a drug informant than I am. I’ve known him since we sat beside each other in first grade. He never sold me, or anyone else for that matter, drugs. You’ll have to do a little better than that.”

Nick started to wonder if this trip had been a waste of time. “Cord and I want to help you. Personally, I want to help the pilot who was responsible for airlifting me to a hospital. Is that so difficult to understand?”

“Enough that you came all this way from Bird Pointe, California, to give me a bullshit story?” Eastlyn huffed out an angry breath and considered how fed up she was with Bakersfield. Maybe she
had
reached a dead end here. Maybe it was time to try someplace else. But she’d rather make that decision on her own without being forced into a corner. “You know what I’ll do? Because I really am out of options in this town and because I’d like a trip to the beach on your dime, I’ll go with you under two conditions.”

“Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“I want to see some ID from all of you, especially from that guy on the street wearing that phony-looking cop uniform.”

“Sure. ID is a reasonable request. What’s the other condition?”

“I get to pack up my things
and
drive my own car there. I’ll need wheels when I want to head back home to see my family.”

Nick knew the only family she had left was a brother, and he was stationed overseas. “Okay, but Cord goes in the house with you and watches you gather up your stuff.”

Cord glanced at Nick, nonplussed. “Hey man, why me?”

Nick stared at Cord’s taller, bigger, six-foot-four frame and slapped him on the back. “Because, you, my friend, I think she’d have a tougher time taking down.”

One

Present Day

Pelican Pointe, California

E
ven though she’d grown up there, Eastlyn Parker didn’t miss a thing about dry, dusty Bakersfield.

Living along the coast, she could smell the sea every time she went outside.

Wherever she looked there was evidence of spring. April lilacs were in bloom. Flowerbeds burst with golden daffodils, red poppies, Shasta daisies, or grape-colored bee balm. Dormant winter lawns came alive with green patches of ryegrass and clover springing up alongside pesky dandelions and creeping Charlie.

She lifted her head to breathe in the soft ocean breezes that floated through birch and cypress and big leaf maple. The swaying branches reminded her she’d spent the first week along the coast in the country. She’d acclimated herself to the region while a guest at the bed and breakfast called Promise Cove, courtesy of Nick and his wife Jordan. 

The second week she’d rented a little guesthouse in town that had belonged to Bran and Joy Sullivan before the couple retired and sold Bran’s vet practice to Cord and Keegan Bennett.

Her only other option for housing had been a loft located over the town’s flower shop owned by Drea Jennings. Since Drea had moved in with her boyfriend Zach Dennison, the florist had been looking for a renter. The apartment had come fully furnished, which was an attractive incentive for a woman like Eastlyn who moved around a lot.

Too bad it was out of her price range.

Despite having to pass on Drea’s digs, Eastlyn had settled into the clapboard cottage across the courtyard from the animal clinic.

Before selling the property, Joy Sullivan had spruced it up, painting the tiny bungalow a soft mint green with white and brown trim. It had an espresso front door with matching shutters that brought to mind dark chocolate wafers. To Eastlyn, the whole color scheme made the tiny house look like a yummy French petit-four sitting on a party tray.

The narrow porch out front held a wicker rocker, a little round table, and several clay pots filled with sweet-smelling alyssum. Joy had gone to the trouble to landscape the flowerbeds along the sidewalk. Red and white Americana “splash” geraniums fought for space next to dark blue sweet peas, presenting a patriotic theme up and down the footpath.

Eastlyn liked to sit outside and watch the sunset over the bay. Nightfall brought even more excitement when she’d wait patiently to watch the neighborhood kids dash home from the park down the street in time to eat supper. The occasional dog might wander by, hoping for a scratch or a rubdown.

She’d learned over the past few weeks to enjoy the slower pace, to take in the night sounds as the stars popped out overhead, to inhale the aroma of Mrs. McKay’s cooking next door and know the old woman had fried up another batch of liver and onions.

All in all, Eastlyn had settled in without fanfare or notice. She found the little house practical and cheap—a detail she knew had been orchestrated by Nick and Jordan.

The place wasn’t perfect, but then what in life was.

Finding a parking place for her Bronco had been a problem. What used to double as the Sullivans’ main house and clinic was now used solely for the purpose of the Bennett veterinary practice. It seemed pet owners were forever showing up for scheduled office visits and dropping off sick animals for treatment at odd hours of the day and part of the night. Lack of street parking had proved the only annoying aspect of living in the five-hundred-square-foot house.

Eastlyn had fixed the place up, made it homey. At least, better looking than the room she’d rented back at the Bakersfield boarding house. By doing her furniture shopping at Reclaimed Treasures, she’d been able to furnish her three little rooms. For fifty bucks she’d found a bedframe made out of old doors. Another fifty got her a round pedestal farm table with two chairs. For seventy-five she’d scored an aqua-colored mid-century sofa still in good shape.

She’d picked up a good deal on dishes and the necessary kitchen items. But the things she treasured the most were those accessories she hadn’t really needed at all, things she’d splurged on—like the wide Cape Cod bookcase made from salvaged lumber and old windows. The piece had been pricey at a hundred and fifty and took up an entire wall. It was her pride and joy because that’s where she stored her collection of books and the old turntable along with the stack of classic record albums that went with it.

Which meant she had the basics—a bed, a place to eat, a place to sit and listen to her music, and her rows of books to pass the time. What more could a gypsy-at-heart want for a stay that would likely last a couple more months at best.

To cap it off, the bonus included the fact she could head to the beach for a walk any time she felt like it, even in the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep.

Day by day, little by little, her life in this coastal town began to look up.

She hadn’t had a Vicodin in fourteen weeks. Oh, she still suffered bad dreams now and again, but for the most part she slept like a baby even without the vike. In part, because she worked sometimes seventy hours a week holding down three jobs. When she wasn’t at Cord Bennett’s vet clinic cleaning out cages—mostly for animals that had undergone surgery—she worked for the Delacourts. Thane and Isabella had given her a job up on the hilltop. From seven in the morning to noon, she put her farm skills to work along with her mechanical know-how helping Isabella get a project up and running.

Crazy as it sounded, she’d agreed to drive a John Deere tractor and plow up dirt at the lighthouse. Once the soil had been tilled, she intended to hang around to do whatever job Isabella had on hand that needed doing.

For five hours in the afternoon Eastlyn operated a forklift for Landon and Shelby Jennings at The Plant Habitat, unloading deliveries into the garden center’s two warehouses.

After clocking out at six in the evening, Eastlyn often hung around to peruse the pallets of trees and shrubs and seedlings, picking out her favorites. She had a fondness for lavender. Maybe it was its purple color that popped for her, or maybe its fragrant blossoms. Whatever it was, she’d already bought several pots of the stuff to set around the porch.

She knew lavender wasn’t exactly the most practical plant to grow if a family of four needed a basic food group. But she’d studied the herb’s benefits online and learned it could be used in medicines and oils. The edible flowers of some varieties could even be used to make ice cream. Who didn’t like lavender ice cream?

Not that she had much of a place to grow anything in large quantities, but it was nice to pretend she had her own plot of land for each row of rosemary or cherry tomato. Besides, Isabella often asked her advice on what to plant on the sprawling plot of land between the woods and the keeper’s cottage. Isabella called it an agricultural co-op where the town’s residents could pitch in to take care of the crops and share in its reward and harvest.

Eastlyn was skeptical that the townsfolk would live up to their promises. She doubted they understood what dedication was needed for an undertaking of this magnitude. In her opinion, most people could rarely be counted on to keep the pledges they’d made anyway. The past had taught her that. 

Regardless of how Eastlyn felt, she’d spent hours conferring with Isabella on which vegetable plants were hardy enough to grow in the peaty soil.