The Cottage on Rose Lane Read online

  Tim chuckled. “Objectifying is a scientific fact.”

  “So says the science teacher. If the parents of your students could hear you now, they’d—”

  “Come on. Let’s go get a drink and say hey,” Tim interrupted.

  “No. I have a meeting tonight.”

  Tim rolled his eyes. “With that group of history nuts again?”

  “They aren’t nuts. Dr. Rushford is a history professor.” And he’d donated his time and that of his grad students to help Jude get several old homes listed on the historic register. Jude’s last chance to preserve those buildings was the petition he and several of his cousins and relatives had made to the town council, asking for a rezoning of the land north of town that white folks called “Gullah Town.” The area wasn’t really a town at all, but a collection of small farms out in the scrub pine and live oak that had been settled by his ancestors right after the Civil War. Jude’s people never used the term “Gullah Town.” To them, the land north of Magnolia Harbor was just simply home.

  The council was having a hearing this week. Jude had been working on this issue for more than a year with the professor’s help. He wasn’t about to miss a meeting to flirt with a tourist. An almost-blond tourist at that.

  “Okay. It’s your loss.” Tim slapped him on the back. “But thanks for leaving the field of play. You’re hard to compete with, dude.” Tim strode off while Jude finished securing the last bungee cord. When he glanced up again, the woman with the honey hair was still staring at him, even as Tim moved in.

  Tim was going to crash and burn. Again.

  Jude turned away. He wanted nothing to do with another one of Tim’s failed pickup attempts. Instead, he headed down the boardwalk toward the offices of Barrier Island Charters, his father’s company, where Jude had parked his truck. He needed to get on home and take a shower before the meeting.

  “Can I have a minute of your time, Mr. St. Pierre?” someone asked from behind him.

  Jude turned. Damn. It was the woman with the honey hair. She had a low, sexy voice that vibrated inside his core in a weird, but not unpleasant, way. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “Um, no. Abigail. The waitress? At the raw bar? She told me your name.”

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked.

  “Well,” she said, rolling her eyes in a surprisingly awkward way. Almost as if she was shy or something. Which she was not, since she’d chased him down the boardwalk. “I was wondering if you might be willing to give me sailing lessons.”

  “What?” That had to be the oddest request he’d gotten in a long time. He was not a sailing instructor.

  “I’d like to learn how to sail a small boat.”

  “Did Abby put you up to this?”

  She shook her head. “No. Of course not. I was watching you sail, and, well, you seem to know what you’re doing out there.” A telltale blush crawled up her cheeks as she talked a mile a minute. She was a Yankee, all right, from Boston. He didn’t need the Red Sox T-shirt to tell him that either. She had a broad Boston accent. She must be here soaking up the last of the summer sun before going back north.

  She’d be gone in a week.

  “I don’t give sailing lessons,” he said in a curt tone and then checked his watch. He really needed to go.

  “Oh. Okay. I’m sorry I bothered you,” the woman said in an oddly wounded tone. Her shoulders slumped a little as she started to turn away.

  Damn.

  He’d been rude. And stupid too. If she really wanted sailing lessons, it was an opportunity to earn a few extra bucks doing the thing he loved most. Barrier Island Charters could use all the income it could get this time of year. “No, uh, wait,” he said. “How many sailing lessons do you want?”

  She stopped, midturn. “I don’t know. How many would it take?”

  “To do what?”

  “Learn how to sail? On my own, you know.”

  “No one sails by themselves. I mean, even in a small boat like Bonney Rose you need a crew.”

  “Oh?” She frowned.

  “Unless you’re learning on an Opti or a Laser. But I don’t have an Opti or a Laser.”

  The frown deepened. “Oh.”

  “Optis and Lasers are one-person boats. They capsize. A lot.”

  “Oh.”

  “If you want to learn on a bigger boat, you know, with a keel, you should check out the group courses in Georgetown.”

  “What’s a keel?” she asked, cocking her head a little like an adorable brown-eyed puppy.

  He fought against the urge to roll his eyes. “A keel boat has a…Never mind. It’s bigger and more comfortable. And safer.”

  “Okay, then I want to learn how to sail the other kind. Does Bonney Rose have a keel?”

  “No. She has a centerboard.”

  “Perfect.” Her mouth broadened.

  “I’m not a certified teacher. In Georgetown, you can—”

  “So you’ve already said. But I’m not interested in group classes in Georgetown. I don’t want that kind of thing. I want to learn how to take risks. Live on the edge. Sail fast.”

  “Look, sailing can be dangerous, and I don’t do thrill rides.”

  She folded her arms across her chest, her eyebrows lowering a little and her hip jutting out, the picture of a ticked-off female. “I’m not looking for a thrill ride.”

  “No?” He gave her his best levelheaded stare.

  She blushed a little. “Okay. I know nothing about sailing. But I want to learn.”

  “Go to the sailing school in Georgetown.”

  “Is that where you learned?”

  Damn. She had him there. He’d learned from one of the best sailors on the island. He shook his head.

  “Okay. So, can you give me the name of your teacher?”

  “No. My teacher is retired now.”

  “Oh.” She seemed crestfallen. Damn.

  He checked his watch again and huffed out a breath. He was going to be late to the meeting. “Okay, look, I don’t know if I’d be any good teaching you how to sail, but if you want to charter Bonney Rose for a couple of hours, the going rate is two hundred fifty an hour.” That should shut her up. Judging by her worn-out flip-flops and threadbare camp pants, she didn’t look like someone who could afford that kind of rate.

  Her face brightened. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  She nodded. “Tomorrow?”

  Damn. “Yeah. I guess. At the public pier. Four o’clock.” He turned away before she could argue.

  “Hey. Wait,” she called as he scooted down the boardwalk.

  He didn’t wait.

  “Hey. Don’t you even want to know my name?” she hollered at his back.

  He turned around and backpedaled. “Why? I’ll recognize you if you show up tomorrow. Oh, and bring cash.”

  Chapter Two

  True to its name, Rose Cottage stood in the middle of a formal rose garden traversed by a crushed-shell footpath that separated it from the innkeeper’s house, an antebellum mini-mansion named Howland House.

  The mansion was a little run-down, but the cottage in its backyard looked like a cover photo from Southern Living. Its wraparound porch, festooned with hanging flower baskets and rocking chairs, was the perfect place for sipping lemonade or mint juleps or whatever one sipped in South Carolina while watching the sun set over the bay.

  “It’s quiet out here,” Ashley Scott, the innkeeper, said as she opened the cottage’s front door onto a living room with nine-foot ceilings, light-colored wood floors, and neutral decor punctuated by pops of chintz on the pillows and a beautiful hand-stitched quilt tossed over the back of the sofa.

  Jenna dropped her backpack on the floor inside the door, prompting the innkeeper to give the luggage a quick glance. The ragged pack was hardly the sort of baggage that belonged in a place like Rose Cottage. But then, she didn’t belong here either, wearing her worn cargo pants and favorite BoSox shirt.

  “That quilt’s gorgeous,” Jenna sai
d. “Is it handmade?”

  The innkeeper’s dark-brown eyes sparked with pleasure. “Yes, it is. It’s one of my grandmother’s. She was a devout quilter. Started a quilting club way back, right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. We still meet on Thursdays up at the main house. But don’t worry. We don’t make much noise and won’t disturb you. Your assistant said you wanted peace and quiet. And Rose Cottage will give you that.”

  Her assistant. Boy, that was a laugh. Milo Stracham, the trustee for her grandfather’s estate, had taken care of these arrangements as well as the phony driver’s license in her wallet, an Amex platinum credit card in her assumed name, and a bank account, also under the name of Jenna Fairchild. If Jenna ever needed to disappear, she knew exactly who to call. Milo, for all his formality, would have made a great fix-it man for a mob boss.

  And wasn’t it like Milo to tell Ashley that Jenna wanted privacy when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Jenna needed to worm her way into the local Magnolia Harbor scene in order to determine what kind of person Uncle Harry was without revealing her true identity.

  “The bedroom’s this way,” Ashley said as she turned and walked away.

  Jenna followed her into the bedroom with its Bahama shutters and a romantic gas fireplace. Another quilt, this one in a wedding-band pattern, covered the bed, which was made up with sumptuous linens and throw pillows. “It’s beautiful,” Jenna said.

  The corners of the innkeeper’s dark eyes turned up in an uncertain smile. “I think this is my favorite room.” She let go of a long sigh. “What brings you to Magnolia Harbor for a whole month, Ms. Fairchild?”

  The fake last name startled Jenna for a moment. “This is my vacation from my vacation,” she said. “I spent the last year traveling in the Near and Far East, with a few other excursions along the way.”

  “Really? Where did you go?”

  “I spent many months in India, and also I traveled to China and Tibet. I came home via Australia and took a long ocean trip to the Galápagos and then South America for just a few days. It’s been enlightening, but tiring.”

  “Well, if you’re looking for quiet relaxation, Magnolia Harbor is the place,” Ashley said, her mouth widening in a chamber-of-commerce smile. “Especially this time of year. School’s back in session, so we get fewer tourists in town during the week. It’s a little busier on—”

  “Hey, Mom, you won’t believe what Cap’n Bill said.” The rapid-fire thud of sneakers through the sitting room announced the arrival of a little boy, maybe six years old, with unruly dark hair and a pair of up-to-no-good blue eyes set in a freckled face.

  “Jackie Scott, how many times have I told you not to run in the cottage? And you know good and well we have guests checking in today, which means the cottage is off-limits.” Ashley gave her child a motherly scowl and then turned toward Jenna, her cheeks reddening. “I’m really sorry. This won’t happen again.” She turned back toward Jackie and said, “Will it?”

  The boy stared down at his dirty sneakers. “I’m sorry. I forgetted.” The boy’s contrition lasted less than a nanosecond before he glanced up again, his eyes alive with mischief. “Mom, listen. This is important. The cap’n says there’s a mystery afoot. You think someone’s gonna die like in that TV show we watched about Sherlock?”

  “I hope not.” Ashley turned toward Jenna, lowering her head and speaking in a near whisper. “He’s got a big imagination. We were watching Sherlock last night. It made a big impression evidently. He’s been talking about becoming a private investigator all day.”

  “Really, Ms. Scott, I don’t mind kids or quilters,” Jenna said, trying to put Ashley at ease.

  “Maybe so, but Jackie knows better. So, if he pesters you, you let me know right away, you hear? And you’re welcome in the big house. We always have cookies out in the kitchen. There’s a single-serve coffeemaker as well. And the library, which is down the hall from the kitchen, has lots of books. Of course, there’s a kitchenette here in the cottage if you want to settle in and be alone.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Come on, Jackie,” the innkeeper said, gathering her son by the shoulders. “Let’s give our guest her privacy. We’ll go get supper, and you can tell me all about what the cap’n says.” Ashley spun Jackie around and marched him through the front door.

  Jenna returned to the sitting room and sank down into the sofa, pulling the quilt around her. It was a work of art. Every patch of cloth had a rose motif. Calico and chintz, large and small, red, yellow, and pink. The quilter had made a pattern within the pattern because the dark and light patches also formed the outline of a single rose. A truly skillful hand had made this quilt. It almost seemed too special to use.

  And yet, as Jenna wrapped the fabric around her, an easy peace settled over her. She laid her head back on a soft sofa pillow and fell asleep, dreaming of a dark-skinned pirate with odd, amber eyes, his curly hair ruffled by the wind as he steered his ship across the sea.

  Jenna rose early on Wednesday morning, spread her yoga mat on the porch, and then stretched and meditated as the sun rose. Rose Cottage had a peaceful vibe that she could almost taste as she settled in for her daily rituals.

  It was still early when those rituals were finished. She showered and dressed and walked down into town, picking up a copy of the Harbor Times at Planet Health, the local drugstore on the corner of Harbor Drive and Dogwood Street and settling down at a sidewalk table at Bread, Butter, and Beans with a scone and a cup of coffee to read it.

  When she’d finished absorbing the local news, she got to work planning her day. She’d already decided to start her search at the public library, but when she googled Magnolia Harbor Public Library, she discovered that the local branch of the Georgetown County Library was not open on Wednesdays. Once upon a time, before she left Boston, the idea of a library not being open on Wednesday would have struck her as odd. But she’d lived in Mumbai, and she’d learned to leave expectations behind. She reminded her impatient heart that she’d been waiting her whole life to unravel the mystery of her father, so she could wait another day to look for newspaper accounts of the accident that took his life.

  She turned her attention to her second problem, finding a way to meet Uncle Harry. She’d saved a few ideas in the notes app on her phone. She sipped her coffee and stared at the list. It wasn’t very long.

  Where can I meet Uncle Harry?

  1) At church—Grandfather was a devout Methodist. Start there.

  2) At a community event—check the newspaper for upcoming events.

  3) At a chamber of commerce meeting—Milo says Uncle Harry was a banker before he retired. Maybe he still hung out with the business crowd.

  4) ?????

  She’d have to wait until Sunday for item number one. And her quick read of the Harbor Times had revealed that the next big town event was scheduled three weeks from now. Even so, the Last Gasp of Summer Festival sounded like the sort of pre-Oktoberfest event that attracted young people looking for a party, not seventy-year-old, retired bankers.

  So she googled the Magnolia Harbor Chamber of Commerce, only to discover that there was no such entity. Business executives in this region belonged to the Georgetown County Chamber, located on the mainland. She surfed their website for a while, turning up nothing much of interest until she found a link to the Town of Magnolia Harbor’s web page.

  She followed the link and hit pay dirt. Harry Bauman’s name appeared on the opening page because he was a member of the town council. Better yet, the council, which usually met the second Wednesday of every month, was holding a special hearing on a zoning issue tomorrow evening at five o’clock. The hearing was public. She could go and at least discover what her uncle looked like.

  She leaned back in her chair, sipping her coffee. As her teacher at the ashram would say, she needed to cool it, relax, lose the impatience. Let the answers come to her, instead of forcing them. And besides, she had a sailing lesson later today. It might not solve the mystery of her father, but i
t was a starting point in her journey of understanding and discovery.

  Jamie Bauman had loved to sail. She needed to figure out why.

  Jude should have gotten the woman’s telephone number and name, or where she was staying, or something. That way he would have been able to cancel the sailing lesson he’d rashly agreed to yesterday evening. Dr. Rushford’s grad students were canvassing neighborhoods this afternoon, dropping literature urging citizens to show up at tomorrow’s public hearing and express their support for the efforts to designate the land north of town as a historic preservation district.

  As the man most responsible for ginning up the public debate on this issue, he ought to be with them instead of bailing out early for this client, who probably wouldn’t even show up. He almost hadn’t shown up himself. But Barrier Island Charters couldn’t afford any more negative reviews on Yelp.

  Daddy had screwed up a couple of times over the last year. A few months back, he’d taken out a part of the mooring slip at the marina where they kept Reel Therapy, the aging Striker 54, which was the backbone of their charter business. That had cost a bundle in boat and slip repairs. And had jacked up their insurance costs, which had required them to reduce their advertising expenditures this season. These mistakes combined with declining business put Barrier Island Charters in jeopardy.

  Bad news gets around. And since there were plenty of captains with newer boats loaded with the latest electronic fish-finding equipment, the competition had become fierce. A lot of tourists thought technology was king when it came to finding fish. But they were wrong about that. The new radar could find fish, but Jude would never believe that it could find them better than someone like him or his daddy.

  Their ancestors had been fishing these waters for generations. And not just for the fun of it. The fish his ancestors had caught had been food for their tables.

  He checked his watch. The woman had exactly two minutes before he blew her off. He drummed his fingers on the sailboat’s hull as he scanned the bay. It was a nice day for sailing. Light winds, smooth water.