Recipe for Eagle Cove, page 1
Recipe for Eagle Cove (sweet)
a small town Oregon romance
M. L. Buchman
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A Sweet Note
This “Sweet Version” is exactly the same story as the original, with no foul language and the bedroom door—even when there isn’t one—tastefully closed.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy:
Longing for Eagle Cove (excerpt)
About the Author
Also by M. L. Buchman
Chapter 1
An air of delighted mischief pervaded the room as Becky and Natalya changed out of their bridesmaids dresses. Jessica Baxter had always sworn she would never marry. Instead she was the first of the three friends to go down…and they were going to make her pay for being so fortunate.
Becky peered out the second-story window; it was easy to pick Jessica out of the crowd which spread across the B&B’s broad lawn. The stately Victorian stood well back from the high bluff above the rolling Pacific. The bride was long, blond, sleek, and gorgeous in a simple white lace gown. The Sunday afternoon sun of the warm September day—because of course it wouldn’t dare rain on Jessica’s wedding—sparkled off her as if she was half elf and half fairy. Both of which Becky had always suspected to be true.
And Becky couldn’t begrudge one of her best friends getting Greg Slater because the two were so perfect together. But she could be envious. And the only proper way to deal with envy was merry revenge.
She couldn’t suppress her giggle as they were changing. Natalya flashed a grin back at her; Jessica’s first cousin was like the anti-Jessica. The two of them were both tall and slim, but Natalya was dusky-skinned, brunette, and had all of the curves that Jessica had whined about not having since forever. It had been Natalya’s idea for them to change into little black dresses for the wedding reception, as if they were mourning Jessica’s demise. Pure pixie, always a tricky lot, Natya was the strategist of their childhood trio.
Becky had fashioned matching corsages for them out of black tissue paper. Those dozen years of schooling had finally paid off, even if it was just in crafts projects from the first grade. She preferred the down and dirty school of hard knocks that had spanned the last fourteen years since graduating from Puffin High.
She turned back to the room and saw that she had another problem. Natalya in a little black dress was going to gobsmack every man around and Becky didn’t think that was much more fair than Jessica looking so ridiculously happy.
Becky checked herself in the mirror, not that it did her much good. Natalya lived three hours away in Portland, so she was staying in the Writer’s Room of her mother’s Victorian B&B. It was an airy, lofty-ceilinged room typical of the old architecture. This room was filled with books, images of writers, and the décor was pure Jane Austen-era Georgian. That meant that the mirror had a massively ornate, gold-painted frame. Yet despite its imposing presence, it was actually small, round, and set far too high for Becky’s five-four. That her two best friends since kindergarten were both five-ten was just another injustice. What she’d lacked in stature she’d made up for in curves, “lush Italianate curves” her similarly-shaped mother had always said—which made perfect sense with their pioneer-stock, Gold-Rush era, boringly Anglo-Saxon heritage. Not!
She was… Becky had never been able to pin down what she was. Imp? Garden gnome? The right metaphor always eluded her. She sighed, standing on tiptoe didn’t help either.
Unable to see her reflection much below the generous cleavage that even the most conservative little black dress gave a woman of her shape—and this dress was not meant to be conservative—she turned for help.
“Your mom’s stupid mirrors. Help me, Natya!” It was an old problem that didn’t need explaining.
Natalya whirled a finger and Becky did a turn on the ornate Persian rug that looked as if it had been snatched out of the Hogwarts Gryffindor Common Room, making the bedroom warm and cozy. J. K. Rowling watched Becky from her portrait over Natalya’s shoulder. Emily Dickinson considered one profile and Jane Austen the other. Maya Angelou may have been inspecting her shoes. She’d pulled on her bright red cowboy boots with the pretty black stitching. The low heel was good because of dancing on the lawn. Besides, Becky held a firm conviction that high heels on a short woman were just a lame form of sucking up. And whatever James Tiptree, Jr. was thinking about Becky’s shoulder-length auburn hair, she was keeping to herself, just as she’d kept her gender hidden through two decades of writing science fiction. Georgette Heyer merely hung on the wall and looked magnificently 1920s as she always did.
Natalya shot out a thumbs up. “Men are going to whimper!”
“Yes!” Becky offered a fist pump and did a little circular stomp dance on the rug. “That is if they notice me with you around.”
“Since when have you ever had to worry about that?”
“Since Jessica looks so happy dancing with Greg.” Together they turned to look back out the window. Becky half wanted to collect the writers’ pictures from the walls so that all the women in the room could look out together.
“It is a little like she’s bragging, isn’t it?”
Becky could only nod. Jessica was draped shamelessly against her new husband, slow dancing to an up-tempo Backstreet Boys song. Three months ago Jessica returned to Eagle Cove after a decade working as a Chicago journalist. She was supposed to be here just a week and then return to her whirlwind urban career. Instead, she’d stayed as the town’s new marketing manager and was doing great at it. Tourism was at its highest level in years. That was good news for the Lamont’s B&B, the real estate business of Jessica’s mom, and it certainly hadn’t hurt Becky’s brewery.
“Time to go break up all of this unmitigated happiness.” Natya declared firmly. It was. And Jessica was right, Natalya was always the sneaky one of the group.
“First dibs on cutting in on the bride for a dance with the groom,” Becky declared just as Natalya was opening her mouth to do the same.
“Rats!” Natalya’s curse warmed her heart.
To secure her victory, Becky raced for the door, offered an air high-five to Nora Roberts’ picture above an entire bookcase filled with her writings, and beat Natalya to the stairs. But she was blockaded from escape at the bottom of the stairs…the kitchen was packed. She was in the midst of the mayhem, when across the impenetrable mob, she saw Natalya slink down the old servants’ back stairs and out onto the porch. Her wicked grin showed exactly where she was headed—to claim the second dance from the groom.
“Rats!” All she could do was echo Natalya’s heartfelt curse of a moment before. Becky stomped her foot in frustration; growing up in this house gave Natalya an unfair advantage.
Harry yelped more in surprise than pain as someone tromped on the toes of his Oxfords. The kitchen was so noisy with a dozen simultaneous conversations that no one particularly noticed his cry. It took him a moment to spot his attacker, but when he looked down he discovered an astonishing sight.
The first thing he noticed was the impressive swell of her chest. It was just very…impressive. Ah yes, his lawyerly finesse with words. Sad. But it was hard to be completely coherent when faced with such an exceptional view. Then he forced himself to focus on the owner’s face.
“Becky!” He ignored her smirk that said she knew exactly where his attention had first landed and gave her a quick hug that she returned after a moment. “It’s like old home week.” Everyone had turned out for his little brother’s wedding. The fact that Greggie was marrying, had married, the first woman Harry had ever kissed didn’t bother him…too much. He and Jess had been almost done before they started during freshman year. Wasn’t it just backward justice that Greg was the one who’d always had the big crush on her without ever admitting to it.
“Old home week only to you foreign types.” Becky Billings smirk had shifted to tease, something he recalled her excelling at. Her light brown eyes practically twinkled with delight. He also recalled that among other things, she’d absolutely ruled every class debate in high school. He might have ruled the soccer field, but her quick mind and quicker tongue had ruled the verbal playing field.
“Foreign as in a hundred yards down the road,” he gave it his best shot. His family’s homestead was the other grand Victorian of the town. The two old houses stood at the head of the beach and commanded the best views in Eagle Cove.
“Foreign as in you live in New Orleans and are just here slumming.”
“Care to do a little slumming with me?”
“You call that a pickup line?” Becky snorted out a laugh and slapped him hard enough on the arm to send him ricocheting off Cal Mason Jr. who bumped into Cal Mason Sr. in earnest conversation with Jessica’s father. Cal Sr. shoved Jr. back into him and the two of them ended up tangled together against the stove, both struggling not to spill their beers all over each other.
“Sorry, Cal, Becky jus
He looked around and caught occasional glimpses of the top of her head as she moved through the tight-packed kitchen crowd, her liquid-oak hair floating lightly behind her. The crowd parted just enough to offer him a full view as she stepped out the far door and onto the sunlit porch.
She might be short, barely up to his chin, but her industrial-grade curves and trim waist looked awfully good on her. And that dress. Holy wow! Spaghetti shoulder straps, clinging material, and a flirty flare high enough on her thighs to reveal that there was no excess load on that frame. She was no runner, couldn’t be with that body, but they were amazing legs. Then with a exuberant “Yip!” of excited greeting, loud enough that he could hear it over the music and the overlapping chatter, she raced out into the sunlight and was gone.
Harry rubbed his shoulder where she’d hit him. He’d forgotten how strong she was. He’d have to remember that the next time he caught up with her. And the way she looked, he definitely had some catching up to do. But he didn’t want to appear overeager either. So, he leaned back against the stove with Cal. They’d been the forward strikers on the soccer team back at Puffin High, finishing the season ten-and-two, a new pinnacle for the Pufflings. Cal Sr. and his own father, Judge Slater, had chosen the ridiculous baby seabird as the school mascot most of half a century before. He’d never found out quite why, so he and Cal Jr. worked on their beers and rehashed it some for old times’ sake.
But what he really wanted to talk about was Becky Billings and the way that woman looked in a clinging black dress with chili pepper red cowboy boots.
Becky snagged her dance with Greg once she’d dug Natalya’s claws out of him. She did a turn with Vincent McCall while Greg danced with Vincent’s wife Dawn. Then after Becky twirled and giggled with Dawn’s twin girls, the three of them raided the wedding cake for second pieces and wolfed them down as if they were about to be caught for being naughty.
Becky and Natalya made sure to point out their black mourning frocks to Jessica at every chance and the woman just nodded, giggled—which oddly didn’t looked ridiculous on a thirty-two year old woman—then sighed happily. The whole black-dress ploy would have been a complete waste of time except they were drawing the attention of every single male, even snaring a few of the married ones into receiving eye rolls from their spouses. She pitied the male of the species. Around women like the three of them, the male gender didn’t stand a chance.
Throughout the reception Becky had been keeping a weather eye on eligible men as she moved back and forth across the lawn, up onto the big porch that wrapped around the house and was so crowded with merrymakers, and back out onto the lawn. The problem was that she knew these men too well. Mick, Zander, Alex…it really was like old home week.
It was one of the only drawbacks to a small town. Every man her age she’d either dated, hated, or just knew too much about to do either. How did you find a man like Vincent or Greg while living in a small town? She and Greg had even taken a test spin around the track a few times when he first returned to Eagle Cove, but he’d clearly been looking for something else, as was she. Now he’d found it, but she still hadn’t.
Evening was settling over the yard. The sun was turning brilliant orange as it descended into the fog bank that so often lingered a few miles offshore. It had been a perfect day for a wedding. Probably one of their last warm and sunny days until next spring.
Already the older generation was drifting inside to pack the kitchen, the library, and the parlor. The evening chill was rolling in off the Pacific so she’d be headed that way soon. Little black dresses offered no defense against the night sea air.
Actually, she already was chilled, standing alone and watching the endless waves roll in and hammer down on the sandy beach far below. Deciding to retreat, she turned abruptly for the house and rammed her nose into the center of a broad chest.
“Was looking for you.” Harry Slater. He looked nothing like his brother or his father. The Judge, as everyone called him, was a large, imposing man. Greg was lean and darkly handsome just like his mother had been.
Harry stood as tall as his father, a little broader than Greg, and as blond-haired and blue-eyed as his brother and father weren’t. The last time she’d seen Harry was at his mother’s funeral three years ago.
“Looking for me?” Why was he looking for her? And if he was, why hadn’t he done it sooner? “Took your time, foreigner. Waiting until the dancing was done?”
“Saw you dancing before.”
She liked his voice. It was low and smooth—more like a distant freight train than a rumbling diesel engine. He had the kind of deep voice in a lawyer that would make a jury want to trust him. And his accentless Oregon had picked up a hint of Southern-smooth from his years in the Big Easy.
“Can’t imagine how I’d keep up with that.”
“Like this,” she slid up against him and wrapped her arms around his back. A jazz sax was playing somewhere in the distance. She wasn’t really sure what had come over her; not that much champagne had passed her lips. Becky might run a brewery, but she drank very little even on major occasions like today. Maybe it was how gorgeous he looked in his gray designer suit. She’d never known she was a sucker for men in great suits.
Harry hesitated for a long moment before wrapping his hands slowly around her shoulders. She didn’t have to really duck to lay her head on his chest. His chin rested lightly on her hair and she let herself be swept up in the moment.
Just a moment.
She was in the arms of a handsome, successful, single man. Lying against his chest with her eyes closed as he guided them about the lawn to a deliciously slow cadence.
It was magical.
It shouldn’t be.
Harry was just the groom’s brother at a wedding, but she could pretend that he really had sought her out.
And maybe she him.
As long as she was pretending, maybe this was what “magical” actually felt like in real life. The music slipped by and the world melted along with it.
A slow shiver slipped over her arms.
“You okay?” Harry whispered it against her hair.
“Um, I think so.” Why didn’t she know? “You?”
“Oh yeah,” he said in one of those deeply satisfied male ways.
She pulled out of his arms enough to look up at him. Without her noticing, the sun had set…long enough ago to make his expression hard to see. They were alone near the high bluff above the beach. Harry had kept them away from the few remaining dancers and some of the younger kids running about with sparklers flaring bright in the falling darkness. Twinkle lights which hung from the lower branches of the towering Douglas firs near the house cast a soft glow over the remnants of the party.
To the north, two miles of white sand beach stretched off to where the Eagle River entered the Pacific. The lights of the town of Eagle Cove were sparkling to life. The very first stars were also putting in an appearance. The ocean had gone nearly black, only marked now by the steady whump of the waves landing on the long strand in a never-ending cascade, There was the smell of salt and the promise of a fresh, amazing world.
High above the south end of the beach, perched atop a rocky headland that blocked any view in that direction, Orca Head Light cast its bright beams out to sea. It was just possible to see the path of the automated light sweeping across the waves far below. When the fog rolled in, it was a dramatic sight.
Even at the moment it was fairly breathtaking.
Speaking of breathtaking, how long had she just been lost in Harry’s arms?
Simple answer: too long. It had been forever since she’d gotten lost in a boy’s arms. The last time had been back when boys were still boys and not patented and certified men like one Harry Slater.
