Summer at the Cape, page 10
The woman seemed to freeze for an instant, and he saw Cami give her arm a comforting squeeze.
“I’m not Lily,” she said quietly. “She was my twin sister. I’m Violet.”
Franklin looked astonished. “Are you? My word. You are the spitting image.”
“So I hear.”
She had lost a twin sister. That must be terribly difficult for her.
“Do you remember Frank’s son, Jon?” Rosemary asked. It was clear she wanted to change the subject away from her deceased daughter.
They had all suffered a difficult loss. He knew what that was like. He still felt vaguely nauseated when he thought of his mother, and that had been nearly twenty years ago.
Violet’s smile returned, though it appeared somewhat forced. “Of course. The adventuring archaeologist returns. Hello.”
“Hi.”
“Those croissants smell delicious. Can I have one?” she asked.
“Of course.”
Rosemary pulled a delicate plate out of the cupboard, plopped one of her flaky croissants on it and handed it to her daughter with a flourish.
The sisters weren’t at all alike, he couldn’t help but notice. Violet was cool, elegant, almost, while Cami was small, dark-haired, curvy.
Gorgeous.
He couldn’t afford to indulge this unwanted attraction. He had too much to do here.
“What brings the Rafferty men to call today?” Violet asked.
“Breakfast, for me,” Franklin said, taking another bite. He inclined his head toward Jon. “I don’t know why he’s here.”
“Checking on you. That’s all. If you’re going to leave the house, you really need to let me know. At the least, you should take your cell phone with you.”
“I thought I had it.” Franklin patted his pockets, brow wrinkled with concern. “I guess I must have forgotten it again. I’ll remember next time.”
“Tell me when you want to make a visit. I’ll come with you,” Jon said.
Franklin didn’t look thrilled at that offer but said nothing.
“Thank you for breakfast,” Jon said after an awkward moment. “It was delicious, but we should probably get out of your hair.”
“No need to rush off,” Rosemary said.
“You heard her.” Franklin took a long, slow sip of what looked like orange juice. “We don’t need to rush off.”
Jon needed to. Despite that initial feeling of peace, he now felt uncomfortable in this warm, cheerful kitchen that smelled delicious, of huckleberries and croissants and women.
He hadn’t been with a woman in a long time, since before heading into the jungle for the dig.
Available women were few and far between on a remote archaeological expedition. He certainly couldn’t indulge in something with a graduate student or the interns who flocked to an important discovery like Tikal.
Maybe that’s what left him feeling edgy and almost painfully aware of Cami Porter.
“We really do have to go. Mrs. Porter has been kind enough to feed us, but we have things to do today.”
Including an appointment with Robert Layton, who would be helping him pursue legal and medical power of attorney for his father.
“Before you leave, would you like to see the campground up close?” Rosemary asked quickly. “You can even go in one of the tents, if you’d like. The guests in the Jewelflower tent checked out early this morning and the new ones won’t be here until late this evening. I would love you to see what we’re doing there, so you can see firsthand how environmentally conscious we are trying to be.”
As persuasive tactics went, it was as transparent as a newly washed window.
Rosemary wanted to convince him to honor the verbal lease agreement for Wild Hearts.
Jon wasn’t about to do that. He might have been weak enough to give them a grace period of a few months, but he wasn’t willing to bend more than that.
“We have appointments today,” he said.
He didn’t count on his father’s obstinacy. “I want you to see one of the tents,” he said.
“Camellia can drive you there before she takes you home. It’s on the way.”
Cami raised an eyebrow at her mother’s suggestion, phrased more like a command.
“We can walk,” Jon said quickly. “It isn’t far.”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be in such close proximity to her.
“I can give you a ride. I’m an expert now at the golf cart.”
Jon did not want to come off as a jerk to these women who had fed him and his father—and who apparently had been opening their kitchen to Franklin for months, if not years.
Backed into a corner, he finally nodded. “Sure. A quick trip should work.”
“I call shotgun,” his father said quickly, as if they were teenagers heading out for a joyride.
That would at least solve the issue of proximity.
Jon climbed into the back seat. Once his father was settled, Cami drove up the trail that led to the Rose Creek headland.
He didn’t know what he was expecting. It wasn’t the small collection of canvas tents, each nestled in a stand of trees.
She parked the cart in front of a tent that was very similar to the one he had lived in for the past six months in Guatemala.
Funny. He hadn’t felt like he had been glamping when they had spiders as big as dinner plates in the tent and snakes slithering on the roofs.
He counted ten tents, each on a wooden base that served as a deck of sorts.
Jon was certainly no expert on luxury camping. He spent plenty of time living outdoors but in fairly primitive conditions. Still, he could see how some people would find this appealing, especially with the stunning ocean views from up here.
“My sister wanted Wild Hearts to fit into the landscape as much as possible. As my mother said, she also worked to make the campground environmentally responsible, with composting toilets and solar-powered appliances.”
A woman lying in a hammock in the trees waved at them. Another couple sat at a table going over what appeared from here to be a topographic map, likely in preparation for a hiking trip.
“This feels friendly,” his father said. “Don’t you agree, Jonny?”
He didn’t know how to feel about his father’s new habit of calling him Jonny, a name Franklin hadn’t used since Jon was out of grade school.
“Sure, Dad. It’s nice.”
“Looks like this is the Jewelflower tent.” She gestured to the structure in front of them. “I haven’t seen this one yet. But then, I’ve only seen inside one other tent.”
She unlocked the door with a key her mother must have given her, then stood back for them to see.
So this was where the term luxury camping came from. It appeared to him like a fancy hotel room had been raided to furnish the tent, with colorful rugs on the floor, comfortable-looking chairs and a couple of trunks that looked antique.
Dominating the space was an oversize king-size bed, piled high with throw pillows. It looked plump and inviting.
He had a sudden mental image of messing up those thick pillows with the woman standing next to him.
The random thought horrified him.
Good Lord. What was wrong with him? He was not some kind of sex-obsessed fraternity boy who couldn’t think about anything else.
“It’s very nice,” he said abruptly, heading for the door without risking a glance at her.
After a moment, she and his father followed him onto the small porch where the deck stretched out another four feet from the tent structure.
“Yesterday was the first chance I had to see the tent cabins,” she said. “I have to admit, I was surprised and impressed. Lily thought of everything a person might need for a comfortable stay.”
“Why does that surprise you?”
She paused for a long moment, her features distant, before she answered him. “My late sister was fantastic at coming up with ideas but not always so great at the follow-through. When she told me this grand idea a few months before she died, I thought this would be another of Lily’s wild starts. I’m glad to see I was wrong in this case.”
She sent him a sideways look. “I only wish she had made sure all the details were squared regarding the lease agreement with your father.”
“A small but fairly significant detail.”
“I cannot disagree.”
Her wry tone almost made him smile again. He liked this woman, far more than he should.
“It does seem like a comfortable escape,” he said.
“The view certainly doesn’t hurt.”
This time he was the one who could not disagree. The bluff jutting out into the Pacific had always been one of his favorite places on his family’s property, which might explain some of his instinctive opposition to someone else using it.
“Thank you for indulging my mother and coming to take a look,” Cami said. “ She’s very proud of what she and Lily created here, as you can probably tell, and I get the impression she likes to show it off.”
“I imagine she’s also hoping that once I take a look at it, I’ll change my mind and extend the lease to next year and beyond.”
Her laugh rippled through him. “You can’t blame her for trying, can you?”
“I won’t change my mind,” he said firmly.
“I never thought you would.”
The drive back to his father’s house passed swiftly. He was aware of her the entire way while his father kept up a running conversation, telling Cami about a case he had argued in front of a superior court. Franklin seemed eloquent enough, but when Cami would ask him a question about the case, he would only gaze at her with a confused look before taking the conversation toward an entirely different aspect of the case.
In only a few moments, Cami delivered them to the massive front doors of Rose Creek. “Here you go.”
Franklin jumped out. “Goodbye, then,” he said, already on his way into the house.
Jon climbed out more slowly. “Thank you again for feeding him this morning. I’ll try to figure out some alarms on the doors or something, but it may take me a few days. Let me know if he stops by again.”
“I expect my mother would say he’s welcome for breakfast anytime. You, as well.”
Jon did not think he would be popping by Moongate Farm again soon for breakfast.
“We should probably exchange numbers, just in case he wanders down to Moongate Farm again.”
“Good idea,” she said. “Tell me your number and I’ll text you. Then you’ll have my info.”
He gave it to her and she texted a simple message, with only her name.
It seemed oddly intimate to have her as a contact on his phone.
“Got it.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know if we see your dad out and about.”
He nodded, suddenly reluctant to say goodbye to her. What the hell was wrong with him?
“I’m meeting with my father’s former partner this afternoon to start the guardianship process. I’ve asked him to work up a temporary lease agreement as well. I’ll try to have it ready by the end of the week for your mother to sign.”
“Sounds good. You know how to reach me now.”
He nodded and watched her drive back on the path until she was out of sight in the trees.
12
VIOLET
A morning spent going over the accounts for Wild Hearts left her with gritty eyes and a slight tension headache, but at least the bills were all paid for the month.
“Finished already?” Rosemary looked startled when Violet walked into the kitchen. “That job usually takes me the better part of the day.”
“It wasn’t so bad. I like working with numbers.”
“That’s because you’re good at focusing on details, while I tend to go off on tangents like a hamster on crack.”
Her mother smiled as she pulled a tray of thick, chewy oatmeal raisin cookies out of the oven. “Thank you so much for doing that. Why don’t you take a break this afternoon and go do something fun with Cami? Go shopping or catch a movie.”
Vi and her sister didn’t have the sort of relationship for casual outings. Not yet, anyway. She planned to work on that.
“Are you sure you don’t need my help with anything else?”
She was coming to learn there was always some task to finish when it came to campground administration, whether organizing the recreation schedule or taking reservations or purchasing the brand of paper products that fit the company’s environmental focus.
Rosemary shook her head as she slid another tray of cookies into the oven. “I don’t have anything to do myself. As soon as these cookies are done, I’m going to put my feet up for a half hour on the porch swing and read a book. It looks like a lovely day. You should enjoy the sunshine while we have it.”
She did have somewhere she needed to visit. She had been here several days and had yet to go to the cemetery.
“If you’re sure, I think I will take a few hours off.”
“Take that dog with you. He could use a walk,” Rosemary said, gesturing to Lily’s cross little schnoodle.
Violet gave Baxter a baleful look and earned a snarl in return.
“Yeah. I don’t like you either,” she muttered. Still, when she reached for the leash, the dog thumped its tail against the leg of one of the kitchen chairs.
“We’re not going far,” she informed the bad-tempered creature. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
She stopped at the bunkhouse long enough to grab her backpack with her wallet and a few supplies, as well as her water bottle, which she hooked onto the pack.
She could hear Cami talking to someone in a virtual meeting. She heard a bunch of lawyerly words she didn’t know, probably in Latin. Cami sounded firm, decisive, in complete control of the conversation.
Baxter seemed to perk up when he heard Cami’s voice, straining a little against the leash. In contrast to how he treated Violet, Baxter adored Cami, which seemed to baffle her sister as much as it did everyone else.
She thought about waiting until Cami might be free to go with her, then discarded the idea. This wasn’t for anyone else. Only for her.
“Come on, Bax.”
The dog followed her, though gave a backward look of longing toward Cami’s voice that did nothing for Violet’s ego.
She stopped to pick a handful of her mother’s peonies and lavender, creating a richly scented bouquet she knew Lily would have loved.
The day was gorgeous, with high streaky clouds reaching across the azure sky.
The ocean stretched out to the horizon, vast and undulating.
Vi never tired of that view. She had a picture of the ocean in her classroom, and on the days when it felt like every single one of her students had the “zoomies”—her word for days when nobody seemed able to settle down and their restlessness fed off each other—she would focus on that picture and transport herself here to her mother and Lily.
Home.
Tears burned but she fought them down. The day was too lovely for tears.
By the time she traveled the half mile to the Cape Sanctuary cemetery, Violet had worked out most of the kinks in her back and neck from hunching over the desk paying bills.
The cemetery was on a hillside overlooking downtown. It was shady and cool, covered in coastal pine and Douglas fir.
Violet paused outside the iron gates to look at the No Dogs Allowed sign. She should have thought of that.
She gripped the flowers. It was too late to turn back now.
She flirted with the idea of leaving Baxter tied up outside the gates of the cemetery. She would only be a moment, but with her luck, the dog would break free, run into town and cause all manner of trouble.
She looked around and couldn’t see anybody else here on this slow, lazy summer afternoon. What would be the harm in taking him to visit his beloved mistress, as long as she carried him in so he wasn’t disrespectful enough to strut through and pee on all the gravestones?
Without giving herself time to change her mind, Violet scooped him up and hurried through the gates, expecting any moment for the cemetery caretaker to come bursting out from behind a headstone, yelling at her for breaking the rules.
Rule breaking had always been Lily’s job. Violet was the twin who toed the line, always trying to do the right thing.
Where had that gotten her? She was nearly thirty with no social life to speak of and she had just lost her sister and best friend. Following the rules wasn’t working out so well for her.
Maybe it was time she started breaking a few once in a while.
Chin high, she carried Baxter through the rows toward Lily’s marker.
Her sister had always said she wanted to be cremated, her ashes scattered in the ocean. Since the ocean had taken her from them, Rosemary put her foot down and refused to honor her wishes in this.
Lily was probably pissed about that and would haunt them all.
The headstone was small, tasteful, elegant, with a carved floral wreath and the words Beloved Daughter and Sister above her name.
Did it represent Lily at all? Not in the least. Still, it was something. If Lily had been cremated, Violet would have no physical connection to her twin.
A small vase had been cemented in place next to the headstone. Some older flowers with petals beginning to curl were there, so Violet removed them to a nearby garbage can before arranging her own hastily gathered bouquet in the vase. The bright, cheerful colors and heady aroma seemed almost garish against the gray and white stones.
Baxter whined, sniffing at the headstone as if he could sense some trace of Lily. With an ache deep in her bones, Violet sank down beside the grave and pulled the little dog onto her lap. For once, he didn’t snarl at her.
Did he feel closer to Lily here, or was he only sensing Violet’s own distress? She wasn’t sure. For now, she decided to take comfort in the little dog’s heat and soft, curly coat.
