Love Letters: A Rose Harbor Novel (2 page)

As you might have guessed, patience isn’t my strong suit. To be fair, his injured leg didn’t exactly speed up the process. When the rose garden was in and blooming I was less irritated. Next on my agenda was the gazebo, which I wanted Mark to build. I’d given him a photo of exactly what I envisioned, but that had been weeks ago.

I longed for that gazebo. In my mind, I pictured Rover sitting with me while I sipped coffee or tea at sunset, watching the sun casting a net of pink and orange shadows across the sky as it slowly went down behind the Olympic Mountain Range. I could get the same view from the deck in the back of the house, but I liked to reserve that spot for my guests. It was a picture of the sunset that graced my brochure. Mark took that photo. Actually, he’s quite good at photography, although he brushes away my praise as if receiving a compliment embarrasses him.

Mark came into the inn and paused long enough to look down at Rover. He muttered something about the dog being nothing but a worthless mutt.

I bit down on my tongue to keep from defending Rover. Mark was like that. He’d make a comment just to get a rise out of me, but I was onto his game and I wasn’t falling for it.

“You got a minute?” he asked.

“Sure. What’s up?”

He didn’t answer me directly. Instead, he went into the breakfast room where I served my guests and placed a rolled-up piece of drafting paper on the tabletop. “I’ve finished the plans for the gazebo.”

This was a surprise. I’d expected it would take another five or six months for him to get around to that. From the first, he’d let it be known that he had other jobs that took priority over mine. This was something else he did, I suspected, hoping to irritate me. To my way of thinking, my money was just as good as anyone else’s, or so one would think. Despite my best efforts, I had yet to figure out how Mark established his priority system. Not that it mattered. However he calculated it, my projects were generally placed near the bottom.

“That’s great,” I said, and hoped to sound encouraging, but not overly so. I didn’t want to be disappointed when it took far longer than I wanted for him to start the project.

He unrolled the sheet of paper and anchored it with the salt and pepper shakers on opposite corners. The free corners curled up slightly.

I glanced down and immediately liked what I saw. “When did you draw this up?” I asked.

“A few weeks ago.”

And he was only showing it to me now?

“Do you like it or not?”

I wasn’t the only one who struggled with patience.

“I do,” I assured him, “but I have a few questions.”

“Like what?”

“What’s it going to cost me?”

He rolled his eyes as if I’d made an unreasonable request. “You want an estimate?”

“That’s generally how it works,” I reminded him.

He sighed as if insulted. “I would have thought by now that you’d trust me to be fair.”

“I do trust you, but building a gazebo can’t be cheap, and I may need to budget for it. I don’t suppose you take payments?”

He shrugged. “Nope.”

“That’s what I thought.” As it was, he preferred to be paid in cash.

“Okay, fine, I’ll get you an estimate but if you complain about delays, then you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Can you give me a general idea?” I pressed. To this point, the cost of everything Mark had built for me had been more than reasonable.

In response, he took out a small spiral pad he kept in his shirt pocket and riffled through several pages. He studied the sheet, then frowned and closed his eyes as if mentally tallying up the final estimation. When he opened his eyes, he named a figure I could live with.

“Sounds good,” I said, trying to disguise how pleased I was.

“It’s a go?”

I studied the design once more. It was basically a carbon copy of the picture I’d cut out of a magazine and handed him months ago. As far as I could see, it was perfect and would add a great deal of curb appeal to the inn.

“It’s a go.” I rubbed my palms together. I was excited now, and I didn’t care if Mark knew it. Rover wagged his tail as if he, too, was pleased.

“Good.” He replaced the salt and pepper shakers to the middle of the table, collected the paper, rolled it back up, and secured it with a rubber band.

Mark wrinkled his nose. “You baked cookies this morning?” he asked, and then frowned. “In this heat?”

“It was early.”

I tend to be an early riser, always have been. My friends, before they married and had children, often slept until ten or eleven on weekends. Try as I might, I rarely made it past seven. Eight at the very latest.

“How early?”

“Four.”

Mark shook his head and grimaced as if he’d unexpectedly tasted something sour. “Too early for me.”

“Is it too early for a taste test?” It went without saying that he was looking for me to make the offer.

“I could be persuaded.”

I’ve never known Mark Taylor to turn down a cookie. Not that anyone could tell he had an addiction to sweets. Mark was lanky, at least six-three, possibly six-four, and thin as a pencil. He seemed perpetually in need of a haircut. He was an attractive man, or he could be if he were inclined to care about his appearance, but clearly he wasn’t. Appearances didn’t seem to matter much to him. By contrast, I was what Paul had referred to as “round in all the right places.” I was one of those women whose weight constantly went up and down and then up again. To combat this, I routinely exercised, mostly by taking Rover on long walks. I enjoyed gardening, too. This summer I’d taken to growing out my hair, which was dark and bounced against the top of my shoulders. Almost always I secured it at the base of my neck with a hair tie.

Mark followed me into the kitchen. Rover led the way. The peanut-butter cookies were on the cooling racks. I handed Mark a plate and said, “Help yourself,” while I poured us each a cup of coffee.

We sat down at the table across from each other. I rested my elbows on the tabletop and studied the handyman.

He’d downed three cookies before he noticed that I was intently watching him. “What?” he asked, frowning at me.

Cookie crumbs had collected at the corners of his mouth. He had a nice mouth, I mused. “Pardon?” I asked.

“You’re staring at me.”

I shrugged. “I was thinking this morning.”

“Did it try your brain?” he asked.

His meager attempt at humor fell decidedly flat. “Very funny.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll ask the obvious question. What were you thinking about?”

“You.”

“Me.” He reached for his coffee and took a sip. “Not the most interesting subject, I can assure you.”

“Quite the contrary. It came to me that we’ve been friends almost from the time I bought the inn and I know next to nothing about you.”

“Nothing to know.”

“Have you ever been married?”

His frown darkened. “Seems to me you’ve got better things to occupy your mind.”

“Not really. My guess is you’ve never had a wife. Remember, I’ve been inside your house.”

“Big deal, and as I remember it, you came without an invitation.”

I was quick to defend myself. “I brought you dinner after you broke your leg.”

“I wasn’t interested in eating,” he argued.

“Don’t change the subject.” I refused to let him sidetrack me by starting an argument. “There isn’t a single personal item on display in your entire house. No pictures, no photographs, nothing.”

He shook his head as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. “So I don’t have a knack for interior design. Are you suggesting I watch that network you like so much where a woman can take a Coke bottle and a fishing pole and make a dinette set out of it?”

“No,” I clarified. “I’m thinking you might be part of the Witness Protection Program.”

Mark had taken a drink of his coffee and started to laugh, spitting a mouthful of liquid back into the mug.

“I’m serious,” I told him.

“Then you’ve got a creative imagination.”

“Fine, you’re not under the government’s protection. You didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed as if bored with the subject. “Which question?” He reached for another cookie and stood.

“Have you ever been married?” I asked a bit louder this time. I wanted him to know I was serious and determined to unearth his secrets.

“Can’t imagine why you’d want to know something like that. Doesn’t really seem like any of your business.”

I guess that was meant to put me in my place. “Just curious,” I said.

He set the mug in the sink. “Don’t be. I’m not that interesting. See you later.”

And with that, he walked out the front door.

“Well, well, isn’t he the prickly one,” I said to Rover, who cocked his head to one side as if he agreed. Unwilling to let the matter rest, I reached for the phone. Fine, if he wanted to be that way, I would go to plan B. I punched in the number for my friend Peggy Beldon.

Peggy and her husband, Bob, owned the Thyme and Tide, another local bed-and-breakfast. It was Peggy who’d recommended Mark as a handyman. She’d become a friend and was always helpful and informative. Never once had I gotten the impression that she viewed me as competition. In fact, she’d often sent her overflow customers in my direction. I was grateful to Peggy for the advice and guidance she’d so generously shared with me.

“Jo Marie,” she greeted, and sounded pleased to hear from me. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a question,” I said, a little embarrassed to be so openly curious about Mark.

“Sure, anything.”

“I was wondering what you know about Mark Taylor.”

“O-k-a-y.” She dragged out the word as if my asking had taken her by surprise.

I wanted to make something clear first, though. “It’s not because I have any romantic interest in him.”

“I didn’t think so,” Peggy said. “The reason I hesitated is because there isn’t much I can tell you. I don’t know that much about him.”

“Does anyone?” I pried. Mark was the most secretive man I’d
ever met. I was certain there was a story there, possibly a dark and sinister one.

“I can ask Bob if you like. He’s gone at the moment but is due back anytime now. I was heading to the bakery in an hour or so. We could meet there and I’ll fill you in on what Bob tells me.”

“Perfect. I’ll meet you in an hour.” One way or another, I was going to unearth Mark Taylor’s deep, dark secrets.

Ellie Reynolds’s stomach was in knots, twisting and churning as she rode the shuttle bus from Sea-Tac Airport into Cedar Cove. She prayed she was doing the right thing by meeting Tom Lynch. Her mother’s warnings rang in her ears like cacophonous church bells drowning out her thoughts, until Ellie felt she was about to go deaf.

She clenched her hands together as she looked out the bus window. The middle-aged woman sitting in the seat across the aisle from her held her knitting in her hands. As if guessing at Ellie’s unrest, the other woman offered her a reassuring smile. Ellie smiled back and turned her head away to study the landscape. In many ways, the terrain resembled Bend, her home in Oregon.

Over the years, Ellie had visited the Seattle area twice before. Once as a Girl Scout in fifth grade, and then again in high school when she was part of a choral group that performed at a Christmas
function in the city. Both Ellie and her mother had stuck pretty close to home for the majority of her life. Seattle was the “big city.” Visiting it had been a grand adventure when she was sixteen. Now, at age twenty-three, she felt like a disobedient child who’d defied her mother’s wishes.

Ellie decided she couldn’t think about her mother. Instead, she would think about Tom. Right away a warm, happy feeling stole over her. They’d been communicating for months via Facebook, text messages, phone calls, and emails. She’d never felt this strongly about any man, especially someone she hadn’t met in person. They had a great deal in common and had really connected. They both liked fish tacos and stargazing, long walks, and classic novels. In fact, they met through an online book club.

Tom was a former submariner who worked in the Navy shipyard in Bremerton. The minute her mother heard that small bit of information, it’d thrown her into a tizzy. Sailors were notorious for having a girl in every port; they were men with loose morals, or so her mother claimed. But Ellie refused to believe it about Tom. He was like her, a bit shy and reserved, unless she was nervous. Silly as it seemed, when overly anxious, like now, she could blurt out the most nonsensical information to a stranger that she wouldn’t consider sharing with her closest friend.

Despite her mother’s warnings, Ellie wasn’t worried that Tom was using her. Everything she knew about him told her he was kind and thoughtful, intelligent and studious, and not the stereotypical sailor who played on others’ emotions. She couldn’t make herself believe he would do anything to hurt her. She trusted him, and if his photo was anything to go by, he was as open and honest as she believed. She was willing to go by faith and trust her gut feelings. What counted was his heart.

They would meet face-to-face for the first time this weekend. Tom was the one who’d suggested she stay at Rose Harbor Inn. Ellie prayed once more that she was doing the right thing. She made the reservation at the inn in May, almost three months ago, and twice
since then she’d changed her mind. They’d set the date for August, and Tom had been pleased and excited that they would meet at last. She was, too.