On Lavender Lane (16 page)

“Hi,” she said. Her tone was friendly, but her quick, sweeping look made Phoebe feel as if she were cataloging her vital statistics in order to check them out on some police Most Wanted list. “Are you visiting?”

“In a way.” Phoebe had to push the words past the lump in her throat. “I’m between places and was considering settling down here.”

“It’s a great town,” the sheriff said. “Of course, I’m admittedly prejudiced, having grown up here, but I can tell you that our crime rate definitely is lower than most places.” Her smile was quick and warm. But her eyes, while friendly enough, also asked questions Phoebe was not prepared to answer.

“That’s good to know.” She turned her attention toward the glass case. “What would you recommend?” she asked the other woman.

“Oh, gee, that’s like asking a mom which child she likes best. But I do know that Zelda’s personal favorite is lemon coconut.” She glanced out the door where a couple clad in baseball caps and matching blue rain parkas had settled
down at a table. “Why don’t you decide what looks good while I run out and get their order?” she suggested.

And didn’t that sound so easy? But just looking at the vast choices of pretty, decorated cakes was enough to make Phoebe’s head spin. Other than the decision to call that underground-railroad hotline she’d found on the Internet, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d made any of her own decisions.

Peter had chosen their wedding venue. Their honeymoon location. Their home. Their decorator. Her clothes. He’d hired the maid, the pool boy (though, in his case, it was a pool girl, which Phoebe had figured out was because he didn’t want to risk her being alone with any other male), and the landscaper, who was seventy, if a day. And therefore safe.

He chose where they’d eat when they went out, which had happened less and less frequently, and all their friends from the beginning of their marriage had been his.

His behavior, she’d been assured by her rescuers, had been classic abuser. But even knowing that didn’t help her when it came to choosing a damn cupcake.

“The red velvet’s delicious,” the sheriff volunteered as Phoebe stood frozen, staring blindly into the case. “My son, Trey, is crazy about the banana.” She pointed toward a cupcake in yellow fluted paper, topped with what the calligraphied sign in front described as a caramel buttercream frosting. “My fiancé usually goes for the carrot cake.” That one was easy to spot because of the small marzipan carrot on top of the cream cheese frosting. “He claims it counts as health food since Sedona also puts apples in it. It’s both a vegetable and a fruit serving.”

Her laugh was warm and rich and had Phoebe thinking that were it not for that badge she was wearing, they might even someday become friends if she stayed in Shelter Bay.

As it was, she couldn’t risk the friendly sheriff with the strawberry-blond hair getting suspicious.

“Thanks,” she said. “They all look delicious.”

“They’re to die for. You can’t go wrong whichever you choose.”

The baker was back. “I’ll just be another minute,” she assured both women as she poured two mugs of coffee that smelled a bit of cinnamon, and plated two devil’s food cupcakes, which she delivered to the couple at the table.

“Sorry about that,” she said when she returned behind the counter. “But they only had a few minutes before they have to get back on their tour bus for the trip up to Cannon Beach.” She input the credit card information in the computerized register. “So, can I help you with any explanations?”

“The sheriff assures me they’re all great,” Phoebe said.

“I like to think so,” Sedona replied mildly.

Realizing they were both watching her and wanting to escape as quickly as she could, after ordering two lemon coconuts, two carrot cakes, a red velvet, and a banana, Phoebe just randomly named assorted others until she had the dozen Zelda had sent her for.

“And one extra makes a baker’s dozen,” Sedona said, as she added a chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting, topped with perky sugar pansies to the others in the pink box.

“Thanks.” Phoebe reached into her purse and pulled out the bills Zelda had given her.

“Thank you,” Sedona said as she rang up the order and made change. “Come again.”

“I will.”

Oh, God.
She was on the verge of hyperventilating. Desperate to get out into the fresh air before she humiliated herself with a full-blown anxiety attack, Phoebe hugged the box tight and made her escape.

“Wow,” Kara said as both women watched her practically run out of the store. “If she’d been wound any tighter,
we would’ve been picking up pieces of her all over this bakery.”

“She’s staying at Haven House.”

“Yeah, I got that. But I would’ve figured it out, anyway, from that deer-in-the-headlights look. When she actually dared to look at anything but the floor.”

“It must be terrifying,” Sedona said. “Having to run away to be safe.”

“Probably less terrifying than living with a fucking wife abuser.”

Kara’s sharp tone and the fact that she’d dropped the F bomb, which Sedona had never heard her do, had realization dawning.

“Oh, hell.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about Jared.”

“That’s okay.” Kara exhaled a long breath and shook
her
head. “I overreacted.”

“I don’t believe that’s possible. Given that your police officer husband was killed by a batterer.”

“Still, I’m a cop.” Kara squared her shoulders. Lifted her chin. “Professionally, I should be able to deal with it.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you can be too hard on yourself? You may be a cop, but you’re also a widow who lost her husband to a senseless act of violence.”

“True. But you know what they say about what doesn’t kill you. And I did end up with a happily-ever-after.”

Kara’s gaze drifted out the window again. “I hope she’s as fortunate. Meanwhile, I think I’ll do a check on her. Just in case whoever it is she’s running from finds her and decides to show up in town to drag her back home.”

18

Since he wasn’t due at Sofia’s until afternoon, Lucas took advantage of the free morning to go surf fishing.

Scout raced ahead of him, down the zigzag wooden steps from the cottage to the beach, where lacy white surf rolled across the sand, then ebbed back again.

The sky was burnished pewter, a few shades lighter than the steel gray sea. Every so often the sun would pierce through the clouds, causing diamonds to dance on the waves. Although he’d traveled the world for the past ten years, Lucas had continued to feel the same connection to the sea he’d experienced the first summer his father had brought him to Shelter Bay. The summer after his sister had died and his grieving mother had left the gray drizzle of the Pacific Northwest—and her equally devastated husband and son—for a new start beneath Colorado’s blue skies.

He’d often thought that Magellan had gotten it wrong, because there was nothing peaceful about this part of the Pacific. It could be unpredictable. Wild. Even dangerous. Which he’d always thought mirrored his own life.

Out on the horizon, a fishing boat chummed the waters. Gulls trailed behind it, diving, screeching, and fighting over breakfast. Closer to shore, a pod of seals swam parallel to the beach, doing their own morning fishing. Sandpipers skittered along the edge of the surf as the German shepherd
took off on her self-appointed yet ultimately impossible role of keeping the beach seagull free.

As the dog raced up and down the sand, her barks carried off by the breeze, Lucas cast his line into the white-capped breaker waves, then let the sinker dig into the sandy bottom, allowing the sand shrimp and clam-neck bait to sway enticingly back and forth with the movement of the water.

One of the things the military had taught him was patience. He kept casting and reeling the line back in until he felt the sharp, telltale tugs at the rod tip. Jerking sharply to set the hook, he reeled in a fat sea perch. While Scout kept the circling gulls at bay, he took out the hook, put the fish into his creel, rebaited, and cast again.

He’d caught his limit in less than thirty minutes, and killed time throwing a piece of driftwood into the surf for Scout, who’d race into the waves, retrieve it, and come racing back to drop it at his feet, her wet tail wagging merrily as she waited for another throw. The same way she’d walk with his SEAL team for miles over rocks and desolation in Afghanistan, she appeared indefatigable when it came to ocean fetching. And although there was a vague threat of a riptide, sneaker wave, or even a shark, at least Lucas no longer had to worry about her stepping on a booby trap and losing another leg. Or worse yet, her life.

He’d just thrown the stick for what felt like the umpteenth time when, out of the swirling mist and fog he viewed a woman clad in a bright yellow slicker and tall black boots, clamming in the shallow water.

Intent as she was on her harvest, she didn’t notice that she was no longer alone until Scout, sighting a new playmate, went racing toward her and dropped the driftwood right next to her shovel.

He watched as she laughed, patted the dog’s head, threw the stick into the water, then looked around for its owner.

Although she was far enough away to keep him from
seeing her face, Lucas knew Maddy had recognized him when her shoulders stiffened.

She half turned as if to walk away; then, as he watched, she appeared to make the decision to stand her ground.

As he walked toward her across the damp sand, Lucas had a very good idea how those perch had felt when they’d found themselves hooked.

“Are you following me?”

“Not to quibble the point, but since the beach was deserted when Scout and I came down, I could ask the same question of you.”

“To which the answer would be a definitive no.” She glanced down at the dog, who was standing over the driftwood, furry tale wagging like a metronome, looking back and forth between them, eyes pleading for someone just to throw the stick, please.

“Is this your dog?”

“Yeah. I brought her back with me from Afghanistan.” Because
the gaze
was working as it always did, he gave in, picked the stick up, and threw it into the surf. She ran after it, pausing only to bark a warning to a pod of pelicans flying by in fighter-jet formation.

“Is that where…?” Her voice drifted off as if the question was too difficult to ask out loud.

“She lost her leg to an IED on a booby-trapped house door,” he supplied. “Which gave a whole new meaning to ‘taking one for the team.’ ”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. So was I.” He’d spent years treating guys wounded in battle, including a really bad copter crash in the Hindu Kush. He’d saved more men than he’d lost, but every life he hadn’t saved still haunted him. But never had he felt ice-cold panic as he had when amputating the loyal shepherd’s leg while under fire.

They both watched the dog happily bounding through the surf. Apparently realizing her humans were otherwise
occupied, she began tossing the stick into the air herself. Then racing after it.

“She seems to have adjusted remarkably.”

“Physically, her recovery was amazing.” Lucas rubbed his jaw and wished he’d taken time to shave before leaving the cottage. “She did, unfortunately, return home with a rough case of PTSD, but Charity—that’s my half sister, but since she was only here one summer, you might not have met her—”

“She’s the vet Gram adopted Winnie from.”

“That would be her. I don’t think she’s going to be able to rest until every abandoned or abused animal on the planet has a home.…Anyway, she’s had animal behavioral training and says that Scout’s about ninety-percent back to her old self, which isn’t always the case. You should’ve seen the dog a few months ago. She spent most of the time with her tail between her legs, hiding under tables and trying to avoid people.”

“That’s so sad.”

“War’s a long way from playing fetch. But to her, sniffing out bombs was just another game in the beginning, and she was probably one of the best ever born to it. She also was great on house-to-house searches in some of the more remote villages we were sent to.”

“Damn.” Her brow furrowed and her midnight eyes darkened.

“What?”

“I’m really trying to hate you.” A thin white line circled unpainted lips he could still taste. Lips he was aching to taste again.

The definitive words, Lucas told himself, were
trying to
. “You hold a grudge a long time.”

“Yes.” He was tempted to rub at the furrow between her brows, then decided not to push his luck. So far she hadn’t slugged him with that clam shovel, which was encouraging. “It appears I do.”

“What happened between us was a long time ago.” Surely the statue of limitations on stupidity would have run out by now. “Would it matter if I had a reason?”

“No.” She lifted her chin. “As you said, it was a long time ago. There’s no point in rehashing old memories.” Her curt tone declared the topic closed.

He should just let it go. Count himself lucky that she didn’t intend to drag him over the coals.

They were no longer those two crazy kids they’d once been. They’d grown up. He’d changed more than he ever could have foreseen that stolen summer. She’d obviously changed, too.

Let it go.

Too late.

During all those summers he and his dad had come to Shelter Bay, the community had seemed frozen in time. From what he’d seen so far, except for the new names on the storefronts, and more tourist boats than fishing boats in the harbor, that hadn’t changed.

It had also been the very trait, which, when he’d found his postwar plans in shambles, had drawn him back.

One thing he hadn’t counted on was that Maddy would be returning home, too.

It’s true,
Lucas thought on a burst of optimism.
Timing really is everything.

19

“Look,” he said, “I understand you’re still hurting—”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” A gust of wind blew her hood back. Frustrated at this situation she’d landed in, Madeline ignored it.