Sunrise on Cedar Key (2 page)

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Authors: Terri Dulong

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Sunrise on Cedar Key
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2
F
ollowing Annie's walk and breakfast, I headed upstairs to my bedroom. After stripping the bed of linens, I placed them into a plastic bag to be laundered once we arrived on Cedar Key. Looking around, I let out a deep sigh.
This house held so many memories for me. Not all of them good ones. I had always loved this bedroom. The Victorian style boasted a mansard roof, creating my private domain from age twelve until fourteen years later—the day I got a phone call making me realize it was time to leave Brunswick for good. The events of that day and the ones that followed had turned my life upside down. But I had survived, and I would survive the recent upheaval in my life—once again, with Aunt Maude's love and support.
“How're you doing up there?” I heard her holler up the stairs. “The movers will be here in about twenty minutes.”
“Good,” I hollered back. “Be right down.”
Standing at the window, I took a final look outside, across the square to the house my parents had once owned. Staring at the two-story Victorian left me devoid of emotion. No warm and fuzzy feelings for the house I'd been brought to as a newborn. No childhood remembrances of Christmas, Thanksgiving, or birthday parties. If my parents had even been home for these events, they were exhausted from the travel their business required. Therefore, all of these events, along with most of my childhood memories, had been experienced here, at Aunt Maude's house.
Going downstairs, I heard the phone ringing and walked into the kitchen to hear my aunt say, “Good morning, Suellen. Yes, she's right here. Hold on.”
I felt a smile cross my face as I took the phone. There's a lot to be said for a childhood friend you've known since the first grade.
“Hey, what's up?”
“Well, you sure don't sound as perky as I thought you'd be this morning. You're heading back to your beloved Cedar Key and taking your aunt with you.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I'm afraid I got some really bad news a couple hours ago,” I said, and went on to explain about Jim Jacobs's phone call.
Suellen's audible gasp came across the phone line. “Oh! My God! I can't believe this! Are you saying your coffee shop
and
your apartment are ... gone?”
“That's exactly what I'm saying. Totally gone.”
“Oh, Gracie, I'm so sorry to hear this. What are you going to do? Where will you live? Where will you work? Is there anything at all you might be able to save from the fire? What can I do to help you? Just tell me. I'll do anything to help you... .”
Suellen hadn't changed since the first time I met her. She was easily excitable, and sometimes her speech raced along faster than the Daytona 500, causing me to lose half her words. For a Southern girl, her pace in speaking was more like a Yankee.
I laughed. “Take a breath, slow down,” I told her. “I honestly don't know what I'm doing, except that tonight I'll stay with Aunt Maude at the Faraway. She had booked there for two nights because the movers won't have everything unloaded from the truck till sometime tomorrow afternoon. I won't be on the street homeless—my aunt has already said that she wants me to take the apartment upstairs from her. Beyond that ... I honestly don't know.”
“Well, I was planning to go down there in a couple weeks, but I could come now if you need me. Really, it wouldn't be a problem. I'll just call Miss Dixie at the Inn and tell her I need a few days off.”
“Suellen, you're too sweet. Really. But no, let's stick with the original plan. Come and visit me in a couple weeks. I should be pretty well settled in my new place by then.”
“Okay, if you're sure. But if you need me, you know I'm just a phone call away.” She paused for a moment and then asked, “And you still haven't seen Beau since you've been here?”
“No, and we'll be leaving this afternoon so I managed to avoid that.” Damn. Why did just the mention of his name still have the ability to speed up my heart rate? Not wanting to discuss Beau Hamilton, I said, “Thanks for your help, Suellen. I'll call you later to give you an update on the fire.”
 
With Aunt Maude beside me, Lafitte in his cat carrier, and Annie curled up on the backseat, I made the drive from Brunswick to Cedar Key. Minimal conversation between my aunt and me allowed my mind to race and try to sort out what had happened, but when I stood on Dock Street and stared at the remains of my business and home, I still couldn't comprehend the impact of my loss.
I heard Jim and Aunt Maude talking as if from a distance while my eyes took in the charred structure that no longer resembled my pride and joy. My second-story apartment had pretty much ended up in the ground floor coffee shop. Three walls of what had been my living space had disappeared. Only black rubble was left for the entire world to see. My beautiful sign, C
OFFEE
, T
EA AND
T
HEE
, now hung at a grotesque angle with the wood buckled and the words barely legible. How could this happen? How could all that I loved and valued be taken from me in a heartbeat?
Before I even realized what was happening I felt tears streaming down my face as my legs turned to jelly. The scene before me blurred, and I felt strong arms go around my shoulders to support me.
“Miss Gracie? Miss Gracie, are you okay?” I heard Jim Jacobs say with concern.
Okay? I'll probably never be okay again
, I thought, and only continued to sob harder.
Then I heard another male voice. “Maybe we should get her away from here for now. I have the golf cart. Why don't we go over to the bookshop for some coffee?”
Swiping at my tears I looked up to see Lucas Trudeau speaking to Aunt Maude.
“Brilliant idea,” she said, grabbing my elbow and steering me to the vehicle at the curb.
“Call me when you feel ready,” I heard Jim say as Aunt Maude settled herself on the backseat and Lucas got in beside me.
It wasn't until I was comfortably seated in a deep cushy chair following a few sips of rich, dark coffee that my brain seemed to resume working.
I glanced at Lucas and Aunt Maude sitting across from me. “Great coffee. I better watch out or you'll put me out of business.” I let out an exaggerated chuckle. “Oh, wait! I
am
out of business.” I could feel moisture filling my eyes again.
“I was so terribly sorry to hear about the fire,” Lucas said. “If there's anything at all I can do to help you, please let me know.”
I saw the concern on his handsome face. “Thanks, but I'm not even sure what day it is, let alone what
I'm
going to do.”
“Well, today is Friday,” Aunt Maude said with a note of determination in her tone. “And what you're going to do is first things first. We're both booked for tonight and tomorrow night at the Faraway Inn, so we have a roof over our heads. When you feel up to it, Jim said that they'll assist you with trying to salvage what you can from your apartment. And then ... well, we'll take it all one step at a time.”
Leave it to Aunt Maude to be sensible, but I failed to find any comfort in her words. The knowledge that I'd lost both my livelihood and my home was all that I could focus on.
“I'm serious about my offer of help. This isn't an easy time for you.”
Although he spoke fluent English, I still heard the French accent in his speech and recalled the day six months before when Lucas had walked into my coffee shop for the first time. With those dark curls in a longer-than-conventional length, the olive skin, mahogany eyes, and knitted scarf circling his neck in a way that only the French can master, he had oozed a certain
je ne sais quoi
that I rarely observed in American men.
“Thank you,” I told him, and it was then that I noticed my surroundings. Lucas had done a wonderful job of having the bookshop restored. The walls had been painted a buttery yellow, adding a warm glow to the rectangular room. Just below the ceiling a border print of large, vivid sunflowers looked down on me, with oak wainscoting circling the middle half of the walls. The cushy chair I sat in matched the other three, and all of them formed a cozy circle around a coffee table displaying some nonfiction books. But the major change was the archway that had been added when the wall had been broken to allow more space.
I rose and walked toward the archway, exclaiming, “Oh! Lucas, you've done a magnificent job with the restoration.” I peeked into the new room. This space was a large, empty square, and I saw lots of potential.
“I'm glad you like it. I still have a lot of work with this extra room, but at least I can be open for business.”
Aunt Maude came to look and said, “What are you planning to do with it?”
Lucas shook his head. “I'm not quite sure yet. I have a few ideas, so we'll see.”
I swept my arm out toward the bookshop. “Your decorating is perfect, Lucas. I really love it. The ambience you created is ideal for book browsing.”
“That's what I was hoping for, so thank you.”
I took the final sip of my coffee and let out a deep sigh. “Well, I think we should be going. I know there have to be a million things for me to tend to.”
Aunt Maude put her arm around my shoulder. “And that's why you have me,” she said with affection.
“Thank you,” I told Lucas. “Thanks for rescuing me from my meltdown on Dock Street.”
He laughed, and once again I realized what a killer smile he had.
Just as we reached the door, he said, “I was wondering ... I mean ... I know you'll both be busy getting settled in, so ... would you like to come to my place some evening for a home-cooked meal?”
Before I even had the chance to consider, I heard Aunt Maude say, “Why,
Monsieur
Trudeau, that would be wonderful. I never turn down a meal prepared by a Frenchman.
Merci beaucoup
.”
Lucas laughed again. “How about Monday evening? Would that be convenient for you?” he asked, looking directly at me.
“Ah, yes, I think so,” I said, waiting for Aunt Maude to say something. Which she didn't. She simply stood there with a devilish grin on her face. “Yes, I'm sure our social calendar is free.”
“Great. Is eight o'clock okay?”
“Perfect European time for dinner,” Aunt Maude said. “Now, will you be so kind as to give us a lift back to the Faraway? We dropped off Lafitte and Annie at our cottage and walked over to Dock Street.”
“Absolutely. My chariot awaits,” Lucas said, as we followed him to the golf cart.
 
Annie lay curled up on the bed as I unpacked my piece of luggage. It hit me that the clothes I'd had with me in Brunswick were the only clothes I owned at the moment. It was obvious from what I'd seen that all of my other ones had burned to a crisp. This brought on a fresh flood of tears just as my cell phone rang. Blowing my nose I saw Suellen's name on the LED.
“Hey, girlfriend,” I said.
“I know this is a really stupid question, but ... how're you doing? I wanted to make sure you arrived there safely. Have you gone to assess the damage yet? I'm so worried about you, Grace.
Are
you okay? I mean, is there anything I can do? Do you want me to come there and help you?”
Just hearing Suellen's voice made me feel a little better. “No, no, you don't need to come. And ... I'm okay. The building is pretty much a total loss. We just got back from there.”
“Well, you don't sound okay, and who would be? What a terrible thing to happen. I still can hardly believe it.”
“You and me both. But really, I have Aunt Maude, and somehow I'll get through this.” I let out a deep sigh.
“Well, sugar, if you need anything, anything at all, you be sure to call me. You know I can be on that little island in four hours. Okay, I have a busy weekend at work, but I'll call you Monday evening.”
“Oh, Aunt Maude and I have been invited to dinner Monday evening.”
“That's great. Somebody being neighborly?”
Knowing full well what Suellen's reaction would be, I still decided to be honest. “Well, I guess you could say that. It's Lucas Trudeau who invited us.”
I heard an intake of breath on the line, and then Suellen said, “Well, girlfriend, you don't waste any time, do you? Good for you! Getting hooked up with a good-looking guy like that will do wonders to help you through this crisis.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Suellen, it's not like that at all. He knows the situation with the fire and Aunt Maude moving here and, well, he's just being nice. That's all it is.”
“Right. A drop-dead handsome Frenchman invites you to his home for dinner and ... he's just being
nice.
Okay, sugar, if that's what you want to believe.”
To be honest, I wasn't sure
what
I wanted to believe, but I knew the days ahead weren't going to be easy, and if Lucas offered to cook a meal for my aunt and me—well, who was I to decline?

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