The Honeymoon Cottage (A Pajaro Bay Romance) (24 page)

This was really happening. Everything she'd hoped for was coming true—and more.

She had come to town planning to sell the cottage, pay off Mr. Cordova for Dennis's theft, and move on somewhere new with a clean slate.

She had never dreamed she'd find a man to share this new adventure with her.

He sat down at the table next to Oliver and ruffled the boy's hair. "How's it going this morning, kid?"

Oliver shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

She frowned. She wondered if Oliver had overheard any of her conversation with Ryan last night. She didn't want to upset his world any more than it already was, but this was a good thing. For him and for her. For all of them.

She sat down opposite her two boys and picked up the milk. She poured some over the boy's cereal. "Oliver?"

He looked up with such a wounded expression she wondered if he knew what she was going to say.

"I told you last night that someone decided to buy the cottage, right?"

He nodded. Slumped his shoulders and took a spoonful of cereal.

"So, that means we can move to a new town now, just like I've been telling you."

He nodded to his cereal bowl.

"But—" How could she tell him this? "We're going to move on with Ryan."

Oliver looked up with wide eyes.

"What do you think about that, buddy?" said Ryan. "We'll head cross-country in the '66 Mustang, and see where the wind takes us."

"Good idea. We've been here too long," Oliver said quietly.

"It's only a couple of weeks, kiddo."

"Yeah, but Camilla's restless. I know how it is. Gotta keep on the move, daddy says."

Ryan's eyes narrowed in on the mumbling boy. "He does?"

"Yup," Oliver said. "Don't put down roots. Don't let anybody get too close. Don't ever let anybody catch up to you."

Camilla set the milk down on the table. She'd heard those words before. Throughout her own childhood. "We have to make a fresh start where no one knows us," she said quietly.

"Yup. You sound just like daddy." Then he looked up at Camilla, and the expression on his face broke her heart. He was smiling, but his eyes had a resigned look in them, a look far-too old for his eight years. "It's time to go. We were getting to like it here too much."

She leaned toward him. "What do you mean, like it too much?"

He smiled brightly with the sad eyes boring into her. "Like daddy always says, it's dangerous to get too comfortable. Got to keep on the move. Don't let the past catch up to you." He looked down at his cereal again. "Time to move."

He got up from the table, and she stood up to give him a hug. He pulled away from her before she could get her arms around him.

"It's okay, Camilla. We gotta keep runnin'. They can't catch ya if they can't find ya. I'm gonna pack. I'll be ready in ten minutes." He ran out of the room.

"You don't have to do that now," she called after him. "We aren't moving until the escrow closes—we haven't even signed the papers yet."

Ryan said something to her about how Oliver would come around if they gave him time, but she only half-heard him. She was thinking hard. Everything Oliver said was exactly what she knew to be true. They couldn't stay. If they did, the past would catch up to her. If they did, people would find out she wasn't who she claimed to be. Ryan would reject her, and she just couldn't take that rejection.

But that was all a lie. It was the lie of the con man. The lie of her father. The lie she'd lived with all her life, and was now teaching to Oliver. When you're scared, run away. When things get tough, run away. When you have to face criticism, or judgment, or blame, run away.

She had spent her entire life running away, and now she was running again.

No more. She had to end it now. Not in thirty days when the escrow closed. Now. Before she got in any deeper. Before she fell for the fairy tale. Before she believed things would work.

She looked up at Ryan. He was staring at her, seeing something of what she was thinking transparent on her face. But his look was uncomprehending, lost. How had she ever thought he was cold? The look of longing, of fear on his face was so like Oliver's it broke her heart.

"We have to talk, Ryan."

He froze, coffee mug in hand. "Babe, that is not the thing to say to a guy after a night like last night." He gave it a brave smile, but it quickly faded when she didn't laugh.

She looked away from him, trying to think. Oliver was right. She sank down into the chair.

"Hey, hon." He reached across the table to take her hand but she jerked away.

"What's wrong?"

"We can't go with you." The words came out so quietly she wasn't sure he'd heard them until he reacted.

"What do you mean?" Those heartbreaking blue eyes were making this impossible so she looked away from him again. He tried to make a joke of it: "We have a thirty-day escrow, babe. I've still got twenty-nine days to go—and nights."

"No."

"I don't understand—last night...."

She couldn't speak.

"Camilla, please—"

She shook her head. She couldn't say anything.

She looked away, toward the living room where Oliver bent over his backpack. His shoulders were hunched and his expression was shuttered, closed in, retreating to some place inside where he didn't have to think or feel or deal with another loss.

It was that expression that made her sure she was right. She couldn't run, not for Oliver's sake, and not for hers.

She closed her eyes, forced back the tears.

When she opened her eyes again, Ryan was standing there, the most lost and wounded she'd ever seen him. She wanted to love him. To believe he was her one true partner like in some fairy tale.

But it was a lie. Their love was a lie. And she could not lie to herself any more.

"You're dumping me?" He looked stricken, but anger was starting to seep in behind the hurt, and his voice rose. "Why? What did I do?"

"Nothing."

"I don't get it. We said so much last night—Is that it? Is it too fast for you?"

"No. It's not that. It's the whole plan. Don't you see? I can't run. Didn't you hear what Oliver said?"

"He's just a kid. He'll understand."

"He has to learn not to run away. I won't have him hurt again."

"You're the one hurting him, Camilla, not me."

My name isn't even Camilla
, she wanted to say, but there was no point. He knew nothing about her. She'd let him believe something that wasn't true, let him fall for the illusion she'd created for him, and now it was over.

He was furious now, and the words came pouring out of him, fast and angry. "You're not making any sense! You tell me you love me and then dump me? Was it a game?" He pushed a chair across the linoleum floor with a screech that hurt her ears.

She put her head in her hands. "I’m not explaining it well."

"No, you're explaining it perfectly. You have been playing with me, pretending to care."

"No, Ryan. That's not it. I wasn't pretending that. That wasn't a lie."

That laser-sharp mind of his caught the implication. "Then what was the lie?"

She shook her head. "You don't know anything about me, about my life. You don't understand."

"How can I understand if you won't talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about, Ryan. You don't know me at all."

"I guess I don't."

He headed for the front door.

The creak of the old wooden door closing wasn't cute, or melodramatic. It was a rusty pair of iron hinges shutting Ryan out of her life.

She found she was standing in the kitchen of the Honeymoon Cottage clutching a box of cereal, with Oliver staring at her in shock, and her soul mate walking out of her life forever.

~*~

When Ryan blew into work, Joe had the Coast Guard radio station turned up loud and he was bent over the radio, listening.

"Why aren't you at the Honeymoon Cottage?"

"Switched schedule. There's a new guy on duty today, so I had him take the morning shift." Joe turned back to the radio.

"What's happening?" He put his hat on the rack and came over to listen.

"Rescue out by the lighthouse," Joe explained. "All Coast Guard personnel involved."

Ryan glanced out the window at the street. The fog was in, but that was normal. There hadn't been any bad weather for days. "I thought the seas have been calm," he said. "Is it a fisherman?"

Joe shook his head. "Kids partying at the lighthouse island, it sounds like. Someone got swept off the rocks."

"Again?"

"Yeah. That place sits out there abandoned and those kids think it's party central. They forget the lighthouse was put there a hundred years ago because the waters out there in the middle of the bay are dangerous."

Joe turned the radio down a notch. "Sounds like they have it under control. The kid just got picked out of the water." He turned to Ryan. "He's waterlogged but alive—gracias a Dios." He stared. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing." Ryan went over and plopped into his desk chair. Nothing but his heart getting stomped on by a two-faced woman. No. He just couldn't believe all his instincts about her were wrong. She was a good person. But for some reason, she didn't want him.

"Are you all right, Ryan?"

Joe was still staring.

"Fine. I've got to finish these last reports so I can go." His desk was covered with papers. "What's all this?"

"More reports. One from Salinas—the detective who took the statement from Melissa Everette faxed us his notes. One from L.A.—background on the girl whose parents reported the fraud. She was killed in a boat explosion."

Ryan hit his fist on his desk. Another death.

He looked up at Joe. "Sorry."

"I didn't find anything useful in the reports. But then again, I'm not Bloodhound Knight." Joe came across the room to stand over him. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Ryan looked up at him. "I'm fine." At Joe's skeptical expression he explained, "Camilla dumped me."

Joe looked stricken. "Oh, no. I really thought—"

"I don't see why it matters so much to you," he snapped. "I knew we were both leaving town when I met her."

"Oh," Joe said. "It just seemed you both needed a new start, and maybe if you and she got together you'd...." Joe let it peter out.

"What? If we got together we'd live happily ever after, with her sticking around and me being the cheerful cop on the local beat, and everything would be perfect. Well, it's not going to happen!"

Joe looked at him, shocked. No wonder. He'd never said anything like that to anyone in this town. He'd never opened up to anyone.

Except Camilla. Except the one person who told him from the start she was leaving. Who told him there was no future for them. Why hadn't he listened to her?

"I'm sorry, Ryan."

Ryan shrugged. "Sorry about yelling. I'm sure we've been the main topic at Santos' checkout line, but it's not going to happen." He shuffled the papers around on his desk, stacking them up into piles by city.

"So, how does that affect—"

"The case?"

"Yes. Are you still going to—"

"—Work on it? Of course." He ran a hand through his hair.

"But isn't this your last day?"

Was it? He'd called his boss over the weekend, told him he'd be willing to stick around for another thirty days. But now what? "We have to resolve this, one way or another. My personal feelings don't have anything to do with that. There's still a possible killer loose, possibly in our town, and we're going to catch him."

He looked at the now-neat stacks on his desk. Everything neat, and tidy, and professional. The way he'd wanted to leave the job. And he had to go and mess it up. He'd blown it. Now the woman he lov—he stopped himself. Camilla and Oliver were leaving. Soon. And if he didn't catch Dennis before they left, they'd be in danger for the rest of their lives.

With another shake of his head he brought himself around to the problem in front of him. No more emotions. Emotions messed with his head, made him lose objectivity. Had he been wrong about this case all along? What had he missed?

He cleared his throat. "All right, Joe. Give me the rundown on what's we've got here."

Joe went over it, pointing out the places where they were still waiting on information, going over his notes on autopsy reports and fraud investigations in the cities they'd found. Joe was learning quickly. He had gone from the greenest rookie to a good cop practically overnight. But Ryan still knew Joe didn't have the real-life experience to handle everything that might come his way. But he couldn't take care of him forever. Joe would learn after he was gone. He had to.

Joe was still talking, now about a couple of other cities with possibles.

"How possible?" Ryan asked.

Joe went through the reports. Scams, women ripped off. But none of it struck Ryan as being right for Dennis. "We'll keep them in a separate file for now. Maybe they'll tie in later." Later. He had to figure this thing out soon. "There has to be something here I'm missing. Something different. So far everything is too perfect."

"Well, the boat accident in L.A. is different."

Ryan perked up. "In what way?"

Joe grabbed the page. "The investigators didn't fully accept the accident idea. They thought—but couldn't prove—that someone might have tampered with the boat."

"Aha. That is different."

"Yeah. It's the first time someone didn't immediately buy the accident theory."

He handed Ryan the paper. "But they found nothing conclusive.

Ryan read the report. "The boat was far out in the water. No witnesses. And the body was never recovered, so they couldn't do an autopsy—there might have been signs of foul play this time, so he had to explain her disappearance with a staged accident. This guy is really bright."

"Bright?"

"Yeah. Just because he's an amoral psycho doesn't mean he's not smart. That's the problem. Criminals are usually stupid, with poor self-control. They get into a bar fight while on parole because somebody looks at 'em sideways. They're criminals because they don't have the common sense to do anything better."