Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Aria
I placed the plastic containers of precut vegetables into the refrigerator. I’d finished in good time, and I had an hour before my lunch date with Kellan. Monday was normally my day off. And while I always came in for an hour or two to do paperwork and purchase orders, I usually had the rest of the day to do other things like a bike ride, a walk along the beach or a date with my boyfriend. But with no cook, all the prep work for the next day fell to me. I pulled out the sandwich I’d made for Oscar. He’d insisted that he didn’t need the lunch, but I knew differently. The cold weather kept him and his arthritic knees mostly below deck, tucked under wool blankets in his big chair.
This time, I’d wrapped the sandwich in foil. I wasn’t taking any chances. I was ready for whatever that gull had to dish out. With any luck, the bird and his pirate captain had moved along, either up or down the coast. After all, there wasn’t much to do in Whisper Cove this time of year. There were few visitors. I was lucky enough to have a cook through the busy months of late spring and summer, otherwise I’d have had to close down the café. The slow foot traffic in town during this time of year made it manageable for me to cook and run the place with just a few servers. Unless I counted the fact that I hadn’t had a full day off since Raymond, my last cook, left. He’d landed a job as a sous chef in a ritzy restaurant up north. I couldn’t blame him for leaving. Whisper Cove wasn’t exactly on the cutting edge of the culinary world. The café served simple but delicious fare with a homemade flare. Nonna had taught us many life skills, and her cooking and baking were beyond compare in our small town. Isla and I both spent a lot of time in the kitchen with her. She’d sit me up on a stool to shell peas and peel potatoes. I could still remember the day after my twelfth birthday when she handed me her favorite knife. “You’re old enough now, but mind your fingers, eh?” she’d said with a pat on my cheek.
Isla had found her love of baking standing in our tiny kitchen talking and laughing with Nonna as she rolled out crust for a cinnamon apple pie or dropped spoonfuls of strawberry jam in the middle of thumbprint cookies. We’d often come home from school weary and chatty and filled with stories of the day, which we kept locked up until after dinner was cleared and dessert was served. That was our cue to start relaying all the excitement of the day, and Nonna listened to every word, even when we all talked at once.
I pulled on my coat. The fog had cleared, but there was still a bite in the air, and this morning’s dunk in the water hadn’t left my bones yet. I glanced around to make sure everything was set for an early morning start tomorrow. I opened up a little later in the cold months, but I’d still occasionally arrive to find several of my usual customers standing at the door, waiting for their coffees and breakfasts.
My phone rang as I stepped outside into the brisk air. It was Isla. I lifted my hood up to protect my ears and slipped the phone under it. “Well?” I asked.
“I caved and you’re right. Luke is thrilled to help me with this.” There was a touch of sadness in her tone.
“Uh-oh, what’s wrong?” I turned in the direction of the marina.
“It’s nothing. I’m happy, of course. It’s just?—”
“Just?” I prodded. A pigeon dropped down on the sidewalk, and I flinched. It was going to take me a few weeks, months perhaps, to erase this morning’s Hitchcock movie from my head.
“What if we don’t last? What if Luke realizes I’m not the one for him?”
“Isla, the man is smitten. When he looks at you, the rest of us melt into puddles of butter. Seriously, he’s set the bar so high, your sisters are never ever going to find a match.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I’m at the paint store right now. Beware. I’m bringing home a million of those little color cards, and I expect you to help me make a decision on the base color for the walls. I’m thinking something in a peach tone.”
“You’re barking up the wrong sister tree on this one. Layla is the color and style pro.”
“Oh, this lavender is pretty,” she said, then returned to the call. “Getting Layla to settle on one color will probably take a year, and I don’t have that much time. My goal is to have the bakery up and running by April. By the way—Ella and I jetted out of the café so fast this morning, you didn’t finish your story. You were telling us about your morning. That’s right. There was a gull attack. I wonder if you should let the wildlife station know. Maybe he’s sick or deranged.” She laughed. “Maybe he needs a therapist.”
“Actually, the gull is someone’s pet. Remember the mysterious stranger at the bus stop?”
Isla gasped. “No way. We didn’t see a gull when we passed him.”
“The bird, Gus, was probably still on his boat. The man is docked next to Oscar.” I could see the shabby gray tugboat as I said it. There was no sign of the gull, but I kept the foil encased sandwich under my coat just in case. The somewhat muffled roar of a motorcycle pulled my attention back toward the small marina parking lot I’d just crossed. The rider had his hood pulled up, and he was wearing dark sunglasses. I faced forward again. “Lots of strangers at the marina today.”
“You’re at the marina?”
“Trying to get Oscar that lunch I promised him earlier. I’m almost at his boat, so I’ll talk to you later.”
“Sounds good.”
“And Isla, I’m really excited for you.”
“Thanks, Ar. Love ya. Bye. Oh, and stay vigilant for rogue gulls.”
“Trust me, if I so much as see a feather duster, I’m going into defensive mode. Bring the paint colors over later, but try to narrow it down first. Love ya. Bye.”
I reached Oscar’s boat, Annie Oakley , named after his great-grandmother, not the famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley. “Oscar,” I called as I climbed on board. There was no sign of him, but that wasn’t surprising. I knew he’d be below deck, and that was exactly where I found him, fast asleep in his chair with his blankets tucked in around him, a book on his lap and his spectacles perched precariously at the tip of his nose. I carefully removed the glasses and set them on the galley table—his “everything table,” as he called it. A jigsaw puzzle of a pirate ship was half finished on one side, and an empty coffee cup and box of crackers sat on the other half. I was glad I dropped by. I was sure those crackers had been his lunch. I placed the sandwich in the tiny refrigerator and wrote him a note that dinner was in the fridge. I pushed the note under the glasses, tucked his blanket around him tighter and climbed off the boat.
A tall figure had just reached the dock. It was the motorcycle rider. He lifted his sunglasses and smiled when he saw me. The imposing physique should have been my first clue. It was him, the man who helped me out of the water. Suddenly, wings flapped, and I instinctively crouched low on the dock. The shadow of a bird flew over me. Big feet pounded the dock and stopped in front of me.
“Are you all right? He didn’t touch you, did he? He knows he’s standing on his last leg with me.” A big hand reached toward me.
I ignored the hand and pushed to a stand. The gull had landed on his shoulder.
“He didn’t touch me. I guess I’m just a little on edge after—” I shook my head. No need to bring up that entirely too embarrassing moment. I hadn’t imagined it this morning, in my stunned state of mind; the man was breathtaking, even with a sharp-beaked gull staring down from his shoulder.
He stuck out a hand, easily twice the size of mine. “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Dex.”
“Aria,” I said tersely. “It seems you still haven’t taught that gull manners. At least I was able to get past him with the sandwich this time. I wrapped it in foil.”
“I guess foil is the armored car of the sandwich world.” He chuckled, but I was feeling too flustered to join in. I had no idea why I was feeling that way, but something about the man—it might have been his size or the way his green gaze seemed to be constantly assessing me, knocked me off balance. And if there was one thing I hated, it was feeling off balance.
Dex clucked his tongue and motioned with his head toward the boat. I gasped as Gus took off and landed on top of the wheelhouse. “I guess that was bad timing. He’s a bit like a dog when I get home, only instead of jumping up to greet me, he lands on my shoulder.”
I looked over at the gull. He had settled down to rest, but his shiny black eyes never left his friend. “I didn’t realize they could attach themselves to people like that.”
“Me, neither.”
I needed to get out from under the man’s unsettling gaze. “Well, good day and thanks for stopping by Whisper Cove.” I tried to sidle around him, but he was so darn big. His gaze followed me as I walked a half-circle around him.
“‘Thanks for stopping by?’” he repeated. “Sounds like an invitation to leave.”
I stopped and shrugged. “I just figured there isn’t a whole lot for a man like you to do in Whisper Cove.”
His teasing smile was irritating. I wanted to—well—I just didn’t want to see it. “A man like me? You mean a man with a badly mannered gull?”
I lifted my chin in defense. “I think we’re done with this conversation. Good day, Dex .” I marched off feeling ridiculously and inexplicably exasperated. Something about the man had put me immediately on defense.
I marched down the dock and breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the parking lot. I peeked quickly over my shoulder and instantly regretted it. He was still watching me. I picked up my pace. Suddenly I wished I hadn’t made lunch plans with Kellan. Today seemed like a good day to go home, take a hot bath and curl up with a book.
My phone rang again, and before I pulled it free from my coat, I sensed that it was yet another sister calamity to deal with. It was the last thing I needed. I barely glanced at the name on the screen. “Ava? What’s wrong?” Ava was our adventurous, world traveling sister. Sometimes I envied her life—taking off without a care in the world and no big responsibilities, like a business, to hold her back.
“I’m homesick,” she said. They were words that rarely crossed Ava’s lips.
“Let me guess—he turned out to be a loser.”
“Big time. I should never have started a relationship with a team member. He thought since we were dating that meant he could boss me around at the research site. We had a big fight, and I told him every time he opened his mouth, I liked him less.”
I giggled. “Good one. So, are you coming home?”
“I am. That way I can catch up on everything.”
“And there’s plenty to catch up on. When will you be home?”
“Tomorrow, and I’m in desperate need of macaroni and cheese. I’m tired of freeze-dried camp food. Oh, and tell Isla to bake some of her fudge brownies. There’s no ice cream out here to drown my sorrows in sugar and cream.”
“Sorrows, right. You’re the one who leaves the trail of broken hearts. Not the other way around.”
“You exaggerate. By the way, how is it going with—sorry—forgot his name?”
“Kellan? Things are going well.” I took one last glance back at the marina. Dex was no longer on the dock, so I slowed my pace.
“Going well,” Ava repeated. “Not exactly a glowing review of the relationship.”
I cleared my throat loudly to let her know I wasn’t in the mood for this.
“Uh-oh, it’s the ‘Aria admonishing throat clearing.’ You can fill me in when I get home. Looking forward to being back with my four favorite people in the world.”