Love through everything.
– E.C.
The next summer, nothing was going according to plan.
Cora finished filling the clear glass jar with the crunchy granola that she’d gotten out of bed early to make, first stirring the oats, nuts, sunflower seeds and honey over the stove, then carefully checking while it cooked in the oven. It was healthy for both of them. Mac’s triglycerides had been a little on the high side when he’d seen Dr. Keller last month. He’d started running again every morning, and sometimes she joined him in a jog down the beach. He always ran faster than her, turning around and jogging backwards, teasing her until she ran harder, faster, until she tackled him from behind and they tumbled to the sand.
She poured a refill of tea into her favorite teacup. Her everyday teacup, now.
Mac came in the back door, still breathing heavily, the sweat dark on his tank top. Clementine raced for the water bowl, and then did a lap of the kitchen, forgetting, as always, to close her mouth so that the water dribbled all over Cora’s clean floor.
Holding a white bag aloft triumphantly, Mac said. “Look what followed me home!”
“Don’t even tell me –”
“I’m just thinking about your needs. You love Whitney’s morning buns. Still steaming when I bought ’em.”
“Oh…” Cora did love those light pastries filled with a heavenly brown sugar trail. “But I made granola.”
“On purpose?” But he grinned and pulled her in for a kiss.
She supposed she should mind that he smelled of wet dog, salt air, and sweat, but she didn’t. His lips on hers made her shiver all the way to her toes and she wondered how much time they had before he had to get to work.
He pulled back and said, “I’ll eat that later. For lunch.”
“You can’t have granola for lunch.”
“Says who? It’s gonna be busy today – I got a message from Cindi that the pregnant Rottweiler was in labor when she got in this morning. And at eleven we’re getting a tour from Mrs. Boonstomple’s second grade class. If all the puppies are out by that point, I expect to recruit at least five or six of them as potential homes.” He grinned. “Their parents aren’t gonna be happy they toured the shelter today of all days.”
“Still, you should have protein or something…” Cora’s voice trailed off as Mac leaned in to gently nip the side of her neck. “Oh.”
“I’ll have milk with the granola. That’s protein.”
“But not whole milk. At least use non-fat.”
“You worry too much. Think about last week.”
Cora turned to grab a Ziplock bag and started packing what she knew would be three or four times as much granola as Mac would be able to eat. “That was different.”
“You loved it.”
“I did not,” she protested weakly.
Mac leaned on the edge of the old kitchen table and stretched his lower back. “You said it was one of the most fun things in the whole world.”
“Okay. Yeah. But you tricked me. And since then I’ve decided that skydiving is the most foolhardy thing I’ve ever done.”
“Besides falling in love with me, that is.”
She raised an eyebrow and watched with approval as he stripped off his tank top and threw it in the washing machine. “True.”
Mac turned and pulled an ankle up behind him. “You couldn’t control a minute of it.”
“The skydiving? That was the problem.” Mac hadn’t told her where they were going. He’d just pulled up to the Half-Moon Bay airstrip and took her inside where he’d smooth-talked her into signing on the dotted line that she was taking the class and waiving all liability.
“And you couldn’t do a lick of research.”
“That’s what the internet was made for. All the scare stories and grisly pictures, right there for the googling. All for me.”
Mac grinned, and her heart tugged. Lord, she loved his grin. She’d always loved it.
“And instead,” he said, “you strapped yourself to a man you’d never met before…”
“Well, that was kind of thrilling.”
Pointedly ignoring her, he continued, “And hurled yourself out of an airplane at eleven thousand feet.”
“If that guy hadn’t been dragging me down to earth, I could have climbed the air right back into the plane. I know I could have.”
“I don’t doubt that, darlin’.” Sitting, he opened the bag. “Yep, they’re still warm.”
“Terrible man. Gimme one.”
He handed it to her. “Royal coming by today?”
Cora nodded, her mouth full. Around the morning bun, she said. “Yesh, later. He’s bringing in a new filly this afternoon.”
“Good. She’s supposed to be a good one.”
“And NBC is sending a follow-up crew on the jam story – the producer said they want a whole series on canning.”
“Linked to your videos?”
Smiling, Cora said, “Yup.”
“Hot damn. You should wear this sweater.” Mac touched the lace at her shoulder. “It’s sexy as hell. You’ll inspire a canning revolution across the nation.” He took a sip of her tea. “Are Olivia and Esteban working on roping?”
She nodded and swallowed. “She’s coming this morning. Every time I mention the rodeo to her, she goes totally green.”
Mac didn’t look worried. “She’s gonna love it.”
“She’s scared of falling off the horse, of getting bucked, of getting her hand caught. She’s scared of everything.”
“And yet she’s doing it anyway. Huh.”
“What’s that look for?”
He leaned back in his chair, tossing the last bit of the bun into his mouth. “She just reminds me of someone.”
“Logan was never scared.”
Mac looked at her pointedly. “I was talking about you, Cora. She reminds me of you at that age.”
“Always nervous? Planning too much?” She stood, balling up the bag and moving toward the stove.
But Mac grabbed her around the waist and turned her, pulling her down into his lap. “Always brave. Scared and doing it anyway. Plans or no plans. Like this one here.” He touched her nose lightly.
She shook her head and tugged at the hem of the lace-sided sweater she’d knitted for Abigail. It was her favorite, and she wore it at least once a week. Mac said it was his favorite, too, but she knew it was just because he could touch her skin through the lace. “Not very brave. That’s the whole problem.”
“You keep telling yourself that. Keep making your lists –”
“I will.”
“And I’ll keep watching you do things that scare you. Because it’s one of the hottest things about you.” He touched the side of her face and leaned in to kiss her neck, right at the place he knew made her crazy.
“How much time do you have?”
“For you? All the time in the world.” He stood, bringing Cora to her feet as he went. “I need a shower, though. Care to join me?”
“You don’t mind being late to the shelter?”
“Sometimes you have to break the rules, Corazón.”
He was right. Damn right. He usually – though not always – was about these things. She hadn’t planned this. Any of it. And it was perfect.
Cora lifted herself to her toes and kissed him, hard. “I’ve got some rules for you to break, big guy. Last one in the water’s a rotten egg.”
Cora turned and fled, racing through the house, letting her love pursue her.
And as it did so often now, their laughter floated throughout their home, drifting out the open windows into the yard and across the dunes, where the waves caught the sound and threw it joyfully back to them.
The End
✨
Dearest Reader,
THANK YOU for reading Cora and Mac’s Story! Now, as a wee gift to thank you, here’s an exclusive sneak peek of the next book in which Eliza is (again) a meddlesome and delightful matchmaker: Fiona’s Flame.
✨
Fiona’s Flame – CHAPTER ONE
Knitting warms a body twice.
– Eliza Carpenter
Fiona leaned back and crossed her black cowboy boots over each other. If anyone had to make their way down the aisle, she’d draw her legs back, but right now this was the best seat in the house. No one in the City Hall council chambers was going anywhere.
She should have brought popcorn.
On the stage, Mayor Finley’s face was turning a deep purple, a stark contrast to her perennial all-yellow outfit. She spluttered, “Elbert Romo, this shouldn’t even be an issue. Nudity is something one indulges in on the way from one’s bedroom to the shower. Not at the corner of Main and Third.”
Elbert Romo, his face as creased as his overalls, said, “You’re right, Mayor. But it’s the damn tourists.”
Old ranchers like Elbert didn’t ever say the word tourists without prefacing it with damn. Fiona figured it was probably something they learned in the back room at Tillie’s, where they hung out most mornings drinking coffee and gossiping.
The mayor said, “The tourists aren’t the problem here. What we’re talking about is outlawing public nudity on our public beaches.”
Elbert clapped his hands together. “But they’re the ones that started this. They come, they decide Pirate’s Cove is the best place around to drop their skivvies. Then they put it on the internet! On those, you know, those websites.”
Fiona watched the mayor take a deep breath and push the errant gray strands of hair back from her temples. “Make your point, Elbert.”
“Once it went online, we got famous. Those sites even tell you where to park, did you know that? And they tell where the rope to climb to the bottom is hidden. You kidding me? That rope used to be a Cypress Hollow secret. You could get horse-whipped for givin’ that info to the wrong person. Now we got nudies comin’ from all over the state, just to get our sand stuck in their cheeks. And I ain’t talking about the ones on your face.”
“We already know all this. That’s why we’re discussing the ban tonight.”
Elbert said, “I know. But no disrespect, ma’am, the thing is—a lot of us have found out how right the damn tourists are.”
A light laugh rippled around the room. Daisy, Fiona’s best friend, leaned over the arm of her wheelchair and whispered in Fiona’s ear, “Best show in town.”
The mayor, even redder now, said, “Would you care to explain that, Elbert?”
Elbert stuck a thumb under the strap of his overalls. “There are more’n a couple of us, ma’am, who’ve kind of seen the light, as it were, and it took the damn tourists pissing us off for us to figure it out. Pete Wegman, Jesse Sunol, and me, we went down the rope one day to shoo ‘em off for good.”
That must have been something to see, thought Fiona. Three old men, climbing down that rope, kicking away from the cliff-face, dangling over the sand. It was something Fiona hadn’t done in years, and she was an easy forty years younger than the youngest rancher in question.
“When we got down there, one nekkid damn tourist dared us to take off our clothes.”
A light laugh went around the packed council chambers. Everyone else was enjoying this as much as Fiona was.
Elbert shrugged. “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, is what I always say. And I’m here to say, the body is a beautiful thing.” He unclipped one strap of his overalls. “And to feel the sun where it don’t normally shine, to feel the ocean breeze caress your…well, lemme tell you, it’s nice.” He unfastened the other strap. Gasps rose to meet the sound of giggles in the room.
Fiona whispered to Daisy, “He wouldn’t.”
Daisy just shook her head.
Elbert’s overalls hit the polished wooden floor of the city chambers. His faded, blue engineer’s cap was next to come off, his gray buzz cut standing at attention underneath. Then he started undoing the buttons on his blue, button-down shirt.
One by one, the buttons opened. His chest hair was as gray as the hair on his head.
Daisy held her hand over her eyes. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
Fiona poked her in the shoulder. “You have to.”
Elbert was now in front of the crowd, wearing only tighty-whities which were no longer either tight or white. His skinny, wrinkled body was surprisingly tanned. He held himself proudly and tucked his thumb into the elastic of his underwear.
The mayor gripped the podium so hard it rocked on its base. “Mr. Romo. We will have our community discussion without visual aid assistance, thank you very much!” The microphone squealed with feedback.
Elbert shook his head. “It’s a point I gotta make. We voted, and the boys picked me, seein’ as I have the biggest package.”
Next to Fiona, Daisy squeaked, her hand still over her eyes. Someone did a drum roll with their fingers on the back of a chair.
And then Elbert Romo dropped his last remaining piece of clothing.
Chaos erupted. Some stood—others remained in their seats, immobilized by laughter. Some cheered, others clapped.
Both hands over his head, Elbert turned in a slow circle. He waited for the room to quiet and then said, “My point is, well. Look at me. Eighty-nine and a half. And thanks to a life of good hard work and a bit of time in the sun, I’m looking fit as a fiddle. I’m proud of my body, ladies and gentlemen, and being in the great outdoors with it is probably gonna let me live forever. Down with the ban on public nudity.” He drove his fist up in the air. “Naked is good! Naked is right! Naked is good! Naked is right!” He marched down the middle aisle, chanting, pumping his fist. By the time he hit the back door, he’d been joined in the chant by so many people that the overhead rafters shook with the noise.
It took Mayor Finley ten more minutes of gavel-rapping to get order restored, and even then it was clear she knew she’d lost. She directed her words to the line of city council members sitting to the left of the stage. “We don’t even need to put it to a vote, do we?”
Laughter was the answer she got.
“Fine. Public nudity—at Pirate’s Cove, and no place else—will not be prosecuted. Moving on.” She ignored the applause. “That’s enough for tonight. Grace, thanks for doing the minutes. They’ll be up on the website tomorrow, folks. In two weeks, we’ll be talking about the lighthouse.”
Fiona stopped clapping. She glanced at Daisy and then back at the mayor.
“Fiona Lynde, I’m looking at you.”
Fiona gasped. She tugged on her earring, schooling herself not to take it off. What she really wanted was the soothing warmth of the metal between her fingers. But instead she folded her hands in her lap.
“Yes, you,” continued the mayor. “I want to hear about that plan you keep pestering me about, the one to bring down the lighthouse and put in an accessible public garden.”
It was just an idea. She hadn’t pestered the mayor about it. Not officially, not really. She might have mentioned it a couple of times. In person and in email. That was all.
“And who was it talking about turning it into a museum? Abe Atwell, was that you?”
Fiona’s stomach lurched. Abe Atwell? She turned in her seat and scanned the room.
God, there he was.
A man playing cat’s cradle.
She would have bet that game couldn’t be sexy. Right? But if anyone could make something childish like that sexy, it would be Abe Atwell, damn him. There was just something about the rugged harbormaster, slouched back in his chair, boots kicked out ahead of him, his hands moving with that white piece of string—he could have been making nets or tying ropes. It looked right. And it made her heat up inside, in an embarrassing, alarming way.
Concentrate, she told herself. This was about the old wooden lighthouse. About making things right. Not about the way her heart raced when she watched his fingers. He kept his eyes down, his face thunderous. He obviously wanted to be called upon as much as she did.
Daisy whispered, “Maybe you’ll finally talk to him now.”
Fiona shook her head once. Hard. No way. She hadn’t managed to have an idiotic crush without speaking to him for years for nothing. She couldn’t ruin her track record. She cleared her throat and said as loudly as she could, “It was only an idea.”
The mayor didn’t hear her. “Fiona, what was that?”
The room’s chat quieted. Fiona could feel Abe’s gaze on the back of her head. Had he ever even looked at her before?
“It was just an idea,” Fiona said. She bit her bottom lip and said more quietly, “It’s a good idea, though.”
“Great. Put together a proposal and present it at the next meeting. Abe, do the same.” She lowered her yellow-framed glasses and looked around the room. “They’re the only two so far who have approached me about the Coast Guard turning over the lighthouse to our local government, but the forum will be open. The council will decide in closed session after that meeting what we’re going to do with the building. That’s all, folks. Please keep your clothes on, at least until you get past the security of your own front door, and have a good night.”
Fiona felt Daisy clutch her forearm. “You’ll be great! You can rehearse your pitch with me, and you’ll finally get that eyesore torn down.”
Fiona, though, just drew her black cowboy boots back out of the way of Mrs. Luby, who stepped over them with small, pinched steps. What if people hated her idea? What if they ended up hating her? She tugged off her earring and worked the metal between her fingers.
And the idea that Abe might also be presenting?
The hook of the earring snapped between her clenched fingers.
CHAPTER TWO
When asked if a knitter should plan her knitting, I always say, “Yes! Make a spreadsheet!”
And then I laugh and laugh and laugh.
– E.C.
“Ready!”
Abe’s coiled line played out over the post as the Rising Hope bumped alongside the dock. Zeke, excitable as always, grabbed the line and pulled, almost hurling himself off the dock into the water.
Abe reached for the second line. “Easy there! No, use that cleat. Buddy, I got it, in case you’ve got better places to be.”
Zeke rubbed his hands together and then tugged down the tiny, blue, knit beanie that wasn’t even beginning to cover his head. He waved at the seven disembarking tourists. “I know. I know. I don’t mind, though. I want to help, want to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere you don’t want her to.” He turned to a startled-looking woman wearing a red coat. “Hello. Good afternoon, how are you? Did you see any whales while you were out? You’re looking lovely today, aren’t you? Good captain, isn’t he? Good old Abe. Yep, I just think he’s the best.”
The woman in the red coat started to answer him but Zeke ignored her as he stepped onto the boat’s gunnel. “Permission to come aboard, Captain? What say you? Can I come up? Walk the plank?”
How many times had Abe told Zeke he didn’t need to ask? His vessel wasn’t part of the damn navy and he wasn’t going to deny him access just for the hell of it. But it gave his friend such a thrill, Abe only told him to knock it off every other time or so. Today wasn’t that day. “Permission granted.”
“Nice day, nice day.” Zeke rubbed his hands together again—one of his many tics—and nodded hard. “Need a little help?”
Zeke often helped out on Abe’s fishing charter vessel. An ex-pro linebacker turned jack-of-all-trades, Zeke was good at just about everything he did with his hands. He made his living doing odd jobs, since he’d long-since blown the big football money he’d made. Abe often got him to help out, either at the dock or on the sport-fishing and whale-watching trips he led.
Today, though, Abe didn’t need the help. He was back from the only trip planned so it was an easy day, which was good since the pile of paperwork in his harbormaster office was threatening to topple over if he looked at it wrong. Winter was Abe’s slowest time—he ran the 53-foot yacht-fisher every day he could, but due to weather or lack of tourists he didn’t always go out. Only squid and crab were being caught now, the salmon and rock cod trips wouldn’t start till spring. Apart from the whale-watching trips and the occasional, chilly coastal viewing trips to the Farallon Islands, he was down to one run every couple of days.
“I thought you were supposed to be working at the bait shop this afternoon,” Abe said to Zeke.
Zeke snapped his fingers with a loud crack. On such a huge man, any small movement was large. “I don’t go in until tomorrow morning, but that’s gonna hurt, ’cause I’ve got karaoke at the Rite Spot tonight.” When Zeke had started hosting his Tuesday karaoke nights, there had been complaints from a group of regulars who liked to have prayer meetings in the back pool room of the Rite Spot. Tuesday nights had been their chance to pray for the lost souls of Cypress Hollow over a pint or two and maybe a quick smack of the pool balls. Karaoke, they said, wasn’t conducive to the prayerful setting they’d been hoping for, and they had taken it over the head of the bar owner, Jonas, all the way to city council. Mayor Finley had rapped her gavel three times briskly (it was rumored she used it at home to call her husband to the dinner table), declared that any usage of Jonas’s bar was up to him and didn’t even let it go to a vote. Jonas had responded by buying Zeke an extra microphone and adding a gospel CD to Zeke’s machine. Now, on any given Tuesday night, the preacher from Baptist Memorial could be heard freestyling “Baby Got Back” before adding his own quick prayer in the last couple of lines.
Zeke said, “I won’t even get home till after 2 am and then I’ll have to be up early to sell bait. Joni wrote the schedule wrong. Can you believe that?”
Abe could, actually. Perpetually distracted, Joni could be told flatfish and write down albacore. He moved toward the bow, picking up the trash his passengers had left behind. “So what are you up to now, then?” There was always something left behind—paper coffee cups, Snickers wrappers, broken pencils. Once he’d even found a used condom in the head—he’d tried very hard not to revise his image of the two middle-aged school teachers from upstate New York who had been on that trip. Hey, if people felt the need to get their freak on while whale-watching, at least his boat was getting some action. It sure wasn’t seeing it from him.
“Just came by to talk to you about the city council meeting. Whatcha think, huh?” Zeke bobbed up and down in his size fifteen sneakers. Even after all the hits he’d taken as a professional football player, there was nothing wrong with Zeke’s mind. It was his body he couldn’t seem to control at times. “Elbert Romo sure was something.”
Abe shook his head. “Someone I never wanted to see naked, that’s for sure.”
“I always meant to climb down to Pirate’s Cove, but I thought if I did I’d see cute, naked girls playing volleyball,” said Zeke. “Maybe girls who needed help with their sunscreen. You know?”
“Instead, now you’re picturing smearing the lotion on Elbert’s back?”
“Dude,” Zeke said. “Okay, so you gonna do that proposal thing the mayor said? For the lighthouse?”
“I don’t know.”
“Seriously?”
Abe felt the scowl crawl across his face. “They should know better anyway. The lighthouse does have historical merit. Old thing like that deserves to be saved. What’s a city council for, if not for that? They shouldn’t need a proposal.”
“Bull. You just hate getting up in front of people.”
He hated it worse than a local oil spill. Zeke was on the mark, but damned if Abe was going to let on. “Waste of time, that’s all those meetings are. Full of the same people, yammering about the same things, all of them trying to change Cypress Hollow.” They were trying to take it from almost perfect and change it to a Silicon Valley suburb community. The very thought of a certain Seattle coffee-clone pushing its bossy way in next to Tillie’s was enough to make Abe’s blood boil, and at least once a meeting someone suggested trying to lure the coffee giant. But we have no extra-hot triple-vento mochaskinnychoos! Tillie’s just has plain old coffee!
“That’s not why you don’t want to talk to them, though. Why do you hate public speaking so much?”
It wasn’t the speaking, really. What he hated was being in front of people. He liked to be behind the scenes. Behind the steering wheel. Not lecturing people about something they should already want to do, like saving a landmark that meant something to everyone.
“Is it because Rayna might be there?”
“No.” He hadn’t even thought about her. Hell, yes, speaking in front of her would make it even worse.
“Is it because you think Fiona has a better idea than you?”
“Who?” Abe reached around Zeke—no easy feat given the man was as big as a tugboat—and put away the last vest.
“That girl who owns the gas station. You know, the one who always wears that beat-up black cowboy hat. She wasn’t wearing it at the meeting, so you probably didn’t recognize her.”
Oh, yeah. The woman who owned Fee’s Fill. The one who wanted to tear down the lighthouse. “You think her idea is better? I think it’s crap.”
“So you better argue against her. Right?”
The thought of getting up there in front of the town made Abe feel seasick, something he never felt. Maybe he could blame it on the gathering storm. “Shit.” Abe looked up. The mass of grayness above wasn’t fog—it was a cloud bank lowering ominously. It would rain tonight. He might have to cancel tomorrow’s tours. Not that he minded going out whale-watching in the rain, but tourists generally complained too much to make the money worth it. “It’s gonna pour.”
Zeke ignored him. “You have to do something if you want to save the lighthouse.”
“I know that.” Abe snatched at a tarp that was about to sail over the edge in the cool wind.
“What about talking Fiona out of her idea, then? You think you could? Would it be better to talk to just one person? Get her to listen to you? Huh?” Zeke bobbed and swayed.
It was a thought.
Maybe it was a good thought. “Do you know her?”
“How do you not know her? She’s got the only gas station in town. You know she lived at the lighthouse for a couple of years a long time ago, right? You’d think she’d be into saving it.”
It wasn’t like he didn’t know who she was, he just never talked to her. Abe always used his debit card at the pump. The fewer people he conversed with, the better he liked it. “Do you think she’d listen to me?”
“Give her something in return.” Zeke looked around the dock. “Offer her a fishing trip.”
“If she was a fisher, I’d know it.”
“A whale tour, then.”
“Whale tours are for tourists.”
“Yeah, well,” said Zeke. “So’s nudity, apparently.”
Maybe sweet-talking could work. Not that he’d ever been any good at that. But he could try.
Keep reading Fiona’s Flame!