Dana Mentink - Return to Pelican Inn

“Yes, ma’am,” Pike said, after a moment.

Bitsy gave them an impish smile. “I’m not sure that sounded sincere. You’ll both get along for the sake of your cherished aunt, won’t you?”

Rosa sighed, thinking it would probably be easier to negotiate peace in the Middle East.

“For you,” Pike said to Bitsy, “I will try.” He extended a hand to Rosa across the table. “Truce?”

A temporary one. Rosa reluctantly stretched out her own hand and Pike clasped it. His palms should be clammy and soft, she thought. Reptilian, perhaps. Instead, they were strong and warm, sending an electric shock through her body. She pulled her hand away and hastily shoved some chicken into her mouth.

Cy began to happily wolf down every morsel that passed near his plate except for the chicken, which he declined on account of his longstanding vegetarianism. He stopped chewing only for a moment when his phone chirped, indicating a text. “I think it’s from Dad,” he said, consulting the screen, “but it makes no sense. He hasn’t gotten the hang of text speak.”

Pike stiffened. “So what is your old man up to these days? Falsely accusing other families?”

“Pike,” Bitsy warned. “We just agreed to a truce, remember?”

Rosa glared at him. “And I thought we weren’t going to bring up family business.”

“Guilty conscience?”

She dropped her fork with a clatter. “I don’t have anything to feel guilty about, Pike.”

“You agree with your father, then? You think my family and I set out to commit fraud?”

Rosa bit her lip. “I don’t have to agree with him to defend him. He’s my father.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pike said. “And he’s done such a great job in that role. When was the last time you saw him?”

Rosa clamped her mouth closed.

“Too far, Pike,” Cy said, his customary smile gone. “Back off.”

Rosa felt the tears gather. Her brother was her stalwart defender, the only man she could rely on. She abruptly shot to her feet, determined not to let Pike see her cry. “I’ve got plans to sketch,” she said.

Pike half rose as she bolted past, as if he meant to stop her. To apologize? Not likely. She stomped up the stairs, stomach knotted, knee throbbing from her spill at the estate sale. He had no right. Arrogant, self-important jerk. In the little attic room, she tried to quiet her breathing. Just do what you know, Rosa. Do what you’re good at and don’t let Pike derail you.

She pulled out her stack of well-thumbed magazines, a book full of fabric swatches and her favorite stubby pencil with the paint chewed off in the middle. Closing her eyes, she tried to conjure up the essence of home.

* * *

ROSA WAS STILL wondering what she should do about Captain’s Nest the following morning, after she’d emailed the landlord of their rented home in Danville to collect the papers and mail during their absence. Too bad he wouldn’t allow them to skip the rent check, which she forced herself to write and send out. If money didn’t start coming in soon, she and Cy would be out on their ears.

In her fuzzy pajama pants and T-shirt, Rosa paced the attic’s worn floorboards, ignoring the chill that seeped in through the ill-fitting window casement. Her watch read six thirty. Baggy tracked her movement with his steady eye. Cy was no doubt out for a run on the beach. And Pike? She didn’t have any idea where he was. Nor did she care, she told herself firmly.

Downstairs, someone knocked at the front door, sending Baggy galloping in excited circles until she opened the door and let him out. The knocking continued, but she ignored it. Should she try to talk to Bitsy again? Or let the subject of Captain’s Nest drop?

The knocking resumed.

Bitsy was probably out gardening.

She waited another minute, hoping the visitor would go away.

Another round of knocking destroyed that hope.

Blowing out a breath, Rosa headed downstairs, more to stop the incessant pounding than out of any real interest in whoever was on the porch. Her thoughts flipped through a mental Rolodex of design topics. Striped ticking slip covers to freshen up the sofa in the front room rather than reupholstering would free up some cash for airy curtains. Her mind stubbornly insisted on picturing these imaginary curtains hugging a certain window in a certain Captain’s Nest, despite Bitsy’s odd reticence about the room.

Knock, knock.

Her slippered feet flew down the stairs. “Stop knocking. I’m coming.”

Baggy leapt up and down as much as his stubby legs would allow.

“Hold on to your kibble, Baggy. I’m on it.”

She pulled open the door, letting in a swirl of air sharp with the tang of the sea. The man on the step stood with his callused hand raised to knock again, a shock of thick white hair hanging over a creased forehead. She blinked hard. Did she actually see the scar on his forearm, or was it a memory from long ago when he’d absentmindedly crashed into a sliding glass door?

A door in the place they’d rented in Tumbledown.

A place she’d finally dared to believe was home.

Home with the father who now stood before her on the porch, watching his daughter watching him.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS BAGGY who succeeded in breaking the silent stalemate as Rosa stared open-mouthed at Manny Franco, who smiled steadily back at her. Baggy, having waited patiently for some word of introduction, stood on his hind legs and pawed at Manny’s knee.

Manny appeared confused for a moment as he considered the beast before him. “Ah, a dog. Thought it was some kind of gigantic mole or something.” He patted Baggy’s head. “One minute, dog-o. My princess gets her hug first.”

And Manny proceeded to wrap Rosa in a hug that smelled of mothballs and bacon. Rosa’s heart coursed with too many emotions to be contained properly in the now sporadically pumping organ. Her mind teemed with memories, both sweet and serrated, starting with her father’s famous bacon-and-cheese omelets, which they ate every night for a straight week when Rosa’s mother endured the first of her many hospitalizations for cirrhosis of the liver. Cy ate his sans bacon. The succulent omelets were always accompanied by a side of sage advice their father doled out with the wave of a spatula.

“Bacon is good for you,” Manny proclaimed to a protesting Rosa who was deeply under the influence of a school nutrition class. “Don’t see many pigs with pacemakers, do you?”

He’d smiled through it all, the omelets, the hospitalizations, the biopsies, the burial. Smiled when he’d kissed the kids the night before he left. She loathed that smile with the part of her that did not leap at the sight of it.

Now she stood, ramrod stiff, as he hugged her and pressed a dry kiss to her temple. “You look fantastic, Rosa, like a flower about to blossom.” He stepped away to hoist the oddball dog into his arms. “All right, dog-o. Your turn. Can’t say you look fantastic, but you’re an original and that deserves a scratch at least.”

Was her father really there, standing in the golden morning light, dropping compliments on daughter and dog? Perhaps it was a dream induced by too many hours spent poring over paint palettes when she should have been sleeping. She wanted to scream “Why are you here?” It was the same way she’d felt when he graced them with his presence for her high school graduation. Only she hadn’t been there. Cy, of course, had attended, being deeply in love with fellow senior Eva Lassiter, blonde president of the Cupcakes for a Cause Club. But Rosa had no use for the ceremony, though Bitsy had pleaded with her to attend.

“Where’s Rosa?” her father had apparently said, when he didn’t see her face amid the sea of caps and gowns.

“Where’s Rosa? I’m not the one who’s been missing!” she’d screamed to her bewildered father later, when they’d caught up with her at the beach. Now she wanted to let him have it once again. In the recent past, she’d seen him only a handful of awkward times. Why are you here, Dad? Why here? Why now?