Dana Mentink - Return to Pelican Inn

Instead, she found herself saying, “His name is Baggy.”

“Weird name for a dog. Better suited for a mole. No offense, Baggy.” He took in the front room of the Pelican, breathing so deep his spindly chest widened with the effort. “Still the most beautiful place on the beach.” His expression went suddenly timid. “So, where’s Bitsy?”

Bitsy arrived as if on cue, clutching an armful of pillows, eyes rounding in surprise over the cushioned stack. “I thought I heard...” She stopped. “Manny?”

He put Baggy down and held him steady until the dog synchronized his paws. Then he went to Bitsy and waited while she put the pillows on a chair. A long moment stretched between them, and Rosa tried to read the messages unrolling in that silence. Bitsy’s cheeks pinked, and her hand went to her throat. Manny hooked his thumbs in his pockets. Rosa wondered if Bitsy’s heart pulsed with similar feelings of outrage. As far as Rosa knew, Manny had not bothered to visit Bitsy on more than a handful of occasions since the disastrous high school graduation, not even for Leopold’s funeral. And he’d never, to Rosa’s knowledge, thanked the woman for raising the two children he was incapable of parenting.

“Hello,” she said quietly.

“Hey, Bits,” he said. “You’re looking well.”

“Thank you, and you are also, Manny.” She hugged herself, as if she’d felt a sudden chill. “We weren’t expecting you.”

Rosa found her voice again. “No, we weren’t. Why are you here, Dad?”

He scrunched up his face. “Just found myself in town.”

“Last I heard, you were fossil hunting somewhere.”

The phrase seemed to click something to life inside his head. “That was a blast, but after a while you get tired of digging up stuff more ancient than yourself. Cy wrote me that you had a project here, so I popped in. Where’s my boy, these days?”

“He’s here, too,” Rosa snapped. “But we’re busy. Working on a decorating job.”

“Swell.” Manny heaved in a breath. “Cy?” he bellowed. “Come say hello to your Pops.”

“He’s out for a run,” Rosa said. “We’ll find him on the way to the car.”

“Car?” Manny blinked.

“You drove here, didn’t you?”

“No. Took a cab,” Manny started. “Don’t have a car just at the moment.”

“No matter.” She forged ahead. “I’ll give you a ride back to your trailer.”

Cy had helped their father secure a trailer on one of his in-town jaunts, and somehow Manny managed to pay for the rental space in the Seascape Trailer Park some fifteen miles out of town. Or so she’d heard. Rosa had not visited the place her father called home.

“Don’t think that will work,” he mumbled.

“Of course it will.” Rosa grabbed her purse. Above all things, she wanted to remove her father from the inn before a certain arrogant lawyer arrived. She didn’t need any more distractions to delay the design work. It was bad enough having Pike around as both an obstacle and a painful reminder of her past.

Bitsy shook her head. “You’re still in your pajamas, Rosa. Go put some clothes on, at least.”

“No need,” Rosa chirped. “I won’t even be getting out of the car. Just a quick drive and drop.”

“At least let the man stay for breakfast.” Bitsy began to gather up the pillows in such a hurry they slid from her hands and scattered across the floor. Manny helped her gather them up again.

“He doesn’t need breakfast, and we’re really busy. Only three weeks until this place has to be shipshape, remember? It’s nice that you wanted to visit, but it’s really not a great time. We’ll reschedule for next month.” Rosa touched his shoulder. “Come on, Dad. Let’s go.”

The door slammed open and Rosa’s heart shot to her throat, but it was Cy who barreled in, glistening with sweat from his run, curls tousled wildly by the wind.

“Pops,” he said, a wide grin obliterating the fatigue from his face. “Did you come to root for us in the contest?”

Rosa would have kicked him if he’d been in closer proximity. She didn’t want her father involved with their design endeavors in any way, shape or form. “He was just leaving, Cy.”

“What’s this about a contest?” Manny asked. “I thought it was a regular decorating job.”

“You can tell him all about it over breakfast.” Bitsy moved toward the kitchen. “Cy, I know you can’t handle bacon without upchucking, but would you mind collecting some eggs? Rocky had to go into town to run an errand for me.”

“Sure thing, but last time Esmerelda, the chicken queen, took a dislike to me,” Cy said. “She pecked my, er, nether regions. I tried to explain that I don’t even eat her kind, but she wasn’t in a receptive mood. You can’t reason with fowl.”

“Not a female fowl.” Bitsy laughed. “It was a love peck. That’s the way chickens show affection.”

Cy raised an eyebrow. “I don’t need that kind of affection.”

Manny sighed. “We all need a little love, Cy. Even us old-timers.” His gaze wandered over the knotted pine table and came to rest, ever so lightly, on Bitsy.

Rosa watched helplessly as Cy ambled out to the chicken house and Bitsy, always the graceful hostess, put Manny to work setting the table. Rosa tossed like a ship in the storm. Manny could not—must not—be allowed to stay, her roiling nerves shouted, yet she was helpless in the face of Bitsy’s overwhelming graciousness.

Breakfast only. Then he’s gone.

Maybe, if she was lucky, Pike wouldn’t arrive until later in the day.

Cy returned from the chicken house fifteen minutes later with a clean-shaven Pike in tow. “Look who I found in the henhouse. He’s got a way with Esmerelda. Either that or he threatened her with a lawsuit.”

If it weren’t for bad luck, Rosa thought, biting back a groan, I’d have no luck at all.

Pike did a double take when he caught sight of Manny. He shot an irate look at Cy. “You didn’t disclose that your father was here.”

Cy shrugged. “I was busy guarding my nether regions, and my dad is free to come and go as he likes.” He carried the eggs off to the kitchen where Bitsy and Manny were installed at the stove, frying pancakes. Rosa fired off a preemptive round.

“I didn’t know Dad was coming. He just sort of appeared.”

Pike turned to her, brown eyes like liquid chocolate. “He doesn’t belong here.”

“I’m taking him home right after breakfast,” she returned through gritted teeth. “But why don’t you finish your thought? He doesn’t belong here and neither do his children. The contest is a bad idea, and you wish we would all just go away.”

He clenched his fists and placed them on his hips, which fit very well in his expensive jeans. “You know how I feel about the contest. I made no secret of it.”

“That’s not the part that hurts, Pike. It’s....” She broke off in horror. What had she said? Did she just give voice to the deeper issue that rankled inside? Her father’s presence had upset her, loosed her self-control from its moorings, caused a crack in her good sense.

He cocked his head. “Rosa, I never said you weren’t welcome.”

She raised her chin. “Hmm. I wonder how I could have confused the welcome mat with the ‘don’t let the door hit you as you leave’ sign.”

His mouth quirked, and then a smile drifted across his lips like a wave breaking across the shore. He laughed.

“What do you find amusing, exactly?” she said, her heart thumping at his grin.

“You. I always liked that quick wit.”

Rosa’s cheeks warmed. He liked something about her? She took a step back, covering up uncertainty with bravado. “You don’t like anything about me. Let’s not pretend.”