Second Wind (Cypress Coast Book 1) Page 3

  A sudden thought struck her. “Please tell me you’re not an IRS agent.”

  “I’m not an IRS agent.”

  “Good.” She’d never had occasion to get crosswise of the IRS, but like every taxpayer, she preferred to keep her distance.

  “I work for the FBI.”

  She shot him a quick side-eyed glance. Normally, working for the FBI would sound exciting, but accounting? “So, like a bookkeeper, or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  That still didn’t explain what he was doing driving around on a weekday afternoon dressed like a frat boy on spring break, but she was growing tired of playing Twenty Questions about his occupation and decided to switch tacks. “You said you lived near the restaurant. I haven’t been home for a few years, but I’d think one of my sisters would have mentioned you.”

  “I’ve been in the area a little over a year. My office is in Monterey, but I rent a cabin in the forest not far from Earthly Delights. I’ve become a regular. I’d never tell my Grandma Ida, but nobody makes carrot cake like your mother.”

  Hmm. Her mother had never mentioned Jake Carlson, either. Big Sur was a small, tight community, and Rosemary McDowell was the queen bee of the unofficial welcoming committee. “I’m surprised you’re such a fan of Earthly Delights. I never would have pegged you for a vegetarian.” His muscular physique suggested a confirmed carnivore.

  “I’m not, but I’m also not much of a cook. And I figure a few healthy meals a week won’t kill me.”

  As they drove down the coast past the exit to Carmel-by-the-Sea and into Carmel Highlands, the scenery became even more spectacular, with towering, long-limbed Monterey cypress trees hugging the rocky cliffs that plunged into the sea. Even in November, clusters of tourists armed with cell phones and cameras clogged the scenic turnouts at every bend, taking photos of themselves, each other, and the stunning natural panorama that stretched in every direction. Soon the highway crossed velvety golden hillsides dotted with cows. Laurel knew every turn of the road ahead well enough to describe it with her eyes closed. Next up, the iconic Bixby Bridge, then into the redwood groves of the Los Padres National Forest, and before she knew it, she would be home.

  A little before five o’clock, the big tires of the truck crunched across the gravel as Jake turned off the highway into the parking lot below Earthly Delights. It was still early for the dinner crowd, so there were only a couple of cars.

  When they came to a halt and Rufus yowled, Laurel barely registered his complaint. A swirl of emotions, from relief to anxiety, pinned her to the seat.

  She was home. The restaurant was the centerpiece of the group of buildings, with its stone terrace perched high on the cliff above the spray of waves crashing against the rocks below. But the compound also included an angular redwood-and-glass house jutting out over the sea, as well as a big, barn-like garage tucked into the fragrant redwoods and huge, spreading oaks. Her father had designed and built the structures before she was born, but they still had the modern, magical feel that would always be the essence of Big Sur.

  The sun hung low above the horizon, and the glowing lights that shone through the windows of Earthly Delights warmed her soul and wrapped her in comfort. The first eighteen years of her life had revolved around this place. Even during the difficult year following her father’s death in a boating accident, she had found solace in its sophisticated, rustic simplicity. She’d ultimately flown the nest all the way to Seattle, but now she was back with little more than the clothes on her back. A chill slipped beneath her jacket, and she shivered.

  “Let’s get you inside.” Jake opened the door, and Laurel squinted against the sudden flare of the dome light.

  “You get the cat,” he continued, “and I’ll take care of the rest. I assume you’re staying at the house with your mom.”

  “Um...I expect so.” In her rush to leave yesterday morning, she hadn’t thought about it. Her desire to come home had been overwhelming, yet abstract.

  Thrown off-balance by the awkward bulk of the cat container, she struggled up the stone steps and across the terrace to the big, glass double doors but stopped with her hand on one handle. At this hour she didn’t know if her sisters would be here, but at least her mother was expecting her. She hoped she wouldn’t be greeted with too many questions. She would rather postpone any explanations for a day or two, until she had a chance to fully come to grips with the situation. Counting to three, she took a deep breath and pushed through the door.

  The waiting room hadn’t changed. It was still large and welcoming, with redwood paneling and benches lining the walls. The rich, spicy aroma emanating from the kitchen thrust her back to her childhood.

  Sweet onion, just the right amount of garlic, chilies, tomatoes, and herbs. With ongoing tweaks, Rosemary McDowell had been using and improving her signature recipes for as long as Laurel could remember. She could almost hear her mother’s voice calling from the kitchen, and a sudden rush of tears stung her eyes. She might be thirty-two years old, but at that moment she wanted nothing more than to bury herself in the comfort of her mother’s embrace. She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand.

  “Laurel!”

  She spun into her mother’s arms. Rosemary McDowell squeezed her daughter tightly as she kissed both cheeks. Laurel buried her nose in her mother’s graying mahogany curls with a sigh. This was the feel and smell she’d missed.

  “It’s so good to have you home, sweetie. It’s been too long.”

  Laurel hugged back. “It’s good to be here.” And she meant it.

  When a loud meow emanated from the blue plastic carrier, Rosemary released Laurel and crouched to peer inside. “Who do we have here?”

  “That’s Rufus.”

  Rosemary poked a finger through the wire mesh for the cat to sniff. “What happened to him?”

  Laurel chewed her lip. How little could she get away with telling? She wanted to savor the pleasure of being home for a few hours before she tried to explain her situation. “He had some minor surgery yesterday.”

  “Poor baby. Can he eat?”

  Laurel laughed. “I’m sure he’s ravenous. He’s always ravenous.”

  “Bring him into the kitchen. I have the perfect thing to fix him up.”

  She followed her mother through the nearly empty dining room, carrier in hand. “Mom, he’s a cat, and I hate to break it to you, but cats are not vegetarian.”

  Her mother smiled over her shoulder. “Not full time, but I bet he’ll like my rice and lentils in vegetable broth.”

  Given Rufus’s penchant for hamburgers, Laurel doubted it, but she decided to let the feline make up his own mind. Her mother handed her a small bowl, and she slipped it through the door of the carrier before he could bolt to freedom. He sniffed the concoction, stared at her, shook his cone, and then lowered his head and began to eat.

  “See? He likes it.” Rosemary beamed. “I told you.”

  “He seems to.” Laurel hated to disillusion her mother, but for Rufus, it was probably a case of any-port-in-a-storm.

  A pale blond head bent over to look. “Is that your cat?”

  Laurel straightened and bumped into her youngest sister. “Ow! I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here.”

  Angelica rubbed her chin with a wry expression. “I’ll have to remember to make more noise in the future.”

  Rosemary patted her youngest daughter’s shoulder. “She volunteered to lend a hand tonight. We have a large party booked at seven.”

  Laurel regarded Angelica with surprise “You used to hate the kitchen. I didn’t know you could cook.”

  An elfin smile lifted the corners of her sister’s delicate mouth. “I’ve broadened my horizons, and I’m happy to help. Fortunately, my boss at the Aquarium let me take off a couple hours early today.”

  “Look who’s here. The prodigal daughter has returned.”

  Laurel turned toward the familiar voice. Sage stood in the doorway to the kitchen with J
ake Carlson looming behind her. Dressed in jeans, a green anorak, and dark green rubber boots, with her dark brown hair clipped in a disorderly twist, she looked as though she’d just come in from the garden. Which she probably had. Sage managed a large organic gardening operation in Carmel Valley that supplied produce for Earthly Delights, as well as numerous other restaurants on the peninsula. As the middle sister, she had always been the grounded one, the most practical of the three. While Angelica was expressive and ethereal, Sage was pragmatic and earthy. As girls, she and Laurel had been inseparable.

  Laurel felt a pang of loss for the last five years. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You didn’t call.” A slight catch in Sage’s voice betrayed her hurt.

  “I’m sorry. It was kind of a spontaneous decision.”

  Angelica popped in to fill the pause. “Mom said you’ve come for Thanksgiving.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is your fiancé coming later?”

  Laurel’s stomach tightened at Angelica’s innocent question. She hadn’t thought about Richard for a couple of hours—not since the fiasco with her car wheel. She would have to tell her family the truth soon, but she wasn’t ready yet. “No, but now is not the best time to discuss it.”

  “Why not?” Sage’s questioning gaze left her little wiggle room.

  Laurel glanced around the kitchen, where Rosemary’s staff of three scurried around, measuring and preparing ingredients for the evening meal. “The dinner rush will be starting soon. Mom and Angelica are too busy. It will be easier when we can all sit down together.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  Sage was too perceptive—it was time to change the subject. Laurel turned to her mother. “I assume Jake unloaded my luggage and clothes at the house. Is it okay if I stay with you?”

  “Of course, dear. It’s your home, too.”

  Sage eyed her closely. “I let him in and had him put everything in your old room.”

  Her old room with the single bed where she’d slept since she was two and was forced to vacate the crib to make room for Sage. Unless her mother had gone on a cleaning binge, posters of old rock bands probably still decorated the walls. She’d come full circle. Laurel didn’t know whether to be comforted or depressed. She mustered a smile. “Thanks.”

  Rosemary wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “Why don’t you go get settled then come back in an hour or so for dinner. It’s chili night. Jake, you’ll stay, won’t you?”

  “I was counting on it. Have you ever known me to pass up your sweet potato and black bean chili?”

  Rosemary laughed. “Not that I recall. Now go on.” She made a shooing motion. “Angelica and I have work to do.”

  “Let me carry the cat for you.” Jake reached for the handle of the carrier. Rufus glared up through the slits in the top and growled deep in his throat.

  Laurel hesitated, but a sharp ache across her shoulders told her that stress and lack of sleep were beginning to catch up with her body. Since the feline weighed more than twenty pounds, she relinquished the carrier to Jake. “Thanks. He’s not usually this touchy, but he’s been through a lot the past couple of days. I’m sure he’ll be glad to get out and explore the house.”

  “I bet he’s a beauty when he’s not hurt.” Angelica rubbed Rufus’s chin through the wire mesh door.

  “He is, although he prefers to think of himself as powerful and dangerous.”

  Jake hefted the carrier, and Laurel followed him toward the entrance. As they left Earthly Delights and made their way down the long gravel driveway that connected the house to the restaurant parking lot, a steady breeze off the ocean danced through the branches of the oaks and redwoods above their heads, but the ferns and bracken lining the driveway barely stirred.

  “Your mom and sisters seem happy to see you.”

  His comment might have been casual, but she thought she detected a hint of subtle interrogation. “I’m happy to see them.”

  “I know it’s none of my business, but five years is a long time. Why didn’t you come home sooner?”

  “You’re right—it’s none of your business.” Even if she wanted to explain, how could she? She scarcely understood it herself. “It’s complicated.”

  “In my experience, when people say things are complicated, they’re actually pretty simple.”

  If only that were true. “Maybe I’ll figure it out now that I’m here.”

  “But you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “No.” And certainly not to you.

  “Angelica said something about a fiancé.”

  It had been a long, exhausting day, and Laurel’s temper teetered on the brink of eruption. “I thought we’d already determined it’s none of your business.”

  His expression remained unruffled. “Fine.”

  For some reason, that response annoyed her even more than his prying question. With a toss of her hair, she stomped ahead, leaving him to catch up, or not.

  From the drive, the house appeared to be nestled in the forest, but in fact it clung to the edge of a spectacular rocky cliff a couple hundred yards past the restaurant. When Laurel opened the unlocked door and stepped inside, her breath stilled. No matter how familiar, the view from the living room never failed to inspire awe. Her father had been larger than life in every way—a tall, barrel-chested man with a booming voice and flaming red hair—and she felt his presence, as well as the pain of his loss, every time she set foot in this room.

  She was drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows like steel filings to a magnet. The sun had dropped below the endless watery horizon, but the residual glow gilded the midnight-blue surface with bands of sparkling light. To the south, golden fingers of land plunged into the sea in succession down the coast. The scenery was too energetic to be comforting, but it lifted her spirits.

  “Do you want to let him out?”

  She turned to see Jake standing inside the front door, holding the cat carrier.

  He set the cage on the tile floor of the entry. “I put the litter box in the bathroom and the cat food in the kitchen.”

  She hurried toward him. She’d been so wrapped up in her own feelings, she’d almost forgotten her furry companion. “Absolutely. I’m sure Rufus is anxious to stretch his legs.”

  She carried Rufus into the kitchen where his bowls were lined up, freshly filled with food and water. Had Jake done that? She opened the wire mesh door of the carrier, and Rufus stepped out cautiously. He sniffed his new environment then made a beeline for the water. After he’d had a long drink, Laurel picked him up and carried him to the bathroom to show him the litter box. She turned her back until she heard the telltale skritch, skritch, skritch. After taking care of business, he twined himself around her ankles, purring loudly, and she bent to scratch his head inside the cone.

  “It’ll be a few more days before this can come off, buddy, but at least you’re out of that box. No more travel for us for a long time.”

  “Your bags are in your room. I hung the loose clothes in the closet.”

  Jake again. He certainly was helpful.

  “I’m sure you’ve had a long day. You might want to lie down and rest before dinner.”

  “I think I’ll unpack.” Maybe it would help her settle in.

  “Okay. See you in an hour.” With a nod, he turned and let himself out the front door, closing it with a firm click.

  Laurel headed up the floating staircase to the second floor. When she was little, she’d always feared falling through the open treads, but now she appreciated the graceful design. Her only reservation was how Rufus would handle it. Fortunately, although he sometimes thundered through the house like a charging buffalo, he was surprisingly surefooted.

  Her steps led her down the hall to her childhood bedroom, where she found nothing changed. It still screamed high school. Nothing, from the brightly flowered comforter to the shag area rug, felt like her anymore. It was as if she were intruding on a stranger. One whose mother was stuck in the
seventies.

  Rufus poked his cone through the door. Laurel was glad to see he’d successfully navigated the steps. “Hey, buddy, did you have some dinner?”

  “Rowr.”

  “Do you think you can get used to living here?”

  “Rowr.”

  She rubbed his ears and glanced around the room. “I’m not sure, either.”

  She had to stretch her funds as far as possible, but she needed to find a place of her own as soon as she could. Living in her childhood room in her mother’s house made good economic sense, but after those suffocating months with Richard, she craved privacy and space of her own.

  When she’d left—was it really only yesterday?—her first instinct had been to protect herself and Rufus from her fiancé’s violent temper. But now it occurred to her she’d run toward something bright as much as away from a dangerous darkness.

  The more distance she’d put between herself and Richard, the more her body had relaxed. She could breathe again. Despite her anxiety and fatigue, she felt the first stirrings of the creative energy she’d been bottling up. Everything was different here, especially the air. It called to her with visions of large, curved petals of burnished metal turning gracefully in the coastal breeze. As soon as she found a way to pay the bills, she was determined to dive back into her sculpture. She might never earn enough to support herself, but that didn’t matter. It was the doing, the making, that was important.

  She smoothed her hand down Rufus’s back and up his plume of a tail. She hated that he’d been hurt, but his injury might end up saving both their lives in more ways than one.

  When she stretched out on the bed, he jumped up to join her. Tucking one arm behind her head, she stared at the ceiling and stroked his silky fur with her free hand. Her life was now a blank slate. The question was, what to write on it?

  CHAPTER THREE

  A few stars twinkled overhead by the time Laurel headed back to Earthly Delights for dinner. Her breath formed clouds in the crisp evening air. She shivered, pulled her light jacket tighter, and rubbed her arms. She should have changed into a warmer sweater.