Heron's Landing

There were too many reasons he’d missed Zoe two years after her death to catalog, but one of the worst was those random, impulsive moments when the two of them would get lost together in their own private world. He missed touching her. Tasting her...

No. Don’t go there. Remembering making love to his wife while having dinner with his mother and her maybe boyfriend, who she might even be having sex with (and didn’t that idea make him want to wash his mind out with bleach?), made this already awkward situation even weirder.

He cleared his throat as he approached the table. They moved apart, but easily. Naturally. Not at all as if they’d been caught in any inappropriate display of affection. Yet another possible indication that they’d moved beyond dinner dates that ended with a chaste good-night kiss at the door.

“There’s my handsome boy now!” Looking like a wood nymph in a long green suede dress and some sort of colorful stone hanging on a black velvet cord around her neck, his mother rose with a warm and welcoming smile. It had been a long time since he’d seen that smile. Having been wallowing in his own dark pit of grief for two years, Seth hadn’t paid all that much attention to gradual changes in his mother.

Seeing her now, so vibrant and joyful, as she’d been while he’d been growing up, he realized that her vibrancy had been fading away the last few years.

“I’m so glad you could join us!” Despite having lived nearly four decades in the Pacific Northwest, Caroline Harper’s Southern roots occasionally still slipped into her voice, bringing to mind mint juleps on a wide wraparound porch while a paddle-bladed fan spun lazily overhead.

Seth had visited his mother’s childhood home a few times as a kid, but hadn’t been back to the South since his grandparents had died. Both on the same day, he remembered now. His grandmother had died of a sudden heart attack while deadheading roses in her garden. Her husband of sixty years had literally died of a broken heart that same evening.

Maybe, he considered now, deep, debilitating grief ran in his family’s DNA. If so, his grandfather Lockwood had been more fortunate than he. At least the old man he remembered always smelling of cherry tobacco from his pipe hadn’t had to linger for years and years, suffering the loss of his soul mate.

Unlike so many in the Pacific Northwest, whose wardrobes tended toward hoodies, flannel, T-shirts and jeans, his mother had started dressing all New Agey, which could have looked ridiculous, but suited her perfectly.

Going up on her toes, she kissed his cheek. Then leaned back and sniffed what he realized was undoubtedly the aroma of grilled beef he’d brought with him from the pub. Laughter danced in her green eyes. “Seems this is your second meal of the night.”

“Consider yourself busted,” Mannion said on a laugh as he stood up and held out a hand. “I stopped in Port Angeles on the way back from the coast last week for some ribs and brisket and I’d no sooner walked in the door of your mother’s place when she asked me if I had a death wish.”

“You smelled of pit smoke,” she scolded him. “And that barbecue platter is a heart attack waiting to happen. At our age, we have to start taking care of ourselves. I don’t want you keeling over on me.”

“Not going to happen,” the older man countered. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

His mother’s obvious concern, along with that casual mention of him spending personal time at the apartment she’d moved into, as if they might already be a couple, was yet more indication that she’d moved on. While meanwhile her husband continued to insist that his wife had merely gone menopause crazy and would return home any day.

“What do you mean, at your age?” Seth asked, determined to stay out of his parents’ personal lives as much as possible. “You look as terrific as you did back when I graduated high school.”

“And isn’t that exactly what a dutiful son is supposed to say,” she said, dimpling prettily. He’d heard it said, down at Oley Nilsson’s barbershop, that when Caroline Lockwood had hit town, there’d been a stampede of single men vying to pass time with the pretty Georgia peach. But for some reason he’d never figure out, his gruff, uncommunicative contractor father had won not just Caroline Lockwood’s hand, but apparently her heart, as well.

Until recently.

As he slipped into the booth next to Mannion, she turned toward him, her smiling eyes turning as serious as a heart attack as they moved over his face. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Another thing that might be in his Harper DNA was that the men in their family would rather have their fingernails pulled out with a pair of needle-nose pliers than ever talk about their feelings.

He’d never cried over Zoe. Not even when he’d insisted on seeing inside the polished wooden casket that didn’t carry her body, because it had been blown to pieces, but merely an empty starched green uniform carefully pinned to the sheet and blanket inside which, he knew from reading up on the topic online, carried a plastic bag with what little searchers were able to find of his wife after the explosion. Some caring soldier—who had to have one of the toughest, most unappreciated assignments in the military—had shined the buttons to a bright glossy sheen, never knowing if anyone would see them. It was, Seth had recognized, even through the cloud of pain, a matter of respect.

He hadn’t cried when he’d placed her wedding band, which had been recovered and delivered to him in person, along with some rescued uniform patches, into the casket. Although the heat of the blast had turned her ring into a metal lump, since she’d never taken it off from the moment he’d slid it on her finger during their Crescent Lake ceremony, he’d felt it belonged with her. And truth be told, he wasn’t about to let her parents see it. They probably had the same horrific images in their mind as he did in his and the least he’d felt he could and should do was spare them this one piece of pain. He did, however, save out the Purple Heart and Bronze Star he’d received, knowing the Robinsons would want them. As far as he was concerned, they were of no comfort and he wouldn’t mind never seeing them again.

He hadn’t so much as misted up when the uniformed officer had handed him the flag that had seemed to take freaking forever to fold. Nor during the ceremonial volley performed by a team of eight volunteer soldiers who’d shown up from Fort Lewis-McChord to honor one of their own.

All around him, people, even men, had been sniffling. Others, like his mother, had openly wept, while Helen Robinson, Zoe’s mother, keened in a way that had him afraid she’d throw, prostrate, herself over her daughter’s casket. Brianna Mannion, Zoe’s best friend, who’d flown in from Hawaii, had had silent tears streaming down her cheeks.

Burke, Brianna’s older brother, who’d gone on from being a high school quarterback to play in the NFL, had flown in from a spring skiing vacation in the Swiss Alps, arriving in town minutes before the funeral due to flight delays. Even he’d been uncharacteristically somber and had bitten his bottom lip during the gravesite military ceremony.

But not Seth. He’d felt as if he’d turned as dry as dust. As dry as that damn violent, fucked-up country that had killed her. His only emotion was a low, seething anger that Zoe hadn’t just taken out a student loan like any normal person.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have a good job, he’d told her during their many heated arguments over her decision. With his income from the construction company, and her earning a civilian nursing salary, they could have paid off the damn loans. Sure, it would’ve taken time. But they could have done it. Together. Unfortunately, that same tenacity he’d always admired had a flip side. She was, hands down, the most stubborn person he’d ever met. And once Zoe Robinson decided on something, heaven and earth couldn’t have budged her.

Now, as a line furrowed his mother’s forehead, he dragged his thoughts back to their conversation and ratcheted up his blatantly fake response. “Seriously, things are going great. We’ve got a lot of work lined up, which is always good. Seems everyone wants to be ready for summer.” And punching holes in other people’s walls kept him from abusing the ones in his and Zoe’s house.

Another furrow etched its way between her eyes. “You work too hard.”

“When you love what you do, it’s not work.” Terrific. Now he was talking like that motivational desk calendar his insurance agent had sent him at Christmas.

“Yet it’s necessary to have downtime,” she scolded him gently. “Silence is important. We need it to connect with our inner selves. Which then allows us to make sense of the disturbances surrounding us.”

Seth had many words he could use to describe Zoe’s murder. Disturbance didn’t come close.

“You used to like to sail. And hike. Fish. Go over to the coast. Or the park.”

He used to like to do a lot of things. Some of those with the Mannion brothers. Others with Zoe. The first time he’d touched her bare breasts had been one sunny summer afternoon he’d dropped his boat’s anchor in a hidden cove rumored to have once been a pirate hangout. Two years later, they’d returned to that same cove and lost their virginity beneath a huge white moon.

But that was then and this was now and rebuilding other people’s houses was what was left of what had once been his life. Which was working for him just fine.

“I still make it up to the park.” Which he did every weekend, but she didn’t need to know why.

“Good.” She patted his cheek. “Because I worry.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Which shows how much you know. Mothers are genetically programmed to worry.”

Seemingly unaware she’d sent a dagger straight to her heart as he thought about that nursery Zoe had designed waiting behind the closed door for a baby that would never come, she reached down and retrieved a gift-wrapped package. “I brought you a present.”

“It’s not my birthday.”

“Well, of course not. I’m not so old and senile that I’d ever forget that day I took part in a miracle. This is a ‘just because’ gift.” Her smile wavered, giving him the feeling that she might be concerned about how he felt about whatever it was.

He untied the cord, sliced the tape and gingerly pulled back the brown kraft paper. “Wow. This is nice.” A huge whoosh of cooling relief came over him as he looked down at a misty painting of the Olympic rainforest that suggested at any moment fairies would come out from behind the moss-draped trees and begin dancing in a magic circle. It was, to his admittedly untrained eye, really, really good.

“It’s my first watercolor,” she said. “I’ve been taking Michael’s classes.”

Along with his real estate investments, and his own painting, Mike Mannion taught various art classes, charging only for the supplies. Seth’s father, unsurprisingly, claimed it was a ruse to meet women. Given that the artist had inherited the Mannion men’s black Irish looks, Seth was pretty sure he wouldn’t need to go to that much trouble to attract a woman. But why did the woman in question have to be his mom?

“Your mother’s got a natural talent,” Mike said.

“I don’t know about that,” she said, patting her newly streaked blond hair in a way that was as close as Seth had ever seen her come to preening. It also called his unwilling attention to the gold wedding band on her left hand. At least she hadn’t taken it off. Yet. That was something, right? “It’s more that Mike is a marvelously patient teacher. And so inspirational.”

“I keep telling Caroline that she needs to overcome all that Southern belle breeding to work on her artistic arrogance,” Mike said on a hearty laugh. “She is, hands down, the best student I’ve ever taught. I’m trying to talk her into exhibiting at the annual boat festival for Harbor Days.”

“I’m certainly not at that level,” she protested.

“There she goes again. Underestimating herself.” The artist/entrepreneur shook his head. “That’s something we’re going to have to work on.”

As they smiled across the table at each other, getting lost in each other’s eyes—oh, hell—they could have been two teenagers in the throes of first love. Seth had no problem remembering that morning Zoe had walked into middle school class, their eyes had met and, at thirteen, he’d fallen like a stone rolling down Mount Olympus.

“Well, not that you asked me, but if Mike thinks you’ll be ready to take part in the exhibition, I think you should go for it,” Seth said. “As for your natural talent, you did, after all, attend the South Carolina School of Art and Design.”

“Only for two years. And I was studying fabric design, not painting, before I dropped out.”

To marry his father. No way was Seth going to go there. “Their loss. And you’ve always drawn the architectural renderings of the company’s projects.” Not just to promote the company on its website, but to give clients an idea of how their buildings would turn out.

“Those are only illustrations.”

“Only snobs draw a strict line between fine art and illustration,” Mike said. “Both forms need the same elements: successful lighting, color and composition. And while the argument will probably rage forever, because everyone’s definition of art is a personal one, if art is about communicating a message, then illustration is definitely fine art.”

They were getting over his head, but there was one thing Seth did know. “Blueprints don’t tell anyone who can’t envision them in three dimensions anything. But when clients see your illustrations, with the interiors, exteriors, even landscaping, they can imagine themselves living there. They see themselves on that porch swing, or playing with their children in the backyard. Or having summer dinners on the deck or patio. You bring the blueprints alive and allow them to keep the faith during all the hectic months of construction, which can be depressing for even the most optimistic buyer.”

All the years he’d been growing up, she’d carried around a sketchbook in her oversize purse so she could draw scenic sites around the peninsula. When had she stopped doing that?

“Your son,” Mike said, “just made my point. You’re definitely an artist.”

“My son is prejudiced.”

“Probably so. But that doesn’t mean he also isn’t right.”

“And hey,” Seth said, “when you’re a famous watercolor artist, I’ll be able to boast that your very first painting is hanging on my wall.”

Caroline laughed, then opened her menu—which, natch, boldly proclaimed to be printed on recycled paper—and began pointing out items that he’d enjoy. She’d always been a warm and caring person. But this laughing, happy New Age druid earth mother sitting across the wooden table reminded him of a bright butterfly newly emerged from a chrysalis.

Michael Mannion was a long way from a starving artist. Although Seth wasn’t into Honeymoon Harbor’s art scene, he knew Michael’s work must sell well enough to allow him to spend years traveling the world. And now he’d returned home to buy another of the abandoned warehouses rebuilt by one of Seth’s ancestors after the fire. Unlike the pub’s bricks, it had been built with rocks that had originally served as ship ballast.

A gallery, featuring not just Mike’s but other local artists’ and artisans’ work, took up the street level floor; his loft and studio took up the entire third floor. At the moment the second floor was vacant, but plans were for Harper Construction to turn it into a communal work space for Olympic Peninsula craftspeople.

The conversation, which Seth had admittedly not been looking forward to, flowed easily, covering the weather, always a topic in the wait-a-minute-and-it’ll-change Pacific Northwest; the pod of orcas they’d seen this morning, three calves breaching playfully; and the news that an award-winning woodcrafter from Seattle, who’d created artisan furniture for some of Seth’s wealthier clients, was close to becoming the first tenant to take space on the second floor of Mike’s building.

Since he’d been hired for the initial work, Seth had come to know both the building and the painter well. Remodeling, especially a building dating back to the late 1800s, was not for the fainthearted. Having been forced to be the bearer of bad construction news on more than one occasion, Seth knew Mike Mannion to be a patient and good man. One who’d treat his mom well.

Still, as he dug into his surprisingly not bad cremini mushroom meatloaf topped with cornbread made with organic cornmeal from Blue House Farm outside town, Seth realized that wherever this budding romance was headed, Caroline Harper might not be returning home. Which, as happy as he was to see his mother enjoying her life, meant that his already strained situation with his dad was about to get a whole lot worse.

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE OF THE things Brianna loved best about her profession was that, on any given day, she never knew what was going to happen at work. Which typically was nonstop. She needed to be ready for any question, any request, because, as she’d discovered, any guest could ask her anything. This morning, as she arrived at her office, her assistant, Brad, was waiting with her coffee. Something she’d never requested, but since he’d started the habit his first day and was inordinately proud of his French press, she certainly wasn’t going to turn him down.

“The man called,” Brad said before she’d even sat down at the cluttered work desk guests never saw. Which, because she’d insisted she couldn’t work on something that looked as if Marie Antoinette might have chosen it, was simply painted a fresh, clean white. The Cape Cod style reminded her of her Honeymoon Harbor roots and helped keep things in perspective when she spent sixty hours a week in a gilded palace. “He asked to see you as soon as you got in.”

That, in itself, wouldn’t have triggered any concern. Hyatt Huntington, general manager of both the resort hotel and the casino, was even more of a workaholic than Brianna, often boasting that he had no trouble getting by on three hours of sleep a night. There were many days when she’d arrived early to find a stack of messages already waiting. She had, after several weeks of sleepless nights, convinced him that she didn’t have his superpowers and could do her job much better if he stopped texting her all night.

Still, she couldn’t miss the seeds of worry in Brad’s normally smiling blue eyes. “Sure. Would you let him know I’m on my way?”

“Of course.”

With his romance cover model looks, Brad could have made a bundle in tips if he’d chosen to work on the casino floor. But, as she’d once done, he’d opted to work his way up the ladder, learning the ropes at previous hotels before this one, that would hopefully someday earn him entry into the prestigious Les Clefs d’Or. It had been Brianna’s membership in the international organization of concierges at the pinnacle of the profession, along with stellar recommendations from previous employers, that had won her this job, which had been the most sought-after position in the city.

Grateful for the burst of caffeine before meeting with the high-energy hotel manager, she took a sip of the perfectly brewed coffee. Oh, yes, with his ability to anticipate every need, Brad had a successful career ahead of him.

“Did he mention what it’s about?” The general manager usually sent her a blizzard of messages every day. Ones that Brad, who had to triage them by importance, had taken to calling Huntington’s snowflakes.

“No. But he didn’t sound very happy.”

“Then it’s situation normal.” Brianna never got called to her boss’s inner sanctum to be rewarded for a job well done. She was expected to provide guests with perfection. Anything less was unacceptable. Wondering if her furious physician had followed through on his threat to report her, she paused before leaving the office.

“Would you please check the latest Yelp reviews?” she asked Brad. “And text me if we’ve got a new negative one?”

“Sure. Let me do it now. It’ll just take a sec.” Without missing a beat, not bothering to inquire why, he began tapping on his computer.

Hopefully he wouldn’t find anything. But it was always good to be prepared.

Unfortunately, the review was already there. As soon as she got back from her meeting, she was going to have to take several deep breaths, switch from coffee to more calming tea, and respond. Bad reviews were never a good thing. But letting them go unacknowledged suggested the hotel didn’t care about its guests, which was even worse.

Brianna buttoned her jacket over her ivory silk blouse, smoothed out nonexistent wrinkles in her black pencil skirt, and ran a hand over her hair, which she’d coiled into its usual tidy chignon. Then, after changing from the flats she’d worn for driving into her official work pumps, she squared her shoulders and headed toward the express elevator leading directly to the executive floor.

Her boss’s secretary waved her right into his private office. The sympathy in the woman’s eyes was not encouraging.

The office, which was spacious enough to hold Brianna’s entire apartment, was situated at the very top of the Vegas strip high-rise, which not only offered real-time viewing of all the hotel’s public places on the multiscreen TVs that were duplicates of the ones in the security offices, but also a stunning view of the entire valley out the glazed window wall.

“Brianna.” Hyatt Huntington didn’t get up from behind his huge, imposing desk. Having seen the invoice when the Louis Quatorze polished black desk covered in ornate gilded friezes of lions’ heads and acanthus leaves had arrived, Brianna knew that the cost had topped twenty thousand dollars. Paid for by gamblers like the angry, Yelp-reviewing physician. Not only had Hyatt not stood up, as he usually did, he hadn’t wished her a good morning.

“Mr. Huntington.” Her three-inch heels clicked on the miles of marble as she approached the desk. Then, unsure whether or not she should sit down, Brianna stayed standing in front of him.

“It’s Hyatt,” he said on an exasperated breath. “I told you when this place opened two years ago that you needn’t be so formal when we’re in here alone together.” His brows dove toward his blade of nose. “And would you please sit down and stop looking as if you’re on the way to the guillotine?”

Resisting mentioning that the furnishings brought to mind all those executions after the French Revolution, Brianna sat down in the neoclassic reproduction chair on the visitor’s side of the desk. His own high-backed baroque chair with its red velvet upholstery could have belonged to the Sun King himself.

He might not be about to chop off her head, but the fact that he hadn’t offered her coffee and his hands were folded tightly atop the gilt leather desktop told Brianna what was coming. But rather than volunteer and risk telling him something he might not yet know—like that damn Yelp review—she folded her own hands and waited.

“I received a call first thing this morning,” he said.

Still she waited.

“From a guest. Does the name Dr. Aaron Michaelson ring a bell?”

“Yes. He was unhappy about a less than satisfactory experience he had at Bombay Spice.”

“Which he says you highly recommended.”

“No.” Brianna was not going to back down on this point. “He came to me with a printed-out page of reviews. As you undoubtedly realize, online reviews only reflect that one diner’s experience. I told him that Bombay Spice was one of the better Indian restaurants in the city. Then, after asking him what his favorite restaurants back home were, in order to get more information on his personal tastes, which turned out to be all steak houses, I recommended a few of those, as well. Including our own Chops, but I could tell that his mind was already made up when he arrived.”

“He was angry because there wasn’t any meat on the menu.”

“It states quite clearly on the restaurant’s website and the menu that it’s vegetarian. Perhaps he’s never heard of the concept of sacred cows?”

Realizing she’d come off snarky, Brianna held up her hand and took a deep breath. “Sorry. Did he happen to mention that I offered him a free meal here?”