Love In Catalina Cove

“I can’t wait to try it out.” Okay he was lying. He could wait. The last recipe she’d gotten from Trudy was for a lemon cake, and she hadn’t thought the recipe called for enough lemon flavor so she added more. A lot more. He was certain he’d walked around with puckered lips for a week.

“Oh, by the way, Sheriff. I was logging in the speeding tickets you issued today and noticed you gave one to a Vashti Alcindor. I didn’t know she was back in town.”

Back in town? “She’s been here before?”

Trudy grinned. “Heck yes. Vashti used to live here. Born and raised.”

Sawyer frowned. “I asked if she had family here and she said no.”

“She doesn’t anymore. Her parents moved away years ago, and her aunt Shelby Riggs passed away a few months ago.”

Sawyer sat up straight in his chair. “Ms. Shelby was her aunt?”

“Yes, her mother’s sister.”

Sawyer nodded. He’d liked Ms. Shelby. When he first moved to Catalina Cove she had been one of the first to welcome him and Jade to town. He’d even stayed at her inn overnight when he’d arrived in town to interview for the sheriff position.

“I guess she’s here to finalize the sale of Shelby by the Sea. I’d heard her aunt left it to her and there’s a buyer already. While growing up here Vashti loved that inn as much as Shelby did. I hate that she’s decided to sell it. I was hoping the inn would get her to move back. But in a way, I can’t too much blame her, what with the way some of the townspeople treated her.”

Sawyer had never been one for town gossip, but for some reason anything dealing with Vashti Alcindor interested him. “Why?”

“Teenage pregnancy at sixteen.”

He lifted a brow. “Are you saying people in this town stopped being nice to her because of that?”

“Pretty much. Before that she’d been a popular girl at school, straight-A student, head majorette of the school’s marching band and had won a lot of awards while a member of the school’s swim team. But I honestly think the reason some of the townsfolk turned on her had more to do with her refusal to reveal the identity of the guy who fathered her child.”

“It wasn’t their business.” That was the one thing he disliked about living in a small town. There was always a group of people who felt it was their God-given right to know everything about you. What time you woke up in the morning. The kind of toothpaste you used. If you wore underwear or not, and who you were having sex with or if you weren’t getting any at all.

“No, it wasn’t their business,” Trudy agreed. “But they felt it was. She didn’t even tell her parents. No one knew Vashti even had a boyfriend. Rumors began flying as to whose child it might be. It had gotten so bad it was probably unbearable for that young girl here.”

Sawyer shook his head. “Why didn’t the guy who got her pregnant step forward and claim the baby as his?” He would never forget when Johanna told him she was pregnant with his child. He hadn’t wasted any time marrying her. And to this day he never regretted doing so. Johanna had been a good wife and a wonderful mother to Jade. They had made their marriage work. Listening to Jade’s heartbeat for the first time was something he would never forget.

“I don’t know why he didn’t come forward,” Trudy intruded into his thoughts by saying. “I think he should have. That led people to speculate the guy wasn’t anyone from here but was probably some teenager in a family passing through who’d stayed at the inn one summer. Vashti hung out at the inn a lot helping her aunt. That would make perfect sense. Young love happens quite a bit at sixteen.”

As the father of a sixteen-year-old, he hoped it didn’t happen to Jade, he thought, tossing a paper clip on his desk. Luckily, Johanna had had the period talk with Jade before she’d died. But they’d had some crucial father to daughter talks, too, and she had listened attentively and asked questions and he’d found himself having a more in-depth conversation with her than he’d intended. The birds and the bees had become the roses and thorns. That open and frank discussion had established their future father and daughter talks, and she felt comfortable enough to ask or tell him anything. He was proud of their good relationship and he hoped it stayed that way. He had made sure that she understood he was not her friend but her father and there was a difference.

He glanced up at Trudy. “So what happened?” he asked.

“When she began showing, her parents sent her to one of those homes for unwed mothers. It was out of state. They wanted her to put the child up for adoption but those close to Vashti said she intended to keep the baby. I heard her parents threatened to disown her if she did, but she intended to defy them and keep it anyway. Her parents might have disowned her but she knew her aunt Shelby never would.”

“So in the end did she keep the baby or did she give it up for adoption?”

“Neither. Although the baby was born alive, it later died of complications.”

A part of Sawyer went still. “God, that’s awful.”

“It was and what was even sadder was that when she returned to town to pick up her life, there were some who made it hard for her. They were still upset about her not revealing the identity of the baby’s father. Her only true friends in town were Bryce Witherspoon and K-Gee Chambray. Somehow Vashti weathered the vindictiveness and when she left for college she swore she would never come back and she kept her word.”

He nodded. “I didn’t see her at Ms. Shelby’s memorial services.”

“No, but I imagine she attended the funeral services held for her in Connecticut where Ms. Shelby was from. Shelby always said she wanted to be returned there for burial when the time came.” Trudy sighed as she glanced at her watch. “I’m leaving. Let me know how dinner turns out.”

“Trust me I will.” Sawyer glanced at his own watch. His deputies for the evening shift had arrived and he could leave knowing things were in their capable hands. Anderson and Minor knew how to reach him if anything crazy went down. Things never did in Catalina Cove. He would admit it was a nice town and the perfect place to raise a family. He was glad of his decision to accept a job and move here.

His thoughts shifted back to what Trudy had told him about Vashti Alcindor. He hoped the townspeople now saw the error of their ways and would make her homecoming a lot different than when she’d left.

* * *

“YOU REALLY GOT a ticket for speeding?” Bryce asked as they sat in her kitchen enjoying blueberry muffins and iced tea.

Vashti shrugged. “Hey, I wasn’t speeding intentionally. In fact, I honestly hadn’t realized I was doing so,” she said in her defense. “That Corvette has more power than I realized. Besides, it was only five miles over the speed limit.”

“And you couldn’t talk your way out of it? Or get the patrolman to go easy on you with just a warning ticket? You used to be good at doing that when you first started driving.”

Vashti remembered those days. Back then she’d been deliberately speeding. All the teenagers in town considered that stretch of road as the Indianapolis 500. “No, this cop wasn’t friendly. In fact, he seemed like he wasn’t in a good mood, and when I asked him about a warning ticket he got all huffy and said he didn’t give warnings.” She took a sip of her tea. “The only good thing in his favor was his looks. Definitely eye candy.”

“Did you get his name?”

“Yes. His name tag said S. Grisham.”

“I figured you were talking about Sawyer, and he’s not a patrolman. He’s our sheriff.”

“Whatever happened to Sheriff Phillips?”

“He finally retired, and after his son was killed while hunting, there wasn’t another Phillips to pass the badge to, thus ending the dynasty.”

There had been a Phillips enforcing the law in Catalina Cove since the beginning of time. It had become a foregone conclusion that if a Phillips ran for sheriff he would win. “When did sheriffs begin staking out speeders? I’ve never known Sheriff Phillips to come out of his office to do anything, other than to show up at your parents’ restaurant every day around three for his blueberry muffin and cup of coffee. His deputies did all the work.”

Bryce chuckled. “You remember those days, do you?”

“Can’t forget them.”

“Well, Sheriff Grisham is nothing like Sheriff Phillips. He’s a hands-on sort of sheriff. He gets out of his office a lot and will do anything he’d ask of his deputies, which includes setting speed traps. He’s strict when it comes to enforcing the law but is very approachable. He doesn’t act like he made the law the way Sheriff Phillips used to do. Like he thought he was King Phillips or something.”

She and Bryce spent the next hour sitting at the kitchen table, eating blueberry muffins and drinking tea while reliving the past; at least the fun days when she’d thought the cove was the best place in the world to live and she would never leave. Life was good. The people were great. The natives stuck together and it took a while for any outsiders to be accepted.

“So, what’s the story with Sheriff Grisham?” Vashti finally asked. During her and Bryce’s stroll down memory lane, she’d kept pushing thoughts of him to the back of her mind. For some reason she couldn’t forget the moment she looked up into his face. She’d been mesmerized.

“He’s ex-military and ex-FBI. Moved here from Reno, Nevada, four years ago after being offered the job. It’s just him and his daughter, Jade.”

Vashti nodded. “No wife?”

“He’s a widower. His wife died of cancer around five years ago. I heard they buried her on her thirtieth birthday.”

“How awful.”

“I don’t remember her, but she was the Smithfields’ granddaughter who’d lived in Texas.”