Keepsake for Eagle Cove

Chapter 1-4

Tiffany just shook her head, but her smile really was incredible. Even over the hand presently covering her mouth, Devin could see her eyes sparkling.

It made him feel as if he’d done something right. As if leaving everything he knew back in Chicago and driving into the coastal wilderness might, just might, not have been the most idiotic maneuver of his entire lifetime. Well, no, the absolutely most idiotic moment had been six weeks earlier and that had launched him on the path to Eagle Cove. But maybe there was finally a glimmer of light in his personal tunnel.

“I’m sorry I left you with Natalya. She’s mostly wonderful,” Tiffany spoke from behind her covering hand.

“Except when she’s teasing you?”

Tiffany nodded uncertainly, then shook her head, covering half of her face with her hair.

There were television ad shampoo models who didn’t have such incredible hair. It was hard to look away from its shimmering length as it reflected Tiffany’s every move and mood.

“No, Becky was teasing me. Natalya was…” Tiffany tapered off, looking puzzled.

“Protecting you,” that much had been obvious.

“Really?” Her eyes went wide and her hand dropped to clutch the harp that she held against her chest like a warrior’s shield. Because he was seated below her, he could see every expression despite the wide-brimmed hat... No, more than that, he could see every emotion. There was a purity that couldn’t be real. Humans were never that honest. Not brothers, not ex-fiancées, and not conniving—

He shook his head, trying to shed the sudden, dark thoughts.

“She was guarding you like a mama bear,” he said and liked the image though he wondered how the woman in question would feel about the description. “Natalya threatened to feed me to an orca whale.”

“I have an orca-colored cat. Does that count?”

Devin laughed. “Absolutely.” He almost asked if he could come see that, but decided against it at the last moment. He remembered the way she’d bolted from the upstairs bedroom—her hand had actually been shaking as she pushed the key into his palm. Shy. She was remarkably shy and it again made him wonder that she’d taken his hand in the first place. A momentary lapse? He liked being her momentary lapse.

That smile slipped back. This time he didn’t comment on it for fear of scaring it away again. There was no calculation behind the smile, just a brightness to her eyes and a curve to her very nice lips. Again that strange dichotomy as she switched back and forth between seeming just a little simple and then having a quick humor. And the way she’d played, it had taken his breath away. She was beyond performance-level skilled; she should be playing concerts on international stages or something. He tried to remember if his brother’s weekend band had ever been that much fun to play with before it all went so wrong, but not that he could recall.

“Excuse me?” Tiffany’s voice was so soft that he’d almost mistaken it for a trick of the breeze.

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why are you h—” But Tiffany was cut off by a stern voice.

“Now we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

Devin looked up and wondered what new disaster was headed his way. The very pregnant blonde from the porch was approaching, arm in arm with a gray-haired battle-ax of a woman.

Tiffany jolted to her feet. But rather than running off, she handed her harp to him and rushed to assist the pregnant woman.

“I’m not an invalid,” she protested as Tiffany and the older woman practically forced her into the seat Tiffany had just vacated. “I’ve got another month of this? Why didn’t anyone warn me!”

Devin noted that Natalya wasn’t the only over-protective one in this group as Tiffany quickly fetched the padded stool from Becky’s drum kit and offered it to the gray-haired woman.

“You will not find me perching on that, Tiffany Mills.”

“We’ll trade,” the blonde began to lever herself up.

“Sorry, Mrs. Winslow,” Tiffany whispered as the older woman pushed the blonde back into her seat. “I’ll get a chair from the house and—”

“I may be gray on top but I am not dead. I stand all day in the classroom,” she folded her arms and glared at all three of them. “I can certainly stand here. Now sit yourself down.”

In response, Tiffany sat straight down where she was standing, close beside the stool, but not on it. She ended up on the grass almost close enough for Devin to rub shoulders with her.

He silently offered her harp. She took the instrument and wrapped it protectively in her arms once more. It was as big as her torso, ornately carved, and well-used. The sweeping arch climbed past her shoulder, reaching higher than her head. He wasn’t a harp aficionado, but while his Martin was one of the best commercial twelve-string guitars made, it was clear that her harp was a custom piece of a whole other class.

“Now what is this I hear?”

Devin cringed, having no idea what was about to happen.

“Jessica…”

That must be the pregnant blonde.

“…tells me that you have knowledge of what divided our town a hundred years ago.”

So this wasn’t about him. Still, his nerves were having trouble relaxing. Mrs. Winslow reminded him of too many dictatorial teachers from his past. Though now that her obvious displeasure was aimed elsewhere, he discovered in himself a desire to protect Tiffany just as Natalya had. Though there was something about her, that enigmatic quality to her reactions and the way she’d leapt to Jessica’s aid, that made him suspect that perhaps Tiffany didn’t need as much protecting as all of her friends thought. And her playing had nothing to do with timidity in any form.

Tiffany nodded reluctantly—he was learning to read her. Like her music, there were complex interactions that were as much body language as facial expression.

“A little bit longer than that actually.” Then she rested her chin on the smooth curve of the neck that formed the top of the harp as if to clamp it shut.

“You know that I value our town’s history.”

Tiffany nodded carefully.

“And yet you did not tell me, though we’ve known each other two years.”

“Two years, eleven months.” Then Tiffany actually bit down on her lower lip and stayed very still.

“Is your reason good?” That had Jessica looking up sharply at Mrs. Winslow. She’d clearly never thought there might be a reason.

Tiffany tipped her head, rolling it enough to lean her cheek against the upsweep of the pegboard…then shrugged uncertainly.

“You will not make it too much longer,” Mrs. Winslow did not make it a question.

Tiffany shook her head, but Devin could see the deep reluctance there.

The older woman considered them all for a long moment, nodded once, and turned to go.

“No, wait,” Jessica called after her. “There can’t be any reason for her to not tell us now what—”

“Hector Jackson,” Mrs. Winslow said as she walked off, “has asked for my hand in the next dance when the band starts once more. I must find him and confirm if that is still his intent.” And she was gone.

Devin couldn’t help laughing. “Why in the world does she talk that way?”

“Second-grade teacher,” Tiffany said quietly. So quietly that Jessica didn’t hear though she sat only a few feet away.

“She was my second-grade teacher,” Jessica answered in kind. “Started long before me and still is, though she’s past retirement age. She wants to exemplify the English language to her students. She firmly believes that contractions will not communicate the importance of learning the language properly to young minds,” Jessica sounded a little like the woman herself. “But after so many years, she can’t switch it off when she’s out of the classroom either.”

Devin could hear the love that poured out of Jessica as she spoke. He was used to home, where people always seemed to have a hidden knife waiting in every conversation. Here people protected one another like, well, he was going to say kin, but experience had taught him that was the least true of all.

“Why would someone choose to teach second grade their whole life?”

Jessica spun on him, suddenly looking as dangerous as Natalya.

Devin held up his hands, “I meant that with nothing but respect. I just remember me in second grade and I was no blessing.”

“I’ll bet,” her tone was as dry as the prairie in August. “Who are you?”

“Devin,” he was getting tired of that question. As if everyone already knew everyone. Then he glanced at the number of wedding guests spread across the lawn and guessed that some fair portion of the town’s population was here…and knew each other. And if they’d all shared the same second-grade teacher—he couldn’t even guess how many second-grade classrooms there’d been at Alexander Graham Bell Elementary. That had him laughing again.

“What?” Jessica sounded only a little friendlier than the dangerous bride had been.

“I just realized that my elementary school back in Chicago was a couple times bigger than this entire town. And my high school was ten times that.”

“Chicago?” Jessica lit up like he’d just said the magic password. “What part of the city?”

“North, mostly. And central,” and it felt like dust on his tongue to even say that much.

“The Gaztro-Wagon,” Jessica said with a happy sigh.

“The Southern Mac & Cheese Truck.” Devin did miss the food already even though he’d been gone for only three days. To find another fan of the Chicago food trucks out in the wilderness of the Oregon Coast was something of a relief. Maybe civilization wasn’t so far away.

“The Mexican-wrestling-mask and sombrero guys,” Jessica offered next. “Their truck had a weird name.”

“Tamalli Space Charros! Those guys are the best.” Devin felt a sudden homesickness so deep he almost felt ill.

“No,” Jessica said as if commanding him not to go there. “The Flirty Cupcakes food truck. They’re the best.”

And he did feel a little better for meeting her.