The Complete Eagle Cove

Chapter 3 -2

“Cooking?” Jessica kept searching for some anchor in the conversation but wasn’t having much luck. “I cook out of desperation, not skill. Mostly because my budget doesn’t allow for a personal chef. Or even going out much for that matter.” She hadn’t mentioned that last bit to Natalya, never mind anyone else.

She’d been sitting here in the dark for hours trying to wrestle with that. Mrs. Wilson had seen clean through the thin facade that Jessica had been feeding her parents for a while now—along with everyone else who asked. Her mentor had been kind enough to not prod for details in front of the others, rather offering a kind “come and talk when you’re ready” along with a hard hug.

Jessica had been feeding the story to herself as well. And the journalist who had been telling the story—herself—was good enough that she’d almost bought it.

It will turn around soon.

Just need a couple solid contracts.

Maybe get that big interview next week.

But she’d gotten the big interviews, as many as ever.

Jessica had landed the contracts too, more than many of her friends, but the terms had grown worse and worse with each one. The pay was going down and the draconian terms were worthy of the most heinous lawyer.

“My career is against the rails…” Worst, there were no signs of it turning around at all. “…and I don’t see it turning around anytime soon. I also can’t believe you’re the one I’m telling this to. I haven’t told this to anyone, only just figured it out while sitting here.”

“I’m a little surprised myself.”

“And yet I’m finding it comfortable to do so?” She hadn’t meant it as a question.

“I’ll take that as a good sign,” his voice was lazily pleased as if of course he deserved whatever good came his way.

“Don’t get cocky, Slater.”

“Whatever you say, Baxter.” Smug bastard.

“Never mind. Forget I said anything.” She struggled out of the chair, stiff from not having moved in hours. She’d gotten cold despite the atypically warm evening. Her knees were a little wonky as she descended the steps.

“Hey! Wait a sec.”

Jessica got her knees in order and turned right at the bottom of the steps because Greg was descending to her left. Wrong way. LBB Lane was at the other end of the main strip. But Greg was now between her and her escape. She kept going. She’d hit the beach and walk back that way. She could see ahead through the darkness, by how the docks floated, that the tide was down low. Good, there would be enough beach to walk on.

“Jessica?” Greg’s voice came from so close that she jumped in surprise. The quarter moon that had been hidden by the deep eaves over The Puffin Diner’s front porch offered enough light that she could see him clearly enough. He was barefoot and had moved very quietly.

She turned and continued toward the beach. The street was completely empty. There were a couple of cars parked down by the bar. Weekenders, because any local would have walked on such a beautiful night.

“Could you at least tell me what I said to send you running off so fast?” He was still following her. She decided that was a point in his favor, for not being scared off by the first flash of her temper—another thing she could thank Mom for. The way he’d asked it earned him another point.

“You didn’t say anything wrong, you simply hit the nerve that I’ve been trying to ignore since the moment I crossed the goddamn Coast Range this morning.” The high-water fish on the front of Grouse Hardware was way over her head as they walked Beach Way’s faded yellow centerline. “Actually for a while before that too. Like you drove a spike into it.”

“Ouch! I could break in here,” he hooked a thumb toward the hardware store, “and grab a pair of pliers. Would that help?” He headed toward the dark and locked doors as if he really would.

She was in such a fume that for just a moment she thought he was being serious. “Okay!” She huffed out a breath. “Okay! I’m being foolish. If you’re going to keep walking with me, please have the decency not to point that out again. I hate whining almost as much as I hate being ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Greg offered amiably and veered back across the lane to walk beside her toward the docks once more. “You want ridiculous, you should talk to my buddy Vincent. He doesn’t even know to get his wife flowers when she’s upset. Now that’s ridiculous.”

Greg, Dawn, and Vincent. And now the twins. “Does it bother you that she married Vincent rather than you?”

“Not really. Vincent was gone on her all the way back to kindergarten. I love her to death and would do anything for her, but there was never a click between us.”

“Not what it looked like in high school.”

“Hey, I do have a Y chromosome, you know. Dawn was a knock-out way early; still is. But she was always the level-headed one out of the three of us. Always knew what she wanted. Double major in physics and chemistry and she came back to marry a carpenter and teach the high school kids. How cool is that? But it wasn’t her I was crazy about.” He stated the last as a blunt fact; again that supreme arrogance. No attempt to hide the fact or whisper it or keep his damn mouth shut.

Jessica closed her eyes; allowed herself the freedom of walking for a moment with her eyes closed. The gentle breeze off the ocean brushed across her eyelids and tugged lightly at her hair until it felt as if she was floating.

Floating for now, and about to drown.

She opened her eyes and there were the docks sticking out into the bay that was Eagle Cove. A half dozen fishing boats and three sailboats. Not a lot of sailors were willing to brave the reefs, sea stacks, and generally nasty weather of the Oregon Coast—a storm was just as likely to come crashing in tomorrow as a day of light winds and pleasant sun. And if she made one more goddamn metaphor about her suddenly storm-tossed life she was going to turn in her journalist’s artistic license.

“Tell me something, Greg. Anything. Just get my mind out of the rut that it’s in.”