The Complete Eagle Cove

Chapter 4 -1

Chapter 4

Saturday Morning

It was the weekend. Worse, it was damn early on a weekend morning. He should be sleeping in.

Yeah, that always worked well for him. Getting up five days a week at five to help his father at the diner didn’t exactly train him to relax on a sunny summer morning. Greg knew that the Judge, a creature of habit, wouldn’t stir from his bed before eight on a Saturday—the end of the BBC morning news.

Greg headed out for a run to clear his head. The beach was chilly despite the promise of a warm day. The fog had moved close ashore and though the sun had cleared the Coast Range, it wasn’t high enough to clear the bluff and most of the beach still lay in cool shadow.

As was usual, he trotted south to the base of the cliffs atop which stood the Orca Head lighthouse. He did some stretches against the rock.

He glanced up at the Lamont place. That and his family’s were the two great Victorians of the town, like side by side beacons; together they were as commanding of the shoreline as the lighthouse perched hundreds of feet above him.

He’d spent much of the night puzzling about why Jessica’s question had ticked him off so much.

What the hell, Slater?

Seriously, what the hell? He’d practically drooled all over her. He’d insulted her for her wanting marshmallows in her hot chocolate and run hot and cold through both the dinner and the conversation afterward.

Hi, babe. Haven’t seen you in fourteen years, but you’re the love of my life. Wanta do it?

Okay, he hadn’t been that bad…he hoped. But he sure hadn’t been good.

Nine days—eight now—if he wanted to do something about it before she once again left Eagle Cove.

He leaned into his hamstring and felt the stretch tug all the way up to his exhausted brain.

After last night, wasn’t much chance of that happening. Let’s impress her by yelling at her and calling her an i***t. Actually, he was fairly sure that he’d been calling himself an i***t, but it probably hadn’t come out that way.

He tried the other hamstring which was no better after tossing and turning through most of the night.

Well, it wasn’t going to get any better than this.

He heard a faint call caught on the breeze.

Greg scanned the beach, but the nearest person out this early was Clarissa and Emilio Thompson a half mile down and tossing a ball for their dog.

The call was repeated, a little louder. It might have been his name.

He tracked it to the veranda on the Lamont place. A tall slender figure with blond hair was shouting his name and waving him over.

A thread of hope shivered through him, as chill and cutting as the fog that hung close offshore.

Run down the beach and ignore Jessica for eight days? Or go all in and see just what he could do to explain himself from last night in hopes of patching things up?

Well, since he’d already broken some eggs, he might as well see what he could make with them. Besides, no matter the danger, he didn’t want to risk not seeing Jessica for another fourteen years. He had to try.

Acknowledging that he was probably being an i***t, Greg began trotting across the beach toward the stairs that led up the bluff to the Lamont’s house.