“Ooh la la,” Phoebe purred. “You were not joking. He’s sexy. Look at that jawline. He does have that broody vampire vibe going. Okay, let’s see what we can find about our mystery hottie.”
It turned out there were a surprising number of vampire shows to sort through. They looked through cast lists for almost an hour to no avail.
“Maybe I’m wrong,” Georgia finally said reluctantly. It was surprising how many gorgeous dark-haired men there were in show business who werenotCole with no last name. Although they had both concluded that if Ian Somerhalder ever needed a stand-in, he was in luck. Cole could practically be his twin. “If only we had a last name...” Georgia snapped her fingers, remembering something her cab driver had mentioned when she’d arrived at the cottage. “Wait, his maternal aunt’s last name was Hardy. Justine Hardy. See if you get anywhere with that information.”
Tap. Tap. Tap.A few seconds of silence and then Phoebe let out a squeal.
“Georgia May, I found him! And you are not going to believe this!”
Georgia’s phone pinged with a text. She opened the image Phoebe had sent and stared at it in astonishment. It was Cole all right, standing on a red carpet wearing a tuxedo, looking broodingly handsome as ever with one arm around his aunt Justine. Georgia recognized her immediately from the picture in the living room. On his other side, Cole was flanked by noneother than King Charles of the United Kingdom, who was beaming at Cole and handing him a medal of some sort.
“Who ARE you?” Georgia breathed.
“His name is Cabot Cole Montgomery,” Phoebe said excitedly. “Dr.Cabot Cole Montgomery. He’s not an actor.” She sounded vaguely disappointed by this information. “Nothing about vampires at all, actually. And he’s not a medical doctor. It looks like he won some sort of major sustainable technology innovation award ten years ago. That photo is of him getting the award from King Charles—at that time he was Prince Charles.” She paused, her tone a touch awed. “Georgia, your oyster farmer is a bona fide genius scientist.”
•••
“Anemone is consideredthe best restaurant on the island,” Cole told Georgia when he picked her up at one in the afternoon later that day. “It’s a little hidden gem.”
Then he turned to the road, set his jaw, and didn’t say anything more. They drove in awkward silence. Cole seemed to be totally ignoring her, which suited Georgia just fine. She studied his profile, trying to reconcile what she’d learned in the early hours of the morning with the man seated next to her. Nothing made sense. What was he doing here? After she’d hung up with Phoebe, she’d stayed awake until sunrise googling everything she could about Dr.Cabot Cole Montgomery. She’d watched interview clips on YouTube, pored over his Wikipedia biography, and scrolled through dozens of pictures of him. What Phoebe had told her was just the tip of the iceberg. Dr.Montgomery held a master’s degree from UCLA in something biotech related and a PhD from Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. He’d founded a start-up in San Diego developing some exciting new renewable energy source that used algae.
Georgia’s eyes had started to glaze over when she got too far into the technical language about algae, but she’d watched some interviews with him. It was Cole all right, with shaggy hair and adorable chunky glasses, looking like a movie star playing a geeky but brilliant scientist, but apparently he really WAS a geeky, brilliant scientist. She’d found a number of articles mentioning how promising his innovations were. Top people in the field were interviewed about his work.
“This could be a major breakthrough as a source of clean, renewable energy,” his PhD adviser at Berkeley said in an interview with CNN.
“It could change how we harvest energy from the earth,” the head of a major biofuel company commented in the same interview.
An article in theNew York Timesabout him was titled, “Can This Man Keep the Lights On and Save the Planet at the Same Time?” and he’d been named one ofTimemagazine’s 35 under 35 entrepreneurs to watch. A tech billionaire had invested heavily in his start-up. Then in 2017, Cole had won a prestigious global sustainable technology innovation award. His star was rising, but just as he seemed poised to become a giant name in biotech and renewable energy, there was a terrible car accident. A woman identified as his fiancée was gravely injured. Shortly thereafter he’d sold his start-up to a major biotech firm and seemingly vanished from public view. After 2018, Georgia found a few online forums asking where he was now and conjecturing everything from his early demise by suicide to sheep farming in Argentina. Then nothing. Dr.Cabot Cole Montgomery had become a ghost.
A ghost who was currently sitting next to her in Martha, driving her to lunch. It boggled her mind. Georgia shook her head and sat back. The world was indeed a strange place. Shewas wildly intrigued by what she’d learned, but not sure if she should broach the topic with him. He seemed grouchy. Again. She decided to bide her time. When it felt right, she would tell him that she knew about his secret identity. For now she was going to enjoy the rare sunshine and the spring day.
Determined not to let his mood affect her, Georgia reviewed her goal for the day—don’t try too hard and focus on cultivating wonder and delight. Star had given her a pep talk at breakfast when Georgia confessed she was feeling a little nervous to visit a restaurant again. The debacle at La Pomme d’Or was still so fresh in her mind.
“Just give it a try and see what happens,” Star urged Georgia. “You spent so many years of your life in restaurants. It’s a big part of who you are and how you shared your gift with the world. Maybe if you’re back in a restaurant again, a good restaurant that’s doing things the right way, it could spark something for you.”
Pushing aside a flutter of apprehension, Georgia reluctantly agreed. After all, it was just lunch. What was the worst that could happen? Even if she couldn’t taste anything, maybe Star was right. Perhaps being back in a restaurant as a guest and not a chef would remind her of why she’d fallen in love with restaurant life in the first place. It couldn’t hurt to at least go and see, she supposed.
Now, driving to Anemone, her stomach rumbled even though she knew the food would taste awful. Star had made her chia pudding that morning, and she’d eaten most of it, but it was hard to make herself eat enough when everything tasted bad. And the chia pudding, though it was packed with nutrients, had the unfortunate consistency of frog eggs. Determined to enjoy what she could, Georgia rolled her window all the way down as they drove up the east side of the island. She put herhand out the window and let her fingers surf the breeze. She had a feeling she’d never tire of this fresh island air, salty and spicy with evergreens. It was euphoric.
Anemone was a wood-clad restaurant perched on a cliff wedged between a thick stand of evergreens and the sea. It was small, with fewer than a dozen tables and a live edge wood bar that seated another six people. The inside was rustic and airy with a high cathedral ceiling, a whimsical round window at the peak, and a nautical theme—old fishing buoys, a weathered wooden boat suspended from the ceiling, and oars hung on the walls.
The real star of the show was the view, however. The entire back wall of the restaurant was glass-paned windows looking out over the water toward smaller evergreen-capped islands. The panorama was wild and remote and breathtaking. Georgia sat down with Cole at their cozy table for two and gazed out at the slate gray water. Their server, a young man who introduced himself as River, set a menu in front of her, and Georgia perused the options. Local lamb grown on the island with herbs and root vegetables the restaurant grew in their own gardens. Pork belly with homemade sauerkraut and applesauce from heirloom apples. A few seafood dishes—house smoked salmon on a bed of locally grown potatoes and foraged mushrooms, Westcott Bay clams in white wine from the winery, raw oysters on the half shell in a cider mignonette using locally pressed cider from the cidery. Georgia’s mouth watered at the descriptions.
She looked around. Many of the tables were taken up by what appeared to be a tour group of middle-aged Korean ladies. They were snapping photos and chatting animatedly with another server, a waifish young woman wearing what looked like hand-knit wool pants and a matching vest. A family of four with two tweens sat at another table by the wall of windows. All four weredressed head to toe in hiking gear. A balding man in a wool fisherman’s sweater sat at the bar nursing a pint of beer and working his way through a large bowl of steamed clams.
“The whole ethos of Anemone is using locally sourced food from the Pacific Northwest, both from farmers and artisans on the island and also foragers,” Cole explained to Georgia. “They source their shellfish from Westcott Bay Shellfish Company, and Star sells them her honey. It’s simple food, not fussy, just good, well-prepared island fare. They pride themselves on being ecologically responsible too. I know the owner, Myra. She grows a lot of the produce they use here. She’s great.”
Impressed, Georgia ordered the house smoked salmon with potatoes. Cole ordered the clams. Georgia kept sneaking glances at him, trying to reconcile all she’d read last night with the man sitting across from her, frowning over the menu. How was this the same person? Brilliant PhD scientist innovator to... remote island oyster farmer? It was perplexing. Her phone pinged with a text from Phoebe.
Have you told him you know about his secret sexy scientist identity yet?Phoebe included no less than a dozen question marks with her text and several puzzling emojis including an eggplant, flames, and a beaker.
Working on it, Georgia typed back, hitting send and glancing at Cole surreptitiously. She wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject. How would it change their dynamic if he knew she knew who he was? Theirs felt like a fragile peace, and she wondered if he’d retreat into his shell. But she was wildly curious to know how he’d ended up here, going from running his own start-up to working at an oyster farm in orange rubber overalls. She was going to ask him at some point soon. Her curiosity was getting the better of her.
Deciding to just be forthright and see what happened,Georgia leaned forward and met his eyes. “So this morning I woke up way too early with jet lag and spent some time poking around the Internet, and look what I stumbled across.” She held her phone out to him, zeroing in on the image of him accepting his prestigious award. “Your first and last name. Hello, Dr.Montgomery.”
He froze, staring at the photo. “How did you find that?” he demanded. He looked visibly shaken.
“So I guess you’re not that actor fromThe Vampire Diaries, huh? Kelsey is going to be so disappointed,” Georgia said lightly.
