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Maggie’s breath hitched, held. “We aren’t the same people we were then.”
While I desperately wanted to know what had happened between them, suddenly I felt like I shouldn’t be witness to this conversation. I stepped away, pretending to study the cute cartoony mouse painted on the van’s side panel. One wouldn’t think a rodent would be a good brand for a bakery, but looking at it dressed as it was in a tiny apron with a little whisk in hand, I was ready to hand over cold, hard cash for anything it wanted to sell me.
Donovan said, “I don’t think we’ve changed all that much, but I wouldn’t mind finding out for sure. A date. It’s all I’m asking.”
I could hear Maggie’s heart pounding. I spared her a glance and saw her holding Donovan’s gaze, searching for something only she could see.
Softly, she said, “Fine, I’ll go on a date.Onedate. But nothing fancy. Drive-thru fast food is good with me.”
He smiled wide. “Heck, I’ll let you pay if you want.”
She sighed loudly. “Please go away now.”
He was laughing as he drove off, and I suspected Maggie couldn’t hear the relief floating on the sound like I did, warm and velvety.
Residential areas fanned out from the square in a loose grid pattern. As Maggie drove nearer to the coast, green lawns with oaks and pines and vines and flowers slowly gave way to sandy plots with palm trees, tall swaying grasses, and pots full of overflowing flowers where hummingbirds and butterflies hovered.Inland, near the village square, cottages and bungalows with cement or stone foundations were the norm, but closer to the water, houses rose up, lifted a good ten or twelve feet off the ground by piers. Yet, the neighborhoods all felt cohesive, tied together with a cool color palette, twining sidewalks, and narrow wooden bridges that spanned wetlands.
Along the drive, I was swept up in the sounds swirling around, confused as to why they weren’t bothering me in the least. I hadn’t had any sensory issues in Magpie’s earlier, either. The scents had been heavenly. Coffee mixed with hints of cinnamon, chocolate, hazelnut, and clove. And the sounds? Usually spending an hour in a coffee shop would’ve been like there were a dozen radios blaring in my head, all tuned to a different channel.
But today the blender, grinder, steamer, rattling ice, clank of silverware, music, and voices hadn’t been the least bit overwhelming. It all sounded… mellifluous.
Why did thewhole townfeel like a familiar song?
The wind gusted more fiercely closer to the beach. Sand dusted the streets and sidewalks. What remained of the fog was thin and ethereal, a misty veil that made my skin and clothes feel damp to the touch.
I listened intently, wanting to know which bird had the call that sounded like a rattle and which one whistled. I was intrigued with the way the sand crunched under the tires of the golf cart. I was fascinated with the many sounds of the gulf water—beyond the waves hitting the shore, there was rolling and lapping, ripples and splashing.
Maggie turned right onto Eventide Lane, a dead-end street dotted with homes lifted on stilts, each one colored like an Easter egg. Blues and pinks, yellows and greens, all lovely and cheerful, even in the lingering mist.
Just beyond a beach-access boardwalk that cut through rolling sand dunes, Maggie pulled into the gravel driveway of the last house on the road. She slowed to a stop behind an old truck that was parked in one of the three bays under the house. An identical golf cart to Maggie’s was parked in another of thestalls, and the third held two bikes, a fiery red adult tricycle and a lime-green cruiser bike with a brown seat.
Behind the house high dunes dotted with tall grasses blocked views of the water. Somewhere seagulls squawked. A pelican flew overhead, the flap of its wings steady, smooth, fearless as it cut through the choppy air. Two red flags thrashed in the wind, their hardware clanking against a metal flagpole.
Maggie shut off the engine and looked at me. “My dad is… well, he’s a character. A bit loud, a bit exuberant. He’s excitable. He’s also one of the nicest, kindest, most loving men you’ll ever meet. You’ll love him. Everyone does.”
“I’m sure I will.” I was nervous to meet Desmond, hoping he’d like me enough to let me live here in this paradise. As I climbed out of the golf cart, I looked up at the house. “It doesn’t look haunted.”
Haunted houses conjured up images of dark, foreboding mansards with busted, shadowy windows and creaky doors, not this two-story beach cottage, painted a delicate grassy green, trimmed in creamy white and royal blue. A flight of sand-dusted stairs led up to a white porch that wrapped around three sides of the house.
“It’s not haunted. It’s just inhabited by a man who likes to blame an imaginary ghost for his messiness and forgetfulness.”
“That’s good to know,” I said, even though I heard uncertainty in her voice, as though she was trying to convince herself more than me. There was obviously more to this ghost stuff than she was saying.
“The house isn’t even twenty years old—hardly old enough to be haunted.” She glanced around, her eyes mournful. “Most of this neighborhood was wiped out by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. We lost just about everything except for what we threw in the car when we evacuated and what survived in Dad’s storage units, which are farther inland. We rebuilt, obviously, and have been mostly spared from other storms, thankfully. Sally, a few years ago, was a doozy for other places along this coastline but didn’t cause any major damage here in Driftwood. We were lucky.”
I glanced from one charming house to another, trying to picture the waves and wind that tore apart so many lives. “I can’t even imagine.”
“It was—” She shook her head, shuddered. “I hope we never have to go through something like it again.”
I studied the beach house, built so high off the ground, and had to disagree with Maggie about the ghost situation. After a storm like that, I could easily imagine this place haunted. The house had been built on old memories and fears, haunted by all the things that had been lost to an angry sea, the panic of fleeing a beloved home, the fear of the unknown, the fear that it could happen again.
That it could all be lost again.
But then I realized that this house had also been built on resilience and fortitude and hope, and it filled me with warmth and appreciation. Hard timescouldbe overcome, given time. Given heart. Given determination. Life could be rebuilt.
Fresh starts were possible.
I held tightly on to that thought as I looked toward the right side of Desmond’s house. The end of the lane was marked with three stubby concrete posts that were painted flamingo pink. Beyond them was a short stretch of sand dotted with spiky clumps of grass before a pine forest rose up, seemingly out of nowhere. A trail marker stood at the start of a path that cut through the low brush, leading into shadows. “Is that a nature trail?”
