His Winter Rose. Lois Richer
place.”
“You don’t have to prove anything to us, honey.” Ashley rose, moved to fling her arms around Piper. “We already know you can do anything you set your mind on.”
“Thank you.” She hugged Ash right back. “But I have to prove it to myself, here, in this place. I didn’t come back to see my grandparents as often as I should have when they were here. Maybe I can keep their dreams for Cathcart House and the Bay alive.”
“Do it for yourself, Piper. Don’t do it to prove something to your father,” Row warned. “We all know he’s not worth the effort, not after his behavior toward Vance. Just know that if this is what you want, we’re behind you all the way.”
“She’s right. The Bayside Trio takes on tough challenges and rides ’em out no matter what. We’re fearless females just waiting to vanquish our foes.” Ashley thrust her arm above her head in the charge they’d chanted since grade nine. “Onward and upward!”
“Onward and upward,” Piper and Row repeated, grinning as if they were fifteen again and the world was just waiting for them.
“Here’s to your thirty-first year, Pip. You go, girl.”
Rowena dumped a splash of the hated tea into her cup and the three friends held up their mugs in a toast. Their admiration went a long way toward reassuring Piper that she’d made the right decision. She drank to her own success, giggled at Rowena’s jokes and answered Ashley’s questions as best she could.
But that night, after the party was over and her friends had left to return to their own lives, Piper lay alone in the big house and let her thoughts tumble into free fall. It was time to face the truth.
She’d told Ashley and Rowena that she wanted to help the Bay grow, and that was true. But more than that, she wanted to stop her father from ruining the one place she called home. And he would ruin it. He ruined everything he touched. Her childhood, her relationship with her brother. Every summer that she’d returned here from boarding school he’d arrived to make a scene about her coming back to live with him. She’d gone back twice—and regretted both. She’d even tried to work with him once. He’d ruined that, too, treating her like a stupid child. So she’d left Wainwright Inc., built a name for herself.
And even after that she’d given him one more chance, a chance to make the difference between life and death, a chance to prove he loved her. He’d blown her off, refused to help.
Well, he would not ruin Serenity Bay. There would be none of the gaudy neon lights his hotels boasted, no famous rock bands blaring till four in the morning and leaving mayhem behind, nobody wandering the streets at all hours, causing a disturbance. Not here. Not while she could stop it.
Curious sounds so different from the city noise she was accustomed to carried down the cliff’s side on a light breeze that fluttered the bedroom curtains.
Piper got up for a glass of water, and noticed someone moving across her property toward the peak of the cliff. At a certain point he or she stopped, removed something from a backpack and knelt down. A second later the figure had disappeared.
Lookout Point had always been a place where teens met for a good-night kiss. That’s probably who was out there now.
She stood watching for a moment, her thoughts drifting to the mayor and the many plans he had for the direction the town should take. She’d never had a problem working with anyone before, but something about the way Jason Franklin had watched her respond to the council’s questions made her wonder if he was as confident of her abilities as he’d said.
In her past jobs she’d been given a mandate and left to accomplish it, filing the paperwork, making her reports at the appropriate stages. But primarily she’d been her own boss. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her this job wouldn’t be like that. Mayor Franklin had an agenda. He wanted the Bay to start growing and he wanted it to happen his way. From what he’d said, Piper was fairly certain he wanted it to happen yesterday. It might be hard to appease him when developers didn’t immediately respond to her initial probes.
She smothered a yawn and padded back to bed.
Whatever happened, happened. She’d deal with it.
Maybe in doing her job she could coax Jason’s diamond-blue eyes to come alive, maybe get him to loosen up a little. Piper had a hunch that somewhere under all that grit and determination, a guy with a sense of humor lurked.
Maybe the girls were right. Maybe Jason Franklin would turn out to be more than the mayor.
Maybe she could finally come to terms with why God had taken away the only people who’d loved her and left her with a father who couldn’t see beyond his money to the daughter who wanted to be loved.
Chapter Two
When he’d handed in his resignation in Boston, he’d been told he wouldn’t last a year in the sticks.
A lot they knew.
Not only had he endured, he was thriving.
Jason swallowed the last of his morning coffee, certain he’d never tire of this view. He had no desire to go back. Not to traitors….
Don’t think about it.
He jerked to his feet. In his haste to escape what he couldn’t forget, he almost crashed the foot of his chair into the Plexiglas panel surrounding the deck.
“Calm down,” he ordered his racing pulse. “Just calm down. Forget the past. Let it die.”
Easier said than done.
Originally he’d thought living on top of his marina store was the kind of kooky idea one of his former high-flying clients might have come up with. But after two years in Serenity Bay, he still relished his perch high above the water.
His neighbor to the left was an age-old forest whose trees sheltered him from the wind. On the right, Jason shared the view with the docks and a public beach.
Nobody watched him, and he only watched the water. A little lonely, perhaps. But then again, he’d come to Serenity Bay for the solitude. At least that’s what he told himself.
Today the sun shone, the water sparkled and sent the wind skimming over the land in a faint caress. Serenity Bay looked picture-perfect.
He squinted across the lake. That early sailor with two sheets billowing in the wind was bolder than most. The fun seekers he’d once hung around with wouldn’t have endured more than five minutes of this cool April breeze blowing off the barely thawed lake before they’d turn back.
But this sailor didn’t hesitate. The craft continued on a clear, invisible course directed by sure and steady hands, straight toward Jason. The streamlined hull pointed into the wind with gutsy determination. He liked the brashness of it—thrusting ahead on an unswerving course to get where you were going, no matter what.
That’s what he was doing.
Fresh air, pure sunshine and a landscape only the Creator could have fashioned was about all anyone could ask.
Just about.
“Lucky guy.” He wasted several minutes watching the pristine sailboat flit across the water like a butterfly set free from the cocoon of winter. Then he decided it was time to get to work.
He balanced his last cinnamon bun and a thermos of coffee in one hand, pulled the door closed with the other and descended the circular stairs into his office, unable to resist a glance through the wall of windows that overlooked the lake.
The sailboat was making good time. Obviously whoever was operating her knew exactly what he was doing.
At the height of summer when the days were heavy with heat and the promise of cool lake water beckoned, Jason often envied the freedom and peace a sailboat offered. But he freely admitted his knowledge lay in engines, the kind that sent speedboats tearing across the lakes, towing skiers or tube riders through the water. Or the