Page 21 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

Located at the southernmost tip of a small strip shopping center right off the pier, the Vanilla Bean Machine sat nearest the harbor. The shop consisted of a narrow space twenty-four feet wide by thirty-two feet long with a combined serving counter and workstation on one side and room for eight small tables lining the wall on the other. The simple layout included a closet storage area with a walk-in refrigerator/freezer combination near the back door and an all-inclusive restroom.

He’d spent six months looking for the perfect piece of property that fit his main priority—it had to be near the beach. If you intended to sell ice cream to tourists, there had to be a draw that attracted people to the area. He knew that his bottom line depended on the locals, but he had to get the tourists through the door to put him over the top six months out of the year.

Santa Cruz had been too expensive, way out of his price range, so he’d looked around for other options. The winning deal came by way of Logan Donnelly, a real estate broker who wanted to attract more small businesses to Pelican Pointe. Between Logan and the banker Nick Harris, who dangled a generous lease option for the first eighteen months and a remodel allowance to get him started, he jumped at the offer.

With the money his uncle had left him, Daniel was able to afford the renovations on what could only be described as a rathole. But with a willing crew from Tradewinds Construction that typically built boats, they were able to overcome the deplorable conditions and accomplish the impossible within a matter of eight weeks. The Vanilla Bean had opened its doors with two commercial ice cream makers, shiny stainless-steel equipment, new fixtures, ceramic tile floors, sparkling countertops and sinks, new paint on the walls, and an eager owner who made a habit of personally greeting his customers.

But at the moment, he didn’t feel particularly eager or friendly.

In the storage area, he opened the refrigerator, gathered up all the ingredients that served as his base—milk, heavy whipped cream, pure vanilla, and sugar—assembled the various fresh fruit mixes that created the custom batches that needed replacing, and loaded it all onto one of the two carts he used to transport items from the back of the store to the front or vice versa. He wheeled it into the main dining room, where he stood next to the heavy-duty Plexiglas display case mounted on an antique maple wood base and inspected Kiki’s cleanup routine from the night before. Kiki had been known to miss a few steps, but today, the counter appeared to be spotless.

Pleased with that, Daniel began to check the inventory. Sliding open the display case, he noted the almost empty cartons of cherry, vanilla, blueberry, and chocolate, making a mental note of the four.

He noticed that the peach was half-empty and wondered if what he had on hand would last through the afternoon until he could make more on Monday morning. After circling back to the storage room to grab the bag of chocolate mixture made from organic cocoa and semisweet chocolate chips that his grandmother had perfected over the years, he went back to the workstation.

For several long minutes, he stared at his reflection in the mirrored backsplash. He shouldn’t have expected Rowan to appreciate a boat. Had he ever dated a woman who shared his love of the sea, especially when they could enjoy it from the deck of a spiffy little watercraft? Why couldn’t he find a woman who liked to slather on sunscreen and sunbathe on the water? Not that he had all that much spare time to spend cruising around the bay. Or fishing. But that was hardly the point. And what was it with Rowan’s phobia about water? That seemed just plain weird.

When he finally snapped out of his brain fog, he unloaded everything onto the workspace, next to the ice cream machines that cranked out the different concoctions. He started with chocolate, always a favorite. After snipping open the bag filled with his grandmother’s premade gooey blend, he dumped the ingredients into the top of the unit and hit the button. He repeated the process on the other machine, this time with different ingredients, a brand-new recipe he’d wanted to try for months. With both machines going, the whirring noise filled the eatery.

Each machine could make eleven gallons in an hour, then required freezing for at least four hours before eating. Depending on what he had left in inventory from a week’s worth of sales, it might take him four to eight hours to make up all the assorted flavors needed for the next week.

Today, he already knew he wanted to finish work by noon. That’s why the peach would have to wait until tomorrow or maybe Tuesday when he got around to it. He’d push the new fruity flavor instead as a backup if anyone made a fuss.

He glanced across the room to see a figure he recognized. He’d seen a photo of Scott Phillips in a write-up online not an hour earlier when he’d done some research. Somehow, the guy had managed to sneak into the shop. “I heard you liked to make an entrance. I can now boast to my customers that I’ve seen the infamous resident ghost for myself.”

“You should probably cut Rowan some slack about her fear of water. There’s a story there. Aren’t you the least bit curious as to why she feels that way?”

“Sure I am. I spent all of Saturday night trying to help her make sense of encountering a ghost, especially after you dropped that bombshell show-and-tell gravesite deal. What were you thinking?”

“I admit it wasn’t my finest moment. But you can’t deny she needed to know about the grave.”

“No need now arguing about your method,” Daniel grumbled as he wiped down the counter where he’d spilled chocolate. When he finished, he tossed the towel onto the cart and faced off with Scott. “But I do take issue with a couple of things. Why didn’t any of this come to light when Rowan lived here before? You had ample time to confront her at the cemetery whenever she went out there to put flowers on Jim Dewhurst’s grave. And isn’t there any way at all you could wave your magic wand and tell her if Gwynn Dewhurst kidnapped her from one of her sketchy friends? Maybe point her in that direction. It’d certainly save us some valuable time.”

“Do I look like I carry around a magic wand?” Scott deadpanned. “As to the first issue, Rowan asked the same question. I’ll tell you the same thing I told her. She was a kid. She needed to have a chance at a few better life experiences before dealing with this sort of thing. As to the second part, I can only speculate that Gwynn indeed must’ve grabbed a kid somewhere that wasn’t hers.”

“But you don’t know for certain?”

“Another thing I don’t carry around with me is a crystal ball that tells me everything that ever happened in the past.”

Daniel shoved off the counter. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I pissed her off when I asked her to spend the afternoon on the water. After that, she seemed—”

“Frosty,’ Scott supplied.

“As frozen ice cream,” Daniel retorted. “If it’s any consolation, I plan to make it up to her.”

“Make sure you do. At least you knew your mom and dad. Rowan never had that.”

When Daniel started to respond, Scott drifted into vapor, there, on the other side of the display case. “That is so weird.”

“What is?” Kiki said as she entered the main dining area. “Did you know you left the back door unlocked?”

“I must’ve forgotten to turn the lock when I got here,” Daniel admitted, eyeing the clock. Kiki was twenty minutes early. He wasn’t used to an eager employee starting this early. “What are you doing here before noon?”

“I thought I’d help with the mixing, but I see I’m not the only one who got a jump on things. Want me to clean the windows?”

“Did you mop last night?”

“No. Was I supposed to?”

---