Page 41 of Echoes at Driftwood Cottage

“The one above her bed, the old Victorian that’s now home to Promise Cove B&B? Were you aware that Scott Phillips grew up there?”

“No way. Really? Maybe I made a connection to that place even then, probably Scott, too. My gran loved that painting. But there should be lots more around here. Maybe she stored them away in the garage or the shed. Weird. I spent one summer painting nothing but landscapes. While other normal teenagers were at the beach, I turned my room into my art studio, trying to become the next Georgie O’Keeffe. There was my flower phase. I painted dahlias in every shade known to womankind. Then there was my blue and white period. That lasted until I ran out of blue and couldn’t afford to buy more.”

Her laughter rang out into the night. She glanced over at the flower beds and the withered shrubs. “You wouldn’t know it by looking at them now, but Gran used to grow the most beautiful dahlias as big as your fist.”

“Give yourself time. By the end of summer, you’ll bring them back to their glory days.”

“I’m not a miracle worker. I know my limitations.”

“I’m not sure you have limitations. Have you listened to yourself tonight? You seem so much lighter, happier, and more in tune with what you want than I’ve ever seen you before. It’s almost as if you had an epiphany or something at the police station.”

“Maybe I did. You were right about turning things over to Brent. I know I resisted but it’s for the best. Instead of beating my head against a brick wall, I realized I needed an objective third party to get answers. I don’t have the time or the tools to investigate properly.”

“You never said what wild adventure went totally off the rails for you.”

“Didn’t I?”

“You know you didn’t.”

“Hmm. Maybe that could mean I don’t want to discuss it.”

“Does it involve water?”

“As a matter of fact, it kinda does.”

“Come on. I told you about Rebecca. The least you can do is share what happened.”

“Okay. Fine. I took a trip to the Grand Canyon with my roommates at the time—four girls sharing a townhouse—one of which had a filthy rich daddy who footed the bill for the entire thing. What they failed to mention when I said yes was that they planned to water raft the Little Colorado River.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah, well, they knew I had a fear of water. Somehow, they all got the bright idea that this trip would ‘cure’ me of my phobia.”

“So they kept the truth about the trip from you? How?”

“They never said a word about their true intent. That’s how. They lied until we got there. I had this bad feeling once we pulled off the road, and I spotted the lodge and this old bridge in the distance. Where there’s a bridge there’s water. Then they all started talking about the loading ramp for watercraft, and some place called Marble Canyon and how that spot was the entrance into the Grand Canyon. That’s the first time I heard rafting come up in conversation. They thought it was so funny. Right then and there, I got sick to my stomach. They had to pull over so I could throw up. That’s when I got my first look at the river. And first off, there’s nothing ‘little’ about that part of it. This river flows through rocky terrain with boulders the size of a house. It flows for a hundred miles before meeting up with the main Colorado River. When I refused to get near the water, I may have started screaming. It’s all sort of a blur for me now. One of them later told me that I created such an embarrassing scene that Angie tried to push me down a ravine.”

Daniel balanced his dessert plate on his knee and shifted in the swing. “How’d you get back to San Diego?”

“I called Gran. She wired me the money to take a bus. By that time, my roommates had ditched me at the nearest town. I forget what it’s called. It’s not important anyway. I had to find a new place to live with new roommates.”

“That’s mean what they did.”

“I know. Hence the reason I moved out before they returned from their trip. I didn’t see a future in trusting so-called friends who’d trick me like that. Besides, my lease was almost up anyway.” She studied the night sky, looking up at the stars twinkling above. “I fell in love with this place for real when I turned twelve. I’m pretty sure it took me around two years before I truly settled in and realized I wasn’t going anywhere, that Gwynn couldn’t swoop in and destroy my life.”

“For me, it took a bit longer than that. And Nick Harris dangling a real estate deal I couldn’t refuse.”

“Who’s the savvy businessman now?”

“All I know is that I couldn’t have spent the next twenty years doing what I was doing.”

She didn’t want the night to end. “I can be happy here without being a fan of the water or a beachgoer.”

“Of course you can.”

“Why do you suppose Natalie Wood crawled into that dinghy the night she drowned? They said she was afraid of water. If that’s true, then why would she do that? I’d never do that. You couldn’t get me on a boat, let alone into a dinghy. Just because the boat’s a fancy yacht, does that make it any safer?”

The tone of her voice had changed.

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