Page 136 of Resting Beach Face
Cash’s eyes widened, and he took off running for The Roost. Shit, had the vandals returned? I pulled out my phone, but the security cameras showed no notifications.
Cash met me at the base of the hill, shaking his head. “Everything looks fine. Maybe one of your guests was out late?”
“No, not tonight. Do you really think I’d have done all that if I thought someone could watch?” I swallowed as bile rose in my throat. “God, you don’t think?—”
“No,” Cash said. “Of course not. The motor sounded more distant. They were probably nowhere near us.”
He was probably saying that to make me feel better, but I was relieved anyway.
“I think we should take a look around,” Cash said. “Be sure nothing else was disturbed. Maybe a tourist got lost and used your property to turn around.”
It wasn’t the worst theory. And I liked it a hell of a lot more than vandalism. We did a more thorough check of The Roost, checked out the Tree Hut, then headed toward the greenhouse.
I could just make out its shadowy shape in the moonlight.
“Shit,” Cash said.
“What?” I turned on my phone flashlight, shining it around, looking for what had made Cash react that way. It wasn’t what he was seeing, though, but what hewasn’tseeing. “Goddamn it.”
The piles of polycarbonate sheeting for the walls were missing. The industrial toolbox Gray had kept out here was gone, too. Every hammer, every nail, every extra plank of wood.
All gone.
Someone had stolen all our supplies. And now, under the glow of my flashlight, I saw they’d graffitied the shit out of the framing with red spray paint.
Not just Xes this time. A warning, too.
LEAVE.
“I have to call the sheriff,” I said numbly.
“I’m so sorry,” Cash said. “You’re probably wishing you’d just sold to those developers and avoided all this trouble, huh?”
“What? No.” I waved a hand toward the greenhouse, anger flashing through me. “If I’d sold, I wouldn’t have seen my aunt’s dream fulfilled and realized it’smydream too. I won’t be chased off by whoever the hell is pulling these stunts. This ismyB&B, and no one gets to tell me to leave.”
Cash watched me, a furrow in his brow illuminated in the glow of our phone flashlights. “I thought you wanted to sell the B&B, anyway?”
I looked from the obvious confusion on his face to the greenhouse that I’d begun to daydream about every day.
“Right, I…uh…just meant no one gets to tell me what to do.”
“Is that what you meant though?”
My stomach clenched and my mouth went dry. “I don’t know. I just…I loved the idea of this greenhouse so much. I was already envisioning what I could grow in there. Pearl and Ruth Marie thought I could sell produce at the Outdoor Market, but…” I shook my head with a nervous chuckle. “Those are just silly daydreams.”
Cash stepped in close, grasping my face. “Declan, sweetheart, if you don’t want to leave the B&B, it’s okay.”
“But…that was the plan. We remodel and we find someone who wants to run it, because I can’t keep doing that.”
He nodded. “I know. But if you’re happy here, maybe there’s another solution. You could hire a manager to run the B&B and?—”
“But that’s stupid.”
Cash stopped short, looking wounded.
“Okay. Never mind.”
I realized how badly that must have sounded. I grasped his arm, tugging him closer. “No, no, I just mean why would I hire a manager when you’re perfect for the job?”
