An Unlikely Match

Claire sat on the overstuffed floral love seat covered with what she now realized was an impractical number of fringed pillows. “Now, what about this misfortune?”

He came right to the point. “I need a place to stay.”

Her first thought was that he was suggesting he might be invited to stay at Tansy Hill. Otherwise why had he come here? It was a ridiculous notion, of course. Still, Claire tamped down a shiver of panic. No man besides her stepson, Carlos, had ever slept a night at Tansy Hill. Claire didn’t even date. “There are lots of places on the island,” she said. “You won’t have any trouble finding something for tonight.”

“That’s just it. Tonight only. It’s Thursday, and everybody has vacancies. But nobody has anything for the weekend.”

“Oh? You’re staying that long?”

He smiled, showing those white teeth again, which now were an interesting contrast to his five o’clock stubble of dark beard. “Don’t sound so disappointed, but yes. I’m staying a month or more.”

Claire tried to ignore the gasp of surprise that came from the hallway. But ignoring Pet’s entrance was impossible. Her aunt sailed into the room in advance of her billowing red silk lounge pants and a mist of spicy incense. “A month?” she said. “You don’t say?”

Hogan stood up and shook her outstretched hand. “Hello, again.” He seemed genuinely pleased to see her. “That’s right. And I’m finding that every place in town can accommodate me for the weeknights, but not for Friday and Saturday.”

“We’re a weekend tourist destination,” Claire said. “Heron Point’s population nearly doubles every Friday night. Our seafood restaurants alone bring folks from all over the state. And our shoreline is one of the most unique in Florida.”

Hogan sat again and crossed his ankle over the opposite knee. “You sound like a brochure, Mrs. Betancourt. Gee, I love the town already.”

Pet waved her hand, making the dozen bells on her silver bracelet jingle softly. “It’s a wonderful town,” she said. “You can’t help but love it.”

“I won’t get the chance to find out if I don’t get a place to stay.” He focused on Claire again. “That’s why I’ve come to you. I figure if anybody could point me in the direction of a permanent room to rent, it would be you. I don’t look forward to sleeping five nights a week in a hotel and the last two in my car.”

“Who are you?”

Claire whirled around at the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Jane, this is Mr. Hogan,” she said as Jane came to the middle of the room. “He’s staying in Heron Point for a while.”

Hogan stood up again. The man did have manners. Unfortunately he didn’t appear to know quite what to do once he was face-to-face with a human who stood less than four feet tall. He took his cue from Jane who, as usual, exhibited not the least sign of shyness. She thrust her little hand at his midsection and he enclosed it in a palm that seemed three times the size of hers. “How do you do, Jane?”

“Are you staying for dinner?” she asked. “Aunt Pet thought you might be. I have extra biscuits.”

Not for the first time, Jane’s characteristic impulsiveness put Claire in an uncomfortable position. She thought of the three chicken breasts she’d just put in the oven. She supposed she could slice them up, add a can of mushroom soup and stretch the menu to include three women and one formidable, substantially built man. Of course not taken into consideration was the fact that Claire did not especially want Jack Hogan to stay to dinner.

He eliminated her concern. “No, I’m just here to ask your mother a favor. I need a place to stay.”

“You could stay here I suppose,” Jane said. “We have a guest room.”

Claire stiffened.

Pet hooted.

“Well, thanks,” Hogan said, giving Jane a little smile. “But I didn’t mean anything like that. I meant a place in town.”

“We have lots of nice places,” Jane said. “The rates are reasonable this time of year.”

Claire gently pulled Jane to the love seat and forced her to sit. “That’s my daughter,” she said. “Future chamber of commerce president.”

Hogan scrubbed his hand across the nape of his neck. “Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt your household. If you can just give me a recommendation, and maybe even make a call on my behalf to someone in town who could rent me a room, I’ll be grateful and be on my way. I’m sure your husband…”

Jane sat up straight and clasped her hands on her lap. “We don’t have husbands, any of us. We’re single girls.”

The bells on Pet’s wrist jangled as she covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes gleeful. And then she said, “The Pink Ladies! It’s perfect. Hester always keeps one cottage available for emergencies, and I’d say Mr. Hogan has one.”

Claire was still recovering from Jane’s unexpected revelation of the marital status of the women of Tansy Hill, but she managed to stutter out an agreement. “Of course. I’ll call her now.”

“You’ll like it fine there,” Pet said as Claire scurried from the room. “Each cottage has a little sitting area and a small kitchen. Quite cozy.”

Claire returned a minute later. “It’s all set. The landlady is Hester Poole. Tell her you’re the man I sent over.” She gave Hogan directions that included a couple of turns and a short straightaway along the Gulf shore to a row of cottages with a sign in front that said The Pink Ladies.

He thanked her and said good-night.

“You can’t miss it,” Claire hollered after him as he walked briskly to the street.

From her front porch, she watched Hogan drive off in his “gas guzzler.” When she returned to the living room, Aunt Pet had taken the chair he’d occupied and was practically convulsing with laughter. “I know it’s the only place in town,” she said, “but can you imagine that great big gorgeous male in Hester Poole’s Victorian throwback of a cottage?”

Claire laughed, too. “No. And I can’t imagine Hester when he pulls up in that giant black SUV. She’ll think the dinosaurs have come back to life. I hope she doesn’t take down that old Winchester and fire at him.”

Pet shook her head in obvious pleasure. “Right. I don’t want him getting shot now that, thanks to Jane, he knows for sure you’re available.”

Claire sent her aunt her most exasperated look of warning before heading back to the kitchen to finish dinner preparations. Despite Pet’s ridiculous attempt at matchmaking, Claire couldn’t help feeling a bit of pity for the security officer. Mr. Hogan might be in for the challenge of his life as he tries to adapt to Heron Point.

CHAPTER THREE

SO, THE ELEGANT, UPTIGHT mayor of Heron Point wasn’t married after all—an intriguing detail. Jack smiled as he remembered the flush on her cheekbones growing deeper with every comment made by her daughter. Getting to know the mayor might be the one benefit of spending thirty days on this convenience-deprived island.

Leaving Tansy Hill behind, Jack stored his sunglasses in the overhead compartment and rolled down the window on his rented Cadillac Escalade. The evening air was cool and salty. The oppressive humidity of earlier had dissipated, and with the sun now just an amber ball settling into the western horizon, the breeze was almost fall-like.

Of course Heron Point displayed none of the natural phenomena that would make it even remotely similar to a Manhattan autumn. Still, now that Jack’s mood had improved since his visit with the mayor, he found the northwest Florida sunset had a surprisingly appealing quality. The wide expanse of shoreline along the Gulf, however, was not at all appealing from the viewpoint of an ex-Secret Service operative.

Jack scanned the open sea, mindful of his duties as chief security officer for Archie Anderson. Red channel markers dotted the shimmering horizon, indicating that dredging had been plentiful and probably haphazard through the years of the island’s development. Most seacoast communities in Jack’s knowledge had one or perhaps two major marinas through which boat traffic entered the town boundaries. This was not the case with Heron Point. In the short drive around the shoreline, he counted at least four channel inlets, and he’d only progressed along a fraction of the island’s entire coast. Such easy and unguarded entrance to the town was a security nightmare.

And that wasn’t the only problem he’d uncovered in his short time on the island. He sensed a general attitude of indifference and perhaps even ignorance among the people of Heron Point. The mayor had suggested that her citizens liked to kick back. Jack had already decided that these nonchalant folks ought to do a little less back-kicking and try a bit more sitting up and taking notice of the risks in their community.

He thought of the old guy who’d given him directions to Claire Betancourt’s picturesque bungalow, the one that needed no address since everyone in town knew it as Tansy Hill. Jack had been leaving the third hotel with no weekend vacancies when an unkempt man with wiry gray hair and a scraggly chest-length beard had stopped him on the sidewalk.

The man had nodded toward a colorfully painted restaurant on the edge of the water that advertised its menu on wooden placards nailed every which way on the exterior walls. “Can you spare a buck or two for a bowl of clam chowder?” the man had asked.

He’d been sitting on top of a motley assortment of worldly goods piled in the bed of a beaten-up wagon. Jack had seen a few articles of clothing, a dented collection of pots and a few tattered magazines, but he hadn’t noticed even a scrap of food. So he’d violated his own personal conviction against enabling beggars to continue tapping into the resources of working citizens and given the fellow two dollars.

In New York, any beggar worth his reputation would have taken that two bucks to the nearest tavern and wasted it on one good shot. But not this guy. He had actually ambled over to the restaurant and returned a minute later with a steaming paper cup of chowder. And he’d offered Jack a taste.

“Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” Jack had said. “But I could use directions.”

“Where to?”

“The mayor’s house. Do you know where Mrs. Betancourt lives?”

“Sure do.” He’d pointed one gnarly finger toward the east, and recited amazingly precise instructions about how to proceed to Tansy Hill. “It sits up on a little knoll,” he’d explained. “A nice place. Painted yellow, like a dandelion, with white trim. Has the name hanging from a sign on the front porch.”