Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove #8)(94)

“Seven days never seemed so long,” Charlotte murmured.

“Mom, a week in paradise and you’re complaining?”

The lines between her mother’s eyes relaxed and Charlotte smiled. “I sound like a silly old woman, don’t I?”

Jack leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Go. Your daughter’s in my capable hands.”

“That does it!” Charlotte burst out. “I’m not leaving.”

“Mom!”

Ben laughed, and Charlotte’s laughter joined his.

“I was just teasing,” she told them.

“Will has a key to the house,” Ben went on to say. “He said he’d check in every couple of days. And Justine will be coming by, as well, to look after Harry.”

“What are you doing Christmas Day?” Charlotte asked.

“I’m taking care of dinner,” Jack announced proudly.

This seemed to impress her mother and stepfather, and Olivia felt obliged to explain. “He’s ordering in a meal.”

“This isn’t just any meal,” Jack insisted. “Our dinner’s being catered by D.D.’s on the Cove.”

“Jack,” Charlotte said, clasping her hands. “How romantic.”

“Which is exactly what I want for you and Ben,” Olivia told her mother. “I want you to fall in love all over again.”

Ben’s fingers tightened around Charlotte’s. “We don’t need a cruise for that.”

“We don’t, either,” Olivia whispered, smiling at Jack.

Her mother and Ben stayed only a few minutes longer.

By the time they left, both seemed reassured and eager for their trip, promising to come back refreshed.

The sound of the car had yet to fade when Jack turned to her. “I believe you owe me.”

“Owe you?”

“My reward, remember?”

“Oh, honestly, Jack.”

“Yes, honestly.”

Olivia laughed and held open her arms.

Thirty-Three

“Where are you taking me?” Tanni asked, standing at the edge of the highway some distance outside town. Cars streaked past her, kicking up rain water, splashing the backs of her pant legs.

“I want to show you something.” Shaw had parked his car and already started walking into the woods. “Come on,” he urged.

“Where?” she demanded a second time. Shaw had been acting so strange and secretive and that wasn’t like him.

“Back here.”

“In the woods?” She looked down at her new boots and sighed. The dense forest floor would be muddy and wet. If these got ruined, her mother wasn’t likely to buy her another pair.

Instead of arguing with her, Shaw rushed back and grabbed her hand.

“Why all the secrecy?”

“You’ll know why once you get there.”

“This better be good,” she muttered. Her feet made squishing sounds in the damp earth.

“I’ve only ever told one other person about this.”

In other words, whatever this was, the fact that he was showing it to her was a sign of his trust. Her boots sank deeper into the mud but she refused to look at them. If Shaw was willing to share something he considered important, she didn’t care how far she had to walk into the woods or how many pairs of boots she had to ruin.

“It’s all the way back here?” she asked when they’d gone about a hundred feet. Tree limbs hung low, admitting very little light. Despite the darkness and the lack of a clear path, he seemed to know exactly where he was going.

“Not much farther,” he assured her, his hand still clutching hers.

“Shaw!” she cried, grabbing his arm with her other hand when she nearly slipped on a fallen branch covered with moss.

He held her about the waist and kept her from falling. “Be careful,” he said.

They continued at a slower pace. Tanni glanced over her shoulder and discovered that the road was completely out of sight. She couldn’t even guess where he was leading her. Perhaps there was an abandoned cabin nearby or a—

“We’re here,” he said.

Tanni looked around and didn’t see anything unusual or different. Thinking she might have missed something, she turned in a complete circle. “We’re where?” she asked.

“I found this years ago when I was a kid,” Shaw explained. He started to drag a heavy branch away. He removed three such branches, which he’d apparently arranged to hide the opening of a cave.

He stood back and grinned, making a sweeping motion with his arms. “Ta da!”

She’d lived in this area nearly her entire life and she’d never heard anything about caves. Her brother, Nick, would’ve loved exploring here. He’d never mentioned it, either. “Does anyone else know about it?”

“I doubt it,” he said. “because it’s state land. As far as I can tell, no one had been inside for years.”

“How’d you find it?”

Shaw stared down at his feet. “When I was eight, I joined Cub Scouts. We were on a hike down here near Lighthouse Point and I got separated from the rest of the pack. Pretty soon I was lost.”

“In other words, you don’t have a good sense of direction.”