Christmas at the Cove, Chapter 2
*Women's fiction *Beach reads *Holiday *Christmas *Family Saga *Five Island Cove
Robin Grover added the red cooking dye to the chocolate cake batter and got the mixer going again. Her husband, Duke, loved red velvet cake, and it was his birthday today. The girls would be home from school in an hour, about the same time the cake came out of the oven.
Mandie, her oldest, would frost the cake once it cooled, and together, they’d decorate the house for the party they’d have when Duke came home from fishing.
He didn’t go out every day in the winter, because the seas could be rough, and his boat was starting to get up there in age. He used her relentlessly, and she’d gone all the way to Alaska and back this summer.
Robin thought of Garrett Hall and his threats from a few months ago. He had a way of creeping into her mind at the most inopportune times, but she hadn’t been able to shake him completely. To her knowledge, AJ had not been fired or lost her job. She’d quit of her own volition, and she claimed to be doing better with her freelance writing than her job at the station. She’d never gotten an on-air position, but Robin had no idea if Garrett had been responsible for that or not.
Duke’s boat had not been sunk or vandalized. Kelli hadn’t heard from or seen Zach again. Alice had not lost her home. Eloise was still engaged and finishing up all the finer details at the inn. The five Seafaring Girls and their families would be staying there for a few days before the holidays, to test out the rooms, the systems, the kitchen, all of it. It would be a good trial run for Eloise, and then she’d be ready to open the inn for Christmas.
Robin put her fears out of her mind, because there was nothing she could do about them anyway. She poured the cake batter into the greased and floured cake pans and slid them into the oven.
With a timer set, Robin got busy cleaning up the mess she’d made. She didn’t work nearly as much in the winter either, though her spring wedding prep would start the moment the holidays ended. She had five brides who wanted the perfect wedding, Eloise being one of them. Robin would do everything in her power to make every event memorable and as easy as possible for the people who’d hired her.
But she still had time to bake a cake for her husband’s birthday. The girls had picked out simple presents for him, and Robin had wrapped them after he’d taken them to school and continued on to the dock.
The gifts sat on the dining room table, and once the kitchen was clean, Robin went to get her present for him from her office. Mandie had bought his favorite candy—dark chocolate covered almonds—in bulk, and Jamie had used some of her babysitting money to get him a gift card from the Polish dog food truck that frequented the docks as the fishermen came in off their boats. Duke actually liked their breakfast dog the best, and his weakness was getting breakfast on the way out for a day of trawling.
Robin had purchased a new pair of gloves for him, along with a brand-new set of walkie talkies. He loved his radios to communicate with his friends on the other boats, as they usually went out in groups to the best fishing grounds. Bryan Reynolds and Duke were good friends, and Robin could always count on Bryan to have her husband’s back.
She quickly wrapped the gloves and the walkie talkies, put them beside the other gifts, and got the cream cheese out of the fridge so it could start to soften.
Her phone rang, and her mother’s name sat on the screen. Robin’s heart dipped down to her stomach, but she answered the call anyway. “Mom, hey,” she said, hoping she sounded reasonably normal.
“Robin, dear, I have a gift for Duke.”
“Oh, of course.” Robin had not invited her mother to their family celebration. She had been trying to improve things with her mother, and for the first time in her life, Robin had what she’d classify as a real relationship with her mom.
It certainly wasn’t perfect, but they’d both been trying. There had been apologies and honest conversations, and while Robin didn’t choose her mother as the person she wanted to spend the most time with, they definitely got along better.
“You can just bring it to the party on Sunday,” she said.
“I’m not going to be here on Sunday,” her mother said. “I’m just going to drop it by right now. I won’t stay.”
Robin had her doubts about that, but there was a bigger issue at play now. “Where will you be on Sunday?”
“Oh, there’s a senior holiday cruise leaving from Rocky Ridge on Saturday morning.” She gave a light laugh. “I bought myself a ticket on a whim.”
Robin had fallen still, her mind trying to work through what her mother had said. “Senior holiday cruise?”
“Yes, for men and women above age sixty-five,” her mother said, her voice full of forced importance. “It’s going to Nantucket for a few days. Then over to the Hamptons, then down to New York City.”
“You’ll be gone for Christmas?”
“It’s a fourteen-day cruise,” her mother said. “So yes. I won’t be back until the twenty-seventh.”
“Wow.” Robin exhaled, not quite sure what to think. “I can’t believe I’m just hearing about this now.”
“I just decided today,” her mom said. “I’ll be by in about ten minutes.”
“Okay.” Robin turned as the timer on the oven went off. “Bye, Mom.” She set her phone on the counter and reached for the oven mitts.
The cake was done, and she slid it onto the stovetop just as the front door opened and Jamie’s and Mandie’s voices filled the air.
“…is all I mean,” Mandie said. “You have to be careful with girls like that, Jamsey.”
“Don’t call me that,” Jamie said. “I’m not a baby.”
Robin held very still once more, listening to her daughters.
“I’m just saying,” Mandie said, her voice purposefully quiet. “She’s not a nice person, and she’s probably using you.”
“Whatever,” Jamie said, and her footsteps went down the hall that led to the bedrooms in the house. Mandie came around the corner and met Robin’s eye.
Robin’s eyebrows lifted of their own accord. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, there’s this mean girl who’s befriended Jamie.” Mandie sighed as she put her backpack on the built-in desk and joined Robin in the kitchen. She opened a drawer and tied an apron around her neck and waist. “I tried to tell her to be careful. Sarah-Elizabeth is not anyone’s friend.”
“How do you know?” Robin got out of the kitchen as Mandie started pulling together the rest of the frosting ingredients. Jamie was in eighth grade at the junior high, and Mandie had just started her junior year at the high school.
“Everyone knows about those Phillips girls,” Mandie said. “The queen bee at the high school is Carrie. She’s the exact same way.” She shrugged. “I just steer clear of her, but I’ve heard stories. Apparently Sarah-Elizabeth is twice as snobby, and twice as cruel.”
Robin looked toward the hallway, hoping Jamie would reappear and they could talk. Her mama bear instincts wanted to keep Jamie safe from mean girls and boys and bad grades and anything disappointing at all.
In reality, she knew she couldn’t do that. She didn’t even want to do that. People learned a lot from the disappointing things in their lives, and she didn’t want to rob her girls of those learning experiences. She just wanted them to have the softest consequences possible.
“Should I talk to her?”
“No,” Mandie said. “I’ll keep my eye on her.” She put the cake in the fridge before she whipped up the frosting. “I’ll get her to come help decorate.”
“Oh, right.” Robin jumped from the stool and went down the hall to her office. She took the huge bouquet of balloons she’d picked up that morning into the kitchen and returned to the office to get the streamers and tape.
Jamie had come into the kitchen, and the three of them worked together to turn the common area at the back of the house into party central. Mandie didn’t say anything about Sarah-Elizabeth, and Robin followed her lead.
The time passed quickly, and Mandie had just finished the peaks in the cake frosting when the garage door opened. “He’s here,” Robin said, her heart beating faster now. “Come over here.”
The girls hurried to her side, and the moment Duke appeared at the end of the hall, they started singing. He lifted his head, a smile spreading across his whole face. Robin could still tell something was wrong—terribly wrong.
She kept singing though, and when they finished, Duke clapped for them and stepped into all three of them to hug them. “Ah, my girls,” he said, his voice not nearly as jovial as usual. “Thank you. What a great surprise.”
Robin wasn’t sure how he could be surprised, unless he’d forgotten it was his birthday. She made sure he had cake and dinner and decorations every year.
“Presents first,” Jamie said, her normal, smiling self. She handed them out and Duke gave the proper performance for each one, even kissing Robin after he opened the walkie talkies.
“Okay, let’s eat,” she said. “We can have cake now or later. Doesn’t matter to me.” She met Duke’s eye, and he’d sobered again already. He was usually so fun-loving, with bad jokes about the ocean and the types of fish it held, loud laughter, and serious-but-not-serious questions about Charlie, Mandie’s boyfriend.
Tonight, there was none of that.
Robin pulled four plates from the cupboard and set them next to the slow cooker. “It’s your favorite, baby,” she said. “Barbecue meatball subs.”
“Thanks, babe.” His smile lit the house, and he perked up after that. The girls talked about school, and Robin spoke up about her weddings, and Duke said he saw a couple of whales that day.
Dinner ended quickly, and Mandie put the candles in the cake for her father. They sang Happy Birthday for a second time, and Duke actually paused, closed his eyes, and waited a moment before blowing out the candles.
Had he actually made a wish? And if so, what for?
Mandie served the cake, and Robin got out the vanilla ice cream. They spent the evening together, and finally, the girls went down the hall to finish their homework and go to bed.
“Come on, Mister Grover,” Robin said, smiling at her husband. She stood and extended her hand to him. “It’s time to put you to bed too.”
Duke smiled at her, put his hand in hers, and let her lead him down the hall to their master suite. She hadn’t cleaned up the dishes after dinner, something she always did. Tonight, though, she didn’t care.
With the door locked, she turned toward her handsome husband. “What’s wrong?”
Duke hung his head. “I didn’t want to say anything during the party.”
“You’re not great at hiding how you feel,” she said. “I knew something was wrong the moment you came into the house.”
Duke nodded and started unbuttoning his jeans. “The boat got damaged in the storm today.”
Robin paused in the middle of changing into her pajamas. “How bad is it?” His boat had been damaged before, and he’d come home with a positive attitude. He’d been working on a fishing boat for decades, and the man could fix almost anything.
“I couldn’t stay to see how bad,” he said. “It was dark already, and we barely made it back to the dock.”
“Barely made it back?” That didn’t sound good at all.
“Bryan said he’d help me tomorrow if he can’t go out. The weather is supposed to be wicked for the next couple of days.” He stripped his shirt off and, wearing only his boxer shorts, went into the bathroom.
Robin slipped into her silk pajamas and sat up in bed, waiting for him to return.
He did only a few minutes later, and he looked a decade older instead of just one year. He ran one hand down his face and crawled into bed with her. He laid his head in her lap, and Robin liked the way such a simple gesture made her feel powerful and strong.
She stroked his hair, wondering if he wanted to be intimate that night. He sure seemed to be in a bad place, and perhaps he was too tired though it was his birthday, and he’d always told her she was the best and only present he needed each year.
Duke rarely worried, and that made Robin’s concern double. She was the one who obsessed over every little thing. It made her a great wedding and event planner but brought a lot of stress into other aspects of her life.
“Duke?” she finally asked.
“Hmm?”
“How bad is it?”
“Bad, babe,” he said.
“Like, so bad we need a new boat? So bad we can’t afford to fix it?”
“I won’t know until tomorrow.” He lifted his head and looked at her with those dark, deep, delicious eyes she’d fallen in love with the very moment she’d seen them.
“We need a Christmas miracle then,” Robin said, thinking she better start praying for exactly that.
“I just need you,” he whispered, lifting himself up so he could kiss her. Robin felt his usual passion for her in his touch, and as they made love, she tried to be as present as possible.
But really, the worry about how they’d pay for a new boat if the damage was really that bad lingered in the back of her mind.
Please, please, she thought as she lay in her husband’s embrace. The one thing she’d feared Garrett Hall would do seemed to be coming true, and Robin told herself that even Garrett, though he’d seemed all-powerful last fall, couldn’t influence the weather in the Atlantic.
She simply needed a Christmas miracle, and she pressed her eyes closed, inhaled the scent of her husband’s skin, and prayed for that miracle.