Beholden: A Small-Town Standalone Romance (Carmel Cove Book 1) Read online

  I took one last deep breath just before we walked back inside and oddly enough, my throat didn’t hurt as much as we sat down to eat.

  Laurel

  Welcome to Carmel Cove.

  To everyone else, the large weathered timbers of the sign signaled a warm welcome to the small town on the Pacific coast.

  To me, they signaled a warning.

  And instead of the comfort of arriving back in my hometown, I felt the dread as though I’d crossed enemy lines.

  Open-heartedness. Charity. Perseverance.

  The words were etched into three massive pieces of ruptured stone just behind the welcome sign. From their broken-open center, the dense trunk of the iconic Monterey cypress rose, irregular and tipped forward from the steady force of coastal winds, and the thick, bright green foliage fanned out with a flat-top for the same reason.

  The stone had once been a platform for a non-existent statue which had toppled and shattered from a massive earthquake in the early nineteen-hundreds. The shocks were also responsible for fracturing the massive stone platform, angling up the pieces in pyramidal fashion like a rocky funnel with a jagged hole at the top.

  In the aftermath of the destruction the quake wreaked on the town and the environment, that lone cypress had sprung from the center of the stones. New life from the ashes. Since then, the rubble had been reborn, the stones polished and carved with words that symbolized this town and the people in it, and the tree had flourished.

  It remained a monument to those characteristics. And a testament to the good that could grow after disaster.

  For everyone except me.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss, Laurel.”

  Though the words were shined with sorrow, their sharp, cold reality was still another shot to my heart. I was sure everyone thought it was a restrained sob that shook me and brought me back to the present. It wasn’t. I was just reeling from one more blow.

  One more loss.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, hardly seeing the person who’d spoken as my attention turned to the plain bronze urn that reflected my face instead of his.

  Veteran. Coffee shop owner. Grandfather.

  Larry Ocean.

  Pap.

  He was my hero—the man who ate four donuts every morning before going to the gym and half a Hershey bar before bed. The man who made sure the small cliff-side cabin I’d spent so much time at was always landscaped to perfection. The man whose steely kindness and unending compassion was famous in our small, Italian-immigrant town long before I left it. And now, he was gone.

  May he rest in peace.

  Because there was no peace here for me.

  “It’s so good to see you again, Laurel. I’m sorry about your grandfather. He was such a good, kind man. I can’t believe he—” the older woman broke off with a fluttering hand to her chest, losing her words to overwhelming emotion.

  And another shot of sympathy speared through my chest.

  Names. Faces. They were all familiar yet foreign. Pieces of a past I’d rather forget were now jammed into all my broken cracks as though they were meant to fit.

  They weren’t.

  The losses I’d lived through left irreparable wounds.

  “Yes, he was. Thank you,” I answered blindly, my insides twisting in knots underneath the prim and pressed black suit I’d worn to the viewing.

  How did one grieve for someone who took their own life?

  How did one grieve for someone who couldn’t bear to stay?

  I knew the sorrow of losing a loved one—the sorrow that shattered my life when my parents were killed in a boating accident. And again, when my grandmother’s health gave way to her broken heart.

  But this sorrow was different…

  It had the same excruciating sensation of a knife sliding in between my ribs, only the blade was hot. Sharp sorrow seared with an anger that didn’t feel right, yet was felt all the same.

  Anger that he’d chosen to leave now.

  Anger that I’d chosen to leave then.

  Anger that this was how it all ended.

  And that anger scrambled my grief. Like a word-search in my heart, I knew all the letters were there, I just couldn’t find them together. Every expression of sorrow twisted the hot knife deeper, cauterizing as it went and sealing my grief inside to eat away at me as it grew.

  “Just be comforted in knowing he’s with your grandmother and your parents,” the elderly woman murmured before she moved on.

  Once again, I was the center of my hometown’s sympathy. I could see it in every gaze that was on me.

  Poor little Laurel.

  One more loss.

  Loss was what drove me away and what brought me back. In my world, home was a four-letter word spelled L-O-S-S; loss was all it could mean because loss was all it had ever given. And asking for anything different would be as fruitful as asking the sun to set in the east.

  Someone else hugged me—a smaller middle-aged woman who then reached up and cupped my face with tears in her eyes to give me her condolences. I recognized her but couldn’t remember her name—just like most of the people in the room. She hugged me like she’d known me my whole life—like I was family—and I fought not to jerk away; I didn’t have family here. Not anymore.

  “That was Josie. She owns the Carmel Bakery,” Diane whispered under her breath as she resumed her perch at my side.

  Diane was one of our oldest family friends. An unforgettable face with jet-black eyelashes that reached her eyebrows and a giant perm of blonde hair that framed motherly eyes and a compassionate character.

  Josie. Now it clicked. An image flashed in my memory of her and my pap looking at old photos from during the war, and the words ‘it’s all she’s got left’ flitted through my mind before I shoved them away.

  “Thank you,” I said hoarsely.

  ‘Thank you’ was about the only thing I’d said to her since she’d picked me up at the train station in San Francisco yesterday, her tears an uncoordinated accessory to her bellbottom jeans and tight pink shirt for the hour-long drive south. Now, they accented her long black dress perfectly.

  “I’ll be right back, dear. I see some of the students from my studio. They would always stop for coffee after class and show Larry their projects,” she murmured sadly and gently squeezed my shoulder with her warm grasp before stepping from my side.

  Diane owned an art studio a few doors down from Ocean Roasters, my family’s coffee shop. I watched her massive bleach-blonde hair that could only have been blow-dried by a jet engine weave through the crowd, rising above the rest on platform shoes that made step-stools look like technology from the past.

  She finally disappeared and I assessed the receiving line that seemed to be both never-ending and self-generating. And as soon as she was out of sight, dozens of grief-laden gazes stacked solely on my chest like iron weights, making each breath harder and harder to take.

  Poor little Laurel.

  The prodigal granddaughter.

  In their eyes, mourning mingled with confusion and, in some cases, resentment like oil dropped in water. I was supposed to be the fifth generation of Oceans to inherit Roasters. Instead, I’d been the first to renounce it and leave town altogether.

  It was no wonder they couldn’t decide whether to console or curse me.

  “That’s a lot of history right there.” My eyes flicked to where Josie had reappeared by my side, a heartfelt smile gracing her kind features.

  I dragged my eyes to the photo display Diane had created, standing to the side of the table holding the urn.

  The snapshots of generations of Oceans past: my great-great-grandfather on the docks in San Francisco before he quit being a fisherman and moved to Carmel Cove, him and my great-great-grandmother in front of Roasters the day it opened as the first coffee shop in town, pictures of my great-grandparents, my grandparents when they were younger, and finally, a photo of them with my parents and me.

  “Yes, it was.”

  But no lon
ger.

  Generation after generation had run our coffee shop, now on prime real estate in a town that was famous for the golf and wine as much as it was for the ocean and the family-roasted coffee.

  Every generation.

  Until me.

  The weight on my chest grew heavier and hotter. More people—more pieces—from a past I was desperate to forget.

  “So, you’re still living in Los Angeles then? I think that’s what your grandfather told me,” Josie continued with a soft voice.

  She seemed like a nice woman—she was a nice woman, from what I remembered—but I didn’t come back to this town to get close to all the reasons I’d left it. I came back to pay my respects, make my peace, and move on.

  Still, I politely replied, “Yes. I’m the executive assistant to Rachel Moss, the Menswear Merchandising Manager at Ralph Lauren.”

  It was a good job. Interesting. Not what I’d dreamt I’d do, but that made it safe. I wouldn’t take a chance of getting close to anything I truly wanted, knowing what it felt like to have it ripped away.

  “Good for you, dear.” She nodded and then reached out to briefly touch one of the photos of my pap, my dad, and me in front of Roasters… and then brought that same hand to my arm—searing it like an unwanted brand.

  “We’re glad you’re back.” She squeezed my arm with an encouraging smile before turning and walking away.

  Back.

  I hadn’t returned to Carmel since the day I’d left it… along with the possibility of taking over my family’s coffee shop. I’d left and worked my ass off to make a life for myself somewhere else, and I wouldn’t be ashamed of that. No matter what they thought I was here for or how they might judge me for it, I wasn’t staying.

  I couldn’t stomach living in the town that had cost me so much.

  My eyes narrowed on the urn, like he could see me glaring at him through the simple, polished exterior.

  I didn’t know he was sick like this.

  But I guess no one had.

  Those who knew he’d been on medication for depression assumed he was taking it. Until it was too late and too clear he wasn’t.

  Until he’d taken his own life.

  I closed my eyes, needing a respite from the crowd; their silent and stark grief was more overwhelming than the black they wore or the tears they cried. It was palpable in every look, every word; it painted the walls and covered the floors. It was inescapable.

  I took a deep breath, hoping to inhale enough determination to get through this. Instead, I choked on the suffocating scent of lilies.

  I hated lilies.

  Lilies always accompanied loss.

  And the rooms at Fiori’s Funeral Home were filled with them. The entire bottom floor of the old, ornate Victorian home had been opened up for the memorial to Lawrence Ocean in order to accommodate not only the suffocating flowers but the swarms of people who came along with them.

  Every person within a twenty-mile radius of Carmel Cove would be here today to pay their respects. Because that was who the Oceans were: Carmel’s legacy.

  I groaned under my breath. Funeral home. Home should be a place of love and life and family. ‘Funeral,’ though, seemed to be a more appropriate descriptor of home for me. First, my parents. Then, my grandmother. Now, my pap.

  I shifted as a sudden wave of heat came over me. I unbuttoned my black blazer, wishing I could take it off. I turned to look for Diane and instead came face-to-face with the balding, bearded, George Covington—a name and a face I knew because he was the plumber who showed up at Diane’s house last night to fix the toilet in her guest room. I only had memories of his wife from before, and how ‘she was a good mom.’

  “So sorry again about Larry,” he murmured with the exact same bereaved tone he had yesterday when we met.

  Déjà vu.

  I hadn’t been crying then either.

  I murmured my thanks as one of his hands left its perch on his decently sized gut to clasp my shoulder in support. Immediately following him were three younger men—all so stoic and well-built it looked like the town plumber was traveling with his own special-ops unit. Which could only mean they were his sons. The men who became of the boys their mother used to talk about. Maybe if I planned on sticking around, I would have bothered to remember their names.

  But I wasn’t going to stay.

  So, I accepted their condolences in the same subdued manner as I had the rest.

  Alone again, I dragged in a deep breath, but the oxygen only fueled the fire that was sweltering me. Ducking my head, I abandoned my designated post and waded through the sea of black, accepting apologies as I went like they were candy being given out on Halloween.

  “Laurel.” My head jerked up as Diane found me in the corner I’d retreated to and wrapped me in another hug. “You okay, honey? Can I get you anything?”

  Out of here.

  “I’m fine. Thank you,” I lied numbly instead.

  “There are a few more people who want to offer their condolences,” she said softly as her hand rubbed up and down my arm, like it would make me feel better about the proposition. “And I want to introduce you to Eli; he just got here. You need to meet Eli.”

  Eli? I started.

  Who was Eli?

  I was almost curious enough to ask. Almost.

  The name wasn’t completely unfamiliar to me. I’d heard several people mention this Eli from where I stood, watching the world happen around me. They said his name almost as many times as they said mine. They said his name with a magical mix of reverence and awe, and I fought to not be intrigued as to who Eli was… and who he’d been to my grandfather.

  She dabbed her eyes again with her handkerchief, the ringmaster of this grieving circus, and declared, “Let me go find your Aunt Jackie and Eli, and I’ll be right back.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t want to see my aunt or uncle right now. But Jules… My stomach twisted at the memory of my cousin. We’d been so close when we were younger, and then she’d left for boarding school and forgot I existed. Another loss. None of this was right. He shouldn’t be gone.

  He wasn’t supposed to die.

  He wasn’t supposed to leave me.

  Not now.

  Not yet.

  My name being called broke through my thoughts. Diane motioned for me to join her and my Aunt Jackie who dabbed her eyes with a rehearsed motion and was unsurprisingly, even after all these years, dressed to the nines in black and glittering jewels as though she were walking the red carpet rather than the processional at her father’s funeral.

  Jackie Vandelsen stood next to her husband, Rich, who appeared to be eagerly awaiting the moment when it was appropriate to leave, holding his arms tight to his chest like even a brush with middle-class was infectious. They owned the Rock Beach Golf Club and Resort right on the ocean and were always mingling with celebrities and politicians—social classes that required a respectable distance from her working-class family.

  Since she’d married him—and into the upper crust of Carmel, my aunt decided that the rest of town, along with her own family, were beneath her.

  Ironically enough, since I’d left Carmel with no intention of returning, she was probably going to inherit Roasters even though she’d never wanted anything to do with it.

  I stood frozen, unable to bring myself to join them. And then I heard it, the whispers between two elderly women off to my right.

  “The poor girl. First, Mark and Fiona, then Helen, and now, Larry.”

  The words were so quiet and yet detonated like a bomb inside me.

  Poor. Little. Laurel.

  It had been almost thirteen years since the boating accident that took my parents’ lives. The last thing I wanted or needed right now was to remember that day. Or that funeral.

  I gave Diane and my aunt a weak smile and instead, one-eightied and made for the bathroom with my head down to avoid the pity-filled eyes of everyone in the room.

  I was practically running by the time I
whipped around the corner to the hall where the bathrooms were located and plowed directly into a manmade wall.

  Or a wall made of man.

  I let out a loud gasp as my hands instinctively planted on the hard muscle of his chest. Large warm hands closed around my upper arms, holding me steady—and holding me close.

  “Woah, there. You okay?” the wall asked with a warm voice that purred down my spine. Like the frequency of a whistle only dogs can hear, the rough timbre called to a part of me I didn’t know existed and that begged me to run to him.

  Which was exactly what I’d inadvertently done.

  Slowly, I dragged my gaze from my hands that were curled into the pressed black lapel of his suit jacket, up to the collar of his pressed white shirt that cut in a bit too tightly on his neck, and then paused on the pulse that thumped against his rich olive skin; the vibration seemed to be in sync with my own. Snapping out of it, my eyes jerked up at least another foot above my five-foot-one frame to see who possessed the paired pulse.

  To see who was holding me.

  Wood-burnt eyes greeted me, their deep brown streaked with red and gold and flickered with recognition and something more… something hotter and darker. But only for a second.

  I sucked in an unsteady breath.

  Those twin embers roamed my face, searching out and claiming anything to fuel their fire. As though he could burn anything wasted into something new and bright and full of promise.

  “I’m so sorry,” I heard myself say though I couldn’t drag my gaze from him.

  He had, by far, the most perfect face I’d ever seen. And I let myself make that assessment with confidence, knowing the scores of male models my department at Ralph Lauren went through each season.

  Strong cheekbones balanced out a sculpted nose, its precise planes marred by the slightest shift at the top where it had been broken and then healed almost perfectly. And his lips… their fullness was confidently masculine. His were the kind of lips that would be so devilishly skilled as to make you forget your own name, and then gentlemanly enough to remind you of it afterward.