Seaside Gifts: a Seaside romance (Hometown Romance) Read online

  Contents

  Other Titles from Redbud Press

  Title

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Dear Reader

  Coming soon - Love's a Stage

  Bonus chapters - Firefly Summer

  Other Titles from Redbud Press

  Latest Release News

  Copyright

  Saving Justice by Susan Crawford

  Secondhand Cowboy by Lacy Williams

  The Art of Falling by Julie Jarnagin

  Kiss the Cowboy by Julie Jarnagin

  Firefly Summer by Kathleen Y'Barbo

  Journeys of the Heart: An Anthology by Camille Elliot, Winnie Griggs, and Erica Vetsch

  Seaside Gifts by Gayle Roper

  Love's a Stage by Rene Gutteridge and Cheryl McKay

  Seaside Gifts

  By Gayle Roper

  Chapter One

  Every time Nan Patterson surveyed the aisles of Present Perfect, she stared potential failure in the face. Depending on the moment, she was either terrified or energized by her gift shop on the boardwalk in Seaside, a barrier island off the coast of New Jersey. Some days, she was both.

  At the moment, one thirty on a June Monday afternoon, she felt good about how things were going. Two women were walking around the store with don't-bother-me-I'm-shopping expressions on their faces, a delight for a store owner to see. A third had just bought five sparkly rings with different colored stones.

  "One for each of my four grand-girls," she'd said. "And one for me." With a satisfied smile she walked toward the door that exited to the boardwalk.

  A cop entered and moved toward the rear of the store, approaching Nan. His hands rested on his belt, which had all the cop paraphernalia hanging from it, as if holding on would prevent him from bumping into anything as he passed through the aisles.

  Men were frequently uncomfortable in the shop. Large bodies and breakable items were a bad match. Add the cop's belt, and it was a disaster waiting to happen. At least the cop seemed to think so.

  He was good looking, tall, and broad shouldered with a careful smile he directed at her as she stood behind the cash register. If she could have chosen someone to respond to her call about the crime, she couldn't have done better.

  He stepped aside to make room for the woman who was admiring one of the five new sparkly rings shining on her right hand. Her shopping bag with the remaining rings wasn't large, but she was, and the cop visibly inhaled to try and make himself thinner as she passed.

  It was a very tight squeeze.

  When the woman had moved successfully down the aisle, he exhaled and looked around, taking in Present Perfect's eclectic stock. He eyed the colorful cards, placemats and napkins in sherbet shades, nice though inexpensive jewelry, small ceramic and wooden figurines, framed and unframed prints and photographs of landscapes and seascapes, wooden signs that read SEASIDE in different scripts and colors, clever little lighthouses, pretty plates bearing beach scenes, and her favorite part of the shop, the Christmas corner.

  Nan could easily interpret his expression: Who wants all this stuff? And when he scowled at the Christmas tree, he was clearly wondering who buys Christmas stuff in June. Poor guy. He'd be so much happier at The Home Depot with its wide aisles and power tools.

  He finally reached the counter and almost sighed with relief.

  "I'm looking for your boss."

  Nan liked the deep voice that went with the deep brown eyes. "You're talking to her." Being a mere wisp over five feet and slim as a boy always made people look around for the boss.

  He raised an eyebrow. "Nan Patterson?"

  "That's me." She held out her hand. "Thanks for coming so quickly."

  He swallowed his surprise and gave a brief, professional shake. "Well, theft is a serious thing."

  She frowned. "What theft?"

  He looked disconcerted and pulled a small notebook from his pocket. He flipped a few pages until he came to what he wanted. He pointed as if she could see what was written there. "Didn't you call about thievery?"

  "Oh!" She gave him her best grin. "Not thievery. Leavery."

  It was his turn to look blank.

  "Leavery," Nan repeated. "Someone keeps leaving things here."

  She could see—she squinted at his chest and read his name tag—Officer Eastman lose interest. It was as obvious as a balloon deflating as it lost its air.

  "I'm sure whoever left whatever will return for it." He gave a polite smile while clearly communicating that the Seaside PD wasn't in the lost and found business. His hands went to his belt as he prepared to turn and face the gauntlet of narrow aisles once again.

  "No, no," Nan said hastily. "It's not like someone leaving a purchase or an umbrella or something. Someone is leaving valuable items."

  "Then all the more reason they'll come for them."

  There might as well have been a blinking neon sign over his head. False alarm. Waste of time.

  She leaned toward him as if proximity would make him understand. "Not purchased items. Abandoned items. Valuable abandoned items."

  He frowned. "Abandoned items." He clearly didn't get it.

  "Like a Limoges cup and saucer or a Royal Doulton figurine or an antique doll."

  Nan chose to see his frown as an improvement over the disinterest of a moment ago. She reached under the counter and carefully pulled out a white china pitcher with gold vines all over it, clusters of raised golden grapes nestled amid the vines. "Unique Wedgwood."

  "Uh-huh." He continued to look unimpressed.

  Nan reminded herself that they didn't study fine china at the Police Academy. She tried again. "This isn't part of the stock of Present Perfect. I don't carry things of this quality. The boardwalk is hardly the venue for really good stuff."

  Food, sunglasses, beach towels, and Seaside T-shirts and sweatshirts were the staples of most shops, except for Present Perfect, which attracted its customers by offering an alternative. Still, it was the boardwalk, and pricey was out.

  He glanced around the store again and seemed to understand that while everything she had was lovely in its own way, it was also far from expensive.

  "This pitcher appeared this morning." She held it up for him to see. "It's like poof! There it was."

  He looked at it, then at her, and blinked.

  She bit back a sigh at his lack of comprehension. "I opened the store, walked next door to grab a coffee, and when I got back, there it was, sitting on a counter beside some pretty plastic luncheon plates with matching glasses." She ran a gentle finger over a grape cluster. "This baby is worth about $50 if eBay is any indication. Not a great sum, but still, it's totally different from my stock."

  She put it back beneath the counter. "Someone just left it, and I have no idea who. Or why. The Royal Doulton Balloon Man and Balloon Woma
n appeared yesterday. A Limoges cup and saucer appeared two days ago, as did a small original watercolor of a Ferris wheel. Left with no explanation. The first thing appeared about a week ago, a doll with a bisque head. She was left propped against the cash register."

  Officer Eastman's face lit up. "Leavery."

  Finally! "That's why I called the police. I don't know what to do about it."

  "Say thank you?" Officer Eastman suggested.

  Nan narrowed her eyes. "Cute."

  He grinned, which made her glare harder. "I want to give the stuff back, but I don't know who to give it to or how to go about finding who to give it to. You guys solve mysteries."

  A customer came to the counter, eyeing Officer Eastman uncertainly. Nan immediately abandoned him and smiled at her customer, who held a small silver picture frame with pressed flowers under its glass.

  "Lovely, isn't it?" Nan said as she took the frame. "The woman who does this work is a Seaside resident."

  "Really?" The customer opened her large multi-colored beach bag, rummaged for a while, and finally pulled out a credit card. "That makes it an even better memento of our vacation."

  Nan swathed the picture in tissue and used a piece of tape to hold the wrappings in place. She pulled out one of the distinctive royal blue bags with Present Perfect written in gold across it, the lettering a miniature version of the sign Aunt Char had hung out front thirty years ago when she opened the place.

  The customer pointed vaguely to one corner of the shop. "You have a wonderful antique bugle over there. I'd love to get it for my husband. He belonged to a bugle corps in high school, but there's no price on it."

  Nan didn't think her manner faltered, but Officer Eastman narrowed his eyes and looked where the woman indicated.

  "I'm sorry," Nan said with the warmest smile she could manage. "If there's no price tag, the item isn't for sale. It's just for atmosphere. Interest. Amusement."

  The woman was not amused.

  Nan kept her smile in place as she ran the card for the dried flower picture and collected the customer's signature. She even managed to stay behind the counter until the woman left the store. Then she bolted for the corner.

  Sure enough, an old brass bugle, tarnished and dinged, sat on the counter between a display of lovely floral notepaper—some of her older customers still wrote letters—and a trio of ornate picture frames holding the beautiful faces of models looking delighted with life.

  Officer Eastman peered over her shoulder. "Not part of your stock?"

  Nan shook her head. "I've never seen it before." She turned and blinked at how close he was, and he took a quick step back.

  "I can take this in and have it checked for prints—"

  "Yes!" What a good idea. Very NCIS. And he did look a little like Tony DiNozzo.

  "—but I doubt there would be a match in the system. Someone who starts leaving things instead of taking them isn't a good candidate for a police record."

  Nan sighed. She didn't want logic, she wanted answers. "When I found the pitcher this morning, I hoped that would be it for the day. But no, now there are two things."

  "Somebody's being twice as nice?" He gave a little half smile, as if he could charm her out of her grump, which he undoubtedly could if she weren't so frustrated with him.

  "Don't you get it?" She shook the bugle at him. "The leavery is escalating!"

  Chapter Two

  Roger Eastman got it all right, on two levels. One, she had a problem she didn't know how to solve, and she expected the police, namely him, to have the answer. And two, he thought she was one of the cutest things he'd seen in a long time, especially when her pretty hazel eyes narrowed as she all but snarled at him in frustration. Very unprofessional of him to find her agitation so endearing, but he did. And she was such a little thing. All his protective instincts kicked into high gear, but he reminded himself to step back and think of Lori.

  That killed any attraction he felt. He was all professional.

  He nodded and looked as serious as he could manage. "The leavery is escalating. I see what you mean."

  "Do you?" Her hands went to her hips and she glared at him, the bugle in her hand threatening to knock over the picture on the counter behind her. "I think you think this whole situation is a joke."

  He sighed. She was so cute when she snarled, like a Lab puppy trying to sound fierce. Lori. Lori. Lori. "Well, if these items are stolen—"

  She sputtered with outrage. "You think I stole these things?"

  "—which I assume they aren't, at least not by you, or you wouldn't have called, then something strange is going on."

  She gritted her teeth, probably so she wouldn't shout. "Ya think?"

  He flipped his notebook to an empty page. "So let's consider the alternatives."

  She nodded, her expression saying it was about time. Then she forgot him as another customer approached the register with a box holding a Christmas tree ornament in one hand and several ornaments hanging from the fingers of the other.

  "Did you find everything you were looking for?" Nan asked, the soul of good cheer as she stepped behind her counter.

  Rog looked at the collection of angels, glittery stars, and colorful balls as, one by one, the woman unhooked them from her fingers and handed them to Nan. He caught sight of a nine-dollar price tag hanging from one angel. Granted it was pretty, but couldn't she find a whole box of similar angels at half the price at Walmart?

  "These are so unique," the woman gushed. "I love them."

  Apparently not.

  "Only this one doesn't have a price." She held out the box which contained a white ball with a painted scene on it, a green bow reading Wedgwood tied to the top.

  Nan barely blinked, but Rog's antennae pinged to alert. Another leavery item.

  "I'm sorry," Nan told her customer. She gave a smile of such wattage Rog was surprised he and the lady weren't blinded. "I don't know how that got in the display."

  "It's a Wedgwood Twelve Days of Christmas ball," the customer said. "It's Day One. See the partridge?"

  Rog leaned in. Sure enough, a colorful partridge nestled into the white ceramic ball.

  "There are two others from the same collection over there," the customer said helpfully. "Four calling birds and twelve drummers drumming. I suppose they aren't for sale either? I was going to get them too, if they didn't cost an obscene amount."

  "Sorry." Nan put the ball in its box beneath the counter with, if he remembered correctly, a Wedgwood pitcher. Clearly someone liked Wedgwood, yet gave it away.

  The customer sighed. "That's okay. They're probably out of my price range anyway."

  While the customer and Nan completed their business, Rog googled Wedgwood Christmas balls and blinked. The partridge was going for almost $400, the calling birds, $370, and the drummers, $240. A dinged bugle—who gave away a dinged bugle?—was one thing, but items worth a thousand dollars were a totally different matter.

  When the customer left with her bulging bag of tissue-wrapped tree ornaments, Rog asked Nan, "Can you leave the counter in someone else's care so we can talk without interruption?"

  Nan looked at her watch. "I'm here alone right now. Tammy's due in about fifteen minutes. We'll have to wait for her." She squinted up at him. "You don't happen to know anyone who would like a summer job, do you? I have another girl who comes in from three to close, but I need someone else for, say, eleven to nine."

  Did he know someone? He just might. He'd have to check.

  He opened his mouth to tell her he might be able to help her when a voice called out, "Hello, Nan, my sweet."

  Rog turned to see a little old lady in a bright pink knit top and navy knee-length shorts trotting down the aisle. A wrinkled and tanned hand clutched the handle of a large red cloth bag dangling from her shoulder, and her white Reeboks were so new they almost sparkled. Her most interesting feature was her red hair, a very unusual shade for a woman her age, though it was somehow attractive, even if it did clash with her bright pink
shirt.

  "Aunt Bunny." With a smile, Nan came from behind the counter and gave the old woman a hug. "How are you today?"

  "Doing well." Aunt Bunny patted Nan's cheek in a proprietary way. "Don't you love this

  warm weather?" She grinned up at Rog, her good humor shining from her eyes. "Keeps my arthritis at bay."

  What was he supposed to say to that? Good? Or would she think he meant it was good she had arthritis?

  "Aunt Bunny, this is Officer Eastman," Nan said. "He's come about the items that have been left."

  "Nice to meet you, young man." Aunt Bunny held out her hand, the wattle of skin beneath her arm swaying with the movement. "I'm Bunny Truscott. I hope you're taking good care of my Nan."

  "Pleased to meet you, ma'am." He shook her hand, surprised at the strength of the grip. She might be little and old, but she was fit.

  "Look what I found today, Aunt Bunny." Nan pulled out the pitcher, the tree ornament, and the bugle.

  Mrs. Truscott studied them with interest. "Lovely, aren't they?"

  "Of course," Nan said. "Except for the bugle. Why a beat up bugle when everything else is so elegant?" She waved her hand as if waving away the words. "But that's not the point."

  "Maybe lovely is the point. I think you should just enjoy them." She turned to Rog. "Don't you?"

  "Aunt Bunny, they're not mine!"

  Mrs. Truscott ran a hand over the pitcher. She picked it up and read the bottom. "Wedgwood. Huh. Not the usual dignified style, though it's lovely in its own garish way. Don't you think?" She looked at Rog again.

  "You like Wedgwood, Mrs. Truscott?" Rog asked.

  Nan shot him a dirty look, as if she thought he suspected Aunt Bunny. Which he supposed he did. He suspected everyone. It went with being a cop.

  Mrs. Truscott looked at him in surprise. "Doesn't everyone love Wedgwood?"

  Rog had no idea. His mother didn't. At least she didn't own any that he knew of, but with five sons, china knickknacks weren't the wisest things to display.

  "If that last customer was right, there are more ornaments." Nan went to the Christmas corner. When she returned, she held out both hands, each holding a boxed white ceramic tree ball.