Page 13 of Return to Rosewood Beach

She began to go through the papers one by one. Many of them were documents that Julia should have, and many of them were old business letters that she put onto the trash pile she’d been making. After a few minutes, she came across a letter that made her frown. It was from a Judd McCormick, offering to buy the property where the pub was located.

“That skunk,” she muttered, remembering the tall, smooth-talking businessman. He’d talked to her in person at the pub a few times, probably trying to sweeten her up. She’d found him to be disconcertingly insincere, and he’d seemed like the kind to only pretend to listen while in reality he was just following whatever narrative he had going on in his head.

She glanced at the date on the letter, and her eyebrows rose. It was dated the year before, a few years after Judd had come into the pub and spoken to her. She turned to the next document, and sure enough, it was another letter from Judd,dated the year before. She lifted up that letter and found yet another one underneath it. One by one, she uncovered several letters from Judd McCormick, all dated a year apart.

She shook her head as she read over the letters. They were worded almost exactly the same way each time. The man had clearly been determined not to quit, and she felt grateful that Frank had never given into him.

I still have the pub, thanks to you, Frank,she thought, taking a deep breath and feeling a bittersweet ache in her chest.It’s all the legacy I have left of you, aside from our children.

Her heart lifted at the thought of her children. She didn’t know what she would do without them there with her, and she wished that they could all stay a little longer.

Smiling a little to herself, she placed the letters from Judd onto the top of the trash pile and began to finish the rest of her work.

Cooper tried to stifle a massive yawn, but it spread across his face anyway. Behind him in the back seat of the car, Macey was finally sleeping, and he let out a sigh of relief.

It had been a rough night. His little girl had been restless and fitful almost the whole night, acting irritable in a way he didn’t understand or know how to deal with. He was grateful it was the weekend instead of a workday, because he’d gotten three hours of sleep at best. He felt like a walking zombie, and Macey also seemed tired and still irritable.

He’d decided to treat them both to a fun breakfast out on the town, and they were on their way to The Salty Spoon, one of Rosewood Beach’s local restaurants. Getting Macey ready had been a struggle, and he was beginning to doubt that going out to eat was a good idea. He wasn’t sure how their outing was going to go, or how she was going to behave inside a loud, busy restaurant.

He a’rived at the restaurant and parked along the street outside. He could already see that their parking lot was packed, and he decided that he might as well skip the chaos and park there on the road. He glanced at Macey in the rearview mirror again. She was sleeping fitfully, but at least she was still sleeping, and he didn’t want to wake her. He let out another massive yawn, deciding to take a short nap himself in the driver’s seat. He figured they could both get some shuteye for a while, and she would wake him up when she’d awoken.

Feeling relieved at the prospect of getting a little more sleep, he closed his heavy eyelids and began to drift off almost instantly. In the next moment, however, a car horn honked loudly nearby, and Macey began to cry.

He forced his eyes open and turned around toward his daughter, speaking to her soothingly and patting her knee.

“It’s okay, Macey, it’s just a car,” he said. “Look, we’re here at the restaurant. You want to go inside?”

She made some kind of noise and moved her head up and down, and he took that as a “yes.”

“Come on,” he said, smiling at her cheerfully. “We’re going to get some pancakes. You love pancakes, right? And chocolate milk?”

At the mention of chocolate milk and pancakes, Macey brightened. Cooper got out of the car and helped her out of her car seat, and then they made their way inside the restaurant together, holding hands.

The place was packed. People were talking and laughing and clinking their dishes, and waitresses and waiters were zipping around, hurrying from table to table. The place smelled incredible, but Macey took a step back, looking nervous.

“You want to go in?” he asked her.

She hesitated for a moment, and then seemed to remember the chocolate milk and pancakes and nodded.

He stepped up to the hostess. “Can you squeeze us in anywhere?”

“Sorry, it’s a twenty-minute wait.” She looked sympathetically at Macey, who still looked wary and cranky. “But I can give her some crayons to play with in the meantime.”

His stomach grumbled, and he kicked himself for not thinking to make a reservation. “That would be great, thank you so much.”

“Of course.” The hostess smiled at him and took down his name for the wait list.

He sat down with Macey on one of the benches placed by the front door. She kept trying to get off the bench and walk into the restaurant, not understanding why they were waiting there. After her fourth attempt to go into the dining room, she was starting to get very frustrated.

“Not too much longer, honey.” He smiled at her, hoping to help her feel calmer. “You want to play with the crayons?”

At first, Macey wasn’t interested in the crayons or the disposable coloring-page kids’ menu that had come with them, but he started to draw something on the back of the menu and that caught her attention. She was soon scribbling away happily, seeming to just be enjoying the way the crayons traced color across the page.

Cooper leaned his head back against the wall and felt his eyes become droopy with fatigue again. He glanced at his watch and sighed, seeing that they still had another sixteen minutes to wait.

It didn’t take long for Macey to cover her whole menu—and some of the bench they were sitting on—with crayon marks.

“That looks wonderful,” he told her, hoping the hostess would be willing to give them a second menu. She wasn’t at the door at the moment, however, and Macey slid off the bench and started toward the dining room again.

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