McCall Read online

  SUMMARY

  Sara Brighton is a quickly rising culinary star in Savannah after Food & Wine magazine named her restaurant Best New Restaurant of the South, until it burns to the ground in an accident and she impulsively packs her truck and heads for McCall, Idaho, the last place she remembers being truly happy.

  Sam Draper, head of the Lake Patrol division of the McCall PD, knows the last thing she needs is another entitled tourist making her life difficult on the water. However, after Sara surprises her by helping her avoid a near professional disaster, Sam teaches her to drive a boat. The chemistry between them is hot and instant, and as the summer heats up, Sam finds herself falling in love until Sara buys her late father’s iconic diner and turns it into the newest hotspot for pretentious culinary tourists.

  Can the love Sam and Sara found on the water survive the lingering ghosts waiting for them back on dry land?

  MCCALL

  MCCALL

  PATRICIA EVANS JORDAN

  SAPPHIRE BOOKS

  SALINAS, CALIFORNIA

  McCall

  Copyright © 2018 by Patricia Evans Jordan. All rights reserved.

  ISBN – EPUB - 978-1-948232-33-3

  This is a work of fiction - names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without written permission of the publisher.

  Editor - Kaycee Hawn

  Book Design - LJ Reynolds

  Cover Design - Treehouse Studio

  Sapphire Books Publishing, LLC

  P.O. Box 8142

  Salinas, CA 93912

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition - August 2018

  This and other Sapphire Books titles can be found at

  www.sapphirebooks.com

  Dedication

  For Meara, Eire, and Aine.

  Acknowledgments

  Years of warm spring evenings spent in the Ossabaw lodge, drinking and laughing with the talented writers at the Ossabaw Island Writers Retreat, shaped my process and added depth to the experiences that now appear in the pages of my writing.

  The founder, Tony Morris, believed in my writing from the start and Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire series, encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone, but it was Beverly Donofrio who changed my writing forever. Beverly took the time to teach me how to be brave, to be raw, authentic, and showed me how it felt tell the truth on the page. She didn’t have to take the time, or be generous enough to share stories of her life and writing with me, but she did; and I’ll be forever grateful.

  And the biggest thanks to my love, Suzie Cox. Her strength, love, and hand around mine made me brave enough to bring my words to life.

  Chapter One

  Sara Brighton’s favorite time of day was the moment she left her restaurant, usually after midnight, and heard the door click shut behind her. The deafening clatter of plates and rushed voices fell away almost instantly, and within just a few seconds, only the cicadas stirred the silence. It was the same tonight as she started her walk towards the river in the heart of Savannah’s downtown. Night blooming jasmine scented the air and the live oaks dripping with Spanish moss formed a hazy canopy between her and the stars. The gothic iron fences lining Savannah’s famous cemeteries were placed perilously close to the sidewalks, and every night she considered walking through them but didn’t, the thought forgotten by the time she reached the river.

  She unbuttoned her chef’s coat as she walked and tucked it into her bag. Only one bar was worth visiting after midnight on River Street, Clary’s, and in the ten years she’d owned her restaurant in Savannah, she could count the nights she skipped stopping in for a drink on her way home on one hand. Most of the downtown bars catered to tourists, but Clary’s was the local dive bar where most of the queer community hung out, including the drag queens after the weekend shows at Club One. Sue, a Midwestern old school lesbian of few words, usually covered the late shift at the bar. Tonight she’d poured Sarah a double whiskey by the time she’d reached the barstool.

  “It’s about time you showed up,” Sue said, sliding it down the bar towards her. “Drink up.”

  “How flattering,” Sara said, catching the glass with a wink. “I didn’t realize you were counting the minutes till you saw me.”

  Sue was definitely not her type, but flirting seemed to irritate her, so she made a point to do it every chance she got. Sue raised an eyebrow and nodded toward her glass.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sara said, downing it in one swallow and handing the glass back to her. “What’s the rush?”

  “Your restaurant is on fire,” Sue said, looking at her watch. “Has been for about fifteen minutes.”

  Sara shot up from the barstool; she knew Sue wasn’t joking. Sue didn’t joke about anything.

  “You might want to consider turning on your cell phone once in a while,” she said. “Your night manager has been calling here trying to reach you since you left.”

  Sara reached for her wallet as she headed toward the door, but Sue shook her head and said it was on the house.

  “I’ve already called you a cab to take you back,” she said. “It’s waiting outside.”

  Sara flew out the door and into the back of the cab, gave the driver the restaurant address, and pressed her head against the cold glass of the window to stop her head from spinning. The walk from the restaurant to River Street always took about thirty minutes, so the fire must have started right after she’d left. All the guests had left and the tables had been cleared by the time Sara left Kelsey, her night manager, to close the kitchen, so it was hard to imagine what could have started a fire so quickly.

  As the cab pulled up to the restaurant, a surreal sea of flashing blue and red lights from the emergency vehicles had surrounded it. Kelsey ran up to Sara as she stepped out of the cab and hugged her hard.

  “Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?” Tears were streaming down her face, and she looked both relieved and like she might hit her. “I thought I saw you leave but it started so quickly no one was really sure you weren’t still in there.”

  “I’m fine,” Sara said, holding her shoulders and trying to calm her down. “But what the hell happened?”

  She looked over at the ambulance beside the firetrucks but didn’t see anyone being treated.

  “The fire guys think it was a gas explosion,” Kara said, using her sleeve to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Mr. Corleone was installing a new gas stove next door after they closed and something went wrong.”

  Sarah’s restaurant shared a wall with Corleone’s, Savannah’s only authentic Italian restaurant. She owned the building and had leased the space to them for the last seven years. They’d mentioned they were installing new appliances to her last week, but she hadn’t realized Mr. Corleone was planning to do the work himself.

  “Was anyone injured in the explosion?”

  Kelsey shook her head. “No, Mr. Corleone and his son were installing the stove after they closed the restaurant so they were the only ones there. They were blown back by the explosion, but other than a concussion and some bruises on Mr. Corleone, both of them are fine.” She nodded toward the emergency vehicles. “Another ambulance took them to the hospital a few minutes ago, just to be sure.”

  They stood together for a minute, watching the water from the firehoses arch over the roof and fall into the building. Manic flames in shapeshifting colors burst out of the window
s on both floors, the glass falling and shattering onto the sidewalk below.

  “There goes the last ten years of my life,” Sara said, the words instantly lost in the deafening wail of the sirens.

  ****

  Sara’s parents had bought the building for her a decade ago as a thinly veiled ploy to keep their openly gay daughter as far from their conservative community as possible. Sara’s decision to go to culinary school embarrassed them, and just before she graduated, her mother pulled her aside and reminded her it wasn’t too late to make something of her life. Both her brother and sister had graduated at the top of their classes and went on to Ivy League universities, but Sara had always struggled with her schoolwork and barely managed to finish high school.

  Luckily, her best friend enrolled in culinary school the summer after high school graduation and convinced Sara to come along, and she’d instantly loved it. After she graduated, she moved from Memphis to Savannah, where her parents offered to buy the building and equipment she needed to open her own small restaurant. It had turned out to be way more work than she’d imagined, but the restaurant slowly gained popularity in the southern fine dining scene and was written up in Food and Wine magazine three years later with the coveted title of Best New Restaurant of the South.

  After the fire, Sara spent a few weeks salvaging anything she could from the charred remnants of the restaurant, which wasn’t much, and sorting through the paperwork for the insurance companies. When the settlement finally arrived and she’d sold the land where the building had been located, she realized she didn’t have a clue what to do next. She’d put in too many hours at the restaurant over the years to have a girlfriend, and none of the occasional flings she’d had with tourists had lasted, not that she’d wanted them to. About a month after the fire, as Sara sat on her porch and watched the last of the fireflies fade into the violet evening light, the thought occurred to her that there might be a silver lining to the situation.

  By the next day, she’d gone through her things, narrowed them down to only essentials, and given away what she couldn’t fit in the back of her truck. She left a check for three months’ rent for the landlord, which fulfilled her lease, and disconnected the utilities. It felt surreal that she could dismantle the entire life she’d built over the last decade so easily, but that quickly became a strange sense of freedom she’d forgotten even existed. Sara stuck her arm out of the window of her truck as she drove out of town, feeling the wind slide smoothly over her hand.

  The drive northwest took three days, but she finally reached Boise, Idaho and stopped for lunch just outside the city before starting the two hour drive up the mountain to McCall. Sara sat on a rest stop picnic table and ate a sandwich she’d bought at a gas station, feeling fairly certain she’d lost her mind. Her plan, if she could even call it that, was to drive into the mountains to a tiny lake town she hadn’t seen since she was fourteen. Her parents had sent Sara and her sister Jennifer to a camp in McCall, Idaho every summer until she’d declared herself too old to have to go and her sister started lifeguarding at the pool in town. She’d never forgotten how beautiful Payette Lake was; the small town was centered around the lake and surrounded by mountains, with community docks where the locals parked when they drove their boats into town. But that’s all she remembered about the place, which really wasn’t enough to go on when uprooting your life, but she figured it was as good a reason as any other. The money from the insurance settlement was enough to buy some real estate and a few months to decide what to do with her now nonexistent career. As she ate the last of the regrettable chicken salad sandwich and tossed the wrapper into a trash bin, all she knew for sure was that she wanted something different.

  When Sara finally reached McCall, she knew the first thing she had to do was find a place to live, and she’d spotted a handwritten notecard at a gas station on her way into town. It was written in pencil and taped onto the notice board with yellowed scotch tape:

  Small cabin available, suitable for a single man only, ask for Mary at the drugstore.

  Sara pulled the card off the board and walked back outside to her truck, shading her eyes from the glaring sun. It was July, and she’d forgotten how bright the sun always seemed to be at higher elevations. Either that or she’d just been trapped in a steam-filled kitchen for the last decade.

  A bell above the door clattered to life as Sara pushed open the glass door of the drugstore. It hadn’t been hard to find. The population of McCall was just over two thousand people, so walking from one end of town to the other took five minutes. A plump older woman behind the counter looked her up and down as she came in.

  “What can I help you with, dear?”

  “I believe you may have a cabin for rent that I may be interested in,” Sara said, “If this is your ad.”

  Sara held up the notecard and the woman put down her coffee and donned her glasses, leaning in to peer at the card as if it was written in a different language.

  “Oh, that,” she said finally. “I’ve been trying to get rid of my husband’s old fishing cabin for ages. I’d almost forgotten about it, to be honest.”

  “Is it still available?” Sara noticed that she wore an apron covered in what looked like flour streaks and cinnamon dust.

  “It’s available,” she said, smoothing her hands over her apron, “But I’d imagine a woman might want something a little less…rustic.” She seemed to consider that for a moment, then stuck out her hand and introduced herself as Mary Parker. “But I’d be happy to show you if you’d like to take a look at it.”

  “I like rustic, actually,” Sara said with a smile. “I don’t need much.”

  That seemed to please Mary and she grabbed a key from the cash register and motioned for Sara to follow. They walked back out into the bright sunlight and Mary locked the door behind them.

  “Where are you parked?” Sara asked, nodding towards her vehicle. “I’d be happy to follow you there, if it’s easier.”

  “Don’t be silly. There’s no sense in taking two cars; it’s only a mile down the road,” Mary said as she walked toward the curb. “You can ride with me.”

  She stopped at a cherry red scooter that sounded more like a Harley Davidson when it roared to life. Sarah didn’t know a lot about motorcycles but she was pretty sure that most scooters didn’t leave the factory with engines like that.

  “What are you waiting for?” She shaded her eyes and cocked her head to one side. “You’re not one of those California people that needs a helmet, are you?”

  Sara hopped on the scooter behind Mary and pulled her hair into a ponytail. “No, ma’am, I’m not.”

  As Mary revved the engine and pulled out onto Main Street, Sara smiled as the wind suddenly swept past her face. McCall was already getting interesting.

  Mary pulled into a gravel drive about a mile later and cut the engine. “I hope I’m not wasting your time. The cabin is solid, nothing wrong with it, but my husband used it as a place to gut fish and drink beer until he passed away last year, so it’s not fancy on the inside.”

  The deep blue lake sparkled in the afternoon sunlight just beyond the cabin. Pine straw covered the stone path to the porch, and as they walked to the door, Sara looked up into the treetops that were shifting and whispering as if they were trying to get a good look at her. Dry leaves littered the porch and wasp nests occupied every corner of the roof above, but a handmade porch swing shifted with the breeze and wind chimes tinkled just above the railing.

  “If you go out the back, there’s a deck that overlooks the lake, and a dock that comes with the cabin if you’ve got a boat,” Mary said, looking over her shoulder at Sara and turning an old brass key in the lock.

  When she opened the door, sunlight beamed into the main room of the cabin, illuminating the dust floating in the still air. An old leather couch sat across from the fireplace, and an antique trunk with leather straps served as the coffee table. A small kitchen with windows that overlooked the lake was just beyond the main living
area, and above that was a loft with a sloping roofline on both sides and a large window on the back wall.

  “There’s a bathroom down the back hall, and the water and electricity are still hooked up. I never did get around to having them disconnected.”

  She opened one of the kitchen windows and a cool breeze from the lake swept into the cabin, lifting the edges of the white flour sack curtains. Mary nodded toward a vintage turquoise refrigerator that looked like it had seen better days.

  “The appliances in the kitchen still work, and that monstrosity just won’t quit, unfortunately.”

  Sara nodded and peered out the kitchen windows at the lake, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight. A square ceramic farm sink with faucets made out of copper pipes sat just underneath them, and scarred oak countertops stretched out on either side.

  “Where are you from, anyway?” Mary asked as she picked up a scattered pile of newspapers on the table. Mismatched chairs sat around the edges like disheveled children.

  “I’m from Memphis, but I’ve lived in Savannah for about ten years.” Sara looked around as she spoke, taking in the collection of old coffee cans next to the woodpile in the corner. “I owned a restaurant that burned down about a month ago, and I guess it kind of left me at loose ends.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Mary looked over at Sara with softer eyes. “It’s hard when your whole life gets turned upside down.”

  “That’s the truth,” Sara said, smiling and running her hand over the cool edge of the ceramic sink. “But this place is perfect for me. I’ll take it.”