The Beachside Bed & Breakfast

Book 0: Moonlight Bay

by Hope Ramsay

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

The local quilting club has matchmaking in mind in this enchanting small‑town romance perfect for fans of Debbie Mason, Sheila Roberts, and RaeAnne Thayne.

Innkeeper Ashley Howland Scott inherited Howland House and the adjacent Rose Cottage from her grandmother. Her grandmother hosted weekly meetings of the local quilting club, and those ladies know all the gossip in town.
 
The new minister, Micah St. Pierre, is the subject of more than his fair share of that gossip. Micah has spent a decade as a Navy Chaplain and his experience in combat has deeply challenged his faith. He’s come back home because he also feels guilty about the way he abandoned his younger brothers and father when they needed him most. 
 
The Quilting Club thinks Micah’s problems can be solved by finding him a wife.  And they have a woman in mind. But despite the fact that Ashley finds him attractive, she closely guards her heart. She loved her husband very much, but his early death has left its mark. She’s also deeply worried about her young son. Jackie clearly needs a male role model, but is Micah St. Pierre the right one?

Release date: August 23, 2022

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 416

Sample

Chapter One

Rev. Micah St. Pierre stood on the sidewalk in front of Bread, Butter, and Beans, staring up at the sign above the coffeehouse, fighting the bright February glare from a cloudless sky. He closed his eyes, the winter sunlight warming his eyelids, promising spring.

But today it would only reach forty-five degrees, according to the weatherman. He took a deep breath, pulling in the crisp air and huffing it out in a cloud of steam. The expansion of his chest brought the tiny box inside his breast pocket tight against his rib cage.

He straightened his shoulders and hesitated, a vague sense of dread squeezing his gut. No, maybe not dread.

Fear.

But of what? He couldn’t decide whether he feared failure or success. He gulped air. He could do this. It would be fine. Besides, it was Valentine’s Day.

He squared his shoulders and strode through the door. The aroma inside the shop—a rich amalgam of coffee, fresh bread, and cinnamon—set his stomach growling. Brooklyn Huddleston’s pastries were the best.

He crossed the small dining area to his regular table near the take-out counter. He’d been coming to breakfast for almost nine months now. It was time.

Brooklyn was waiting for him, although today her dark ponytail seemed tighter than usual, pulling her face taut and almost gaunt. She had the sinewy build of a ballet dancer, with blade-like cheekbones.

“Hi,” she said, hurrying to his table with a cup of coffee and his favorite almond croissant. She placed the cup and plate in front of him, her ponytail swinging.

“Uh, wait,” he said, reaching for her hand and missing.

“I…uh…I’ve got a million customers this morning. It’s Valentine’s Day, and I need to get back to the counter.”

Only then did Micah notice the long line of people ordering coffee and sweets. Brooklyn’s helpers were running around like squirrels on a wheel. Back and forth from coffee machine to counter. Rinse. Repeat.

“Uh, yeah, sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

“That’s an odd thing to say. You didn’t think about it or failed to notice?” she asked.

“Both,” he said, and then regretted his honesty. He needed to move fast before she escaped. If he let her go back behind the counter, he’d have to wait until the morning rush ended. That might be an hour or more, and he had a meeting with the church’s senior warden this morning to discuss the budget for a number of needed church repairs. He hated that part of his job. All the financial planning and begging for donations and dealing with paperwork. All that stuff kept him away from his calling.

“Uh, Brooklyn, there’s something I need to ask you,” he said, standing up, his chair moving back with a loud scrape. He dropped to one knee, the linoleum hard against his kneecap. He fumbled the ring box as he drew it from his pocket. It skittered across the floor and came to rest at Patsy Bauman’s feet.

Oh boy. What a disaster. Patsy was the chairwoman of his altar guild, and was evidently at the coffee shop enjoying a Valentine’s breakfast with her husband, Harry. Harry, a member of the town council and his church’s vestry, bent down and retrieved the red leather box. He handed it back with a wink. “Carry on, Micah.”

But Patsy made a funny noise in the back of her throat that didn’t sound at all encouraging.

“Uh, sorry. Um, Brooklyn,” he said, opening the box to display the antique rose gold diamond ring. “Will you marry me?”

He stared at Brooklyn, searching for joy. Instead her face widened into an expression of…horror? Surprise? Embarrassment?

Wait. This wasn’t right. A smile might have been nice. Maybe a few tears of happy surprise.

But the water forming in her eyes didn’t appear very happy. Maybe it had been a big mistake to surprise her.

She bit her lip and shook her head. “I can’t,” she said in a strangled voice and then hightailed it into the kitchen.

Micah got up off his knee. Numbness crept through him. At the next table, Patsy might have said, “Thank the lord,” under her breath.

He turned toward Patsy and Harry, not seeing them.

“I’m so sorry, Micah.” Harry stepped forward and patted him on the shoulder. “Better luck next time.”

A lot of people were staring now. Boy, he sure had chosen a busy day to humiliate himself.

What the…she’d said no? How was that possible?

He stumbled from the coffee shop out onto the street and headed mindlessly up the hill toward the rectory, where he’d left his car. He crossed Palmetto Street and was halfway down the block when he spied Deputy Ethan Cuthbert checking the newly installed parking meters.

Without thinking, he dug into his pocket for some change—he’d been carrying quarters around for the last three months, ever since the new meters went in—and started pushing coins into each meter as he passed.

It seemed like a good thing to do. A normal thing to do. Something he’d done yesterday.

“Hey,” Ethan called from up ahead. “What are you doing?”

“A kind deed,” he said under his breath.

“Well, stop it. It’s against the rules.”

Micah stopped in his tracks. “What kind of stupid rule is that?”

“It’s the law. You can’t randomly put coins in parking meters.”

“Why not?”

“Because I could arrest you for it.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Yeah, well, the town put the meters in for a reason. It costs good money to maintain Harbor Drive.”

“Okay. So I’m paying for that.”

“But you don’t own these cars.”

Micah bit his lip as a toxic flare of anger burned up the column of his throat. He reflexively swallowed the emotion down. “Well, tough,” he said. “If the town has such a big problem with Good Samaritans, it can come and arrest me anytime.”

He stalked past Ethan, his gut growling with familiar shame and a deep, deep hunger that Brooklyn’s croissants had never truly satisfied.

*  *  *

The aroma of bacon and freshly brewed coffee greeted Ashley Scott the moment she entered the gleaming kitchen at Howland House, her five-star bed and breakfast.

Dad was cooking again.

He’d taken charge of Ashley’s kitchen like the colonel he’d been in the army. But today he wasn’t wearing camo or wielding an M16. No, he’d come dressed for action in a white chef’s apron and carried a pair of tongs. Dad was one of the most competent human beings on the face of the planet. Not only was he cool and collected under fire during breakfast service, he’d momentarily tamed Ashley’s recalcitrant coffee machine.

He was amazing. And now he was burying himself in this job so he wouldn’t have to think about losing Mom. Ashley’s mother had died suddenly last December from pancreatic cancer. She’d suffered a DVT clot in her leg on Thanksgiving Day, and while in the hospital, she’d been diagnosed. She’d died right before Christmas.

Mom and Dad had been living in Kansas at the time. They had settled there after Dad had retired from the army in order to take care of Granny Horning, Ashley’s maternal grandmother. But Granny had passed a year ago at the ripe age of ninety-six. Mom and Dad had been planning to do some traveling and had purchased tickets for a much-put-off a trip to Paris. Mom’s death had ended all those dreams and plans.

Dad had lost interest in traveling. Instead, he’d put the Kansas house up for sale and returned to Magnolia Harbor, his hometown. He’d moved into the cottage behind Howland House in mid-January.

In the few weeks since, he’d invaded Ashley’s kitchen, taken over the inn’s webpage, and generally meddled in her business decisions. It was annoying as hell, but she let him get away with it because it was his way of coping with a catastrophic loss. Mom and Dad would have celebrated their forty-fifth wedding anniversary this June.

She resented his meddling sometimes, but she also appreciated his help. It freed up time for her to spend on other interests and eliminated the need to hire extra help during the weekdays.

“So you’ve got it all covered, I see,” she said, taking her apron down from a peg. It was covered with daffodils and a quote from a poet. She tried to make her voice as sunny and bright as the flowers. She longed for the spring to get here already.

“Well, I didn’t start biscuits,” Dad said, turning with a gleam in his big, dark eyes. Dad had recently turned seventy-three but a lifelong commitment to fitness gave him a much younger vibe. He still ran five miles every day, and he’d never lost that tall, square-shouldered stance of a military man. “I am not about to try to re-create Mother’s recipe.” He winked and continued. “And just so you know, my heart fills with pleasure at the very sight of you this morning.” His mouth curled at the corner.

He was paraphrasing the Wordsworth quote on her apron. “Thanks, Dad.” It was kind of nice the way he always greeted her with love every morning. She’d been living alone, except for the guests, ever since Grandmother died. Adam, her husband, had been killed in Afghanistan almost six years ago.

She crossed to the industrial-sized fridge. “Speaking of daffodils, you think they’re ever going to bloom this spring? It’s only a few weeks until people will start booking rooms for the daffodil festival. They better be up and dancing the first week of March, or people will post unhappy reviews on Yelp.”

“I see you’re in a full-out February funk,” he said.

She refrained from pointing out that today was Valentine’s Day, and she was alone, because the same could be said of Dad. Maybe Dad hadn’t checked the calendar this morning, and Ashley didn’t want to be the one to remind him of their shared loneliness.

She got busy making biscuits the way her grandmother had. She had just started to combine the dry ingredients with flakes of butter she kept on hand in the freezer when her eleven-year-old son, Jackie, came rushing down the stairs.

Jackie had started to shoot up in the last few months, and he’d gotten that rail-thin look of a boy growing too fast. This morning, his school uniform was more disheveled than usual. How did the boy manage to wrinkle his polyester, no-iron pants? He took the last three steps in a single bound, raced around the kitchen island, and helped himself to several pieces of bacon while simultaneously dodging his grandfather’s attempt at a hug.

“Mom, Reverend St. Pierre is coming up the walk. I saw him from my bedroom window. You think he’s coming to breakfast?”

“The preacher is coming to breakfast?” she asked, suddenly worried that she might appear as disheveled as her son. She stomped on that thought. It had been months—almost a year—since The Rev had come to breakfast. He’d been courting Brooklyn Huddleston.

Jackie chomped down on a second piece of bacon and headed toward the dining room door. “Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll greet the preacher and find out what he wants for breakfast. My guess is oatmeal, same as me,” he said. He flew through the door, leaving it flapping behind him.

“I wonder how he manages to get creases in the back of his pants that way?” Dad asked.

“It’s a mystery,” Ashley said, trying to quell the urgent beat of her heart. Why had The Rev come to breakfast? She stifled the urge to follow Jackie and pepper the minister with questions. Everyone in town knew he was courting Brooklyn. It didn’t make sense for him to show up here, especially on Valentine’s Day.

Dad glanced at the clock. “The minister knows that breakfast doesn’t start for another twenty minutes, right?”

“Reverend St. Pierre used to come to breakfast all the time. And usually showed up earlier than most.” Ashley plopped the biscuit dough onto the counter and began rolling it, adding layers of butter.

“Oh?” Dad drew out the word until it became a question, and his eyebrow arched.

“Dad, it’s like a tradition around here that we feed the ministers. You know how Grandmother was.”

“Yes, I do.” He gave her a full-on daddy look. “And you are not your grandmother. I loved Mother, but she was insufferably stubborn and blind about some things.” He aimed his bacon tongs in her direction. “Just saying.”

Dad had joined the army against Grandmother’s wishes, and during Ashley’s childhood they visited Magnolia Harbor only sporadically, usually when Dad was off on some deployment. Dad and Grandmother had issues.

After Adam died, Dad had been coolly furious with Ashley for accepting Grandmother’s invitation to come stay for a while. But at the time, it only seemed fair, since Granny Horning had Mom and Dad, and Grandmother lived alone.

Although in reality, Grandmother wasn’t lonely. She had friends, her quilting circle, all kinds of civic activities, and Heavenly Rest Church, which the Howland family had helped to establish hundreds of years ago.

Grandmother hadn’t desperately needed Ashley, but she’d given her a place to stay and heal. When Grandmother died unexpectedly two years later, she left everything to Ashley, not Dad. The legacy had come with its own problems. Howland House had been in desperate need of repair, and Ashley didn’t have the funds to fix it. But thanks to an angel investor, she’d been able to get a small business loan and had turned the old family compound into a bed and breakfast.

Grandmother had given her so much more than a place to stay. She’d given her a future.

Jackie slammed through the dining room door again, popping his head into the kitchen. “The Rev wants biscuits and gravy. And a cup of coffee,” he announced.

“What?” Ashley finished cutting out the first batch of biscuits for the day and started placing them on a baking sheet. “Not oatmeal?”

“He says he’s especially hungry today,” Jackie said.

*  *  *

Micah sat at Ashley’s group dining table, studying his hands and wondering if he should have driven down to the new Starbucks across the street from City Hall. Coming here was a mistake.

But somehow his feet had carried him up the hill and right to Ashley’s door, where the scent of bacon hung in the air. It was safe here.

He could eat his emotions, even if he couldn’t quite describe what they were. Humiliation and shame, surely. Anger at Ethan Cuthbert’s stupidity and the idiocy of the town council for putting in the parking meters? Relief? Wow. Maybe he was relieved.

The swinging door to the kitchen whooshed, and Ashley appeared. His emotions teetered on yet another precipice. Anger melted away, leaving him with a deep longing to cross the distance between them and smooth the frown that rode Ashley’s forehead. Maybe he could make her smile, and it would reach all the way to her dark eyes.

But today the perpetual sadness hovered there.

The rumors about Howland House were right. It was haunted…by the ghost of Ashley’s late husband.

Ashley paused by the door, coffee carafe poised while she studied him. Thank the Lord she didn’t have X-ray vision, because she might be surprised by the direction of his thoughts.

Most likely, the Magnolia Harbor grapevine had already alerted her to the disaster at Bread, Butter, and Beans, and that explained her hesitation.

“Good morning,” he said, trying to sound normal.

“Good morning, Reverend St. Pierre,” she said, using his formal title. “Jackie told me that you wanted biscuits and gravy. It’ll take a minute. The biscuits just went into the oven.”

She crossed the room with a hip-swinging walk he was professionally required to ignore. Her familiar scent—a rich floral amalgam that rivaled her famous rose garden—captured him the moment she leaned close to fill his coffee cup.

He inhaled that scent and held it in his lungs for a long moment. This was torture. He needed to stop. Tomorrow he would make his own darn breakfast.

He braced for some remark indicating that she’d heard all about what had happened at Bread, Butter, and Beans. Instead she cocked her head, the frown deepening a fraction. “Are you okay?”

Maybe she didn’t know yet. And maybe he hid his emotions too well. He put on a smile that rivaled hers for its lack of depth. “I’m fine. I just had a hankering for a real breakfast.”

A tiny moat of light shone in her eyes, the lower lids bending upward, deepening a few laugh lines. At the same time, her grin melted into something more sincere. “You’re always welcome here, Rev.”

Chapter Two

Jackie hung back, leaning against the school’s brick wall. The other boys were playing kickball, but not him. He hated kickball. He was no good at it.

He would much rather be inside, instead of leaning against this rough wall with his hands freezing because he’d lost his mittens. If Mr. Helme found him here hiding behind the big magnolia at the edge of the playground, he’d be in trouble. Recess was supposed to be for kids to run around and play outside.

He preferred reading.

Which he was managing to do, even if he was tucked away in this corner in the shade by the tree. He’d sneaked the library book out of his cubby because it was really good. Ghostology had a wealth of cool information about ghosts, hauntings through history, and the stuff a ghostologist needed to study unusual phenomena.

And Captain William Teal, a pirate who had once sailed Moonlight Bay, had been haunting the old live oak behind Mom’s bed and breakfast for centuries, probably ever since he drowned in the big hurricane of 1713. Jackie had encountered the ghost when he first moved to the house, back when Great-Grandmother was still alive.

Mom didn’t believe the captain was real. Most grown-ups didn’t. They all said the ghost was a figment of his imagination. And also that he’d invented the ghost because Dad had died when he was little. He didn’t believe any of that.

But he was worried because the captain didn’t come to talk with him as often as he’d used to. Jackie hated to think that he was “growing out” of his ghost, as Mom would say. The ghost was real. How could he grow out of it?

Jackie had come to believe that the ghost only showed himself to kids. And since he was growing up—almost twelve now—the ghost was having a harder time appearing. Jackie worried about that. Not the growing-up part, but the ghost being stuck alone.

He wanted to find a way to send the ghost into the light, or over to the other side, or whatever. The ghost hunters had lots of descriptions for where ghosts go when they finally retire from haunting.

Ghostology also had a lot of information about contacting ghosts through séances and other stuff like that. So he was deep into studying it when someone found his hiding spot.

“Hey, Jackie, whatcha doing back here?” The voice was deep.

Jayden Walsh had found him. Crap. Jayden stood a foot taller than Jackie and outweighed him by a lot. The kid should have been in seventh grade, but everyone knew Jayden had been held back a year when he’d been little. If he’d ever been little. Now Jayden was a freaking giant like his daddy was. And Jayden’s daddy had played football for Clemson, which made him a hero. Everyone said he was going to grow up and become a linebacker like his daddy was.

“Reading again?” Jayden asked in a singsong voice that grated up and down Jackie’s spine. “Whatcha got, asswipe?” He lunged and ripped the library book from Jackie’s hands.

“Give that back,” Jackie said.

Jayden roughly thumbed through the pages. “You still on that ghost thing? You’re such a jerk, Scott.”

Just then, several of the boys who hung with Jayden came through the magnolia. Now Jackie was outnumbered, not that it mattered much since Jayden was a beast.

“Please give me back the book. It’s from the library.”

“Oh, it’s from the library,” Jayden said in a high, mocking tone. “And look here, Liam, it’s got stories about haunted ships.” He turned to show one of the boys the page with the pictures of the haunted pirate ship.

“Hey, Scott, I heard they sent you to see a shrink because of crap like this. Does your momma know you took this book out from the library?”

As a matter of fact, he had not mentioned the book to anyone, mostly because Granddad would give him a lecture about the ghost and telling stories that weren’t true. In some ways, Granddad was worse than Jayden and his pack of bullies.

But Jackie figured it was okay to have this book because Mrs. Wilson, the librarian, had specifically pulled it from the shelves when he’d told her he needed to do research on ghosts. Mrs. Wilson was helping him figure out what he needed to know in order to help the ghost.

“Please. Give it back,” Jackie said. His voice shook a little.

“No.” Jayden gave him a wicked grin and then started ripping pages from the library book.

That did it. Something deep inside Jackie snapped. Maybe Granddad wouldn’t approve of him reading this book. Maybe he hadn’t told Mom about it. Maybe he was a jerk for believing the inn was haunted. But Mrs. Wilson would have his ass if he returned that beautiful book all torn up.

Ripping up a book—any book—was the most horrible thing he could think of, so he had to stop Jayden. No matter what.

“Stop it,” he yelled. Then he charged at the bigger boy, aiming low for his legs because Cousin Topher, who had also played football in college, had once told him the legs were the weakest place.

And sure enough, he toppled Jayden back. The bigger boy fell hard against the magnolia, knocking his head against the trunk and then hitting it again when he landed on the ground. Jayden didn’t get up. He just lay there groaning like he was really hurt. Good.

Jackie felt almost no remorse for tackling him. And he didn’t wait around for Jayden’s friends to retaliate. He grabbed the book and tried to pick up the pages that Jayden had tossed on the ground. But a wind came along and scattered then, and then Mr. Helme discovered them. Before Jackie could say one word about Jayden, Liam accused Jackie of ripping up the book. He even told Mr. Helme that Jayden had tried to stop Jackie but Jackie had attacked him. Mr. Helme believed Liam because all of Jayden’s friends ganged up and lied.

So Jackie ended up spending the next forty-five minutes in the principal’s office. Which was bad. But it was even worse when Granddad showed up to “deal with this situation.” Granddad gave him the expected lecture about the book, not only its destruction but its subject matter.

And worse yet, Granddad believed Liam’s lie, too. Even though Jackie had tried to tell him the truth. It was as if Granddad truly thought he was the kind of kid who would rip up a book. Mom would never have believed that. But she hadn’t come. She’d sent Granddad instead.

*  *  *

Valentine’s Day was a bust for Ashley. She was alone, missing Adam, and Jackie had been suspended from school. And Dad, in a spectacular overreach, had taken it upon himself to impose punishments on Jackie without first consulting with her.

This is what she got for leaving him in charge while she ran off to the grocery store.

He should have called her. She should have been the one facing off with Mrs. Thacker, the principal who had first suggested that Jackie needed counseling because of his obsession with the ghost of Captain Teal. Ashley and Edith Thacker had had more than one run-in over the years.

But no, she’d been cut right out of the discussion. And now her mood verged on incendiary as she strolled down Harbor Drive to Patsy Bauman’s house for the weekly meeting of the Piece Makers, the quilting group originally founded by her grandmother.

She should have canceled tonight, but if she’d stayed at the inn for one minute longer she might have picked a screaming fight with Dad. And that would not have solved anything.

It was easier to breathe out here in the cold. She stopped a block from Patsy’s house and gazed out at the bay, dark this time of evening, the soft lap of the water against the shore deep and lo. . .