The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane

Book 5: Miramar Bay

by Davis Bunn

Genres: Christian Romance; Religious & Inspirational

Synopsis

From the New York Times bestselling author of Tranquility Falls comes a heart-stirring novel of secrets, starting over, and a love that could be one man's road to redemption . . .Sometimes life flips the script . . . Billy Walker is a North Carolina boy whose Hollywood star is beginning to shine. His rough past is in the rear view. Now seeing the world from the back seat of a limousine, Billy has no regrets about what he had to do, and the choices he made, to get there. But all it takes is one death-defying moment for Billy's world to shift. When an on-set accident leaves him shaken, plagued by haunting dreams, he's in desperate need of a rest cure. Given keys to a getaway cottage on Lighthouse Lane in Miramar Bay, he'll regroup, relax, and recover. Yet as Billy's dreams grow darker and more fearful, his only promise for light is in a stunning, mysterious, and uniquely gifted stranger . . .And your next act is rewritten . . . Mimi has never forgotten her tragic childhood in eastern Ukraine. Violence, a vanished family, abandonment, and a hard-won struggle to escape. Miramar Bay couldn't be a more beautiful or unexpected refuge. In yoga and dance, and imbued with a talent to read the unrestful visions of others, Mimi has a seemingly divine ability to comfort. She may be everything Billy desires, but Mimi knows what Billy needs. He must confront his troubling past—and not just in his dreams. As their connection deepens, Billy finds himself falling in love, and waking up to something he's never felt before. But when the real world comes calling again, how can he say goodbye to a woman who's changing his life one illuminating sunrise at a time? Poignant, powerful, and surprising, The Cottage on Lighhouse Bay is a love story for every wounded heart that hoped for a second chance.

Release date: April 27, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 238

Sample

The best day and the worst day of Billy Rose Walker’s life began the hour before dawn. When his mother entered Billy’s dream and sang to him.

In his younger days, such dreams about his mother had haunted any number of Billy’s nights. His grandmother, Ada Rose, used to call night’s close the loneliest hour. It was when spirits became restless, and not just those laid in God’s green earth. A body burdened with illness, Ada used to say, was most threatened in the dark hour before dawn. Bonds holding body and spirit together were weakest then. The temptation to just slip away and leave behind all the hardship and the hurt was too much for some.

Billy rose from his bed and washed his face and stood waiting for his mother’s voice to go silent. The last time he’d suffered from dreams of his mother had been in the months after Ada passed. But that was almost ten years ago. Billy told himself it was the result of too many hard-fought days, working for a man who hated the sight of him, and decided to go for a daybreak run.

Eleven years ago, Billy graduated from the UNC-Asheville theater program. He followed this with two and a half years in local theater and modeling around the Southeast. When he had six months’ living expenses saved, he packed up his dreams and his meager belongings and set out for LA. Eight and a half tough years later, he was still clawing his way up the Hollywood ladder’s lower rungs.

They were shooting a romantic drama in El Paso. Billy’s character was the only son of an oil and cattle baron. The lady was a distinctly Latina beauty, and a US citizen. And a lawyer fighting for the rights of local undocumented workers. Which brought her into direct conflict with Billy’s family and all their interests. The drama was heightened by corrupt cops bribed by the Juárez cartels. There were some solid action sequences, enough humor to make the jaded crew laugh, and a jalapeño-spiced love story. Every day on set, Billy heard somebody predict the film might have legs.

Billy returned to his room, showered, dressed, had a smoothie for breakfast, and was downstairs in time to watch the crew bus arrive.

Billy slipped into his customary seat next to Trevor, the assistant director. He slid his pack under the seat and nodded hellos to a few of the crew. He liked the team for the most part. Seven weeks into an eight-week shoot, four days off for Christmas, there were clear patterns of camaraderie and friction. Most of the crew members welcomed Billy and made room for him in their conversations. That wasn’t usually the way between principal actors and the others on set. A lot of the time, stars kept to the LA attitude, talking exclusively to their publicist and their agent and the director and their stylist and the rest of their tight little clique.

Just as often, though, union guys living on the clock created the hostility. At the end of every shoot, the crew accepted their paychecks and were off to the next gig, if they were lucky. Their attitude went something like, the only reason those jokers standing in the lights take home the big bucks was because the behind-camera team spent fourteen or sixteen hours each day busting their humps. Billy knew for a fact this attitude was well justified. So he went out of his way to learn their names and show appreciation for all they did.

Billy saw how Trevor remained slumped back, eyes closed, wincing at the light flashing through the side window. “Rough night?”

Trevor drank from his go-cup without lifting his head from the seat or opening his eyes. “I’m so hungover, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it.”

“You don’t drink.”

“Crying shame how I’ve got to feel this way without regretting the night before.” Another sip. “How far did you run?”

“Five miles. Not far, not fast.”

Trevor took another sip. “Big scene today. You ready to fall in love?”

“I been head over heels for the lady since our first day on set.”

Trevor’s assistant and a young intern were seated across from Billy. They had the day’s sequencing sheets spread out across both their laps. They were long accustomed to Trevor’s slow and sullen start to every day. Both of them laughed without lifting their gazes from the time grid. Even Trevor cracked a smile. Billy’s love interest and co-star was a Latina beauty named Consuela Adler. Connie had proven herself to be a monumental pain.

Billy assumed that was it for the morning chatter. He settled back and enjoyed the late January morning’s crisp desert quality. El Paso was not a pretty city, but Billy found himself fascinated by the region. He had used his free days to drive one of the set’s rental cars into the hill country and hike. The hotel’s deputy manager was a bearded local in his twenties. He was a fanatic about his homeland, a proud Texan who hunted in season and knew all the region’s trails by name. He kitted Billy out with detailed cartographic maps and took genuine pleasure in talking Billy through the arroyos and the vegetation and the legends. The highway connecting their hotel to the day’s shoot rounded the city’s downtown section, bringing them close enough to the neighboring hills for Billy to almost taste the sage and creosote and heat.

Billy was mentally working on his next trail day when Trevor said quietly, “There’s been talk.”

“Good or bad?”

Trevor balanced a ham-sized hand. “Could go either way.”

Trevor was not a man known for dealing in rumors. Billy slipped farther down in his seat, as far as his six-two frame allowed. When his knees dug into the seat ahead of him and his head was almost lined with Trevor’s, he said softly, “Tell me.”

Trevor Culley was a massive African American whose voice could stop traffic in the next county. This morning, however, Trevor said quietly, “Got a call from a buddy late last night. Senior exec at the studio. Claims Harrowgate is in trouble and sinking fast.”

Harrowgate was what the industry called a tentpole feature, a major project with a production budget topping seventy million dollars. Tentpole films anchored the summer and Christmas seasons, and basically drove the studio’s bottom line. A failure of this size could push the studio into the red for the year. “This is real?”

“My pal says so.”

“Two questions,” Billy said. “Why does he think this is important enough to call you in the middle of the night? And what does that have to do with us?”

“Those are good questions,” Trevor said.

Billy gave his friend a couple of minutes, then elbowed the well-padded ribs. “Talk.”

“Seems a number of senior execs have started dropping by and watching our dailies.”

That pushed Billy straighter in his seat. “Whoa.”

“They’ve got to find something to fill that vacuum. There’s talk we just might be what they’re looking for.” Trevor opened one eye. “You do understand what something like this could do to your career.”

Billy opened his mouth, but no sound came.

Since coming to LA, Billy reckoned he had gone up for somewhere around four hundred auditions. Four hundred times he’d amped up his hopes and his drive, burnished his image, smiled his best, sounded bright and excited, and worked his hardest to win the prize. Four hundred auditions had netted him eighty-one parts. Thirty-nine of them in commercials. Most of the rest were walk-on roles, a few lines of dialogue. The bigger the budget, the smaller his face time. This was just his seventh film where he’d had a starring role, and the very first which had more than a TV-sized budget. Eleven million dollars. Small potatoes for a studio feature. But still.

It actually caused Billy a pain in his gut to think this might truly mark a real chance.

Trevor showed Billy a gentle smile. The way Billy had seen him watch his twin girls. Knowing a lot more than he would ever be able to put into words. Trevor then addressed him by his stage name. “You’re going to be just fine, Billy Rose.”

Billy’s throat was suddenly so tight it was hard to breathe. Much less swallow. “What are you going on about?”

Trevor turned back to the road ahead. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Mimi Janic dreamed of the burning house.

She had not been woken by that dream for years. Certainly not since she had arrived in the United States at age nine. During her final months in eastern Ukraine, however, she had smelled those flames at least a couple of times every week. These days, when she thought of it at all, the dream was part of the long, lonely months after they separated Mimi from her sister. The last living member of her immediate family. Gone forever.

Sometimes in the fire dream, Mimi was a child of five or perhaps six. Tonight, though, she was an infant standing in her crib. She grasped the railings with her small hands and watched as burning cinders flickered and fell all around her. There was a distinct beauty to the moment, and a mystery, like she watched a fairy tale come to life. But there was no fear. Somewhere in the distance she heard faint shouts and screams. But they could not touch her there in her crib.

The cinders flickered as they fell, surrounding her in an elven glow that illuminated her crib and nothing else. She heard herself laugh and saw her hand reach out to try and catch one.

Then she looked up and saw flames rushing across the ceiling. Suddenly the room was filled with a hungry roar and . . .

Mimi opened her eyes and lifted her hands, checking for burns from the cinders. It was a gesture from her childhood, as much as the lonely aching void that surrounded her racing heart.

She rose from the bed and checked the time. She was not due at the school where she taught for another three hours. She used the bathroom and made a cup of tea and packed her day clothes into a canvas shoulder bag. Then she dressed in tights and a sweatshirt and set out.

The dawn street outside her little apartment was breathless and still. As she crossed the park with the children’s playground, a lone bird woke up and chirped sleepily. Mimi loved these moments, when the town of Miramar was almost hers to claim.

She let herself into the studio where she taught three Pilates classes each week. She hoped someday to teach dance as well, when her schedule permitted. Mimi had discovered Pilates and dance and yoga her first year in university. They had framed happy time in her life. She had used them almost daily to build a temporary shelter from such things as dreams. She still did.

Mimi had never actually witnessed the burning house. It had taken place while she was asleep. She had woken up the next morning, walked into the kitchen, and joined her mother and younger sister at the back window, staring at the smoldering ruins of their neighbors’ home.

Back then, the Russians had not yet started their invasion into eastern Ukraine. Instead, they supplied local paramilitaries with weapons and training. Her father was a surgeon who had treated wounds on both sides of the clandestine war. That was probably why he had been made to vanish. Despite three years of searching, Mimi’s mother had never discovered what had happened to her husband. Some of Mimi’s worst dreams involved finding her father in one of the mass forest graves.

She entered the studio, turned on all the lights, and crossed the floor to the music system set into the wall alcove. She slipped the thumb drive from her pocket and inserted it into the USB port. She had been introduced to fusion jazz by the family who had brought her to America. George Benson’s rendition of “On Broadway” filled the room. She turned up the volume loud enough to banish the dark thoughts. She walked to the bar running the length of the mirrored sidewall and stretched slowly, pushing away the dream’s last lingering tendrils.

When she was ready, she danced.

Mimi had attended Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, because they were the only school outside Los Angeles that had offered her a full ride. She stayed on for a master’s and might have gone further, but her student loans were piling up and the system did not offer even a partial scholarship for doctoral students in education. She did not mind nearly as much as she might have expected. By then, Mimi had politely severed her ties to the family in Los Angeles, and she was ready to strike out on her own.

California required those studying education on state scholarships to work a couple of years at some assigned location. The graduating student could apply for a particular post, but it was very rarely granted. Mimi had spent two semesters as a student teacher and another doing graduate research in Miramar. She had fallen in love with the region and the locals. She had written the town’s name in the appropriate blank space on her application, knowing there was no chance of it happening. If her life had taught her anything, it was that dreams came true for other people. Never for her.

But the recent COVID crisis had left the state’s education system in disarray. And when her assignment came through, Mimi found herself being directed to move the seventy or so miles north, where she was to teach middle school.

That first year, Mimi kept waiting for the ax to fall. Even now, two years later, she still occasionally feared some official in a gray suit might step forward and inform her that a terrible mistake had been made. That she had actually been assigned to the Lompoc state prison.

Two years was a long enough period to reveal any number of flaws and hidden fissures in the region. Even so, the reasons to love Miramar just kept mounting.

Like today.

In the midst of the COVID crisis, the school counselor had taken early retirement. Mimi had minored in counseling through both her undergraduate and graduate days, so she requested the job. She found the prospect of helping students with personal problems both appealing and terrifying. Especially since she had so many unresolved issues of her own. Two years on, Mimi had come to love the balance of teaching and this more intimate connection to some students. And to her constant surprise, they seemed to love it as well.

This year she taught fifteen hours each week and spent the remaining periods counseling. Her sign-up sheet was usually filled a week or so in advance. After lunch that day she entered the school’s administrative offices and found her first student already waiting. The name on her sign-up sheet was Linh Nguyen. As Mimi walked over, the principal stepped into her open doorway. Mimi waited to see if she was being summoned, but the older woman just watched her. As did Yolinda, the assistant principal. When no one spoke, Mimi said, “Linh? Good morning. Won’t you come inside?”

Her office was a tiny afterthought positioned at the back of the administrative section. Mimi suspected it had originally served as a closet. Her first day, Mimi had pushed the battered desk under the tiny window, opening up the central space as much as possible. A small side table held a box of tissues and a vase of daffodils. A number of her repeat students brought flowers. “How can I help you?”

Linh Nguyen was an awkward thirteen, small for her age, but growing into what Mimi thought would soon become a delicate beauty. “My brother died.”

“When was this, Linh?”

“Over two years ago, almost three.”

“How are you and your family holding up?”

“My father is gone, too. Six years now. My mother, she is so sad. And some days . . .”

Mimi lifted the box of tissues and offered them to the student. “Sometimes it feels like your mother isn’t there, is that what you mean?”

“Like she can’t see me.”

“Like she is too busy searching for her son who is gone.”

“She turns away from the lights, like it hurts her eyes.” Linh’s voice was a musical whisper now. “She won’t look at me.”

“It hurts her to see you alive and well,” Mimi said, remembering.

“I hear stories,” Linh said. “About how you see things.”

Mimi hesitated. This was the first time her other activities had come up during school hours. She knew from numerous comments that many of the other teachers knew. Perhaps all of them. She had to be very careful here. “What do you mean by that, Linh?”

“I work in my uncle’s café. I hear other women say how you can see what is not there.” Linh began shredding her tissue. “I am hoping you will speak with my mother.”

“Is that your mother asking, or you?”

“I tell her what I hear.” Linh’s accent grew more pronounced. “She looks at me. Truly looks.”

“I need to be certain that your mother actually wants this to take place. Not you.”

“She wants. She needs. I know this.”

“Where is your uncle’s café?”

“On the Coastal Road.”

“I know it. If she agrees, we can meet there Saturday afternoon at two. Wait, I’m not done. I don’t speak with the dead, Linh.” Mimi spoke firmly, but softly. “Your mother needs to accept this before we meet.”

Linh’s expression was unreadable. Mimi could not tell whether she accepted the statement as truth, or if perhaps she simply decided that further pressing would not help. Or if it mattered one way or the other.

Mimi asked, “Does your mother speak English?”

“Some. A little. Not so good.”

“Then another adult must be there to interpret. No student can participate. This means you should not be present. I must maintain a complete separation between my work here in the school and this other element of my life.”

“My aunt, she will do this. She is as worried as me.” Linh started to add something more, then stopped.

“Was there something else you wanted to speak with me about?”

“I hear you take the sad walk with some students. To the point.”

“I have never heard it called that before,” Mimi said. “ ‘The sad walk.’ I think it’s lovely.”

“It is true, yes?”

When Mimi first settled in Miramar, a number of students returned to school with new and aching voids in their families. California’s central coast had seen more than its share of COVID-related deaths. In those early therapy sessions, Mimi had found herself confronting young hearts broken and lives shattered by loss and fear. In the midst of another sleepless night, she had recalled her own early distress. How hard it was to have no grave to visit. These people had the grave, and yet it did not fill the void.

Which was when she had the idea.

The next day she had spoken with the four students who worried her the most. And suggested they take a walk together. She had decided not to call it a pilgrimage. The word was too alien to the California spirit. To her utter astonishment, all had agreed immediately. As if they all had just been waiting for her to come up with the idea.

That next Saturday the five of them had walked the long lane leading out to Lighthouse Point. They had stood together on the rocky promontory, and at Mimi’s urging each of the students had spoken a few words, addressing the wind and the ocean and the empty air, offering a soft and tearful good-bye to the dearly departed.

By that following Friday eight other students had approached her, asking if they might come. Assuming she would take another such walk. Which she did, of course. And when they gathered in the parking lot, she found all of the original students there as well.

The second astonishment was how good it made her feel. Not just for getting it right with these young people, but for herself. As if she had finally found a release of her own. After all these years.

Two years later, Mimi still took those walks once each month. The act had cemented her place in the community. Families often stopped her on the street or in stores, wanting to thank her for the difference she made in young lives. Sorrow, she discovered, was the great leveler.

It was in one such conversation that she first heard how Lighthouse Point had become renamed. The first few times she heard it, she had no idea what they were talking about. Nowadays the people who stopped her used its new name, Cape Farewell.

Mimi told the student, “We go this coming Saturday.”

“I can come?”

“You would be most welcome.”

“My mother too?”

“This walk is only for students. It helps them feel free to speak what is on their hearts.” When she was certain Linh had accepted this, she said, “I ask these students to meet with me for another three sessions of counseling after their first walk. But this is not required. Would you be willing?”

Linh nodded. “I am so sad when I think about Tranh.”

“Tranh was your late brother’s name? Sometimes feeling sad is a necessary part of the healing process. It becomes a question of how to move beyond the sorrow. Perhaps I can help you make that transition.” When the student did not object, Mimi said, “Tell me, what is your most vivid memory of your brother?”

That day they were shooting a protest gathering, a pivotal moment in the romance between Billy and his co-star. Connie Adler was a big name throughout much of South America, both as a model and as the star of a massively successful telenovela. This was her first Hollywood role. Connie spoke English with a distinctly Latina flavor. She was, in a word, stunning. The day she arrived, all the males on set and some of the women had been positively arrested by the sight of her. Just the same, Billy was not certain she would make it in Hollywood. Her actions were too theatrical, big gestures and fake emotions and all the other traits learned during six years of doing Mexican soaps. She argued and she resisted whenever the director instructed her to tamp things down. She threw monumental tantrums over being required to repeat takes.

Billy suspected the tirades had a second motive. They kept the director and visiting studio execs focused on her. Everyone worked to soothe her. They shifted things around to suit her every whim. They did their best to make her feel like the entire project, if not the whole world, revolved around her. Most actors in Billy’s position would have thrown a fit of their own, being sidelined like that. But he was more than content with how things were. Billy had two reasons of his own for playing like he was just another supporting actor.

For one thing, everybody on set knew he was doing his best to keep things running on schedule. Billy had cut his teeth standing just one notch outside the shadows. Being nearly forgotten, except when he was in front of the camera.

And then there was the other reason.

On most sets the work atmosphere and the emotional mood were both established by the director. Nowadays a growing proportion of directors thrived on harmony. They were the ones who tended to get hired again. Investors preferred to visit a set and see a happy team, humming along in synch, everyone certain they were making a great film.

But this was not always the case.

Vince Edwards thrived on tension. Billy had studied several of his films and considered him a near genius. Even so, Vince had never managed to reach the highest levels. Which Vince clearly thought he deserved.

Vince’s tactics were the stuff of legends. At the start of every shoot, Vince took aim at someone. Actor, set designer, sound technician, it didn’t matter. Sometimes it was because of a mistake; other times Vince detected a bad attitude only he could see. These victims were instantly sent packing. Because his habits were so well known, agents insisted on full payment if their client became Vinc. . .