Destiny Bay Read online

  SARAH

  ABBOT

  Destiny

  Bay

  LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY

  For Rose Moses-Wilson, beloved grandmother,

  who always celebrated imagination.

  I’ll love you forever.

  And for Andrew,

  with all my heart.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Waking Danger

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  WAKING DANGER

  Ryan stared at her with warlike intensity. “It isn’t wise to wake the ghosts of the past, Miss Lancaster. Especially those that have taken so long to rest, as it is.”

  Abby heard the note of warning in his voice. An infinitesimal recoiling of courage stopped her for a moment. She steeled herself, refusing to let him intimidate her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Are you familiar with the phrase, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’?”

  “Yes.”

  He eyed her steadily. “Then I suggest you heed it.”

  “You won’t be offended if I ignore your advice, I hope?”

  “Not at all,” he said. “Just as long as you’re not offended by what you learn as a result of your nosiness.”

  “I’d hardly call exploring my mother’s past ‘nosy,’ thank you very much.”

  Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Leave. Go home. This isn’t the place for you, just like it wasn’t the place for your mother before you. No one wants you here. And if you’re not careful, you’ll wind up getting exactly what you wish for.”

  Prologue

  Tuesday.

  Glorious Tuesday. Magnificent Tuesday. Fat Tuesday.

  His own, personal, Mardi Gras.

  The Lover licked his lips, breathless with the revelations of the day.

  He had heard the news at precisely 11:45 A.M.—a moment that would live forever in his imagination; the moment in which fate, at long last, had smiled upon him once more.

  The Lover curled into the depths of his shabby armchair, reliving the glorious moment, the magnificent moment, the fat moment that he had heard what he couldn’t have heard, but somehow had …she was coming!

  He’d been gathering his mail at O’Donnell’s Post and Petrol when Mavis O’Donnell mentioned the interesting tidbit she’d heard from her husband, Franklin: Abrielle Lancaster, daughter of Celeste Rutherford, was coming to Destiny Bay—a quest, of sorts, to learn about her long-dead mother.

  Oh, the things he could tell her!

  A veil of perspiration had sprung into instant being when he’d heard the words. Breath had caught in his throat. Mavis had taken one look at him, and said: “My, but you’re pale!”

  He’d dropped his mail, raced to his car, and—when at last he could—put the vehicle in gear and drove home, mouth watering the entire drive as he glutted himself on memories that made his throat squeeze with their richness.

  He felt the memories surge anew within him, as if awakened by the summons of his thoughts. Memories were like that—languishing until resurrected by the dreamer’s invitation to dance across the stage of the mind, ripe for the transforming touch of dark imagination.

  He remembered everything about his lovely Celeste: how she walked, how she looked, the scent of her hair…even after all these years, she was still with him in memory, still with him in spirit.

  Even though his lovely Celeste was long dead, there could be no denying such love as they shared. Not even death could deny what love insisted upon. In the great scheme of things, love was the impetuous, enchanting child, whose desire had only to be voiced to be fulfilled…and death was but the weary disciplinarian, unable to stand firm against love’s unrelenting insistence.

  The Lover drew his finger over the silky feathers of his parakeet, Amore. How long has it been? he asked himself, as if he didn’t know exactly how long it had been since his lovely Celeste left Artist’s Cottage, left Destiny Bay…left him. As if every moment of every day without her hadn’t etched a line upon his heart.

  The deepest of those lines—the one that sometimes gaped so suddenly it made him weak—had come on the blackest day of his life: the night Celeste died.

  He closed his eyes, squeezing away the tears that threatened. He couldn’t go back to that night—to the needless loss of his beloved Celeste.

  At her funeral, he had drifted silently amongst the somber knot of mourners, calm in the face of the terrible pain within him, eyes fixed upon the polished casket as it was lowered into the loamy mouth of Cresthaven Cemetery.

  That was when he’d looked up and seen her: a tiny, fighting baby, swaddled in a pink blanket, struggling against the grasp of her father as he, too, watched Celeste disappear into the earth.

  Celeste’s baby. The last, living testament of her flesh. And anyone with eyes could see that Celeste was strong in her.

  Now, Celeste’s daughter was all grown up, and she was coming to Destiny Bay.

  There could be no doubt that this was Celeste’s sweet magic at work. She was fulfilling her destiny the only way she could—through her daughter, Abrielle…and he would risk anything to claim her.

  Oh, yes. He would court her, would lure her with his matchless love until at last, she remembered who she was—remembered who he was. Until she released herself to him, and the essence of her would purr in the palm of his hand, as lovely and pliable as memory.

  But memories were obedient in a way few people were. It bothered him that there were variables over which he had little or no control, such as the innate character of a woman. Women could be willfully rebellious and utterly foolish…even about things that would bring them nothing but joy. Hadn’t Celeste proved that to him? Hadn’t his mother?

  He stroked Amore with the back of his finger, frowning at the thought.

  In all these years, Amore had been his one consolation, the only soft spot in his soul.

  Like his mother before him, he loved birds. Mother had been able to coax chickadees from the trees to perch on her fingers and feast on the oily black sunflower seeds in the palm of her hand. With her other hand, she would toy absently with his hair, all the while fixated upon the birds, and say, quietly, “See, lovey? All it takes is patience. Good things come to those who wait.”

  But the thought of his mother always made him heartsick, so to distract himself he looked down at the box that lay open on the arm of his chair.

  Reaching within, he lifted the bound strands of Celeste’s long, red hair—so lik
e his mother’s—and inhaled deeply. They draped over his palm, awakened thoughts of other treasures he had carefully gathered so very long ago.

  Looking at Celeste’s hair, it occurred to him that perhaps he had more control than he’d originally thought.

  The Lover smiled. These will be the instruments of her awakening, he thought, the well of satisfaction within him filling up, running over with bounty. These treasures will help Abrielle realize that she was born to be mine…and that I was born to be The Lover.

  Chapter One

  Abrielle Lancaster pulled her rental car onto the gravel shoulder, frowning at the tangled convergence of roads that bloomed in front of her. The fact that this was her third time at this very spot wasn’t exactly reassuring.

  “Who are you kidding, Abby?” she whispered to herself. “Reassuring was a lifetime ago.”

  Or at least a few months ago, before her grandmother died and willed her the house in which six generations of Rutherfords had passed their lives. Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of the gray-haired matriarch of the Rutherford family—the woman who’d shouldered the unexpected task of raising Abby from infancy after the death of her only child, Celeste.

  And now, the house that was always meant to pass to Celeste had passed to Abby.

  Many people would sell their souls for an address within the exclusive, old-moneyed enclave of Regency Park, but Abby wasn’t one of them. It wasn’t that she was ungrateful for the house—it was just that she’d never really liked the house. In fact (though she’d never told her grandmother), she hated the house—hated how the stench of loss seemed to penetrate the very wood. Hated how she had inhaled it into her childhood dreams at night, how it pooled in the hollows of her footprints, scattering a trail of murky puddles upon the green path of privilege that was her past. Hated how it had come to be known as the house of The Accident, The Tragedy, The-Terrible-Thing-That-Happened-To-The-Rutherford-Lancaster-Family. People had many names for it, and in the twenty-eight years since the incident, she was quite certain she’d heard them all.

  Abby closed her eyes, remembered the standard reply to her childhood questions about her mother: “She’s in heaven.” That had been all she’d needed to hear…until she overheard a neighbor whispering that shortly after Abby was born, Celeste Rutherford had jumped to her death from the attic window on the fourth floor. Her broken body had lain on the flagstone terrace until morning, when the cook discovered her, fair and moist with the dew of a new day.

  Abby shuddered. The horror of learning the truth was still as vivid to her as it had been twenty years ago, when she was just eight.

  Her grandparents, when asked, were tight-lipped, and would say only that Celeste had always been “fragile.” Her father—who had been so wounded by Celeste’s death that he held Abby at arm’s length for the rest of his life— refused to discuss the matter at all, and continued refusing right up until his death of a heart attack two years ago.

  Now her father and grandparents had passed on, and all she’d had left of her mother was the striking resemblance she bore to her and the knowledge that her birth hadn’t been enough to keep Celeste here on earth.

  That was all she thought she’d ever have, until the day she decided to clear out her grandmother’s closet. Hidden behind the Chanel suits and Hermès bags, she’d found a painting of her mother, and it was nothing like the formal portrait of her that hung in the library.

  She could still feel the subtle give of the canvas beneath her fingertips; could still envision the light shift delicately over the peaks and valleys of paint that evidenced the artist’s brushstrokes. She could still feel the awe that had swept through her when her eyes met those of her mother’s, staring out of the canvas with such naked longing as to make her bare flesh appear demure, by comparison. And demure, it wasn’t.

  Ample, rounded breasts caught the dappled sunlight, a petal rested in the hollow of her navel. Her thighs were young and strong, rippled with muscle that seemed tense enough to grasp the painter in an unrelenting knot.

  Something about that painting had made Abby feel as if she knew her mother—not the prim, practiced society matron in training that others had professed her to be, but the real woman, whose blood rushed through Abby’s own veins.

  What had brought her mother to this tiny island off the coast of Maine? Who was Douglas McAllister, the artist whose signature was scrawled across the bottom of the portrait? And what was it about this painting that seemed to make Abby’s heart stand still in her chest?

  She’d risked too much to waste a minute, including her job. The three-month leave of absence she’d finally talked Henry Davidson, the CEO of the Pursuits Network, into approving was already four days gone.

  “Do you know what you’re risking?” Henry had asked, as if she didn’t realize every waking minute that no less than three people were breathing down her neck for her job. When he finally realized she wouldn’t be dissuaded, he’d grudgingly relented, saying, “Corinna Williams will assume your responsibilities while you’re gone.”

  Abby had no doubt he’d chosen Corinna because he knew exactly how much she wanted to front Write Away, Abby’s own brainchild.

  Every week, Write Away featured a different novel, and whenever possible, its author. Abby worked painstakingly to re-create the mood and tone of the featured work as her viewers were led on a tour of the locales featured in the novel (or that had inspired the work). Even the music was carefully chosen to reflect the unique flavor of each area. Abby had hosted the show since its inception over three years ago, and was revealed to be a gifted and insightful interviewer.

  “I think you’re making a big mistake, Abby,” Henry had said as she’d left his office. “I’ve never known you to be impulsive.”

  He was right, of course—she’d never been impulsive. Abby swallowed a lump of distress. A pang of remorse followed close on its heels. How many times had she wished she was otherwise? More impulsive, more carefree, more anything.

  Well, she’d officially made the leap.

  Her reputation as a woman of sound judgment and good sense had gone up in smoke. Her friends thought she’d lost her mind. Running off to a tiny island off the coast of Maine in search of a secret that might or might not exist was not something a cautious and sensible woman like Abrielle Lancaster did. A week ago, she would have agreed with them…but that was before she found the painting— and before she experienced the unmistakable certainty that she’d found it for a reason. Somehow it felt good to get away from the competitiveness of her career, the emptiness of her personal life. Like it or not, the painting had led her here, staring at a maze of dirt roads.

  Abby squinted to better read the road names that ran the length of the sign-festooned pole rising in front of her. Peg-leg Lane, Miller’s Pass, Brigantine Way, and right at the bottom: Cragan Cliff Road. She checked her directions.

  Yup, Cragan Cliff Road was the route to Abandon Bluff— the place her mother had once lived with the artist who’d painted the mysterious painting.

  She turned down the bumpy road, anticipation filling her chest. The wind from the open window felt fresh with promise, and she breathed it in, letting the briny breeze blow away her sadness. This was a new beginning for her, and it wasn’t about sorrow.

  Cragan Cliff Road wound along the top of the cliffs like a ribbon of gray. Looking down, Abby saw miles of golden sand mediating the space between the sea and the wall of sandstone that was the cliffs, and just beyond the shore, a colony of seabirds took flight from the skeletal remains of a scuttled ship.

  To her left, gnarled pines clutched meager scraps of earth, crippled by buffeting winds that were their constant companion. She turned with the road—the trees seeming to part before her—and was struck with the impression that an unseen jeweler had lifted a cloth enshrouding the town below, which resembled nothing so much as a gemstone necklace, flung onto the arced bosom of the island.

  A smile tugged at her lips as she saw homes painted violet, t
angerine, turquoise, lime and sunny yellow. The town sparkled through the dissolving mist of morning. No wonder her mother had lived here—it was beautiful!

  Was this what had ignited her mother’s true spirit and allowed the artist to captured it to perfection, or was there something more? Something that might still be there, on the shores she had lain upon?

  That was what Abby had come to Destiny Bay to find: that something that made her mother alive. And perhaps, if she looked hard enough, she might even find the something that led her mother to the east-facing window that terrible night. What was it about this place that made Abby feel secrets were hidden here?

  The portrait was the key, somehow she just knew it. She was more determined than ever to find out what had happened to her mother. Only then could she unlock her own heart—and she was so very tired of looking for that key.

  “I’m coming to find you, Mom,” she whispered, and hit the gas harder, almost feeling her mother’s spirit drifting on the wind. The cottage she’d rented couldn’t be far, now. Feeling suddenly lighter, she flicked on the radio and sang along at the top of her voice. “ ‘Life is a highway, I’m gonna ride it all night long!’”

  She couldn’t take it in fast enough—the color, the light, the diamond sparkle of the sea. She let her gaze flit like a butterfly, landing on a tangle of wildflowers, a deer peeking through the trees, and a hand-painted sign declaring: WORLD’S BEST CLAMS !

  Then her eyes caught a sudden movement—a discordant spring of bracken just off the roadway. She squinted into the velvet green of the roadside forest and gasped.

  A face stared out at her, wild-eyed and grotesque, twisted like the crippled trees that lined the cliffs. The man was looking directly at her, holding her gaze with a malevolent stare that made her blood run cold.

  Abby, his mouth said, grinning wickedly.

  Abby tried to stifle the scream that clawed to escape her throat. When she looked back at the road, the cliff edge was right in front of her—there was no way she could make the switchback turn in time.