Read Online Lavender Beach by Vickie McKeehan - Free Book Online Page A

with my grandpop, wishing I could be somewhere else other than home, anywhere else. It kept me from going off the deep end. To this day, I can still see my father’s body lying in the sand, what his face looked like, how grayish white Miss Caldwell’s skin appeared.”
    “We’ve both seen horrific things. No one blames you for something you were forced to do by an adult who should’ve known better, certainly your family doesn’t blame you. Everyone understands that you were a small child following directions from a warped female.”
    “Eleanor Richmond was most certainly twisted. Even before she picked up a gun, she’d been poisoning her own husband using arsenic. The coroner found the stuff in his hair and bones. The murders were premeditated and vile. The night she jumped in the water and left us was the best thing that could have happened to all of us.”
    Eastlyn decided to let him talk because he looked as though he needed to get it all out in the open.
    “Did Drea mention the little side note about how Eleanor took off?”
    Eastlyn shook her head. “Why don’t you tell me?”
    Cooper roamed the little living room in a distracted pace. “One night she barged into our bedrooms, shook us all awake, ranting and raving, and marched us across the street and then over to the dock. She loaded us into a boat tied up at the end of the pier. Of course it wasn’t her boat. It never occurred to Eleanor she didn’t own it. Those kinds of details went right over her head. Once she got us in there, she rowed us out into the middle of the harbor. We sat there like survivors on the Titanic wondering what she planned to do until we watched her jump into the water. She left us there—alone and scared. Drea and I knew how to swim but not little Caleb. We’d never seen so much water or blackness. Everywhere we looked we couldn’t see anything but night. All we could hear was the waves lapping against that little boat.”
    Cooper took a breath before going on, “There were no emotional goodbyes on mommy’s part, no concern about how we’d get back safely to shore, no care about whether we’d make it on our own or whether someone would come for us—another detail she didn’t think about too much. By chance, hours later, a fisherman going out to sea to snag his catch for the day found us. By that time, Caleb and Drea had fallen asleep.”
    “But not you.”
    “No, not me. I’d done my best to take us back in, but the current was too strong. I eventually had to give up. But I sat there for hours listening to Drea and Caleb crying, screaming, until they just…cried themselves dry. Ever seen anyone do that before? Cry, but no tears are left. It was gut wrenching to the core, especially for a little kid. I never admitted this to anyone but the entire time we sat there, I was scared to death myself. And yet, Eleanor didn’t even think twice about leaving her kids in the middle of the ocean without a way back in. As far as she knew, we could’ve floated out further into the water. What if the fisherman hadn’t come along when he did?”
    Eastlyn got up and went to him then, wrapped him up in her arms. “It wasn’t your fault, Cooper. There’s no need for all this guilt you have stored up. You’re tormented by something you had no part in, no control over. No child is able to stand up to the will of a sick parent.”
    “God, I didn’t mean to come off as self-pitying. Sorry. It must be the weeping strings of Shostakovich.” Cooper took her by the shoulders. “Look, have you eaten? How about if I go home, put a couple steaks on the grill, and shake this mood we’re both in?”
    She wouldn’t have said no to him now for anything in the world. “Sounds like a plan.”
    “I’m just down Tradewinds on Sandy Pointe. The house is at the end of the street on the left. You can’t miss it. It’s the only hacienda on the block.”
    Without warning, he leaned in, smelling like orange spice. The minute he took her head