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      Secrets at the Cove

      by

      HONEY PERKEL

      Secrets at the Cove

      Star Publications

      Seaside, Oregon 97138

      ISBN-13: 9781456623296

      Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com

       www.eBookIt.com

      Copyright 2012 by Honey Perkel

      All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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

      Dedicated to

      my husband Bob, who knows all my secrets...

      well, almost all of them.

      Books by Honey Perkel

      A Thousand Summers

      Secrets at the Cove

      A Place Called Paradise

      Just Breathe, a Memoir

      The Faithful Daughter

      Visit Honey Perkel at her website:

       www.honeyperkel.com

      Secrets at the Cove is narrated by Bernard, an apparition. It is a story of four women who meet at a neighborhood restaurant in Seaside, Oregon every Tuesday at noon. They share conversations but not their lives, until the day tragedy strikes and they discover they have a whole lot in common.

      Acknowledgments

      Thank you to my editor, Nancy, for her patience, time, and never-ending words of encouragement. And to Bob, for being my techie guy, bookkeeper, and gofer, freeing me up to write and spend time with my readers.

      Bernard

      My name is Bernard. I lived in Seaside, a small town on the northern Oregon coast, from 1930 until the summer of 1948. That summer I graduated from Seaside Union High School and met my demise while surfing at the nearby cove.

      It was a warm, sunny day. A beautiful day to die. Though I was an experienced surfer, I was taken by surprise as the waves swept me under and threw me sideways for miles along the shore. I washed up on the gray sandy beach days later, my life having been cut tragically short.

      Mine was not the first death at the cove, nor was it the last. Throughout the years I’ve witnessed the loss of many lives on that rocky apron of shore, home to sea creatures and birds. Life at its beginning, and all too often, at its end. I just couldn’t save them all, you see. It was the timing of a life. It had to be like that.

      The Tillamook Head Lighthouse sits a mile or so offshore from the forested point of Tillamook Head. Terrible Tilly, so named long ago because of the severe hardships and loneliness experienced by its caretakers, now abandoned and rusted. I live there along with others of my kind. A Specter’s Hotel, if you will. The accommodations are fair. Quiet except for those who rant as they walk in the night. This sometimes happens with folks like us. It’s the energy still rushing inside our pores and through our veins, as thick as nourishing blood once had. Talk around town is that howling can be heard out on the lighthouse bridge when the moon is but a sliver of silver. I never hear it, as I sleep like the dead. Decommissioned some fifty years ago, one could assume a place like this might be haunted, but certainly not by me. I don’t play those vacuous games. There are more important things in death.

      So, what do I do here? you ask. I keep myself busy with many jobs. I’m the handsome young surfer beautiful women dream about on those lonely and blackened nights. But mostly I’m guardian of those I love in this world ... and in others. Some call me an angel, a ghost of many, a keeper of some who believe in me and some who don’t. I watch people. I study them. I love them. But do I keep them safe? I can’t do everything.

      Elizabeth

      Elizabeth Windsor decided this was her favorite time of day, early morning when the sun first peeked its head over the Oregon Coast mountain range. It streamed through the large windows on the east side of the Loft House, its rays stretching across the shiny oak floor. Like yellow legs, they ran along the working canvas kept propped up on the wooden easel and scaled the windows opposite. The start to another day, she thought. Picture perfect, as they all had to be since the doctor’s diagnosis.

      Picture perfect brought to mind that wonderful summer she and her parents vacationed here in Seaside. She was eight years old. Her father bought her a Brownie camera that she carried everywhere, snapping photos of beaches, lighthouses, and wildlife, candid shots taken of her mother leaning up against their big blue Chevrolet, and waving her straw sun hat in the air. Her mother and father — young, attractive, believing they had years ahead of them. Not knowing they’d be killed in a plane crash just ten years later.

      Now living at Surfer’s Cove with its quiet solitude and beauty, Elizabeth found peace. The unpredictable weather mirrored her life. The cove was a good place. A good place to paint. A good place to die.

      One never thought of dying here in this paradise. One came here to live, to be daring, to enjoy all the bounties this place had to offer. To surf, hike, walk its beautiful beach, get away from the hectic-ness of everyday city life. But it still happened by design, or by accident, or disease. And it would happen to her. Elizabeth was scared. She hadn’t counted on being alone at the end. Having discovered cousins in Oregon, she hoped to spend her last days with them, but that wasn’t likely to happen.

      She thought of this as she stood at her easel. Mindlessly, her long slender fingers worked the sweeping brushstrokes. Swirling. Dabbing. Blending. Her loaded brush moved quickly, effortlessly, creating magic. At least she had her painting to occupy her. Getting ready for an art show always pumped her spirits.

      The house in which she lived was a tall, three-story structure with a double garage on the lower level. A broad stairway lined with potted plants led up to the front door. Looking out the front windows, one saw the rocky curve of Surfer’s Cove and the ocean. The pale sea-blue walls of the space appeared illuminated in the shock of morning light. The windows had been cranked open; the white curtains billowed as though in play, tossing in the cool summer breeze.

      Each morning, come rain or shine, surfers arrived as dawn approached. Parking their Volkswagons and SUVs along the road, they seemed oblivious to the fact there were homes at the cove. Homes from which eyes could watch them stand precariously on one foot, then the other, removing their clothes and donning black wetsuits. Elizabeth often laughed at the surfers’ lack of modesty. They were in a residential neighborhood after all, not a public restroom.

      Normally, Elizabeth didn’t watch this ritual, but something had drawn her to the window this morning. She had felt it — a quiet, gentle force pulling her away from her easel towards the glass. She went with it, unquestioning, setting her brush aside and moving as if in a dream. There he stood against the backdrop of the sparkling, topaz sea.

      This surfer was somehow different from the others she’d seen on previous mornings. Her heart skipped a beat as she peered at him there, naked, standing between two parked cars. He was tall and lean with shoulder length jet-black hair, parted to one side. His body was toned, as any well-trained surfer’s might be. Magnificent. Elizabeth had never seen him before. She would have remembered.

      This

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