The Widows of Sea Trail (The Widows of Sea Trail Trilogy) Read online

  The Widows of Sea Trail

  Books by Jacqueline DeGroot Climax

  The Secret of the Kindred Spirit What Dreams Are Made Of

  Barefoot Beaches

  For the Love of Amanda

  Shipwrecked at Sunset

  Worth Any Price

  Running into Temptation with Peggy Grich Tales of the Silver Coast, A Secret History of Brunswick County with Miller Pope

  To contact the author or find out about her other books, please visit www.jacquelinedegroot.com

  The Widows of Sea Trail

  by Jacqueline DeGroot

  ©2008 by Jacqueline DeGroot Published by American Imaging Cover design: Jim Grich

  Format and packaging: Peggy Grich

  All rights reserved. No parts of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without the permission of the author.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-1-4243-1022-7 This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names except where permission has been granted.

  To all the men and women I have known who have had to go on without their mates, I think you are very courageous and I admire you so much. It wasn’t easy, but every one of you has bounced back and continued on with amazing spirit and grace. And a few have even found love again. I wish God’s providence on all those who embrace a new love.

  Thank you to all those who took the time to proof the book for me and to offer suggestions: Kathy Blaine

  Bill DeGroot

  Peggy Grich

  Deborah Larsen

  Pam McNeel

  Martha Murphy

  JoDonna O’Leary

  Diane Stander

  Cindy Wakefield

  My writing group: Writer’s Bloc (Sē Trã(ǝ)l: the way to the beach)

  My heartfelt appreciation to local photographer Ken Buckner for letting me use his picture Sunset Beach Pathway # 2 for my cover. It’s always been one of my favorites. I feel the ocean calling to me each time I look at it. Visit the Doe Creek Gallery website at: www.doecreekgallery.com to view more of his wonderful beach pictures.

  The Widows of Sea Trail

  Catalina of Live Oaks Tragedy is inevitable in every retirement community. Many times, shortly after settling in, a spouse dies, leaving a grieving widow or widower to pick up the pieces. It’s a sad fact, but ask anyone you know in one of those neighborhoods and they’ll tell you time and again of a grieving widow left alone in an unfamiliar place.

  Sea Trail Plantation, being the remarkable size that it is, has many such stories. In the first book of The Widows of Sea Trail, we meet Catalina, a devastated woman who finds the courage to start over and begin living again.

  It’s been four years since Cat’s husband died and she can’t seem to get over losing him. Arash promise she makes to her mother has her taking a hard look at herself; it’s time for a makeover. Then on a whim, her screwball friends talk her into casting a spell using an old oak tree on a golf course. For her mom, she promises to go on six dates before her mother’s upcoming birthday. For her friends, she promises to do a little magic with the help of a tree.

  As Cat brutally assesses the changes that need to be made if she’s to fulfill her promises, she is shocked to realize that she is ready to find someone new, to see if there could possibly be a man who can make her happy again. Three months isn’t a lot of time to get back in shape and to get out and circulate, but without exception, Cat has always kept her promises to her mother. And maybe, just maybe, finding true love can start with believing in a little magic.

  Prologue

  The Covenant It’s Friday the thirteenth and our mission is to find the oldest oak tree on the Plantation. According to Miller Pope’s book, Tales of the Silver Coast, A Secret History of Brunswick County, there is a section of the Old Post Road now preserved as a golf cart path right here in Sea Trail Plantation. George Washington traveled this route in 1791 during his southern tour. The road was built in response to a decree from King Charles II in 1673, so surely there must be a tree old enough for our purposes close by.

  Being avid golfers, my crazy friends and I knew exactly where that portion of the old road was located. It was along the tenth fairway of the Maples Course. And, as today was the day that we were assured would be the most successful sorcerer-wise, we were ready.

  Yesterday we begged T.J., the assistant pro in the golf shop, to let us start on the back nine, then pleaded with him to give us the first tee time so we wouldn’t be making fools of ourselves in front of everyone.

  “Do you have it?” I asked Tessa.

  “Yes, yes,” she replied, “of course I have it. I told you I’d get it didn’t I?” “I thought you’d forget,” I muttered. “And how about you Viv, did you make the philtre?”

  “Yes, I did. I made it last night after finally finding the rose oil at Scents Unlimited.”

  “Great! Let’s get going!” I cried out, gleeful in my excitement. I didn’t know what excited me more, the offthe-wall tomfoolery we were up to, or the golf match with my best buds. Tessa and Viv were also widows. I had met them on the Plantation shortly after my husband had died. All of our husbands had died within a month of each other four years ago. The grief had been unbearable until we’d been able to share it, to gather the waves of sadness and ride them out together. From that our friendship had grown into something special. We’d all had nothing to live for, so we’d been more open, willing to share things we weren’t able to share with anyone else.

  I stomped my foot on the pedal and spun the golf cart around, going behind the clubhouse and in front of the snack bar on my way to the tenth tee. Tessa followed in a cart behind me. We looked like three zany women trying to beat the dawn.

  Viv was sitting beside me nursing her third cup of coffee. Since it was barely seven, I clicked my tongue at her, “So much caffeine. You’d better be careful not to dehydrate yourself.”

  “Honey, don’t you worry about me, come noontime I’ll start on the Splendade, and you know I’m good for several gallons of that stuff before bedtime.”

  Viv was forever watching her weight and lately had taken to putting lemon juice and a package of Splenda in water to make sugar-free lemonade. And she drank it like, well . . . like water.

  I chuckled as I reached down for my own drink, spicy Zing Zang Bloody Mary mix sans the vodka. I liked to start my mornings off with something that made my eyes pop. Plus, it was filled with potassium.

  “Did you hear what happened to JoDonna?” Viv asked.

  “No, what happened?”

  “She had her purse stolen at the Pink Palace on T.G.I.F. night.”

  “No!”

  “Really. And it couldn’t have happened at a worse time, her driver’s license and charge cards were in it and she was leaving on a cruise out of Charleston on Monday.”

  “Oh, good Lord! What did she do?”

  “Well, she was at the DMV when they opened and then she and Skip high-tailed it to Charleston. They needed to be there by one, I think they made it by 12:45. Fortunately Skip had another charge card they could use on the ship.”

  “Oh, man, what a way to start a trip!”

  “I’ll say!”

  “So who could have taken her purse? That’s never happened before.”

  “I don’t know, but you’re right, we’ve never had to worry about anything like that before.”

  “Mmm, mmm, mmm, what a shame,” I muttered. Then because it boggled my mind
to think about it any longer, I changed the subject. “Hey, you don’t think that what we’re getting ready to do is . . . well, stupid?” I asked.

  She patted my knee and smiled over at me, and in her sweet southern drawl said, “Why, we’ve tried everything else, Hon. Nobody is going to fault us for giving this a whirl.”

  We both laughed joyously as I pulled up to the tee box. I stopped so sharply that Tessa, in her own cart, had to veer off the path and onto the grass to avoid hitting us.

  “You need brake lights, Cat!” she hollered. “Either that or I need to stop tailgatin’.” The most graceful among us, she slid across the seat, stepped out of the cart and spun around to effortlessly pull her driver out of her bag.

  “I think since we’re doing the Affecting Spell on you today, that you should have the honor of going first,” she called over to me.

  I nodded and grabbed my driver, took a ball and tee out of my pocket and walked over to the tee box. We were playing from the red tees today and trying to be serious about it as we were all intent on improving our game so that hopefully, one day, we could actually play competently with someone of the opposite sex; someone we were all determined to find within a year’s time; someone who might just turn into a husband one day. Since I’d been a widow the longest, by two days, it was decided that I would be the first to cast the spell. I shook my head as I teed up the ball. I couldn’t believe that today, with the help of my friends, I was actually going to cast a spell for a mate.

  It had been Viv’s idea. I think we might have been drinking at the time. Viv’s mother, who loved to read stories about mythology and wizardry, had named her only daughter Vivienne. Viv’s mom, a throwback to the sixties, was still known to mix a few potions every now and again.

  According to legend, Vivienne’s namesake had been Merlin the Magician’s favorite student; some said he’d even been in love with the enchanting Vivienne. And for that very reason, he had neglected to be firm enough to instill the right attitude of wizardry in her. Vivienne, having decided that Merlin did not practice magic as she believed he should, that his was not the true wizardry, imprisoned the great Merlin for all eternity in an oak tree. She had come upon him sleeping under it and without much thought, had waved her wand and performed her dark magic. From that day forward, Merlin’s spirit was melded with the wood of the tree.

  Viv, Tessa and I were on our way to fancifully weave the spell known as “Vivienne’s Circle.” We were going to appeal to Merlin through the elf living in the tree to reconcile us to new loves. Merlin, it was said, had the power to bring true love, because he knew all that love should be and all that it should not be. As it was believed that Merlin’s spirit lived in any tree that was over a hundred years old, we were calling on the elf living in the oldest Live Oak on the Plantation. Surely on the Old Post Road there had to be a tree at least a hundred years old.

  I took a practice swing then hit my ball, hoping that it would land next to just such a tree as a sign that this folly was actually going to work and that I might magically find true love again. No such luck. I sliced and ended up in the bunker. I chalked it up to nerves.

  Tessa patted me on the shoulder as I walked by, “It’s not terrible, you can get out and on the green from there.”

  “Yeah right.”

  I turned to watch her tee up her ball and take a practice swing. Tessa had the most beautiful swing, it positively flowed. She looked so loose as she swung the club. It seemed to arc so slowly that you imagined you were seeing the shaft stretch. I never thought the ball would go very far after she hit it, but it almost always did. She was an amazing golfer, except for putting. She hit a three-foot putt as if cross-eyed. It never failed to make me shake my head in wonder. It was astonishing how many easy shots she missed. But she did look really good doing it. She was tall and slender, and always minimally dressed for any occasion.

  She wore loose flowing silks and never bothered with underwear, especially a bra. She certainly had no need. Adouble mastectomy had left her flat-chested and when she had decided to have reconstructive surgery, she patterned herself after her favorite actress, Ann Heche. She carried herself well, tall and proud, obviously a woman, even without the defining bumps on her chest. I had seen many a man stare at the outline of her newly fashioned nipples as they tried to poke their way out of the flimsy materials she wore. But it was not as if she was flaunting herself, she just liked to be natural. If she noticed men staring, she didn’t pay much attention. She liked her gauzy, colorful clothes and she wore them like a contessa. Which, coincidentally, was her first name.

  Her mother had been a fan of Sophia Loren’s and had loved watching all her movies. One in particular had become her favorite, The Countess from Hong Kong. Her father had changed Countess to Contessa in an attempt to soften the stigma of implied royalty for his infant daughter. I watched as Tessa made contact with the ball. And damn if she didn’t get it on the fairway not thirty yards from the green.

  Viv was next, so both Tessa and I scrambled for safety. Viv was known to let fly with a club every now and then. She didn’t mean to, she just couldn’t grip it hard enough. We tried many times to get her to cut her nails back so she could grip the club a bit tighter, but she wouldn’t. She placed her ball, found her stance and wiggled her hips back and forth. Tessa and I giggled. Viv always did that exaggerated shake before doing the real deal and it was funny to watch. Jane Mansfield couldn’t have done it better.

  She hit the ball soundly. The thwack resounded all around and Tessa and I came out from behind the trees to watch it soar. It landed in the middle of the fairway, a hundred and fifty yards from the green. She was the one you wanted for Captain’s Choice. But the next drive, on the next hole, would be off—she was uncanny in that she smacked the hell out of the ball on the even numbered holes, and topped it on the odd ones. She often said her mom had made her a potion when she was a youngster that had made her nervous about odd numbered things. A few times we had taken her to new courses, blindfolded her until she was on the tee box, and true to form every time—she was disastrous on the odd numbered holes, and remarkable on the evens.

  We all hopped into our carts for the ride to the fairway and to the mysterious, mystical mission of three desperate, fun-loving women.

  Stopping close to my ball, we all got out and started checking out the trees. Talking about this earlier, we had figured that the larger the trunk, the more rings, and hence the older the tree was. So we were looking for the biggest, fattest tree trunk and we soon found it. Not four feet off the path was a huge Live Oak. Shielding our eyes and looking up, we could just make out the top branches against the Carolina blue sky.

  “Looks like this could be the granddaddy of them all. What do you say? Is this where our little elf is hiding?” asked Viv.

  I walked around the tree, carefully keeping my golf shoes from damaging the thick roots. The bark felt solid and impenetrable, like it could actually be a bit petrified. “Yeah, I think this will do. Surely it must be at least a hundred years old, maybe even a hundred and fifty.”

  Tessa came alongside and stroked it. Everything she did was sensuous, even touching a damn tree. “Ladies, this is definitely our tree. Let’s do it.”

  We all went back to our carts and pulled out the sorcery items we would need from our golf bags. I had the “fairy flags” which were essentially scraps of material. They were supposed to represent the remains of banners, banners that had been gifts by fairies to a man and a woman, symbolized by a dove on one side and by a unicorn on the other. They had to be mostly green, so I’d spent a lot of time looking. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I found just what I needed at the Calabash Presbyterian Church’s yard sale.

  Tessa waved the olive branch she had surreptitiously clipped from a grapevine at Silver Coast Winery one night while riding on the road leading out of the vineyards. We had felt like naughty children, turning off the headlights and leaving the engine running while she ran up to a vine and clipped a two-fo
ot length, then ran back to the car holding it high and smiling broadly.

  Vivienne had the love philtre, a potion of rose oil and olive oil, symbolizing male and female mating. The other prerequisites were that we do this deed on a Friday, a Friday the thirteenth being the most favored time, and that we do the incantation while joining the fabrics together against the tree trunk.

  “Where do you think we should do this?” I asked, sizing up the tree. “Does anyone know if it matters how long it has to stay here?”

  “I don’t think it matters, so let’s just do it at eye level. Someone’s sure to come along and take it down no matter where we put it,” Tessa said. Vivienne nodded in agreement.

  I stepped up to the tree and with a flourish took a pushpin out of my pocket. I had selected a green one because that was the color that was supposed to work best for a Venus project. The stupid incantation we had rehearsed and were supposed to chant as we “mated” the pieces of cloth was already running through my head.

  I took the hunter green swatch with the dove in midflight and married it to the swatch that had a prancing unicorn over a teal green paisley background. They were facing each other now as if mating. I started the chant as I lifted them against the tree. Vivienne was walking around the tree sprinkling a circle of salt. Tessa was waving the olive branch back and forth while pouring the philter at the base of the tree. Together we all intoned:

  “Oh wise Merlin, mighty wizard of Pendragon, magical defender and wise enchanter of the sword Excalibur, use your power to bring a love that is true to the woman holding the pin and pricking your skin.”

  We repeated it two more times and then I pushed the pin through the material and into the bark of the tree. It wasn’t easy, I thought I would sprain my thumb getting it in. Then we all laughed, patted the tree and walked back to our carts.

  “Are you sure there’s no vodka in your drink?” Tessa asked me, “because I can’t believe you just did that.”