The Icing on the Cake (Otter Bluff #1) - Linda Seed Page 0,2

huge expense of making his house livable—and sellable.

He had savings. He wasn’t broke. But he couldn’t throw his money around like there would be an endless supply of it. His YouTube income was pretty good right now, but he couldn’t count on that continuing forever. It wasn’t as though he had job security. And he would need a healthy bank account to qualify for a mortgage on a new house.

Paying for the repairs would be bad enough. Now he had to pay rent on a temporary place to live, too.

Unless …

He could always ask his mother for help.

Brian had a vicious argument with himself after Ray had gone as he stared into the hole at the black mold.

I’m not going to call her. I am NOT going to call her.

Of course I’m going to call her. Why wouldn’t I call her?

In the end, he called her.

“Otter Bluff?” Lisa asked, as though she owned dozens of beachside rental houses and couldn’t quite place the one Brian was talking about. “Well, yes, it’s vacant at the moment. But I was hoping the rental agency would find me a tenant, because I rely on the income from that property.”

Lisa Barlow did not rely on the income from Otter Bluff—she just wanted Brian to grovel and pledge his eternal gratitude if she let him use it. He weighed the pros and cons. Living in his car with his dog would be cramped and inconvenient, but the idea took on a certain appeal when he considered the hoops his mother was going to force him to jump through before she would agree to help him.

Screw it. He could crash on somebody’s couch. He could take shelter under an overpass.

“Never mind then, Mom. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Well, now, not so fast.”

Brian closed his eyes and prayed for patience. “But you just said—”

“I said I was hoping the rental company could find a tenant. But they haven’t yet, have they? I suppose you could use the house, just for the time being,” Lisa said.

“Mom, thank you. I—”

“Of course, if they find someone, I’ll need you to move out.”

“But—”

“And maybe you can do some small repairs while you’re there.”

“Okay, but—”

“Though I don’t know why I should do this for you at all, considering how seldom you call me or visit.”

“Maybe because I’m your son and I have nowhere to live?” he suggested.

“Oh, Brian, dear, don’t be dramatic,” Lisa said. “You know where I keep the spare key.”

Chapter 2

By the time Cassie finished cleaning Dolphin Dreams, she was dirty and sweaty. She weighed the idea of going home to shower and change her clothes before returning to Otter Bluff to finish baking the cake, but that presented a number of problems.

For one thing, there was no way she’d be able to go into her Airstream in her parents’ backyard, shower, change her clothes, and get out again without being noticed. Her mother would see her from the kitchen window, and once that happened, Cassie would get drawn into any number of conversations, household chores, bits of family drama, and obligations.

Her aunt and uncle were visiting from the Bay Area, and that meant even more peril than usual. Cassie’s mother would insist that she go into the house, join them for dinner, then recount the details of her life for her relatives over olallieberry pie and ice cream.

The pie and ice cream had a certain appeal—as did spending time with her aunt and uncle, whom Cassie loved—but it would mean she would not get back to Otter Bluff that evening, and that meant the cake wouldn’t get baked in time for her to begin decorating it tomorrow.

There was no way she would be able to apply hundreds of buttercream roses before Saturday if she didn’t stay on track.

With that in mind, she opted to return to Otter Bluff and shower later.

But once she was there, Cassie lifted her arms over her head to get something out of a high cupboard in the kitchen, and she offended herself with her own aroma.

Okay, the shower wasn’t optional.

She didn’t have any spare clothes here, but that was okay. She could wrap herself in a towel and put her things into the washing machine while the cake was baking.

Cassie felt a twinge of guilt as she went into the master bathroom, stripped down, and got into the circa-1970s shower with its powder blue fixtures and cracked grout. It was one thing to use the kitchen in a house where she didn’t belong—it was another