The Gift of Grift Read online

  The Gift of Grift

  DUSKY COVE BOOKS

  © 2020 Dixie Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  OTHER BOOKS BY DIXIE DAVIS

  Lori’s B&B

  1. Inn Over Her Head

  2. Inn Trouble

  3. Inn Vain

  4. Inn Dire Straits

  5. Inn Danger

  Dusky Cove B&B Cozy Collection (books 2-5)

  Ray’s Gifts

  6. The Gift of Grift

  Be sure to join Dixie’s mailing list to be the first to know about her new releases! Also get fun bonuses including recipes from this book, a tourist’s guide to Dusky Cove, book recommendations and more!

  http://www.dixiedavisauthor.com/newsletter/

  The Gift of Grift

  Cover

  Front Matter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Thank you for reading!

  More from Dixie Davis

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Ray Watson locked the front door to the Mayweather House and turned to look out over the river, the setting sun turning the sky ablaze in pink and orange. He took a deep breath of the salty sea air, crisp with winter’s chill — exactly what he needed right now.

  Watching his former son-in-law get married again was harder than Ray had expected. Of course, that probably had more to do with everything that had happened with the groom’s first wife, Ray’s daughter Debra, in the spring. Nothing to do Mitch himself, and especially not his lovely bride. Lori, Ray’s neighbor across the street, had quickly become one of his favorite people. And not just because she brought him over delicious leftovers from her bed and breakfast — but that didn’t hurt either.

  Now, Mitch and Lori were off on their honeymoon in Charleston, leaving her bed and breakfast in Ray’s care. Wouldn’t take much care in December. Even the prettiest little town all up and down the North Carolina coast didn’t attract too many tourists in the winter time.

  Silly, if you asked Ray. He loved the ocean in the winter. And the summer. And all the in-betweens.

  Ray smiled to himself at the little phrase he and his wife shared. He took one last sniff of the salt-laden breeze before heading back across the street to Katie. She managed to come to the wedding, no mean feat for a woman ten years into a degenerative disease brought on by the stress of the first time Debra had disappeared.

  Katie deserved better. Ray rounded the historic Mayweather House and caught sight of his own little cottage-cum-gift shop across the street. Upstairs, his window glowed. Katie was waiting for him.

  They’d ended up with most of the leftovers from the delicious buffet, with the happy couple out of town for the next week and no other family in the area. At least dinner wouldn’t be a concern for a while, if they could handle the rich food.

  Ray climbed the steps to his own porch, smaller and narrower than the grand house across the street that had become Dusky Cove’s most historic bed and breakfast. Nearly all the houses along Front Street qualified for the National Register of Historic Places, on age at least. He could just barely remember the baby of the family being built when he was a teenager, just after the war. Now even that building had just reached “retirement age,” though the Mimosa Café that had taken up residence there was going strong as ever.

  Except that it was the off-season, and that meant most of their customers, if they were lucky enough to have any, were locals. And that their hours were half what they were during the summer. He couldn’t vouch for all his neighbors’ staff, but Ray’s seasonal help was off at UNC-W anyway.

  He unlocked the shop’s front door and checked on Katie quickly, but she was asleep. He busied himself straightening his Dusky Cove T-shirt displays. The pastel colors had sold well during the summer — something he’d doubted but stocked them anyway at Katie’s insistence. The woman was the only reason this shop stayed in business half the time.

  Their newest souvenir item, wooden buoys, had been her idea, too. She’d spotted the square-bottomed buoys in a magazine, tracked down a local craftsman, and had them custom made from 4 × 4s within a week.

  Not bad for a woman who could only leave the house once a month.

  Ray straightened his favorite design, a red-and-white-striped one with numbers on the sides, arranging it next to Katie’s favorite, weathered white with a single navy stripe and a vinyl lobster decal on it. With their tapered tops, they almost looked like tall, thin homes, a set of 8″ row houses all together.

  Ray flipped a loop of the rough rope through the top of another buoy to the back, revealing the sand dollar design on the front. These were Katie’s best idea so far, although they hadn’t had enough foot traffic to move many.

  Maybe he could do something about that. Ray grabbed a coil of rustic rope from behind the counter — décor was also Katie’s department — and knotted a few buoys onto the rope, forming a quaint nautical garland. It was Christmastime after all, wasn’t it?

  Ray stepped back onto the porch to hang the garland from the railing, echoing the swoop of greenery and Christmas lights from the porch’s roof. He tied the rope ends to the posts supporting the roof and stepped out onto the sandy shoulder of the road to admire his work.

  That would do nicely, especially with the lattice that normally covered the under-porch area off for repairs. Now, the owners of the vacation homes in town during the off-season would all see these perfect sea-themed décor items. Every vacation home landlord he’d ever known went nuts for nautical décor. Once one of them bought a couple buoys for a bedroom or bathroom, word was sure to get around. And then guests who stayed in their homes over the next summer would see them and want to take one home as a reminder of the good times they had had in their beach house.

  Okay, maybe Katie wasn’t the only thing that kept their gift shop going. Ray did his best, too, and much of the time, that was good enough.

  Ray headed back inside and flipped the sign to “OPEN” again. Not that he was expecting a whole lot of business.

  He settled behind the counter with a World War II novel, but he didn’t even finish the chapter before the bell on the door chimed to announce an arrival.

  “Hello!” Ray called out from the counter. He tilted his book down and smiled at the woman who’d walked in, young enough to be his granddaughter. “Looking for anything specific?” he asked.

  “No, sir, just browsing.”

  “Let me know if you need anything.” Ray flashed a grandfatherly smile and lifted his novel again, though he wasn’t really reading now. He’d learned long ago that nobody liked to have a store clerk hovering over them. Early on, he’d lost more customers than he’d like to admit that way.

  Still, he wasn’t going to let her wander around lost. Or worse, shoplift. He wasn’t an idiot.
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br />   The woman couldn’t hardly be five feet tall, and her wide eyes almost made her seem like a child. Between her slight build, her spry step and her blonde pixie cut, she resembled a young Sandy Duncan. Ray half expected her to burst out into song or put him in stitches.

  The bell on the door clanged again, and a familiar face walked in. The man had to be in his fifties, about the same age as Debra and Mitch.

  Ray was sure he’d seen this man frequently as a teenager, running around with Mitch, Chip and the rest of the boys. His sandy hair still fell in the same waves, and he still wore the same confident smile. He had to have grown up here in Dusky Cove. Even his voice seemed familiar as he exclaimed, “Ray!”

  Yep. If only Ray could remember his name now. . . . “How are you doing, son? How long has it been?”

  “Twenty years, at least. Maybe even thirty.”

  Ray laughed and hauled himself to his feet to shake the other man’s hand. Had to be thirty. He definitely would have remembered the man if he’d stuck around after high school.

  “How have you been?” the man asked.

  Ray nodded in the way that you did to say you were getting along. It was still the best he could manage.

  “I heard about Debra. Both times,” the man added in a lower voice.

  Ray swallowed hard. Debbie going missing ten years ago had been hard enough, even when the authorities finally presumed her dead.

  Finding her body this past spring had made it even harder.

  “Sorry for your loss,” the man finished.

  “Thank you.”

  “How’s Katie?” the man asked.

  “She hasn’t been the same since Debra first went missing,” Ray confessed. “But she’s still keeping on.”

  “That’s good to hear. She was like a second mother to me in high school.”

  Ray smiled to hide the way he had to grit his teeth against the guilt needling at his gut. What was this man’s name?

  “Hey, could I possibly get change?” The man held up a $50 bill.

  “Sure. Twenties and a ten?”

  “Could I get a couple fives in there, too?”

  “Of course.” Ray counted out the change: a twenty, two tens and two fives. He handed it over to the man whom he really should know but still couldn’t remember all the way.

  The young blonde woman approached the counter with her purchase. She exchanged a polite nod with the man whom Ray needed to remember or things were going to get awkward very fast. But he didn’t introduce himself, and she didn’t ask, so Ray would have to remain in the dark.

  The woman placed a buoy on the counter, a mint-and-navy-striped one with a compass decal. “Great choice,” Ray said.

  “Thanks. You’ve got a cute shop.”

  “Well, thank you.” He read off her total.

  The woman handed over cash, and Ray opened the cash drawer again.

  “Is the old gang still around?” the man asked. “Chip and Mitch?”

  Ray couldn’t hide a grimace this time. “Yes, though I can’t say Chip and Mitch are part of any gang. Not together, anyway.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  Ray counted out the change and handed it to the woman. He thanked her again before he answered the man’s question. “Chip took Debra’s disappearance hard. Blamed Mitch, you know.”

  The man opened and closed his mouth, then finally nodded his head. The bell on the door behind him clanged before he spoke. “Yeah, that’d be tough for anyone.”

  “What are you up to these days? Left us for the big time?”

  He laughed. “You could say that. I travel a lot for work.”

  “What brings you here? Mitch’s wedding?”

  “Of course.”

  That would explain the man’s suit. Ray nodded. He didn’t remember seeing the man at the wedding, but then again, he also didn’t remember his name.

  “So good to see you.” The man held out a hand again and Ray shook it. “We’ll have to get together while I’m in town. Maybe Katie will be up to joining us.”

  “We’ll see. She can’t get out much.”

  The man nodded in understanding, and then waved goodbye. Before he reached the door, though, the bell rang once again, and the young blonde woman strode in again. “I’m sorry,” she began before she even reached the counter, “but I think you gave me the wrong change.”

  “Did I?” Ray looked back at the ancient register, as if it had the answer. Even if it had been a computer, if he’d entered the wrong denomination — well, now, he couldn’t exactly remember what denomination she’d handed him. He’d assumed it was a twenty, because the buoys were $15.99 before tax, but he had to admit he wasn’t looking too closely at it while he was talking to . . . that man. And trying to remember his name.

  Speaking of him, he cast Ray a sympathetic grimace just before he slipped out to save some small semblance of face for Ray. A small mercy.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ray said. “Did you not pay with a twenty?”

  “No, I gave you a fifty.” She looked up at him through her blonde bangs, the longest part of her hair, somehow looking both innocent and apologetic, as if this was her fault.

  “Oh, are you sure?” Wouldn’t he have remembered a fifty? Whatever-his-name-was had just brought one in.

  “Yes, very. It was a graduation gift from my aunt — she wrote a note on it, actually?” She half-giggled, half-grimaced. “I know we’re not supposed to write on money — you won’t report her, will you?”

  Ray laughed. “No, no, no need to worry about that.” He hit the button to open the register again and turned over the top-most fifty. On the back was a hand-written note in black felt-tip pen: Congratulations, Judy! You’ll go far!

  “What did you say your name was?” he asked, the best he could do for a security check.

  It wasn’t much of one, of course.

  “Judy.” She beamed at him in a way that somehow seemed to be taking him into her shy confidence. “Judy Smith.” She held out a hand to shake his.

  Ray accepted her hand. “Nice to meet you, Judy. I’m Ray.”

  “I love your shop — but I’m afraid I wasn’t looking to spend quite this much.” She giggled at her own joke.

  “Oh, no, no, of course not.” Ray replaced the fifty in the till and pulled out the missing thirty dollars in change. “Sorry about the mix-up.”

  “That’s okay, it happens all the time.” Judy accepted the thirty dollars and turned away with a final flash of her shy smile.

  She seemed like a sweet girl. Ray closed the register again and started for his stool and novel behind the counter. But the ring of the door’s bell he was waiting for didn’t come.

  “Um,” Judy said, approaching the counter again, “you wouldn’t happen to have diabetes, would you?”

  “No, ma’am.” Ray hoped she wouldn’t be offended at the courtesy title. He’d called even little girls ma’am, but at a certain age, some women found it a little . . . less than complimentary. “Why do you ask?”

  Was it too much to hope she might offer a sweet reward for her change?

  “You haven’t found a little medical device in the last few minutes, have you?”

  “What kind of medical device?”

  “It’s a continuous glucose monitor. For diabetes.” Judy held up her thumb and index fingers to show how big it was. “Plastic, clear and white. Maybe a little smaller than one of those old pagers?”

  Ray could easily remember a time when pagers were new-fangled — and he hadn’t exactly been a spring chicken at the time. “Sorry, I haven’t seen anything like that.”

  “Oh.” Judy scrunched up her mouth in concern. “I can’t find mine, and I was sure I had it before I went shopping.” She glanced around again. “Could you keep an eye out for it? A new one would be, like, seven hundred dollars.”

  Ray gave a low whistle. “I certainly can, Judy.”

  “Thank you.” Once again, her smile shone like the sun peeking out from behind a cloud. “Let your customers k
now — I’d offer a reward and everything. Does three hundred dollars seem like enough?”

  “That seems like an awful lot,” Ray admitted. “For finding a little plastic box.”

  Judy’s wide blue eyes turned serious. “My life literally depends on it.” She peered over his desk. “Do you have a pen and paper? I’ll leave my phone number in case someone finds it.”

  “What if no one finds it until after you head home?”

  Judy giggled. “How’d you know I was a tourist?”

  “I’ve lived in Dusky Cove my whole life. If you were from here, I’d know.”

  She pretended to wipe her brow. “I was worried I’d done something embarrassing to give myself away.”

  “Not at all.” Ray fished a pen and a notepad from the counter drawer. “What do you want me to do if you’ve gone home?”

  “Give me a call anyway. I’ll have you ship it to me.” She wrote down her name and phone number — and Atlanta area code — and pushed the notepad back across the desk. “Thank you again, Ray. You’ve been very helpful!”

  “My pleasure, as always. Hope you’ll be all right until we find your little device.”

  “Thank you.” With a final shy smile, Judy Smith turned and bounced out of the shop.

  Well, that was a busier half hour than he’d expected. If only he could remember the name of that friend of Debbie’s.

  Shaking his head at himself, Ray settled down on the stool again and opened his novel. He could only hope everything would turn out all right for Miss Judy.

  The peace didn’t last long, but Ray couldn’t really complain about any customers who came in on a weekday in December. The first time the cowbell on his door clanged, he looked up to find another familiar face, a classmate of Debra and Mitch’s — one he actually could put a name with. “Hello, there, Pammy!” he called.

  Pam Richter, the best real estate agent in town, waved at him. “How are sales today, Ray?”

  “A little slow, but then, we had a late start with seeing off the newlyweds.”