the Cape Refuge (Cape Refuge Series Book 1) Read online

  Books by Terri Blackstock

  Emerald Windows

  Cape Refuge Series

  1 | Cape Refuge

  2 | Southern Storm

  3 | River’s Edge

  Newpointe 911

  1 | Private Justice

  2 | Shadow of Doubt

  3 | Word of Honor

  4 | Trial by Fire

  5 | Line of Duty

  Sun Coast Chronicles

  1 | Evidence of Mercy

  2 | Justifiable Means

  3 | Ulterior Motives

  4 | Presumption of Guilt

  Second Chances

  1 | Never Again Good-bye

  2 | When Dreams Cross

  3 | Blind Trust

  4 | Broken Wings

  With Beverly LaHaye

  1 | Seasons Under Heaven

  2 | Showers in Season

  3 | Times and Seasons

  4 | Season of Blessing

  Novellas

  Seaside

  B O O K O N E

  Terri Blackstock

  Copyright

  Cape Refuge

  EPub Reader Format

  Copyright © 2002 by Terri Blackstock

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  ISBN-13: 978-0-310-56568-0

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc.,

  7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Cover design by Ron Huzinga

  Cover photo:

  (boats) Garry Black / Masterfile

  (ripples) Stephen Swintek / Stone

  Interior design by Beth Shagene

  This book is lovingly dedicated

  to the Nazarene.

  C O N T E N T S

  Books by Terri Blackstock

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  Map of Cape Refuge

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Sample Chapter from Southern Storm

  About the Publisher

  A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

  People often ask me if I base my characters on real people. My answer is usually no. In writing Cape Refuge, however, I depart slightly from that policy. Thelma and Wayne Owens are based on two very close friends of mine—Nicki and Dick Benz, who created Buried Treasures Ministry in Jackson, Mississippi. Buried Treasures Ministry got its name when Nicki began visiting the women in the Hinds County Detention Center, and started every meeting by blessing each woman individually, looking into their eyes and telling them that they are God’s treasures. These are women who have been treated like trash for much of their lives, and they have treated themselves like trash. Many have horrible pasts. Their futures look grim. But the truth of their worth in Jesus Christ brings them to tears. Then they listen to the message that Nicki and the others with Buried Treasures bring to them and their children through Bible studies, parenting classes, a Girl Scout troop, and ongoing ministry when they are released.

  But the battle is not easy, and the Enemy fights viciously for them when they are back in the world. In many cases, they are released without enough money to support them for a week, and they return to the boyfriends, families, friends, pimps, and drug dealers who led them down the wrong path. Often, they fall back into their old habits and eventually wind up back in jail.

  For this reason, the Lord put the Buried Treasures Home on Nicki and Dick’s heart. When it is built, Buried Treasures Home will be a transitional place for women to recover, learn, and begin new lives in Christ for a year or longer. Like Hanover House in this book, it will be a place of refuge. However, the Buried Treasures Home will be a much more structured place where residents can complete their educations, study the Bible extensively, learn to be good parents, develop new careers, and develop the strength in Christ that will enable them to stand against evil when they are on their own. The first home will be in Mississippi, but their dream is to eventually have homes like it all across the country.

  Unlike Thelma and Wayne, Nicki and Dick are very much alive, and I have learned much from them about bearing fruit for Christ’s kingdom, about loving with Christ’s love, and about doing Christ’s work.

  For more information about this precious ministry, or to contribute to the building of the first Buried Treasures Home, please write to Buried Treasures Home, P. O. Box 497, Clinton, Mississippi 39056 - 0497.

  P R E F A C E

  Cape Refuge is a fictitious island which I set just east of Savannah, Georgia, on the Atlantic Coast. To research it, I spent time on Tybee Island, a lovely little beachside community outside of Savannah. Many of my ideas for life in Cape Refuge came from there.

  There’s another island just south of Tybee called Little Tybee Island, an unin
habited marshland and wildlife refuge. For this novel, I turned Little Tybee into Cape Refuge, after a few alterations to the terrain and the coastline. I hope the kind people of Georgia’s coast will forgive me.

  I owe a big thanks to J. R. Roseberry, editor and publisher of the Tybee News, for his help in my research.

  C H A P T E R

  1

  The air conditioner was broken at City Hall, and the smell of warm salt air drifted through the windows from the beach across the street. Morgan Cleary fanned herself and wished she hadn’t dressed up. She might have known that no one else would. The mayor sat in shorts and a T-shirt that advertised his favorite beer. One of the city councilmen wore a Panama hat and flip-flops. Sarah Williford, the newest member of the Cape Refuge City Council, looked as if she’d come in from a day of surfing and hadn’t even bothered to stop by the shower. She wore a spandex top that looked like a bathing suit and a pair of cutoff jeans. Her long hair could have used a brush.

  The council members sat with relaxed arrogance, rocking back and forth in the executive chairs they’d spent too much money on. Their critics—which included almost everyone in town—thought they should have used that money to fix the potholes in the roads that threaded through the island. But Morgan was glad the council was comfortable. She didn’t want them irritable when her parents spoke.

  The mayor’s nasal drone moved to the next item on the agenda. “I was going to suggest jellyfish warning signs at some of the more popular sites on the beach, but Doc Spencer tells me he ain’t seen too many patients from stings in the last week or so—”

  “Wait, Fred,” Sarah interrupted without the microphone. “Just because they’re not stinging this week doesn’t mean they won’t be stinging next week. My sign shop would give the city a good price on a design for a logo of some kind to put up on all the beaches, warning people of possible jellyfish attacks.”

  “Jellyfish don’t attack,” the mayor said, his amplified voice giving everyone a start.

  “Well, I can see you never got stung by one.”

  “How you gonna draw a picture of ’em when you can’t hardly see ’em?”

  Everyone laughed, and Sarah threw back some comment that couldn’t be heard over the noise.

  Morgan leaned over Jonathan, her husband, and nudged her sister. “Blair, what should we do?” she whispered. “We’re coming up on the agenda. Where are Mama and Pop?”

  Blair tore her amused eyes from the sight at the front of the room and checked her watch. “Somebody needs to go check on them,” she whispered. “Do you believe these people? I’m so proud to have them serving as my elected officials.”

  “This is a waste of time,” Jonathan said. He’d been angry and stewing all day, mostly at Morgan’s parents, but also at her. His leather-tanned face was sunburned from the day’s fishing, but he was clean and freshly shaven. He hadn’t slept much last night, and the fatigue showed in the lines of his face.

  “Just wait,” she said, stroking his arm. “When Mama and Pop get here, it’ll be worth it.”

  He set his hand over hers—a silent affirmation that he was putting the angry morning behind him—and got to his feet. “I’m going to find them.”

  “Good idea,” Morgan said. “Tell them to hurry.”

  “They don’t need to hurry,” Blair whispered. “We’ve got lots of stuff to cover before they talk about shutting down our bed-and-breakfast. Shoot, there’s that stop sign down at Pine and Mimosa. And Goodfellows Grocery has a lightbulb out in their parking lot.”

  “Now, before we move on,” Fred Hutchins, the mayor, said, studying his notes as if broaching a matter of extreme importance, “I’d like to mention that Chief Cade of the Cape Refuge Police Department tells me he has several leads on the person or persons who dumped that pile of gravel in my parking spot.”

  A chuckle rippled over the room, and the mayor scowled. “The perpetrator will be prosecuted.”

  Blair spat out her suppressed laughter, and Morgan slapped her arm. “Shhh,” Morgan tried not to grin, “you’re going to make him mad.”

  “I’m just picturing a statewide search for the fugitive with the dump truck,” Blair said, “on a gravel-dumping spree across the whole state of Georgia.”

  Morgan saw the mayor’s eyes fasten on her, and she punched her sister again. Blair drew in a quick breath and tried to straighten up.

  “The Owenses still ain’t here?” he asked.

  While Morgan glanced back at the door, Blair shot to her feet. “No, Fred, they’re not here. Why don’t you just move this off the agenda and save it until next week? I’m sure something’s come up.”

  “Maybe they don’t intend to come,” the mayor said.

  “Don’t you wish,” Blair fired back. “You’re threatening to shut down their business. They’ll be here, all right.”

  “Well, I’m tired of waiting,” the mayor said into the microphone, causing feedback to squeal across the room. Everybody covered their ears until Jason Manford got down on his knees and fiddled with the knob. “We’ve moved it down the agenda twice already tonight,” the mayor went on. “If we ever want to get out of here, I think we need to start arguin’ this right now.”

  Morgan got up. “Mayor, there must be something wrong. Jonathan went to see if he could find them. Please, if we could just have a few more minutes.”

  “We’re not waitin’ any longer. Now if anybody from your camp has somethin’ to say . . .”

  “What are you gonna do, Mayor?” Blair asked, pushing up her sleeves and shuffling past the knees and feet on her row. “Shut us down without a hearing? That’s not even legal. You could find yourself slapped with a lawsuit, and then you wouldn’t even have time to worry about jellyfish and gravel. Where would that leave the town?”

  She marched defiantly past the standing-room-only crowd against the wall to the microphone at the front of the room.

  Morgan got a queasy feeling in her stomach. Blair wasn’t the most diplomatic of the Owens family. She was an impatient intellectual who found her greatest fulfillment in the books of the library she ran. People were something of a nuisance to her, and she found their pettiness unforgivable.

  Blair set her hands on her hips. “I’ve been wanting to give you a piece of my mind for a long time now, Fred.”

  The people erupted into loud chatter, and the mayor banged his gavel to silence them. “As you know, young lady, the city council members and I have agreed that the publicity from the 20/20 show about Hanover House a few months ago brought a whole new element to this town. The show portrayed your folks as willin’ to take in any ol’ Joe with a past and even exposed some things about one of your current tenants that made the people of this town uncomfortable and afraid. We want to be a family-friendly tourist town, not a refuge for every ex-con with a probation officer. For that reason, we believe Hanover House is a danger to this town and that it’s in the city’s best interest to close it down under Zoning Ordinance number 503.”

  Blair waited patiently through the mayor’s speech, her arms crossed. “Before we address the absurdity of your pathetic attempts to shut down Hanover House just because my parents refused to help campaign for you—” Cheers rose again, and Blair forged on. “Maybe I should remind you that Cape Refuge got its name because of the work of the Hanovers who had that bed-and-breakfast before my parents did. It was a refuge for those who were hurting and had no place else to go. I think we have a whole lot more to fear from an ex-con released from jail with a pocketful of change and no prospects for a job or a home, than we do from the ones who have jobs and housing and the support of people who care about them.”

  Morgan couldn’t believe she was hearing these words come out of her sister’s mouth. Blair had never sympathized with her parents’ calling to help the needy, and she had little to do with the bed-and-breakfast. To hear her talk now, one would think she was on the frontlines in her parents’ war against hopelessness.

  “Hanover House is one of the oldest homes on
this island, and it’s part of our heritage,” Blair went on. “And I find it real interesting that you’d be all offended by what they do there out in the open, when Betty Jean’s secret playhouse for men is still operating without a hitch.”

  Again the crowd roared. Horrified, Morgan stood up. Quickly trying to scoot out of her row, she whispered to those around her, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know she was going to say that. She didn’t mean it, she just says whatever comes to her mind—”

  “Incidentally, Fred,” Blair shouted, “I’ve noticed that you don’t have any trouble finding a parking spot at her place!” Blair added.

  The mayor came out of his seat, his mouth hanging open with stunned indignation. Morgan stepped on three feet, trying to get to her sister. She fully expected Fred to find Blair in contempt—if mayors did that sort of thing in city council meetings—and order the Hanover House bulldozed before nightfall.

  “She didn’t mean that!” Morgan shouted over the crowd, pushing toward the front. “I’m sure she’s never seen your car at Betty Jean’s, have you, Blair? Mayor, please, if I may say a few words . . .” She finally got to the front, her eyes rebuking Blair.

  Blair wouldn’t surrender the microphone. “And I might add, Mayor, that your own parents were on this island because of Joe and Miranda Hanover and that bed-and-breakfast. If I remember, your daddy killed a man accidentally and came here to stay while he was awaiting trial.”

  The veins in Fred’s neck protruded, and his face was so red that Morgan feared the top of his head would shoot right off. “My daddy was never convicted!” he shouted. “And if you’re suggesting that he was the same type of criminal that flocks to Hanover House, you are sadly mistaken!”

  Morgan reached for the microphone again, her mind already composing a damage-control speech, but her sister’s grip was strong.

  “After my parents inherited the bed-and-breakfast from the Hanovers,” Blair said, “they continued their policy of never harboring anybody illegally. You know that my father works with these people while they’re still in prison, and he only agrees to house the ones he trusts, who are trying to turn their lives around. Hanover House gives those people an opportunity to become good people who can contribute to society . . . unlike some of those serving on our city council.”