Authors: Nancy Thayer
Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze (115 page)
“Long story short,” Adam said. “Lexi’s back on the island. She’s started her own boutique, a clothing store—”
“Right next door to me!” Clare interjected.
“And Lexi saw Jewel sitting out there every day and she started hanging out with Jewel and they became close.”
Tris frowned. “Isn’t Lexi married to that Hardin fellow?”
“She was. They’re divorced. Lexi’s back here for good.” Clare met Adam’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Tris, we had a storm a few days ago. A bad one. Jewel went into the water, and Lexi ran out and saved her.”
“Clare helped,” Adam added.
“Is she okay?” Tris asked urgently.
“She’s fine. The thing is, Bonnie has forbidden her from ever going out on the town pier again.”
“I guess that’s understandable,” Tris said.
“So I think Lexi brought Jewel out to a little private beach where we played when we were girls. You can see the harbor from there. Jewel was obsessed with the idea that you’d be brought home by boat, she wanted you to see her waiting for you, she wanted you to know she never gave up hope.”
Tris’s shoulders heaved and he rubbed at his eyes.
“We’re here,” Adam said. He stopped the Jeep on the side of the road and looked over at his friend. “You okay?”
“There’s Lexi’s Range Rover,” Clare said, pointing. “They’re out on Moon Shell Beach.”
“Moon Shell Beach?” Tris asked.
Clare opened her door and jumped out. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Her heart was leaping in her throat as she led the two men through the swampy marshland toward the secret path. The land squelched under her feet as she cut through the tangle of cattails, berry bushes, and beach grass. High overhead in the brilliant blue sky, a gull flew, shrieking. Clare parted the wall of grasses and stepped out onto the golden curve of sand.
Two figures were kneeling on the beach, making a sand castle. Jewel wore shorts and a yellow T-shirt and her hair was in braids tied with blue ribbons. Next to her, Lexi wore a white T-shirt and khaki shorts. Behind them, dozens of boats bobbed in the idle blue waters of the harbor. Tris came through the tall grasses, and Adam followed.
“Hi, guys,” Clare said, and her voice came out high and squeaky, because her heart was pounding so hard.
Jewel turned and looked up. Her eyes went wide. She jumped up, screaming, “Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy!” Sand flew up as she ran toward her father. Tris reached out and caught her in his arms and held her to him. “Daddy,
you’re home
! I knew you’d come home! We’ve been waiting for you!”
Tris hugged his daughter, kissing the top of her head, smelling her, inhaling her, then looking at her face.
“Don’t cry, Daddy,” Jewel said softly.
“Happy tears, Jewel,” Tris told her.
Adam came quietly to put an arm around Clare, who was smiling while tears ran down her face.
“Daddy, Daddy,” Jewel squirmed, lifting an arm free so she could point to Lexi. “Daddy, you have to meet Lexi. She helped me hope for you.”
Lexi had been standing by the water, watching. Now she came forward, her blond hair glowing in the sun.
“Hello, Lexi,” Tris said, reaching out to shake her hand.
“Hi, Tris,” Lexi said, and her smile welcomed him home.
For My Beloved
Charles Walters
Joshua Thayer
David Raymond Gillum
Sam Wilde Forbes
and
Ellias Samuel Steep Forbes
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks to John West, brilliant chocolatier of Sweet Inspirations, and beautiful Cheryl Fudge of Cheryl Fudge Designs. Thanks to the glamorous Anastassia Izioumova and the gorgeous Viktoriya Krivonosova. I’m so glad you’re on Nantucket. Thank you, Josh Thayer, for your swift, precise information about business matters. Thanks to Libby McGuire for her insight. Thanks to the very cool Dan Mallory. Enormous gratitude to my virtuoso agent and friend, Meg Ruley.
And to my editor Linda Marrow, genuine on-my-knees idolatry for her genius, inspiration, and editing.
Summer House
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Nancy Thayer
Reading group guide copyright © 2010 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
B
ALLANTINE
and colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
Random House Reader’s Circle and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-345-51521-6
v3.0_r2
Early Summer
OneCharlotte had already picked the lettuces and set them, along with the bunches of asparagus tied with twine and the mason jars of fresh-faced pansies, out on the table in a shaded spot at the end of the drive. In July, she would have to pay someone to man the farm stand, but in June not so many customers were around, and those who did come by found a table holding a wicker basket with a small whiteboard propped next to the basket. In colored chalk, the prices for the day’s offerings were listed, and a note:
Everything picked fresh today. Please leave the money in the basket. Thanks and blessings from Beach Grass Garden.
She hadn’t been cheated yet. She knew the customers thought this way of doing business was quaint, harkening back to a simpler time, and they appreciated it. Perhaps it helped them believe the world was still a safe and honest place.
The day was overcast but hoeing was hot work and she had been up since four-thirty. Charlotte collapsed against the trunk of an apple tree, uncapped her water bottle, and took a long delicious drink. Nantucket had the best water on the planet: sweet, pure, and
clear. It was shady in this overgrown spot, so she lifted off the floppy straw hat she wore, in addition to a heavy slathering of sunblock, and sighed in appreciation as a light breeze stirred her hair.
She couldn’t linger, she had too much to do. She took another long drink of water, listened to her stomach rumble, and considered returning to the house for an early lunch.
When she heard the voices, she almost jumped.
People were talking on Bill Cooper’s side of the fence, just behind the green tangle of wild grapevines. Hunky Bill Cooper and his gorgeous girlfriend. From the tense rumble of Coop’s voice and Miranda’s shrill whine, they weren’t happy.
“Come on, Mir, don’t be that way.” Bill’s tone was placating but rimmed with an edge of exasperation.
“What way would that be?” A sob caught in Miranda’s throat. “Truthful?”
The moment had definitely passed, Charlotte decided, when she could clear her throat, jump up, and call out a cheerful hello. Vague snuffling sounds informed her that Bill’s dogs, Rex and Regina, were nearby, nosing through the undergrowth. She thought about the layout of Bill’s land: along the other side of the fence grew his everlasting raspberry bushes. The berries wouldn’t be ripe yet, so Bill and Miranda must be taking the dogs for a walk as they often did. She was glad the berry bushes grew next to the fence, their prickly canes forming a barrier between Bill’s land and Nona’s. A tangle of grasses massed around barberry bushes was wedged against the fence, and then there were the tree trunks. They would pass by any moment now. She would keep very quiet. Otherwise it would be too embarrassing, even though she had a right and a reason to be here.
“I never lied to you, Miranda. I told you I wasn’t ready for a long-term commitment, especially not when you’re in New York all winter.”
“You could come visit me.”
“I don’t like cities,” Bill argued mildly.
“Well, that’s
pathetic.
And sleeping with that—that
slut
—is pathetic.” Miranda was striding ahead of Bill. She cried out, “Rex, you stupid, stupid dog! You almost tripped me.”
“Mir, simmer down.” Bill sounded irritable, at the end of his patience.
Miranda didn’t reply but hurried into the orchard of ancient apple trees. Bill followed, crashing through the brush. Charlotte could hear a few more words—
I’m not kidding! It’s over, Bill!
—then she heard the hum of their voices but no words, and then they were gone.
“Gosh,” Charlotte whispered to herself.
Charlotte had had a crush on Bill Cooper for years. Coop was a hunk, but so easygoing and funny that when you talked with him you could almost forget how handsome he was. She seldom saw him, even though he lived right next door. Of course, “right next door” was a general term. Nona’s property consisted of ten acres with fifty feet of waterfront on Polpis Harbor, and the Coopers’ land was about the same size. With all the plantings, you couldn’t see one house from the other, even in winter when all the leaves had fallen.
Like the Wheelwrights, the Coopers mostly summered on the island, the Wheelwrights coming from Boston, the Coopers from New York. Eons ago, when they were all little kids, Coop had played a lot with Charlotte’s brother Oliver, even though Oliver was younger, because Coop was an only child, and the two families got together several times over the summer for cocktails or barbecues. Then came the years when they rarely saw each other, everyone off in college and backpacking in summer instead of coming to the island.
Coop lived in California for a while, but three years ago his parents moved to Florida and Coop moved into the island house, telling everyone he wanted to live here permanently. He ran a computer software business from his nineteen-sixties wandering ranch house, mixed his plasma TV and Bose CD player in with his family’s summery bamboo and teak furniture, and was content. Mostly he allowed his land to grow wild, except for a small crop of butter-and-sugar corn famous for its sweetness. At the end of the summer, he held a party outdoors, a clambake with fresh corn, cold beer, and icy champagne.
