A Vineyard Thanksgiving

by Katie Winters

  A Vineyard

  Thanksgiving

  The Vineyard Sunset Series

  Book Four

  By

  Katie Winters

  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.

  Copyright © 2020 by Katie Winters

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Other Books by Katie | The Vineyard Sunset Series

  Connect with Katie Winters

  Prologue

  1996

  Just after five in the evening on a particularly sunny day in late August, Lola Sheridan pressed her hands over her older cousin, Charlotte Montgomery’s eyes, and said, “Guess who’s coming out on the boat tonight?”

  Charlotte hated it when Lola played games like that. Lola was always the charismatic, loud one, and she liked to create chaos out of nothing. Still, the love she had for her fifteen-year-old cousin led her to say, “I don’t know. Who?”

  With that, Lola yanked her hands off of Charlotte’s eyes and pointed at the dock in front of them. There, Lola’s new boyfriend, Peter, stood next to his best friend, the handsome, broad-shouldered Jason Hamner. It was no secret among the Sheridan and Montgomery cousins that Charlotte had a pretty serious crush on Jason Hamner, and the fact that she had been too terrified to do anything about it? They didn’t let her forget it.

  “Now’s your chance,” Lola breathed excitedly.

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte whispered. Her throat tightened.

  “You can’t just let life pass you by, Charlotte,” Lola said. She thought she was something of an authority on the subject, especially since her mother had died in a horrible boating accident a little over three years before. “You have to take it by the horns, you know? Get what you want.”

  “Ha. Did you read that in a magazine somewhere?” Charlotte asked.

  Lola leaped out of Charlotte’s clunky convertible and danced toward the dock, where she hung her arms around Peter’s neck and gave him a tender kiss. Charlotte was nothing like Lola in terms of bravery, and she’d still never been kissed. She was already seventeen years old. According to her moodier cousin Christine, this was “borderline pathetic.”

  Charlotte got out of the car, looked into the back seat and the front to make sure nothing of value remained, and then walked toward the other three. She wore a jean miniskirt and a yellow tank top, and her long brown curls wafted down her shoulders and back, catching in the breeze. She quietly thanked Lola for demanding that she wear eyeliner and lip gloss, rather than shooting for the natural look for a little stint on the boat.

  “There she is. Charlotte Montgomery herself,” Peter said, grinning broadly.

  “Hey,” Charlotte replied. She didn’t trust her tone. Did she sound cool enough to be among them? “Whose boat is that?”

  The speed boat clunked against the dock and glittered in the gorgeous orange evening light.

  “It’s mine,” Jason affirmed. “My dad just bought it.”

  “Wow. It’s beautiful,” Charlotte said. She forced her eyes to meet Jason’s altogether perfect green ones. He was just as beautiful as anyone on the TV shows she ate up with her sister, Claire, and maybe even more so.

  What would Claire think of her now?

  They got into the speedboat. Immediately, Lola ripped off her tank top to reveal her bikini beneath. Charlotte also wore a bikini; it was just what you did on Martha’s Vineyard in the summertime. Still, she felt too awkward about just whipping off her shirt in front of Jason. She didn’t want him to think she was easy. According to her mother, this was one of the worst things to make a boy think you were.

  Lola doesn’t have a mother. She can act, however she wants.

  The second the thoughts ran through her mind, Charlotte regretted them. It wasn’t like she wished that reality on herself, not in a million years. When Aunt Anna had passed away, the entire island had shifted. Susan had run as fast as she could away from all of them. Apparently, she already had a baby and lived this whole other life. Christine had her eyes elsewhere, as well. This was so different from what Charlotte had assumed they would do. She’d thought she would have her family around her always.

  Jason cranked up the boat’s engine and shot them out through the turquoise waters. His large hand across the steering wheel looked more like a man’s hand than a boy’s. Charlotte knew he had been dating someone back at school, but she had heard they’d broken up. Was he sad about it? Did he need to talk? Did boys ever need to talk, or were they just less emotional, made of muscle and sweat, with a love of sports?

  “How was your summer, Char?” he asked suddenly.

  He turned his face toward hers, and every single cell in her body caught fire. They had hardly spoken, and here he was, calling her Char.

  “It was okay,” she admitted. In her mind, cool girls never got too excited about anything. “What about you?”

  “Ah, you know. Dad thinks it’s time I start fishing with him most mornings, so I’ve been pretty tired a lot. The wake-up call is four in the morning. I crash early.”

  “Wow. Yeah. That’s intense,” Charlotte said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “It really is. But there’s something about the water in the mornings, you know? It’s like I get to see this whole other world that other people miss because they’re asleep,” he said.

  As they spoke, Lola and Peter fell into one another’s arms and busied themselves, making out and whispering to one another. Charlotte’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.

  Jason eased the boat toward the western part of the island, toward the edges of the cliffs. He then cut the engine and cranked the anchor toward the bottom of the ocean. Lola moved forward and shuffled through her backpack, where she found a bottle of cheap vodka. She yanked it open, sipped just a bit, then grimaced.

  “It was the best I could get,” she said with a shrug. “I snuck it out of the Sunrise Cove Inn Bistro.”

  I can’t believe she did that. Uncle Wes would kill her if he knew.

  “That’s hilarious,” Charlotte said, contrary to her actual thoughts.

  Lola passed her the vodka, and Charlotte took the tiniest of sips. “Yum,” she said, but then made a face as the liquid burned her throat.

  “It’s disgusting,” Lola stated. “But whatever, it works for today.”

  Charlotte sat next to Jason and gazed up at the cliffside, which caught the reflection of the brimming sunset. Peter and Jason talked about the football season, which was ramping up even now. Jason would be a
senior, like Charlotte, while Peter would be a junior. It gave Charlotte every shade of panic to think about this being the last year of high school. What was she supposed to do after this? Did she have any useful skills at all?

  After a few more sips of the vodka, Peter yanked off his t-shirt and jumped into the water. Lola removed her jean shorts and followed suit, yelping and flashing her long, beautiful hair back behind her. She wrapped her arms around him and dunked him, and he threw her through the air, making her crash down below.

  Jason turned back toward Charlotte and said, “Do you want to swim?”

  Charlotte had always been kind of nervous in the water. It wasn’t anything she could understand. She had been raised on an island, for goodness sakes, and had spent a number of days of her life on a boat.

  “Sure,” Charlotte said instead. “Sounds great.”

  Charlotte turned away from the others and removed her skirt and her tank top. Then, she forced herself around and blinked at Jason. How were his abs even possible? They looked almost drawn on; they were so perfect.

  “After you,” he said, stretching his arm out toward the water.

  “No, no. I insist,” she said. “You first.”

  Suddenly, his eyes became electric green. He rushed toward her, gripped her waist, and then threw her in the water, the same way Peter had with Lola. As Charlotte careened toward the waves, her body froze. Fear shot through her. The second she entered the water, she forgot herself and inhaled a big glug of the salty liquid. Her throat filled up, and she started thrashing around, splashing. She yanked herself into the crisp air and coughed and coughed. Her throat burned. She had never been more panicked in her whole life. She felt certain she would drown.

  Seconds later, she felt strong arms around her. A swimmer dragged her back toward the boat, and a firm voice commanded, “Grab the handle. Come on. Let’s get you back up.”

  Charlotte did as she was told. With all the strength she had, she yanked herself back onto the boat and continued to cough. A large hand stretched out across her back.

  “Come on. It’s okay.”

  Finally, she forced her eyes open to peer into those same glorious emerald ones.

  “Char! Hey! You okay?” Now she heard Lola’s voice, down in the water still. She stepped up on the boat’s ladder and peered at her cousin anxiously. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte replied. She coughed again as Jason’s hand continued to ease up and down her naked back. “I’m so sorry. I just...”

  “What! Don’t be sorry,” Jason said. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I just tossed you in the water like an idiot. I should have warned you.”

  “Charlotte’s not so good about the water,” Lola affirmed.

  “Gee. Thanks, Lola,” Charlotte said, even though this was 100% true.

  “I didn’t know.” Jason furrowed his brow. “And I won’t do that again, okay? Let’s just stay up here. I have some not-so-bad vodka in my bag. Want a little bit?”

  “Hey! Were you going to hold out on Peter and me?” Lola asked, hands-on-hips and now staring at both of them.

  “I just think Charlotte and I deserve it more. We’re older, after all,” Jason said, laughing.

  Charlotte took a little sip and felt her body surge with warmth. Jason wrapped a towel around both of them and huddled close to her.

  “The water has always been such a big part of my life,” he confessed. “Since my dad works as a fisherman, he took me out fishing for the first time when I was maybe three or four. I remember begging my mom to swim as early as five in the morning once. I could never get enough of it.”

  “I was always so afraid,” Charlotte said. She shook her head, flashing her half-dried hair around her. “My mom never knew what to do with me. But I remember my Aunt Anna used to take pity on me and hold me up and tell me that if I just kept kicking, she would help me the rest of the way.”

  “Maybe I can help you lose your fear of the water,” Jason suggested.

  “Maybe hypnosis would work,” Charlotte said with a laugh.

  “Ha. We could try that if everything else doesn’t work,” Jason said.

  Charlotte couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to Jason.

  The minutes dripped into hours, until Peter and Lola begged for Jason to drive them back to the dock so they could go get something to eat. When Lola and Peter dressed and ducked toward the main road, Charlotte and Jason held back and decided to get their own food and eat it near the water.

  “Suit yourselves,” Lola said with a shrug. Her eyes burned into Charlotte’s, demanding answers.

  Charlotte wouldn’t budge.

  She and Jason got burgers, fries, and milkshakes and sat on a blanket overlooking the Vineyard Sound. Jason explained a few things about his life that he said he had never told anyone before, like how his mother had had such a hard pregnancy and labor with him that she hadn’t been able to have any other children. “I think it killed her,” he said. “And it’s always bothered me that maybe I was never enough for her.”

  Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears. “You? You’re obviously enough.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, palming the back of his neck.

  Charlotte reached over and gripped his other hand. Her fingers laced through his. Her eyes became enormous.

  “I’ve wanted to do this every single day since I first saw you,” she whispered.

  She then bridged the space between them and kissed him. Her heart thudded and her thoughts raced as his lips opened and accepted her, and his hand traced her shoulder and tugged her against him.

  When their kiss broke, he whispered, “Why did you wait so long?”

  Chapter One

  The Present

  Charlotte awoke to a grey and drizzly morning. She stretched her legs out, till her toes poked up on the other side of the thick comforter. The red numbers on the alarm clock read: 8:42. It was time for coffee. It was time for another day in this era, which she had decided to call “the rest of her life.” Fun.

  Charlotte brewed a large pot of coffee and checked her email, standing up at the kitchen counter. Since it was early November, the majority of her current work was for next spring, summer, and early fall—wedding season on Martha’s Vineyard. As an event and wedding coordinator, November meant time to think, to breathe.

  Since Jason’s death, of course, she hadn’t been particularly into the whole “time to think” thing. If anything, she needed more to fill her mind with. Dwelling on the past—according to grief books she had read—wasn’t doing her any favors, but that’s what her brain gave her: images of Jason as that handsome seventeen-year-old; Jason, age twenty-one, getting down on one knee to ask her to marry him; Jason, carrying baby Rachel around the house, rocking her to sleep; Jason—age forty, wearing his finest suit, lying back in the coffin.

  No.

  Rachel walked into the little kitchen area, Charlotte’s saving grace from her darker thoughts. She yawned into the words, “Good morning,” then reached for a banana in the fruit bowl. “How did you sleep?”

  “Not bad,” Charlotte lied. In truth, she couldn’t remember the last time she had slept like a normal person. “Do you have anything going on today?”

  “Just a little bit of homework, I guess,” Rachel said. “Oh! And Abby and Gail asked if they could come over. And I kind of said yes.”

  “What time?”

  “Um...”

  At that moment, knocks rang out from the front door. Charlotte grumbled and cut through the kitchen toward the foyer. On the route, she spotted no fewer than three photographs of Jason through the years. The photos taunted her, but she couldn’t bring herself to take them down. She wanted him there, as much as he could be there.

  When Charlotte opened the door on the drizzly morning, she found her dear fifteen-year-old nieces, Abby and Gail, along with their mother, Claire, Charlotte’s younger sister. Claire lifted a gorgeous bouquet of flowers skyward and said, “Do you have any coffee? I�
�m dying.”

  “All right. Everyone come in,” Charlotte said, heaving a sigh and moving aside to allow them to walk in.

  The girls scampered in and hugged Rachel, then collapsed at the kitchen table and began the first of what would surely be a number of hours of gossip. Charlotte leaned forward, hugging Claire.

  “They’re beautiful. Thank you,” she said, taking the bouquet.

  “I take it, Rachel didn’t communicate this little meeting?”

  “Not quite,” Charlotte said. “But I didn’t have plans today, anyway. What do you think? Pancakes?”

  “Sounds perfect to me,” Claire said. She stretched her legs toward the far end of the kitchen, grabbed a vase from the top shelf, and placed the flowers within. When she turned her eyes back toward Charlotte, she said, “You look like you haven’t been eating.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  Charlotte had a hunch, now, that this whole “getting the girls together” thing was secretly a check-in on Charlotte, the depressed sister thing. In Charlotte’s mind, she had every right to be depressed. One day, her husband had gone out to fish for the morning; the next, she’d had to make preparations to put him in the ground.

  Charlotte whipped up a large batch of pancakes. If there was anything she’d had to learn, it was that teenage girls liked to eat. As she stirred in the blueberries, she commented on this to Claire, who laughed.

  “Don’t you remember? We ate anything that wasn’t nailed down,” she said.

  “I hardly remember that. Once your metabolism dies out, I guess your brain makes you forget about the good times.”

  Charlotte splayed blueberry pancakes in a big pile on a large red plate. She placed the platter before the three girls and watched as they tore into them, smearing butter and drizzling syrup.

  “What the heck. I want one, too,” Claire said. “Join me, Charlotte. It’s November. Who cares about our thighs till April, right?”

  Charlotte laughed and nodded in agreement. In seconds, she had her own thick, doughy, blueberry pancake out in front of her. Rachel poured syrup for her and winked at her mom.

  “It’s best if it’s like your pancake went swimming in syrup,” she said.