by Grace Palmer
No Forever Like Nantucket
A Sweet Island Inn Novel (Book 6)
Grace Palmer
Copyright © 2021 by Grace Palmer
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
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Also by Grace Palmer
No Forever Like Nantucket
1. Mae
2. Eliza
3. Sara
4. Holly
5. Eliza
6. Mae
7. Sara
8. Eliza
9. Holly
10. Eliza
11. Holly
12. Mae
13. Eliza
14. Sara
15. Holly
16. Eliza
17. Sara
18. Eliza
19. Holly
20. Eliza
21. Mae
22. Holly
23. Mae
24. Sara
25. Eliza
26. Holly
27. Sara
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Also by Grace Palmer
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Also by Grace Palmer
Sweet Island Inn
No Home Like Nantucket (Book 1)
No Beach Like Nantucket (Book 2)
No Wedding Like Nantucket (Book 3)
No Love Like Nantucket (Book 4)
No Secret Like Nantucket (Book 5)
No Forever Like Nantucket (Book 6)
No Summer Like Nantucket (Book 7) (coming soon!)
Willow Beach Inn
Just South of Paradise (Book 1)
Just South of Perfect (Book 2)
Just South of Sunrise (Book 3)
Just South of Christmas (Book 4)
No Forever Like Nantucket
A Sweet Island Inn Novel (Book 6)
IF MAE LOSES THE INN, SHE’LL LOSE EVERYTHING.
Mae Benson was born to run the Sweet Island Inn. She cooks, she cleans, she laughs, she makes a mean pot of coffee and she always knows which beach to recommend to her guests.
But suddenly, that way of life looks very much in danger.
On what was supposed to be a happy day—the day her boyfriend Dominic gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him—Mae discovers that a collective of out-of-towners with bad intentions intends to usurp her business by building a competing hotel right down the street.
And she’s not the only one floundering.
Other mysterious out-of-towners are bringing troubles of their own for the Benson clan—including an anonymous offer to buyout Sara’s ownership of Little Bull restaurant (with some very strange strings attached).
Holly’s childhood friends arrive back on Nantucket for a tumultuous high school reunion with plenty of baggage in tow.
And Eliza, meanwhile, is doing her best to keep her head above water—even as the anxieties she thought she left behind threaten to drag her beneath the stormy waves.
Catch up with the Benson family in this sweet, clean women’s fiction novel.
If you haven’t already, check out the other books in the series:
No Home Like Nantucket (Book 1)
No Beach Like Nantucket (Book 2)
No Wedding Like Nantucket (Book 3)
No Love Like Nantucket (Book 4)
No Secret Like Nantucket (Book 5)
1
Mae
A SECLUDED NANTUCKET BEACH ON A GORGEOUS JUNE MORNING
Dominic O’Kelley was on one knee.
More precisely, he was on one knee in the surf, the biting Atlantic waters washing over his leg. Mae watched the water soak into the hem of his khaki shorts. Of all things to notice about the moment, that’s what she was focusing on.
The way tendrils of the water snaked up the fabric. The way bits of tan foam clung on for dear life.
Mae had been begging Dom to take off his shoes and walk with her in the water for the last month, but he’d refused. “I’m not stepping foot nor toe in that water until July. At least,” he’d insisted.
Now, he was knee-deep in it, looking up at her…
With a small black box in his hand.
He’d said something, but Mae had missed it. Shocked as she was by the sight of him kneeling in the water, who could blame her?
“What?” she asked. The murmur of the lapping waves, cool and constant, drowned out their voices.
Dominic smiled, amused by her, and opened the black box to reveal a sizable diamond ring.
Jewelry had always befuddled Mae. She’d never had much of an eye for it. And given how often her fingers were plunged into dough and batter as she cooked for guests and family at the Sweet Island Inn, she didn’t accessorize much. She’d also once seen a horrific medical show on television that involved a fumbled engagement ring and a garbage disposal and she’d decided then and there that she liked her hand arranged just how it was, thank you very much.
But this wasn’t quite “jewelry” in the sense that she’d always thought of the stuff. This was something else altogether—she knew that much.
She knew a few other things, as well.
She knew that the band was silver and delightfully twisted as if the metal were soft as silk.
She knew the round-cut ring caught the morning sun overhead.
And she knew what a ring like that meant.
“I said,” Dominic repeated, his graying eyebrows rising in anticipation, “will you marry me, Mae Benson?”
Oh my, she thought. What a question!
While the movie based on Dominic’s book had been filming and in post-production, Mae had done her level best to be a balm to his frayed nerves. Whether Dominic admitted it or not, he was worried about how the movie would perform. Whether fans of his book would like it. Whether he himself would like it.
But that was all behind them now. Life had eased back into a normal rhythm, even with the nearly overwhelming uptick in reservations deluging the Sweet Island Inn. The filmmakers had done well in showing the inn’s best sides, and now folks from across the country and around the world were flocking to her little slice of paradise.
Just as Mae’s business manager and eldest daughter Eliza had predicted, the movie was the best advertising anyone could have asked for.
By the time the Benson family had gathered for Mae’s birthday party the week prior—a party she now shared with two of her grandchildren, as luck would have it—Mae had a sneaking suspicion Dominic would propose.
She’d be certain of it, actually. “Dollars to donuts you’re an engaged woman by nightfall,” her best friend Debra had said. Mae had laughed and demurred, though internally, she happened to agree.
And then the night had slipped by in an enjoyable blur of sausage hoagies, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, and laughter. Not a single proposal in sight.
But Mae didn’t complain. How could she? She and Dominic loved one another. They were committed to one another. Devoted in every way that mattered. Perhaps that was enough.
Anyway, now that she was sliding down the back half of her sixties, Mae was no longer the romantic idyllist she’d once been.
Not to say there was no place for romance in her life. There c
ertainly was. But grand declarations didn’t factor into the equation as often as they once had. 1980s cinema had taught her to expect boomboxes outside the window and “You had me at hello,” but as her seventh decade neared its conclusion, Mae wasn’t terribly upset to find out that those things were few and far between.
The little things were enough.
Dominic rising early each day to drink coffee with Mae, no matter how late he’d been up writing the night before? That was enough.
The way he dutifully checked the fire alarms in the Inn once a month so Mae wouldn’t have to climb up on the ladder? That was enough.
Him sitting for hours on end reading books for the grandkids with nary a complaint was enough. All of that was enough.
So this? This was far, far more than enough. Didn’t mean she was going to say no, though.
A meddlesome wave pushed against Mae’s leg, wetting her to her calf—and Dominic all the way to his mid-thigh, since he was still kneeling—and pulled her from her thoughts.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “Yes, of course!”
Dominic laughed. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”
Mae pulled her hand away from her mouth, laying it instead on Dominic’s shoulder. “Yes, of course! Of course, I’ll marry you. Yes.”
His smile was radiant. Dominic stood up, his right side soaked, and led Mae away from the water. Once they were safely on dry sand, he slid the ring from where it sat in its snug spot surrounded by burgundy satin.
“I don’t want to lose it in the ocean,” he explained, his hand trembling ever so slightly as he slid the ring onto Mae’s finger.
A few years earlier, she’d finally taken off the wedding ring Henry had given her and switched it to her other hand. The gold band was scratched and nicked from over four decades of wear, and the diamond was a tiny, glistening pea, muted by the passing time.
It was all her departed husband Henry could afford back in their early days. He’d always sworn he’d upgrade it when the money was better, but Mae told him not to bother. She loved it as it was. It was enough.
And this—glowing, twisting, simple, beautiful—this too was enough.
“Do you like it?” Dominic inquired, a hint of self-consciousness in his tone. “I picked it out myself.”
Mae glanced down. By any reckoning, it was a gorgeous piece. The central diamond was surrounded by a border of tiny jewels tiny as pinpricks. She turned her hand to and fro in the sun, admiring the way it seemed to swallow the light and give it back all the brighter.
Mae looked up at her boyfriend—now her fiancé—and smiled. “It’s perfect, Dom. Better than I ever would have picked out for myself.”
“If it was up to you, you’d wear a string tied around your finger,” he teased. “But I thought you deserved a little more fanfare than that.”
She held up her hand again, watching light fracture and reflect off the diamonds, splattering her skin with light and miniature rainbows like a disco ball. “A little sparkle never killed anybody, I suppose.”
“Not to date,” Dominic said. “But if you’re not careful in the sun, you might blind someone.”
Mae laughed, lowered her hand to Dominic’s shoulder, and let him pull her against him. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you, too.” He leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I said that in my proposal, though I don’t think you caught it, nor did you say it back. Made for quite a photo finish.”
Mae’s cheeks pinked with embarrassment. “I was a little shocked.”
“But you’re calm and collected now, yes?” he asked, leaning back, eyes narrowed. “You haven’t agreed to anything you’ll regret later?”
Mae laughed and pulled him back into the hug with her arms around his neck. “How could I ever regret you?”
“I’m sure you’ll come up with a few reasons. You’ve got the rest of our lives to think of some.”
Dominic was teasing, but Mae’s heart swelled at the thought. The rest of their lives. Together forever.
Mae couldn’t think of anything she’d regret less than that.
She should have known something was up when Dominic had suggested a dawn walk along the beach. And not even the private beach behind the Inn, but Madaket Beach on the western edge of the island.
Because of the rough surf, most people avoided the area for swimming, which made it Mae’s favorite place to take a walk. Golden grass poked through the white sand at regular intervals, turning into full-on jungles of grass and scrub oak where the sand transitioned to stones and dirt.
It was an isolated, romantic spot, and Mae could already imagine going back there on their anniversary every year. Reliving the beautiful moment. The perfect day.
“Coffee,” Dominic begged as he pulled the car alongside the curb downtown. “I am in desperate need of caffeine. Do you want anything?”
Mae was buzzing on adrenaline and love, but the excitement seemed to have fizzled into exhaustion for Dominic. The sunrise hike was catching up with him. “I’m fine. You go ahead, dear.”
He leaned over the console for a quick kiss and then hurried across the cobblestones and into Two Birds Coffee.
Being married to Dominic wouldn’t change much, Mae knew. Beyond jointly filing taxes, marriage wouldn’t alter their lives in any significant way.
Which sounded wonderful to Mae. She didn’t want anything to change.
Through the front window of the coffee shop, Mae could see Dominic smile at something Lauren, the owner of the shop, had said. He shoved his hands down into his short pockets, the right leg of which was still soaked. But Dom didn’t seem to notice or mind.
Mae smiled. She was looking at her fiancé. One day soon, he would be her husband.
For a moment there, she hadn’t thought she’d have another of those. But Dominic had mended the pieces of her shattered heart into a wonderful mosaic. Broken, but all the more beautiful for it. Now, she would have a lifetime to thank him.
Coffee in hand, Dominic returned to the car several minutes later and found Mae still smiling. “What are you smiling at?”
“You,” she said easily, rolling her head towards him. “Today. Everything.”
“Happy, are you?” He sipped his coffee and placed it in the cup holder.
“Remarkably. When can I tell the kids?”
“Whenever you’d like,” Dominic answered. “We can swing by all of their houses right now. One by one.”
Mae laughed. “It’s too early for all that. And Sara’s flight got in late last night. I doubt she’d appreciate an early wake-up call. But maybe this afternoon?”
“Whenever you want.”
“Mmkay. I want to share this with them.”
Maybe she could get them all together at Sara’s restaurant. Or gather them at the inn. A video chat would be fine, too, though goodness knows those things still took some getting-used-to.
The method didn’t matter. Mae just wanted her kids to know.
“Me, too.” Dominic reached across the console and held Mae’s hand, turning the wheel effortlessly with the other. “Debra and Lola were more than happy to step in and serve breakfast this morning. I’m sure they’d watch the inn this afternoon, too, if you wanted to make the rounds and share the news.”
Mae chuckled and shook her head. “I can’t believe you convinced those two to keep this secret from me. Lola is usually the worst liar.”
Her friends often stepped in to help her run the Sweet Island Inn from time to time when Mae had an appointment or some other conflict, so it wasn’t unusual for them to warm up what Mae had prepared for breakfast and tend to the guests.
Though, now that Mae thought about it, their expressions had been awfully pinched that morning. Almost like they were biting back words. She guessed they’d have plenty of words to share with her once she made it back home—most of them delivered in an excited squeal.
“They wanted you to be surprised. They said you deserved this more than anyone.�
� Dominic squeezed her fingers. “‘This’ being me, of course, and personally, I couldn’t agree more.”
“Of course you couldn’t.” Mae rolled her eyes, but couldn’t bite down her laugh.
They held hands all the way across the island. Usually, a Nantucket morning was one of Mae’s favorite sights. The island just starting to wake up, birds gathering on power lines, sunlight dappling through the trees to illuminate the brick and cobblestone paths.
But this morning, Mae struggled to look away from the ring on her finger. She had to keep reminding herself this was reality and not some daydream she’d conjured. Morning light poured into it and emanated from it in equal measure, sending little reflections around the cabin of the car. Mae was mesmerized.
That is, until the car slowed and Dominic stilled, his hand going tense in hers.
“What is it, dear?” Mae asked before she even looked up.
Her first thought was an injured animal. Over the winter, she and Dominic had come across a deer with a broken leg—on this very road, as a matter of fact. They’d sat nearby for an hour waiting for someone from the animal sanctuary to come pick up the injured doe.
When she looked up, though, the road was clear. The tree they’d found the doe leaning against was no longer on the side of the road.
It had been razed to the earth.
