The Cottage on Nantucket

by Jessie Newton

  “Okay,” Tessa said. “Call one of us if you need anything.”

  Sean nodded, and he wore such a troubled look that he stepped past both of them without touching or kissing Janey goodbye.

  “He seems worried,” Tessa said.

  “I suppose,” Janey said.

  “You didn’t think so?”

  “I barely know him,” Janey said, shrugging. “Aren’t all lawyers concerned when their clients get sued?”

  Tessa wanted to ask her how she kissed a man she barely knew, and she swallowed against the urge to do just that. Words crowded in her mouth, and she didn’t know how to get them out.

  She left the suite with her sister, the stiffness working itself out of Janey’s stride with every step she took. The hotel had no elevator, and Tessa reminded herself of that as they went down the gleaming white steps to the street.

  Outside, she took in a long breath of the summer air, the scent of corndogs and spicy mustard meeting her nose. Her stomach growled, and she thought that would be the perfect, greasy food to start accomplishing her two-step plan.

  “Tessa?” Janey asked, stepping right in front of her. She wore displeasure on her face, her frown angry. “Why are you ignoring me?”

  “Sorry,” Tessa said. “I didn’t mean to.” She looked around for the corndog cart. “Do you think we could find—?”

  “What’s going on?” Janey asked, not giving Tessa a single inch.

  “I just want a corndog,” she said, trying to move past her older sister.

  “There’s more to this than that,” she said, finally giving Tessa enough room to edge between her and the hedge lining the sidewalk that led to the cobbled streets. “You’ve been acting weird since we left the cottage.”

  Tessa didn’t want to admit anything, not right now. It wasn’t in her plan to spill her guts, cry over her cheating husband, or get unsolicited advice from Janey. She wanted to eat and shop. That was all.

  Her sister meant well, Tessa knew. She also thought she knew everything, especially when it came to what Tessa should and shouldn’t do.

  She had been through two divorces, though, and Tessa cut a look at her sister out of the corner of her eye as they reached the street. Fifty feet to the right sat the corndog cart, and Tessa turned that way. “I want a corndog,” she said. “And I’m going to tell you something, and you don’t get to give me any advice.”

  “Okay,” Janey said, easily keeping up with Tessa as she walked toward the cart. She wasn’t in a hurry, and that helped.

  “Maybe some advice,” Tessa said, her mind whirring now. “Maybe a yes or no answer.”

  “Yes or no,” Janey said. “Got it.”

  “Did Kurt cheat on you?”

  “That I know of?” Janey sighed. “I’d have to say no. But the man has five children with four different women. My guess is, yes, he cheated on me.”

  “Would you have left him just for that?” Tessa cut another look at Janey and lowered her voice. “For cheating on you?” Now that she’d spoken, the dam broke. “If that was the only thing he’d done. But he still took care of you, and paid all the bills, and was there. But he also did this other thing. And it’s a bad thing, sure.”

  “A bad thing,” Janey repeated slowly, and she certainly possessed enough intelligence to know where this conversation was headed.

  “But in every other way, he’s been loving and kind, and you still love him.” Tessa had started crying again, and she didn’t even know it until she sniffled. Horrified, she turned away from Janey and wiped her face.

  Crying was not in the plan. Crying didn’t go with corndogs. Sniffling didn’t go with shopping.

  “I don’t know,” Janey said, and her voice was loving and kind and it tore at Tessa’s heart.

  She drew her shoulders up and back as she took a deep breath. Turning, she faced her sister. “Yes or no?”

  “Tess—”

  “Yes? Or no?”

  Janey was much more black and white than Tessa had ever been. She knew grays existed in every situation, and certainly in this one. Why she was pressing for a definitive answer only an hour after Ron’s confession, she wasn’t sure.

  She just wanted someone to tell her what to do. Anyone.

  The desperation for such a thing clawed at her insides, leaving them bruised and bleeding. She stepped away from Janey with a scoff, her new goal to get two corndogs and enjoy them at the water’s edge on the small wharf beside the whaling museum.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d thought Janey could help. “Forget it,” she tossed over her shoulder. “I don’t know why I asked you. You can’t make decisions to save your life.”

  “You know what?” Janey called from behind her. “You can go shopping by yourself.”

  “Fine,” Tessa yelled, not slowing or stopping. “I do everything by myself anyway,” she muttered. “This is just one more thing. It’s fine.” She arrived at the corndog cart and met the man’s eyes there. An instant fake smile popped onto her face. “Two, please.”

  “Fifteen dollars,” he said.

  Tessa started to reach into her purse with shaking fingers.

  “I got it,” a man said, and she looked up and into the dark eyes of Lyons Martin.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Tessa’s heart leapt around in her chest, sending out painful beats to her extremities. The world narrowed to just the man holding out a twenty-dollar bill. Loud noise roared through her ears, and Tessa knocked his hand away from the vendor.

  “You don’t need to do that,” she said, stepping in front of him so her hip nudged him out of the way. She dug in her purse and found her debit card. “I’m perfectly capable of paying for my own lunch.”

  Or whatever time it was.

  She handed her card to the corndog vendor, who looked from her to Lyons and back. He took her card and ran it while Tessa cast a glare to the man next to her. He’d at least moved left a little, and she had room to breathe air that wasn’t scented like his cologne and the expensive silk suit jacket he now wore.

  “Aren’t you hot?” she asked, eyeing the jacket. “It’s July.”

  Lyons just smiled, and Tessa took her card back. A moment later, the vendor handed her two corndogs in a wide cardboard container. Tessa stepped away from the cart to the small table set up right next to it.

  She added a healthy squirt of spicy brown mustard to her tray and kept moving. A glance down the lane showed her that Janey had indeed left, and Tessa focused on the pier. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t think Lyons would hurt her, so she didn’t look over her shoulder to see what he was doing.

  She walked away with her treat and found a patch of grass along the sidewalk, wishing she didn’t feel the weight of the world on her shoulders. The weight of someone’s gaze wouldn’t go away either, and Tessa did her best to eat her corndog as if nothing was wrong.

  As if she hadn’t just been sued.

  As if her sister hadn’t just been knocked down.

  As if her husband hadn’t been unfaithful for the past five years.

  Her chest hitched, and all of the strength she’d accumulated over the years crumbled into dust. Her next breath shuddered as it entered her lungs, and Tessa was sure she’d break down in the next moment.

  Yet she simply took another bite of the greasy corndog, dunked it in the spicy mustard, and repeated the motion.

  When she finished the first dog, she dusted off her hands and looked at the second. She could eat it, but she wouldn’t.

  Lyons sat beside her, his own cardboard tray filled with mustard and two corndogs.

  Tessa didn’t have patience for this. She wasn’t going to be stalked on Nantucket, and while a former version of herself would’ve scurried back to her hotel room and hunkered down until the police came, Tessa wasn’t that woman anymore.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Why did you guys knock down my sister?”

  Lyons looked at her, and T
essa reminded herself of the name he’d given her. Landon Allen. “Tell me, Mister Allen. Who were those women?”

  “I’ve spoken with them,” he said. “I apologize.”

  “Oh, you’ve spoken to them,” Tessa said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Well, then, I’m sure everything will just be peachy now.” She glared at him, using a maternal one she hadn’t had the opportunity to bring out in a while. “I could call the police and press charges against them, you know.”

  “You won’t,” he said calmly, taking another bite of his lunch.

  Tessa fumed, but she didn’t contradict him.

  “What do you want?” she asked again.

  “I’m just eating lunch.” He cut her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Is that allowed?” He looked around. “Others seem to be doing the same.”

  Tessa refused to look away from him, and he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “What?” she demanded.

  “Act normal,” he said. “Casual, as if we don’t know each other.”

  “We don’t know each other.” Tessa picked up her corndog and practically stabbed it into her pile of mustard.

  “I know what Aleah and Minerva Martin want,” he said, actually looking away from her. “I know what Richard Friedman wants too.” He finished his corndog and set his cardboard container on his other side.

  “What do they want?” Tessa asked, keeping her voice low and her face out toward the water. Her heartbeat wasn’t sure about this conversation, but Lyons didn’t seem threatening. She had at least fifty pounds on him, and it seemed unlikely that he’d drag her into the water and drown her with so many people around.

  The laughter of children met her ears, and the warmth from the sun painted her bare arms with heat and the sense of safety. Nothing bad happened underneath bright sunshine, right?

  “They want everything,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll stop, despite my advice that they do so.”

  “Why would you advise them not to sue us?” she asked. “Isn’t that how you make your money?”

  “I prefer to represent clients with a good cause,” he said, yawning. A real yawn too. He kicked his legs out in front of him and laid down on the grass as if he’d take a nap. His eyes closed and everything.

  “Plus, I like taking on cases I know I’m going to win.”

  “You don’t think you’ll win this one?” Tessa reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.” His mouth barely moved, and Tessa fought the urge to stare at his face so she could read his lips if she had to.

  A sigh filtered out of her mouth. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “Yes,” she said, but she didn’t give his real name.

  A smile touched his face, and Tessa did notice how handsome Lyons Martin was. “I figured. You and Janey are smart.” Several seconds of silence passed, each one driving Tessa closer and closer to pure insanity.

  Finally, Lyons said, “I’m glad you’re not staying in the same hotel as her, Tessa. It’ll make things easier for us to get together.”

  “Why would I get together with you?” she asked.

  “Because I’m going to give you everything you need to get my sisters off your back.” He yawned again and stretched his arms above his head. “Richard too.”

  The fact that he called him Richard and not Riggs stung at Tessa’s mind. That had to mean something. He didn’t know Riggs personally; he only knew the name from somewhere.

  “Tonight,” he said. “One a.m. Meet me right here. Bring a bag big enough to hold some files.”

  Tessa’s pulse bounced through her veins again. “Tonight?”

  “Go now,” he said as something chimed in his pocket. “Right now, Tessa. Go.”

  She wanted to stay and ask more questions, but the slight pitch up in his voice told her to leave. She collected her cardboard tray and walked away from the seemingly snoozing man. She didn’t go toward the hotel, or down to the small beachfront here. She didn’t return to the cobbled street either.

  Instead, she headed for a boutique only fifty feet away, each step filled with the fear that someone would dart out from a doorway or ram into her from behind on a bicycle.

  When she arrived at the high-end boutique, she tossed her uneaten corndog in a trashcan and finally dared to turn back to the pier.

  Lyons still lay on the ground, but both Aleah and Minerva had joined him. They sat cross-legged on either side of him, and Aleah ate the corndog as if she hadn’t seen food in years.

  Tessa pulled in a breath and ducked inside the shop before any of them could turn and look at her.

  As she browsed through blouses and knee-length shorts appropriate for women of class and status, Tessa’s mind raced in circles. She ended up buying a few things—or rather, Ron bought them for her—and when she left the boutique, the Martins were gone.

  “One a.m.,” she muttered to herself as she passed the meeting spot. The next thing she needed to do was decide if she’d tell Janey or Sean about the upcoming meeting.

  She made it all the way back to her hotel room without incident. Her phone rang, and she picked up Janey’s call, her anger and frustration gone now.

  “Janey,” she said. “I’m sorry about—”

  “I’m on the ferry,” her sister interrupted. “I had to leave, because Sunny and the VP at AccuSchedule want to meet with me about the promotion.”

  Tessa’s mouth hung open, and she wasn’t sure what to fill it with.

  “I’ll call you later,” Janey said, and with that, the call ended as quickly as it had begun.

  Tessa let the phone drop to her lap. “I guess I’m not going to tell her.” She got up and looked through the things she’d purchased. What did one wear to a middle-of-the-night meeting with a handsome, yet possibly sinister, stranger?

  Tessa straightened. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You’re not going to meet him anywhere at one o’clock in the morning.”

  Was she?

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “You need some dark clothes,” Tessa said to herself later that night. The hours had passed impossibly slow that afternoon, as Tessa literally had no one to communicate with. She could’ve spent hours texting Ron in the past. Or Janey. Or Mom.

  Her chest had gone tight then, and she’d put on her swimming suit, left her phone in her room to charge, and gone down to the tiny swimming pool at The Sandbar. It only stretched twenty feet long and maybe ten wide. It had been fully fenced and shaded, with the sound of the surf coming from the beach close by.

  She’d been alone there for a while, and then an older gentleman had joined her. They hadn’t spoken, but he looked happy with a quick smile and plenty of gray hair. He’d swam the length of the pool, back and forth, for at least a half an hour, while Tessa sipped her way through three cocktails.

  Hours later, she still felt a bit tipsy, but that could’ve been nerves from still being awake an hour past the time she normally went to bed. She’d first decided not to go meet Lyons. The thought of what he might have to show her called to her, though, like a siren’s call.

  At the moment, she was going to go, because it felt like an opportunity she wouldn’t get any other way.

  “An opportunity for your death,” she muttered, wishing she didn’t like crime dramas quite so much. She loved watching them on television and movies, or reading treacherous tales in books. She loved a good cozy mystery, and she’d read plenty of murders and probably knew more motivations for killing someone than she should.

  Money was a huge reason to knock someone off, and she stood between the Martins and their money.

  She pulled on the sweatshirt she’d bought in the lobby of the hotel though it probably wouldn’t be cold. The wind could make the temperature much worse than the thermostat said, something Tessa knew all too well.

  After double-checking that she had her room key, she stepped out into the hall, her phone gripped in her
left hand and her car keys splayed through her fingers of her right hand. She’d learned a few self-defense tips too, thank you very much.

  Outside, darkness had definitely settled over the island of Nantucket. Pinpricks of starlight gleamed down from above, and plenty of light came from the street lamps too. The hotel was downtown, after all, and the tourism here would suffer if people didn’t feel safe.

  The pier stood only about a hundred yards away, but Tessa hesitated before walking in that direction. She strained to hear anything abnormal for this time of night, but all she got was the sound of the waves, the wind, and the night insects who slept during the day and cried all night.

  She stuck close to the shadows as her phone started to buzz, telling her she had five minutes before the meeting began. She’d barely reached the end of the building when someone said, “Right here’s fine, Tessa.”

  “Lyons?” she hissed, though she recognized his voice. It was smooth as velvet and rich as butter, and she supposed he made a very good lawyer with a voice like that.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m right around the corner, but I’m not going to come out.”

  “Are you alone?’

  “Yes. Are you?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t tell him Janey had left Nantucket. Knowing him, he probably already knew.

  “Take this.” His hand came around the corner, and he held a cigarette in his palm. “You don’t need to light it, but it’s a good excuse if someone comes by.”

  Tessa took the cigarette, feeling dirty as she did. She didn’t smoke, and she didn’t understand why anyone would. But she’d seen movies, and she knew how to hold it should the need arise.

  “I only have one thing for you,” he said. “If you stop by the front desk tomorrow sometime after noon, a man named Casey will have it for you.”

  “You’re kidding,” Tessa said. “So I had to come out here in the middle of the night for that? Why didn’t you just tell me so at the pier today?”

  Not only that, but he’d told her to bring a bag to carry files, which now made no sense.