She righted the cup and scooped all the pens and pencils into it. They looked ancient, some of them sharp as needles and others worn down from use. The scent of dust and must and rust emanated from the box, as if no one had touched it in many long years.
The box inside reminded her of her grandmother’s recipe card holder, and Maddy gingerly lifted it out. The orange lid had paled from Father Time’s touch, and the yellow, flowered bottom of the box seemed as equally as worse for the wear.
It didn’t disintegrate at her touch, and Maddy lifted the lid, her heartbeat acting like it had taken on the role of drum major, flapping and waving through her whole body in perfect time.
Instead of recipes or cards inside the box, Maddy found folded, lined papers. Letters. Where the dividers would be, with the neat tabs along the top, colored cardstock marked the different sections, all in various shades of blue.
The front one glared at her in a bright, almost circusy, blue, and someone had scrawled READ FIRST on the top of it. She pushed the crudely cut divider forward, but nothing rested behind it.
She exhaled and shook her hair over her shoulders. “Calm down,” she told herself as she realized how tightly wound she was. If someone let her go, she’d spring all over the place from the release in her coiled muscles.
After removing her fingers from the box, the cards settled back into place. She noticed the writing further down on the circus-blue card and plucked it from the box.
Welcome to the blue room. There’s only one rule here: Don’t try to change the paint color. She doesn’t like it.
That was it.
“Who doesn’t like it?” Maddy asked, looking around the room as if someone would appear and provide further details. No one did.
Beside her, someone rapped on the door, sending her pulse into overdrive and causing her to yelp and throw the recipe box all at the same time.
The cards spilled out everywhere, and Maddy saw the same blocky, half-cursive handwriting on several of them. She left them where they’d fallen as she jumped to her feet and pulled open the door.
Julia stood on the other side, one hand on her cocked hip.
Preorder THE LIGHTHOUSE INN today. This brand new women’s fiction mystery novel reminiscent of Grace and Frankie is coming this summer, and it’s set right across the beach from Tessa and Janey!
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About Jessie
Jessie Newton is a saleswoman during the day and escapes into romance and women's fiction in the evening. The Lighthouse is her first women’s fiction novel, but she writes as Elana Johnson and Liz Isaacson as well, with over 170 books to all of her names.
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The Cottage on Nantucket
Book 1, Nantucket Point series
by Jessie Newton
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Copyright © 2021 by Jessie Newton
Published by JEN Publishing, an imprint of AEJ Creative Works
All Rights Reserved
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover and interior design by JEN Publishing
The Cottage on Nantucket Page 34
