The Vineyard Sisters: A Wayfarer Inn Novel

by Grace Palmer

  “It would have saved us a lot of time if you’d informed us earlier,” Beth agreed, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth.

  Michelle looked back and forth between them. “Wait, what? What interview? What did you do?”

  Kat grinned as she yanked Michelle up and out of her chair. “All you need to worry about is putting on a killer outfit and selling the heck out of the Wayfarer Inn.”

  “Leslie should be the one doing this.” Michelle shifted around the passenger seat in her dark green sweater dress. She hadn’t been in a dress since the day of her dad’s funeral—the longest she could ever remember going without getting dolled up for some event or other. It felt like she’d forgotten how to wear real person clothes.

  “Aunt Leslie is not a saleswoman. She’s like Beth.”

  “Hey,” Beth argued from the backseat. “That’s rude.”

  “It’s the facts,” Kat said simply. “Mom and I are the public speakers. Which is why Beth begged me to be the one to call the newspaper to arrange the interview in the first place.”

  Beth sighed. “Harsh but fair, I guess.”

  “But your meeting is in five minutes, so you should go. Being late would look bad.” Kat reached across the front seat and opened the passenger door. “The email said to tell the receptionist your name. We’ll be here when you get back!”

  Michelle would have liked more than twenty minutes to prep for this interview. Knowing the interviewer’s name would be nice, for instance. But then again, it was the Vineyard Gazette. Small potatoes if ever there was such a thing. How bad could it be?

  The Gazette was based out of a two-story, cedar-shingled house. Aside from the hanging wooden sign positioned just to the left of the door with “The Vineyard Gazette” painted on it, nothing distinguished the property from any other residential property on the block. There was even a white picket fence.

  Michelle adjusted her dress as she walked up the brick sidewalk, fixing the bunching just above her knees. Her instinct was to knock on the door before entering. It wasn’t appropriate to just walk into someone’s house, after all.

  But appearances aside, this wasn’t actually a house. So instead, Michelle pressed her shoulders back, opened the door, and walked in.

  A dark-haired woman with large, wire-rimmed glasses and a pencil stuck into her bun was squinting at her computer screen behind the reception desk.

  Michelle stepped forward and cleared her throat. “Hi, I’m—”

  “Michelle Evans?” The woman guessed without looking up. “From the Wayfarer Inn?”

  “That’s me. I’m here for an interview.”

  “That’ll be upstairs,” the woman said, still not looking away from her screen. She pointed at the staircase directly to her left. “Take the stairs up to the landing and it will be the first door to the left. You’re expected.”

  “Er, right. Okay. Thanks.”

  Upstairs, she found a line of identical doors with ornate brass doorknobs, but not a single name plate to be found. Not that Michelle had any idea who she was meeting, anyway. So she did what the receptionist had said to do: she walked straight up to the first door on the left and opened it.

  She stepped inside, and immediately, ran into something solid.

  Or rather, someone.

  She yelped in surprise and the man gave a startled shout.

  “Whoa!” he said, grabbing her shoulders to steady her. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to—”

  His voice trailed off. Michelle looked up—only to find that she’d suddenly lost her ability to speak, too.

  “Fancy running into you again,” the man said with a dimpled grin. “Thank goodness I wasn’t holding a book.”

  This couldn’t be happening. No. It wasn’t possible.

  It couldn’t be him because the world was not this cruel. Coincidences like this didn’t happen in real life.

  The man Michelle had dumped coffee on outside of the Mud Bucket leaned forward slightly, catching Michelle’s eyes. “You’re Michelle Evans, I assume?”

  Michelle blinked dumbly and then nodded without saying a word. Unfortunately, yes.

  He stuck his hand out confidently, still beaming at her. “Isaac Hubbard. Pleased to properly meet you.”

  Was he pleased? Well, that made one of them.

  26

  Michelle

  Late Afternoon At The Vineyard Gazette Offices

  Michelle felt like she was being interviewed by Clark Kent. All Isaac Hubbard needed was a dark tendril of hair to hang down over his forehead, dark-framed glasses, and a superhero alter ego.

  Instead, he had probing brown eyes and a dangerously disarming smile. “You grew up on the island, correct?”

  “In the inn itself, actually,” she said. “My father opened it before I was born.”

  He arched a dark eyebrow in surprise. “You grew up in a bed and breakfast?”

  “The back half of the first floor was our house. Just think of it like a normal house with a lot of guest rooms.” Michelle smiled, hoping she sounded charming. Hoping she looked charming.

  Michelle had agreed with Kat that she would make a better interviewee than Leslie, but that was before she’d realized who the interviewer was. Charming someone became immensely more difficult after you’d dumped a hot cup of coffee all over them and ruined their book. Not to mention blurting out that her husband was in jail.

  Not smooth by any standard.

  Best case scenario, Isaac had assumed she was having a manic fit of some kind. Worst case scenario, the article meant to promote the Wayfarer Inn would turn into an slam piece dissecting the charges against tech entrepreneur-turned-con-artist Tony Evans and his wife who fled across the country to escape the blowback.

  Would people want to donate money to an inn run by the spouse of a semi-infamous embezzler?

  “…big house?”

  Michelle’s heart sputtered. She snapped her eyes to Isaac’s. “Excuse me?”

  “A big house,” he said. “What’s it like growing up in such a busy, big house? Did it feel normal?”

  Her heartrate slowed. He wasn’t talking about prison. He was staying on topic, discussing the inn. Michelle should do the same.

  “Everyone has their own version of normal, I suppose. To me, the sounds of guests walking around upstairs was the sound of home. The worst part was probably not being able to blast music from my bedroom when I was upset. It felt like I was missing out on a stereotypical teen experience.”

  “Oh?” Isaac asked.

  “It would have disturbed the guests,” she explained. “That was a big priority in our house. Not doing anything too loud or eating anything too smelly. That sort of thing.”

  “No stinky cheeses, then?”

  “Not then, not now,” Michelle laughed. “Never been a fan.”

  Isaac picked up his pen and wrote something down on his notepad. When he looked up, he winked. “Noted.”

  As his colleagues left for the day, the newsroom emptied until it was just the two of them left. Michelle felt more and more nervous by the second.

  “How did you come to live here?” she asked, ready for the spotlight to be off of her for a second.

  “I thought I was the interviewer,” Isaac teased. But he answered the question anyway. “I was freelancing and The Gazette kept running my pieces. My family vacationed here when I was growing up, so I had some sense of the lay of the land and all that. When a full-time position opened up, they offered it to me.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  He pursed his lips as he counted backwards. “Five years ago, if my math checks out. It may or may not. I’m a writer, after all—math is not my strong suit.”

  That would explain why Michelle had never run into him before. Her trips to the island had grown pretty few and far between ever since her big fight with Leslie.

  “Oh, so you’re good and settled by now, I’d guess.”

  “As of last year,” he agreed. “I finally bought a house.”

&n
bsp; “Nearby?” Why did Michelle care? She shouldn’t be asking that. Too personal.

  Isaac grinned. “You trying to stalk me?”

  “Oh, no. I just. I was just wondering… your, uh, commute, how far—"

  “A little cottage came up for sale only two blocks away,” he said, putting Michelle out of her rambling misery. “I had big plans to remodel it from the inside out, but so far all I’ve done is hang blue shutters and hire an exterminator to get the squirrel’s nest out of my fireplace.”

  “I don’t blame you. Remodeling is hard work.”

  “You’d know, wouldn’t you? Considering all the work you and your sisters did on the Wayfarer. You did most of the upgrades yourself, right?”

  Smooth transition. Michelle nodded. “With the occasional help of a local Oak Bluffs police officer. I called him for all the heavy lifting.”

  “Lucky man,” Isaac joked.

  “He was actually my—” Sister’s ex-boyfriend sat on the end of her tongue, but Michelle didn’t want to offload Leslie’s old drama for publication. It wasn’t the time or the place. “An old friend,” she finished instead. “I’ve known him since high school. Shane Murphy.”

  Isaac seemed to brighten after that clarification, scribbling another note in his notepad. “I’ve also heard talk of the ‘three Townsend sisters’ remodeling the inn, but as far as I’ve been able to find, you only have one sister. Would you care to explain your relationship with the third partner in the venture, Jill Ruthers?”

  For the first time since she’d sat down, Isaac sounded like a reporter. Michelle shifted around in her seat. “Well, Jill is our sister. Half-sister technically. We just met back in March.”

  “This March?” he asked. “That’s the same month your father passed away, correct?”

  “That’s correct.”

  Suddenly, Isaac uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, dipping his head low to catch Michelle’s eyes. Even though they were alone in the room, he whispered. “I don’t want to talk about anything you aren’t comfortable talking about. You say the word and I’ll cut whatever you want from the final article, okay?”

  Michelle blinked at him. “Oh. Right. Okay.”

  “Although,” he continued, “I do think the long-lost sister angle will give the article more traction. Which, if your goal is to drum up interest in the raffle, is something to keep in mind.”

  He was right. Michelle knew that. Still, bringing up any personal business made it more likely her own life drama might take center stage. And Tony had taken enough from Michelle over the last couple months. She didn’t want him taking this, too.

  “Jill being my sister is not secret,” Michelle said finally, her hands folded in her lap. “My dad, like most people, had a history. A lifetime of decisions and mistakes and achievements. I’ll never be able to ask him why he didn’t tell us about Jill and our brother, Grayson, until after he died, but I’m grateful I know her now.”

  Isaac leaned over to check the time stamp on the recording device and then made note of it in his notepad. “Well said. We all have a past. Secrets we keep to ourselves. Can’t blame him for that.”

  The way Isaac looked at her, Michelle couldn’t help but think he was referring to something else. Or, rather, someone else.

  Finally, the anxiety that had been building up inside of her since she’d run into Isaac in the doorway—for the second time—spilled over. “Okay, be straight with me. Are you going to talk about my husband in this piece?”

  “You’re referring to Tony Evans?” he asked, his eyes slipping to her bare ring finger.

  “Yes, my one and only husband,” she snapped. As soon as the words were out, she regretted her tone. She took a deep breath. “It’s just that… I’m not connected with any of that. Things are complicated and since we’re talking about secrets, that is one I’d like to keep, if possible. If the people of Martha’s Vineyard are going to figure out who Tony is, I’d like them to have to work for it. Not have it delivered to their front porch bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  “The interview will actually come out in two days,” he corrected.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. And like I said, anything you say is off limits is off limits. Simple as that.”

  “You swear?” she asked.

  Isaac smiled and then held out his hand, pinky extended. Michelle stared at it for a second, more than a little confused. “Come on,” he coaxed. “Don’t pretend you’re unfamiliar with the power of a pinky promise.”

  “We’re a little old for pinky promises.”

  “Pfft. Not possible.”

  Michelle looked from him to his pinky a few more times before she rolled her eyes and wrapped her pinky finger around his. “Fine. Pinky promise?”

  “Pinky promise,” he confirmed. As soon as it was done, he pulled his hand away, sat up, and cleared his throat. “So, anyway. Tell me about your raffle.”

  As she explained all of the businesses and locals who had donated prizes to the raffle and explained how hard she and her sisters had been working to keep the Wayfarer open, Michelle felt less and less like she was talking to a reporter, and more like she was talking to a friend.

  “Everyone I’ve spoken to is obviously hoping for the best outcome,” Isaac said. “No one wants to see the Wayfarer fall into the wrong hands or go out of business. It’s a bit of an island landmark at this point. But do you have a backup plan if you’re not able to reach your goal?”

  Michelle swallowed. “I try not to think about it.”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “But if…?”

  “Well…” She shrugged. “I can’t speak for my sisters, but I might go back to San Francisco. Or California, at least. It seems like maybe there would be more opportunity for me there.”

  “Opportunity for what, exactly?”

  Michelle snapped her mouth closed. She’d gotten comfortable with Isaac. A bit too comfortable. She’d been thinking—way, way in the back of her mind—that California would have more opportunities for her to work on her screenplay, maybe shop it around a bit.

  “Oh, gosh.” She felt her face flush and shook her head. “It’s a pipe dream. Even more so than this raffle. I shouldn’t even mention it.”

  Isaac’s green eyes flared. “Now, you most definitely have to. I’m curious.”

  “It’s silly.”

  “Just tell me, then,” he said gently. “I won’t print it if you don’t want. But I’d like to know. Just for me.”

  Their eyes met. Michelle’s stomach fluttered. Nerves about admitting she was writing a screenplay, she reasoned. Nothing more. Certainly not butterflies over Isaac Hubbard.

  “Fine. But you can’t laugh.”

  “I’d never.”

  “You might. Because you’re a real writer, and I’m just… a mom playing pretend.” She slouched down like a turtle trying to hide away in its shell. “I’ve always enjoyed writing, and for the last decade or so, I’ve had an idea for a movie rolling around in my head. So I’ve been trying to write a screenplay.”

  “No way! That’s awesome.”

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing to me,” he said. “It seems like something worth pursuing if you’ve been dreaming about it for ten years. By my estimation, the only thing that makes a writer a ‘real writer’ is writing. As soon as you do that, you’re a real writer, too.”

  “I’ve actually written a few pages,” she admitted sheepishly. “The day we, uh… ran into one another, I’d been working on it.”

  He grinned. “Aha! That explains why you were distracted enough to pour an entire coffee on me. You were in your own head working out the details of your masterpiece, oblivious to the world around you. I’ve been there before, whenever I’m in the middle of writing a fun piece. That’s a good sign.”

  “It’s hardly a masterpiece,” she laughed. “Just a few pages.”

  “Can I read them?”

  “No!” Michelle practi
cally leapt out of her chair. “Sorry, didn’t mean to yell. But no way, Jose.”

  “Come on,” he urged. “I think we both know you owe me. You ruined my copy of Slaughterhouse-Five, after all.”

  Now, she did feel like she owed him. Michelle loved that book. “I’ll buy you a new copy.”

  “I don’t want a new copy,” he retorted. “I want to read your screenplay.”

  “Too bad.”

  He growled, scrunching up his face in thought. Finally, he brightened. “Okay, what about this? You let me read the few pages you’ve written and I’ll write a follow-up piece on your fundraiser after it happens.”

  “We don’t need the publicity after the fundraiser,” she argued.

  “Au contraire! If the fundraiser goes well, the piece will give the inn even more publicity. And if it doesn’t go well, I’ll write the saddest, most heartbreaking piece about the devastating losses your family has suffered this year already and what a devastating loss it would be to the island to lose the Wayfarer Inn as it is right now,” he said. “Trust me, hearts on this island are soft and pockets are deep. You’ll get some more donors.”

  Michelle chewed on her lower lip, mulling it over. After everything they’d all sacrificed to get the Wayfarer looking its best, could Michelle really turn down this offer of help?

  Plus, some part of her—some deep down, hidden part of her she’d hardly admit to—didn’t want to disappoint Isaac. She wanted to make him smile.

  She groaned and stuck out her pinky, wiggling it in the air. “Fine.”

  “Really?” Isaac beamed. He wrapped his pinky finger around hers for the second time. “You agree?”

  “Agreed,” she said. “No takesies backsies.”

  “We’re a little old for takesies backsies, don’t you think, Michelle?” Isaac teased.

  The butterflies fluttered in her stomach once again, and Michelle couldn’t help but wonder what all she’d agreed to give away with that pinky swear. Because it felt like she’d given up more than just a few pages of an in-progress screenplay.