A private lesson in a private locale. Clara’s skin prickled. Jake Hennings certainly knew how to ramp up the suspense.
They passed the Inn on their walk, and Clara glanced up briefly, catching sight of Kate and Mrs. Carmichael on the back porch. Kate didn’t notice her.
“Do you know the Carmichaels very well?” Clara asked, nervous about derailing their date but anxious about what the woman might be doing with her sister just then.
Jake frowned and shook his head. “Not at all. I don’t know many people around here, truth be told.”
“But Gene Carmichael keeps his boat at the marina, right?”
“Yes. The houseboat. That’s right. I see him and his wife come and go. They keep to themselves for the most part.”
“What are they like?” Clara asked as Jake veered closer to the water and a chunky outcropping of rocks. The spot straddled the property line of two houses south of the Inn. No one else had set up camp there. A dock for each house drew a line on either side of their position some yards off. “Are we allowed to dive here?” she asked.
“Yes. The only private beach in Birch Harbor belongs to your family’s house, actually.” He jutted his chin back down the shore toward the Inn. Clara’s insides twisted. She knew as much, but it was an easy fact to forget.
“Oh, right.”
“And the folks here are part-timers. Gone for the winter. Kind of like Gene Carmichael. Which is about as much as I know. He comes down during the summer, brings his wife. They walk the town or do whatever it is they do during the day, and come back to the boat at night.”
Clara refrained from carrying the conversation out any farther. No way could she allow the date to turn into a function of her family drama. No way.
Jake seemed to detect her shift. “All right,” he began, dropping his bag in the sand and bending to unzip it. “First thing’s first, we talk safety.”
The boy set down the second bag and asked Jake if he needed more help. Jake shook his head and thanked him, and then, just like that, Clara and Jake were alone together.
She grinned and knelt next to him, helping unpack and set up as he went into great detail about how to dive, what to do, what not to do. Breathing seemed to be important, and Clara immediately became aware of her breaths. They turned shallow as Jake pulled his shirt off to suit up.
“We don’t wear wetsuits?” Clara asked as she followed his lead, tugging her swim cover over her head and folding it into a neat square.
He shook his head and inflated the vests, then shrugged the first one onto his shoulders. “The water should be warm enough,” he replied. His eyes danced down her figure. “If you’re too cold, we can always go get one.”
Clara shivered, but not from the cold, then shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s fine. I just figured that was part of the get-up.”
He grinned, waded into the water, and buckled the vest’s waist strap, then the top strap. “The get-up. I like that.”
She bit her lower lip. “Do you need help with anything?” Clara had been snorkeling. She’d been tide-pooling. She’d worn any number of life vests or jackets and even tried skiing once.
But SCUBA diving felt like a new level of water recreation.
“Your turn,” Jake said.
“Maybe I should have gotten my gear on first. Now you’ll have to wear that while you help me in the water,” she pointed out, half-joking.
“That’s what I’m here for.” He grinned and directed her on what to put where, first indicating the fins. “Go ahead and put yours on.” He pointed to the second set, and Clara did as he said.
“Fins but no wetsuit?” she asked and followed him into the shallow water until she, too, was waist-deep.
“The fins will make it more fun.”
“I’m too inexperienced to have fun,” Clara pointed out lamely.
He took her hand. “Sometimes, you have more fun when you’re inexperienced.”
Clara’s breath caught in her chest, and she flushed.
“Here,” Jake said, pulling her gear into the water and inflating it. “Now drop down a bit, so I can get this on you.”
“Shouldn’t we do this on dry land? Where it’s… safer?”
“It’s easier in the water,” he said.
Clara let herself sink down. The temperature was too cold, but the blood rushing through her veins was enough of a distraction until the next one took effect—Jake within arm’s reach, pulling her vest over her shoulders and organizing the tubes and straps. He kept his focus down, and Clara kept her eyes on him.
“You need to breathe,” he said, his voice low as he cinched her chest strap, his eyes darting up to hers nervously.
“I can’t,” Clara whispered.
Chapter 25—Amelia
Amelia was faced with an unnerving truth about Judith Carmichael, and—for whatever reason—just learning about it pushed her over the edge.
She had a play to write and produce. She had a grand opening to prepare for. Her sister’s event. The ongoing and increasingly futile investigation into her father’s disappearance…
But none of that held a candle to the matter that scared her the most. The gun. Her teenage error. And what it might do to the best thing she had going.
Michael.
Once he declared his suspicions about what St. Mary’s used to be, Amelia had initially been compelled to blast off a gossipy text to her sisters.
Instead, though, she’d taken a deep breath and asked Michael if they could talk about something—just as soon as she rerouted her immediate future plans. Then, she left the kitchen and called her stage manager.
The re-enactment would be canceled, plain and simple.
With the minuscule timeframe and now her own personal distractions, producing a full-blown show in conjunction with everything else unfolding felt utterly impossible.
And for the first time in a while, Amelia wasn’t too concerned with her inability to follow through. Maybe because canceling the re-enactment felt less like a flakey decision and more like a good one. For once.
Her theater troupe wouldn’t be too heartbroken, especially when she shot off a text to Megan to ask if the Birch Players could host their first annual Birch Harbor Summer Stock at the field the following summer. Megan replied immediately, agreeing easily, and the day was saved.
As Amelia paced in the front yard, her phone clutched in her two hands while she sorted through all the business, Michael waited inside. There he sat at the kitchen table, thumbing through the yearbooks and jotting notes.
When she’d handled her theater business, Amelia knew it was time to handle her personal business, too.
She re-entered the house, grabbed her bag from the barstool, her hand trembling, and slid into the seat adjacent to Michael.
He glanced up, smiling absently as he returned to his notes, his focus intense but somehow charming, like that of a nutty professor.
Amelia removed the gun from her bag and steadied her fumbling fingers enough to set it on the table, pointing away from him—out the bay window that overlooked a neat row of hedges.
He pushed his notepad away, his expression turning to a mixture of grave interest and soft confusion, cementing the image of a nutty professor.
“I’m sorry,” Amelia murmured, her fingers laced on top of the table. She tried her hardest to assume a grown-up disposition. Something befitting a woman who had made mistakes long ago but now knew just how to manage her life—and the relationships that were so central to it.
“Is this—” Michael picked up the gun with care, frowning and turning it over in his hand.
Amelia swallowed. “It’s… yours. I think.”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t—” He looked up at her, his eyes on fire. “This is a Smith and Wesson snub nose. Like in Nora’s will. This is your dad’s.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It was your dad’s.” She resisted the temptation to cover her face with her hands. “Listen, Michael. When we were kids, in high school
. Do you remember that party I convinced you to host? Here?” She swept a weak arm across the kitchen.
He nodded.
“One of my drama friends found that gun somewhere in your library. Then you walked in, and I got scared, so I hid it. And then one thing led to another, and it was in my backpack, and someone told Mr. Carmichael, and he confiscated it and—”
“Wait a minute,” he cut in. “This is what you found in Clara’s drawer, isn’t it?” He looked at her with brief wonder then returned his gaze to the gun, ignoring everything she’d just confessed.
“I’m so sorry I never told you before. I guess I figured it would make things worse, somehow. For me.” She murmured the last two words beneath her breath.
He set the gun down and pushed his fingers through his hair, letting out a long, low breath. “The gun.”
“Michael,” Amelia whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“I always wondered about it. And when I read Nora’s will and heard about Wendell’s Smith and Wesson…”
Michael glanced out the window then back to Amelia. “It wasn’t my dad’s,” he went on. “It was my mother’s.”
Amelia’s heart sank then and there. When he didn’t say more, she asked quietly, “Your mom had a gun?”
Michael had lost his mother when she was too young. When he was too young, too.
He scratched his neck and then turned the heavy piece of metal in his hand, pulling the hammer back and opening the cylinder, inspecting it as if to make some confirmation. Finally, he answered her through a haze. “Her grandparents were founders, you know. She’s the reason we even have this house. Had nothing to do with my dad’s law practice and everything to do with her claim as a descendent of the pioneers.”
Amelia knew only bits of the history behind Michael’s matrilineal line. They were another of the families who first arrived in that original grove of birch trees just off Heirloom Cove.
Mila Matuszewski was born into the Van Holts. Related vaguely to the mayor. It was the Hannigans and the Van Holts who shaped Birch Harbor into what it became. At least, that was as much as Amelia knew. But she’d often heard of contentious land arguments. Differences of opinion. Banishments to the Island, even, as if the settlers were living in some Shakespearean tragedy.
“She kept a gun because she was always afraid,” Michael went on.
“Afraid of what?” Amelia asked.
“That someone would come and try to take our property. You know how it was back then. Back in the earlier days, nothing was settled here. My mom was convinced that this whole area of Birch Harbor didn’t actually belong to the Van Holts. She inherited it, you know.”
“Inherited the house?” Amelia frowned and glanced around her. She’d never even considered the fact that the homes in the gated community of Harbor Hills were once a part of all that early controversy—the same controversy that colored Nora Hannigan and her own ancestors.
“No. She inherited the fear,” Michael corrected her.
Amelia turned her head to him. “Michael, I—”
“That’s why she established Harbor Hills. She did all the groundwork. Turning it into an HOA community. Drawing the boundaries. Erecting the gates.” He smirked. “Stockpiling arms.”
Frowning, Amelia flicked a glance to the gun then back to Michael’s face. “You mean—?”
He nodded and returned the gun to the same spot Amelia had placed it initially. “She had lots of guns.” He pointed to it. “I took that one from her collection and hid it for myself, actually.”
Amelia blinked then flashed a look at him. “You stole it from your mom?”
“Then you stole it from me, I guess.” A wry smile curled his lip, but Amelia squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head.
“Michael, I am so sorry. It was a stupid, foolish thing to do. I was young and dumb. Still am, I guess.”
“How did it make its way to Nora?”
“I don’t know,” Amelia answered. “I just sort of figured Carmichael returned it to my parents.”
“And then Nora assumed it was your dad’s and left it in her will to you?” he frowned.
Amelia shrugged. “I guess?”
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back into his chair, studying her. Amelia felt the weight of the world converge on her heart, and she wondered if she’d made a huge error after all. If revealing her childhood dalliance would break them. If she’d just ruined everything.
“Did you know that my mom is the reason I agreed to have that party?”
More confused, Amelia just shook her head.
Michael went on. “Yep. She even knew about it. She was upstairs the whole time.”
“And she didn’t care?”
He shook his head. “My mom and your mom knew each other from the country club, Amelia. My mom sold land to your parents. The cottage.”
“What do you mean the cottage?”
“That place originally belonged to my mother. It was part of this area for decades, but whoever had begun building it died mid-project. It sat in our family for a long time. Then your dad came along looking for something to purchase, and my mom all but gave it to your folks. She liked them, you know. Nora and Wendell.”
Amelia frowned. “I had no idea. It’s just floating out there by Birch Creek, though. It’s not in Harbor Hills.”
“My mom cut it out of Harbor Hills, but it did belong. That little place actually backs to the far side of this community. In fact, the creek runs just along our eastern fence line.
“Why didn’t she include it in Harbor Hills?”
“Because of its history. There was some old codger Van Holt who set up a whiskey still in the side of the hill where the creek starts. He had quite the reputation back then, and my mom wasn’t interested in any more drama. Any more history.” He paused thoughtfully before continuing. “Anyway, our moms always talked about how they’d like for one of you girls to date me. It was awkward, back then. Even now, as I tell you, it’s a little awkward.”
She thought she detected a flush in his cheeks.
Amelia’s eyes grew wide. “Are you serious?”
He nodded, a smile forming on his mouth. “It was just a little… I don’t know. Matchmaking thing, I guess. But your mom never talked about it again after that year. The year Kate got pregnant, I guess. So my mom dropped it, too.”
“Was it Kate she wanted you to date?” Amelia asked, her heart sinking.
Michael dipped his chin, “It was the actress. That’s how she referred to you when we were in school. The little actress.”
“How did she even know I was into drama? I mean, I only ever met your mom once or twice out around town. Maybe only once. I didn’t know her.”
“My mom had her hand in every pot in town. Why do you think the Birch Harbor auditorium is named Van Holt Theater?”
Amelia shrugged. “The mayor?”
“No. Mila Matuszewski. She gave a lot. To the school. The country club. Me, of course.”
“Including dating advice?” Amelia asked.
He grinned. “Never dating advice. But she was happy to host that party. And if you were going to be there, she didn’t mind pretending it was a secret party. She kept it for us. For me.”
“Kept what?”
“She let all the partygoers think they were at some weekend party up at my house while my folks were out of town. And she never said anything about that. Or about how much I liked you. She never meddled. Just kept it in her heart. Like a little wish, I suppose.” His gaze turned dreamy, and he glanced away. “I think your mom might have had that, too, Amelia. A wish for you.” He looked back at her. “It just got lost in the other drama of the time.”
Amelia’s chest warmed at the touching thought of her own mother having some small interest in Amelia’s love life, too, even as a teenager. Amelia didn’t have many of those memories. From the age of fourteen on, Amelia’s love life seemed irrelevant to Nora Hannigan. All focus went to Clara. And Kate’s survival.
Amelia frowned. “But wait a minute. Back up. You knew we were in the library. If it was effectively your gun, how come you never asked me about it?”
He blew out a sigh. “When I realized it was gone, it was too late. I never used that thing, you know.” He gestured to the table. “By the time I went looking for it and couldn’t find it, I wasn’t positive I’d even left it in the library at all. I certainly didn’t suspect that you and your friends had it. I mean when I came in there that night, I had hoped to have a moment alone with you, Amelia.”
She swallowed. “So you did like me?”
Laughing lightly, he nodded. “Well, yeah. Once my mom planted that seed, it was all I could do to shake it.”
“But you dated other girls in high school. And college. And after.”
“Of course I did. Back then, all I had was a crush. But think about it: I didn’t come in there looking for trouble—or troublemakers. I came in there looking for you. When you shimmied out and left, that was it. I accepted it. Moved on. The gun didn’t even enter my mind.”
A little disappointed that he hadn’t fought for her back then, she gestured to the piece now. “Well, are we even sure this is the one? That this is yours? Or Mila’s, I mean?”
He reached for it, popped the cylinder out, and held it toward Amelia.
Her eyes finally focused on a faint engraving on the face of the open cylinder.
Mila.
Amelia smiled. A sad smile. A smile for a woman like her mother. Then she asked, “Why not her full initials? Or her last name? There could be other Milas.”
Shaking his head, he chuckled. “This was my mom. Trust me. She never really knew her identity. Was she a Van Holt? A Matuszewski? Neither?”
“She was just Mila,” Amelia whispered.
Michael smiled.
“That’s why you love history so much. You want to learn more about the origins of Birch Harbor? Your mother’s roots?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Michael.” Amelia splayed her hands on the table, her eyes down. She licked her lips.
“Mhm?”
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