Spotting the empty slip he had rented for the summer, Derick swung wide and nosed into the narrow space, bracing his hands against the aging wood to protect his baby. Then he picked up the mooring line and secured her to the dock. As both the jib and mainsail were already rolled up and tied in place, there was very little to do. He made sure all of his belongings were safely stowed and locked in the cabin, then palmed his phone and stepped onto the dock.
He hadn’t yet decided if he would be bunking with his sister and her husband, Sophie and Adam Croft, at their recently acquired beach house, or sleeping on the Laconia. Reasoning that he could easily come grab his stuff later, he texted Sophie to let her know he was on his way.
The first thing he saw as he made his way toward the residential section of the beach was an arc of rock that stretched out into the water. At the end of the breakwater stood a stout lighthouse that gave Derick a flare of yearning to explore the spot. It had a lonely air about it, so secluded and not easily accessible, that it beckoned to him like open arms. Filing it away for later, Derick pushed past the breakwater, coming upon a pier just a few hundred yards beyond. A long stretch of open sand and water came next, then a row of houses that had been scrunched together with their back porches opening directly to the sand.
A towering row of lush green trees stood guard at the fronts of the houses, blocking them from view. Sophie had told him how remote the little beach was and that it was a private community—not just anyone could wander onto the beach. There were only two ways to gain access: own a home there or be invited as the guest of someone who did. In a nutshell, it was the ideal situation for him.
Derick had only begun to wonder which house could be Sophie’s when she flew out the back door of a brown house with a white porch. Her excitement was evident in the way her arms flailed as she ran toward him, her shoulder-length auburn hair flying out behind her. Even though Sophie was several years older than Derick’s thirty, she had always been young at heart. She would have made a wonderful mother, but it seemed that fate did not agree. Sadness embraced Derick just an instant before Sophie did, and then the feeling evaporated.
“You made it!” Sophie declared, breathless.
Derick picked his sister up off the sand and squeezed her before setting her down. “Were you worried?”
“Not necessarily. I just thought it might take a bit longer.” She paused, looking around. “Where’s your stuff?”
“On the Laconia. I wasn’t sure how much room you had.”
Sophie gave him that look—the one that mothers and teachers universally employed to drive fear into the hearts of their charges. “You’re not living on your boat this summer, Derick Wentworth. You’re going to spend it in a stationary structure with indoor plumbing like the rest of humanity.”
Derick grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy. It took Adam at least a decade to learn that phrase,” Sophie informed him as she scaled the rickety stairs and pried open the screen door. What Derick had thought was a covered porch turned out to be a bedroom. Sophie beamed at him. “Welcome to Kelynch! Go ahead and tell me you’d take your cabin on the Laconia over this.”
It was a modest-sized room with gleaming hardwood floors, a puffy-looking queen-sized bed flanked by end tables, and a large flat-screen TV. The tattered exterior of the house completely masked the posh standard of the interior, camouflaging Derick’s whereabouts nicely.
“Kelly-lynch?” Derick asked, stumbling over the bizarre name.
“Kel-inch,” she corrected. “Every house here has a name. There’s no street name or house numbers, so it’s how they differentiate. You have your own bathroom, too,” Sophie continued, gesturing to a door on the left. While smallish, the space reflected the updated nature of the bedroom. The counters were marble, the faucets curving gracefully, and the tub and shower, while occupying the same space, were of the same elegant standard. From the look of the shower head, Derick wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it sprayed numerous colors and scents of soap.
“This is my room?”
“Don’t worry, we took the best room. Come and see.”
Sophie hadn’t exaggerated. The master bedroom made his room look Hobbit sized. The bedroom was a large-scale version of his, with a king bed, giant flat screen, and lots of square footage. The bathroom was bigger too, with a massive jetted tub and a separate shower, big enough to fit several people.
Derick whistled. “Not too shabby, sis.”
Sophie looked smug. “Did you want to go grab your stuff now, or go back for it later?”
“I’ll wait awhile. Where’s Adam, anyway?”
“He ran to the grocery store—one of the neighbors is having a barbeque tonight.”
Derick tensed. The last thing he wanted was to be around a crowd of people who might or might not recognize him.
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Sophie told him gently. “I’m sure you’re tired anyway.”
Finding himself oddly touched—and subsequently speechless—by his sister’s words, Derick just nodded.
“We’ll bring you home a plate,” Sophie said decidedly, stretching up onto her toes and planting a kiss on Derick’s cheek before walking out of the room. “Hungry? I could make you a sandwich.”
“I can make it, Soph. You don’t need to baby me,” Derick said, following her to the kitchen.
Sophie looked hurt for just an instant. “I don’t get the chance to baby you that often, Derick. So suck it up. I’m sure it will pass soon enough.”
Derick nodded in humility as Sophie began pulling meat, cheese, and bread from the fridge. “Benny flies in tomorrow,” she informed him as she built his sandwich.
“I haven’t seen him in ages. How’s he doing?” As Adam’s brother, Benny was sort of Derick’s brother-in-law once removed.
“Pretty well, I think—considering.”
“Poor guy,” was all Derick could manage.
Sophie’s look told Derick that she didn’t completely agree with him, and he raised his eyebrows at her.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Sophie defended, holding up a mustard-coated butter knife. “It was horrible. But Phoebe’s been gone over a year, and they were only together a couple months. I think Benny is wallowing in the poetry a bit too much.”
Derick couldn’t argue with his sister, but he couldn’t imagine caring that much for someone and having them taken away in such an agonizing manner, either. “Hopefully the change of scenery will be good for him.”
“That’s what we’re thinking,” Sophie answered, setting a plate in front of Derick. “Just promise me that if you catch him gazing morosely at the ocean, you’ll intervene.”
“Whatever you say,” Derick grinned.
“Good boy,” Sophie answered, winking at her brother and filling him with a sensation he had all but forgotten—belonging.
FOUR
OLD LYME
“So, you are come at last! I began to think I should never see you.”
—Mary Musgrove, Persuasion
Hanna stepped off the airport shuttle, grateful to the driver for unloading her suitcases. After handing him a few dollar bills and thanking him, she moved up onto the curb and took her phone from the messenger bag at her hip. The address Mary had texted confused her, as it didn’t have a number or even a street name. It simply read, Uppercross House, Old Lyme Beach. A worn-looking street sign directed Hanna half a mile farther down to the beach. Hoping that she wouldn’t have to trek through the sand with her luggage, Hanna began ambling down the cracked sidewalk. She took care not to trip on any of the large chunks of concrete that were lying in wait to snag careless walkers.
The street was dotted with weekend bargain hunters, lined with shops that had a definite old-town feel to them. Hanna smiled to herself, already half in love with the town of Old Lyme. Something about it made her want to stroll. She would have loved to pop into a couple of the boutiques, but she had already notified Mary of her landing which meant th
at in Mary’s eyes, Hanna was already late.
Past the shops, a row of lush green trees stood guard next to tall, wrought-iron gate with a small guard station. A sign posted on the front read:
Old Lyme Beach
a private community
Hanna approached, told the guard who she was, and waited while he rang the house for approval, then let her through. Behind the trees, small vacation homes were squashed together, divided by immaculately trimmed hedges on either side. Each home bore a plaque over the front door with its name. After passing several dwellings, Hanna arrived at Uppercross House. It was a nondescript structure with white siding, a dark wooden door, and blue shutters framing the windows. Butterflies with wings full of anticipation tumbled around in Hanna’s stomach as she let herself in through the gate and stepped onto the sidewalk. She had rung the bell only once when the door was thrown wide open by her blond, brown-eyed nephew CJ (Charles Jr.), who was six-going-on-sixteen. It had been a year since Hanna spent any time with her sister’s family—Walter, the baby, had only just turned one when she’d last seen them.
“Banana!” CJ shouted as he barreled out the door and crashed into his aunt. Hanna patted him on the back, unable to really embrace him since he was squeezing the circulation out of her legs. Hearing the name he had called her as a baby warmed her heart. He hadn’t been able to say Hanna, but banana was a familiar enough word. She was glad the endearment stuck.
“Hey, CJ. You got big!”
“Yup.”
“You’re, what, five now?”
Hanna grinned at the reaction she had anticipated—CJ pulling away with a horrified grimace. “I’m SIX!”
“Oh, sorry—six. I guess I’m getting senile in my old age.”
“Yeah, I heard about that old-timer’s disease.” CJ shrugged. “Mom says grandma Musgrove has it.”
Hanna snorted into her hand.
“MAAH-AAHM, BANANA’S HERE!” CJ bellowed as he sprinted through the entry, disappearing from view.
Hanna felt the beginnings of a headache. She had forgotten how loud her nephews could be—she definitely should have thought ahead and premedicated. Closing the heavy door, Hanna took in her surroundings as she moved into the house. Everything she saw spoke of finery, from the polished hardwood floors to the vaulted ceilings to the grand staircase that twisted its way to the upper level. Just inside the foyer was a large room that housed two sofas, a massive glass coffee table, and an ornate mirror that hung over a fireplace. To Hanna, it felt more like a museum than a house.
I hope the couches are Scotch-guarded, Hanna worried, thinking of her rambunctious nephews and their talent for trashing upholstery.
A moment later, Mary appeared through a room off to the right of the staircase, with Walter balanced on her hip. She wore a yellow sundress and had cut her dark hair short since Hanna had last seen her. The first thing Hanna noticed about her baby sister was that she looked exhausted and drawn—as if the demands of her life had stretched her almost to a breaking point.
When Hanna and Mary’s mother had passed away, it became glaringly obvious that their father only tolerated his children for his wife’s benefit. As time wore on, Mary emerged as the favorite of the two, and after years of feeling like an unwelcome guest in her own home, Hanna made up her mind to move away. She applied to the school nearest Maude, Harbor Community College. On her eighteenth birthday, Hanna packed her Ford Aspire to capacity and drove away without looking back. She had felt a tiny bit guilty leaving Mary behind, but not for the reasons one might think.
Newborn twins are hardly ever the same size; one gets all the “cream” so to speak while the other gets just enough to scrape by. Though the girls had been born a few years apart, the case was similar with them. Mary had grown fat from the disabling attention of their father, while Hanna’s meager diet had been one of steady neglect. The result was one daughter with a crippling sense of dependency on others, and one daughter with an unhealthy sense of duty toward the entire world.
“I thought you’d never get here!” Mary breathed, embracing Hanna briefly before handing Walter off to her.
Walter had nearly doubled in size in the last year, but his hair was still much lighter than CJ’s, spun gold and baby fine. His eyes were a bright hazel, his cheeks were pink, and he was delightfully plumpy. Hanna half expected him to squawk at being thrown into a near stranger’s arms, but he simply snuggled into her shoulder. The sensation it brought Hanna was an odd mixture of empty and full—something akin to yearning.
Mary made a sympathetic face. “He’s so tired,” she crooned, smoothing Walter’s hair. “Let’s go put him down for his nap and I’ll show you to your room.”
Hanna nodded, moseying up the stairs behind Mary and feeling light on her feet. Her summer vacation had officially begun, and she couldn’t imagine a better start.
The first set of double doors at the top of the staircase was the master suite, which Mary promised to come back to. The first door on the left was Hanna’s room, then the bathroom, CJ’s room, and a set of double doors at the end of the hall.
“Technically it’s a bonus room,” Mary explained as they went in, “but the boys don’t do so well in the same room, so we keep Walter in here.”
When Walter saw his crib, he dived out of his aunt’s arms. She barely caught him, laughing as he plopped onto the mattress and stuffed his binky into his mouth.
Mary made a noise of disgust. “We’re never going to get rid of that thing.”
“What, the binky?” Hanna asked.
“EE-EE!” Walter repeated around the pacifier.
Hanna couldn’t help smiling as she covered her nephew with his blanket. “He’s still a baby, Mare.”
Mary waved a hand, closing the double doors behind Hanna. “I’m not going to worry about it until we get home.”
Faint shadows ringed Mary’s brown eyes—eyes just like CJ’s. Of course Hanna knew that the childbearing years took a toll on the human body, and Mary had always been prone to illness—some imagined, some real. If you combined a hypochondriac with a drama queen and a poorly functioning immune system, you got Mary. But as Hanna studied her sister, she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more.
Hanna started when she realized that Mary was talking to her. She hoped she hadn’t missed anything vital.
“. . . there’s a maid’s room on the main floor but we put Ella in there. She insisted on having her own bathroom, and since it’s the Musgroves’ house, we couldn’t say no.” Pushing into the room meant for Hanna, Mary continued, “I told Charles I’d much rather have you up here anyway, to help with the boys . . .”
Maude’s warning sounded in Hanna’s ears like an echo: I only hope it doesn’t end in you as a round-the-clock nanny to those ghastly nephews of yours . . .
She muffled the thought and looked around her room. It was sparsely furnished, with a double-sized bed, a nightstand, and a modest flat-screen television atop the dresser at the foot of the bed. Sun poured in from the windows, highlighting the cream-colored carpet and white wood furnishings.
“Mary, it’s perfect!” Hanna declared, dropping her bags and pulling her sister in for a hug.
Mary held on for just a nanosecond longer than she usually would have. “I’m so glad you’re here, Hanna.”
“Me too, sis.” Hanna tossed her duffel onto the bed and unzipped it. “Where is everyone else?”
“At the beach,” Mary replied darkly. “They’re outside all day. Ella’s going to get skin cancer. She spends most of her time laying out and never puts sunscreen on.”
Mary paced to the window and threw open the curtains. Hanna followed, her breath hitching in her chest at the view. Frothy gray-blue waves rolled over into themselves, crumbling onto the creamy sand. Charles and CJ were playing in the shallow water, and Ella, Charles’ younger sister, lay on a towel in a neon green bikini, baking herself in the sun. Either she was naturally tan, or she had already invested a sizable amount of time outside since
arriving. It was probably both.
“. . . Charles is always out too, bodysurfing or fishing, or who knows what, you’d think he was allergic to something inside the house . . .”
Hanna didn’t think it was the best time to dash downstairs and plunge into the ocean with wild abandon like she wanted. Instead she said, “Why don’t we go take a walk on the beach, Mare?”
Mary sniffed. “I suppose I feel up to it now that you’re here—if Ella doesn’t mind me leaving the baby monitor with her. I’ll just get my hat and then we’ll go?”
“Sounds great.”
While Mary readied herself, Hanna quickly unpacked her things and stowed them in the dresser. Changing from her traveling clothes of sweats and a T-shirt, Hanna donned a gauzy, cream-colored V neck beach dress that came just below the knee. As anxious as Hanna was to get out in the sun, she was also realistic. She never tanned, always burned, and sometimes freckled. She’d never been keen on slathering thick, greasy lotion on her face, so she opted for a floppy beach hat instead. After slipping on her flip-flops, Hanna made her way down to the master suite. She tapped softly on Mary’s door, going inside when Mary beckoned.
The master bedroom was an oasis unto itself, complete with a massive bed, his-and-hers walk-in closets, and more square footage than any bedroom had a right to own. The open concept of the entry was reflected here as well, the bedroom emptying into a lavish bathroom with a jetted spa tub and a shower spacious enough to hose down an elephant. A fireplace divided the bedroom from the bathroom.
Hanna whistled. “Wow, this place is a dump, Mare.”
Mary grimaced at her sister. “It’s not really my style—too grandiose. But since the Musgroves weren’t going to use the house this summer, we thought we’d keep it from going to waste.”
“Why didn’t the Musgroves come this year?”
“Honestly, I think they weren’t thrilled about the idea of being cooped up with the kids.”
Persuaded Page 2
