Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle

by Denise Hunter

  Landon turned and lifted his fingers. “Don’t forget the flashlight.”

  “I won’t.” Her feet carried her across the Reeds’ yard, then across Miss Biddle’s. She knew by feel the moment she stepped into her own backyard. Emmett kept the grass clipped so short their lawn had turned wheat brown. It drove her mom crazy.

  Sam entered the cottage through the back door, hoping she could sneak into her room and change into dry clothes before her mom saw how wet she was, but the squeak of the screen door gave her away.

  “Samantha.” Her mom’s lips pinched together as she looked Sam over.

  “Sorry, I forgot.” Ribbons of water dripped from the edges of her swimsuit, carving rivers between goose bumps. They trickled over her ankles as she made a mad dash past her mom to her bedroom.

  “I’ll clean it up,” she called.

  “You bet you’ll clean it up. I don’t know why I bother cleaning around here.”

  Sam rummaged through her drawers, pushing aside the night-gowns her mom had bought, and pulled out her favorite long T-shirt and a stretchy pair of shorts.

  A few minutes later, Sam entered the kitchen and took a towel from the drawer, then wiped up the mini puddles. The bones of her knees knocked against the wood floor as she crept along, swiping in wide arcs.

  “Why do you wear that ratty old thing? You look like a boy, Samantha.”

  “It’s comfortable.” Sam slung her wet ponytail across her shoulder.

  “You missed a spot.” Her mom pointed toward the door.

  Sam backtracked and dried the area. By the time she finished, her mom had left the kitchen, so Sam tossed the towel in the washer and returned to her room, shutting the door. The doorknob was the old-fashioned kind, cut glass with clear angles. She’d thought it beautiful when she was little. When the sunlight flooded the room and hit the glass, it splayed prisms of light across the wall.

  Now she wished for a plain old metal doorknob, the kind with a lock.

  Sam turned out the light and slipped under the quilt. Before she lay against the pillow, she reached into her bedside drawer and with-drew the flashlight. The switch flipped on with ease, and she set it on the wooden sill of the window. She turned on her side and tucked the covers under her chin.

  She lay that way for a long time, hearing the sounds of her mom getting ready for bed. She knew it would be a while before Emmett came home, but still she listened for the sound of his car, for the crunch of gravel under his work boots. She listened until her ears were so full of silence it seemed they would burst.

  Sometime later she startled awake to the sound of the front door opening. She heard her mom talking; then Emmett’s voice rumbled through her closed door. “She didn’t pull the weeds like I told her to.” He cursed.

  “Well, she can do it tomorrow.” Her mom’s voice was fading.

  “How much did you lose tonight?”

  The sound of their bedroom door clicking shut resonated in her ears.

  “Get up.”

  Sam’s arm stung with the sharp slap, and she shot up in bed. Dawn’s light filtered through the window, gray and dim.

  Emmett was already walking away. “Go pull the weeds like I told you yesterday. No breakfast until you’re done.”

  “I already did.” In her fog of sleep, the words slipped out.

  He turned and hauled her out of bed, and her knees buckled as her feet hit the floor. Fully awake now, she realized it was Saturday and her mom was at work. “I’ll do better.”

  He straightened, and she noticed tiny red veins lining the whites of his eyes. She looked at the rug beneath her feet. He released her burning arm.

  When he left, she traded her long T-shirt for an old, faded one and set to work in the flower beds, pulling the weeds she’d missed the day before. The sun was nowhere to be seen, hiding behind a thick curtain of angry clouds. She’d emptied two bucketfuls and was back on her knees when Emmett opened the back door. The squawk of the hinges made her jump.

  “Since you didn’t do what you were told the first time, you can pull the dead blooms and trim the hedges too.” With that, he disappeared into the house.

  She sat back on her haunches and brushed the hair from her face with dirty fingers. She scanned the rows of lilies, and she pictured all the rose blooms in the front yard and the hedges lining the yard. With a sigh, she leaned forward and grabbed a dandelion, wrapping it around her hand and yanking hard. She tossed it, roots and all, in the bucket.

  The rain started then, first a drop on her hand, then one on her cheek. Within a minute, a steady shower fell. She planted her knees in the dirt and began pulling wilted blooms from the lily plants. By the time she’d finished the first one, the dirt under her knees was mud, and her empty stomach twisted. She scooted toward the next plant and went back to work.

  Sam didn’t see Landon until he fell to his knees beside her. Wordlessly, he plucked a bloom and then another, tossing them in the bucket. When he finally looked at her, his hair hung in wet, dark strands over his eyes and a clump of dirt smudged his cheek, and Sam knew she looked no better.

  His lips turned up on one side, and she couldn’t stop her own smile.

  They worked until the beds and hedges were done and their clothes were soaked clean through. Landon reheated the pancakes his dad had made that morning, then they watched TV with his younger brother, Bailey, until lunchtime. By then, the sun had come out again, and the threesome played all afternoon, passing a football and fishing off the end of the Reeds’ pier.

  At supper time, Landon headed inside, and Sam said she had to go in too. But when she got home, her mom and Emmett were gone, so she had a bowl of Lucky Charms and a handful of peanuts. When she saw Landon in his backyard again, she joined him, and they tossed his football until it was too dark to see.

  Later, Landon stood at the water’s edge, the cool water nipping at his toes, while she stood poised barefoot on the first plank of the pier like a 747 aimed at a runway. At the end, the light glowed against the black sky.

  Even in the dimness, she saw his hard, flattened lips and knew they suppressed a reprimand, just as he knew a scolding would not stop her.

  Sam smiled impishly at him, then darted forward, building speed in just a few long strides. At just the right spot, she sprang into a round-off and followed it with four back handsprings.

  Her hands and feet alternately punched the boards, making a rhythmic thud-thud, thud-thud. She landed solidly in the spotlight four planks shy of the water. Nearly a record. She was no Mary Lou Retton or Julianne McNamara—she was too tall and big-boned to be nimble—but she didn’t care so much about form.

  She strode back toward Landon and stepped into the dark water, making sure to keep her clothes dry.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Landon said before compressing his lips into a tight line again. His olive green eyes looked almost black in the nighttime shadows, and she could see the shimmering lights from the water reflected in them.

  “I haven’t fallen yet,” Sam said as she worked her toes into the silty sand until the tops of her feet were covered.

  “When you do, don’t come crying to me.”

  Sam smirked at that because Landon knew she never cried, and if she ever did, he’d be the first one to scoop her up and sweep away her tears.

  When the moon was high in the sky, Landon’s mom called him in, so they said good night and Sam went home. She could hear the TV blaring in her mom and Emmett’s room, so she crept into her bedroom and shut the door. After getting ready for bed, she lifted her window to invite the night breeze inside and set the flashlight on the sill.

  Sam curled up on her side and closed her eyes. Sometime later, she heard her mom and Emmett talking on the back porch. She strained to hear them.

  “The flower beds look nice,” her mom said.

  “Took the better part of the day.”

  Sam heard a rush of exhaled breath and envisioned the puff of cigarette smoke from her mom’s mouth.

&nb
sp; “What are our plans for tomorrow, baby?” Emmett asked.

  Sam pictured her mom crossing her arms, shrugging him off.

  Sam thought she must have missed her answer because there was such a long pause. Then she heard her mom’s reply. “We don’t have any.”

  There was a haunting tone in her mother’s words that Sam hadn’t heard before.

  Their voices lowered to low mumbles she couldn’t interpret, so Sam listened to the nocturnal orchestra outside her window. A loon called out over the buzz of the insects, and the water licked the shore-line. If she concentrated hard, she could hear Mom’s boat knocking against the pier bumper. A breeze rattled the tree leaves and carried the sweet scent of salt-spray roses through the air. Her body began to relax. Her thoughts slowed and her breaths deepened.

  Seaside Letters

  OTHER NOVELS BY DENISE HUNTER

  Surrender Bay

  The Convenient Groom

  Sweetwater Gap

  Seaside Letters

  DENIS HUNTER

  © 2009 by Denise Hunter

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Hunter, Denise, 1968–

  Seaside letters / Denise Hunter.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-59554-260-1 (pbk.)

  I. Title.

  PS3608.U5925S44 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2009027368

  Printed in the United States of America

  09 10 11 12 13 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Reading Group Guide

  Acknowledgments

  An Excerpt from Sweetwater Gap

  Sweetpea: Betrayal flips a switch you didn’t know existed. Suddenly you’re on guard. No one is above suspicion, no one is as honest as they seem, and it’s all because of this basic truth: You’re too afraid to risk it all again.

  Chapter One

  Sabrina Kincaid heard the jingle of the café’s glass door opening and glanced at the clock above the workstation: 7:12 on the dot.

  She grabbed the fresh pot, turned toward the tables crowding the Cobblestone Café, then headed straight to his table—might as well get it over with—table seven, a two-topper near the front.

  He would be seated against the beadboard wall, facing the kitchen, unfortunately. He would be wearing a blue “Cap’n Tucker’s Water Taxi” cap, a light-colored T-shirt, and a crooked grin. She would offer him coffee, he would accept, then he would spread open The Inquirer and Mirror and take thirty minutes on all twelve articles while she waited on other customers, her bony knees knocking together like bamboo wind chimes.

  “Evan,” Gordon called from the kitchen. “Table twelve needs to be bussed.”

  Evan’s blond ponytail flipped over his shoulder as he turned and wiped his hands on his stained brown apron. “Right, dude.”

  Sabrina stopped a foot from the scarred maple table, avoiding eye contact, looking only at the fat rim of the ivory mug as he slid it toward her.

  How many words had they exchanged in the year he’d been coming to the café? One hundred? Two hundred? Couldn’t be much more than that.

  As always her expression was free of emotion, though a powerful hurricane brewed inside. It was a skill she’d learned early, perfected well, and if that had earned her the title of Ice Princess, so be it.

  “Morning, Sabrina.” Tucker’s deep voice was raspy. And, as usual, he cleared his throat after the greeting.

  Was she the first person he spoke to each morning? The thought made her hand tremble. A stream of hot coffee flowed over the cup’s rim and onto Tucker’s thumb. He jerked his hand back.

  Idiot! Her first spill in months and it had to be Tucker. And with hot coffee.

  “I’m sorry. Let me fetch a towel.” She turned toward the kitchen, heat flooding her face.

  He stopped her with his other hand. “I’m fine.” He wiped his thumb on a napkin and held it out. “See?”

  Sabrina made the mistake of meeting his eyes. Oh, yes. She saw, all right. Under the brim of his cap, his blue eyes contrasted with his summer-brown skin. One strand of dark hair curled like a backward C, nearly tangling with his eyelashes. He disliked his curly hair, but hated going to the barber so much that he procrastinated until it was an unruly mop. He wore contacts because he was nearsighted and because glasses would blur under the sprays of water as he guided his boat.

  He was still looking at her.

  She was still looking at him.

  Look away. Say something. “Anything else?”

  “A smile?” Tucker’s own grin lifted the tiny scar near the corner of his mouth—a souvenir from the time his twin sister dared him to jump from his second-story bedroom window when he was nine.

  But Sabrina wasn’t supposed to know about that. She pulled at the tip of her ponytail with her empty hand.

  “Give it up, McCabe.” Behind her, Oliver Franklin’s voice was a lifeline. “Top me off, Sabrina?”

  She turned, grateful for the distraction, and filled his cup. The sand-colored coffee darkened to caramel as she poured, the rich smell of the brew drifting upward on wings of steam.

  “Not feeling particularly efficacious this morning?” Oliver tilted his round head, his hairline receding another inch as he hiked his bushy gray brows. He gripped the mug with fat hands calloused from garden tools.

  “I’m as efficient as always, just a bit clumsy today.” Sabrina took his egg-streaked plate and stacked a smaller plate on top.

  “Dagnabit, Sabrina,” he said as she walked away. “Is there a word you don’t know?”

  She deposited the plates into Evan’s tub, set the pot on the warmer, and loaded a tray with table five’s food. Was Tucker watching her? She always felt like he was, which was ludicrous. Still, it made her stand a little straighter, smile a little more—at other customers. He was good for her tips.

  You’re just some serve
r he toys with. Nothing else.

  When she turned with the loaded tray, her eyes pulled toward him. Don’t look. Just walk. Look at the sun streaming through the glass front. Look at the family at table four, the toddler, crouched in the wooden high chair, letting loose a wail that could be heard clear down at the wharf. Sabrina pulled a packet of crackers from her apron pocket and slipped it to the mom as she passed.

  When she reached table five, she served the food, then tucked the tray under her arm. “Anything else?”

  “Tabasco sauce?” the mother asked. “Oh, and he needs a refill of juice.” She handed Sabrina her son’s cup. The overhead lights sparkled off a huge diamond.

  “Be right back.” She had to pass Tucker’s table on the way.

  He turned as she passed, his sandaled foot sliding into her path as he shifted into the aisle. “Sabrina. I know you’re busy, but I was wondering if we could chat a minute.”

  The request stopped her cold. Sabrina didn’t chat with customers. Char chatted with customers, even the rich ones. Evan chatted with customers too. But not Sabrina, and certainly not with Tucker. It broke her unspoken line between customer and server, and that line was the only thing separating her from disaster. “I—I have too many tables.”

  “Miss, some decaf, please?” An elderly tourist, seated at the table behind Oliver’s, corroborated her excuse.

  “Of course.” Sabrina went to fill the cup with juice, grabbed a bottle of Tabasco and the decaf pot. What could Tucker want? As far as he knew, she was only a server at the café.

  Maybe he knows.

  But he couldn’t. She’d been so careful.

  Yeah, so careful she’d lost her heart to the man.

  I have not lost my heart. He’s just a friend. A dear friend who would be lost forever with one little slip of the tongue. The relationship was hanging by a thread and she knew it.

  Sabrina dropped off the two items for the family, then poured the decaf. She’d no sooner turned the carafe upright when Tucker stopped her again. His cup was empty. “I’ll be right back with the regular,” she said, even though she knew it wasn’t coffee he wanted. It was a feeble stall that would buy her thirty seconds.