Secrets at the Beach House

by Diane Chamberlain

  Maris looked over her shoulder, and Kit knew what she was seeing: the milky, wide-open evening sky where the house had stood for over a hundred years.

  Jay followed her gaze. “We know if we rebuild, the sea could take it the day after it’s finished, Maris,” he said. “We might hesitate if it had only been a summer house. A getaway. But this was Janni’s home. Her family home. We have to do it.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Maris said. “Not a bit.”

  “That’s why we wanted you to work with us, Mar,” Janni said. “You’ll understand better than any other architect what the house meant to us.” She threaded another marshmallow on the end of her skewer. “Are you still game?” she asked.

  “Absolutely,” Maris said. “I’ve spent the last couple of weeks studying the new restrictions and floodplain requirements, but frankly, I think we should go above and beyond all of them. Make this a house that’s ready for whatever comes down the pike in the future.” She looked at Janni. “We can make it look at least somewhat like the Chapel House, Jan, but the bones will be a lot stronger. If you’ve got the guts to rebuild, I’m ready and willing to design it for you.”

  “Oh, I’ve got the guts,” Janni said. “I want it for our children,” she said. “For all our children, including your stepchildren if you can ever get them out here. The Perelle kids practically grew up in the Chapel House.”

  Kit nodded. It was the truth. Although they lived no more than three blocks away in a beautiful house on the bay, Hannah and Aidan and Thomas had been drawn to the Chapel House and its beach since they were babies.

  Maris stood up, brushing sand from the hem of her skirt. Hands on her hips, she looked toward the lot. “The biggest obvious difference will be that the house has to be elevated,” she said. “By a lot. And I’ll tell you something. You’re going to have one hell of a view with that new elevation. But we need to think about . . . Well, come with me.” She waved at Janni to follow her. “Before it gets too dark, you and Jay should show me where you were hoping to have the garage. I want to start thinking about this.”

  Janni handed her skewer to Kit and she and Jay got to their feet. Kit nibbled the toasted marshmallow as she watched them climb the dune to the site of their future home. She turned to look at Cole.

  “It’s scary,” she said. Ever since the storm, they’d had long talks with Janni and Jay about rebuilding. It had felt like an absolute necessity in the beginning, but now, with Maris here and plans moving forward, the reality of building a house so close to the treacherous sea was sinking in.

  Cole stabbed his empty skewer into the sand near the fire. “Come closer.” He tugged at her chair.

  She moved her chair snugly against his and he took her hand.

  “If the storm had taken our house,” he said, “we would have rebuilt. You know we would have.”

  She nodded. “I know. And I know they’ve thought it through. But I’m still worried about them.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Kit looked toward the dune, thinking about her friends walking through the sand as they tried to imagine a house that would not disappear in a heartbeat.

  “Maris has changed,” Cole said.

  “In a good way.”

  “A very good way. She seems . . . so much more sure of herself.”

  “I think she’s really happy.”

  “Nothing like she was when we were all living together,” he said.

  “No.”

  Cole took the empty skewer from her and stuck it in the sand next to his. “It’s got to feel strange to come back to the house she used to live in only to find an empty lot and a dozen or so kids in her place,” he said.

  Kit rested her head on his shoulder. “Did you notice how quiet all the kids were while we were eating?” she asked. “I think they feel just as sad as we do. Hannah and the boys have such great memories of the house. All the birthday parties and the sleepovers and just hanging out with Elizabeth and Derek and their friends on the beach.” She smiled. “I’m pretty sure two of our kids lost their virginity in that house.”

  “Oh, I think it was all three of them, actually.”

  She drew her head away to look at him. “What do you know that I don’t know?” she asked.

  He shrugged with a smile, and Kit knew she’d get no more out of him. Most likely he was already kicking himself for breaking a confidence.

  “Life goes on,” he said, gently pressing her head back to his shoulder. “Our grandkids will have their parties and sleepovers and lose their virginity in the new house. Their memories will be just as meaningful as ours. And when we’re old, we can sit on the porch in our wheelchairs with our rheumy eyes and tell them, ‘We had awesome parties in the old days and we’d play games in the living room, and there were these great big old wooden chairs on the beach that we could tip back to look at the stars’, and our grandkids will listen politely for a few minutes before they roll their eyes and carry their surfboards out to the beach to get away from the doddering old folks who keep talking about some old house that means nothing to them.”

  “Wow.” She laughed. “That’s depressing. But probably accurate.” She looked at their hands where they were locked together on the arm of Cole’s chair. The fire bounced sparks of light off the diamonds in her ring. “I have an absolute favorite memory of the house,” she said.

  “What’s that, babe?” he asked.

  “The night I woke up to find you sitting on my bed with your grandmother’s ring.”

  “Mm.” He ran his thumb over the back of her hand. “That’s a good one, but I think my favorite memory is the first time we made love. Remember? In the gym?”

  “That wasn’t actually the first time,” Kit pointed out.

  “It was the first time worth remembering,” he said.

  “True.” She turned her hand to lace her fingers with his. “So,” she said, “my favorite memory is romantic and yours is sex.”

  He laughed. “Whatever.”

  “I’m just glad both of them happened.” She lifted her head from his shoulder as a sudden peal of laughter came from the dune above them. “I like the sound of that,” she said.

  “Let’s go listen in on the plans,” Cole suggested.

  They walked hand in hand up the dune to find the others standing in the middle of the sandy lot. It was growing dark, but not too dark to see Janni’s smile. “This will be the kitchen,” she said to them. “And we’re going to make it a whole lot bigger than the old one.” She put her arm around Kit’s shoulders, and in a moment all five of them stood in a huddle, arms around each other, breathing in the evening air.

  “I was thinking,” Maris said after a moment. “It would be cool to frame some of the really old photographs of the Chapel House and hang them somewhere in the new house.”

  “Except,” Jay said slowly, “we lost them all. All the old albums are gone.”

  “Oh,” Maris said. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry.”

  “We should have scanned them,” Janni said. “It never occurred to us.”

  “Cole and I have some pictures of the house on our computers,” Kit said. “They’re recent, though.”

  “We’ll make them work,” Maris said.

  For a while no one spoke, and Kit wondered if they were thinking the same thing she was: photographs could tell only half the story. They could never capture the ancient woody, salty scent of the house, or the familiar creak of the stairs, or the way the angle of the early morning sun made you squint when you walked onto the porch. Pictures could never capture the lives that had unfolded in those old rooms. The tender words, the impassioned fights, the late night conversations, the early morning lovemaking. They could never capture what she felt right here, right now, standing with her friends in the place they would all start over.

  The love, she thought.

  But they needed no pictures for that.

  OUT NOW

  THE STOLEN MARRIAGE

  Diane Chamberlain

  One man stole her
heart. The other stole her life.

  In 1944, Tess DeMello abruptly ends her engagement to the love of her life, marries a mysterious stranger and moves to Hickory, North Carolina. Tess’s new husband, Henry Kraft, is a secretive man who often stays out all night and hides money from his new wife, and Tess quickly comes to realize that she is now trapped in a strange and loveless marriage.

  The people of Hickory love and respect Henry and see Tess as an outsider, treating her with suspicion and disdain. She suspects people are talking about her, plotting behind her back, and following her as she walks around town. What does everyone know about Henry that she does not?

  When a polio epidemic strikes the area, taking the lives of some of its children, the townspeople band together to build a polio hospital in less than three days. Tess, who has a nursing degree, bucks Henry’s wishes and begins to work at the hospital, finding meaning in treating the young victims. Yet at home, Henry’s actions grow more baffling and alarming by the day. As Tess works to save the lives of her patients, can she untangle her husband’s mysterious behaviour and save her own life?

  OUT NOW

  PRETENDING TO DANCE

  Diane Chamberlain

  When the pretending ends, the lying begins . . .

  It’s the summer of 1990 and fourteen-year-old Molly Arnette lives with her extended family on one hundred acres in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The summer seems idyllic at first. The mountains are Molly’s playground and she’s well loved by her father, a therapist famous for books he’s written about a method called “Pretend Therapy”; her adoptive mother, who has raised Molly as her own; and Amalia, her birth mother who also lives on the family land. The adults in Molly’s life have created a safe and secure world for her to grow up in. But Molly’s security begins to crumble as she becomes aware of a plan taking shape in her extended family – a plan she can’t stop and that threatens to turn her idyllic summer into a nightmare.

  Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain, the bestselling author of The Silent Sister, is a fascinating and deftly woven novel that reveals the devastating power of secrets.

  OUT NOW

  THE SILENT SISTER

  Diane Chamberlain

  What if everything you believed turned out to be a lie?

  Riley MacPherson is returning to her childhood home in North Carolina, a place that holds cherished memories. While clearing out the house she finds a box of old newspaper articles – and a shocking family secret begins to unravel.

  Riley has spent her whole life believing that her older sister Lisa died tragically as a teenager. But now she’s starting to uncover the truth: her life has been built on a foundation of lies, told by everyone she loved. Lisa is alive – alive and living under a new identity. But why exactly was she on the run all those years ago, and what secrets are being kept now?

  As Riley tries to separate reality from fiction, her discoveries call into question everything she thought she knew about her family. Can she find the strength inside herself to decide her future?

  Incredibly gripping and emotionally powerful, The Silent Sisteris perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult and Liane Moriarty.

  A companion short story featuring Riley, The Broken String, is available in eBook.

  OUT NOW

  THE ESCAPE ARTIST

  Diane Chamberlain

  Tell the truth and you lose your child.

  When Susanna Miller loses custody of her eleven-month-old son, Tyler, she goes on the run instead of turning her little boy over to her ex-husband and his new wife. She dyes her hair, changes her name and escapes from Boulder, Colorado, leaving behind everyone she knows, including Linc Sebastian, the man who has been her best friend since childhood and who knows her better than anyone.

  Susanna lands in Annapolis, Maryland, lonely, frightened, and always looking over her shoulder for someone who might recognize her. Just as she’s beginning to feel safe in her new surroundings, she stumbles across information that could save the lives of many people . . . if she’s willing to take it to the police. But going to the authorities means revealing her identity, admitting her guilt and, worst of all, losing her son.

  OUT NOW

  FIRE AND RAIN

  Diane Chamberlain

  Should you ever trust a stranger?

  Valle Rosa, a small, drought-weary town in Southern California, is under destruction from deadly wildfires. Into the midst of this crisis rolls a handsome stranger calling himself Jeff Cabrio, who claims he can cure the town’s troubles by making it rain.

  But Cabrio’s entrance into the community brings more than just potential rain, and it’s not long before the residents’ interests turn from the weather to their mysterious neighbour. For tragedy-afflicted sculptress MiaTanner, Cabrio unearths old wounds and new loves. For struggling journalist Carmen Perez, Cabrio brings the possibility of revitalizing her career through uncovering the truth about him. And ex-major-league player Chris Garrett is offered the chance to come to terms with the demise of his career as a professional baseball pitcher. As their lives become irrevocably entwined, it’s not long before each is forced to face the ghosts of the past.

  SECRETS AT THE BEACH HOUSE

  DIANE CHAMBERLAIN is a bestselling author of numerous novels. Her storylines are often a combination of romance, family drama, intrigue, and suspense. She lives in North Carolina with her partner, photographer John Pagliuca, and her shelties, Keeper and Cole.

  Visit dianechamberlain.com

  BY DIANE CHAMBERLAIN

  The Stolen Marriage

  Pretending to Dance

  The Silent Sister

  Necessary Lies

  The Good Father

  The Midwife’s Confession

  The Lies We Told

  Secrets She Left Behind

  Before the Storm

  The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

  The Bay at Midnight

  Her Mother’s Shadow

  The Journey Home (anthology)

  Kiss River

  The Courage Tree

  Keeper of the Light

  Summer’s Child

  Breaking the Silence

  The Escape Artist

  Reflection

  Brass Ring

  Lovers and Strangers

  Fire and Rain

  Secrets at the Beach House

  (previously published as Private Relations)

  Secret Lives

  The Shadow Wife/Cypress Point

  The Dance Begins (ebook short story)

  The Broken String (ebook short story)

  The First Lie (ebook short story)

  First published 1989 as Private Relations by Berkley Books

  Reissued by HarperCollins in 1996

  This electronic edition published 2018 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-5098-6417-1

  Copyright © Diane Chamberlain 2014

  Cover image © Ildiko Neer/Trevillion Images

  The right of Diane Chamberlain to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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