“See you when you get there,” Maggie told her daughter. “And for the record, I knew what IRL means.”
“Thanks again, Liddy. This is going to be fun.” Grace’s voice faded slightly as she disappeared into what had once been Jim Bryant’s office.
Liddy and Maggie left the front door open behind them and walked along the path leading to the driveway.
“You didn’t say a whole lot in there.” Liddy bent forward to avoid a low-hanging branch of a crab apple tree.
Maggie shrugged. “There wasn’t a whole lot to say. Grace is on a mission to find her way after having her entire world blown up. For the first time ever, she’s in charge of every aspect of her life. She’s established her own business. She’s getting more clients who want websites set up every week. She’ll do a bang-up job on that house, and she’ll love doing it. I think she’ll stay in town longer if she has a place she’s made her own. So she might decide to buy it after all.”
“I’ll leave that option on the table for her.” Liddy paused to pick a stem of cornflowers hanging over the edge of the driveway. “By the way, I invited Tuck to your place for Monday, but he said he had other plans and to thank you.”
“He’s welcome.” Maggie looped a hand through Liddy’s arm. “I guess we should have thought of asking him earlier. It was a sort of last-minute invite.”
“Or maybe he’s just not interested in anything but a working relationship.”
“Or maybe he really does have other plans.” Maggie good-naturedly bumped Liddy’s shoulder with her own. “He does have a family, you know. Linc. The kids. His dad.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’s seeing someone else. He’s probably having sex with someone else,” she grumbled.
Just as well, she rationalized. She had plenty on her plate with the shop opening in a few days. She really didn’t have time for the drama of a relationship with anyone.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder if someone was getting lucky, and who that lucky lady might be.
Chapter Five
Maggie had been right, Liddy thought as she mentally drifted just above her near-sleeping self. Today—Labor Day—should be her day of rest before tomorrow and all the stress of opening day. An hour or so on the beach in the warm midmorning sun, surrounded by nothing but blue water and bluer sky, luxuriating in a quiet marred only by the occasional cry of a gull or the sound of a passing boat’s motor, was exactly what she needed. Resting, relaxing, refusing to let worry seep beneath the margins of her mind, which at that moment floated free. She pictured it like a kite rising over the water, high over the harbor and over Buzzards Bay, higher still over the three prone bodies on the hot sand of Cottage Street Beach, the waves rolling gently to the shore, the sail of a Sunfish billowing as the wind took it toward Shelby Island.
Shelby Island. Home of the Shelby clan for longer than anyone could remember. Liddy had never set foot on its rocky shore. She’d heard there was an old rambling house there and a barn where boats were stored. What else, she didn’t know.
“Either of you ever been to Shelby Island?” Liddy asked her companions, her eyes still closed.
“Nope. You, Em?” Maggie leaned up on her elbows.
“Never been. Chris has, though. He and Linc were friends when they were in school,” Emma replied drowsily. “Have you, Lids?”
“No. I was just wondering if what they said about it was true.” Liddy, whose towel lay between the other two, adjusted the wide brim of her hat so it completely covered her face. “You know, about the haunted graveyard and the treasure hidden by the pirate who’d settled the island. All that stuff they used to talk about when we were in school.”
“Oh, that. And, like, the Shelbys are descended from the pirate? I even remember his name. Claude-Rene Rousseau. When I was little, I thought it the most romantic name I ever heard.” Emma laughed.
“I think it was stuff Tuck made up to keep people from wanting to come home with him after school,” Maggie said sleepily from beneath her own wide-brimmed hat. “I remember Brett telling me things were not good at home for Tuck and his siblings, but I’m not exactly sure what that meant.”
“I heard my parents talking about the Shelbys one time.” Emma sat up and searched her bag for her water bottle. “I think Mrs. Shelby—Tuck’s mother—had some sort of mental illness. My dad, as their pastor, counseled Mr. Shelby—Tuck’s dad—a couple of times. As far as I know, Dad never went to the island, though. Mr. Shelby always came to the manse. I guess Mr. Shelby is still alive and living on the island.”
“He is, but he isn’t well,” Liddy told them. “He’s been in a wheelchair ever since that boating accident he had a few years ago. And he has Alzheimer’s. Tuck mentioned him the other day.”
“Now you’ve brought it up, I remember overhearing my mother talking to someone on the phone once. She said the family was cursed,” Maggie said. “I guess she was referring to Mrs. Shelby’s illness.”
“I don’t believe in curses.” Liddy dismissed the idea. “But I can’t deny the family has had some bad luck. Not just Mrs. Shelby’s illness and Mr. Shelby’s accident, but Tuck’s wife died young. His daughter’s run off and left her kids.”
“But Tuck’s solid, and Linc seems to be as well, so there’s that,” Maggie pointed out. “Maybe the curse was only put on the women.”
“But that wouldn’t explain Mr. Shelby’s accident,” Emma said.
“Will you two listen to yourselves? Talking as if you actually believe in curses.” Liddy rested her arms over her abdomen.
“Maybe Linc broke the curse when he took in his sister’s kids.” Maggie ignored Liddy. “Tuck certainly appears to be doing well these days, curse or no curse.”
“Not to mention the fact he’s looking pretty good for a guy who’s sixty-two. I saw him in the bank the other day.” Emma glanced at Liddy pointedly. “Jeannie Brightcliffe was seriously checking him out. As in flirting with him while she was taking care of his business.”
“Jeannie Brightcliffe is in her thirties. He’s too old for her,” Liddy grumbled.
“I don’t know, Lids. She didn’t seem to be thinking about the age difference.”
“A lot of younger women like that silver-fox look,” Maggie pointed out.
Liddy refused to react to the thought of thirtysomething, lithe, red-haired Jeannie flirting with Tuck. Her own feelings regarding the man still being somewhat jumbled, Liddy did what she always did when she didn’t want to think or talk about something. She changed the subject. “So, Emma, what do you hear from Owen?”
“I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to think about him. But I’m pretty sure he’s still in London on some sort of business. I still don’t know what he does, exactly.” Emma tugged on the bottom of her classic one-piece black bathing suit, which matched her sun hat, black leather sandals, and black-and-white beach bag. As always, Emma was perfectly put together. When they’d first arrived at the beach, Liddy had been about to teasingly ask if she was wearing her pearls when she noticed Emma’s pearl earrings. Of course. Not quite the same as that strand she always wore, but still. Pearls on the beach. Only Emma.