He grinned, picked up a flannel shirt that he’d discarded on the brick-paved path, and wandered back up the lawn around to the side of the house.
Cute, Gemma decided. Inarguably, cute. But no need to go there. She had a book to write. And besides, she had given up on love.
Or rather, it had given up on her.
***
Sean and she had met when she was still working at the ad agency, back when she was dabbling at her first book, still getting used to life in the city. He was tall, cute, and he’d taken her for pizza after work one night.
Sean, unlike her, loved his job at the ad agency. It was exactly what he wanted to do, but he’d always encouraged her to do what she wanted. When she first got “the call” that her book was being published, he’d been just as excited as she was, insisted on champagne and a proper celebration.
When she’d called her parents to tell the news, her father had gotten right down to business. “How much are they offering?”
Even now, Gemma could still remember the hurt she’d felt in her chest at his reaction. It wasn’t about the money, she’d tried to explain. It was about the accomplishment.
Still, when the book came out and another was on the way, her father came around to the idea, even seemed proud of it, something that had triggered her argument with Ellie last summer. Ellie knew how much their father disapproved of her aspirations, and when she tried to make Gemma feel bad about not helping out with Gran more, Gemma had taken the bait, said something that her father had said many times and shouldn’t have, even if it was true.
She didn’t bring up her writing much around Ellie. Or Hope, come to think of it. When her first book released last year, it was Sean who came with her to all the local bookstores to see the book in the wild. They’d celebrated with champagne and take-out.
Those were the happy times. Sometimes, thinking back on them hurt more than thinking of the bad times.
Lena appeared at her side with a chocolate brownie on a plate. “You looked like you could use it,” she said with a little smile.
Lena was a local, the daughter of innkeepers and the same age as Ellie. Gemma remembered her from all the summers she spent here, but she was surprised all the same when she’d walked in to the coffeehouse to see that Lena was still on the island.
“Thanks,” she said, eagerly reaching down to break off a piece.
Lena tilted her head. “I heard about your fiancé.”
Gemma stopped chewing. Of course. The brownie wasn’t a reward for the hard work she’d been doing for the past two hours at this corner table. It was a sympathy brownie. And she must have been frowning.
“Ellie told you?”
Lena shook her head. “I heard it from Darcy Ritter. She runs the quilting club here in town? She was good friends with your grandmother. She takes a painting class at your sister’s studio, and she heard all about it.”
Along with everyone else in the class, Gemma assumed. She felt her eyes hood. She knew Darcy, and she knew that Darcy liked to keep her pulse on the community.
Lena tsked. “Terrible thing that man did. Jilting you like that!”
“Oh, I don’t know if I’d use the word jilted.” Gemma skirted her eyes, catching he curious glances from the patrons at the nearest table. “It wasn’t like he left me standing at the altar.”
“Still, you had to call back all those vendors!”
Gemma nodded, and then remembered that she still hadn’t heard back on the full refund from the caterers yet. They could only give a full refund if they booked another gig for the same night. She made a mental note to email them as soon as Lena went back to the counter.
Right now she could use every penny she could find. Especially if she kept getting too distracted to finish this book.
“Well,” she said, forcing a smile she no longer felt. “Thank you for the brownie.”
“Chocolate does wonders,” Lena said, giving her a wink.
If only. Gamma pushed the plate to the side and put her attention back on the computer screen.
She stared at the page count on the bottom of her screen, stricken when she realized she had only accomplished ten pages today. And another day had come and gone. She could work all night, she decided, or at least once the girls went to bed, though who knew about what. She was still blocked. Still unable to tackle the central romance in her story that her readers craved. If she didn’t believe in her own work, how could she expect anyone else to?
And now all she could think about was her catering deposit, and how large the sum was, and then she was thinking of how Sean didn’t have to worry about any of this, because Gemma had been foolish enough to offer to use her inheritance to pay for it. It was that, or ask her parents, and she could never forget how her mother had controlled every detail of Hope’s wedding, until Hope had laughed good-naturedly and said, “Maybe you should wear the wedding dress, Mom!”
Gemma fired off an email to the caterers, her anxiety mounting when she saw a new email from her editor at the top of her inbox. Her stomach tightened into a hard knot and she closed the laptop before she could linger too long, or be tempted to click on it, and feel the pressure escalate. Where was the manuscript? Would it be ready on time? She knew what the email would say without having to read it.
With a shaking hand, she ate the rest of the brownie. And Lena was right, because she did feel a little better afterward. She gathered up her belongings and decided to take a walk through town. Sometimes that was all it took for her mind to open up and ideas to strike. A walk. A shower. Something that didn’t feel so forced.
It was quiet in town, and warm. Shop owners had embraced the season and most had pots of tulips flanking their doors, their large bay windows displaying brightly colored items, inviting passersby to stop in, browse, hopefully to buy something.
Gemma would have loved to poke around, maybe treat herself to some stationary supplies from the paper store on the corner, but then she thought about her budget, and her book, and her future.
Ten pages. She’d been so optimistic when she’d set out into town!
She stopped outside the next shop she came to, the local real estate office, whose windows were covered in sheets for summer rentals and properties for sale.
She stared at the real estate listings, her eyes popping when she saw how much some of the homes were listed for—homes not even on the west side of the island, homes that were smaller, tucked into the forest, not even walkable from town.
The answer to her problems, it was starting to seem, would be to sell Sunset Cottage.
Chapter Eight
Ellie
Hope was sitting on the front porch when Ellie hopped off her bike, tired from another long day at the studio.
“Come join me!” Hope said with a smile. “The girls are already down for the night.”
Ellie glanced in the house through the open screen door. She’d been dodging Gemma since her arrival but now the thought of joining her sister for a glass of wine on the porch sounded exactly like what she needed to push aside the pain in her chest over Simon. For a little while at least.
“Gemma’s inside,” Hope said, as if reading her mind. “She feels bad, Ellie.”
Ellie froze. This was the first time that last summer’s argument had been broached directly, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to have this conversation right now.