Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (2 page)

“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.

“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 shoreline. 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.

Sam opened her eyes. Darkness blanketed her room, and outside her window, a thick fog swallowed the moonlight. A sound had wakened her. The distinctive
clunk
that sounds across the water when an oar strikes the hull of a boat. The numbers on her clock read 4:37, an odd hour for a boat to be out.

She untangled herself from the quilt and decided to investigate. When she pushed open the screen door, it squeaked, and she cringed. Very carefully, she set it against the wooden frame. Her bare feet grabbed grits of sand as she walked across the rough boards of the porch.

Sam crossed her arms against the cool air and tiptoed across the damp, stubby grass. The fog glowed under the light from their pier. She stopped on the beach and listened.

The water slapped restlessly against the piles, and the wind teased Miss Biddle’s flag, making the hardware ping against the metal pole—sounds so familiar and constant that she sometimes heard them in her dreams.

Maybe she’d dreamed the sound. She sighed, and her shoulders drooped with resignation as she turned to go back.

Another sound stopped her. One that was absent from her usual backyard symphony. She stepped onto the pier and walked the length of it, feeling her heart punching her rib cage with each step. When she reached the end, she stared at the vacant spot on the water.

She tilted her head downward. The cleat that held the lines of her mom’s boat was empty. She studied the water under the light and saw on its surface the remnants of a disturbance: ripples, gradually weakening as they rolled toward the barren shoreline.

I will never leave you nor forsake you.

JOSHUA 1:5

One

“Y
ou can just drop me off, you know. I’m not a baby.” Eleven-year-old Caden flipped her mom a look, then stared out the passenger window.

“I like watching you.” Sam pulled the Ciera into the parking lot of the Boston Academy of Gymnastics and was about to expound on the thought, but Caden interrupted.

“The other moms don’t stay.”

It wasn’t true, but Sam had a feeling this objection had less to do with Caden’s assertion of independence and more to do with her.

“Did Bridget tell everyone about me?” Sam asked.

Caden crossed her arms, her warm-up suit rustling.

“If I didn’t clean the gym, we wouldn’t be able to afford lessons, Caden.”

Though her daughter frowned, her jaw and shoulders rigid, Sam knew the stubborn front concealed a wounded little girl. Knew it because Caden was so much like her.

“They all know now. Bridget has such a big mouth. She thinks she’s so hot just because her mom owns the gym.”

Sam turned off the ignition and withdrew the keys, then glanced at Caden, who made no move to leave. The clock on the dashboard read 7:02. “Honey, let’s finish this later. You’re late for class.”

“So you’re staying?”

Sam’s parental pride shrank two more sizes. “By the time I got home, I’d just have to turn around and come back. I promise to sit in the back and keep my hood up to conceal my identity.” Sam regretted the sarcasm instantly.

Caden discharged her seat belt, and it sprang upward, clanging against the door frame. “Whatever,” she said, then exited the car, not quite slamming the door.

Sam grabbed the day’s mail from the dashboard and tucked it in her purse. As she entered the gym, the familiar odor of sweaty little gymnasts assaulted her nostrils. She walked past the office and up the stairs to the balcony, where she found a seat in the back row. She smiled at a woman seated there, the mom of one of Caden’s classmates. From her pantsuit and trendy heels, Sam guessed she didn’t scrub bathrooms for a living or work a side job to afford her daughter’s lessons.

On the floor below, a maze of mats and apparatus were spread across the blue carpet. Caden’s class stretched, their legs straddled, leaning forward until their bellies touched the ground. Her daughter lay there, head resting against the carpet. The girl next to Caden whispered something to another girl and they laughed. Sam assumed the worst, and she wanted to give the girl’s ear a swift tug.

Instead, she settled back into the chair and pulled the mail from her bag. Electric bill. Bank statement. Credit card bill. She’d open that one last. No sense ruining a perfectly good day. The last piece was addressed to her with a black pen. In the upper left-hand corner was a sticker with Miss Biddle’s name and address.

Strange. Beyond the annual Christmas card, she rarely heard from Miss Biddle. And even when she did, she almost didn’t want to open the envelope—as if doing so would open a door from her past she’d rather leave closed.

Curious, she turned the letter over and slid her finger under the flap. She withdrew a piece of notebook paper neatly creased in thirds. She unfolded the note.

Dear Samantha,

I hope this letter finds you well. I would have preferred to call, but the number you’re listed as having is disconnected. I’m afraid I have some bad news.

Just yesterday your stepfather had a heart attack at work. They tried to take him to the hospital, but he passed away in the ambulance and they were unable to resuscitate him. I know there was no love lost between the two of you, but still I hated to tell you this way.

A strange feeling swept over Sam like an unexpected wind on a still night. There was no sadness or grief, but rather an unexplained dread.

I contacted Judge Winslow (from the probate court), who will be handling Emmett’s estate, and I learned Emmett had no will. Since you are his adopted child, and the only living relative, his cottage and belongings will pass to you. You might contact Judge Winslow down at the Town and County building. I’m sure they’ll send you notification soon, but I thought it might be better to hear the news from me.

Sam stared at the letter, but the words blurred as her thoughts scrambled. Excitement overtook the dread. The cottage sat on the valuable Nantucket shore and was worth a fortune. It was small and old, but even the smallest shanty on the island neared a million dollars.

The thought of what she and Caden could do with that kind of money stirred something she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Hope.

She finished the letter, skimming over the funeral information.

A million dollars. She could pay off her credit cards, get out of their crummy apartment, buy Caden some decent clothes, pay for gymnastic lessons. Heck, she could send Caden to a private school if she wanted. And college. Caden could become anything she wanted to be.

Even Sam could go to college. It was a thought she hadn’t allowed since she got pregnant with Caden. Even now, she tamped down the thought, too afraid to hope in case this was all a dream.

But the flimsy white paper in her hands was real enough. Emmett’s name scrawled in black sobered her. Memories raced through her mind at the speed of light, none of them good. The feeling of being trapped, overpowered, and abandoned all at the same time made her squirm in her chair as if to make sure she wasn’t restrained.

The realization that she would have to go back there stole her breath and jarred her mind to a sudden halt. The house would have to be cleaned out. Furniture and personal belongings would have to be sorted through. The cottage would need to be readied for sale. The flower beds, if they still existed, would need tending.