‘The girls settled?’ Miranda asked, as Leo appeared in the dining room.
‘Yeah.’ He slumped into his seat and reached for his whisky. ‘What’s going on?’
Juliet scooted her chair closer to her brother’s. ‘What’s going on with you? What happened today? I thought you guys were going for a beach picnic?’
‘We were.’ He sighed. ‘But then we lost a client at work, and I yelled at Tom, and the girls, and told them a llama wedding was stupid, and now they can’t wait for Emily to come home so they can go back to seeing me once a fortnight at most.’
Juliet winced. ‘Well, I’m pregnant by my married ex-boss, I quit my job, I’m basically in hiding, and I ran away from a proposal on a romantic carriage ride around the island with the only man I’ve ever really loved, because I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with my life. If that makes you feel any better.’
He stared at her. ‘Not really.’
‘Well, maybe this will do it then.’ Miranda dropped into the seat at the head of the table, the one their father always sat in, and poured herself a very large whisky. ‘The man I planned to marry, who dumped me for a new job, told me today that we should get back together anyway to keep his mother happy, and because it wasn’t like I was ever going to find anyone else on Seashell Island to marry me.’
‘Yeah, but you can’t marry him now anyway,’ Juliet pointed out helpfully. ‘The girls used your wedding dress for Lucy.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Leo mumbled.
Miranda shrugged. ‘It’s fine. I already told him no. Even if he’s right.’
‘He’s not!’ Juliet couldn’t bear thinking about him being right. Miranda – strong, annoying, perfect Miranda – deserved someone far better than Paul. Someone like Owain, perhaps. ‘Maybe Owain will stay?’
‘And maybe I’ll leave Seashell Island to stay with him,’ Miranda shot back. They were all silent at that. Even Juliet had to agree, they seemed equally unlikely.
‘The point is,’ Juliet said, trying to get them back on track, ‘And the reason we’re having this family meeting—’
‘We’re all screwed up,’ Leo put in for her.
‘And we can’t rely on Mum and Dad to help us fix it,’ Miranda added.
‘So we need to work together,’ Juliet finished. ‘To help each other figure out what we really want from life, and how to get it.’
‘Plus we need to save the Lighthouse from being sold—’ Miranda said.
‘What?’ Juliet interrupted, but Miranda ignored her.
‘And hold the Lighthouse Festival to stop Seashell Island dropping off the tourist map altogether and collapsing in on itself.’
They all looked at each other, taking in the magnitude of the tasks ahead of them.
‘The Lighthouse is up for sale?’ Juliet asked, finally, figuring that might be the easiest place to start.
Leo and Miranda exchanged a glance. It looked like she wasn’t the only one who’d been keeping secrets this summer.
‘We found an estate-agent brief for the house,’ Leo admitted. ‘We think Mum and Dad are getting ready to sell. In fact, I know they are. I had a call from the estate agent today, with a buyer wanting to arrange a viewing. I stalled them, said we needed to talk to Mum and Dad first.’
Shock reverberated through Juliet, along with a huge sense of loss. All those years spent trying to get away from here, and suddenly the idea of losing the Lighthouse made her want to cry.
Stupid hormones.
‘Because it’s not making enough money?’ Juliet guessed. ‘You said there were no guests booked until Owain and the others showed up.’
‘That’s what we’re thinking,’ Miranda admitted.
No. She’d only just found this place again. Juliet wasn’t willing to lose it now.
Which meant they had to do something.
‘The festival,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘If the festival is a success, if we can bring enough new people to the island, and they see how great it is here, they’ll want to come back. So we just have to show them the Lighthouse too so they know where to stay!’
‘That could work,’ Leo said, but Miranda was wincing. ‘What?’
‘I had a call earlier. The three food stalls I’d finally managed to book – all from the same parent company – have cancelled. Food poisoning outbreak, apparently, which suggests we had a narrow escape. But as of right now, we only have the Flying Fish, the island craft collective and the Seashell WI holding stalls at the festival, plus Owain and the guys playing, I hope. We need more – lots more. And honestly? I don’t know where to start.’
‘With a list,’ Juliet said. ‘And a rota. Same as we always used to do when we were kids – except this time, Leo, you actually have to do your jobs, OK?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Fine, fine. So. What do we need?’
Juliet pulled out the notebook she’d been using to keep track of everything from her prenatal vitamins and what food didn’t make her vomit to how many sausages and rashers of bacon she needed to order for the breakfasts. Turning to a clear double-page spread, she wrote a heading at the top of each of the pages. The first read The Lighthouse, the second The Festival.
She turned it around to show the others. ‘So. What do we need to do. Let’s get everything down in writing, then we’ll start divvying up the jobs.’
‘I need to find more food stalls for the festival,’ Miranda started. ‘Assuming we have enough other stalls to attract any visitors in the first place.’
‘We need to,’ Juliet corrected her, writing it down on the list. ‘We’re working together now, remember. And actually . . .’
She trailed off, thinking. She knew food vendors. She’d organised a dozen or more street-food events while she was working for Callum. But those contacts were part of her life off the island, and she’d promised Callum she wouldn’t cause any trouble at the company. Would this count?
Miranda’s eyes widened as she leapt to the same conclusion that Juliet had. ‘You must know some people, right? Your job was literally working with street-food stands.’
‘I mean, maybe?’ Juliet replied. What was it about bringing her London life and her Seashell Island life together that felt so wrong? ‘I’d probably need to check my contract though. I’m not sure using company contacts for personal stuff is allowed . . .’
Miranda gave her a look. ‘I’m pretty sure your boss knocking you up then essentially firing you wasn’t in his contract either, Juliet.’
‘You could probably take him to an employment tribunal,’ Leo put in.
‘Or I could just live my best life and call his best food vendors,’ Juliet agreed. ‘I’ll log into my emails later and get some contacts. Plus, actually, there are some great suppliers from the local farmers’ market. I’ve been there a few weeks now, made some connections. I’ll see if I can call in some favours there, too. Now, what else?’
‘Music,’ Miranda said. ‘Owain offered to help with that, and I . . . I guess I held back. I wanted the Lighthouse Festival to be the same as it always was, so I kept trying to find the same old stalls and such. But maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s time for something bigger and better.’
‘I think we need it,’ Juliet said.
Miranda nodded. ‘I’ll call him, and the band. See what they can come up with on short notice.’
‘And we need entertainment for the kids,’ Leo added. ‘I bet Christabel will have some ideas about that.’
‘And we could talk to Dafydd and Max about linking up with their glamping site for the visitors,’ Miranda suggested.
‘Ooh, and maybe a petting zoo! With Lucy as the star attraction, of course,’ Juliet said, scribbling down all their ideas.
‘We need a way to get people here, too,’ Leo said. ‘We’ve only got a week.’
‘I put a flyer up on the noticeboard in town,’ M
iranda said. ‘I’ve had lots of interest from the locals, but we really do need a last push. Plus I haven’t been able to tell people anything much about what was going on, because I didn’t know myself.’
‘Then we pitch it as a flash festival.’ Leo grabbed Juliet’s notebook and started adding some scribbles of his own. ‘Exclusive, secretive, if you know the kind of thing. Make people excited about it on social media, highlight the saving-the-island aspect . . . I reckon we can get the crowds here with a little bit of marketing know-how.’
‘That can be your job, then,’ Juliet told him, taking back her notebook. ‘Now, what else?’
Once they’d finished listing possibilities for the festival, they moved onto the Lighthouse itself, and Juliet’s other list grew too.
‘Repainting the front door, decorating the two back bedrooms, oh, what about the cottage, Miranda?’ she asked, as she wrote.
‘Once the band leave, that’ll be up for grabs I’m sure,’ she said, her voice a little subdued.
Juliet put down her pen. ‘I’m sorry. We got so caught up in fixing the festival and the B&B . . .’
‘But we’re ignoring our bigger problems again,’ Leo finished, with a sigh. ‘It’s just the practical ones are so much easier to solve.’
Glancing once more at her list, Juliet closed her notebook. ‘OK. Tomorrow morning we’ll make plans and lists and figure out who is going to do what. But for now . . . we should talk. All three of us. About our lives and what matters to us and what we’re going to do next. Like siblings do.’
And they never had. But maybe they could, if they tried.
Miranda nodded. ‘OK. Let’s start with you. Are you still in love with Callum?’
‘Who’s Callum?’ Leo asked.
‘The baby’s father,’ Miranda told him. ‘Keep up.’
Juliet considered Miranda’s question. It seemed absurd now that, only a month ago, she’d been planning their future together as a London couple as soon as his divorce had come through . . . a divorce it was now obvious he never intended to ask for in the first place.
‘No,’ she said, slowly. ‘After everything he did, and everything I’ve learned about him because of it . . . no, I don’t love him. I can’t believe I ever did.’
‘What exactly did he do?’ Leo asked. ‘I need to know how much we hate him, and whether it’s worth calling my employment lawyer friend.’
With an impatient huff, Miranda turned to him and explained. ‘He used his position of power as her boss to seduce her, while he was separated from his wife, promising her he’d get a divorce soon. Then, when she told him she was pregnant, he told her no one can ever know, that he’s going back to his wife, and he doesn’t want anything to do with the baby.’
‘So I left my job and came here.’ It felt funny, hearing Miranda describe the events of her life over the last six months. It wasn’t how she would have put it, exactly, but it made her feel her sister was one hundred per cent on her side. She liked it.
‘And now what are you going to do?’ Leo asked, and Juliet deflated a little.
‘That’s the million-dollar question.’
‘Rory wants to marry her,’ Miranda said.
‘He proposed. That’s not the same thing.’ Juliet sat up straight, the same panic spiking as it had in the carriage.
‘It kind of is.’
‘No. Besides, I ran away before he could finish asking.’
Leo chuckled at that. ‘Of course you did. Would it be so bad, marrying Rory?’
‘If he was proposing purely because I was pregnant and he wanted to make an honest woman of me? Yes.’ The very idea made her shudder. ‘I need to stand on my own two feet for once. Figure out my life without relying on anyone else to swoop in and save me.’
‘But what if it was because he loved you and wanted to spend his life with you?’ Miranda’s question was softer, more curious, and stopped Juliet in her tracks.
Would it be that bad? Not a rushed wedding or anything, but the possibility of being with Rory again.
She thought about the carriage ride that afternoon, about that trip back through their history and everything they’d shared as teenagers. It had been wonderful, then. But she didn’t want to go backwards.
‘I think it would depend,’ she said, slowly. ‘If he wanted us to go back and be who we were when I left, and just carry on as if it never happened, then I couldn’t do that.’
But if he wanted to start a new relationship, fresh, the people they were now and see where that went . . . if he was willing to do that even with the baby coming, not because she needed him to, but because they both wanted to . . . then that might not be so bad.
It could even be wonderful. If she let herself believe it.
‘Seems to me you need to talk to Rory,’ Leo said, topping up his whisky glass.
‘And what about you?’ Juliet asked. She was done having them analyse her mistakes. It was definitely someone else’s turn.
But Leo just shrugged. ‘Like the girls say, Emily will be back soon. Everything can go back to normal. I can get back to work properly, and they can get on with their lovely family life with Emily and Mark.’
Juliet and Miranda shared a look at the bitterness in his voice. His divorce from Emily had been so amicable, and they’d both worked so hard at staying as a family, even when she met Mark . . . what had changed this summer to make him feel differently? Was it just Emily remarrying? Or was there something more going on here?
‘Is that what you want to happen?’ Juliet asked.
Leo slumped further down in his seat and took another sip of whisky. ‘No. It was. At the start of the summer, I was looking forward to everything going back to normal again in September. But then . . . the day we met Christabel. She asked me if I wanted to be one of those dads who wasn’t really a part of his daughters’ lives as they grew up, or if I wanted to be the dad they could come to with anything, who they’d trust, who they’d talk to when they were in trouble. And I thought about Dad with us growing up and I realised . . . I wanted that.’
‘So that’s what you’ve been trying to do this summer?’ Miranda shook her head. ‘Leo, I love that you’ve been spending time with the girls, and I get that it’s really important. But Dad never did any of that stuff with us, you realise? I mean, yes, we’d go out on bike rides and beach days, but it wasn’t every day all summer. Because he was working too – either at the B&B or writing. Mostly, the three of us entertained ourselves in the summer, or ran around with our friends. But I never felt we couldn’t talk to him – or Mum – if we needed to. Well, almost never.’
What was the exception, Juliet wondered? But it wasn’t the time to ask. Because Miranda was right. But, she had to admit, it was different for Leo.
‘But Dad was here every evening, every day,’ she pointed out. ‘Leo doesn’t have that.’
‘Mark has that,’ Leo added darkly.
‘Leo, you like Mark,’ Miranda reminded him. ‘He’s a nice guy, and he loves Emily and the girls. That doesn’t mean he’s going to try and be their dad, though. That’s always going to be you.’
‘As long as you want the job,’ Juliet added. Because it was something she’d had a lot of cause to think about recently; what it meant to be a parent. She still didn’t know if she’d be any good at it, but she did know she’d give it everything she’d got, because she was the only parent her baby would have who was willing to do that. ‘Do you?’
‘What if I can’t do it?’ Leo whispered. ‘What if they still love Mark more anyway?’
‘Some days they probably will,’ Juliet admitted, remembering her own tumultuous teenage years. ‘Some days they’ll hate you, some days they’ll try and use you to get back at Emily or Mark, some days they’ll ignore you completely. Because they’re children, and then adolescents, and they’re still learning everything they need to know about the world
.’
‘I mean, in fairness, it sounds pretty dreadful to me,’ Miranda admitted. ‘But then, I never really wanted kids.’
Leo and Juliet both looked at her in surprise. ‘You don’t?’
‘How did I not know that?’ Juliet demanded.
Miranda shrugged. ‘I guess it turns out that there’s a lot we don’t know about each other.’
‘Like why you won’t leave this island,’ Leo said, but Miranda deflected it away.
‘Let’s focus on the here and now first. Leo, do you want to be a dad to your girls? Not just someone they see every now and then?’
‘Yes,’ he said, a firmness entering his voice that they hadn’t heard before.
‘Juliet, do you want to go back to London to have this baby?’
‘No.’ The word was out before she could even think about it. Her eyes widened. She’d always assumed she’d go back to the city eventually, once she had a plan. ‘No. I don’t think I do.’
‘Well, that’s progress,’ Miranda said, with a gentle smile. ‘Now we just need to figure out what you do want.’
‘And what you want,’ Juliet pointed out. A thought occurred to her. Miranda had helped her find the start of her truth by surprising her with a question. Maybe she could do the same for her. ‘Miranda, do you want to marry Paul?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want to persuade Owain to give up the band and stay here on the island?’
‘No. He’d hate me for that, in the end.’
‘Do you want to stay happily single for ever?’
‘No.’
Now for the real question. The one she hopefully wouldn’t see coming. ‘Do you want to leave Seashell Island?’
‘Yes.’
The word echoed around the dining room, even as Miranda brought her hand to her mouth, too late to hold it in.
‘Oh God,’ she mumbled against her fingers, after a long, stunned silence. ‘I want to leave the island.’
Summer on Seashell Island: Escape to an island this summer for the perfect heartwarming romance in 2020 (Riley Wolfe 1) Page 27