by Grace Palmer
There was another long pause and Holly thought the call had dropped. She pulled the phone away from her ear to make sure the time on the call was still ticking away. “Eliza?”
“I’m at the beach,” she said again. “Close to the inn, I think. I can see the lights in the windows.”
That was all Holly needed to know. “I’m coming. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Her fingers shook around the steering wheel, the rain starting to seep into her skin. Holly was terrified at what she might find when she got to her sister.
But also, for the first time in two days, Holly felt like herself. She had a problem to solve. Someone to take care of.
She could do that. Holly Benson Goodwin could do that.
27
Sara
The Beach Behind The Sweet Island Inn
The sun had set hours earlier, but Sara and Mae were still sitting in the sand. Their clothes hung from them in soaked, useless rags, but it was too hard to get up and go back to reality. This was preferable.
“I’m surprised Dominic hasn’t come looking for me,” Mae commented. “I didn’t give him much of an explanation.”
“There will be time for that later,” Sara said.
Just like there would be plenty of time for her to explain her situation to Joey later, too. Later, later, later. Not now.
Mom leaned back on her arms and sighed. “I’ve always loved the beach during a storm. So peaceful.”
Sara was about to agree when a shrieking scream broke through the peace. “Eliza!” someone howled. “Where are you?”
They both jumped up. Sara’s skirt made a wet suctioning noise as she lifted herself out of the sand. “What was that?”
Her mom held a hand above her eyes and scanned the beach towards the inn. It was hard to see anything against the shadows of the trees, but just in front of the trailhead, Sara could see a smaller shadow separate itself, moving towards them.
She pointed it out. Mae gasped as she recognized the shape. “Holly?”
“Mom? Sara?”
Mae hurried across the sand and Sara followed after her until, sure enough, they met up with Holly.
“What are you two doing here?” Holly asked. She looked bedraggled, rain-soaked, alarmed—and was wearing the kind of risqué dress that Sara never expected to see her in. “Did Eliza call you, too?”
“Is Eliza here?” Mae spun around, searching.
“She called and told me she was on the beach near the inn,” Holly said. “She didn’t sound right. Something is wrong.”
Sara groaned. “Is anyone having a good day? At this point, I think the universe might be punishing us.”
Holly frowned. “What?”
But there was no time to answer. Their mom pushed between them and took off down the beach, calling Eliza’s name. Sara and Holly joined in.
The private portion of the beach ended just beyond a line of clumsily placed boulders in the sand. It was just on the other side of those rocks that they discovered Eliza.
She was slumped against one of the rocks, her head laying on her arm. When they found her, Holly and Mae both gasped and dropped to their knees. Sara reached for her phone, ready to call for an ambulance.
Then Eliza sat up and grabbed Holly’s hand. “You came.”
Holly’s shoulders sagged. “What are you doing here? I thought you were dead.”
“I’m tired,” Eliza whispered.
Holly was right. Eliza didn’t sound normal. Her words were slurred and sloppy.
“Why are you here?” Mae asked again.
Eliza sighed. “Oliver kicked me out. I can’t go home.”
Suddenly, Sara felt overwhelmingly tired, too. She dropped down onto one of the rocks and looked out at the ocean as Eliza explained.
“He said I’m dangerous. That I can’t be around the girls. He doesn’t understand and—” Eliza leaned forward and grabbed Holly’s face. “He is misunderstanding everything.”
Holly winced and leaned away. “Wow. Well, I’m finally understanding everything. You’re drunk.”
“What?” Mae asked, eyes narrowed. She looked upset, like her daughter was still underage rather than nearing forty.
“Smell her breath,” Holly said. “Actually, don’t. I already did. It’s bad.”
Eliza groaned and leaned back. “I’m not drunk. I’ve just been drinking. There’s a difference.”
“Oliver wouldn’t kick you out for drinking,” Sara said.
Eliza snapped her attention to Sara. “Are you taking his side?”
“No, but I’ve had enough experience with bad guys today to know that Oliver is not one of them,” Sara said.
“Ditto.” Holly rolled her eyes and then pushed her hair back off of her face. She was dripping in rain now, but Sara could still tell her hair had been styled.
“Oh, you had your reunion today!” Sara remembered.
“Don’t remind me.”
Mae turned to her. “What happened?”
Holly shook her head like it didn’t matter. “I also had an experience with a bad guy. Andre Wellington was at the reunion.”
Sara wrinkled her nose. “Ew.”
“Do you know him?” Holly asked.
Sara held up her thumb and forefinger just a tiny bit apart. “A little. I met him at a bar a few Christmases ago. He promised me a weekend on his yacht if I followed him into the public restroom, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Because that’s basically what he tried to do with me. Except he wanted to offer me a job. A chance to ‘sleep my way to the top.’ I wish that wasn’t a direct quote.”
Mae covered her ears. “I don’t want to be hearing this.”
“I didn’t do it, Mom!” Sara pulled Mae’s hands away from her ears.
“Obviously, neither did I,” Holly said. “I have some self-respect. And a husband.”
“Plus, Andre is such a creep.” Sara let out a bitter chuckle. “Though, as I say that, I was still lusting after Gavin Crawford at the time. What did I know about creeps if I couldn’t see that I was working for the biggest one?”
“Sometimes, we see what we want to see,” Holly said, tipping her head back. Then she stiffened and turned to Sara and her mom. “Wait, so if Eliza didn’t call you, what were you two doing out here?”
“Speaking of creeps!” Mae said, rubbing Eliza’s back with one hand and running the other across her face, wiping away the rain. “Gavin Crawford is a partner at an investment firm. The same investment firm that is building a hotel down the street with the same name as my inn and just bought out Little Bull so he could be Sara’s boss.”
Holly gasped in horror.
“That’s the roughest version of events,” Sara said. “But yeah, basically accurate.”
An especially strong breeze blew off the water, making them all cower together, forming a kind of family huddle. When the wind stopped, Sara looked up and realized the rain had stopped, too. The water she was feeling now was the spray from the ocean.
“So you two don’t have jobs anymore? Is that what you’re telling me?” Holly asked.
Sara looked at her mom and nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Pretty much,” Mae echoed. “I have to close down the inn so I can’t be sued for the money I make using the Sweet Island name.”
“And I have to close down Little Bull because I’d rather set the place on fire than let Gavin Crawford work from my office.”
“Your firefighter boyfriend might have something to say about that,” Holly said.
Sara shook her head. “You underestimate how much Joey hates Gavin. He’ll probably help me light the match when he finds out.”
“So this means I’m out of a job?” Eliza asked.
Mae gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Eliza. I’m so sorry. I called you earlier to tell you, but you didn’t answer, and… I’m sorry.”
Eliza shrugged. “Par for the course at this point. But I totally win.”
“Win what?” Mae asked.
Eliza waved her hands around to encompass all of them. “This competition of who had the worst day. It’s me. I win.”
“Not everything is a competition, Miss Perfect Child,” Sara said.
Eliza barked out a laugh. “Well, this Perfect Child had her card declined at a liquor store at eight in the morning, passed out drinking and nearly electrocuted herself, and was kicked out of her house by her husband.”
Mae squeezed Eliza’s shoulder. “Honey. Oh, no.”
“Oh,” Eliza said, holding up a finger, “and I just found out I no longer have a job and I’m pretty sure I’m depressed. At least, that’s what my therapist thinks.”
They all stared at Eliza for a long time. She was the most promising of the Bensons. The one who rose to every challenge. Who overcame. Who powered through. She was also the Benson who was always right. Especially now.
“You win,” Sara said. “You’re absolutely right. You win. That’s the worst.”
“And to think I thought I had the worst day because a guy hit on me.” Holly pressed a hand to her forehead. “You all are a mess.”
Despite everything, Sara found herself laughing. She wasn’t happy by any stretch, but she wasn’t alone, either. And that made everything feel a bit better.
“Maybe he hit on you because you’re wearing that dress,” Sara said, whistling as she toed her shoe against Holly’s exposed thigh.
“Don’t even start.” Holly stood up and slipped the wet spaghetti strap sleeves of her dress off her shoulders. “I hate this stupid dress. I can’t believe I bought it.”
Holly wiggled herself out of the wet material, leaving her in nothing more than a matching set of tan spanks, and hurled the dress on the beach. When she was free, she let out a long sigh. “That’s better.”
“We should all go get out of these wet clothes,” Mom said, shedding her soaked cardigan off. “I can make us some tea.”
“Tea sounds good,” Holly said.
“Maybe coffee?” Eliza groaned. “My head hurts.”
Sara pushed her finger against her sister’s forehead. “That’s because you drank too much.”
Eliza swatted for Sara’s hand but missed. “I know. I should probably talk to my therapist about that.”
“Or Brent,” Holly offered. “He dealt with it, too.”
“So did your father.”
All the girls stopped and turned to their mom, mouths open.
“Dad had a drinking problem?” Sara asked in disbelief.
Mae nodded. “For a year or two when we first got married. He nearly bankrupted us buying booze. Goodness knows Henry Benson never reached for anything on the bottom shelf.”
“Sounds about right,” Eliza grumbled.
Mae rubbed Eliza’s back again, a sad smile on her lips. “But your dad got himself together. He made it through.”
“It seems us Bensons are always doing that,” Holly said. “Making it through. We’ve had to do a lot of it the last couple years.”
“You’d think we’d be better at it by now.” Sara shook her head.
“Everything will be better with dry clothes and some tea.” Mae stood up and waved them towards the house.
“And coffee,” Eliza added, standing on unsteady legs.
As her sisters and mom headed towards the house, Sara turned towards the water. The sky was still dark, but the storm everyone had been worried about for days had come and gone relatively quickly. That or they were in a brief lull between lashings. Either way, the water had smoothed out, the waves colored silver in the limited moonlight coming through the clouds. It looked peaceful.
“Hey, wait!” she called, keeping her eyes fixed on the horizon. “I have an idea.”
“What?” Holly asked.
Sara turned around and started backing towards the surf, arms spread wide. “How about a dip?”
“Are you crazy?” Mae balked. “There’s a storm.”
Sara made a show of looking around. “Seems fine to me.”
“It will be freezing!” Holly protested.
Their voices were growing fainter the closer Sara got to the water. The ocean seemed to call to her. Lapping against the sand, inviting her in. Promising to wash away everything hurting her family.
“You’re standing on a beach soaking wet in your shapewear,” she said. “You’re already freezing.”
Holly looked down at herself. When she looked back up, she smiled and shrugged. “I guess you’re right.”
“And nothing sobers you up like a splash of cold water,” Sara added, wagging her brows at Eliza.
Holly and Eliza looked at one another, and Sara could see she was winning them over. Finally, something was going right today. Finally, after a string of horrible ideas, she’d landed on a good one.
“What about me?” Mae asked, hands on her hips. “How do you intend to convince me?”
Maybe on another day, Sara would have told her mom she didn’t care either way whether she came in. She would have shrugged and said, “Do whatever you want.”
Today was different, though.
Today, whatever happened, they needed to do it together. All of them.
“The reason we can make it through anything is because we do it together,” Sara said, feeling the truth of the words reverberate in her chest. “And we can’t be together unless you’re there, too. Please, Mom.”
Holly was the first to pull away from the group, followed closely by Eliza. Then Mom. Sara turned back to the water, smiling when she felt them fall into place at her sides. “Are we ready?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Mae said, a smile in her voice. She reached over and grabbed Sara’s hand. Sara squeezed back.
“What about you, Eliza? You aren’t too drunk to swim, are you?”
“Drinking, not drunk,” Eliza clarified again. But she reached out and grabbed Sara’s and Holly’s hands. “But maybe it would be best if you both didn’t let go.”
“Promise,” Holly said, lightly jogging in the sand, psyching herself up.
“Promise,” Sara echoed, a smile spreading across her face. “Should we count down?”
“To four,” Mae said. “One for each of us. I’ll start. One.”
Eliza squeezed Sara’s fingers. “Two.”
“This is exciting,” Holly squealed, jittering enough to shake the whole line. “Three.”
Things were a mess. Absolutely and completely. But there was something unifying about all of them falling apart together. About having people there to pick you up when you stumbled. No matter what.
Even if Sara didn’t have anything else, she had this. She had these three women standing next to her.
And right now, that was enough.
Sara took a deep breath and yelled out, “Let’s go!”
Together, they charged across the wet sand towards the surf. Towards the sudsy waves and the cold water.
And when the first wave broke across their knees, Sara knew in her bones one thing and one thing only: this would all work out okay.
Thanks for taking another trip to Nantucket with the Benson family! I hope you loved this story. If so, please leave a review at the link below.
Click here to review NO FOREVER LIKE NANTUCKET.
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Also by Grace Palmer
Sweet Island Inn
No Home Like Nantucket (Book 1)
No Beach Like Nantucket (Book 2)
No Wedding Like Nantucket (Book 3)
No Love Like Nantucket (Book 4)
No Secret Like Nantucket (Book 5)
No Forever Like Nantucket (Book 6)
No Summer Like Nantucket (Book 7) (coming soon!)
Willow Beach Inn
Just South of Paradise (Book 1)
Just South of P
erfect (Book 2)
Just South of Sunrise (Book 3)
Just South of Christmas (Book 4)