Tessa reached out and covered Janey’s hand with hers. “I understand that feeling.”
Janey gave herself a couple of moments to miss her mother, and she thought of her first letter, which had said Mom would miss her too. That brought a small, unhappy smile to her face, but it was enough for now.
“Then I started fixing up the cottage, which I know you weren’t happy about. I apologize for that. I should’ve asked you first.”
“I don’t care,” Tessa practically mumbled. “The truth is, Janey, I had nothing keeping me from Nantucket. I stayed away out of spite, because you seem to come and go as you please, and I want to as well.”
Janey turned and gazed at her sister, shock flowing through her. “I’m not sure if I should apologize or not.”
“It’s my problem,” she said. “Younger sister syndrome, still, even at this age.” She gave a light laugh and shook her head. “It’s ridiculous to still feel this way. I’m working on it.” She sobered and met Janey’s eye again. “You have a long shadow, and I’m still constantly trying to fill it.”
Janey didn’t know how to apologize for that.
“Drinks, ladies?”
Janey looked up at the waitress. “Yes, I’ll take a gin and tonic. Tons of lime, please.”
“A double for me,” Tessa said.
Janey blinked at her sister again. “Tessa.”
“I drink, Janey,” she said, sighing. “In fact…I didn’t drop and break the bottle of wine the first night we were here. I drank it all, passed out, and dropped my glass on the deck.”
Janey could only stare at her sister, and it seemed like this lunch would be about sharing some secrets they’d kept from one another. Janey could do that. In fact, she’d like to unburden herself from some of the things she’d kept from Tessa.
Starting with the letter she’d received with the birth certificate. Her personal problems could be dealt with later.
So she started giggling, glad when Tessa joined in. They laughed and laughed, and their drinks hadn’t even come yet. Whoever had said that laughter was the best medicine had been absolutely right. Janey felt better than she had in weeks, and she decided sitting right there at the table, overlooking Nantucket Sound, about to have a couple of drinks and a creamy lobster mac and cheese, that she and Tessa still belonged to one another, no matter who her father turned out to be.
Two days later, Janey held a legal-size envelope in her hand, her gaze moving from Sean to Tessa. They sat on the rocks at The Lighthouse Inn, letting the wind pull through their hair, because Janey couldn’t stand the thought of opening anything at the cottage.
She had signed on the dotted line to execute the will and get it out of probate. She and Tessa would be co-owners of the cottage on the Point. They should be able to split the assets right down the middle, though they still needed to talk about who would do what, and when.
Who would manage the rental of the house on Long Island, for example.
Who would deal with the hiring and firing of any management at The Hotel Benjamin, for another.
The intellectual property was easy enough, as was the cottage—at least if they could keep them.
“This is it,” Tessa said. “You’re killing me.”
“What if it’s Riggs?” Janey asked, the same question spilling from her mouth which had been plaguing her for too many days now.
“Then we’ll know,” Sean said. “We can make a plan from there.”
Janey paced away from them, wanting to release the envelope to the will of the wild wind. The Earth could have the knowledge, and she could bury it up in the mountains, or sink it into the depths of the sea.
She suddenly wasn’t sure if she wanted to know. Did she really need to know who her biological father was? Perhaps Dale had been right. What would it change?
“Are you going to open it?” Sean asked, looking at her over his shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Janey said, moaning as the weight of the world pressed down on her.
“Give it to me.” Tessa stood up and dusted her hands on her shorts. She approached Janey with an open expression on her face. She took her by the shoulders. “We are sisters, Janey, no matter what. Do you hear me?”
Janey nodded, her throat too tight to respond verbally.
“Sisters,” Tessa said. “It doesn’t matter what it says in this envelope. That won’t change.”
“It could make defending the will harder,” Janey said.
“Maybe,” Tessa said, leaning closer. “That’s why we brought Sean along.” She whispered the sentence, her smile widening. “Once we know who we have to deal with, we’ll be able to make a plan. We’ll know better what to expect.”
Janey nodded again, because of course Tessa was right. She handed the envelope to Tessa, fell back, and folded her arms as if cold. But the July weather on Nantucket was nothing but gorgeous, with blue skies and plenty of sunshine. Harmless clouds and the kiss of the ocean breeze against her skin.
If she really wanted to enjoy her time here, she needed to know what that envelope contained. “Open it,” she said.
Tessa held her gaze for another moment. Then she tore open the envelope that held Janey’s paternity results.
Chapter Forty-One
Tessa had never felt so close to cardiac arrest. Her eyes seemed to malfunction, first only showing her white, then fading to a deep rich navy that didn’t allow her to read the black type on the paper.
Rainbows of color streamed through her vision then, everything from brilliant emerald green, to sweeping hot pink, to a soothing, golden orange. She took a deep breath, hearing a voice somewhere beyond her awareness.
She looked up, and Sean Masterson stood in front of her. He’d been kind to her while Janey had been gone, and Tessa could see why her sister liked him. She understood why Mom had hired him here on Nantucket.
The summer events kept arriving in Tessa’s inbox, and she hated that she and Janey weren’t out there, experiencing the beach, the sailboat races, the rowing tournaments, the shopping walks, or the food tours. Oh, the food tours.
Tessa’s mouth watered just thinking about the wine walking tour here on Nantucket, and instant anger hit her in the chest that she’d been huddled in a hotel room or this blasted cottage for weeks.
It was summertime, for crying out loud.
She also couldn’t believe this was what her mind had chosen to focus on. Janey needed to know who her father was.
Tessa hadn’t realized that she needed to know who Janey’s father was.
She handed the paper to Sean, who gave her a kind smile and glanced at Janey. She sat at the new dining room table, looking calm and serene. Tessa wondered how on Earth she could pull that off. Tessa’s hand shook as she pulled out a chair and joined her sister at the table.
The crisp scent of yogurt hung in the air, because she and Janey had ordered in from Daybreak, and they had the most beautiful berries in their yogurt parfaits. Again, Tessa found it extremely difficult to focus, and only when she reached over and took Janey’s hand in hers did the world come back into clarity.
She needed to hold onto that. No matter what the paper in Sean’s hand said, she could hold onto the past forty-five years of being Janey’s sister.
No matter what, she told herself.
Sean cleared his throat and looked up from the page. He sat at the spot across from Tessa and right next to Janey. He kept his eyes on Janey, who likewise stared steadily back at him.
“Sean,” she said, and the name definitely held a pleading note.
“I’m so sorry, Janey,” he said, and he refolded the paper.
“No.” The word sounded like a cross between a whimper and a whisper, and tears sprang to Tessa’s eyes at the level of desperation and distress in her sister’s voice.
“It’s inconclusive,” Sean said gently. “For either Gregory Clarke or Dale Harton.”
“Which means it’s Riggs,” Janey said robotically.
“We don’t know that,” Se
an reached across the table too.
“That’s what Dale said,” Janey practically hissed, pulling her hand away from Tessa and out of Sean’s reach too. She didn’t look at Tessa, and it seemed like she was deliberately refusing to make eye-contact.
Her phone rang, but Janey didn’t even blink. Tessa looked down at the device on the table next to her sister, and she saw Dale Harton’s name there.
“Janey,” she said, already arcing her hand toward the phone. “It’s Dale Harton.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “He probably got the results today too.”
Tessa picked up the phone. “I’m going to answer it.” She didn’t wait for permission, and she swiped up the phone icon to connect the call. “This is Tessa Simmons,” she said. “Janey’s sister.”
The person on the other end of the line sighed. “She’s upset, isn’t she?”
Tessa got to her feet. “Understandably so.” She walked away from the table, noting that Sean had managed to take Janey’s hand in his.
“It’s inconclusive,” he said.
“You’re the doctor,” Tessa said, reaching the door. “Tell me what that means.” She opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. The cry of seagulls above her and the quick lash of the wind against her skin reminded her that she wasn’t in Pennsylvania right now.
Oh, how she’d loved this cottage growing up. She hated that these new memories were being made here now, and she wanted to rip the paper declaring the paternity results to little shreds and let the breeze scatter them across the vastness of the ocean.
“It means that I’m not her father, and Gregory Clarke isn’t her father.”
“But it doesn’t mean Riggs Friedman is.” Tessa kept her voice low as she looked to her right, down the lane toward the Friedman’s house. Everything seemed so…innocent. Trees and flowers and sand didn’t much care who Janey’s father was. The breeze and birds didn’t know of the crisis happening inside the bright blue cottage.
“It doesn’t mean that, no,” Dale said slowly. “Though if your mother was seeing anyone else that summer, I didn’t know about them.”
Janey had returned to Nantucket two days ago and told Tessa about her meeting with Dale. Apparently Mom had had a relationship with three men that summer, and Janey actually had confessed to some relief that she too couldn’t narrow her male suitors to just one.
Tessa had barely managed to get one in the first place, and she’d simply listened to Janey, who’d needed to talk.
“So it’s probably Riggs.”
“I’d say yes, it’s probably him.”
“What should we do?” Tessa asked.
“I don’t see why he’s entitled to anything you girls have,” Dale said, his tone equal parts confusion and darkness. “Your mother can leave her belongings to anyone she wants, and she and Riggs were not legally married.”
“He claims to have a case,” Tessa said. “My husband is a lawyer, and I’m having him review it all. Mom’s lawyer here is too.” She looked toward The Lighthouse Inn, which sat across the sand swells, and she longing for the carefree days of summer.
So many people wanted a slice of the pie. Tessa felt this great need to hold it all close, cover it all up, and make sure no one got a single penny of anything.
At the same time, she wasn’t sure why she cared. Before Mom’s death, she hadn’t known about the bank accounts. The house on Long Island. The downtown New York City hotel. She hadn’t known about her mom’s marriage, or Dennis’s intellectual property, or that Janey wasn’t her full sibling.
If she lost it all, who cared? Why did she want to grip it all so tightly and make sure she didn’t lose what she didn’t even know she’d had two months ago?
Because of Mom, she thought. Her mother had been so adamant in her letters about making sure Dennis’s children didn’t get anything of his, and it was Tessa’s sworn duty to make sure that didn’t happen.
But so what if it did? Dennis wasn’t here anymore. Neither was Mom. They couldn’t actually turn over in their graves, and Tessa wanted to open her fingers and let it all go.
She knew she couldn’t. She’d never been good at letting things go. She could compartmentalize them, sure. Think about them when she chose or ignore them for decades. But she could not let them go, not when Mom had been so strong in her convictions for the estate.
“Tessa?” Dale asked, and she blinked her way back to the porch where she stood.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “I was thinking about something else there for a minute.”
“I don’t want to add more to it,” he said somewhat apologetically. “I wasn’t going to say anything, and I didn’t tell Janey this when she came to visit. But with this new knowledge—or at least a very good assumption—I think you should know.”
Tessa nearly threw Janey’s phone out onto the sand. She’d fly after it and stomp it to smithereens, because she didn’t want to know what Dale was about to say.
“Are you still there?” he asked, and Tessa took a deep breath.
She could do this. She had to do this. Janey wasn’t strong enough to shoulder anything else on her own, and Tessa could. She’d always been strong when Janey was weak, and her sister had always picked up the slack when Tessa was struggling.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m still here.”
Chapter Forty-Two
“I can’t do this,” Tessa said, not for the first time. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d gone down the steps at the cottage, and an unfamiliar notification met her ears again.
Then again.
She finally realized the beeps came from the phone she carried in her hand, and she lifted it to look at it. The sunshine glinted off the screen, nearly blinding her, and she winced away from Janey’s phone.
Janey’s phone.
Tessa spun, her mind stuck in some sort of hamster’s wheel that couldn’t produce coherent thoughts.
The device rang, and Tessa used her body to shield the sun so she could see who was calling. She was calling, and a moment of being inside some sort of vortex sent a vein of whiplash through her.
“Of course,” she said, getting her bearings. She’d gone east from the cottage, and surprise darted through her when she saw how far she’d come. She’d left the house without shoes or a hat, and she’d probably be burnt and lame by the time she returned to the cottage.
The phone stopped ringing, but it immediately started again. This time, Tessa swiped on the call from herself and said, “Hello?”
“Where did you go?” Janey asked. “What did Dale say?”
What did Dale say?
Tessa didn’t want to repeat what he’d said, but she couldn’t keep such a massive secret. She started the walk back to the cottage, her breathing hitching in her lungs. “I apparently went for a walk,” she said.
“You didn’t know you went for a walk?” Janey asked. “With my phone?”
Tessa didn’t appreciate the dry, accusatory tone, and her fury started to build beneath her ribcage. “Dale got the paternity results too,” she said, quickly relaying what his suspicions were regarding the identity of Janey’s father. “He said the only way to know for sure would be to get Riggs to submit to a test, but he’s fairly sure if it’s not him or Dad, that your father is Riggs.”
“I already know that.”
Tessa swallowed and reminded herself that Janey was going through a lot more than she was. At the same time, though, Tessa was dealing with all of the same information as her sister. She had to deal with her mother’s past behavior too. She had to shoulder the responsibility of the estate, and it would be her name on the lawsuits.
The fact that Mom didn’t have a squeaky clean past only complicated things, and Tessa wondered if Janey had even considered that. Maybe. Maybe not.
One thing Tessa needed to stop doing was making assumptions.
“Janey,” Tessa said.
“Ron’s called twice,” she said. “Are you headed back?”
&nbs
p; “Yes,” Tessa said, her pulse playing leapfrog with itself. “I’ll be back in ten or fifteen minutes.” The fact that Janey had let her go for that long astounded Tessa. Her sister must have really fallen into a funk and lost track of time as well.
The thought of telling her sister what Dale had told her face-to-face made her stomach boil, and Tessa needed the openness of the sky to tell her. “Janey,” she said, her throat so dry. “Dale said we need to be really careful with Riggs.”
“I think we know that.”
“No.” Tessa shook her head, irritation and desperation coiling together and making her vision blurry again. “Just listen for a minute.” She was so sick of everyone talking over her. Telling her stories when they didn’t even know them.
“He said Riggs has never had a real job. He said he’s a con man. He gets people to sign over their accounts and assets to him for management, and he swindles them out of everything.”
Janey said nothing, and Tessa knew the feeling. Her stomach still felt like it was coming back into its proper position from when it had fallen to the soles of her feet.
“He apparently took Dale for quite a bit of money forty years ago, and he says Riggs can be quite violent when he doesn’t get his way.” Tessa couldn’t believe she’d never seen such behavior in all the years she’d known Riggs and Bobbie.
She felt so naïve and sheltered, and she hated that almost as much as being interrupted and spoken over.
“He once got the cottage from Mom, but she managed to get it back. Dale thinks Riggs has been lying in wait to get whatever he can from her, and that he’ll go to any length to do it.”
“Perhaps we should stay somewhere else,” Janey said. “He did threaten me on the porch a few days ago.”
“I thought he was just angry. Did he issue a threat?”
“No, you’re right.” Janey sighed. “Just get back here so we can make a plan.”
The Cottage on Nantucket Page 21