Eloise nodded. “You’re right. Probably so I couldn’t get to him quickly, or be involved in his life at all.”
“Exactly,” Aaron said, folding her into his embrace again. “I love you, Eloise, and I need you to be careful with this.”
She smiled to herself, those three little words holding more magic than Eloise had ever known. “I will,” she said, pulling back. “I love you too, Aaron.”
He leaned down and kissed her, and Eloise realized just how many people she had to rely on now—and how wonderful it felt to not be alone anymore.
“Okay,” she said a moment later, pulling away. “We have so much to do before dinner arrives, and I didn’t lure you out here so you could kiss me. I need your muscles.” She grinned at him, took his hand, and started back toward the steps.
“I know what I’m good for,” Aaron teased, and Eloise did too—and he was definitely good for a lot more than just his muscles.
Chapter Twenty
Robin’s giddiness could hardly be contained. She was so glad Duke had come to the inn to see what she’d been doing with Eloise. She first led him on a tour of the second floor, detailing all the wallpaper and carpet they’d ripped out. She showed him where she’d singlehandedly ripped down a curtain rod that had wanted to stay permanently. She laughed at the story now, though she’d been quite annoyed last week.
“Wow, Robin,” he said. “You guys have done amazing things here.”
“Right?” She squeezed his hand. “Now you know what I’ve been doing, and trust me, it hasn’t been all that fun.”
“I feel like a loser for being mad at you,” he said, ducking his head.
Robin paused in the hallway, where bare bulbs shone down on them from above, because Eloise had gone so far as to throw away all the light fixtures. She wanted the inn to have a complete facelift, and she planned to replace everything, right down to the tiniest details.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I understand.”
“I should’ve been coming here with you,” he said. “You ladies shouldn’t have to do this all yourselves, especially when I don’t even have a boat yet.”
“It’ll be here soon,” Robin said, though the delay had been hard on both of them. She couldn’t control the weather in the Pacific, no matter how badly she wanted to. Once Duke had his beloved boat back, everything would return to normal, and Robin couldn’t wait. She loved routines and schedules, and Duke wasn’t good with nothing to occupy his time. “And you’re here today. Aaron doesn’t come very often.”
“He’s a busy man,” Duke said. “I’ve literally been doing nothing.” He looked up, his eyes hooking into hers just like they had the very first time they’d met. “Can you forgive me?”
“Of course,” Robin said, stretching up and kissing him.
He breathed in through his nose and held onto her waist with an intensity in his grip that Robin had felt before. He kissed her for a good several seconds, finally moving his mouth to her neck.
“Duke,” she said with a giggle. “Control yourself.”
He chuckled too and stepped back. “Sorry, Robin.”
She cupped his face in her palm and gazed at him. “I love you.”
“Romantic dinner tonight?”
“Eloise ordered a seafood feast,” she said. “She’s having picnic tables delivered this afternoon, and we’re eating here.” She’d told him all of this already.
“Oh, right,” he said, leaning closer. He ran the tip of his nose along the rim of her ear. “Let me make you feel good tonight?”
“I like the sound of that,” she said with a smile.
“Romantic lunch tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Lunch tomorrow sounds great too.”
“Perfect,” Duke said, straightening. “We better get down to the kitchen before someone thinks we’ve snuck off like high school kids.”
Robin smiled and went down the grand staircase with him. “Did you have your talk with Mandie?”
“Yes,” Duke said. “She seemed surprised to learn that boys weren’t like girls.” He chuckled. “I tried to assure her that Charlie wasn’t a pervert for thinking about sleeping with her. He was just normal.”
“Has she thought of it?”
“Nope,” Duke said. “She even said, ‘That’s weird, Dad. Why are they like that?’”
Robin laughed with him, and they entered the kitchen just as a phone started to ring.
“Not mine,” Eloise said, and Robin knew whose it was.
Alice, who had jerked to her full height. She pulled her mask down and hurried toward the hooks by the back door, where she’d hung her purse.
She got her phone out of the pocket and the call connected, an anxious look on her face. It took all of Robin’s willpower not to follow her friend right back outside. The only reason she didn’t was because of Eloise.
She hadn’t asked everyone to come to the inn so they could have a Tell-All, confessional, or intervention. She needed their help, and Robin wanted to help her.
She pulled her gloves back on, positioned her mask in place so she wouldn’t inhale mold, spider webs, or any other unknown particles, and led Duke over to the fifteen-foot island running down the middle of the kitchen. She’d been working to clear out the cupboards and drawers there when Aaron had arrived.
She and Duke worked together, and she knew he was back to normal when he started telling fish jokes. She’d heard them all before, of course, but she laughed at most of them anyway. AJ, who worked on the other side of the island, hadn’t heard them, and she seemed entertained by Duke’s bad jokes.
Her phone rang, and it was the special ringtone Robin saved for her mother. Her eyes met Duke’s, and he said, “Good luck, babe.”
She’d need it, because every conversation with her mother ended with hurt feelings or an argument. Robin was tired of all of it, and she wanted to put the past behind her, make amends, and start to build a relationship with her mother she actually wanted to cultivate.
She’d been talking with Duke about it for a couple of months now, and she’d been trying to exit a conversation gracefully before her mother said something snippy. She’d been inviting her mother to lunch once or twice a month, but they were honestly exhausting, and she’d only done it a few times.
“Hey, Mom,” she said, opting to go out into the hallway that led under the grand staircase. Turning right, she headed toward the lobby and the front door. “What’s up?”
“Where are you guys?” she asked. “I stopped by to bring you that oatmeal you wanted, but no one’s home.”
“Oh, right.” Robin sighed as she wiped her hair off her forehead. “I forgot about that. The girls are at Rocky Ridge, and Duke and I are helping Eloise at the inn on Sanctuary.”
“Hmm.”
Robin worked hard not to let her mother’s humming annoy her, but it always had. “You know the garage code, Mom,” she said. “You can leave it on the kitchen counter.”
“All right.” Her mother sighed too, and Robin got the impression she was putting her mother out greatly by being unavailable to come running out to the street so her mom could simply hand the sack of steel cut oats out the window as she drove by.
“I haven’t seen you all since Duke got back,” her mom said. “Why don’t you come for dinner tomorrow?”
Robin’s first inclination was to say no, but she wondered if her mother was trying too. She never seemed to tire of making sure everyone knew her opinion, or that she was right about something, and Robin knew that none of her siblings had a great relationship with their mother.
“Okay,” Robin said. “What time?”
“How about six-thirty?”
“We’ll be there,” Robin said, because if her mother was willing to try, so was Robin. For many years there, Robin had simply decided that her mother would never change, and there was no point in trying to repair something that had broken so long ago.
Joel Shields’s death had changed Robin’s opinion on that,
though. She’d seen the way Clara had been suffering at the funeral, and she’d spoken to Kristen about their daughter several times since then.
Clara couldn’t fix the damage that had been done in her youth, because her father was dead. Robin could at least try with her mother.
“Sounds wonderful,” her mother said. “Will you bring that compound butter you make to go with lobsters and crabs?”
“The stuff with the garlic and parsley?” Robin asked.
“Yes,” her mother said. “I love it with crab legs.”
“Sure, Mom,” Robin said. “What else should I bring?” She didn’t want to spend tonight or tomorrow morning cooking, but it was polite to offer to bring something.
“Maybe that applesauce cake,” her mom said. “It’s Eva’s birthday, and we can call her and sing to her.”
All at once, everything made sense. Her mother didn’t want to see her and Duke and the girls because she hadn’t in a while. She wanted Robin and Duke to come during the time when she’d video chat with Stu for his daughter’s birthday.
And hey, Robin could bring the cake, and Grandma would be a hero.
Robin reached up to rub her forehead, forgetting about the dirty rubber gloves she wore. She flinched away from the smell and grime, disgusted with herself. That feeling only intensified when she said, “Sure, sounds fun.”
“Yay,” her mom said as if she were sixteen instead of sixty-five. “See you tomorrow, dear.”
“Yep, tomorrow.” Robin hung up and let her arm fall to her side. “Unbelievable.” She shook her head, her reflection faint in the glass in front of her. The sun shone through the front door while Robin quickly went through the ingredients she needed for an applesauce cake and compound butter. She also needed the internal fortitude to tell her family they had to go to her mother’s for dinner tomorrow night and sing happy birthday to Eva, a girl who’d once told Robin and Duke they were freeloaders for living in her mother’s house.
She sighed and pressed her eyes closed, searching for the strength to go back into the kitchen.
Noise erupted from behind her, and she spun back toward the kitchen, her feet moving quickly. She stepped inside to find everyone except Aaron and Duke crowding around Alice.
Across the expanse, their eyes met, and Robin hurried toward her friends without further encouragement.
Alice didn’t speak, and Robin studied her, trying to the news on her face.
“Speak,” AJ said. “You can’t just walk in and declare how angry you are without an explanation.”
Alice lifted her eyes, and while they’d held emotion when she’d lowered her chin, now they were cold and almost dead. “Frank lost his job,” she said, the same iciness in her gaze penetrating her voice. “Got a little too friendly with one of his clients.” She ground her teeth together and shook her head. “So he hasn’t filed for bankruptcy, but Susan said he’s considering it.”
“Having less money in his account would make sense for that,” Robin said. “Not the other way around.”
Alice just rolled her eyes. “Susan apparently talked to him today, and she said if he doesn’t call me today to explain, she’ll file in court to have a formal, mediated meeting so we can work out how I’m going to get paid now that our accounts aren’t connected. He said he would.” She shoved her phone in her pocket, her jaw still tight.
As quickly as a blink happened, the strength in Alice went out, and Robin reached for her at the same time AJ did. She slumped against both of them, her voice full of anguish as she said, “What am I supposed to say to him?”
She looked up, pure desperation etched into Alice’s features. “I’m not strong enough for all of this,” she said, tears appearing in her eyes. Pure shock flowed through Robin, because she hadn’t seen Alice break down like this in decades—not since the night her mother had died.
That night, it was if Alice had cried out all of her weakness, all of her imperfections. That night, a new version of Alice had emerged, and this soft, scared, unsure version of the woman hadn’t been seen since then.
“Yes, you are,” Robin said, and Eloise added, “Of course you are, Alice.”
“This is nothing,” Kelli said. “You survived years of your husband cheating on you. You can handle whatever comes your way from here on out.”
“Alice, you are the strongest, most capable woman I know,” AJ said.
Alice looked at her, nodded, and started to straighten. It seemed to take her twice as long as normal, but she finally did it. She pulled her shirt down and dusted it off, as if brushing away a bit of dirt and not the fact that she’d very nearly collapsed.
Aaron stepped over to the group. “I know I’m completely out of place here, but I always give this to Billie and Grace when they’re stressed.” He held something out, and Alice held his gaze for a long moment before taking it.
She smiled at it, and then him, and then held up the chocolate bar for everyone to see. She started to laugh, and while Robin wanted to cry for her—rage, and shake her fists at the sky, and demand to know why Alice had to continue to go through so many hard things—she ended up laughing too.
Chapter Twenty-One
AJ entered the grocery store on Diamond Island, stepping back through time as she did so. She’d insisted Robin let her go to the grocery store to get the few ingredients she needed for the applesauce cake and compound butter she was taking to her mother’s the next evening.
It was the least AJ could do. But as she glanced around, it felt like the grocery store had been built for a race of humans that didn’t grow as tall as AJ. Everything felt like a miniature of the real thing, and AJ felt like a giant pushing her cart around to find cinnamon, nutmeg, and parsley.
The produce section lifted her opinion of the place, as most of the fruits and vegetables she saw there came from right there in the cove.
AJ adored organic produce, and she loved supporting local farms and businesses. Though all she needed was parsley, she found herself examining the pink grapefruit in a bin that proudly proclaimed they came from Pearl Island.
AJ knew exactly where they came from—the Schnieder orchard. AJ had been out with Tyson Schnieder once upon a time, and she’d let him do whatever he wanted to her in one of the open-front sheds out in the trees.
AJ hated the memories that assaulted her whenever she came to the cove. She’d been toying with quitting her job and coming back to Five Island Cove, especially now that everyone was here. But she couldn’t stand the thought of being reminded of the loose, horrible person she’d been in high school.
She’d hated herself so much back then. She still struggled with the feelings of self-loathing, but at least she’d made it past the point of sleeping with every male who looked her way.
She’d just decided to get the grapefruit when someone said, “AvaJane?”
She froze, both hands full of grapefruit, as her memory fired. Her nerves frayed all the way to the ends, because she knew this voice.
This voice haunted her in her quietest moments, because it belonged to Matt Hymas, maybe the only boy AJ had ever loved as a teenager.
They’d dated a little bit, and Matt was the only boy who’d seen AJ for who she really was. The last time they’d slept together, he’d asked her why she went out with so many boys.
She hadn’t been able to answer him; he hadn’t needed her to. He already knew, and AJ knew he knew.
She turned slowly, almost afraid she’d find a specter there, speaking with Matt’s voice. Instead, she found a strong, tall, broad-shouldered version of Matt Hymas. He’d aged almost thirty years, just as she had, but he wore his age well. Really well.
He had a full beard that he obviously kept trimmed and neat. The dark hair was littered with gray, as were his sideburns and the sides of his head, all the way up toward his crown.
A smile burst onto his face. “It is you.” He tapped his chest. “It’s Matt Hymas.”
“I know who you are,” she said, putting a smile on her face too. A m
oment later, she couldn’t contain her excitement at seeing him, and she set down the grapefruit and turned into his embrace.
And, oh, standing in Matt’s arms was a special kind of heaven AJ had forgotten. He chuckled, the vibrations from his chest flowing into hers. “What are you doing here?” He stepped back and behind his cart again.
“Just visiting,” she said. “What about you? You don’t live here, do you?”
“Actually,” he said, his smile staying exactly in place. Only the joy in his eyes went right out. “I’ve moved back. My, uh, wife—” He cleared his throat. “My ex-wife and I just finalized our divorce last month. My youngest left for school a week ago, and my dad needed a general manager for the golf course.”
AJ absorbed all of the information in the blink of an eye. “I’m sorry about the divorce,” she said, though she wasn’t at all. Still, if it had only been final for a month, Matt wasn’t ready for a new relationship. He was bulkier than the tall, skinny kid who drank protein shakes to bulk up. He had the same great head of hair, made even better with that gray. And he’d be the same sensitive, caring man that he’d been as a teenager, as most people didn’t like who they’d been in high school and worked to be better.
“Thanks,” he said, glancing away. “It’s for the best. She, uh—we decided it was for the best.” He pinned his smile back in place, and AJ wanted to tell him he didn’t have to pretend with her.
He’d told her that once, and that small bit of permission had meant a lot to her.
“You don’t have to pretend with me, Matt,” she said, her own smile fading.
He nodded, the light coming back into his eyes. “Thank you, AvaJane.”
“You can call me AJ,” she said. “Everyone has for years, Matt.”
“Yeah, but not me,” he said.
“Yes, you too,” she said, teasing him now. “I distinctly remember you calling me AJ before we went to college.” He’d been the last boy she’d been with in the cove, and he’d said, “I’ll miss you, AJ,” as they’d laid in his bed together.
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