Summer Beach Reads

by Thayer, Nancy

  “Mom,” Cisco said, “Wyatt was awesome.”

  Astonished, Carley asked Wyatt, “But weren’t you afraid?”

  “I was terrified.” Wyatt reached over to slow the volume of water. “But I could tell something had to be done immediately. I thought about having Cisco call Toby, or call you, or even call my mom, but by the time anyone got here … I just did it.” Wyatt’s smile was crooked and almost shy. “I think I did the right thing.”

  Drops of moisture slid down Carley’s face and her clothes were growing sticky. Her skin prickled with heat. She wanted to comfort the baby, who actually seemed to be falling asleep on Wyatt’s shoulder. She wanted to hug Cisco, who clearly had been frightened, and she wanted to kiss Wyatt fiercely all over. A loud freaked-out scream would feel good right now, too.

  Instead, she acted as if this was just another normal evening. “Yes, Wyatt, you did do the right thing. Look at him. He’s falling asleep. Come on, Cisco. Let’s get you in dry pajamas and I’ll tuck you in bed.”

  As she left the bathroom, she started to turn back, to softly call to Wyatt, “I’m going to give you a thank-you gift you’ll never forget.”

  With a thrill in her heart, she realized that she didn’t need to give him a present. He hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it for Paul, spontaneously, without any motive except saving the baby. Oh, Wyatt, she thought, you have no idea what a good father you are.

  Then she thought, with another leap of her heart, that Wyatt did know. He had known all along. She was the one who needed to know. To trust.

  On an early July morning, Carley was in the kitchen slicing fruit for fruit cups. She’d already poured a cup of coffee for her B&B guest Melody, and had one for herself nearby.

  Melody glanced quickly at the door, then asked, “Well? What do you think?”

  Carley paused to rinse her hands. “I like him,” she decided. “He’s articulate and intelligent.” She didn’t add that anyone would be better than that Jack fellow who’d left Melody on the moors two years ago.

  “And he’s major nice,” Melody crooned. “He’s already graduated and he’s working in his father’s company, and I can tell he likes me a lot.” She widened her eyes at Carley, anticipating a positive reaction. “Don’t you think he likes me a lot?”

  Carley dried her hands and sat down at the table. “Here’s what I really think, Melody. I think you’re twenty years old, too young to get serious and way too young to think of marriage. You’re a splendid young woman, and you’ve got a world of possibilities before you.”

  Melody looked crestfallen. “You don’t like him.”

  Melody’s new boyfriend, Quentin, entered the room, stopping their conversation. He kissed Melody’s cheek and threw himself into a chair. “Good morning, all. It’s going to be a scorcher out there.”

  Carley set coffee and a bagel with lox and cream cheese in front of him. Quentin politely declined the fruit and Carley politely declined from acting like his mother and telling him that fruit was good for him. She was already bossing enough people around.

  Cisco strode into the room. “He’s awake!” Since Paul’s birth seventeen months ago, Cisco had grown even taller, with a wide-shouldered, lean and lanky build that made her look elegant on horseback. She was strong, too. Dealing with horses had strengthened her back and arms, and good thing, Carley thought, because Paul felt like he weighed about seventy pounds.

  Cisco had already dressed Paul for the day in tee shirt and shorts, but left his feet bare. He wriggled in her arms, eager to get down.

  “Good morning, darling!” Carley kissed Cisco first, because she didn’t want to show favoritism to the baby. She kissed Paul. “Hello, big boy!”

  Paul shrieked with joy, allowed himself to be hugged, then struggled away.

  Jewel came into the kitchen, following Cisco. In spite of the tortoiseshell glasses and baggy clothes fifteen-year-old Jewel chose to wear, it was obvious that she was going to be a stunner. Jewel didn’t ride, but she attended all the shows and in deference to Cisco’s obsession, read every young-adult novel about horses, entertaining Cisco with summaries. More than that, she was perfectly happy to play babies with Cisco, and good thing, because when Cisco wasn’t on a horse, she wanted to be with Paul.

  “Gotta go.” Quentin rose and held out his hand to Melody. “The beach is calling.”

  “Have fun!” Carley said. “Clean beach towels on the hooks.”

  Her guests went out into the hot day. Carley dropped happily into a chair. The other guests had already had breakfast and left. She could catch her breath.

  Paul was toddling as fast as he could go, running after Tiger, who seemed to enjoy the morning chase routine. Mimi, who liked to observe from afar, perched on a blue quilted cushion on top of the cupboard, but Tiger strode around and around the kitchen table, tail high, just teasingly out of Paul’s reach. If Paul got within a hair’s touch, the cat easily zipped out the door and down the hall. Carley had learned to let Paul work off some of his morning energy.

  The front door opened and Lexi stalked in, wearing fabulous jeweled sandals and a batiked and beaded sundress. Her long blond hair was twisted into a high knot held with a stick. She kissed Jewel’s cheek, then sank into a chair.

  “Just checking in before I go work in the fields,” she said.

  “Please,” Carley scoffed. “Your shop is air-conditioned and perfumed like a spa.”

  “Exactly. People come in for relief from the heat. That’s why I’ll be working like crazy.” Reaching over, she picked up a fruit cup. “How is everyone?”

  “Hot,” Cisco told her. “We should get air-conditioning.” She shot a look at her mother.

  “We’ve been over this before,” Carley told her older daughter. “It would cost a zillion dollars to air-condition this huge old house. Besides, it’s perfectly cool in the yard, especially with the sprinkler going. Oh, yes, and may I just mention that the riding ring is not air-conditioned!” As she talked, she snatched Paul and swooped him up into his booster chair. Before he could object, she set a bowl of dry Cheerios in front of him. His fat little hand grabbed for the cereal.

  “Jewel,” Lexi said, “what’s your schedule today?”

  Jewel looked wary. She seemed to fear that her glamorous almost-stepmother was trying to lure her into the den of fashion, but Lexi knew well that Jewel, at least for the time being, didn’t have the personality to work with the public.

  “I was wondering if you could pick up some lunch for me and my assistant and bring it down.”

  Jewel looked over at Cisco, who looked over at Carley.

  “We’re going to the beach this morning,” Carley said. “What time do you want lunch?”

  “Anytime around one.”

  “That works for me,” Carley said. If she could wear out Paul this morning, she could get him down for a nap this afternoon, and she could get something accomplished in her office. Cisco could change clothes and bike out to Lauren’s to spend the afternoon with the horses. Later in the afternoon, Margaret could help with the baby while the big girls were gone. Margaret often complained that she didn’t get to spend much time with Paul because of Cisco and Jewel, but this was a delicate issue since she was only seven. Margaret seemed torn between loving Paul and wanting to be a baby herself. Sometimes she asked Carley if she could have her milk from a bottle or sippy cup, and usually Carley allowed this, because thirty minutes later, Margaret would be stalking Jewel, asking what she was reading, if she wanted a bead bracelet, did she prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream?

  The phone rang. Cisco snatched it up. “For you, Mom.”

  “Hi, Carley,” Maud said. “Is it crazy over there?”

  “Is it ever not?” Carley retorted.

  “Well, look, I’m taking the maniacs to the beach today. Want to meet me there? And since I’m making lunch for all of us, I’ll make it for you guys, too. Just tell me how many of you there’ll be.”

  “That would be fantastic,” Carley answered.
“There’ll be—let’s see, Cisco, Jewel, Margaret and me, that makes four, and Paul, but I’ll bring his food.”

  “Great. Jetties at nine?”

  “See you there.”

  “Must go.” Lexi rose. “See you around one, Jewel. Oh. Here’s some money for the food.” She handed Jewel a wad of cash, blew a kiss at everyone, and stalked out the door on her very high heels.

  “She’s going to trip on the bricks and break her ankle,” Jewel said, shaking her head.

  “She’s got to look chic,” Cisco argued. She tugged Jewel’s arm. “Let’s go put on our bathing suits.” They skipped up the back stairs, whispering and giggling. These days they giggled about everything.

  “Good morning, everyone.” Wyatt came in from the front hall, crouching so that Margaret, who rode his shoulders, wouldn’t hit her head on the door frame. He wore a blue cotton button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and he looked so sexy that Carley wanted to shove him down on the table and have sex with him right there.

  Instead, she reached up to accept her younger daughter as Wyatt slid her off his shoulders and into Carley’s lap. Margaret was still in her cotton pjs, her hair tangled, sleep dust in the corner of her eyes. “It’s hot, Mommy,” she whined.

  Carley could guess where this was headed. Wyatt sometimes took Margaret into the office with him. She’d become fiercely attached to her stepfather and wanted to do everything with him. She was good, Wyatt said, happy to sit peacefully on the sofa, playing with paper dolls or coloring or reading. “We’re going to the beach,” Carley told Margaret. “We’re going to meet Percy and Spenser.”

  Margaret still pouted.

  “Try this.” Carley stabbed a piece of watermelon onto her fork and lifted it to Margaret’s mouth. “This is cool.”

  Wyatt poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, looking at the crowd gathered around the table. A year ago he and Carley had been married here at home in a small private ceremony with only Cisco, Margaret, and Paul attending. Carley and Wyatt had reasoned that this would help their odd little family bond, and it looked as if they were right.

  “Paul,” he said. “Cheerios go in your mouth, not in your ears.”

  Paul giggled mischievously.

  “Paul-y.” Margaret slid off Carley’s lap and stood next to Paul, smoothly pulling the cereal bowl out of reach. “Want some of my banana, Paul?”

  “What chaos.” Carley took a deep breath. She’d planned to tell him privately, but she couldn’t wait another moment. “Wyatt, it’s going to get more chaotic. Soon.”

  Wyatt reached for a bagel. “Really? Why?”

  Carley didn’t speak. She couldn’t—the lump of happiness in her throat was too large.

  Wyatt put the bagel down. “Carley?” In a flash, he read the message in her eyes. His jaw fell. “Are you kidding me?”

  She shook her head and found her voice. “Not kidding.”

  “You’re pregnant?”

  “I am!”

  “When is the baby due?”

  “January.” Wyatt went pale.

  “You’re going to have a baby?” Margaret asked. Her eyes were wide. “Oh, goodie, a baby for me!”

  “Are you okay?” Carley asked her husband.

  With careful precision, Wyatt said, “We are going to have a baby.”

  Paul banged his spoon on the table and babbled.

  Margaret put her face next to Carley’s belly. “Are you a boy or a girl? If you can hear me, kick!”

  Color was returning to Wyatt’s face. He looked dazed. He looked dazzled. “This place is going to be wall-to-wall with children, Carley. Will you be able to run Seashell Inn this summer?”

  “Oh, I think so,” Carley told him. “These days I feel like I can do anything.”

  For Charley

  My Man

  Acknowledgments

  • • • • •

  While writing this book, I consulted the superlative Diane Pearl, M.D., and her excellent office staff: Diane Cabral, Julie Reinemo, and Janet Chaffee. Also, Greg Hinson, M.D., was kind enough to talk with me. I based most of my medical information on what my sister Martha Foshee, R.N., told me, and I want to thank them all. Any medical mistakes are entirely my sister’s.

  Thanks to Ann Balas of The Anchor Inn. Any mistakes about innkeeping are completely mine.

  I also want to thank my talented, irrepressible friends Susan McGinnis, Laura Gallagher Byrne, Charlotte Kastner, Pam Diem, and Melissa Philbrick for being there when I needed them. Also thanks to Pam Pindell, who let us use her studio, and Jill Burrill, Laura Simon, Jean Mallinson, Tricia Patterson, and Deborah Beale, my literate, literary buddies. Mimi Beman, you’re with me every day.

  Thanks to Josh Thayer and David Gillum for consistent patient support with the mysteries of computers.

  Thanks to Emmett St. John Tutfield Forbes, for making me fall in love again, and to Sam Wilde Forbes and her husband Neil Forbes, wonderful parents to my darling Ellias, Adeline, and Emmett. And Sam, thanks for your brilliant response to my emergency phone call from New York!

  Thanks to Jan Dougherty for keeping me literally in line. Great thanks to Anne Kronenberg, who has helped me believe, and trust, that fiction and reality are different.

  Thanks to Jean Gordon for her help and especially for keeping me supplied with that wonderful health food, Jamaican rum cake.

  Thanks to Karen White of Tantor Media for her excellent reading and careful questions for the Beachcombers CD.

  I’m grateful to the entire team at Ballantine, especially Libby McGuire and Gina Centrello, as well as Junessa Viloria, Kim Hovey, Katie Rudkin, Quinne Rogers, Jean Lisa, and Penelope Haynes. Special thanks to Kate Collins. Lasting thanks to Dana Isaacson.

  My editor, Linda Marrow, has a riding-crop mind and an angelic heart, an amazing combination, which fills me with admiration and gratitude.

  Thanks, too, to Christina Hogrebe and Peggy Gordijn of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to my agent, the unique and fabulous Meg Ruley.

  Heat Wave

  A NOVEL

  NANCY THAYER

  A Reader’s Guide

  Nancy Thayer on Heat Wave

  Are there any “ordinary” women? I don’t think so.

  My goal in writing has always been to capture the real lives of “ordinary” women. To do this, I draw on my own life, steal anecdotes from the lives of friends, and let it all be transformed by the alchemy of imagination.

  For example: when I was in my early thirties with children three and five years old, my husband had an affair with my best friend. Suddenly I was divorced, living in a different state from my ex-husband, with no one to help with the children, not for a weekend or even an hour. I worried about so many things. How would I support myself and my children, financially and emotionally? How would we go on? Would anyone ever love me, a divorcée with two little children?

  Recently, a friend of mine was widowed, and I realized that she was facing the same problems I had faced when I was divorced. In this way, Carley Winsted came to life. My divorce inspired Marina in Beachcombers, as well. In many of my novels, I find myself coming to grips with traumatic times in my life and working them through by writing about strong women facing change and not only surviving, but triumphing.

  Another terrifying episode for me was when my daughter, at fourteen, left to attend a performance school to study ballet. She was a strong, talented, passionate girl, and when she returned for Thanksgiving, she’d lost a great deal of weight. Her fingertips were always ice-cold. Her shoulders were too wide for the classic tiny ballerina build. I was afraid she was becoming anorexic, but I also knew just how far arguing with her would get me—my children have always been champions at arguing. Fortunately, she was told her build wasn’t right for ballet, and she left that school. And I was left with a powerful memory that blossomed into a girl named Cisco.

  Three years after my divorce, I met a wonderful man who lived on Nantucket, and two years later I married him, bringi
ng my children to live on the island. My husband’s mother lived two blocks away from us. She was dignified, autocratic, reserved, and I might as well just say it: critical. I loved her and I understood that she was old-school Bostonian, but I grew up in Kansas with a family that was always hugging, kissing, arguing, laughing, talking, emoting. My mother-in-law was like a beautiful white owl peering down from the height of a tree while I, a yippy little terrier, bounced around the trunk. She has provided scenes for many books.

  Throughout my life, my friends have been my sanity, my support, my saving graces. As I started writing Heat Wave, I wondered what would happen to Carley if suddenly, right when she needed them, her best friends became unavailable to her? So Maud and Vanessa sprang to life, becoming in their own ways, inaccessible. I’ve learned that it is possible to make a new friend who is a perfect match—just what you need—and so I had Carley meet Lexi. A true friend is not easy to find, I believe; it requires a kind of magic, but if we’re lucky, we’ll always be able to make new friends.

  As I’ve grown older, I’ve been fortunate to become acquainted with younger women who are starting on their lives’ journeys. They face the old questions: Will I find true love? Will I marry the right man? Will I have children? Will I do work I love? They find answers in new ways that I couldn’t have dreamed of when I started writing. They are more enterprising than I was, and the world has changed immeasurably from when I was first divorced. Yet the desires remain the same, as do the challenges, and the things that sustain us: family, friends, laughter, love—and chocolate.

  If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re like me and books are a big part of your life. In times both good and bad, fiction sustains me. I am always in the middle of one book, grateful for another voice to take me away for a little while, perhaps to a place not so different from my own. Other authors’ novels invariably inspire me to try my very best with my own. I hope that you also get a feeling of connection and companionship with the characters I write about, that you find comfort and pleasure from the stories I tell, and maybe even learn something that proves helpful on your own life’s journey.