by Jean Oram
Tempting. The family lore said the island was enchanted. Or at least it was good at hooking up female members of the Summer family. Their great-grandmother, grandmother, mother, and now Hailey and Maya had all fallen in love while spending time out at the ancient cottage. Plus, the two eldest sisters had had their careers take off in the last month. Even for a logical-minded lawyer, those facts were hard to discount.
But if the two youngest Summers—Melanie and Daphne—couldn’t cover their portions of the cottage’s back taxes, their family was going to lose the place.
“So? Nymph Island?” Daphne asked, pulling Melanie from her thoughts.
“Yay! Let’s go to the cottage!” Tigger crawled out from the cupboard under the sink, where, evidently, she had been playing hide-and-seek alone. “Wait!” She held out her hands, feet planted far apart. “I have to get my fairy box.”
“I don’t think we’re going right now,” Melanie said slowly.
“Well, I think we should,” Daphne said decisively. “Use it while we have it. Do you have any dinner plans?”
Melanie shook her head.
“Then let’s go. We can pick up a lumberjack sandwich on our way out. Instant picnic for six dollars. What do you say?”
Six dollars wasn’t going to make or break them.
Tigger clasped her fingers together under her chin and batted her eyes at her aunt. Melanie laughed and threw up her hands. She could never resist her niece, who was a bright ray in her days. Every emotion that ran through that child was pure and real. She was the one true thing in Melanie’s life. “Fine,” she declared.
The girl was out of the room, nothing more than a flash of party dress, eager to collect her box of small treasures intended for the fairy houses she built on Nymph Island.
Melanie picked up her purse. “I met Tristen Bell today.” Her body had a mini battle with itself over Tristen’s confusing appeal and sudden, sharp rejection.
Daphne’s face brightened expectantly as she waited at the door for Tigger to catch up with them.
“Maya says he won’t help with Rubicore—and he said the same to me.”
“Oh, well.” Daphne didn’t seem particularly perturbed. She jiggled her van keys as Tigger raced by, fairy box cradled against her chest.
Melanie paused to watch Daphne climb into the unlocked Dodge Caravan. She couldn’t quite put her finger on her sister’s cavalier mood. Usually she was all over developers.
“Don’t you lock your van?” she asked as she got in beside her, noting that all the windows were down.
“Nah. It gives me a sense of adventure, never knowing whether there is an ax murderer hiding in the backseat.” Daphne let out a burst of laughter, shaking the vehicle with the sound.
“I’m not an ax murderer,” Tigger stated darkly, and her mom laughed again.
“Right you are!” Backing into the street, she said to Melanie, “Did you hear? A few local environmental agencies are swinging their weight to protect the spotted turtle habitat Finian found near Bala and not only is there a private firm acting like they want to hire me, but Environment Canada is, too.”
“That would be amazing.” Maybe that was why Daphne was in a strange mood. Her sister had always shunned the idea of a something as rigid as a nine-to-five desk job—and especially for the government—but as a single mom, the prospect of decent pay, benefits, a pension as well as paid holidays might be just too darn tempting. Something like that would be a far cry from the odd jobs she took now to pay the bills so she could volunteer as an environmental spokesperson.
“Yeah, maybe.” Daphne shot a wistful glance into the backseat, where her daughter was kicking out her legs, eager to go.
“Oh! I can’t believe I forgot.” Melanie bounced in her seat. “Guess who has a Daphne Summer original?”
“Connor MacKenzie. He already told me.”
“Nope. Someone else. Tristen Bell.”
Daphne cast her a sidelong look and Melanie quickly glanced away, certain she was blushing.
“Cool. I appeal to the early retired business tycoon. I wonder where you advertise to reach them?”
Melanie snorted a laugh. “Oh, and I found something in a flea market for Tigger,” she added, digging through her small purse for the trinket she’d picked up before her date. Swiveling, she handed a tissue-paper-wrapped object to her niece.
“For me?” she squealed. “It’s not even my birthday, Auntie Mellie-Melon.”
Melanie laughed at the nickname, pleased to see her sister smiling, too. “Careful. It’s an antique.”
Daphne shot her a worried look.
“It was only $1.75,” she whispered.
“A fairy! Thank you.” The girl clutched the small figurine, its wings peeking out from between her fingers.
“Remember: you can sell them when you want to go to school or buy a house or—”
“I want a Barbie house. Will this buy a Barbie house?”
“Um...”
“Honey,” Daphne interrupted, as she steered the van into the grocery store parking lot, “your aunt means when you’re a grown-up. A house for you to live in.”
“Oh. Okay.” Tigger turned the figurine over, assessing it. “When I’m married?”
“Or before then,” Melanie said, having visions of her niece in her own position—with no money, no man prospects, no home, just a bunch of antiques she felt she couldn’t sell because she’d become attached to them and the stories they held from the past.
“Well, if you can’t make a go of online dating,” Daphne said, changing the conversation, “there’s no way I’m diving in. I’ll take my chances with Nymph Island.”
“You don’t really think destiny’s going to match us up with our mates if we hang out on the island?”
Daphne lifted a shoulder and looked away.
“Oh, my word. You do!” Melanie shouldn’t be surprised. Her sister was the most likely of the four of them to fall for gooshy stuff.
“It happened to Hailey and Maya already this summer. And our mother, grandma and great-grandma in years past.”
“Too bad that’s not something I could put on the application for heritage status. I keep thinking there’s something I’m missing. Some clue that will help us save Trixie Hollow. All those years. All that history. All those stories. And then Rubicore coming in to ruin everything…”
Daphne said with a sigh, “We need a miracle, Mel.”
Rubicore didn’t care about anything the sisters did. Peace, quiet, history, heritage, the environment… Rubicore’s resort would be like having a buzzing shopping mall plunked in the middle of an idyllic farm. Not only that, there would be rich people laughing and playing next door in fancy digs, while they themselves wondered if they’d be able to keep their own dilapidated cottage standing.
Her sister’s cheeks flushed and she gripped her keys hard enough that Melanie worried she’d hurt herself. Just as she reached across to touch her hand, hoping to get her to relax a bit, Daphne sighed and muttered, “Nuts.”
“Josh is allergic to peanuts. So is Kyra,” piped up Tigger. “They get chipmunk cheeks and a rash.”
Daphne turned sunny again. “Okay. Inside to collect our picnic.”
A few minutes later they were all back in the van and on their way to the marina where they kept the family’s boat.
As they pulled up, Melanie leaned forward, staring out the window. Someone was checking out their Boston Whaler, tied to a dock. And not in an “interesting old boat; miracle it still floats” sort of way.
“Who is that man standing beside our boat?” she asked.
Daphne sat straighter in her seat. “Is he getting in?”
He definitely was. And just because he was wearing a suit didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of stealing it.
Melanie cast a glance in the backseat, where Tigger was gathering up her fairy box to climb out of the van. “Stay here with your mom, okay, Tigger? I need to talk to someone before we go to the island.”
“W
ho?”
Daphne opened her door. “I’m coming with you. No, wait. On second thought, I’m calling the police.” She lifted her phone to her ear, holding Melanie back with a gentle hand.
Melanie slipped free of her grip and got out as the man left their boat. Hurrying along the pier, she caught up with him before he turned down a side dock, away from her.
“Hi,” she chirped. He gave her a quick nod and continued. “I see you were in my boat just now. Is there anything I can help you with?”
He paused. “I’m sorry?”
“My boat. What were you doing in it?” Melanie drew herself taller, folding her arms across her chest.
“I was leaving a message in Maya Summer’s boat.”
Oh, that was rich. Maya was calling it her boat now? The Whaler belonged to all of them. Sure, Hailey made certain it was always taken care of, but still. It belonged to the whole family. Just like the cottage.
“I’ll be sure she gets it,” Melanie said, striding toward the aluminum vessel.
His steps quick, the man followed her, as though playing shadow tag. It was creepy. Plus, who wore a suit in Muskoka?
Melanie whirled. “Do you have a problem?”
He nearly rammed into her. “I want to be sure the message gets to Maya.”
“She has a boyfriend. A very large boyfriend.”
A cool expression masked whatever the man might be thinking. “I will gladly retrieve it and deliver it myself.” His voice was polite and businesslike in a way that raised Melanie’s hackles. He gave her a small, false smile, as though that would warm her. “I was under the impression that was her boat.”
“I’m her sister and we share the boat. I can give it to her.”
Melanie could almost hear him thinking. He must have already met the well-put-together Maya and maybe pretty, willowy Hailey. Just wait until he saw Daphne, cute as a button, lively and vibrant. Able to wrap whole crowds around her pinky like some sort of snake charmer. Melanie could feel it coming, the up-and-down look, followed by the stale joke, “No wonder you’re a tomboy. You probably didn’t get much time in the washroom to get ready in the mornings, with three other sisters. Five women in the house! Ha, ha, ha.”
Mirror time was not the specific reason for her lack of va-va-voom in the girlie dress-up department.
“Yeah. Four of us sisters,” Melanie said. He went to open his mouth. “And yeah, it was difficult getting mirror space in the mornings, but you know, you learn to adapt, and Mom put up extra mirrors in the hall, with small shelves underneath for those who were waiting.”
The man gave her a blank look.
Melanie climbed into the open-decked boat, ignoring the way it rocked as she scrambled to find the note before the man could join her and snag it. Her fingers closed over an envelope tucked on the dashboard and she slid it into her pocket, keeping her back to the man.
He was still on the dock. “I haven’t introduced myself.”
“Right. You have not.”
He held out his hand with a jerk.
Slowly, Melanie moved to the side of the boat, then climbed onto the pier, reaching out to shake his hand once she had a firm footing. “Melanie Summer.”
“Aaron Bloomwood.”
Aaron from Rubicore Developments. Well, well, well. What was he up to? And what was Maya keeping from the rest of the family?
It wasn’t that Melanie didn’t trust her sister, per se. Okay, she didn’t. Melanie didn’t kid herself that Maya might try and wrangle them a better deal, then tell them at the last minute, hijacking things to go the direction she wanted—which probably wouldn’t be a bad thing. But Melanie didn’t like surprises, and this reeked of one.
Staring into Aaron’s stony eyes, she felt like a fool. He knew more than she did, didn’t he?
“And Maya will know who you are?” she asked, hoping her cheeks didn’t flush as she pretended ignorance.
“Yes. I’m with Rubicore Developments. We made an offer to purchase your family’s island that your sister found deficient.”
That sounded about right.
“This note is additional to the offer. A proposal of sorts. Can you please ensure she gets it? It is time sensitive.”
Now that was intriguing. The envelope was definitely going to get steamed open as soon as Melanie got a chance.
* * *
Melanie and Daphne sat on the veranda of the old cottage, Tigger having devoured her portion of the picnic so she could hurry off with her latest treasures—a nickel, an acorn, a leaf shaped like a heart, and a small pink pebble—to add to a new fairy house.
Melanie shifted so she could pull the envelope from Aaron Bloomwood out of her back pocket.
“Do you think he really was only leaving that for Maya?” Daphne asked.
“He said this is an additional proposal.”
“Of the marriage persuasion?” Daphne joked in a British accent, her chin dipped down in false seriousness.
“But of course,” Melanie retorted, sounding more like a count with a funky loose tooth than anyone British. “Our bossy sister is awash in suitors.”
“Are we going to open it?” Daphne whispered, leaning forward.
Melanie grinned, remembering the time as kids when they’d read Maya’s diary and giggled over their sister’s first kiss—which in Maya’s words had been sloppy and unimpressive, leaving Melanie wondering what all the fuss was about. She had a feeling Maya and her fiancé, Connor, were solving that little mystery several times an hour lately.
“Shall we steam it open, read it, then reseal it?” Melanie asked. “Or do we own up to our snoopish ways and tear it open?”
“He said it was in regards to the offer, right?”
She nodded. Her lawyerly training could get behind the logic of where Daphne was going with this line of thought. “Technically, any offer is for the owners. And we have 50 percent of the voters present—if we don’t include Mom in our count.”
“He mentioned something about it being time sensitive?” Daphne leaned forward, eyes glued to the envelope.
Melanie ripped open the end and pulled a sheet of paper. In the process, a square of card stock fell out. Her sister came to sit beside her, picking it up.
“It’s an invitation to the unveiling of their development plans! Are they nuts?” The scorn and disbelief in Daphne’s voice echoed the disappointment Melanie felt as she read the short note. She’d been hoping for something intriguing, like a Nancy Drew mystery that she and Daphne could unravel. But this? This was just baffling and possibly insulting.
“Why was he so worried about whether she’d get this? And where is the proposal?” Melanie tossed the sheet of paper on the coffee table.
Daphne reached for the letter, then paraphrased the contents. “They’re asking us to join them for supper, then enjoy a private tour of the island before the party where the plans will be revealed. They do say we can discuss any additional proposals at supper. There’s nothing specific.” She dropped the letter where she’d found it and swiveled her head to look out across the water that separated their place from Baby Horseshoe Island. “They want to woo us.”
“I’m not up for wooing,” Melanie grumbled, rubbing her eyes. The heat of the day, the three whiskeys, the hurt of Tristen’s rejection and now this latest letdown were hitting her hard. She wanted a nap. She wanted her mother. “Do we have time to visit Mom on the way home?”
“Hmm?” Her sister blinked. “What?”
“Want to visit Mom on the way home?” The nursing home’s official visiting hours would be over, but none of the staff seemed to mind the sisters coming by to see their night owl mother at unconventional times.
“I think we should go,” Daphne said.
“Great. Maybe Simone can meet us. I want to tell her in person that if Maya has asked her to make more of those dresses for me, it isn’t necessary. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I’m done with Maya’s attempts at revamping my appearance. You know?”
Daphne wa
s still staring at the island across the way, lost in her own world.
“Mom?” Tigger came bouncing onto the veranda. “Can we buy a Bedazzler? I don’t have any more coins for my fairy houses and I need something. Fiona has one.”
“Then ask to borrow hers, please.” Eyes brimming with something that got Melanie’s espionage radar blinking, Daphne turned and held up the note. “I meant this. We should go. Reconnaissance.”
“Really?”
“They think they can woo us, but I say we go and gather ammo so we can shoot these pie-eyed, fat-headed, greedy rich cats out of the sky.”
Tigger gave Melanie a wide-eyed look as if to say, What did you do to my mother?
Melanie grinned and high-fived her sister. For Daphne, that speech was as close to swearing as she ever got.
“I’m in! I say we learn what we can, then use it to halt Rubicore in their tracks. In the meantime, I’ll talk to Mr. Valos over at the municipality. I bet he’d love to hear a presentation about Rubicore’s plans from our side of the fence,” Melanie said.
Oh, yeah. Things were about to get good.
CHAPTER 4
A small sports car purred down Tristen’s driveway. He watched as it crunched to a halt by his front step, the early morning light flashing on its shiny red door as his ex-wife got out. “Really, Tristen? Gravel? You couldn’t pave it or lay out all those fancy stones you drone on about?” She winked as she slammed her door, but he knew she was half-serious.
“They don’t make a good driveway. Not with our winters. Where’s the Escalade?” He’d special ordered her a fully-loaded Cadillac SUV, and she wasn’t even driving it?
She gave him a look. “You really thought that thing was me?”
“It’s what all the stay-at-home moms were driving.”
“Yeah, well, that was before you sold me your half of the company. And just before an economic downturn. Thanks for that.” The fire and ice in her voice would be enough to make most men’s testicles crawl inside his body for protection, but for Tristen it was the anger flashing in her sapphire eyes that made his Adam’s apple lodge in place, not allowing him to talk or breathe. The old Tristen had been into screwing people over in business, but never family. Surely she had to know the timing wasn’t his doing?