“I warn you, I might get snarky and throw things.”
“And you might not.” He thought of what was in that note. It just made him feel sad for Cassandra. Yes, she’d made a terrible choice where Sarah was concerned. She’d chosen not to attend Sarah’s parents’ funeral.
“I guess the only way to know is to read it,” Sarah murmured. “Though, afterward, I may rip up the pages and toss them into the ocean. Oh, wait, I can’t do that,” she said, answering her own thought. “It might hurt the seabirds. And I have a particular fondness for Larry, my piping plover friend.”
He grinned at her. “Well, Larry and I are glad you considered that, because paper isn’t completely biodegradable. It’s better to put the pieces in a trash receptacle, not in the sand or in the ocean.”
She actually smiled. “Spoken like a true environmental science teacher.”
He chuckled, but she was already pulling Cassandra’s letter from the envelope.
He froze, watching her.
Unlike that first day he’d met her, when Natalie had presented her with the note, Sarah took her time reading it. First one page, front and back, and then the second page. When she finished reading, she didn’t crumple up the paper and throw it away. Instead, she read it again, more slowly this time. Emotions passed over her face. Irritation. Anger. Sadness. And something else he couldn’t put his finger on. But her lips parted and she let out a long breath, staring at the sky as she did.
Wordlessly she passed the pages to him.
He assumed they told roughly the same story that his letter had told. But he read them anyway, to show Sarah that he was on her side.
Dear Sarah,
I know full well, as I write this, that I’ve made a decision which you will see as very hurtful and personal to you. I’ve struggled with it, Sarah, because I don’t want to hurt you. I never have. To my grave, I will always regret that I wasn’t there for you when your parents died. When you most needed me.
Sarah, I tried to talk to you about it, all those years ago when I visited your dormitory at boarding school, but I understand why you didn’t wish to see me. You’d been through horrible trauma. That I wasn’t there for you was a terrible thing.
But I’d like you to know that I honestly couldn’t bear to attend the funeral for Samantha and John. I’d cut myself off from the world, deliberately. I was in my own time of pain and difficulty, though I don’t excuse it or claim it could possibly be worse than a young person losing her parents and being left alone in the world. But please, Sarah, know that as soon as I heard you were in foster care, I did rush to find you. I did care for you. I do now. I always will.
When you contacted me about coming to stay in Wallis Point, I cannot tell you how thrilled it made me. Finally, I’d hoped to be privileged to get to know you again. I’m quite proud of the way you’ve managed to build your life so successfully. Samantha and John would be proud, as well. I comfort myself with that thought. I hope you remember how dearly they loved you.
But Sarah, I was faced with a terrible dilemma. I haven’t been blessed in my life with a love or a family all my own. Some might say that is my fault. But the man I loved with all my heart—the great love of my life—didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about him. And I never could let that go. Sarah, we had a child together, and he brought him up as part of his own family. It was a painful decision—a deep, deep regret of mine. When his son—our son—called me to talk about his father, Claudio, I had to go to them. There were many truths that needed to be put into the light. There are many of us who need healing.
Sarah, my wish for you is that you remain happy and strong. I will return for you as soon as I can. Claudio is in a bad state. I cannot tell when I will be back, but my sense is that I will not be gone for long.
I have a neighbor, Sam Logan, whom I’d like you to meet. His daughter, Lucy, is a wonderful girl whom I think you can help very much. Please call me when you receive this letter. Natalie has the number. Lucy can help you with anything you need until I return. She is at the library waiting to meet you. Natalie is also here to help. I hope the cats—Simmonds and Becker—bring a measure of comfort. I’ve also left a separate note explaining their care. Lucy left a letter for you, too. You were always so good with animals and children.
I’ve left a box in the front closet with photographs of your mother as a young girl. I want you to have them. Until I return, please take care.
Your loving aunt, Cassandra
Sam put down the letter. His letter from Cassandra wasn’t so detailed as to her personal issues. Mostly it was about looking out for her niece who was coming to visit from California and encouragement regarding Lucy.
He couldn’t be angry with Cassandra. He tried, but he just couldn’t any longer. He was biased, though, because Lucy loved her so much.
He folded the letter and passed it back to Sarah. “Are you okay?”
She nodded slowly.
She seemed different, somehow, affected by it, thoughtful, but he didn’t know if Cassandra’s revelations would help her or not.
Maybe she needed time to assimilate all that had happened.
“Excuse me!” a nasty voice said from behind him.
Sam jumped up. The short man who’d summoned Charlie at his lifeguard chair—and then had harangued Sam when he’d shown up on an ATV—stood at the top of the dune and glared down at Sam and Sarah.
“You’re not supposed to be in there!” he insisted, his face red. “It’s a violation of state law.”
The last thing Sarah needed was another emotional scene. Sam stood and drew himself to his full height. “Sir, you’ve reported the situation, and now it’s in my jurisdiction. Please leave, or I will issue a trespassing citation to you.” Sam pointed to the rope the man had stepped over.
Fuming, the man stomped off.
He turned back to Sarah. “Sorry about that.”
She was looking at him strangely. Lips slightly parted and face upturned.
“It’ll be okay,” he promised. But even as he spoke to her, he realized he was talking more about the letter than about the rude man.
“Ah, hold on while I make a quick call to Duke.” He fished for his phone inside his gear bag and put in the call. Duke picked up on the first ring.
“Yeah, Sam?”
“Just to let you know, and not over the public radio, but a guy is complaining about Sarah and me being in the restricted dune area. We’re leaving now. Please handle this for me if it escalates. I’m off duty early today, and I’m going to be clocking out, okay?”
“Yeah, sure. Hey, Sam, how is Sarah? What’s going on?”
Sam glanced at her. He’d confided in Duke earlier because he’d been so miserable. “She’s good.” He smiled at Sarah. “We’re both good. I need to go, Duke.”
Sam hung up before Duke could ask him any more questions.
Sarah was smiling at him. That had to be a good sign. He hoped.
“Let’s say goodbye to your bird, okay?” Sam suggested.
She nodded, standing and brushing sand off her bottom. “Would you like to go swimming with me?”
“You want to go swimming?” he asked in amazement.
“With you.”
“Really?”
“I think it will be fun.”
He pondered that for a moment. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone swimming outside of work, just for the fun of it.
“Yes, Sarah, I would.” He tossed his phone back in his gear bag and hoisted it to his shoulder.
“Then let’s go get changed,” she said.
And that’s when he knew that she would be all right.
That they would be all right.
* * *
SARAH FELT PERFECTLY chilled out. Perfectly calm and centered and at peace with the world.
Be Zen, Sam had on
ce told her. Sarah had thought of Larry, and Lucy and Sam before she read her aunt’s letter. She hadn’t wanted to—she’d resisted it with all her heart—but now that it was over, she was glad that she knew what really happened when her aunt had left. She didn’t want to talk about it with anyone just yet—she just knew that she was determined to keep this newfound peace.
And to keep Sam with her—for as long as she could.
She and Sam had put on their bathing suits and were now about fifty yards out in the ocean, riding the swells together. They were beyond the breaking waves, and she couldn’t touch bottom with her feet, but she didn’t worry because she was with her own personal lifeguard.
He pulled her close to him. Their bodies melded together as they rode over another swell.
“I haven’t felt so good—” he murmured into her ear “—in... I don’t know.”
She put her wet arms around his neck and kissed him. How could she not, after reading Cassandra’s words? She wasn’t alone. The cool water felt soothing against her heated body, and the movement of the waves beneath her made her feel both powerful and blessed. He closed his hands over her bottom, and she settled her legs around his waist as naturally as if she’d always been meant to be there.
They stayed in the water, floating and talking, until it was close to dinnertime.
“I want to stay over at your house tonight,” he murmured in her ear. “Would you mind if I asked my brother and his wife to drive up and stay with Lucy? They offered to help whenever I need it, and they’re close enough that if they’re available, they can be here in an hour. With luck, they can have a sleepover or something.” He smiled and moved her wet hair from her eyes. “I’ll be discreet as to where I’m going tonight.”
“I like that idea,” she breathed.
They waded out of the surf and toweled each other off before heading, barefoot, back to their respective homes.
But Lucy met them on the sand before they got there.
“Where have you two been?” she exclaimed. “I’ve been up and down the beach looking everywhere for you!”
Sarah paused, her heart thumping in her chest. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Are the cats okay?”
“Are you kidding?” Lucy almost shouted. “I’m so great! Guess what, Sarah?” Lucy danced around them in a circle, her iPad clutched to her chest. It was so unlike her, all Sarah could do was stare.
“Lucy, tell us what’s going on,” Sam chided.
“It’s the best thing ever!” Lucy’s eyes were shining. “Sarah, I got an email from the Future Tech Scholars committee! They love my app design! They want me to fly out to California and present it to them immediately!” She turned to her father. “Can you believe that? Dad, we have to do it. Please! We have to go now!”
A roaring was sounding in Sarah’s ears.
Her phone! She’d had her phone turned off for the past two days.
She bolted for her cottage. When she got inside and turned it on, her fingers trembling, the screen blew up with notifications. She opened the top message. It was from Richard Lee.
Be back at your desk on Monday.
He wanted her back! She was finally recalled from Wallis Point! And right when she’d just decided she never wanted to leave Sam.
But now everything had changed. She had a shot at her dream again.
And Lucy did, too.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SAM SAT IN a business-class seat beside his daughter on their flight from Boston to San Francisco. Lucy had arranged for all the necessary permissions from her mother, and now, here they were. He shook his head, still not quite believing what had happened. He’d spent most of the flight attempting to come to terms with the thought of his life changing so suddenly and irretrievably.
He could hear Sarah talking on her phone a few rows ahead of them. She was excited to be going home, that much was obvious. He stood and walked by her aisle seat on the way to the restroom. Sarah was feverishly typing on her computer. So engrossed was she in her work that she didn’t even notice Sam. She’d mentioned something to him about how she’d been given access to the company email system and was eagerly catching up on business from her weeks away from the office.
He had doubts about this trip. Everything they’d been building might easily fall apart again.
But when he returned from the restroom, he found that Sarah was sitting in his seat, her head touching Lucy’s, immersed in conversation with his daughter. Surprised, he paused, watching the two of them from his vantage point in the aisle.
For the first time, something very interesting struck him. Lucy and Sarah sat in their seats and spoke with the same animated posture. Their hairstyles were identical. Now that Sam looked more closely, he saw that Lucy, like Sarah, wore mascara on her lashes this morning, as well as a pale beige lipstick. Since they’d left Wallis Point together, it was as if Sarah had transformed herself again, maybe back to the person she needed to be to survive and thrive in her California life. What worried him was that Lucy seemed to be mimicking her persona. From the hairstyle to the mascara to the mannerisms. The tilt of her head. The practiced smile.
Sarah noticed him standing there, and she stood quickly. “Oh, Sam!” She smiled at him, seeming so genuinely happy to see him that for a moment he was caught off guard.
The old Sam would have easily replied that Sarah should stay seated, finish her conversation with Lucy and not to worry, that Sam would sit in Sarah’s seat.
But he hung back. Because it had just occurred to him that Sarah needed Lucy to behave in a certain way this week in order to help bring back what Sarah had lost and desperately wanted to regain. Sam was torn. He truly wanted Sarah to be happy. But he needed Lucy to be happy. And at the moment, the girl was still enough of a cipher to him that he wasn’t sure exactly how he could help make that happen.
He should figure that out, and soon, because the journey west was nearly over. Soon they would be meeting with the committee head for the Future Tech Scholars competition. He was also the major investor with Sarah’s firm.
A flight attendant tapped Sam on the shoulder. “Sir, if you could please take your seat? We’ll be landing shortly.”
“Right.” Sam stood firm and waited for Sarah to rise.
Sarah squeezed his arm as she moved past him. “It will all work out, Sam,” she murmured. “Don’t worry.”
But when he sat beside his daughter and buckled himself in, he asked, “Lucy, what did Sarah say to you?”
Lucy gazed up at him with her big brown eyes. “She said it’s okay to be nervous in my meeting. That you and Sarah are both supporting me, and that I should make any choice I want to, as long as it’s the best choice for me, and not to worry about what you and Sarah think.”
He stared. “Sarah said that to you?”
Lucy nodded. “Yes, Dad.” She curled her hair behind her ears, and then looked seriously at him. “I’m also supposed to tell you something, too.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“That Mom might be Skyping into the meeting with us tomorrow in Richard’s office.”
He let that realization sink in. Colleen, face-to-face with him, Lucy, Sarah and the investor-partner Sarah was trying to impress.
Lucy shoved her knapsack back under the seat in front of her as the flight attendants made announcements to prepare for landing. “It will be okay, Dad.” Lucy reassured him. “We’ll all decide together what to do. Like a family.”
“Did Sarah say that, too?”
“Yes, Dad. Sarah sat in your seat just now and said, ‘We’ll all decide together.’ I’m the one who used the word ‘family.’”
* * *
SARAH FELT LIKE doing a little cheer. Finally, she was back on her home turf!
She led Lucy and Sam through the airport she was so familiar with and out into the cool, moisture-laden San Francisco air. Wi
th efficiency born of practice, she guided them through the maze of humanity, cars and awkward wheelie luggage bumping across their path until she found her driver, Paul, wearing his dark livery suit and standing beside his polished black sedan.
“Paul, meet Lucy and Sam,” Sarah said as a greeting. “They’re my friends from the East Coast. You’ll be driving us all to my home this afternoon, please.”
Paul blinked, as if surprised by her statement. Sarah remembered that she hadn’t spoken much to Paul in her old life, never mind introduced him to the people she was traveling with.
She likely hadn’t used such a kind voice with him, either.
But personal power was a tricky thing, something different than she’d originally conceived of. Now that she was part of Lucy and Sam’s little family—however temporarily, depending upon Sam’s final decision as to where to send Lucy to school—she was going to wield her power with kindness and as a service to them. She felt better that way. Her heart had grown during her weeks in Wallis Point. She ached to include them in her world, but she knew it had to be their decision.
Maybe I’m on my best behavior, she thought.
But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like she’d finally settled into her own skin. Something comfortable that she would wear along with her business armor.
While Paul loaded their luggage into the trunk, Sarah opened the rear door and directed Lucy to get inside first and take the far window seat. Sarah climbed in next and sat in the middle—over the bump—which was really a shock to her, because that was the worst seat of all. But she wanted Lucy and Sam to feel comfortable.
I love them both, she realized with a start.
She also realized that it would be horrible for her to have to let them go, should it come to that. It would feel like having a part of her ripped away.
But from Sam, she’d learned not to think about that just yet. One step at a time, she told herself.
Sam climbed in beside Sarah and shut the door. They all fumbled to put on their seatbelts, and Paul slowly pulled out into airport traffic.
Summer by the Sea Page 22