Autumn Secrets

by Katie Winters

  Autumn Secrets

  A Katama Bay Series

  By

  Katie Winters

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Copyright © 2021 by Katie Winters

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Other Books by Katie

  Connect with Katie Winters

  Chapter One

  “You are not your past, Nancy. You are here, on Martha’s Vineyard, with me. My children will be your children; my home is your home. The darkness you’ve left behind will remain far away from you. And with me and the love we’ve built together, you will find peace.”

  These were the words Neal had spoken the night before their wedding, twelve years before. They had stood out on the back porch of his mansion, a house far bigger than anything Nancy had ever envisioned, even in her wildest dreams, and he’d taken her delicate hands in his firm, soft ones, and whispered this mantra, just loud enough for only her to hear. Inside the house, family members and new yet dear friends on the island had drank and laughed together in celebration of Neal and Nancy having found one another.

  Neal had known the inner chaos of Nancy’s soul. It was something she’d revealed to him early on, when she had first met him in Bangkok, and he’d floated the idea of her coming back to the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa to work alongside him and his dear daughter, Elsa. At the time, there had been a low yet constant sizzle between them. A sense that maybe if Nancy could get over all her inner anxieties and fears of commitment, she could find love in this great, confident, and eternally honest man— a man who had been through so many hardships of his own throughout the years.

  After all, he’d lost his wife. He’d lost his son. His ex-wife, Karen, had been a manipulative woman, so hungry for his money that she had used some very disgusting language toward his daughters and split them up for decades. He’d laid out his entire life before her, showed all his cards upfront and slowly but surely, Nancy had revealed her truth.

  The truth that she’d had a baby at the age of sixteen. That Janine no longer spoke to her because she had abandoned her and fled New York City. That she’d struggled with just about everything there was to struggle with: money, alcohol, and men, to name a few. It had never occurred to Nancy to even ask the universe for some kind of second chance.

  Not that Neal had been a second chance. He had been something like the twenty-first chance in a world that seemed apt to take Nancy under and keep her there. Neal had fished her out of the darkness. He’d been her beacon of light, and she’d embraced it with everything she had. This had been a gift that she would not turn her back on.

  And then, in January, eight months ago, he had passed on from this world and into the next.

  The heartache in the wake of his death had been monstrous. It still lived as a horrible weight on her heart. She had truly loved him like no other.

  Now with her eyelids closed and her legs bent beneath her, she heard her voice illustrate the next moves in her six a.m. yoga class at the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa. It was mid-September, and ten women from all walks of life, from all ranges of heartaches and horrors, had come together to turn their eyes toward Nancy like she was some kind of healer.

  If only they knew how broken she really was.

  This had been the funny thing about that journalist’s article the previous month. Carmella, one of Nancy’s stepdaughters had given a journalist she’d been romantically involved with quite a bit of information about the family. Afterward, he had written a damning article, stating that the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa couldn’t possibly heal any of its guests, specifically when the workers themselves were women in the midst of their own heartache, divorce and substance.

  Nancy had been angry at the journalist who tried to defame their good name, what Neal had worked so hard to build. But she’d also recognized the glowing truth of it.

  “You are not your past.” She said this to the women in the yoga studio now, echoing what Neal had said all those years ago. “Say it with me, ladies. You are not your past.”

  “You are not your past.” Each of the women murmured it— from the forty-something blonde woman who resembled Gwyneth Paltrow off to the left to the voluptuous woman with dark curls in the back. Even the scrawny twenty-something, who had recently informed Nancy that she’d come to the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa to get over her trust fund boyfriend breaking things off with her and running away with her sister.

  The stories Nancy heard while at the Katama Lodge could have filled countless books. Her own story seemed wildly inventive and dense, with countless variations and bends in the road. Neal had said this, too: that she’d lived far more lives than he ever had. To this, Nancy had simply said she was exhausted.

  “Now, open your eyes, ladies. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.” Nancy’s own eyes scanned just above the women’s heads. It was far too aggressive to make eye contact before seven in the morning. “Thank you for a remarkable first hour of the morning. As you continue on your journey here at the Katama Lodge and Wellness Spa, I hope that you uphold your sense of purpose and your promise for a new chapter. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I hope to see you soon.”

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, Nancy stood in her yoga outfit in the large kitchen space, just down the hall from her yoga studio. The kitchen staff buzzed around her. There was the slicing sound of the knife against the onion and the sizzle of the garlic in the skillet. Bright tomatoes bulged in large wooden bowls, and the chef rattled out commands. Nancy continued to add elements to the blender for the perfect green smoothie she was preparing for herself: berries, spirulina, ice, with a bit of vegan protein and a half of banana. She buzzed the high-grade blender for twenty seconds, and it spat out a cup of nutrients.

  “Morning, Nancy,” the chef said as she poured her green smoothie. “You good?”

  “Another beautiful day,” Nancy returned.

  “You always say that. Where do you get all that optimism from?”

  Nancy laughed lightly. “If only you’d met me thirty years ago. I would have had forty-seven things to complain about.”

  “Guess I should do more yoga,” the chef replied.

  Nancy padded out from the kitchen and headed toward the porch, where she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and gazed out across the shimmering waters of Katama Bay. This was how she liked to start her day: meditation, yoga, a green juice, then a thoughtful time there on the porch lost in her thoughts. In previous years, Neal had joined her for this contemplative time. She had never told him before how much it had mesmerized her that she’d found someone she could sit silently with. He had been such a calm presence while demanding nothing of her. And in the wake of this em
otion, she had given him everything she’d been able to.

  Again, a sudden headache banged away in the back of her skull. She closed her eyes as another wave of fatigue struck her. This had been a rather frequent conundrum the past few months. She couldn’t fully pinpoint when it had all begun— perhaps around the time that she’d called Janine back to her. That had been such a flurry of emotion, a wildly confusing time, that she’d hardly even noticed her health ailments.

  Now, the headaches, the fatigue were all hitting her more and more frequently. It had become something she couldn’t ignore any longer.

  The doctor’s office receptionist answered on the third ring. Nancy asked if she could arrange an appointment that week. The doctor’s office was quite small; her doctor had very few clients, as he was semi-retired. The receptionist told her it wouldn’t be a problem.

  “What about tomorrow afternoon?”

  Nancy agreed. Just as she finalized the time, Janine appeared on the other side of the porch door. She held her version of a green smoothie, sans the banana. As she pressed open the door, she grinned broadly at her mother. “Hi there. You look comfy out here.”

  Nancy still couldn’t quite get over it. Every time Janine greeted her so warmly, she was reminded of a long-ago version of Janine: perhaps age four or five, when she’d woken Nancy up almost exclusively by jumping on the bed with excitement for a brand new day. Nancy had been twenty at the time— just a child herself, quite groggy, and frequently coming off a hangover. She hadn’t fully appreciated that bright light of youthful energy. Probably, she’d asked Janine to quiet down.

  You are not your past, she told herself now. She could practically hear Neal saying it, whispering it into her ear.

  “Join me!” Nancy said sweetly as she shoved her phone back into her pocket.

  Janine slipped into the chair beside her and nodded toward the view. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. I wish I could sit out here all day and just stare across the water.”

  “Big schedule today?”

  “Quite a few clients, yes,” Janine affirmed. “After Lola’s article, Elsa added a few more guests. We’re filled up, and gosh, with the wedding coming up this weekend, I’m up to my ears in stress.”

  Nancy brought her hand over Janine’s on the table and cupped it gently. At fifty-nine and forty-three, it was a strange thing to see them together, side-by-side like this. Frequently, people assumed they were sisters. Nancy hadn’t considered what this era of their lives would be like. Long ago, she’d just seen a hungry toddler, then a child who’d needed her far more than Nancy had been able to be there.

  “The wedding. Gosh, I just can’t wait,” Nancy said, forcing a smile.

  “The girls are thrilled to have the wedding here on the Vineyard,” Janine told her. “It was a whirlwind change, but Maggie wouldn’t hear of anything else. And that Charlotte Hamner has been a remarkable wedding planner.”

  “She’s quite good,” Nancy agreed. “She’s planned some elaborate weddings on this island in the past.”

  Nancy’s words seemed somehow far away, even from herself. She furrowed her brow and felt another wave of fatigue fall over her. Janine’s eyes flickered.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  Nancy nodded and took another sip of her smoothie. “Yes, of course.”

  “Okay.” Janine’s phone began to buzz. The name read “Maggie,” Janine’s eldest and the bride-to-be. “I guess there’s another fire to put out. I’ll see you later?”

  “Good luck.”

  Janine stood from the chair and greeted her daughter warmly. “Hi, honey. How is everything?”

  Mom.

  It had taken Janine some real time to call Nancy “mom” in the weeks after she had arrived at the Vineyard. Theirs had been an incredibly unique journey of understanding their past trauma, healing and then forgiveness.

  And now, in the wake of whatever health issue she was facing, Nancy worried within in the depths of her soul that now that she’d just brought Janine back into her life, God forbid, she would be diagnosed with something serious. That alone would kill her.

  “Please,” Nancy breathed as her eyes closed. “Please. Just let me stay here with Janine, Maggie, and Alyssa a little longer. I only just got them back.”

  She’d been given the greatest gift— a second chance with her family. She wanted to laugh with them and gossip with them and celebrate everything from the wedding that weekend to births, birthdays, and graduations and on and into time itself. Nancy needed that like we need our heart to beat.

  Janine returned inside and stepped past the front desk, where Mallory stood in conversation with Elsa, her mother. The two looked remarkably similar, even down to the little ways they held their heads the slightest bit crooked when they listened intently. Mallory explained her mother’s schedule for the morning, prior to her approaching lunch with Bruce— an attorney she’d recently met and begun dating.

  He had helped her out a great deal when she’d discovered that people attempted to take advantage of her and smear her deceased husband’s name through the mud. Nancy had come to like Bruce. He was a solid man, contemplative and honest, with a tender heart that seemed open to the idea of Elsa’s love.

  “Oh, lunch with Bruce?” Nancy teased as she headed toward her office.

  “Don’t you start.” Elsa’s grin was electric.

  “Just saying. Mallory, let me know if this woman’s work ethic dies out as she nurses this crush of hers,” Nancy said playfully. “We can’t afford to lose revenue just because of some handsome attorney.”

  “I’ll let you know,” Mallory returned with a laugh.

  “I’m not a teenager. I think I can control myself.” Elsa tapped her hands on her hips.

  “Yeah. You say that now. But the minute you look into Bruce’s big, beautiful eyes—” Nancy tried.

  “What’s going on out here?” Carmella stepped out of her office. Her smile faltered the slightest bit at the sight of Nancy.

  “They’re giving me grief about my lunch with Bruce,” Elsa told her. “Can you believe them? I can’t catch a break.”

  Carmella chuckled. “We’d better watch her like a hawk.”

  “See? We’ve got Aunt Carmella on our side,” Mallory pointed out.

  Elsa and Carmella shared vibrant smiles. Nancy’s fell. She was thrilled that the two Remington girls had begun to shift the pieces of their broken relationship and figure out new ways to heal. But as she’d always been tremendously close with Elsa and never found common ground with Carmella, Nancy wasn’t entirely sure where she fit in with them.

  In recent months, Nancy had felt her temper rise when they had torn into one another. “You two are sisters. You need to find a way to get along.” Nancy was one to talk. She had struggled with animosity in her previous life and endless darkness, much like Carmella had.

  But why wasn’t she always willing to share this side of herself with Carmella? Perhaps it would unite them more. Perhaps Carmella would sense Nancy’s empathy toward her situation. Perhaps she would understand all the love that echoed through Nancy’s soul.

  Even now, as Nancy attempted to make eye contact with Carmella, her eyes fluttered away from her. Elsa cleared her throat, smacked her palms together, and said, “Let’s get started on another successful day at the Lodge, shall we?” Then, Mallory perched in the receptionist chair, and Nancy took her cue: return to the yoga studio. Bend her way through the next hours. Remind so many other women that they weren’t their past — not at all — even while she felt herself carry the dark burden of her own so immensely.

  Chapter Two

  It was initially difficult for Nancy to find the space for her doctor’s appointment. As the head massage therapist and yoga instructor, her schedule was jam-packed, tightly calibrated for her to see as many Katama guests as possible during their very strict health-oriented schedule, which Janine herself drew up. She and Mallory pieced through the online calendar and rearranged her appointments for the fol
lowing morning and afternoon. Only once did Mallory ask, “What do you need the afternoon off for?” And only once had Nancy answered, “I have a few important errands to run for the wedding.” This seemed like an appropriate answer. After all, Janine ran around like a chicken with her head cut off most mornings— absolutely frantic about Maggie’s big day approaching.

  Nancy drove with the windows down to Doctor Morgan’s office. In her recent bi-annual check-ups, Doctor Morgan had always called her a “portrait of health.” “You’ll be skipping and jumping well into your eighties, I imagine,” he’d said once. She had thanked her lucky stars that all the heavy drinking and unhealthy lifestyle hadn’t caught up with her.

  Perhaps it finally had— many years after she’d cleaned up her act. That’s how life went. It always nabbed you when you least expected it.

  En route to the doctor’s office, Janine rang her. Without hesitation, Nancy answered it with the speakerphone within her car, then immediately felt a stab of regret.

  “Hey, Mom! I meant to catch you for lunch, but you’re not here? Mallory said you stepped out?”

  Nancy’s throat nearly closed. After a strange pause, she burst out with, “Oh, yeah. I have a few errands to run. Just out and about.”

  “Ah. Okay. I told you to tell me about any errands you need me to run for the house, remember? I know the wedding’s coming, and I’m a bit of a mess, but I can still do things like pick up groceries. At least, I think I can.”

  Nancy’s laughter rang false and strange. “Don’t worry about it, honey. You have enough on your plate with the chaos this weekend. Alyssa and Maggie arrive here Thursday?”

  “That’s right,” Janine affirmed. “And, I guess, Maxine and Jack as well.”

  Nancy groaned. Maxine was Janine’s life-long best friend. She had immigrated to the United States from France and never really lost that fantastic French allure. In their youths, Janine and Maxine had been perpetually attached at the hip. When Nancy had skipped town— a wild and debaucherous woman on the edge of sanity, even at the age of thirty-four, Maxine and Janine had moved in together and fought the wild world of Brooklyn on their own.