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“Be patient with my niece when you meet her,” were Cassandra’s final words on the subject that morning. “She’s had a hard life.”
Sam just nodded.
A week later, he regretted everything he’d agreed to with Cassandra for his and Lucy’s summer.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_57b28556-e149-5a92-8ceb-8ed31e0416e5)
One week later
SARAH BUCKLEY KICKED the door of her rental car shut. The friggin’ thing. Hours stuck in traffic driving up from the airport on the wrong coast had done nothing to improve her already pissed-off attitude.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to drive herself. Her time was simply too valuable. Instead, other people drove her. She sat in the backseat and made calls and tapped out directives aimed at the future sale of her company. Now, it seemed like she was back to square one with that. She was furious—she’d worked too freaking hard for this crap to have happened to her, especially the way it had.
She reached through the open window and yanked her briefcase off the passenger seat. But the top wasn’t zipped securely, and the books she’d packed came tumbling onto the sand in her Aunt Cassandra’s weed-lined excuse for a driveway.
Textbook after textbook. Sarah was a tech engineer by training—she’d been reading ebooks well before they became mainstream—but these books weren’t for quick perusal or for an underling to bullet-point for her—no, these she’d assigned herself to study. Since her college and MBA days, she’d always retained information better when she’d marked it up by hand.
In disgust, she bent over to collect the textbooks. Meditation. The Art of Zen Business. How to Speak with Millenials.
Idiocy. Unfortunately, her new financial partner and major investor was into this crap. She resented that she’d been forced to bring him in as her partner, but she’d had to—she needed his capital and his good counsel. The sale of her company couldn’t happen unless he was pleased with her. To impress him, she’d even hired a crew to install a Zen garden in her San Jose home—they were probably finishing it up today. The aggravation was enough to make her weep. She’d hated to deface her beautiful home, renovated slowly, carefully over the years—she’d started with the small house when she sold her first company, and then had made additions. Now, she had a beautiful custom-designed house with an attached pool, her own gym—and a ridiculous Zen garden, because Richard Lee was into Zen.
With a snort of disgust, she tossed the books into her Chanel bag, which was now covered with sand in the rustic New Hampshire driveway. With her heels equally sandy, she leaned against the car and surveyed the wreck that was Aunt Cassandra’s cottage.
Tiny. And Sarah knew it because she’d been here once before. The cottage had two small bedrooms and a bathroom that was too cramped for a soaking tub. The paint was peeling and the screen door hung half off its hinges. Rambling red roses bloomed prolifically on the rail fence, just as they had in the summer before the worst day of her life, and it was that small, innocent detail that punched her right in the gut.
Her eyes watered. No swear words occurred to her.
Sarah felt twelve years old and all alone in the world again. She’d spent one magical summer in this place, the last summer her parents were alive. They’d driven her up from Connecticut to spend two weeks with her eccentric aunt, a famous children’s book illustrator.
She and Cassandra had ridden fun, old-fashioned bicycles with wicker baskets on the handlebars. Down the boardwalk they’d careened, part of a daily expedition to the library to check out whatever books caught their fancy. Cassandra had bought her ice cream cones and gently drawn out Sarah’s hopes and dreams for her future.
“You’ll be a woman of substance one day,” Cassandra had promised her.
That encouragement was the reason Sarah could never completely hate Cassandra for not being there when she’d most needed her.
Sarah found herself sniffling, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand as if she were twelve all over again.
Two months after she’d returned from that August visit with Aunt Cassandra, on a sunny autumn afternoon, the principal at her junior high school had stood solemnly at the door of Sarah’s English classroom. After she’d followed him into the hallway, he’d spoken the worst words she could have imagined.
Her parents were dead.
All of her grandparents had already died.
Her father’s only brother had been off in the army in Germany.
And Cassandra, her mother’s sole sister, had been somewhere on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, inside an artists’ colony with her married boyfriend. They most definitely hadn’t wanted to be found by the outside world.
Sarah wiped her eyes. At twelve, she’d learned tough lessons about self-preservation, self-reliance, success and grit. The hard, cruel world didn’t help the vulnerable. People could be abusive, both emotionally and physically, and strangers didn’t take care of the weak.
But soon she would be invulnerable. Just a few more months of putting up with her new partner, Richard Lee, and his games and indignities, and then she could take her company public. That’s when the really, really big money would start coming in. Then she could say “screw you” to the Richard Lees of the world, and anyone else for that matter, for the rest of her life.
Slinging the briefcase over her shoulder, she hauled herself to her feet and glanced around. Hadn’t Aunt Cassandra heard her yet? Her arrival hadn’t exactly been subtle, with the slamming door and textbooks dropped on the driveway. Then again, maybe her aunt’s hearing wasn’t great. Sarah guessed she would be in her midseventies by now. Sarah had been the only child of parents who had waited until they were in their forties to marry.
Well, Sarah was turning forty herself this summer. And that milestone birthday wasn’t improving her mood, either.
Scowling, she tried the handle of the cottage door, but it was locked. Strange. Aunt Cassandra hadn’t believed in locked doors when Sarah was twelve, but that was back in a magical, faraway past when the world seemed so much more innocent than it was today.
Sarah went around to the beach-facing side of the cottage, put a hand up to shade her eyes from the sun and peered inside the living-room window.
The furniture was different than she remembered. The paintings on display were also new. But she could see into the open doorways—the two bedrooms and the tiny, rustic bathroom—and it was apparent that no one was home.
Cassandra must have stepped out.
She couldn’t have gone far. Her aunt didn’t drive, and her mobility was limited.
Sarah dropped her bag and went out to the beach to search for her. On a sunny June weekday afternoon the shore was dotted with people. Couples, families, groups of moms and kids. A lifeguard with a perfect body stood beside his chair. Arms crossed, listening to one of the moms as she spoke to him in an animated fashion.
But no Cassandra.
Frowning, Sarah checked the time on her phone. She was right on schedule. Cassandra knew she was coming. Sarah had written the letter to her aunt herself—no email for her free-spirited, unorthodox aunt—and Cassandra, in her flourishing, dramatic script, had confirmed Sarah’s visit.
What the hell?
One would think that if her aunt really cared, then she would be more careful. Or could she be doing it again? Could she be cavalierly reburning the bridge that Sarah had let stay burned for all these years before deciding to tentatively rebuild it just last month?
Sarah didn’t know because Cassandra wasn’t here to ask in person. And it wasn’t as if Sarah could simply direct her administrative assistant to zip off a quick text message to her aunt.
Cassandra had no cell phone, no email address—not even a tablet with banking apps. She still wrote paper checks. She relied on the post office to mail pleasant notes written on real stationery. Her lawyer in town handled any communications of urgent importance.
Sarah didn’t have an administrative assistant here to deal with a lawyer, anyway. That meant she had to hunt down her technophobic aunt herself, on her aunt’s terms.
Gritting her teeth, she took out her phone and pulled up the lawyer’s contact number.
“Kimball Law Firm,” a young female voice answered.
Sarah gripped her phone and spoke firmly, like she always did, as a woman of substance. “This is Sarah Buckley. Put Natalie on the line.” She swallowed and thought of Richard Lee’s admonition to her. “Please,” she added.
“Ms. Kimball is in a meeting right now, but I’ll take a message.”
“Who is this?” Sarah demanded. “What is your name?”
There was a slight pause at the other end. As there should be.
“This is Sophia, Ms. Kimball’s assistant,” the woman said pleasantly. “Would you like to leave a message for Ms. Kimball?”
“Yes, tell her to get her ass down to Cassandra Shipp’s cottage to let me in. Otherwise, my aunt will be looking for a new lawyer to manage her affairs.” Anger coursing through her, Sarah clicked the phone off and tossed it onto the sand.
It sat there, winking in the sun.
What the hell was she doing?
Sarah knelt and picked it up, brushing off the beach sand. This phone was her lifeline. With it, she could call Richard Lee and beg him to reconsider her temporary banishment from the company she had started.
She wasn’t cut out for a “retreat.” She didn’t want to “put her head on straight,” or “think about her actions” as he’d instructed. She was meant to work. To get things done and accomplish business miracles.
She put her head in her hands and began to weep again. Honestly, she’d reached rock bottom. She hadn’t even wept when her entire staff had resigned en masse.
Just because she’d called them “ungrateful little shits” during their morning motivational talk. Who the hell needed morning motivational talks—aside from Richard Lee, apparently? What were they all—in kindergarten? These were business professionals working in Silicon Valley’s most up-and-coming tech firm, for the California Business Bureau’s Woman of the Year.
Yet again, she wiped her eyes.
Her phone still remained silent. No one called her back. No one jumped at her command.
This was not her usual life.
Sarah sat cross-legged, imitating the picture on the cover of the meditation textbook she’d marked up for all six hours of her flight. Airy-fairy, none of it made a bit of sense to her, but since she was at rock bottom, she was going to do anything she possibly could to claw her way out of this pit of despondency.
Breathe in, breathe out, she told herself. Breathe in, breathe out.
So friggin’ idiotic. What was the point in counting breaths like a child just learning her numbers?
Still, maybe she shouldn’t have called that lawyer’s assistant—she couldn’t even remember her name—an ass. Or had she called the lawyer an ass? Sarah couldn’t remember. It didn’t even matter, to tell the truth, except that if she didn’t please Richard, didn’t at least try to “calm down,” then she would never influence him to bring her company public in the timely manner she wanted.
She needed Richard’s goodwill. Richard Lee was respected. A big-time mover and shaker in the Valley, with a track record of bringing companies public and making the founders as well as himself wealthy beyond all belief.
She took a breath and grabbed the phone. Richard would want her to apologize to the lawyer’s assistant. But it had been a long time since she’d apologized to anybody.
Her phone suddenly rang, shocking her.
“Hello?” she answered the call tentatively.
“Ms. Buckley?” This was the same young female voice as before. “This is Sophia, Ms. Kimball’s assistant again.”
“Hello, Sophia. I’m...sorry for using harsh language with you. I apologize.”
There, she thought. Richard would be proud.
“Um, that’s okay. I called Ms. Kimball, and she said she’ll be over to Cassandra’s cottage in about an hour. She’s at a real-estate closing with a client, and as soon as it wraps up, she’ll be there.”
An hour? “What am I supposed to do until then?” Sarah demanded.
“Well...there’s a beach right there, isn’t there?”
“I don’t care about the beach,” Sarah snapped. “I need a shower. And Wi-Fi.”
There was silence on the other end.
Damn it. It occurred to Sarah that if Aunt Cassandra didn’t have email, then she certainly didn’t have Wi-Fi, either.
Sarah held back her scream. The summer was going to be worse than she’d thought. “Fine,” she gritted out. “I’ll expect her in an hour.” She felt hot and sweaty and disgusting from the long plane ride followed by a long drive in a rental that smelled of cleaning fluid and didn’t work too well in the air-conditioning department. “Until then, I’ll change into my bathing suit at the gas station down the street and then take a long jump in the ocean. That’ll freshen me up from my journey.”
She was sounding too much like a martyr, so she cleared her throat. “I’m looking forward to meeting my aunt’s attorney,” she added. After all, as Cassandra’s only surviving family member, Sarah would likely be an executor of her aunt’s will someday, so she saw the practicality in having a decent relationship with the woman.
You see, Richard, she thought, I can be nice when I need to.
“Ms. Shipp brought the Business Roundup article you were in to show us,” Sophia continued, oblivious to Sarah’s irritation. “We’re so excited you’ll be visiting us in Wallis Point this summer. You’re a local celebrity.”
Wait, what? Cassandra had seen that article? Sarah didn’t know which was more surprising, that Cassandra had noticed it or that she’d been proud enough to show it to people.
“Well, it may not be for the whole summer,” Sarah said. Indeed, she was hoping Richard could be persuaded to let her come back earlier. Say in a week or two, when she could meditate and radiate Zen with the best of them. Sarah had always been a good student when she’d put her mind to something.
“Hmm,” Sophia was saying. “Maybe you could give a talk at the library? I’m a volunteer, and we—”
“No,” Sarah interrupted. Nip that idea right in the bud. Sarah didn’t intend to get too comfortable in this beachy backwater. Her time here was an exile—her punishment for forgetting that she’d ceded too much power to Richard, her investor. She needed to focus on sucking up to him again so she could grab her power back.
Besides, she was still wary of her aunt, truth be told. For good reason.
“Sorry,” Sophia murmured. “I know you’re very busy. We won’t disturb your vacation.” She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but I have a call coming in. Rest assured that I’ll follow up with Ms. Kimball and keep tabs on how her time is running. She’s promised she’ll be right out with Cassandra’s key as soon as she can. In the meantime, please do enjoy the beach. It’s a gorgeous day, and I would kill to be outside with you.”
And Sarah would kill to be back in her office in California, but that wasn’t likely to happen within the next week or two, at least. Her plan was to master meditation in a lesson or two with Cassandra, and then have her charming and illustrious aunt call up Richard Lee himself. By next Sunday—or the following one, at the latest—Sarah should be back in San Jose. Ready to be calmer with her staff. More communicative. Less angry.
“Very well,” she said to Sophia, testing her new communicativeness. “I’ll be out on the beach. Please have Ms. Kimball come and find me when she gets here. Thank you. Have a nice day.”
* * *
I DON’T BELONG HERE, Sarah thought one hour later, gazing at all the serene, pleasant, happy people spread out on beach towels, lounging in sand chairs and meandering along the shoreline with the flowing tide.
Everybody within sight was either coupled up, with children or hanging with a group of friends. Sarah was the lone singleton. And her aloneness, combined with the uncomfortable memories of one perfect August summer, made her want to weep.
Again.
Until Richard had banished her, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried.
Swallowing, Sarah wrapped her arms around her knees. The beach was just as she remembered it, but smaller, maybe because she was no longer small. The air was cool with a salty sea breeze, different from the breeze in California. The sand was brown and soft like sugar. There used to be sand dunes between her aunt’s cottage and the sea, but sometime in the intervening years they’d eroded away, so now her aunt had a clear, direct view of the beach.
The tide was pushing her back—it was coming in fast. Sarah got up and moved her towel above the high-water mark. The waves were large today, larger than she remembered. A long time ago, her aunt had taught her to body surf. She’d taught her to stride into the water vigorously and without fear of the cold. To dive into a wave was preferred. Then, to wait for just the right one, at just the right time, and put her hands over her head and ride the wave face down in to shore.
Once she’d gotten the hang of it, it had been exhilarating. She’d felt such power in being part of nature’s force. Sarah felt herself smiling.
She glanced down at the one-piece bathing suit she’d changed into at the gas station down the street. The suit was red. Concealing. She would have no wardrobe malfunctions when she rode those waves again. No one was in the water right now, but Sarah was braver than most people—she’d had to be. She’d quickly learned not to shrink from a little frigid water, from hardship, from a challenge. It wasn’t in her nature anymore. She stretched, shifting her face away from the strong sun. Just then, a lifeguard in orange shorts and no shirt—just a whistle around his neck and a baseball cap on his head—pulled up on a single-rider all-terrain vehicle, about twenty feet in front of her. He lazily got off, sauntering to the tall lifeguard chair. He put his hands on his hips and peered up at the younger lifeguard occupying the seat.
Sarah took off her sunglasses to get a better look. The lifeguard who’d driven up was definitely older than the near boy on the chair. Perhaps he was a supervisor. Still, he was younger than she was, and once again, she remembered with gloom that she would be celebrating her fortieth birthday soon. Hopefully back at home rather than here with Cassandra.
But for now, Sarah didn’t mind looking at the man. He had a nice chest, tanned and buff, and she liked the look of his face, too. Intelligent and guarded.
The older lifeguard said something to the younger man that Sarah couldn’t hear. She sighed and forced herself to stop looking at them. A small plane flew overhead with a banner: Eat at Billy Joe’s. Fried Clams and Pasta. Family-Sized Dinners.
No, thank you, Sarah thought with a shudder. She worked hard to keep herself healthy. It was definitely harder these days than it had been at thirty, never mind twenty. And why was she looking at younger-than-her lifeguards without their shirts on, anyway?
