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Sometimes she wondered if Claire and Russel had truly been in love when they’d married. Maybe they’d been just the same as Amanda and Sam. Perhaps life had twisted up their love, contorting it into something they no longer recognized. Was there any way to avoid that heartache?
“There she is!” Audrey scampered down the porch with Max hot on her heels. “Come on, buddy.” It was nearly May, and Audrey already had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and upper arms. When she got closer, she picked Max up so he could see Genevieve up close.
“This is your cousin, Max,” Audrey said. “You want to say hi?”
“Hi!” Max called a little too loud.
Audrey and Amanda chuckled.
“She’s still just a little thing,” Audrey breathed, placing her hand over Genevieve’s head. “How do you stand it?”
“My heart breaks every day,” Amanda said.
Up on the porch, Lola grabbed Amanda a chair and ordered her to sit.
“We’re going to need more chairs,” Susan said. “Dad and Beatrice are on their way.”
“Andy and Beth, too,” Steve said.
“What about Aunt Kerry? Uncle Trevor?” Christine asked. “Are they still in Florida?”
“They get back tomorrow,” Steve said. “We’re headed to Boston to pick them up.”
“Can’t believe they cheated on the island with all that tropical water,” Lola said.
“Mom sent a picture of herself carrying a coconut filled with rum on the beach,” Steve said with a laugh. “I think they’re acting like teenagers.”
“That’s what can happen after your kids grow up.” Lola caught Amanda’s eye. “You stop worrying all the time and become a kid again.”
“Amanda has never acted like a teenager,” Audrey teased. She poked around a big bag of Doritos to select the ones with all three of their points.
“It’s true.” Susan giggled. “She vacuumed her room once a week. She did Jake’s room, too.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “I was terrified of lice.” She’d read in a science textbook that they could lurk anywhere—in your bed or your carpet or in her hair—and the idea had tormented her so much that she’d instigated a cleaning strategy that was borderline obsessive.
These days she was just clean in a normal way. Mostly.
Everyone wanted to take a turn holding Genevieve. A thickness went up her throat and threatened her breath as she watched so many others dote on her. She felt incomplete without her in her arms. It happened so quickly.
The screen door screamed open to bring Grandpa Wes and Beatrice. Amanda popped up and hugged her grandfather and filled her nose with his woodsy smell. She hugged Beatrice, too, but not as close. A small, childish part of her blamed Beatrice for taking Grandpa away from the Sheridan House. At her place was where he wanted to be now. But it still meant the end of an era.
Sam arrived a few minutes later with news. “I just got off the phone with the historian. He has time Wednesday afternoon to swing by the Sunrise Cove.”
Everyone talked at once with excitement.
“I can’t believe you haven’t torn down the wall yourself,” Lola suggested. “I’m dying of curiosity! What is back there?”
“Plenty of theories are circling the inn,” Wes said with a laugh, then opened his ledger to read one. “A reporter came in to ask if it was true we had Mormon gold back there.”
“Mormon gold?” Susan cackled. “People are so creative.”
“Don’t let anyone take our Mormon gold, Sam,” Christine warned.
“Whatever it is, I’m hoping it’ll make the inn a historical site,” Sam said.
“The Sunrise Cove has been around so long that it should be called a historical site in and of itself,” Christine declared.
“It hasn’t been around as long as whatever’s in that room,” Sam said.
