Winter at the Beach Read online

  They didn’t lack for conversation as they ate. Brody asked what kind of float the Driftwood was going to enter in the parade and heartily approved of her plan. “Give me a call if you need help.”

  “I think between Pete, Seth, Sabrina and me, we’ve got it covered.”

  The mention of Seth always made him frown, so she changed the subject. “How about Beach Dreams Realty? Are you going to have a float?”

  “No, but we are going to do something.”

  “Oh? What?” she prompted.

  “Two of my agents and I are going to be walking down the street as houses.”

  “As houses,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, we’ll paint that spray insulation over some big cardboard packing boxes, the kind appliances come in, sculpt ’em and paint ’em, put roofs on ’em.”

  She chuckled. “You know what I just thought of?”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Remember the old movie To Kill a Mockingbird?”

  “Yeah. My high school English class read the book. I saved time and watched the movie.”

  She frowned at him. “Didn’t that defeat the purpose of reading?”

  He shrugged. “I got a B on my paper. Worked for me. So, where are you going with this?”

  “Remember the scene in the movie when Scout’s walking home from the play wearing her ham costume?”

  “What, you think I’m going to fall over in my house costume?”

  She couldn’t help grinning. “That could be amusing.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re a sick little puppy?”

  “Mmm, don’t think so. By the way, didn’t you always wonder why Atticus never came to watch the play and why he wasn’t walking her home?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe he already knew his kid was a ham.”

  “Ha, ha,” Jenna said. “And maybe that was explained in the book.”

  “So, you never read it, either?”

  “My English teacher didn’t assign it,” she said in her own defense. And most of her leisure reading had been—and still was—various suspense authors and romance writers such as Debbie Macomber and Susan Mallery.

  “What classic did you have to read?” he asked.

  “The Scarlet Letter.”

  “Which would never fly today,” he scoffed. “Not exactly relevant anymore.”

  “It wasn’t when we read it, but it also gave us a glimpse into another time. And isn’t that what classics do?”

  “Yeah, but I think it wouldn’t hurt to add some current stuff, like John Grisham. Give kids a look into the legal world.”

  “It would certainly beat Lord of the Flies,” Jenna said. “Just thinking about that book spoils my appetite.”

  “Hey, that was a cool book. So, what else did you read?”

  “Shakespeare, of course. Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Oh, yeah. Young love and death. Always a good read for kids.”

  “Sabrina’s class is reading it and she loves it.”

  “Teenage girls love to read stuff they can cry over. My daughter did. Speaking of daughters and Romeo and Juliet, how are things with the boyfriend wannabe?”

  “He’s still with us. And they’re remaining downstairs, where I can keep an eye on them.”

  “You sound like an overprotective dad,” Brody teased. The minute the words were out of his mouth, he sobered. “Sorry, that was a dumb thing to say.”

  “Her dad isn’t much use,” Jenna said. That was putting it mildly.

  “Have you told him about the boyfriend?”

  Jenna shook her head. “He prefers to leave the parental heavy lifting to me.”

  “You might be surprised. He may be a loser as an ex, but deep down he’s still a father.”

  “Too deep to drill,” she said. Damien was happy shirking his duties.

  “You’ve got it handled now anyway. But if you need a sounding board, you know I’m here.” Brody reached out and placed a hand over hers, making those little fish tacos she’d been eating jump in her tummy.

  Brody Green knew exactly what to say. And do. He had a way with women.

  He’d had a way with half the women in Moonlight Harbor, from what Jenna could tell. Would he be content to settle down with just one?

  She didn’t ask and they returned to the subject of the festival. By the time they’d finished dessert, she was pumped and ready to go home and work some more, this time on luring people to stay at the Driftwood Inn for the festival.

  She settled in at her computer and got busy. Holiday Festival Stay at Charming Beach Inn, she captioned her Groupon offer, and then made potential visitors a deal they couldn’t refuse. Oh, yes, who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?

  Finished with her promotion, she sat back in her desk chair and smiled. All right. Let ’em come.

  Chapter Five

  “Guess what I just found a Groupon for?”

  Taylor Marsh wasn’t sure she wanted to hear. It would be a bargain for some cool new restaurant opening up in Seattle or a great trip, and lately, hearing about her older sister’s adventures was not bringing out the best in her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Sarah to have a good life. It was that she didn’t want to feel inferior because of it. And somehow, ever since Sarah and Chris Brown had gotten out of debt and managed to pile up some savings, it seemed that they’d become the experts on money management—always offering tips and unrequested advice to Taylor and Greg.

  Taylor would be the first to admit their finances were currently a mess, but she hated having her nose rubbed in it—something her sister seemed to do in a million subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Taylor resented it, especially since it wasn’t her fault they were in financial deep doo-doo. If Greg hadn’t quit a great IT tech job to start his company, which was going nowhere—did the world really need another internet search engine?—if he hadn’t drained their savings and pushed them into debt, they’d have been fine. Now it seemed they were up to their eyeballs in credit card debt and struggling to make their car payments. And he kept promising that any day this company was going to take off. It had been two years. How much longer did he need?

  Of course, Sarah always had advice whenever Taylor made the mistake of complaining. “Lose the second car. You can’t afford it.”

  “I need that car to show houses,” Taylor would snap. “I can’t exactly drive clients around in Greg’s beater.” Not that she’d made any money yet, but that was beside the point. She was still learning the business. The Seattle market was hot, and the money would come.

  “That’s the problem,” Sarah the wise would say. “You have an excuse for everything you spend money on, and you don’t need half of it. You don’t need to get your nails done, you don’t need to spend so much on clothes and you don’t need to waste money on takeout and burgers.”

  “I don’t always have time to cook,” Taylor would retort, “and I need to look professional.” Although she hadn’t had her nails done in months.

  “Not that professional.”

  Then the entire conversation would degenerate, with Taylor either shifting the blame onto Greg and his poor business skills or saying something rude to her bossy big sister that made her come across as a spoiled brat.

  Taylor wasn’t spoiling herself these days. She couldn’t remember when she’d last bought herself any new clothes. And takeout? Well, okay, she’d done that a few times, but even hitting the fast-food drive-through had become nothing more than a memory in the last couple of months.

  “So, don’t you want to know what I found?” Sarah prompted, since Taylor was taking way too long to answer.

  “A deal on cell phones?”

  “We don’t need new cell phones. And neither do you, by the way.”

  As if they’d planned on running out and getting new cell phones? Taylor let the comment sl
ide. “Okay, then, a restaurant deal?”

  “Even better. I just got us all a great holiday getaway.”

  Taylor blinked. “What?” Without even asking? Here they were struggling, and her sister wanted Taylor to come up with money for some crazy trip.

  “To the beach.”

  “We always go to Mom’s for Christmas,” Taylor protested. What was her sister smoking?

  “The trip isn’t for Christmas. This is the weekend before. I got a bargain for a stay at a beach motel in Moonlight Harbor. It’s a cute little town on the coast, only a couple hours’ drive from us. They have a holiday festival going on that weekend.”

  Taylor loved festivals and fairs, and she loved the holidays. But almost every credit card she had was maxed out, so what was the point? “Sorry, we can’t afford that.”

  “Sure, you can.”

  “You’re always telling me I spend too much money,” Taylor reminded her.

  “I know. But this time you don’t have to spend any because I’m paying. I booked rooms for both our families.”

  Just like that. Taylor was torn between gratitude and irritation. It was a kind gesture, yes, but it would’ve been nice if her sister had asked first. What if they’d had plans?

  Right. The only thing she and Greg did together lately was fight. But even that was preferable to a weekend of listening to Chris the know-it-all bragging about his financial wisdom and offering Greg advice at every turn, and having her sister watching with judgmental eyes every penny she spent. Of course, if Sarah was paying for the weekend, she’d feel she had the right to.

  “We’ve got plans,” Taylor said.

  “Oh? Doing what?”

  “Miranda has a party to go to.” No lie. She did. A mother couldn’t disrupt her daughter’s social life, even when her daughter was only six.

  The sound of footsteps and the high-pitched voice of an excited child told her that Greg was home from a day of scouring the planet for investors and had picked up Miranda from daycare. She needed to make this fast.

  “I bet if you asked her, she’d rather go to the beach with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Chris and the cousins,” Sarah said.

  “Well, we promised, and we can’t go back on a promise.”

  “Give it try,” Sarah urged. “Tell them your family’s demanding you spend time with them.”

  “I’ll try,” Taylor lied. “Greg’s here. Gotta go.” She ended the call and said a gushy hello to her daughter, who was excited to show her the drawing she’d made at school. Her greeting to her husband wasn’t so gushy. The longer Greg kept dragging them down while he chased his go-nowhere dream, the less gushy she felt.

  “You’ll try what?” he asked after she’d only given him her cheek to kiss. After the big fight they’d had the night before he was lucky he to get even that.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “No, tell me.”

  “My sister wanted to rope us into something. I told her we weren’t doing it.”

  “Oh.” He nodded, acknowledgment that whatever Sarah wanted to rope them into was bound to be unpleasant.

  Lately she’d been hounding them to go to a seminar sponsored by the same finance guru who’d inspired her and Chris to get out of debt. They’d both resisted, Taylor because she didn’t want to give up any more of her lifestyle than she already had and Greg because he didn’t want to give up his useless business. Which he needed to give up. It was his fault that her lifestyle was being affected. She’d cut back on everything she could think of. Even Christmas. All right, so what she’d ordered online had added up a bit, but all her purchases had been bargains, and she didn’t want Miranda to suffer just because Daddy was being an idiot.

  “What was she trying to rope us into this time?” Greg asked.

  Taylor was very much aware of her daughter standing right there, all ears. Miranda would, of course, want to go to the beach. “Nothing. I’ll tell you later.”

  He got the message and dropped the subject.

  But he picked it up again later, after Miranda was in bed. Dinner had put Taylor in a better mood when he’d shared that it looked like he’d soon have a new investor on board, and they were side by side on the couch with glasses of wine and about to watch a movie. She was feeling mellow, so she told him about Sarah’s big plan.

  “Maybe we should go,” he said. “A free getaway at the beach—Miranda would love it.”

  “You know it won’t be free,” Taylor said with a frown. “It’ll be like getting a weekend in Hawaii where you spend the whole time listening to a sales pitch for a time share.”

  “But we wouldn’t have to stick around and listen.”

  “We’ll probably have adjoining rooms.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Bad idea. It would’ve been fun for Miranda, though.”

  Fun for Miranda. Those words stuck in Taylor’s mind like a burr, poking her on a regular basis, making her feel downright uncomfortable. What right did she have to cheat Miranda out of a fun weekend? Who knew when they’d be able to afford a vacation?

  Should she accept? She did love her sister. And when they weren’t talking about money, they liked being together. They both enjoyed Hallmark movies and HGTV and, really, they’d always been there for each other. Taylor had been Sarah’s personal chef for a week after her hysterectomy, and Sarah had taken Miranda for more than one overnight, back in the days when Taylor and Greg could afford to go someplace for the weekend. They hadn’t been anywhere in ages. Besides the fact that they couldn’t afford it, Taylor hadn’t exactly had any desire for a romantic getaway with her husband, who up and quit his job without even discussing it with her.

  She still didn’t, but Miranda would have a good time with her cousins.

  Oh, crap. How many lectures would Taylor have to endure for the sake of her daughter? She frowned. She would put a ban on all money talk, and if Sarah said anything, Taylor would shove a Christmas stocking in her mouth.

  She finally called her sister. “Is your offer still good?”

  “Of course,” Sarah said, and Taylor could hear the smile in her voice.

  “Okay. We’ll go, on one condition. No money lectures.” Her sister was paying for the weekend and she was setting ultimatums. Did that make her a jerk? Probably.

  “Hey, I’m trying to do something nice here.”

  Yep. It definitely made her sound like a jerk. “I just don’t want to be nagged all weekend.”

  “No nagging,” Sarah promised. “It’ll be fun.”

  It should be, but Taylor had her doubts. Crap. What had she gotten herself into?

  * * *

  “Holiday festival stay at charming beach motel,” read Darrell Wilson as he sat with his laptop at the kitchen table in his home in Federal Way, Washington. Charming and holiday were key words when a man was planning a surprise anniversary getaway for his wife.

  Kat loved the holidays. It was why she’d wanted a Christmas wedding.

  And what a wedding they’d had. Two hundred guests, white and red roses and mistletoe everywhere, the bridesmaids in red gowns. His wife had looked stunning in a gown trimmed with white faux fur and all kinds of sparkles. She’d been a vision, and he’d been broke. He’d only been teaching math a couple of years and she’d been working at a daycare center by day and trying to become a published author by night. For their honeymoon, they’d gone to Icicle Falls, a little Bavarian-style town nestled in Washington’s Cascades. It had snowed and the town had been lit up like a jewel box, and they’d been as happy as if they’d gone to Germany or Switzerland.

  That was thirty years ago, and a great marriage had followed a happy honeymoon. Kat never did see any of her stories published, but she did get a job in a bookstore and decided she was happier surrounded by books and blogging about them than trying to write one. Their house was almost paid off, their kids were grown and their son had
just married a girl they both liked. And, in spite of a few ups and downs and disagreements over the years, they were still each other’s best friend. Their life together had been a good one.

  Empty nesters, finally, with some money to spend, they’d planned to travel as much as possible before the grandkids started coming. In fact, before Kat’s diagnosis he’d been thinking about finally getting them to Switzerland or taking one of those river cruises that stopped at all the European Christmas markets. But uterine cancer had hit them like an invading army, taking her hair, her energy and much of her joie de vivre. This would not be the year for international travel. She wouldn’t be up to it.

  Now he wished he’d done it for their twenty-fifth, when she was healthy. But next year, for sure.

  There would be a next year. The cancer wouldn’t come back. He refused to even entertain the possibility. He knew that sometimes she worried that it would, but he always steered her away from that particular conversation. She was still young, only fifty-one. She had lots of years left.

  If only her doctors had caught the damned disease earlier. Then a simple hysterectomy would have taken care of the problem. They hadn’t, though. So, after her operation they’d proceeded to the next ugly phase of treatment—chemo. After that, it would be radiation. His poor wife.

  How he wished he could do more than just go to her treatments and doctors’ appointments with her. Sometimes he felt so helpless. He felt especially helpless when she was wiped out by the treatments or suffering the painful side effects of the drug. He tried his best to keep everything going by hiring someone to clean the house once a week and by taking over in the kitchen. Since he sucked at cooking, his kitchen takeover consisted primarily of bringing home food from the grocery store deli and heating soup. Pretty pathetic, but his wife was a good cook and had enjoyed creating in the kitchen, so he’d never bothered to learn.

  One thing he was not pathetic at, and that was planning anniversary surprises.

  He had just snagged the Groupon offer when a voice behind him asked, “What are you doing?” making him jump.