The Cottage on Nantucket Read online

  She’d gone home to get a few financial things sorted out, check on Rachel, and make a plan for the upcoming week on Nantucket.

  After she checked in, she got in the shower while Sean made coffee and took it out to the balcony. Once dressed, she joined him, saying, “Thanks for making this.” She sipped her brew, noting that he was very good at making coffee. “And thanks for keeping this between us.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Did you find what you needed in the city?”

  She nodded and gazed out over the bay, thinking back on the past few days. She had done about a half-day of work while she did laundry in Jersey and paid off the most immediate creditors.

  “Did you see anything in the pages I sent you?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” he said, glancing at her. “I’m not sure why your mother thought it would be easier for Tessa to fight the Martin siblings alone, but other than that, the evidence your mother used to defend her husband’s wishes regarding his assets seems very sound to me.”

  Janey nodded, and while she should feel nothing but relief, something still gnawed at her nerves. Her stomach grumbled, and Sean must’ve heard it, because he asked, “Would you like to go to dinner?”

  “Sure,” Janey said, standing. She looked right at him as he got to his feet too. “Sean, I really appreciate you helping me. I know I started all of this by flirting with you, but I do have a boyfriend.”

  Surprise entered his eyes, and Janey regretted the person she’d been six days ago. She couldn’t believe how different she felt today than she had when she’d first walked into Sean Masterson’s office.

  “Perhaps we can just be friends, then,” Sean said, his smile slightly downturned. He dropped his head and turned to go back into the hotel room. Janey followed him, her thoughts firing at her. She’d had two boyfriends before, and Milford knew they weren’t exclusive…

  She pushed the idea away, promising herself that she’d revisit it later, when she wasn’t in a highly emotional state.

  She enjoyed dinner with Sean, and after he’d dropped her back at the hotel, Janey collected her beach hat and went out to the sand. Something about the soul of the earth touching her feet had always soothed her, and that was a characteristic she could trace back to her mother.

  Her thoughts lingered and wandered around her mother and the years she’d gotten with her. She smiled out at the sky and the sea, feeling more like the person she was meant to be than she had in a long, long time.

  Two days later, Janey arrived back at the cottage on Nantucket Point. Tessa rose from the steps where she’d been waiting, and she came down the sidewalk to help with Janey’s bags. She paid the cab driver and followed her sister back into the safety of the cottage.

  It somehow seemed brighter inside, with less dust hanging in the air and the scent of coffee and cream more inviting than before. Janey looked around, realizing the cottage hadn’t changed.

  She had.

  “Well?” Tessa asked after she’d set Janey’s suitcase by the mouth of the hall.

  Instant irritation flooded Janey, and she immediately missed the carefree hours of the past two days on Nantucket. Alone.

  “I got the money,” she said. “That account is all closed. The safety deposit box is empty. The hotel really is ours.” She sighed as she sank onto the sofa. “You’ve changed the curtains.”

  “Yes,” Tessa said, joining Janey in the living room. “The others were so heavy. These are much better.” She smiled up at the sheer, off-white curtains that fell all the way to the floor. Tessa did have a way with beautifying spaces, whether inside or out.

  “They are,” Janey said. They were the reason the cottage felt full of light too. “Anyway, we’ll need to figure out what to do with The Hotel Benjamin. Right now, Charles Burns is running it, and I met with him briefly. I don’t know if you want to take that on. Perhaps Ryan would. Or Cole…” She let the sentence hang there, because there was a lot to discuss regarding the hotel.

  Right now, it was a five-star hotel, with an amazing restaurant on the main level. Not just anyone could step into the role of running it, and she actually thought her son would make a fool of himself if he tried.

  “Definitely a lot to talk about there,” Tessa agreed. “But it’s ours? Mom didn’t lose it to…whoever she claims will come after it?”

  “No,” Janey said. “And Tess, it’s yours. Not ours. Mom left the assets to you, because she believed they’d be easier to protect that way.”

  “Okay,” Tessa said, still confused.

  “Tessa,” Janey said. “Mom was married to Dennis Martin. He was her husband. The bank account, the hotel, the house on Long Island, and the intellectual property are his. He left them to mom—his wife—when he died two years ago.”

  Tessa’s eyes grew wider by the second, and she reached up and covered her mouth.

  “He’s DM Conway,” Janey continued, deciding to get the whole story out so Tessa could digest it all. “He has three kids who aren’t happy that Mom got all of his assets.”

  She reached over to her purse and pulled out the thick, white packet of evidence she’d been given at the hotel. “Everything we need to protect the assets are in this.”

  She handed it to Tessa, who took it but didn’t start to look through any of the pages.

  “I think,” Janey said slowly, because she’d had a plethora of time to think these past couple of days. “Once we win in court, then we can split these four assets.”

  “We’ve already split the money,” Tessa said. “Didn’t you get the deposits I sent?’

  “I did, thank you.” Janey smiled at her sister, remembering her mother’s words. I know Tessa as if she were myself, and she loves you dearly and wants you to be happy.

  She loved her sister too.

  “Mom’s been managing the assets. We can split them to do that now,” Janey said. “Or you can do it. Or I can. I’m willing.” She was strong enough now to do something more.

  “I need to talk to Ron,” Tessa said.

  Janey nodded. “That’s a great idea. Perhaps he can advise us on how to protect these assets and what to do with them in the meantime.”

  Tessa gripped the white packet of papers as she stood up. “I’m going to go call him.” She bent down to hug Janey, who reached up to pat her sister’s back. “It’s so good to see you back.” Tessa straightened, flashed her a smile, and hurried out onto the front porch.

  Janey realized then that Tessa had probably thought she wouldn’t return to the cottage. Janey could admit she’d thought about staying away, but as she looked around now, the cottage actually felt like home.

  It felt like Mom was there, and Janey smiled as she closed her eyes and let herself feel sad that her mother was gone. At the same time, hope for her future filtered through her for the first time in a while.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Bobbie grinned like the Cheshire Cat when she opened the door. “Oh, my dears. Do come in.” She stepped back, and Janey led the way into the bigger beach bungalow that sat next door to their cottage. “Come in.”

  “This is lovely,” Janey said, gazing around at all the white. White walls, white shiplap, white ceilings. Even the furniture was white as white could be. Bobbie had put pops of color in the room—turquoise, pink, and yellow—by using throw pillows, curtains, and rugs.

  “It’s very beachy,” she added with a smile. She’d been gathering her energy for a week to be able to attend this dinner. That, and she’d taken half of an anti-panic pill twenty minutes ago. Everything felt floaty and fine, and Janey needed it that way to get through dinner with the Friedmans.

  “Thank you,” Bobbie said. “Come in. We’re eating on the back patio.” She led the way through the house, and Janey spied stainless steel appliances in the kitchen to break up the white counters, white cupboards, and black and white tiled floor.

  More color in that room, but Bobbie had moved from yellow to a bright peach color, and from turquoise to straight-up blue.


  They went back outside, much to Janey’s dismay. The humidity today had to be in the eightieth percentile, and she existed with a fine sheen of sweat on her skin at all times.

  “There they are,” Riggs boomed, and Janey gave him a tight smile. “Have you two met the Longs? They live on the other side of us.” He indicated a couple in their thirties, and Janey suddenly wished she’d taken an entire anti-panic pill.

  Because, right now, she was indeed starting to panic.

  “David and Leslie Long,” Riggs said. “They’ve got a couple of kids, but they’re home with a sitter.” He beamed at them as if getting a babysitter took great skill and courage.

  Janey almost rolled her eyes, catching herself in time. She shook hands with David and then Leslie, wondering why Bobbie hadn’t mentioned they’d be having another couple to dinner too.

  “So, Janey,” David said. “What do you do?”

  “I sell software,’ she said.

  “Huh. Fascinating.” David’s smile and blank look did not make it seem like he was fascinated.

  “She’s one of the top sellers in her company,” Riggs said, and Janey turned toward him. How did he know that? She exchanged a glance with Tessa, who shook her head slightly, telling Janey not to make a scene.

  “He’s right,” she said. “I’m hoping for a promotion next month.”

  “You don’t just hope for a promotion,” Leslie Long said. “You go out there and get it.”

  Janey gaped at her, then looked around for a glass of wine. She’d need alcohol to make it through this meal.

  “Here we go,” Bobbie said, rushing out onto the patio with a platter of steaming, yellow corn. “We’ve got lobster, corn on the cob, and shrimp salad. Let’s sit down. Sit down.”

  Janey watched her scurry around to put napkins on the table and then rush back into the cottage to get serving spoons. Riggs did nothing to help her, and the nervous energy pouring from Bobbie made Janey squirm in her seat.

  Riggs had sat right across from her, and David right next to her, making her feel trapped and insignificant. She took a lobster claw and a piece of corn, deciding to really go for as much butter as she wanted tonight.

  “Have you ever thought about owning a timeshare?” David asked, and Janey looked up in surprise.

  “No,” she said flatly. She found it best to simply deny salesmen like him. She wouldn’t even describe him as a salesman. He was just trying to make a fast buck.

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “I can barely pay my mortgage, for one.” She pointed her fork at him. “The cottage is my mother’s. We don’t actually have any money for a timeshare. Not only that, but with a timeshare, I have to also have time to travel, which I don’t.”

  “Janey does a lot of traveling for work,” Riggs said, and once again, Janey swung her attention toward him. How did he know that?

  David continued to press her for why she wouldn’t want a timeshare, and Riggs kept staring at her with a goofy look on his face. She ate as much as she could stomach, and quickly pushed the rest of the food away.

  She really didn’t like being around David and Leslie. They made her feel obsolete and like a complete failure of a human being. After all, Leslie was only thirty-five, with three children and one more on the way. She never stopped smiling, and she probably didn’t ever do anything unladylike—like use the bathroom or pass gas. Ever.

  Janey engaged in small talk, because Tessa tended to go silent when she was annoyed or out of her comfort zone. She was probably both tonight, and that left Janey to carry the conversation.

  She did, but the moment they’d been there for an hour, she stood up from the table, which now only held the remnants of shells, cold bowls of butter, and entirely too much leftover shrimp salad for Bobbie to believe it was good.

  By Janey’s recollection, Bobbie always brought shrimp salad to the island potlucks, or even just over to the cottage when they’d all sat down together for lunch.

  The shrimp salad hadn’t been good then either.

  “…now I get my nails done one week. My eyelashes the next, a pedicure the third, and my hair cut the fourth.” Leslie trilled out a laugh about her spa schedule, and Janey couldn’t look away from her.

  What a joke, she thought, looking away. Women like Leslie Long weren’t real. They were Stepford cutouts, and Janey had no use for them.

  Her mind started pinging negative things at her, about her job, about her lack of a husband, about the healthy sum of money in her account now.

  “Let’s take our coffee out on the porch,” Bobbie said, and Janey got to her feet in a fluid motion.

  “We must go,” she said, stepping over to Bobbie and giving her a quick kiss on both cheeks. “I’m so sorry, but we have an early morning tomorrow. Good Will is sending a truck for some of the furniture, and we still don’t have it ready.”

  Nothing she’d said was a lie, so she didn’t feel bad about anything. Though, if the dinner party had been anything better than insufferable, she might have stayed.

  “So soon?” Leslie asked.

  “Yes, regrettably.” Janey started for the door. She didn’t owe that woman an apology or a reason for why they had to leave before eight o’clock.

  Back through the house and outside, and Janey could finally get a full breath. “That was horrific,” she said to Tessa. “We can’t do that again. Did you hear that guy trying to sell me a timeshare?”

  Tessa giggled and nodded, and she’d clearly had a little too much wine with dinner. Janey hadn’t had enough, but she didn’t want to exist in alcohol-stunted awareness all the time. She also didn’t want to be reminded of all the ways she’d spectacularly failed, and spending time with a couple like Leslie and David did exactly that.

  She pushed against her own mind as it tried to send out dark messages about herself and how she wasn’t worthy to own a cottage here on the Point. She wished she were back in the safety of her bedroom in the cottage, with the door locked. She could pull out the letter her mother had written her and remind herself of how someone else saw her, not how she saw herself through self-loathing eyes.

  “I heard him,” Tessa said, sobering slightly. “Also, how creepy was it that Riggs knew so much about what you did for work?”

  “Scale of one to ten? Twelve.”

  They laughed together, but Janey glanced down the lane where the Friedman’s cottage sat. Neither Riggs nor Bobbie stood on the front porch, but somehow, Janey still felt as if someone was watching her, watching Tessa, watching the cottage.

  She shivered and hurried inside, locking the door behind her.

  Chapter Twenty

  Janey tucked her letter back into the envelope and slid that into her purse. She hadn’t told Tessa about it, though she’d relayed most of the information she’d learned in New York City. They’d talked about Dennis’s children, and Janey had told her about the visit from his thin, blonde daughter.

  She did wonder what was in the envelope Aleah Martin had dropped on the floor outside the owner’s suite, but Janey pushed it from her mind.

  She finished packing and took her suitcase out to the kitchen. Tessa’s bag sat on the table, and she stood at the window in the kitchen that looked out toward the ocean.

  “Ready?” Janey asked.

  Her sister turned from the window, a tired smile on her face. “Yes.”

  Janey poured herself a cup of coffee and set the pot in the sink. She washed it out, knowing she hadn’t done as many chores around the cottage as Tessa had done. They’d worked hard to get it cleaned out and cleaned up. Together, the work had gone well, and Janey would stay if she didn’t just need a breather.

  “So we’re going to keep the cottage,” Tessa said. “Right?”

  “Yes,” Janey said with a sigh. “I think we should keep it. That settles out Mom’s trust, right?”

  “Yes,” Tessa said. “I can call the lawyer when I get home. We’ll go over everything again, and if there’s anything we need to sign or do, I’ll let you
know.”

  “I can come help too,” Janey said, finally meeting Tessa’s eye. “I’m in a much better place now.” She offered her sister a smile, and Tessa took it.

  “I can see that.” She rinsed out her coffee mug while Janey took her first sips of her morning brew. She made a face, because Tessa made her coffee so bitter. “You have to put sugar in it.” She shook her head and laughed.

  “I’ll get some at the airport,” Janey said. “We should probably go if we want to be on the ten o’clock ferry.” She dumped her coffee down the drain and did a quick wash of the mug. They’d leave everything to dry on the thin towel next to the sink, because they’d be back in just a few days.

  Janey picked up her bag and led the way out of the cottage. Tessa followed, and she locked the door behind them. “We should get one of those locks with the electronic code,” Janey said. “No key required. Then anyone can come, and all we have to do is give them the code and they can get in.”

  The wind whipped along the beach that morning, trying to steal away Janey’s purse and half of her hair. She quickly gathered the dark locks in her fist and looked toward the water.

  “It’s a lock?” Tessa asked.

  “It’s a whole doorknob,” Janey said, staying close to the house as their cab hadn’t arrived yet. “You just take the old one out and put the new one in.”

  “Sounds easy enough.” Tessa met her eye. “We should do that, since there’s only one key.”

  And Tessa had it on her key ring. Janey nodded, pushing against her irritation. She told herself that Tessa had taken her suggestion to leave for the weekend. Gather their thoughts. Make sure everything at home was okay. And then come back next week to start the repairs the cottage needed.

  Janey had called Sean, and he’d given her the name and number of a local handyman, and she and Tessa already had an appointment with Brady Sturgiss on Tuesday morning.

  Four days, Janey thought. She had a ton of work to catch up on, and she’d likely pull sixteen or seventeen-hour days between now and when she returned to Nantucket Point. If she did, then she could focus on getting the roof patched and clearing out the small garage next to the cottage.