Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
So I shake my head and say, “Actually, I’m heading out. Got somewhere else to be.”
He grins. “Fine. Be that way, Ms. Popular.”
Hardly. The only place I’m going after this is home. But it’s probably better to let him believe I’m fluttering from party to party on Friday nights like some elusive social butterfly. Peyton would approve of that plan. Always leave ’em wanting more is my best friend’s motto.
“You’re here till September, you said?”
“Yup,” I say lightly.
“Cool. Then I’m sure we’ll see each other around.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
Shit. That sounded far too noncommittal. What I should have said is something coy and flirty, like, I hope so … and then asked for his number. I inwardly smack myself, scrambling for a way to fix the error, but it’s too late. Tate is already sauntering off toward his friends.
If they look back, it’s a good sign. That’s what Peyton always says.
Swallowing hard, I stare at his retreating back, his long stride making tracks in the sand.
And then.
He looks back.
I breathe in relief and offer him an awkward wave before turning away. My heart’s beating fast as I head up the grassy path toward the road, where I parked my grandmother’s Land Rover. I pull my phone out of my pocket just as another text lights up the screen.
Peyton: So??? Have we found the lucky guy?
I bite my lip and glance back in the direction of the party.
Yes.
Yes, I think we have.
CHAPTER 2
CASSIE
I find my grandmother in the kitchen the next morning, pulling a muffin pan out of the oven. She moves it to the cooling rack on the counter, next to the three other trays already sitting there.
“Morning, dear. Pick your poison,” Grandma chirps, glancing at me over her shoulder. “We’ve got banana nut, bran, carrot, and the blueberry just came out so it needs some time to cool.”
No doubt she’s been up since 7 A.M. baking up a storm. For a woman in her seventies, she’s still remarkably spry. Which is funny, because on the outside she appears so fragile. She’s got a slender build, delicate hands, and her skin is thinning in her old age so you can always see bluish veins rippling beneath it.
And yet Lydia Tanner is a force of nature. She and my grandpa Wally ran a hotel for fifty years. They bought the beachfront lot for a song in the late sixties, after Grandpa was injured in Vietnam and discharged from the military. Even wilder is that they were my age when they built the Beacon Hotel from the ground up. I can’t imagine building and then operating a hotel at twenty, especially one as grand as the Beacon. And up until two years ago, the waterfront property was my grandparents’ pride and joy.
But then Grandpa passed, and the hotel was nearly gutted by the last hurricane to ravage the coast. It wasn’t the first time the Beacon fell victim to a storm—it’s happened twice before—but unlike the previous times, nobody in the family wanted to renovate and restore it this time. Grandma was too old and tired to do the job herself, especially without Grandpa Wally by her side, and I know she’s secretly disappointed none of her kids chose to take up that mantle. But my mom and her siblings weren’t interested in salvaging the Beacon, so Grandma finally made the decision to sell. Not just the hotel, but her house too.
The house sale closes in two months, and the Beacon is being reopened in September under its new ownership, which is why we’re back. Grandma wanted to spend one last summer in Avalon Bay before she moves up north to be closer to her kids and grandkids.
“How was the party?” she asks as she settles into a chair at the kitchen table.
“It was okay.” I shrug. “I didn’t really know anyone there.”
“Who was hosting it?”
“Some guy named Luke. He’s a sailing instructor at the club. That’s how Joy met him. And speaking of Joy, she didn’t even show up! She invites me to a party and then deserts me. I felt like a random interloper.”
Grandma smiles. “Sometimes that’s more fun. Going someplace where nobody knows you …” She arches a thin eyebrow. “It can be exciting to reinvent yourself and play a role for the night.”
I grimace. “Please don’t tell me you and Grandpa used to meet at hotel bars back in the day and pretend to be other people in some weird role-play to spice up the marriage.”
“All right, dear. I won’t tell you that.”
Her brown eyes sparkle, giving her a youthful air. It’s funny, Grandma comes off as so elegant and unapproachable in public. Always dressed like she stepped off a yacht, sporting these preppy little outfits more suited for posh Nantucket than laid-back Avalon Bay. I swear she owns a thousand Hermès scarves. Yet when she’s around family the icy exterior melts and she’s the warmest woman you’ll ever meet. I love hanging out with her. And she’s hilarious. Sometimes she’ll drop a dirty joke out of nowhere at a big family dinner. It’s jarring when spoken in her delicate southern accent, and it puts us all in hysterics. My mother hates it. Then again, my mother doesn’t have a sense of humor. Never has.