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Synopsis
Fans of Netflix's Virgin River, Jill Shalvis, and Susan Mallery will fall in love with this heartwarming, relatable, and charming beach read, where two best friends discover second chances only happen once in a lifetime.
After a cancer scare turns out to be a false alarm, Bree Robinson decides it's time to swim outside her comfort zone. Together with her best friend, Jill, she forms an anti-bucket list -- starting with a steamy fling. Only it turns out that her one-night stand is also the handsome architect renovating her house -- and the chemistry between them is off the walls.
Ever since a motorcycle accident took her husband's life, Jill Kelly has been living on autopilot. Even when she learns the fairy tale Maine cottage they once dreamed of owning is up for sale, she isn't sure she's ready to let go -- or open her heart to the idea of starting over.
Bree may be diving headfirst into her new lease on life, but Jill is doing all she can just to stay afloat. And when Bree discovers Jill has been hiding a devastating secret all these years, the waters muddy even more. Can Bree and Jill find strength in themselves and each other to embrace the second chances they've been given?
Release date: January 26, 2021
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 272
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Friends Like Us
Sarah Mackenzie
Chapter One
The seagull swooped in low. Its long gray wings were a perfect match to the coastal fog and Bree Robinson’s gloomy mood. She fingered her delicate bracelet, the one with the “You Got This” quote inscribed into the gold plating, as a ray of sunshine sliced through the stubborn clouds, dazzling the waves. A knot loosened in her lower belly. Maybe here was the sign she’d been looking for, a cosmic signal that today would have a happy ending. Her shoulders barely had time to relax before the damn bird banked, splattering poop over the top of her head.
Nope. Never mind. Today was an officially crappy day.
Sprawled a couple of feet away in an identical blue-striped beach chair, her bestie, Jill Kelly, fanned her hands, in danger of spraying wine out her pert nose. Finally, she must have choked down her chardonnay because she gasped, “I know this is a crappy situation, but, girl, come on, no need to be so literal!”
“Ugh, gross.” Reaching for the off-white linen scarf she’d draped around her shoulders to protect herself from the ocean breeze, Bree gingerly swiped at her hair. “Is it gone? Tell me it’s gone!”
Jill waved her hand in a suspiciously unsympathetic motion, losing the battle to hold back a giggle. “You’ll need a shower later, but that’s a good enough job to keep day drinking,” she said pressing the wine bottle directly into Bree’s hand in lieu of refilling her glass. “Anyway, isn’t laughter supposed to be the best medicine? Or wait, was that wine?”
Then why didn’t she feel better? Bree scowled at the pale liquid. Silly reaction. The chardonnay hadn’t done anything wrong. “Unless you’ve got cancer,” she retorted, “and then it’s chemotherapy.”
“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, hold on!” Jill swatted Bree’s arm while leveling a fierce glare. “You can’t say the C word out loud. It’s against the rules today!”
Bree took a long pull of wine, blotting her lips with the back of her hand. “If anyone can break a rule right now, it’s me.”
Any minute now she’d be getting her biopsy results.
Had it really been six weeks since that lazy Sunday afternoon, when her only plan had been to indulge in a little self-care: luxuriate in a hot shower, apply a hydrating sheet mask, paint her toes, and fantasize about the Hemsworth brothers? As she’d languidly massaged her favorite jasmine-scented bodywash across her chest, her breath had cut out.
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
She’d dragged her fingers back and probed the corn kernel–sized lump buried in the soft flesh near her left nipple. Despite being neck deep in hot water, her body went ice cold.
And the stupid knot didn’t disappear no matter how many times she’d poked, prodded, and pleaded for it to go away. All she’d managed to do was give herself one wicked boob bruise.
Doctor visits were scheduled. Clinical breast exams done. Mammograms ordered. Results were inconclusive. Ultrasounds were conducted. That’s when the radiologist recommended a biopsy, a needle that would reveal the truth, like the world’s worst fortune-teller. Peer into the diagnostic crystal ball: Would she become another American Cancer Society statistic, her world shrinking to artful head wraps and days at the infusion center?
It was hard to rock an upbeat “Cancer is a word, not a sentence” attitude after losing her mom to her own breast lump. It was all terrible. The diagnosis, the treatment, the long, wretched bedside hospice vigil with her big sister, Renee, listening to the lengthening pauses between ragged breaths, watching her mother’s creamy skin mottle, staring into her nonreactive eyes searching for a sign—any goddamn sign—that the woman she adored was still there. Her mom had been her rock, her go-to, the first person she’d call every morning, the one who had an answer for everything. The one who always told Bree to dream big and believe in herself.
Her death was like losing a limb. And the phantom pain never went away.
She didn’t just lose her mom, she lost her biggest cheerleader.
“Oh heck no, we’re not doing this.” Jill pushed herself to standing, kicked off her cherry-red flip-flops and stuck out a hand.
“What?” Bree frowned at her friend’s manicure. Jill always had the cutest nail art. Today it was a soft nude shade with a simple gold stripe accent.
She glanced at her own ragged fingernails. It was time she had a manicure of her own. Past time truthfully.
“This is a brooding-free zone. My pawpaw used to say it was good luck if a bird pooped on you.”
Bree allowed her friend to pull her up. “Really?”
“No.” Jill poked out her tongue. “But it sounds like something he would have said, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.” Bree reached into her back pocket and removed her phone, glaring at the blank screen, willing it to ring almost as much as she dreaded the answer.
“I hate this waiting game so much. Part of me wishes I could get knocked out and be brought back to consciousness once someone can tell me what’s going to happen next.”
Jill picked up a fragment of smooth, green sea glass and flung it into the whitecaps. “You need more distractions. I know! Let’s play a game.”
Bree made a show of folding her arms and sizing her up. Jill was such a fixer, always wanting people around her to be happy, always the one with a suggestion. Usually Bree didn’t mind. It was pretty darn great to have a friend willing to search out the best happy hour deals or find the greatest Airbnbs when they’d road-tripped to Boston.
But right now she didn’t want to be ordered around. “What do you have in mind? If you suggest hot dog tag, I’m gonna trip you. Just like in third grade.”
And in a tiny poisonous part of her heart, Bree did want to trip Jill, standing there all toned legs from her daily 5Ks, her golden skin radiating good health and infinite possibility. Sure, Jill had seen more than her share of loss but right now her body was so vibrant, so healthy. Bree choked down the bitter surge of envy like it was one of her sister’s extra-healthy dandelion salads. Jealousy was the worst and never did a friendship good.
“Hilarious.” Jill snorted, happily unaware of Bree’s secret flash of evilness. “I haven’t thought about hot dog tag in over twenty years.”
“How weird that we’ve known each other for so many decades,” Bree said, schooling friendliness back into her tone, unwilling to be held hostage by unwelcome feelings. “Half the time I still feel sixteen. But then I glance in the mirror and my crow’s-feet say otherwise.”
“Smile lines are gorgeous. They give a gal character.” Jill tossed her rose-gold hair, dyed to match the frames of her glasses, her style since high school. “At least that’s what I tell myself daily—so don’t you dare contradict me. And anyway I was thinking less hot dog tag and more what will you do when you find out that you’re in the clear?”
“Shhhhh!” Bree wagged a finger “Don’t jinx me.”
“Oh give me that.” Jill plucked the wine bottle from Bree’s grasp and took a swig. “There’s no jinxing here. Think I’d ever risk losing you, too?” A dark expression passed over her otherwise sunny expression. There and gone in a flash.
“Oh, Jilly Beans.” Bree used her long-standing nickname as her friend’s words unlocked something inside her, a poignant reminder that she wasn’t the only one with problems. “Crap. I’m sorry if my health stuff is triggering. The last thing I want is to mope around, going ‘poor me’ while you—”
“Support my best friend.” Jill’s wide mouth might be crooked into a lopsided grin, but her gaze swung out to the sea, arms crossing in clear warning: “Don’t go there.”
If there was one thing that Bree had learned since Jill’s husband’s death three years ago, it was that if Jill wanted to talk about Simon, she would. Otherwise, it was best to leave the subject well enough alone. These days Jill seemed to expend all her energy on keeping others happy, almost as if she could use their energy to sustain her. And if that was the case, Bree would try her level best.
“Okay, okay, fine. You win.” Bree studied her friend’s profile, now staring wistfully at two boys in superhero shirts whooping up the beach in hot pursuit of their black labradoodle. “Let’s play your little game. It’s either that or watch the minutes tick by while getting more and more sloshed.”
“We’re already doing that.” Jill toasted her, voice a little thick before clearing her throat. “So…what are all the things you’re going to do once you get your second chance?”
“Do?” Bree blinked. “Like a bucket list?”
“An anti–bucket list. Because girl, you aren’t allowed to kick any bucket until you hit the triple digits.”
She snorted. “Is that a fact?”
Jill threw her hands on her hips. “Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Okay, okay. Calm down and let me think.” Bree traced a happy face in the sand with her big toe, as if the gesture could summon lightheartedness. “I should really open an IRA. And I’ve never figured out how to install that dimmer light I bought for the dining room. Oh! And I haven’t completed the five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle I got at the Met Store the last time I went to New York. That pretty replica of spring in Central Park—”
“Argh. You’ve killed me with boring.” Jill clutched her chest, staggering backward before collapsing into a dramatic heap on the sand, still, impressively, not spilling a drop of wine.
“Oh knock it off.” Bree rolled her eyes. “I’m being realistic.”
“Sure, if you’re ready to move into Silver Maples.” Jill dropped the pointed reference to Cranberry Cove’s retirement community. “But good lord, you’re still in your thirties. I don’t want to judge your list, but I’m gonna judge this list. Time for a do-over. Go deeper. Think about what you really want from life but have always been afraid to chase. Screw fear. Dream big.”
Bree pursed her lips. Go deeper? It was cold and dark down deep. Monsters lurked in subterranean caverns. Who knows what other dangers? She preferred floating on life’s surface, remaining in the shallows. But Jill was getting that stubborn set to her chin, the one that meant she wasn’t backing down from a debate.
“Fine, what do you want me to say?” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I long to hike the Great Wall of China? Dream of skydiving? Yearn to visit an endangered tribe in the Amazon?”
Jill flashed a thumbs-up. “Now we’re talking.”
“While we’re at it, why don’t I win the lottery and go on a date with Thor?”
“Now you’ve swung from boring to unrealistic. You can’t control the lottery, and sadly for us mortals…” Jill shrugged. “Thor isn’t actually, you know…real.”
“This is a ridiculous exercise.” Bree began to pace, restless and unsettled. “You know me! I work in a knitting store for Pete’s sake. If you need a new cowl or a pair of fingerless mittens for fall then I’m your gal. But I’m not some hard-core adrenaline junkie with an appetite for danger. I get woozy on my porch swing and I hate sleeping in tents.”
She refused to glance back up at the cliffs in the direction of Grandview Inn, the historic B and B that had stood sentinel over Cranberry Cove for more than a century. A property that had been closed for over a decade, had seen better days, but always seemed to beckon to Bree, a little insistent whisper of “What if…”
What if she could bring it back to life?
What if she could restore its former grandeur?
A silly notion.
Jill pushed back to standing and slung her arm around Bree’s slouching shoulders. As always, she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Towering over Jill’s petite five-foot frame always made Bree feel like a lumbering Amazon. “I happen to think there is a happy medium between making your life goals a choice between jigsaw puzzles and trekking through China.”
“I like to do puzzles.” Bree nudged Jill gently in the ribs. “Boring knitter here, remember?”
“Why do you pretend that you’re ordinary?” Jill asked after a long pause. “You’re my person, my favorite person, the one who punched Leroy Reynolds when he wiped boogers on me on the school bus and the only one who kept me going after…well…after.”
Bree’s eyes prickled with sudden unshed tears. There was “Before Jill,” happy, bubbly, head-over-heels in love with her handsome mechanic husband. And “After Jill,” a widow too young, too skinny, and too lost, but quick to slap on a smile that passed for convincing if you disregarded the hollowed shadows in her gaze and brittle edge to her attitude. The Jill in front of her today was a lot like the Jill who had been married to Simon, but also vastly different. Bree knew from personal experience that there was no “right” timeline for processing grief. Still, Jill didn’t need to act as if she was made of steel. She was allowed to drop the brave face and shatter now and again. But she never did.
And Bree didn’t know how to make it okay. But she could be there.
She could go deep. She’d do anything for this woman.
Closing her eyes, she blurted the first wish that came to her mind. “Sex.”
“Ex-squeeze me?” Jill startled. “Did you just say—”
“Sex. I miss it. You know I haven’t gotten any action since Ian.” Ian Doring, aka Ian Boring. High school boyfriend. Ex-fiancé since five years ago. Five long years without…ahem. “I’m growing cobwebs between my legs. But it’s more than that. I don’t want to just do it. I want to feel it. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Passion with a capital P. Love. Fireworks. Highs. Lows. Everything Ian wasn’t.”
“Ian the Actuary didn’t rock your world?” Jill arched a brow. “Shocker.”
“Don’t be mean. Ian was fine.”
Fine.
God, the bland, beige word sounded worse when she spoke it out loud.
Her ex-fiancé was fine. That had been the whole problem. And worse, she’d been content to go along with it because the relationship felt as easy and comfortable as a pair of old yoga pants. He’d had to be the one to end it, unwilling to settle for good enough even when she was.
She heard he’d left insurance behind and gotten into data science out in Silicon Valley where he now lived in a Palo Alto mini-mansion, drove a Tesla, and married a former Miss Arizona.
That stung a bit, to be honest. Turned out that when push came to shove boring ol’ Ian wasn’t quite so boring. Maybe she’d been the problem all along.
“And I want a dog,” Bree blurted, glancing back at the labradoodle now playing fetch with the boys. “Ian was allergic so that was always off the table. But I’d love a furry friend to take down to the beach, or give me an excuse to get out of bed early on the weekends. It felt like a thing I’d wait to do until I was part of a couple, but why wait?”
“Sexy times with a passionate man and being an independent woman who adopts a dog.” A slow grin spread over Jill’s fine elfin features. “Now this is the stuff of anti–bucket list gold.”
Bree picked up a chipped periwinkle shell and heaved it out into the water. “Hold on. I’m not done yet.” She was just warming up.
“You go, girl,” encouraged Jill. “What else do you want?” She also flung a shell in the water.
“I want something I call my own, you know, in the work department.”
“Like your sis and Sadie have with Hester’s Pie Shop?” Jill asked. Renee and her next-door neighbor, Sadie, had recently opened a pie shop in the Old Red Mill to local fanfare and rave reviews.
“Something like that.” Bree’s mind wandered to a sweet dream of running an old Maine inn, the white shingles, the cozy bedrooms, a place where people go to escape stress and rejuvenate themselves. She took a deep breath and danced around the topic. “As much as I love Castaway Yarns, I’ve never seen it as a forever job. I love knitting and it pays the bills—and thank god for the health insurance—but c’mon the place hasn’t changed since Ronald Reagan was president. And anyway, it’s Noreen’s baby, not mine.”
Bree was just the shop assistant. Noreen owned Castaway and called all the shots on displays and merchandise orders. And even though knitting was getting more and more popular as women—and men too!—yearned for a low-tech hobby to help them escape the real world, it didn’t feel as if the store was keeping up with the times.
Truth be told, Bree was tired of dropping hints here and there about including more contemporary knitting patterns or getting more sustainably sourced wool or needles and being brushed off. “It would be amazing to have a business that was just mine.”
Her insides twisted. There was one other thing, that little secret that she had never told anyone, about the embossed certificate sitting in the top drawer of her father’s old rolltop desk, the one that read:
Bree Robinson. Bachelor of Arts. Hotel Management.
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The online degree she’d completed two years ago. The one that she couldn’t tell anyone about because at the end of the day, while she spent nights poring over hotel websites and plotting design plans and breakfast menus in her journal, she didn’t want to leave home. She loved Cranberry Cove’s community, and knew she belonged here more than anywhere else in the world.
But there weren’t exactly lots of hotels in the village.
Her gaze turned unwillingly up to the Grandview, the faded shingles, the big bay windows, the overgrown flowers.
“You’re losing focus. What else?” Jill pushed.
Bree pursed her lips. There was something else she could share, a safer dream.
“I want to sing,” she blurted. “Like in public. In front of real people. I used to love choir and gave it all up after high school.”
“Wow. You’re impressing me,” Jill retorted, not a trace of sarcasm to be found for once. “What a great idea! You are a wonderful singer.”
“Thank you.” Bree’s cheeks flushed as she smoothed back her hair, getting blown about in the strengthening offshore gusts. “I’m impressing myself. I didn’t really realize all that was in me, right below the surface. Thanks for making me go there.”
The phone’s ring cut through the momentary silence.
Bree turned her head to Jill, and they locked wide eyes before Bree glanced at her screen.
Southern Maine Medical Partners.
Her fingers shook so hard she could barely hit answer. Here it was. The moment of truth.
Chapter Two
Bree stood statue still, her blond curly hair dancing in the wind gusts. “Uh-huh,” she said blankly. “I see.” She nodded once, as if the person on the other end of the phone could see the gesture. “Sorry, I meant yes. Got it. Thanks for the call. I’ll be sure to follow up.”
Jill’s stomach gave a sudden retch, threatening to evacuate the grilled cheese and apple sandwich she’d eaten for lunch. Not to mention most of a bottle of wine. A follow-up? Shit. That couldn’t be good.
Bree hung up and stared out at the cove. A lobster boat was coming around the far headland, traps stacked five feet high in the back.
It felt as if that dark cold water was rushing into Jill’s lungs, the salt filling her throat. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t lose Bree. Not after Simon. Ever since her bestie confessed to finding the lump, Jill had been willing an all-clear diagnosis, as if she could control fate through sheer force of will. The universe wasn’t going to take another one of her people. It simply wasn’t allowed.
“So…I don’t have cancer,” Bree finally said in a soft whisper.
Jill startled, not trusting her own ears, especially when her blo. . .
The seagull swooped in low. Its long gray wings were a perfect match to the coastal fog and Bree Robinson’s gloomy mood. She fingered her delicate bracelet, the one with the “You Got This” quote inscribed into the gold plating, as a ray of sunshine sliced through the stubborn clouds, dazzling the waves. A knot loosened in her lower belly. Maybe here was the sign she’d been looking for, a cosmic signal that today would have a happy ending. Her shoulders barely had time to relax before the damn bird banked, splattering poop over the top of her head.
Nope. Never mind. Today was an officially crappy day.
Sprawled a couple of feet away in an identical blue-striped beach chair, her bestie, Jill Kelly, fanned her hands, in danger of spraying wine out her pert nose. Finally, she must have choked down her chardonnay because she gasped, “I know this is a crappy situation, but, girl, come on, no need to be so literal!”
“Ugh, gross.” Reaching for the off-white linen scarf she’d draped around her shoulders to protect herself from the ocean breeze, Bree gingerly swiped at her hair. “Is it gone? Tell me it’s gone!”
Jill waved her hand in a suspiciously unsympathetic motion, losing the battle to hold back a giggle. “You’ll need a shower later, but that’s a good enough job to keep day drinking,” she said pressing the wine bottle directly into Bree’s hand in lieu of refilling her glass. “Anyway, isn’t laughter supposed to be the best medicine? Or wait, was that wine?”
Then why didn’t she feel better? Bree scowled at the pale liquid. Silly reaction. The chardonnay hadn’t done anything wrong. “Unless you’ve got cancer,” she retorted, “and then it’s chemotherapy.”
“Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, hold on!” Jill swatted Bree’s arm while leveling a fierce glare. “You can’t say the C word out loud. It’s against the rules today!”
Bree took a long pull of wine, blotting her lips with the back of her hand. “If anyone can break a rule right now, it’s me.”
Any minute now she’d be getting her biopsy results.
Had it really been six weeks since that lazy Sunday afternoon, when her only plan had been to indulge in a little self-care: luxuriate in a hot shower, apply a hydrating sheet mask, paint her toes, and fantasize about the Hemsworth brothers? As she’d languidly massaged her favorite jasmine-scented bodywash across her chest, her breath had cut out.
What. The. Hell. Was. That?
She’d dragged her fingers back and probed the corn kernel–sized lump buried in the soft flesh near her left nipple. Despite being neck deep in hot water, her body went ice cold.
And the stupid knot didn’t disappear no matter how many times she’d poked, prodded, and pleaded for it to go away. All she’d managed to do was give herself one wicked boob bruise.
Doctor visits were scheduled. Clinical breast exams done. Mammograms ordered. Results were inconclusive. Ultrasounds were conducted. That’s when the radiologist recommended a biopsy, a needle that would reveal the truth, like the world’s worst fortune-teller. Peer into the diagnostic crystal ball: Would she become another American Cancer Society statistic, her world shrinking to artful head wraps and days at the infusion center?
It was hard to rock an upbeat “Cancer is a word, not a sentence” attitude after losing her mom to her own breast lump. It was all terrible. The diagnosis, the treatment, the long, wretched bedside hospice vigil with her big sister, Renee, listening to the lengthening pauses between ragged breaths, watching her mother’s creamy skin mottle, staring into her nonreactive eyes searching for a sign—any goddamn sign—that the woman she adored was still there. Her mom had been her rock, her go-to, the first person she’d call every morning, the one who had an answer for everything. The one who always told Bree to dream big and believe in herself.
Her death was like losing a limb. And the phantom pain never went away.
She didn’t just lose her mom, she lost her biggest cheerleader.
“Oh heck no, we’re not doing this.” Jill pushed herself to standing, kicked off her cherry-red flip-flops and stuck out a hand.
“What?” Bree frowned at her friend’s manicure. Jill always had the cutest nail art. Today it was a soft nude shade with a simple gold stripe accent.
She glanced at her own ragged fingernails. It was time she had a manicure of her own. Past time truthfully.
“This is a brooding-free zone. My pawpaw used to say it was good luck if a bird pooped on you.”
Bree allowed her friend to pull her up. “Really?”
“No.” Jill poked out her tongue. “But it sounds like something he would have said, doesn’t it?”
“I guess.” Bree reached into her back pocket and removed her phone, glaring at the blank screen, willing it to ring almost as much as she dreaded the answer.
“I hate this waiting game so much. Part of me wishes I could get knocked out and be brought back to consciousness once someone can tell me what’s going to happen next.”
Jill picked up a fragment of smooth, green sea glass and flung it into the whitecaps. “You need more distractions. I know! Let’s play a game.”
Bree made a show of folding her arms and sizing her up. Jill was such a fixer, always wanting people around her to be happy, always the one with a suggestion. Usually Bree didn’t mind. It was pretty darn great to have a friend willing to search out the best happy hour deals or find the greatest Airbnbs when they’d road-tripped to Boston.
But right now she didn’t want to be ordered around. “What do you have in mind? If you suggest hot dog tag, I’m gonna trip you. Just like in third grade.”
And in a tiny poisonous part of her heart, Bree did want to trip Jill, standing there all toned legs from her daily 5Ks, her golden skin radiating good health and infinite possibility. Sure, Jill had seen more than her share of loss but right now her body was so vibrant, so healthy. Bree choked down the bitter surge of envy like it was one of her sister’s extra-healthy dandelion salads. Jealousy was the worst and never did a friendship good.
“Hilarious.” Jill snorted, happily unaware of Bree’s secret flash of evilness. “I haven’t thought about hot dog tag in over twenty years.”
“How weird that we’ve known each other for so many decades,” Bree said, schooling friendliness back into her tone, unwilling to be held hostage by unwelcome feelings. “Half the time I still feel sixteen. But then I glance in the mirror and my crow’s-feet say otherwise.”
“Smile lines are gorgeous. They give a gal character.” Jill tossed her rose-gold hair, dyed to match the frames of her glasses, her style since high school. “At least that’s what I tell myself daily—so don’t you dare contradict me. And anyway I was thinking less hot dog tag and more what will you do when you find out that you’re in the clear?”
“Shhhhh!” Bree wagged a finger “Don’t jinx me.”
“Oh give me that.” Jill plucked the wine bottle from Bree’s grasp and took a swig. “There’s no jinxing here. Think I’d ever risk losing you, too?” A dark expression passed over her otherwise sunny expression. There and gone in a flash.
“Oh, Jilly Beans.” Bree used her long-standing nickname as her friend’s words unlocked something inside her, a poignant reminder that she wasn’t the only one with problems. “Crap. I’m sorry if my health stuff is triggering. The last thing I want is to mope around, going ‘poor me’ while you—”
“Support my best friend.” Jill’s wide mouth might be crooked into a lopsided grin, but her gaze swung out to the sea, arms crossing in clear warning: “Don’t go there.”
If there was one thing that Bree had learned since Jill’s husband’s death three years ago, it was that if Jill wanted to talk about Simon, she would. Otherwise, it was best to leave the subject well enough alone. These days Jill seemed to expend all her energy on keeping others happy, almost as if she could use their energy to sustain her. And if that was the case, Bree would try her level best.
“Okay, okay, fine. You win.” Bree studied her friend’s profile, now staring wistfully at two boys in superhero shirts whooping up the beach in hot pursuit of their black labradoodle. “Let’s play your little game. It’s either that or watch the minutes tick by while getting more and more sloshed.”
“We’re already doing that.” Jill toasted her, voice a little thick before clearing her throat. “So…what are all the things you’re going to do once you get your second chance?”
“Do?” Bree blinked. “Like a bucket list?”
“An anti–bucket list. Because girl, you aren’t allowed to kick any bucket until you hit the triple digits.”
She snorted. “Is that a fact?”
Jill threw her hands on her hips. “Is the Pope Catholic?”
“Okay, okay. Calm down and let me think.” Bree traced a happy face in the sand with her big toe, as if the gesture could summon lightheartedness. “I should really open an IRA. And I’ve never figured out how to install that dimmer light I bought for the dining room. Oh! And I haven’t completed the five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle I got at the Met Store the last time I went to New York. That pretty replica of spring in Central Park—”
“Argh. You’ve killed me with boring.” Jill clutched her chest, staggering backward before collapsing into a dramatic heap on the sand, still, impressively, not spilling a drop of wine.
“Oh knock it off.” Bree rolled her eyes. “I’m being realistic.”
“Sure, if you’re ready to move into Silver Maples.” Jill dropped the pointed reference to Cranberry Cove’s retirement community. “But good lord, you’re still in your thirties. I don’t want to judge your list, but I’m gonna judge this list. Time for a do-over. Go deeper. Think about what you really want from life but have always been afraid to chase. Screw fear. Dream big.”
Bree pursed her lips. Go deeper? It was cold and dark down deep. Monsters lurked in subterranean caverns. Who knows what other dangers? She preferred floating on life’s surface, remaining in the shallows. But Jill was getting that stubborn set to her chin, the one that meant she wasn’t backing down from a debate.
“Fine, what do you want me to say?” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “I long to hike the Great Wall of China? Dream of skydiving? Yearn to visit an endangered tribe in the Amazon?”
Jill flashed a thumbs-up. “Now we’re talking.”
“While we’re at it, why don’t I win the lottery and go on a date with Thor?”
“Now you’ve swung from boring to unrealistic. You can’t control the lottery, and sadly for us mortals…” Jill shrugged. “Thor isn’t actually, you know…real.”
“This is a ridiculous exercise.” Bree began to pace, restless and unsettled. “You know me! I work in a knitting store for Pete’s sake. If you need a new cowl or a pair of fingerless mittens for fall then I’m your gal. But I’m not some hard-core adrenaline junkie with an appetite for danger. I get woozy on my porch swing and I hate sleeping in tents.”
She refused to glance back up at the cliffs in the direction of Grandview Inn, the historic B and B that had stood sentinel over Cranberry Cove for more than a century. A property that had been closed for over a decade, had seen better days, but always seemed to beckon to Bree, a little insistent whisper of “What if…”
What if she could bring it back to life?
What if she could restore its former grandeur?
A silly notion.
Jill pushed back to standing and slung her arm around Bree’s slouching shoulders. As always, she had to stand on tiptoe to do it. Towering over Jill’s petite five-foot frame always made Bree feel like a lumbering Amazon. “I happen to think there is a happy medium between making your life goals a choice between jigsaw puzzles and trekking through China.”
“I like to do puzzles.” Bree nudged Jill gently in the ribs. “Boring knitter here, remember?”
“Why do you pretend that you’re ordinary?” Jill asked after a long pause. “You’re my person, my favorite person, the one who punched Leroy Reynolds when he wiped boogers on me on the school bus and the only one who kept me going after…well…after.”
Bree’s eyes prickled with sudden unshed tears. There was “Before Jill,” happy, bubbly, head-over-heels in love with her handsome mechanic husband. And “After Jill,” a widow too young, too skinny, and too lost, but quick to slap on a smile that passed for convincing if you disregarded the hollowed shadows in her gaze and brittle edge to her attitude. The Jill in front of her today was a lot like the Jill who had been married to Simon, but also vastly different. Bree knew from personal experience that there was no “right” timeline for processing grief. Still, Jill didn’t need to act as if she was made of steel. She was allowed to drop the brave face and shatter now and again. But she never did.
And Bree didn’t know how to make it okay. But she could be there.
She could go deep. She’d do anything for this woman.
Closing her eyes, she blurted the first wish that came to her mind. “Sex.”
“Ex-squeeze me?” Jill startled. “Did you just say—”
“Sex. I miss it. You know I haven’t gotten any action since Ian.” Ian Doring, aka Ian Boring. High school boyfriend. Ex-fiancé since five years ago. Five long years without…ahem. “I’m growing cobwebs between my legs. But it’s more than that. I don’t want to just do it. I want to feel it. From the top of my head to the tips of my toes. Passion with a capital P. Love. Fireworks. Highs. Lows. Everything Ian wasn’t.”
“Ian the Actuary didn’t rock your world?” Jill arched a brow. “Shocker.”
“Don’t be mean. Ian was fine.”
Fine.
God, the bland, beige word sounded worse when she spoke it out loud.
Her ex-fiancé was fine. That had been the whole problem. And worse, she’d been content to go along with it because the relationship felt as easy and comfortable as a pair of old yoga pants. He’d had to be the one to end it, unwilling to settle for good enough even when she was.
She heard he’d left insurance behind and gotten into data science out in Silicon Valley where he now lived in a Palo Alto mini-mansion, drove a Tesla, and married a former Miss Arizona.
That stung a bit, to be honest. Turned out that when push came to shove boring ol’ Ian wasn’t quite so boring. Maybe she’d been the problem all along.
“And I want a dog,” Bree blurted, glancing back at the labradoodle now playing fetch with the boys. “Ian was allergic so that was always off the table. But I’d love a furry friend to take down to the beach, or give me an excuse to get out of bed early on the weekends. It felt like a thing I’d wait to do until I was part of a couple, but why wait?”
“Sexy times with a passionate man and being an independent woman who adopts a dog.” A slow grin spread over Jill’s fine elfin features. “Now this is the stuff of anti–bucket list gold.”
Bree picked up a chipped periwinkle shell and heaved it out into the water. “Hold on. I’m not done yet.” She was just warming up.
“You go, girl,” encouraged Jill. “What else do you want?” She also flung a shell in the water.
“I want something I call my own, you know, in the work department.”
“Like your sis and Sadie have with Hester’s Pie Shop?” Jill asked. Renee and her next-door neighbor, Sadie, had recently opened a pie shop in the Old Red Mill to local fanfare and rave reviews.
“Something like that.” Bree’s mind wandered to a sweet dream of running an old Maine inn, the white shingles, the cozy bedrooms, a place where people go to escape stress and rejuvenate themselves. She took a deep breath and danced around the topic. “As much as I love Castaway Yarns, I’ve never seen it as a forever job. I love knitting and it pays the bills—and thank god for the health insurance—but c’mon the place hasn’t changed since Ronald Reagan was president. And anyway, it’s Noreen’s baby, not mine.”
Bree was just the shop assistant. Noreen owned Castaway and called all the shots on displays and merchandise orders. And even though knitting was getting more and more popular as women—and men too!—yearned for a low-tech hobby to help them escape the real world, it didn’t feel as if the store was keeping up with the times.
Truth be told, Bree was tired of dropping hints here and there about including more contemporary knitting patterns or getting more sustainably sourced wool or needles and being brushed off. “It would be amazing to have a business that was just mine.”
Her insides twisted. There was one other thing, that little secret that she had never told anyone, about the embossed certificate sitting in the top drawer of her father’s old rolltop desk, the one that read:
Bree Robinson. Bachelor of Arts. Hotel Management.
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The online degree she’d completed two years ago. The one that she couldn’t tell anyone about because at the end of the day, while she spent nights poring over hotel websites and plotting design plans and breakfast menus in her journal, she didn’t want to leave home. She loved Cranberry Cove’s community, and knew she belonged here more than anywhere else in the world.
But there weren’t exactly lots of hotels in the village.
Her gaze turned unwillingly up to the Grandview, the faded shingles, the big bay windows, the overgrown flowers.
“You’re losing focus. What else?” Jill pushed.
Bree pursed her lips. There was something else she could share, a safer dream.
“I want to sing,” she blurted. “Like in public. In front of real people. I used to love choir and gave it all up after high school.”
“Wow. You’re impressing me,” Jill retorted, not a trace of sarcasm to be found for once. “What a great idea! You are a wonderful singer.”
“Thank you.” Bree’s cheeks flushed as she smoothed back her hair, getting blown about in the strengthening offshore gusts. “I’m impressing myself. I didn’t really realize all that was in me, right below the surface. Thanks for making me go there.”
The phone’s ring cut through the momentary silence.
Bree turned her head to Jill, and they locked wide eyes before Bree glanced at her screen.
Southern Maine Medical Partners.
Her fingers shook so hard she could barely hit answer. Here it was. The moment of truth.
Chapter Two
Bree stood statue still, her blond curly hair dancing in the wind gusts. “Uh-huh,” she said blankly. “I see.” She nodded once, as if the person on the other end of the phone could see the gesture. “Sorry, I meant yes. Got it. Thanks for the call. I’ll be sure to follow up.”
Jill’s stomach gave a sudden retch, threatening to evacuate the grilled cheese and apple sandwich she’d eaten for lunch. Not to mention most of a bottle of wine. A follow-up? Shit. That couldn’t be good.
Bree hung up and stared out at the cove. A lobster boat was coming around the far headland, traps stacked five feet high in the back.
It felt as if that dark cold water was rushing into Jill’s lungs, the salt filling her throat. No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t lose Bree. Not after Simon. Ever since her bestie confessed to finding the lump, Jill had been willing an all-clear diagnosis, as if she could control fate through sheer force of will. The universe wasn’t going to take another one of her people. It simply wasn’t allowed.
“So…I don’t have cancer,” Bree finally said in a soft whisper.
Jill startled, not trusting her own ears, especially when her blo. . .
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