Page 5 of The Summer Swap

Lily shrugged. “I’m guessing some billionaire from Manhattan who can afford to keep it empty.”

“Isn’t it a bit small for a billionaire?”

“Maybe he’s a small, single billionaire.”

Mike grinned. “A single billionaire. Does such a thing exist? Money is a powerful aphrodisiac.”

“Not to everyone.” In her experience, money didn’t always bring out the best in people. “I have to go. See you tomorrow, Mike.” She climbed onto her bike and pedaled down the drive and onto the cycle track that led to a remote part of the Outer Cape. The trail took her over sandy dunes and past salt marshes, and then finally the cottage appeared, nestled among the dunes, separated from the ocean by soft sand and whispering seagrass. Its white clapboard walls and shingle roof had been weathered by the elements, but still the building stood firm. It had become as much a part of the landscape as the shifting sands that surrounded it.

Whoever owned it was the luckiest person in the world, Lily thought. And the most foolish, because who would own a place like this and not use it? It was a criminal waste.

She and the people she worked with occasionally played guessing games. It was owned by a rock star who had ten mansions and never quite got around to using this one. It was an FBI safe house. The owner was dead and buried under the deck (as she spent a lot of time alone there, that wasn’t Lily’s preferred theory).

Whoever it was had made sure that they couldn’t be identified. The management fees were paid by an obscure, faceless company. No one could remember when the cottage had last been inhabited. It was as if it had been forgotten, abandoned, except not entirely abandoned because it was maintained as if the owner might be coming home any day. And Lily was responsible for keeping it that way.

It was, in her opinion, the perfect job and if she was ahead of her workload she occasionally sneaked an hour or more to paint because the light and the views in this particular stretch of the Cape were spectacular.

She leaned her bike against the wall where it would be protected from the elements, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders and headed up the wooden steps to the deck that wrapped itself snugly around the cottage.

If Lily had been asked to name her dream house, this would have been the one. Not for her, the mansions that were dotted along the coast from Provincetown to Hyannis. She didn’t want marble, or hot tubs, a games room, gym or a cinema room.

She wanted this. The ever-changing light. The views. The feeling that you were living on the edge of the world. When she was here, her misery lifted. Her energy returned and she wanted to grab her sketchbook and record the view so that the memories would stay with her forever.

She delved into her pocket for the keys and opened the front door. Every time she stepped over the threshold, she fell in love all over again. She didn’t care that the place was weathered and worn. To her, that was part of its character. This place had been lived in and loved. It had history.

She tugged off her shoes and left the door open to allow the air and sunshine to fill the place.

The interior was simple, every item carefully chosen to complement the ocean setting. The sofa was shabby, upholstered in a blue fabric that had faded over time and had once matched the armchairs facing it. There were hints of nautical everywhere. The coffee table was made from timber salvaged from a shipwreck, no doubt a casualty of the dangerous waters and shifting sandbars. It was stacked with books and sometimes Lily curled up in the evening and read while listening to the sounds of the sea floating through the open windows.

The living room opened onto a wide veranda, which Lily was continually sweeping. At the back of the cottage there was a studio, north facing, with large windows that flooded the room with light.

Upstairs was a master bedroom with glorious views across the dunes, a large second bedroom and a third bedroom built into the eaves.

Lily headed upstairs, ducked her head to avoid banging it on the sloping roof and dropped her backpack in the smallest bedroom. She felt a stab of guilt and had to stop herself from glancing over her shoulder to check no one was watching her.

Just one night, she’d told herself the first time she’d stayed here. And then one night had become two, and two had turned into a week and she was still here two months later. At first she’d felt so guilty she hadn’t even slept on the bed. She’d unrolled her sleeping bag and slept on the sofa in the living room and woken when the morning light had shimmered across the room. She’d used the shower in the smaller of the two bathrooms and told herself that occasionally running the shower and flushing the toilets were an important part of her caretaking responsibility.

She hadn’t always lived here. Over the winter she’d shared a room with two other girls in a house in the town, but then the tourist season had taken off and every bed was needed for visitors. Lily’s funds didn’t stretch far enough to cover the cost of a new rental.

That was what she told herself, but the truth was she couldn’t bear to leave this beautiful place. Sometimes she felt as if the cottage needed her as much as she needed the cottage. And who was ever going to know? No one came out this far once the sun had set, and she’d already decided that if someone found her here during the day she would simply say that she was cleaning the place. That was her job after all.

Gradually the cottage had embraced her and made her feel at home. She’d graduated from the slightly lumpy sofa to the smallest bedroom in the eaves (the master bedroom was taking it too far) and now her sleeping bag was stretched on top of the bed and she even kept a few toiletries in the shower room.

Over time she’d started to think of the cottage as hers. She cared for it as lovingly as a family member. She couldn’t do anything about the peeling paint or the slightly tired furnishings, but she could make sure it was clean and always looked its best. Sometimes she even talked to the cottage as she was shaking out cushions and dusting down surfaces.

Why does no one come and stay in you? What sort of people are they that they’d leave you alone like this?

Whenever she was asked where she was living she gave a vague response, leading people to believe that she was couch surfing until she found somewhere permanent. The truth was, she’d stopped looking. Partly because her days were full, but mostly because she couldn’t bring herself to leave and saw no reason to do so as the place was empty.

She loved being alone here. It meant that she could be herself, and not have to pretend to be something she wasn’t. She loved the fact that in the evenings she could sit on the deck and watch the setting sun throw streaks of red over the sky and water. If she couldn’t sleep, she could switch on the light and read without anyone asking her if she was okay. She could eat, or not eat, knowing that no one was policing her food intake. She could feel what she wanted to feel without the added pressure of knowing she was worrying someone.

She didn’t have to pretend to be fine.

Because she wasn’t fine. She hurt, inside and out, and until she stopped hurting she didn’t want to be anywhere but here. She couldn’t think of a better place to be wounded.

The cottage nurtured her, tempting her to sit on its sunny deck, or venture into the cozy kitchen to make herself a sandwich or a mug of creamy hot chocolate. With its old wooden cabinets and butcher-block countertops, the kitchen had a warm, welcoming feel that was a contrast to the sleek, modern kitchens that graced most of the homes she cleaned.

But the biggest comfort for Lily was the paintings. The walls were crowded with them. Sketches, oils and pastels—she’d studied them all closely, examining every brushstroke and every line because they were all extraordinary. And she couldn’t believe that paintings of this quality were hanging on the wall of an almost abandoned beach cottage, because they weren’t prints of the sort that were sold by the thousands in various shops along the Cape, or the work of an amateur. She was sure—or as sure as she could be—that at least some of them were the work of Cameron Lapthorne. His initials were in the corner. CL. And she recognized his style.

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