Page 35 of An Island Summer
An insanely busy work day hadn’t deterred Meghan and Tess from finishing the painting in the living room and kitchen, cleaning up, and getting the rooms back in order. Charlie flopped onto his dog bed right about the time both women fell onto the sofa in exhaustion. The dining table had been pushed back into its spot by the windows, the furniture arranged, the rugs laid.
With the front door wide open to reduce the pungent scent of the paint fumes, Meghan stared at the old television set perched in the corner. “We definitely need to do some updating in here.”
“True, but we are blessed with our choices of VHS cassette or DVD when it comes to movie options,” Tess teased.
Meghan chuckled and peered out the door at the magnificent view, wishing she had the funds to outfit the porch with cushioned chairs. The tiny slip of blue ocean peeked out from behind the wide expanse of vegetation that bordered the wooden walk on either side, and the deep purple sky was priming itself for the appearance of the first night’s stars.
“So do you believe that stuff about Toby?” Tess asked, bringing up their earlier conversation.
“The widowed part or the millionaire-swindler part?”
“They’re very conflicting ideas of him, aren’t they?” Tess held her hair up into a sweaty ponytail, the heat from outside filling the tiny cottage. “Grieving husband and guy who would rob his family blind.”
“Could he be both?” Meghan asked, contemplating the two. “Could one have caused the other?”
Tess dropped her hair and shook her head in response, clearly without an answer. “You could askhim. Although I’m not sure the next moment you see him will be the best opportunity.”
Meghan gave her friend an inquisitive look.
“He might be at the Midsummer Night’s Dream party.”
She’d almost forgotten that he could be there. “Whichever of his issues is true—or not true—I’m not ready to deal with any of it right now. I barely have my own life in order… Should I back out of the party?”
Charlie got up and sauntered through the open door to the front porch, dropping down on it with a thump and lying on his side.
“You don’t have to do anything that drastic,” Tess replied. “It’s a big party. You can hang out with me and the staff. If he’s there, I’ll bet you’ll barely even see him.”
Meghan nodded, thinking. “I came here to have a break from my problems. Not to add to them. But somehow, I have.” She turned toward the warm breeze coming in off the ocean.
Tess’s normally lighthearted expression downturned. “So will you keep seeing Rupert?”
Her friend’s question caused indecision to tug at Meghan. Poor Rupert had nothing to do with any of it. But being tied to Rupert would mean she’d be forced to see Toby, and she was starting to wonder if it was a good idea to keep running into him. “Maybe I’ll shorten my next few visits, tapering off until I finally just stop,” she thought aloud, already worrying that Rupert would miss Hester terribly.
“Maybe that’s the best thing,” her friend said.
Meghan took in a deep breath of the calming, salty air. “Yeah. It probably is.”
FOURTEEN
“What do you want to do today?” Meghan asked, padding into the dining area, holding her morning cup of coffee. With the inn’s restaurant closed for party preparations, Meghan and Tess had the day off. She pulled out a chair across from her best friend and took a seat.
“Anything you’re burning to see that you haven’t since you’ve been back?” Tess asked, already sitting at the table in a T-shirt, her bare legs crossed, wearing glasses that Meghan only saw her wear just before and after sleeping.
Meghan pouted, combing through the days of her youth to answer Tess’s question. Then, suddenly her time at Pappy’s grave came back to her. “You know, right before Pappy died, he told me to go to ‘Ricroft.’ Do you know of it, by chance?”
“No, it’s a place?”
“I’venever heard of anywhere called that, but the way Pappy said it—‘go to Ricroft’—it sounds like it.”
Tess pulled out her phone. “Let’s do a little search and see if anything comes up in the area. How do you spell it?”
“No idea. R-I-C-R-O-F-T maybe?”
Tess typed it in and peered down at the screen, frowning. “Nope. Not a thing.”
Meghan shrugged it off. “It was probably nothing.”
“Well, since we’re at the beach, why don’t we bake in the sun until we’re crispy like toast, and then go buy all the fixings to make margaritas that we can have while we get ready for tonight.”
