Page 16 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

His mom stood in the kitchen, fixing lunch. “How was practice?”

“Good,” Quinn said, setting the bag on the counter. “He’s just mad because I’m making him work tomorrow with Uncle Bobby.”

“Ah,” Ginny said, tapping a wooden spoon on a pot. “He says he isn’t going to be home for dinner tonight?”

“He’s got a date, I guess.” Quinn waited for his mother’s comment.

“Yes, that Brianna is a darling,” Ginny said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Nice family, the Pattersons.” Ginny pointed out the window. “She’s in town.”

Quinn stopped unpacking the groceries, not sure who his mother had referred to until he saw the woman out the window. “Jacob’s daughter is here?”

His mother pointed out the window again at Jacob’s cottage, which sat on the end of Blueberry Bay Lane on a little peninsula that crept out onto the Atlantic Ocean. One of the best views in all of Harmony Bay—in all of Maine, in Quinn’s opinion. Most of the houses had been built by fishing families back at the turn of the century and were now mixed with big summer homes built by families withlotsof money or a family that had inherited the house that had been handed down for generations.

And then there were the Michauds, who had been fishing lobster for decades. The family of seven had five boys, all willing to help the family business, including Quinn. It had been Quinn’s teacher who had told his parents his talents would be wasted fishing lobsters for the rest of his life, even if it had made their family a good living.

His mother made his father take him off the football field, and in his senior year, he applied himself more than ever and got a full ride to the local university. He went to law school after that and graduated at the top of his class. He’d had offers from prestigious law firms right out of school and had worked at one of the top-earning firms in Maine.

Then everything changed when Lisa had died.

“She said she was stuck in traffic,” he said. He peeked out the window, and sure enough, there was a fancy automobile sitting in Jacob’s driveway.

Ginny walked over to Quinn, and the two of them watched as the woman stood staring at the house. “Looks like she’s leaving.”

Jacob’s daughter marched back to her car, got in, and drove away.

Had traffic suddenly moved, and she made it faster than the GPS had predicted?

She’d made it to the house before he had made it across town.

“We better get down to the office,” Ginny said.

Quinn had promised Jacob that he would make things right for him before he’d died, when he wrote up his will. The old man had lived next door to his family as long as Quinn had been alive. He’d helped the Michauds out more times than Quinn could count and had ended up being family. It wasn’t until a year or so back that Jacob had asked Quinn to represent him and his estate.

“I want to leave her everything,” Jacob had said to Quinn when he’d showed up at his dinky office in the village.

“Who?” Quinn had asked.

“My daughter, Meredith.”

“You have a daughter?” Quinn had forgotten since Jacob never spoke of her.

He’d nodded. “Give it all to her.”

Now, as Quinn stood in the window watching Jacob’s daughter drive away toward the village, he wondered two things: How did Jacob have that beautiful of a daughter? And what kind of woman would he be dealing with?

CHAPTER7

After an hour of circling town and working up the nerve, Meredith finally stood outside a little shop front that adorned the wordsQuinn Michaud, Attorney at Law, Family Practice, L.L.C. Meredith assumed this lawyer couldn’t cut it at a big firm, but still wanted to charge an arm and leg while representing people going through the worst moments of their life.

Meredith hated lawyers.

When Phillip had first become anattorney—his choice of title—she’d been expected to attend parties and gatherings withthe other wives. Just like Tom Cruise’s character inThe Firm, Phillip had wined and dined and played golf with the partners, kissing up and doing their favors without asking any questions. He didn’t work for a crazy crime-filled mafia drama like the movie’s firm, but the intensity to show loyalty, devotion, and sacrifice was there just the same.

She had been naïve at first. She would let Phillip guide her through introductions with each of the attorneys in the room, whether it was the annual Christmas Eve brunch, or the company trips, or fancy dinners. He’d whisper in her ear what she should say—things of interest and what they had talked about last time.

“Marshall and his wife, Heather, just went to Hawaii,” he had whispered as one of the senior partners came close.

Then she had come in with the perfect personable question. “How was Hawaii with Heather?”

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