Page 10 of The Cottage on Blueberry Bay

“You could check out Jacob’s cottage and fix it up, then sell it,” Gordon said.

“I can’t flip a house,” she said.

“Why not?” Gordon gave her a look as though she was being unreasonable.

She picked up the velvet box and opened it again, pulled out the key, and pressed the teeth of the brass into her thumb, making indentations into her skin. Then she rubbed the smooth surface of the driftwood, feeling the contrast from the hard, cold key to the soft, warm wood.

“Remy thinks I should drive up there.”

“That’s a great idea!” Her father’s eyes brightened, but a pain drifted in. “It gave your mother comfort to close that chapter in her life.”

Something about the look in his eyes told her there was more to what he said, but she didn’t push it. She loved Gordon, and to her, he was her father, whether she had his blood or not. Jacob was just a stranger.

“I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.”

Gordon slanted his head in empathy. Jacqueline had not been the kind of parent who would confess her feelings or hopes or dreams. She had done that in her art. Meredith was almost certain Gordon didn’t even know all of Jacqueline’s story.

Meredith, on the other hand, had told Jacqueline everything. She would listen to her childish confessions and her darkest adult secrets. Her mother was the first person she told when she’d had her first kiss, her first and last cigarette, and the first time she had slept in the same bed with her husband. She was the first to know when she’d gotten engaged to Phillip and had been pregnant with her children, even before Phillip and Remy.

Her mother had known everything about her, but as she traced the jagged edge of the key with her thumb, she wondered what else her mother hadn’t told her.

CHAPTER5

When Meredith returned from her father’s, she stood at her kitchen island, opened the velvet box, and stared at the key. She picked up the tiny piece of driftwood and ran her finger against the indents of her mother’s handwriting.

Le gîteen bord de Mer.

The Cottage by the Sea.

Why hadn’t her mother pushed her more to meet him? Why had she let one conversation stop her? Why hadn’t she talked to Meredith about him before she’d died?

It had been Meredith’s thirteenth birthday party when she had overheard Jacqueline talking to her friend’s mother in the kitchen about Jacob. She had gone to find the mothers to let them know they wanted the cake, when she’d heard his name.

“Jacob had been the love of my life,” she’d said to Mrs. Morrow. Meredith could see a look of sorrow across her face.

Her friend’s mom had nodded like she understood. “That must’ve been difficult, what you two went through.”

“Yes.” Jacqueline had looked out the window. “But then Gordon took her in as if she were his own, and I will forever be grateful for him.”

Mrs. Morrow had continued nodding her head. “Your first love will always stay with you.”

“Yes, they always seem to hold a part of your heart, don’t they?” Jacqueline had held her skinny hand to her heart.

Meredith had slipped away, ashamed of her mother for saying Gordon wasn’t her true love, and vowed to always support Gordon, herrealfather, over some deadbeat who couldn’t be bothered.

Why hadn’t Jacqueline ever revealed any of this to her? What had he meant to her mother? Why go back there and see him? And why keep a key to his cottage?

For a full day, Meredith questioned what she should do. Should she go up to Maine and see what this man had left her? Or should she leave well enough alone? She could hire one of those companies to come in and sell Jacob’s estate and assets. Not deal with any of it.

But something kept nagging at her. Questions filled her head as the minutes wore on. Questions that might be answered if she went to Maine.

As the sun faded away, she tried booking a hotel, but it seemed silly since she had inherited a beach house. She couldn’t find one anyway. She packed an air mattress, a good sleeping bag, and a suitcase with more clothes than she needed, but she had no idea what the weather would be like on the coast in Maine. Summer or not, she had a feeling she needed more than one pair of pants.

She decided to leave first thing in the morning. If she got up early enough, she’d be able to get to the attorney’s office right away and get all that over with.

She called the lawyer when she left the house the next morning. “The GPS says I’ll arrive in Blueberry Bay in less than six hours.”

She wished she hadn’t drank all that coffee.

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