“It is. If she and Lucy click, it could help us all quite a bit. I want to create a good environment for both of them.”
He still felt skeptical. Was this really the best thing for Lucy?
“I had my choices to make, Sam,” Cassandra said softly. “I did the best I knew how.” She placed her hand on her cane and leaned closer to him. “So, will you help me? Will you bring my niece into a class or two with your lifeguards? Encourage her to take Lucy to the library now and then? They could talk about their common interests. Topics that you and I don’t have the passion for or knowledge of but that they seem to share.”
When Cassandra put it like that, it didn’t seem so harmful. A relaxed childcare and niece-helping arrangement that just might make sense for everyone.
Most important, it was what Lucy wanted.
“Well, okay. Sure. As for the meditation lessons, we’ll play it by ear once your niece gets here—that’s the best that I can do.”
Cassandra nodded, obviously relieved. “Sarah is coming at the end of next week. Sam, I can start watching Lucy for you immediately if you’d like. I would enjoy taking her to the library as she pleases. I don’t have any contracted commitments for the next month at least, so this would fill my time and give me great pleasure.”
Having Cassandra provide childcare for Lucy while he worked would help Sam with his finances. And he did love his job.
Plus, he would still see Lucy in the mornings and evenings, at lunch time and around his shifts...
“Fine. I’m off work already this week, and I don’t start lifeguarding until Monday morning. I’ll walk Lucy over to your cottage then. You can bring your niece over to my lifeguard station when she arrives, and I’ll talk to her about the classes.”
Cassandra gave him a relieved smile. “That sounds lovely.”
The wind was kicking up again; they should go back inside soon. “So...we’re set with our plan for summer? Lucy rejoins her mother on Labor Day weekend. Or is there a problem with your schedule for the month of August?”
Cassandra hesitated. “No, not a problem, but...”
He waited.
“My gentleman friend in Naples...we’ve kept in touch all these years, and there is a possibility he might visit for a week in August. We haven’t decided on that yet. It depends how well things are going with Sarah and me.”
“Is this gentleman friend the same reason you were in Naples when Sarah’s parents died?”
“It was.” A sad expression crossed Cassandra’s face. “But before he commits to visiting, I’m waiting to see how Sarah feels about it.” Cassandra looked quickly at Sam as if to reassure him. “If he does come, I’ll have him stay at the Grand Beachfront Hotel while he’s here. My cottage is so small.”
Sam couldn’t help asking, “Was it a love affair that kept you from Sarah?”
“It was.” Cassandra turned her face to the wind, and he’d never seen a woman so grief stricken. “I told you I had regrets, Sam.” She swallowed.
“Yes,” he said, thinking of his regrets with Lucy. He and Cassandra both had relationships to mend.
They sat companionably, side by side. With her faraway look, Cassandra seemed to be revisiting memories. He turned his own face to the sun. It warmed him even though the wind was brisk, and the rolling ridge in the beach blocked the worst of the gusts. It struck him that maybe this summer could work out well, after all, and be beneficial to all of them.
“We’ll keep Claudio’s visit between us,” Cassandra suddenly said. “For now. Until Sarah arrives.”
“Sure,” he agreed. He didn’t see how Cassandra’s secret could possibly affect him and Lucy.
“Well,” Cassandra sat up and patted his knee, then reached for her cane. “Come. Let’s go see what your very bright and imaginative daughter is up to now.”
Yes. He was curious about that himself.
He stood, opened Cassandra’s cottage door for her and held it while she made her way back inside.
“Be patient with my niece when you meet her,” were Cassandra’s final words on the subject that morning. “She’s had a hard life.”
Sam just nodded.
A week later, he regretted everything he’d agreed to with Cassandra for his and Lucy’s summer.
One week later
SARAH BUCKLEY KICKED the door of her rental car shut. The friggin’ thing. Hours stuck in traffic driving up from the airport on the wrong coast had done nothing to improve her already pissed-off attitude.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to drive herself. Her time was simply too valuable. Instead, other people drove her. She sat in the backseat and made calls and tapped out directives aimed at the future sale of her company. Now, it seemed like she was back to square one with that. She was furious—she’d worked too freaking hard for this crap to have happened to her, especially the way it had.
She reached through the open window and yanked her briefcase off the passenger seat. But the top wasn’t zipped securely, and the books she’d packed came tumbling onto the sand in her Aunt Cassandra’s weed-lined excuse for a driveway.
Textbook after textbook. Sarah was a tech engineer by training—she’d been reading ebooks well before they became mainstream—but these books weren’t for quick perusal or for an underling to bullet-point for her—no, these she’d assigned herself to study. Since her college and MBA days, she’d always retained information better when she’d marked it up by hand.
In disgust, she bent over to collect the textbooks. Meditation. The Art of Zen Business. How to Speak with Millenials.
Idiocy. Unfortunately, her new financial partner and major investor was into this crap. She resented that she’d been forced to bring him in as her partner, but she’d had to—she needed his capital and his good counsel. The sale of her company couldn’t happen unless he was pleased with her. To impress him, she’d even hired a crew to install a Zen garden in her San Jose home—they were probably finishing it up today. The aggravation was enough to make her weep. She’d hated to deface her beautiful home, renovated slowly, carefully over the years—she’d started with the small house when she sold her first company, and then had made additions. Now, she had a beautiful custom-designed house with an attached pool, her own gym—and a ridiculous Zen garden, because Richard Lee was into Zen.
With a snort of disgust, she tossed the books into her Chanel bag, which was now covered with sand in the rustic New Hampshire driveway. With her heels equally sandy, she leaned against the car and surveyed the wreck that was Aunt Cassandra’s cottage.
Tiny. And Sarah knew it because she’d been here once before. The cottage had two small bedrooms and a bathroom that was too cramped for a soaking tub. The paint was peeling and the screen door hung half off its hinges. Rambling red roses bloomed prolifically on the rail fence, just as they had in the summer before the worst day of her life, and it was that small, innocent detail that punched her right in the gut.
Her eyes watered. No swear words occurred to her.
Sarah felt twelve years old and all alone in the world again. She’d spent one magical summer in this place, the last summer her parents were alive. They’d driven her up from Connecticut to spend two weeks with her eccentric aunt, a famous children’s book illustrator.
She and Cassandra had ridden fun, old-fashioned bicycles with wicker baskets on the handlebars. Down the boardwalk they’d careened, part of a daily expedition to the library to