“Forget about me and Colin,” Marin said. “What’s going on with you and Dad? Did he do something? Something serious or subtle?”
Her mother looked away. “I’m sorry, Marin. He’s your father. I don’t want to say anything that might color your opinion of him.”
“Oh, come on.” Marin shook her head. “How many times have I told you to divorce the arrogant, self-absorbed asshole? Have you finally decided to do it this time?”
Only silence from her mother.
“Mom?” Marin felt her eyes widen. “Did you actually file for a divorce?”
“I saw an attorney last week.”
Holy hell. This from her patient, calm, always loving and forgiving mother. What had happened to the sermon about how a person doesn’t throw away thirty-five years of marriage on a whim? Anyone can get a divorce. Making a marriage work? That’s the hard part.
“Well, this probably doesn’t help much.” Marin wrapped her arm around her mother. “But I would’ve left him decades ago.” Of course, Marin never would’ve married the opinionated, sexist, controlling United States senator in the first place. She loved Arthur Camden as a father, but she’d never liked him as a man. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not just now,” Angelica said, smiling slightly. “Suffice it to say, I needed a little time away. Thanks for letting me tag along with you.”
But then the quaint and quiet Mirabelle Island with its Victorian bed-and-breakfasts, cobblestone streets and horse-drawn carriages wouldn’t have been Marin’s first destination pick. She would’ve much preferred a month at an adults-only resort on St. Barts in the Caribbean. Sand, surf and ice-cold drinks—Sex on the Beach—would’ve done wonders for her frame of mind.
Then again, hanging with her sister, Melissa, after she’d estranged herself from the family all these years held a certain appeal. It’d be nice getting to know her again and her new world. Although Marin would venture to guess that her husband, Jonas, was as much an ass as the rest of his sex.
“You know I’ve never been off on my own like this away from your father,” her mother whispered. “For more than a weekend here or there.”
“Then you were long past due.”
“A month on Mirabelle. What in the world are we going to do all day long?”
“Unwind and relax.”
Easier said than done. Marin might have a multimillion dollar trust fund inherited from her famous Camden grandfather sitting at a bank, making quitting her job financially feasible, but she’d also inherited her grandfather’s work ethic. Other than to pay Harvard tuition and buy her Manhattan apartment, she’d never relied on that trust money for support. Until now. It didn’t sit particularly well, but Marin was going to attempt to give lazy a good go for the first time in her life.
A brisk but warm wind hit the ferry as it crossed Lake Superior, and Marin secured her baseball cap lower over her brow. It was late August, near the end of Mirabelle’s typical tourist season and while the ferry wasn’t crowded, the last thing she and her mother needed right now was to be recognized.
Then again, Melissa had promised they wouldn’t have to worry about crowds or the media on her little island. The tornado that had passed through Mirabelle only a short time ago had put an abrupt end to tourist season. From what Melissa had said, the island had emptied like water spiraling down a drain. They’d have plenty of peace and quiet.
The ferry docked at the pier. Marin grabbed both their bags and stepped off the ferry, following her mother. The large group of construction workers had exited ahead of them.
“Melissa said she would meet us,” her mother murmured. “Do you see her?”
“Not yet, but I’m sure she’ll be here.”
“Marin! Mom!”
Marin spotted her sister waving near the edge of the pier. “Melissa!”
After a round of hugs, Melissa smiled. Marin wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a woman look quite so happy. “Call me Missy, okay? If you keep calling me Melissa, no one here on the island will have a clue who you’re talking to, including me.”
In trying to slough off the expectations—and more—of the Camden name, Melissa had divested herself of most things Camden, including her name, years ago. “Missy Charms.” Marin shook her head. “Where in the world did you come up with that name, anyway?”
“It’s Missy Charms Abel now.” She shrugged. “And Jonas called me Missy from the beginning. It just seemed to fit.”
As did motherhood, or so her sister claimed. Missy and Jonas had no sooner agreed to adopt than found out they were pregnant. How any woman could be so happy with two children under the age of two was anyone’s guess.
Marin had accepted the inevitability of someday getting married, but children were out of the question. All she’d had to do was look at her mother’s life—or lack thereof—to firm up that decision. Angelica Camden had given up a promising editorial career at a large New York publishing house to stay home and raise a family, and look at her now. In her late fifties, soon to be divorced and no life of her own.
Marin was far too absorbed in her career and enjoyed her single life far too much to ever get tied down by a child. Besides, she despised sticky fingers, chicken nuggets and cartoons, not to mention she had absolutely no patience. She was a bit too much like her father in that regard.
Missy grabbed their mother’s suitcase, tossed it in the rear of a golf cart and hopped behind the wheel.
Marin raised her eyebrows. “I take it there are no cars on Mirabelle?”
“Nope. Only horse drawn carriages and golf carts. Although with all the construction that’s going on with the rebuilding, there’s bound to be some construction equipment here and there.”
With the big water behind them, the marina still dotted with several shapes and sizes of boat, quaint gingerbread houses sprinkling the hillside, and a majestic lighthouse visible down the shoreline, Mirabelle reminded Marin of a smaller and slightly less sophisticated Nantucket. But as Missy drove the golf cart away from the ferry pier, the reality of the devastation caused by the tornado put the island in an entirely different light.
The roof on what appeared to have been a restaurant nearest the pier was partially destroyed, its blue shutters hung limply as if they might fall to the ground at any moment, and its windows were smashed in and had been boarded up with plywood. Several windows of the little white church on the hillside were boarded up as well, the stained glass having been broken and blown who knows where. In the other directions, historic brick buildings lay in various stages of destruction. The lucky buildings were only missing roofs. The unlucky ones were missing entire exterior walls. The most amazing thing was that no one had been killed.
“Stop,” Marin said.
“Main Street,” Missy whispered, tears gathering in her eyes. “What’s left of it, anyway.”
The town looked like Marin felt. As sure as she was standing here a tornado had ripped through her life. Her fiancé was a lying cheat, her parents were getting a divorce, and she’d lost faith in the people for whom she’d been working for the past eight years. The foundations on which she’d based her entire life had been ripped out from under her and she didn’t know where to stand, let alone how to walk.
“Missy?” Marin asked. “Your gift shop?”
“Whimsy fared better than some shops, not as well as others,” Missy said, taking a deep breath. “We had some roof damage and lost all our windows, so most of my inventory was ruined. But the restaurant of one of my best friends, Duffy’s Pub, was hit the hardest. They don’t even know if the structure is sound enough to rebuild or if they’ll have to bulldoze everything over and start from scratch.”