“Yes. I also remember how many times we got dunked before we figured out how to sail it.” Rowena’s face puckered up. “The bay never gets warm.”
“But didn’t it feel good to whiz past the beach and know the summer kids were envying us? We wowed ’em that year.” Ashley leaned over, laid a hand on Rowena’s shoulder. “In retrospect, they weren’t all bad times, Row.”
“No, they weren’t.” After a long silence, Rowena managed to summon what, for her, passed as a smile. “I had you two to go with me to school. That meant a lot.”
Rowena tossed back her auburn hair as if shaking off the bad memories, then took another tentative sip of tea.
“Now tell us, Pip. What exactly are you doing back here? Besides hosting our birthday bash, I mean.”
Piper leaned back, her gaze on the bay below.
“I’ve accepted a position as economic development officer to organize Serenity Bay’s tourism authority,” she told them.
Stark silence greeted her announcement.
“Economic development?”
“Did she actually say that?”
Rowena looked at Ashley and both burst into giggles.
“What development? The place looks smaller now than when we used to live here. A few cottagers, some artists, a defunct lumber mill. What’s to develop?”
Just as she had when she was fourteen and frustrated by their inability to see what was so clear to her, Piper clenched her jaw and grumbled, “You have no vision, Philistines.”
“Oh, boy, that takes me back.” Ashley laughed out loud. “Okay, David. Tell us how you’re going to conquer your next Goliath.”
Piper took her time, gathering her black hair into a knot and pinning it to the top of her head while making them wait. It was an old trick and it always worked. Their interest had been piqued.
“Spill it, Pip.” Ashley wasn’t kidding now.
She took a deep breath and began.
“It may interest you to know that Serenity Bay has a new, very forward-thinking mayor.”
“Oh?”
Now they were curious. Good.
“He has plans that include making our lovely bay into a tourist mecca. And why not? We’re sitting smack-dab in the middle of the most gorgeous country God ever created. All we have to do is tell the rest of the world about it.”
Utter shock greeted her words. Piper knew the silence wouldn’t last long. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and waited.
“You’re kidding. Aren’t you?” Uncertainty laced Ashley’s whisper.
“She’s not.” The unflappable Rowena was less surprised. “Our Pip has always had a soft spot for this place. Except—”
Piper didn’t like the sound of that. She opened her eyes. Sure enough, Rowena’s intense scrutiny was centered on her. Faking a bland smile, Piper watched her hazel eyes change shades as quickly as her friend’s thoughts. It wouldn’t take Row long to home in on what she hadn’t said.
“This new mayor you’re going to be working for—”
“Aha.” Ash leaned forward like a cat waiting to pounce.
“Tell us, Pip. What exactly is he like?” Rowena tapped one perfectly manicured fingertip against her cheek, eyes narrowed, intense.
Piper couldn’t stop her blush as a picture of Jason Franklin, tousled and exceedingly handsome, swam into her brain. A most intriguing man.
To hide her thoughts she slipped on her sunglasses.
“What’s he like?”
“Don’t repeat the question. Answer it.”
“I’m trying.” Piper swallowed. “I don’t know—like a mayor, I guess. He owns the marina.”
“Short, fat, balding fellow, happily married with six kids?”
“Grease under his fingertips?” Ashley added.
“N-no. Not exactly.”
“How ‘not exactly,’ Pip?” The old Row was back in form, and she was enjoying herself. She held up her fingers and began ticking them off. “No grease?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Not short?”
“No.”
“Not fat?”
Piper shook her head. That definitely didn’t apply. Jason was lean, muscular and more toned than the men she knew who regularly worked out in expensive gyms.
“Balding? Six kids? Married?”
Flustered by the incessant questions about a man she hadn’t been able to get out of her thoughts, Piper decided to spare herself the onslaught of questions and explain.
“He’s—I don’t know! Our age, I suppose. A little older, maybe. Tall. Sandy blond hair. Blue eyes. Good-looking.”
Ashley and Rowena exchanged a look.
“Ah. So he’s a beach boy.”
“Beach boy? No. He owns the marina.” Piper decided to change tactics. “I didn’t really notice that much about him. He’s just the mayor.”
“Didn’t notice much. Uh-huh.” Rowena sniffed, checked with Ashley. “Thoughts?”
“‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks,’” the blonde quoted.
“Methinks that, too.”
“Look,” Piper sputtered, regretting her choice of words. “It’s not—”
“Maybe he’s why she came back.” Ashley frowned. “Either that or—” Her forehead pleated in a delicate frown. She focused on Piper. “Or there’s another reason you’re here.”
They knew her too well.
“Is it your father? Is that why you left Calgary?”
Might as well admit it.
“Indirectly.”
Both women sighed, their glances conveying their sympathy before Rowena deliberately shut down all expression. She had good reason to remember the past and even more to forget it.
“I knew it wouldn’t be a young, eligible male that brought you back here.” Ashley’s eyes flashed with anger. “It has to be your old man at the bottom of this sudden change. How typical.”
“What has the great Baron D. Wainwright done now?”
Piper didn’t blame Rowena for the spite in her tone. Row and Ash had been there for her ever since that first summer when her angry father had repeatedly ordered her back to the house where her mother had died. When she’d refused to return to a world she hated, a world where he’d become so demanding, so strict, so unlike the loving mother who’d shielded her, these two had consoled her.
Her father’s angry denunciation of her still stung today, even after so many years. And then of course there was the other.
Piper pushed that away.
“Pip? Please tell us what’s wrong.”
They’d always listened. She could trust them.
“It’s not what he’s done, it’s what I think he’s going to do.