Butterfly Cove. Christina Skye

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      Olivia stared at the impersonal, stamped signature of the company’s president. Thank you for your services?

      After eight months of drudgery, this was all she got? Thank you for your services and a pay stub?

      She folded and unfolded the sheet, feeling the blood drain from her face. Couldn’t someone have had the decency to sign her letter himself? Was an actual signature too much to ask? Or even a phone call from someone in Personnel?

      With shaking fingers she gathered her reference books and papers and drafting pens. Quickly she slid her framed picture of Summer Island into the knitting bag she kept hidden in the bottom drawer. Professional women did not knit in public, at least not while at the office. Knitting needles made people uncomfortable, an employment officer had told her quietly. It had to do with the sharp points and the quick movements.

      Olivia grabbed the bag and swung it over her shoulder like a flag of angry protest. Maybe some people ought to be made uncomfortable.

      A security guard showed up two minutes later. When you gave someone the boot, the security guard was there to collect their keys and badges and escort them out of the building. Olivia knew the drill.

      She had just never expected to be on the receiving end.

      Silently she gathered her other belongings and marched outside with her head held high. She met no one’s eyes. She didn’t speak on the way down in the elevator or on her angry walk to her car, where she dumped her box and knitting and then sank into the driver’s seat.

      The guard left. But Olivia sat white-faced and shaking, trying to figure out how her life could possibly get any worse, and what she was going to do to dig herself out of the looming disaster that her father had left behind after his death.

      And now she had lost her job. Something burned at her eyelids. She gripped the steering wheel hard and told herself to stay strong.

      But it wasn’t working. She didn’t feel strong. A wave of panic struck and Olivia closed her eyes, knowing what would come next when her anxiety grew into a sickening wave.

      She had to get home.

      She had to find the only place where she had ever felt safe and the friends who had been her anchor through uncertainty and pain. Her hands tightened. Summer Island was waiting for her in the mist, golden in the morning sun.

      Olivia had driven the road south many times before, but this was different. This time she was going home.

      For good.

      Oregon Coast

      Late afternoon

      THIRTY MILES SOUTH of the Oregon border, the fog appeared. Olivia opened her window and drank in the smells of salt and sea, feeling the wind comb through her hair. The sun was gone and shadows touched the coast. Waves boiled up over black rocks where seals and otters fished in clusters.

      A small sign pointed out the turn to the coast road. Her heart kicked up as she saw the misty outline of hills and trees ahead.

      Summer Island’s only bridge was half-veiled in fog when she turned south and rounded the curve at the top of the island. Olivia looked up, entranced by the big house that glowed in the twilight. Stained glass panels lit the front of the tall Victorian building above the harbor. Freshly painted, the long pier shepherded fishing boats that Olivia knew from childhood.

      Princess of Storms.

      Sea King.

      Bella Luna.

      The boats rocked at anchor, secure in the harbor. Warmth touched Olivia at the familiar sight. Summer Island never seemed to change, and she liked that sense of certainty. Slowly she drove along the cobbled streets and turned at the magnificent old building that she and her friends had renovated with loving care.

      Imposing in a new coat of paint, the Harbor House gleamed in the twilight, its new windows blazing above the freshly restored porch. Strains of Chopin drifted from the open French doors above the side lawn filled with late-summer roses.

      Home.

      This beautiful old house with all its vibrant colors and inspiring energy.

      Not the big modern house where Olivia had grown up, struggling to make her way through childhood, always too tall and too shy for her critical father. She had never been smart enough to suit her father. He had always expected more and more from her and never showed much real pleasure in any of her accomplishments. He seemed happiest when he was alone, working in his office, a phone in one hand and a keyboard in the other, barking out negotiations for a real estate deal. When he wasn’t working, he liked to give big, elegant parties in the house on the cliffs, gathering smart, sophisticated guests who left Olivia feeling awkward and tongue-tied.

      No, her safety lay here in the Harbor House. She had always dreamed about restoring the old rooms with her three oldest friends.

      And they had done it. A new wrought-iron СКАЧАТЬ