The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne

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СКАЧАТЬ years to convince her the healthy alimony and child support she received from Cruz wasn’t exactly a blank check.

      Tommy looked happy to see her sister. “Hi, Bea,” he said. “Tomorrow is Stella’s birthday. She’s going to be forty.”

      “Isn’t that great?”

      “I bought her a present from here, a plant with pink flowers. I get an employee discount.”

      “Oh, she’ll love that. Nice job, Tom.”

      He beamed, as charmed by Bea as everyone else in the world.

      “See you later,” Daisy said, used to being invisible around her more vivacious younger sister.

      He gave an almost-smile as he handed her the cake. Bea reached in and grabbed the wine and the bag with the rest of the groceries.

      “Bye, Tom,” Bea said. She stopped to give him a quick hug, which seemed to please him, though he didn’t hug her back.

      As they walked out of the store, they had to pass a late-model luxury SUV limousine that was idling in the fire lane, one of Daisy’s pet peeves. It wasn’t just because of environmental reasons and the pollutants their idling vehicles were sending into the atmosphere. She hated the sense of entitlement, when people thought they were so important, they shouldn’t have to walk fifteen more feet to a parking space like the rest of the peons.

      A man was climbing into the back seat as they passed. He looked up, and for just an instant, their gazes met. She should have known. It was the gorgeous man with the sexy accent.

      He gave her a rueful sort of smile and a wave, which she pointedly ignored as she marched behind the vehicle toward her own fifteen-year-old BMW.

      “Who was that?” Bea stared after the limo.

      “No idea,” Daisy mumbled.

      “He looked like he knew you.”

      “He doesn’t.”

      “Are you sure? He waved at you and everything. He looks familiar. Is he some kind of celebrity?”

      Maybe. Daisy didn’t watch much television and her knowledge of pop culture was nonexistent. She couldn’t even tell which Kardashian was which and had no idea why she should care.

      “You’re the one who reads all the tabloids. You tell me. I don’t know who he is. I only know I’ve never met him before in my life.”

      Before she bumped into him ten minutes earlier, anyway.

      “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We’ve got to go or we’ll be late.”

      “Trust me, Stella won’t notice. Mari’s over there already and the two of them are probably in the middle of a hot game of slapjack.”

      She had to admit Bea was probably right. Stella hadn’t wanted them to make a fuss over her birthday anyway and wouldn’t care if they were a few moments late. “Here. You hold the cake. I don’t want to set it on the seat and risk it falling off.”

      Bea made a face but held out her arms for the cake. After a quick stop at the Italian restaurant their aunt loved so they could grab the preordered meal, Daisy drove to Three Oaks, the sturdy, graceful Craftsman house Stella had purchased for a song when she brought the girls here to Cape Sanctuary all those years ago.

      It had been a mess when they first moved in, she remembered, with only one tiny working bathroom and two inhabitable bedrooms. She and Bea hadn’t minded sharing, so grateful to be together again and with their beloved aunt.

      The three of them had worked together to make this a home: learning to put up drywall, painting, sanding floors, refinishing woodwork. Daisy had loved painting most of all, which was kind of ironic now, when she thought of it.

      It had taken them the better part of three years but the result was a lovely home, filled with laughter and joy.

      When they walked in, they found Stella in the kitchen wearing a ruffled apron splotched with huge yellow sunflowers. She was taking a tray of something out of the oven—her famous Oreo cookie mini cheesecakes, by the looks of it.

      Her face lit up when she spotted them. “Girls! You’re both here at last!”

      She set down the muffin tin on the stovetop, took off her oven mitts and rushed to kiss first Bea as soon as she’d set down the cake, then Daisy.

      Daisy hugged her back, so very grateful to this woman who had rescued two lost girls.

      “You’re not supposed to be doing anything,” Bea scolded. “We brought dinner for you. That’s what you said you wanted for your birthday gift.”

      “You know me. I’m not good at sitting around. These are so easy, though. Mari helped.”

      “Where is my child?”

      “In here,” Mari called from the room off the kitchen that Stella had always called the library, which functioned as an office, homework station and computer center.

      “We were watching a YouTube video one of her friends posted on the computer when my timer went off,” Stella explained as she set the cheesecake bites onto a rack to cool.

      Daisy watched her aunt with the same unease she’d been feeling for several weeks now.

      Though forty, Stella looked years younger. The three of them could have been sisters, really, as her and Bea’s mother, Jewel, had been ten years older than her only surviving sibling. Stella was only ten years older than Daisy.

      Stella had elfin features, high cheekbones and wide green eyes. She was petite, just over five feet two inches tall. Many of her middle school students topped her in height, something they all seemed to find hilarious.

      While Stella’s features were familiar and beloved, when Daisy looked deeper, she saw that her aunt still had the guarded, closed, almost furtive look that Daisy had first noticed several weeks ago. Something was up. She didn’t know what it was; she only knew Stella was keeping secrets.

      Her aunt was usually an open book, free and spontaneous. She had even been known to tell her life story to strangers she met at the diner in town.

      Since about Easter, that had begun to change. She would take phone calls in another room and would often beg off arranged meetings for mysterious reasons.

      Was it a new man in her life? About time, if it was. Stella deserved nothing but unicorns and rainbows. She deserved the very best man around. As far as Daisy was concerned, no one would ever be good enough for Stella.

      She had often wondered why Stella had never married. She had dated here and there but nothing ever very serious, usually breaking things off right around five or six weeks.

      “Do you want us to set the food up here or out in the garden?”

      “Oh, it’s a lovely evening. Let’s eat outside.” Stella looked around. “Is Shane meeting you here?”

      Bea looked surprised. “You said only family.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ