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  “Indeed. So what is your point?”

  “I’m thinking of how to remedy this situation. First, I need to gain some legal standing to take control of my daughter’s inheritance, and once I do, and after Penny turns eighteen, I’m happy to work out a deal with you for the sale of this house and other pieces of his estate. Minus my commission.”

  “When Penny turns eighteen, she, not her parents, will have control over this estate. So I don’t see how you can make any promises.”

  “Eighteen-year-olds don’t want to be stuck in some big house in the middle of nowhere. They want to move on from the place where they were raised no matter how fancy the digs. And financial security for the rest of her life will be a big motivator to sell. My daughter is not stupid.”

  “And neither am I. Why are you coming to me now? This conversation is four years down the road, the way I see it. If it even comes to that.”

  “In the short term, I need money to pay lawyers.”

  “Money from me?”

  He nodded.

  “Mr. Mapson, I’m paying my own lawyers, and they are busy working on the very strong possibility this will isn’t valid.”

  “Well, in that case, look at this as insurance. If the will isn’t valid, you’ve got your lawyers on the case. If the will is valid, I’ll have my lawyer on it. Either way, you win.”

  Oh, he was an operator, all right. But this might be an easy way to fight the battle on an entirely new front.

  “I need to think about this,” she said, standing. “I’ll see you out.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The party at Mindy’s house was twice the size of the one on Memorial Day weekend, and Penny instantly knew she’d done the right thing by showing up. To miss it would have been social suicide.

  All the usual suspects were there—Robin, Jess, and the other basics from her grade—but also Mindy’s sister, Jordan, and Jordan’s friends, who were rising seniors; Mateo and his friends; and Mateo’s older brother.

  “So you’re the one who got the artist’s house?”

  Penny glanced around to make sure the superhot guy—maybe the best-looking guy she’d ever seen—was actually talking to her.

  He was.

  “I’m into art,” the boy said. “Henry Wyatt was a legend. Are you related to him or something?”

  “Um, no.” And then, realizing he was waiting for more, she said, “I’m into art too, and he gave me lessons. We were friends.”

  He seemed about to say something, but then Jordan Banks slid over and looped her arm through his. She then proceeded to yell at Mindy to get her friends outside or upstairs. “Out of my face!”

  Mindy herded Penny, Robin, and Jess up the stairs and into her parents’ room.

  “There are so many people here,” Penny said.

  “Wait until the Fourth of July,” Mindy said. “That will be epic.”

  Another party. A summer of parties!

  “When are you having us over to your house?” Mindy said.

  Uh-oh. “Soon,” Penny said, wondering how she was going to pull that off.

  “Maybe you should have a Fourth of July party,” said Mindy. “That way we could have our own thing without Jordan ruining it by being a total bee-atch.”

  The master suite had a big terrace with a professional-looking telescope; there was a Jacuzzi in the bathroom and a nearly movie-theater-size TV screen on the wall. But Mindy wasn’t interested in any of these entertainment options—she headed right for the medicine cabinet.

  “Party favors,” she said, passing around a prescription bottle of Percocet. “Then we go outside. If Jordan’s kicking us out of the house, we’ll just take over the deck.”

  Penny swallowed one of the pills with a swig of her Diet Coke, then followed Mindy, Jess, and Robin downstairs to the back deck. She settled onto a chaise longue and waited for the warm buzz of the medication to wash through her. After a while, Penny looked up in the darkness to find Robin looming over her.

  “Come on—we’re going on the boat.”

  “I’m fine right here,” Penny said. Fine was an understatement. She didn’t know if it was the music (Rihanna, “Hate That I Love You”), the breeze off the bay, or the winking lights of all the party yachts in the distance, but it felt like maybe the best night of her life.

  “You’re not fine where you are. You’re just high. Let’s go.”

  Robin grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on—I don’t want them to leave without us.”

  Penny ran alongside her to the short dock where the Bankses parked their speedboat. It was white with a navy canvas roof over the helm and The Adventurer written in navy-blue script on the stern. There were two seats at the controls, already filled by Jordan and her boyfriend. Behind that was a curved, upholstered banquette that could seat maybe eight people. In the middle was a small white table with a drink holder in each corner.

  “Design brilliance,” someone said, sticking a beer bottle in one holder.

  To the side there was a small sink and standing room for a few more people.

  “Mindy, get your loser friends off. It’s too crowded.”

  “Who made you the boss?” Mindy called from a corner of the banquette.

  “The captain is, by definition, the boss! Ever hear of fucking maritime law?”

  Penny laughed. Everything was funny. Everything was perfect. She looked up and saw a million stars in the sky. The universe was smiling at her.

  The motor rumbled to life and someone cast off the lines. Penny grabbed the railing as the boat lurched out of the slip. Water sprayed her face and she laughed giddily.

  A bunch of kids sitting around the table laughed and shouted back and forth. The only people Penny recognized were Mindy and Robin. Jess wasn’t on board. Somehow, she hadn’t made the cut and Penny had. Was this decision Robin’s call or Mindy’s? And, really, did it matter? No. She was there on the boat in that glorious moment. She wanted to memorize everything about it, to take a mental snapshot so that when she was stuck at home feeling miserable, she could pull it out and remember what it felt like to be happy. Was that the sort of thing Dr. Wang had been trying to teach her to do? To manage her thoughts? For once, everything made sense. When she was feeling bad, she could think about what this moment had felt like and then superimpose that positive feeling onto her bad ones. Like cutting and pasting emotions. As simple as that. Why hadn’t she realized this before?

  Music played on someone’s phone but you could barely hear it over the motor. She watched someone from the banquette pass Jordan a beer and wondered if drinking while driving a boat was as bad as drinking while driving a car. But the worry was fleeting. How could she worry? She was free.

  “Okay, we’re going back and your friends are getting off so we can pick up more people. Next trip out is seniors only,” Jordan called to Mindy. More squabbling ensued as the boat circled around and headed back to the house. The boat seemed to pick up speed even as the dock came in sight.

  “Slow down!” someone yelled.

  Penny felt the first trickle of alarm. She tried not to panic, telling herself there was plenty of time for Jordan to reduce the boat’s speed before it reached the dock.

  Until, very quickly, there wasn’t.

  Emma sat on a bench on the dock, staring out at the boats in the distance. Next to her, Alexis finished eating a cup of frozen yogurt and checked her phone.

  “Sean texted he’s just a minute away,” she said.

  Emma nodded morosely. Alexis reached over, the gesture made musical by the half a dozen silver bangle bracelets on her wrist clinking together. She was dressed in a flowing batik sundress and wore a straw hat over her long, pink-tinged blond hair. Alexis had an enviable millennial-flower-child look that was effortless and beautiful. And she had a personality to match. She was a decade younger than Emma but had become a close friend in the past year or so. And Emma knew Penny liked spending time in the bookstore and looked up to Alexis. Henry was gone, but at lea
st there was someone still around for Penny to talk to about books and art.

  Alexis moved the paper bag holding their six-packs from the ground onto the bench. She pulled out a beer. “Do you want to start without him?”

  “I wish that would help,” Emma said.

  “So what, exactly, did Jack say?”

  “It was something like ‘Your personal life has made it a problem for you to work at this hotel. I need to let you go.’”

  Alexis put her arm around her. “He can’t mean it. After all this time? You come in late a few times and have one argument in the lobby? He’s just having a bad day.”

  “No,” Emma said. “You know how he is. There’s no margin for error this time of year. And he hates the press. He prides himself on the privacy of the place. I’m attracting the wrong kind of attention to it. I’m a liability.”

  “Okay, but all of this will die down. It’s temporary.”

  “The damage is done. He doesn’t trust me anymore.”

  The bright light of Sean’s launch signaled his approach. When he pulled into the dock, a middle-aged couple disembarked before Emma and Alexis boarded.

  “Do you have to bring those people back somewhere later?” Alexis asked.

  “No, they’re staying in town. I’m done for the night.”

  “In that case…” Alexis handed him a beer.

  Emma popped open her beer, sat down in the boat, and looked up at the stars.

  “We just have to wait for Kyle,” Sean said.

  “Kyle?” Emma turned around to look at him.

  “Yeah. He’s doing some woodwork across the dock for a guy who’s going to fix his motor. I’m giving him a lift back to his boat.”

  “Ugh,” Emma said. “The last person I need to see is him.”

  “What’s the problem? He’s a decent guy.”

  “Is he? You know that he’s essentially squatting at my house along with Bea Winstead.”

  “Trust me—that guy isn’t interested in some mansion. All he cares about is the water,” Sean said.

  “Great. Then he can go live with you.” She chugged her beer.

  Sean glanced at Alexis with a look that said, What’s with her?

  Emma, feeling bad that she was being cranky, started telling him about losing her job. But before she could get into it, someone shouted from the dock. Emma saw that it was the harbormaster, and he was running toward the boat.

  “Sean! I was just about to radio. There’s been an accident. Ride with me.”

  The harbormaster was bald with a trim white beard, tall, and broad-shouldered; he carried with him the air of authority and the faint whiff of cigar smoke.

  “What happened?” Sean said.

  “A bunch of people went joyriding and plowed into a private dock.”

  Sean looked apologetically at Alexis.

  “It’s fine, hon—go,” she said. “I’ll take a cab home.”

  Sean and the harbormaster jumped onto a speedboat and disappeared into the night. Alexis and Emma stood on the dock looking after them, Alexis holding the remaining beer.

  “Summer people are so irresponsible,” Alexis said. “Sean gets calls every day to help tow people off of rocks.”

  “Ridiculous,” Emma said, shaking her head. “Well, it’s still early. Do you want to grab a drink at Murf’s?”

  Alexis glanced at her phone. “I think I’m going to call it a night and just wait for Sean to get home. You going to be okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Emma said.

  Alexis waved to someone over Emma’s shoulder. “Here comes your favorite person.”

  Kyle crossed the dock carrying a toolbox and with a knapsack over his shoulder. He wore faded jeans and a T-shirt that hugged his torso. He had a sunburn.

  “Hey,” he said to Alexis with a quick nod to Emma. “Is Sean on his way? I’ve been texting him but haven’t heard back.”

  “We were just with him but the dockmaster needed help with something. Sorry about that.”

  Alexis gave Emma a quick good-night hug before taking off. Emma stood awkwardly on the dock with Kyle. A cabin cruiser pulled in across the dock, music blasting. The moment was vexing enough without the added indignity of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.”

  “You heading back to the house?” Kyle said.

  “No.”

  “Want to grab a drink?”

  “With you? No, thanks.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Murf’s was crowded. Emma took a corner stool under a string of pink and red Christmas lights. At the other end of the bar, Katie Cleary poured a row of Jaeger shots for three guys and knocked one back herself.

  “What are you having?” Kyle said from the seat next to her. Despite her initial protests, she hadn’t been ready to go home and deal with the reality of losing her job. She wanted company—even if that company was irksome Kyle Dunlap. And, frankly, she needed more than a beer.

  “Shot of Tito’s.”

  “Going for the hard stuff tonight?” he said.

  “It’s been that kinda day.”

  “Sorry to hear it. Does your less-than-stellar mood have anything to do with your ex being in town?”

  She looked at him. “What do you know about that?”

  “He was at the house the other day. With Penny.”

  Was that true? How could Penny have kept that from her? “Damn it,” she muttered.

  “Seems like a bit of a jerk, if you ask me,” Kyle said.

  “I didn’t.”

  Katie passed Emma’s shot and Kyle’s beer across the bar.

  “Bring me one more, Katie? Thanks,” Emma said.

  “Um, maybe the next one should be club soda?” Kyle said.

  “Spare me. I’m fine.” Emma watched Katie. The way she handled the bottles, the way she flicked her wrist to end a pour, triggered Emma’s own muscle memory of her time behind the bar. “I’ve known the bartender since she was younger than my daughter.”

  “Oh, is she older than your daughter?” Kyle joked.

  Emma didn’t crack a smile. “I was tending this bar when I was her age. Nothing’s changed in this place. And in ten years, it might be Penny back there.” She shook her head. “Penny’s right about this town. It’s hard to leave, but it’s hard to stay.”

  “It seems like a great place to raise a kid,” he said, picking their drinks up off the bar. “Let’s take these over there,” he said, nodding to a table by the door.

  “Why?”

  “I’m in the mood to beat someone at darts,” he said.

  “Please. I’ve been playing darts here so long, I can hit the bull’s-eye blindfolded.” And then she remembered the first night she saw him at Murf’s, the night her game was off, and the way his casual toss of the dart landed right on the mark.

  “I am open to that handicap,” he said.

  Emma’s phone rang. She squinted at the incoming number and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “Emma, it’s Jim DiMartino. Penny’s been in an accident.”

  She jumped up, losing her balance.

  Kyle reached for her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She waved him off and ran outside to hear Jim DiMartino better. With her head cloudy from alcohol, it took an effort for her to process the details: A party. A boat. Drinking.

  “I’ll be right there,” she told him and ended the call.

  “What’s wrong?” Kyle said, startling her. She hadn’t realized he’d followed her outside.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “I need my keys. I need…damn it! I can’t drive.”

  “I can drive,” Kyle said. “Where do you need to go?”

  “Southampton Hospital,” she said.

  There was no traffic at that hour of night. Emma was thankful Kyle didn’t try to talk to her during the twenty-five-minute drive that felt like two hours. He did, however, pat her leg in some effort to comfort her as she sobbed.

  “She’s going to be fine,” he said. And it was true; Jim had said Penny�
�s injuries were not life-threatening, maybe a few broken bones. “She was very lucky.”

  Maybe a few broken bones!

  Kyle pulled up to the entrance. “I’ll meet you in there after I park,” he said.

  “No—no. I’ve got it from here. Please. You should go.” She closed the door on his protests.

  Inside, a woman at the information desk directed her to the emergency department, where a nurse sent her to a waiting room.

  “A doctor will be out as soon as possible to speak with you.”

  A bunch of other people were in the waiting area, a large room with couches and tables filled with magazines and wide windows facing the interior hallway. Emma spotted Robin McMaster’s mother and father. Emma sat as far away from them as possible and grabbed a copy of Time magazine to hide behind. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

  Sitting alone, she realized there was one person she couldn’t avoid talking to; she had to call Mark and let him know that Penny was in the hospital. After all, he was—as he’d made such a big point of saying—her father. She’d told him she’d keep him in the loop. Now she had to make good on that promise.

  She walked out of the waiting room for a more private spot in the hallway, dialed his number, and, thankfully, got his voice mail.

  “Mark, I hate to leave a message like this but I wanted to let you know that Penny was in an accident. A…boating accident. She’s going to be fine but she’s at Southampton Hospital. I haven’t seen her yet but when I do I’ll call you with an update. Okay…bye.” She looked up to see that Kyle, completely disregarding her instructions, was heading toward her.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m not leaving you alone. You’ll need a ride back. I drove you here in your car, remember?”

  What a night to decide to get drunk.

  He followed her to the waiting area. She sat in the same seat as before and he offered to go find a coffee machine.

  “That would be great,” she said.

  She watched the door. A woman in a white coat opened it and called out a name; a couple jumped up and followed the doctor into the hallway.