When they reentered the living room, Young Adam was playing with Eileen, and Edwinna had roused herself and gone to the kitchen. Pete, terribly ill still, was asleep again in the bedroom.
“Whatever else it is, it’s also lunchtime,” Edwinna announced from the door. “Peanut butter and jelly work for you?”
“Fine with me,” Justine said.
“I had a late breakfast,” Colin lied.
“I’d love a PB&J, Miss Edwinna,” Patsy said. “Want a hand?”
“I think I can still cope with this particular culinary challenge.”
Patsy ignored this and she and Colin followed Edwinna into the kitchen. “I’ve got the jelly,” Patsy said. You handle the peanut butter; I always tear the bread with it.”
“Hey guys?”
It was Young Adam’s voice, in the next room.
“I think you should look at this.”
The three adults drifted out into the living room again.
“What’s up, bro’?” Justine asked.
“The dog.”
“Huh?”
“Check it out.”
Eileen was skidding around the polished fir floor, swatting at a woman’s silver high heeled sandal with her front paws and watching it skitter around the room.
The adults watched the dog’s pure joy in its play and smiled.
After a few moments, Young Adam became irritated.
“So what’s wrong with this picture, people?”
“Excuse me?” Justine said.
Eileen picked the shoe up in her soft mouth and loped around the room, tossing her head.
Colin looked at Patsy.
Edwinna stared at the dog. Then she strode across the room and grabbed the shoe from the dog’s mouth.
She turned the sexy sandal over in her hands a few times. Then she reached out and cuffed the side of Young Adam’s head playfully. “Your mother didn’t bring up no idiots, did she, boy?” she said.
Adam beamed.
“Somebody going to let the rest of us in on this?” Colin asked.
Edwinna tossed him the sandal.
“What do you see, big shot?”
Colin held the shoe for a moment and gave it back.
“It’s one of the shoes Pete had on when I found her. So?”
Edwinna thrust the shoe at Patsy.
“What’s wrong with it?” she demanded.
Patsy looked at the shoe for a few moments and then dropped her hand to her side, as if the shoe were made of lead.
“It’s all wrong,” she said.
Justine took the shoe from Patsy, turned it in her hand as Edwinna had, and finally the light came on: there were no scuffs on the sole. There were no scratches on the high silver heel.
“They’ve never been worn,” she whispered.
“Which means?” Adam demanded.
“Somebody put them on her.”
“And?”
“And left her there in the middle of the Highway. She didn’t walk there.”
“Elementary,” the boy said. He was not smiling.
Every summer for generations, three families intertwined by history, marriage, and career have spent “the season” at their beach cottage compounds on an island in Puget Sound. Today, Martha “Pete” Petersen, married to Tyler Strong, is the lynchpin of the “summer people.” In childhood, she was the tomboy every girl wanted to emulate and is now the mother everyone admires.
Colin Ryan, family friend and the island’s veterinarian, met Pete first in London, years earlier, when she visited his roommate, Tyler. He’s loved her, privately, ever since. Born in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, son of a bar owner, he’s always been dazzled by what he sees of the sun-kissed lives of the summer people.
But this summer, currents strong as the tides roil: jealousies grow, tempers flare, passions clash. Then, on the last day of the season, a series of betrayals alters the combined histories of these families forever.
As in previous novels, The Long Walk Home and Water, Stone, Heart, with Seasons’ End, Will North weaves vivid settings and memorable characters into a compelling tale of romance and suspense.
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Genre – Women's Contemporary Fiction
Rating – PG-13
More details about the author
Website willnorthonline.com
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