LITMIR.BIZ

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you packed?” Daisy asked.

      “You mean this?” Mary Jane waved her hand at the boxes, some filled, some still empty. “These are going to South Carolina to the new condo with Mom and Dad.”

      “I meant for your trip, not Mom and Dad’s move.”

      “In that case, I was packed a week ago.” Mary Jane looked a little tense suddenly.

      She was leaving tomorrow. She loved to travel, and when Spruce Bay Resort closed each year for most of November and April, during the quietest seasons in New York’s Adirondack Mountains, she always went away. Someplace exotic, or someplace indulgent. Never the same destination twice. Taking full advantage of the fact that she was single, even though Daisy strongly suspected that in her secret heart Mary Jane didn’t actually want to be single at all.

      This unwanted condition was down to Alex Stewart, horrible man. Water under the bridge, four years on. Nobody talked about it anymore, but Mary Jane had wasted a lot of time—years of her life—on a relationship that had gone nowhere and it had taken its toll on her heart and her outlook.

      Mary Jane and I are so different, Daisy had thought to herself more than once. Mary Jane’s love for Alex had been a steadfast flame that refused to die even when it needed to. Whereas Daisy had blown hot and cold. Came on strong, then pulled right back. Sent clear signals, then turned them off like a faucet.

      I jumped in too fast. I never looked below the surface. It was my fault as much as Michael’s.

      Was it a fair accusation to make about herself? She still tied herself in knots asking that question. It was a big reason why she was here, instead of in California, and Mary Jane had accused her—quite gently and sympathetically, which almost made it worse—of coming back for the wrong reasons.

      “I don’t want you as a business partner at Spruce Bay just because you’re running away from something that turned sour in your personal life.”

      This year, because of the renovation and their parents’ retirement from the business, Spruce Bay had closed a month early, missing out on the fall-foliage season, and Mary Jane would be spending most of October, including her thirty-fifth birthday on the eighteenth of the month, on safari in the heart of Africa.

      She hadn’t wanted to go initially. “I’ll have to skip my usual trip this year, with the remodel. It just can’t be helped.” She was definitely too responsible about things like this. Daisy and Mom and Dad—and Lee, from a distance, in Colorado—had all insisted that of course she should go, as usual, since she loved her travels so much. Eventually and reluctantly, Mary Jane had booked her tour package.

      “If you’re worried I can’t handle things here for three weeks, don’t be,” Daisy assured her quickly now, because her sister had really started to look stressed. “Hey, if I can create the dessert recipes and oversee their preparation every night for a two-hundred-seat five-star San Francisco restaurant, I can oversee a construction crew. I’ve brainstormed a heap of ideas for the restaurant remodel, I’m so excited about it, and I have menu ideas to match.”

      “Listen, I don’t doubt that, okay?”

      “But you doubt the reasons I’m here.”

      “Sometimes you dive in too fast, Daisy. You told me that happened with Michael. I don’t want it happening with Spruce Bay.” She gestured toward the open window, where blue sky blazed behind a silhouette of pine needles whose fragrance Daisy could smell from here. She could hear the pine needles, too—the light soughing they made in the breeze. The peace and familiarity of this place hurt her heart, it was so beautiful.

      “It won’t happen, Mary Jane,” she answered, quietly sure of herself, suddenly. “Spruce Bay is different. Spruce Bay is home.”

      Mary Jane looked at her curiously. “Is that how you feel? Even after ten years away?”

      “It is. More than I expected. It hit me just now. I love it here.”

      “Well, okay, then.”

      A new peace settled between them.

      “And as for the landscaping,” Daisy continued after a moment, “it makes much more sense to have the structural work for that done when Spruce Bay is already closed for the interior work, rather than waiting until spring. Obviously the actual planting will have to wait, but that’s only a small part of what needs doing.”

      “True,” Mary Jane conceded. “We’re behind on the planning for all that. The decisions and plans on the interiors took more time than I expected, especially the cabins, and Mom and Dad have been stalling. They think the grounds are fine as they are.”

      “They’re not.”

      “I know. But maybe it’s too late and we’ll have to leave it till spring after all.”

      “No, we won’t, because I called Reid Landscaping yesterday, and I’ve set up a meeting for tomorrow. I’m hoping that if we can make our decisions and plans quickly, work can get started—”

      Mary Jane stood up, looking horrified, and didn’t wait to hear when it was that Daisy hoped work would start. “You what?”

      “Set up a meeting. Tomorrow at ten.”

      “With Reid Landscaping.” It wasn’t a question. More of a thud. Like the dropping of a shoe. All the more obvious because just a few seconds ago they’d had a strong moment of closeness.

      “They’re the best in the area,” Daisy pointed out briskly. “And we’ve known—”

      “Tucker Reid’s company?”

      “Yes.”

      The simmering stress behind Mary Jane’s recent bout of laughter burst through the facade and came out as anger. “You cannot be so clueless, Daisy! Tucker Reid!”

      “Wait a second...”

      “Tucker. Reid!” You could have cut the fake patience in Mary Jane’s tone with a knife.

      Oh, for crying out loud! It wasn’t as if Daisy wasn’t getting this. Of course she got it!

      “It was ten years ago, Mary Jane,” she said, gentleness not quite winning out over frustration. Here was her older sister sniping at her again. “It was a broken engagement, not an acrimonious divorce, and it was mutual. Lee and Tucker announced their decision together, remember. Not to mention that Lee is two thousand miles away in Colorado.”

      Lee, the middle Cherry sister, the meat in the sandwich between responsible, energetically organized Mary Jane and not-nearly-as-blonde-as-she-looked baby sister Daisy.

      “Do you honestly not have any idea?” Mary Jane cut in. She was angry. Needlessly angry, Daisy thought. “Do you honestly not know why Lee and Tucker canceled their wedding?”

      “I was there, wasn’t I? Because they realized it wasn’t right, and weren’t dumb enough to take such a step when they weren’t one hundred percent sure. Because Lee wasn’t ready. And Tucker wasn’t, either. They were pretty young. I think it was a very wise decision.”

      “She was twenty-three, he was twenty-four. Not that young. We were all so incredibly happy when they got engaged. Do you honestly think that breaking it was her choice?”

      “Lee is incredibly happy with her life now.”

      “Now. Yes. But it took a while. It took a long while. Years.” Mary Jane said that last word as if she knew all about things taking years. Alex Stewart again.

      “And you’re saying that’s all because of Tucker Reid?”

      “He dumped her! They might have pretended that it was mutual, but it wasn’t. It was down to two things.” Mary Jane checked the first one off on her fingers. “Because of the accident, and because—” But even though the second finger came up, she stopped abruptly, closed her mouth, and the second reason didn’t get spoken.

      Daisy’s

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