If for Any Reason (Nantucket Love Story #1) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,9

getting sidetracked. She wasn’t here to save the children’s theatre. She was here to renovate the old cottage, sell it, and start her life over.

Now, she sat in the cab in front of the old beach house for the first time in eighteen years, and the only thing she felt was numb. What was she doing here?

This was a bad idea.

She’d dragged her suitcase through town, then stopped at the arts center mostly in an attempt to avoid this exact moment—the moment she arrived at the cottage. The cottage that haunted her dreams.

Staring at the house now, she tried to keep the memories where she’d safely stored them—in the corners of her mind—but all around her, there were reminders of a life gone by. Reminders of her mother. Carefree days. Her grandfather—his fingerprints everywhere she looked.

She still couldn’t believe it. If she was honest, she hadn’t given herself time to process his death. Her grandparents were the only family she had, and now one of them was gone.

The thought gnawed at her. How long until she was completely alone?

She’d held herself together remarkably well after her grandmother gave her the news and all the way through the funeral, but she could feel it there, bubbling just below the surface, another reminder that life was fragile, that time was short, that her days, too, were numbered.

And what did she have to show for it?

“You getting out?” The cabdriver met her eyes in the rearview mirror. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been sitting there. It was just as well that he pulled her away from memory lane.

It wasn’t a good place to park.

She paid the man and got out, then trudged up the sidewalk, seashells crunching underneath her feet, and dropped her suitcase on the front porch. She was intent on not glamorizing Nantucket or the life she’d lived here. Intent on staying focused.

Renovate. Sell. Leave.

But how could she not relive that night? Panic gripped her. In a flash she was eleven again, awakened by the sound of angry voices filtering up the stairs to her bedroom.

Mom arguing with her parents. Grandma and GrandPop begging her to keep her voice down. The memory was hazy, and it made her heart race. What were they fighting about? Nobody had ever told her, and now she might never know.

“I can do hard things,” she muttered to herself, though her voice carried an edge of sarcasm.

The house looked terrible. How had her grandparents let it go like this? They should’ve sold it that same summer, but something stopped them. Of course something stopped them—it was the last place they’d seen their daughter alive. The last place they were all a family.

As far as Emily knew, they hadn’t rented it out, but why hadn’t they hired a property manager to take care of it? Surely there had been interest in it over the years—it was in a desirable location with the ocean for a backyard. It wasn’t like her grandparents not to pay attention to appearances—and the appearance of their summer home was far below their usual standards.

The gray shingles on the sides of the house were weathered, with several missing. She ran a hand over the chipped white paint on the trim around the window. She turned in a half circle to face the yard and shook her head at the overgrowth, the mess left from a harsh winter. Her grandmother would be horrified if she saw what had become of this place.

Her heart ached for what had become of their beloved summer home. Should she have gotten over her fear and done more to help? She’d never seen her grandparents cry over her mother’s death—not once—but had their suffering been deeper than they let on?

Emily fished the book from her bag but didn’t let her eyes linger on her mother’s handwriting. She opened to the center, where she’d put the key for safekeeping, pulled it out, and did her best not to think about the moment after GrandPop’s funeral when Grandma had sprung it on her that they were giving her the Nantucket house.

“He wanted you to have it, Emily,” she’d said, pressing the key into Emily’s sweaty palm.

“No,” she’d protested. “You know I can’t go back there.” And also, apparently I’m not good with money. I don’t deserve it.

“That house, that island, it meant the world to your grandfather, and he made it very clear he wanted you to decide what to do with the house. We’ve done a terrible job keeping