Is It Any Wonder (Nantucket Love Story #2) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,77
that her family was weird.
Was she weird? Oh, gosh, she was, wasn’t she?
“Louisa?”
“Hmm?”
“Still got your head in the clouds, I see.” Mom had gone back into the kitchen and had probably asked Louisa a question, but Louisa had no idea what it was.
“What did you say?”
“Honestly, Louisa. I really hoped you’d outgrow this daydreaming.”
“This daydreaming is the reason I’m now a successful business owner.”
Her mom raised a brow. “Successful?”
Louisa shrank under the accusation. She was successful. She had her own business. She paid her bills. Never mind that her bank account was nearly empty and she had no idea how she would ever pay for her impulse buy of one handsome Coast Guardsman.
“I suppose you must be if you have over five thousand dollars to give away at a charity auction.” Her raised brow seemed to accuse.
“It’s for a good cause.” Louisa sat on the tall stool at the kitchen island and plucked a grape from the bunch in the fruit bowl on the counter.
In the lull, Louisa wondered if part of the reason it had become so important to repair the relationship between her family and Cody’s was because of this thinly veiled tension that always existed between her and her mother. Had it been there before Daniel had died? Did she really think that making things right between Marissa and her parents would fix her own relationship with them?
Louisa knew her mother blamed her for Daniel’s death. She’d implied as much more than once.
The day Louisa had told her she’d decided to move to Nantucket full-time and work for the hotel, her mom said, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? It will be a constant reminder that your actions have consequences.”
Louisa hadn’t bothered correcting her. She hadn’t taken the time to explain that she’d already learned that lesson and was currently punishing herself for it on a daily, hourly, minute-ly basis.
Louisa had always believed her mother’s passive-aggressive anger toward her was a result of the fact that she’d lost Marissa, her best friend in the world. But now, in light of what Cody suspected, she wondered if it was more than that.
The thought of it made Louisa’s stomach roll.
“Are you here to ask for money?”
“What? No. I’ve been on my own for years, Mom.”
Her mother took a Diet Coke from the refrigerator.
“Still drinking that, are you?”
She opened the bottle and poured it into a glass. “Leave me alone. I know all about how bad it is for me.”
“You know aspartame is worse than real sugar.”
“Why are you here, Louisa?”
“Can’t a girl stop by and say hello to the parents who never text or call?”
“Oh, Louisa, you’ve always been so dramatic.” Her mother took a drink. “So have you had a sailing lesson yet?”
In a flash, Louisa was back on that boat, touching Cody’s T-shirt, inhaling the scent of his aftershave, hearing the sound of the birds, and wondering how it might taste if he brought his lips to hers.
“Just one,” Louisa said.
“Just you and Cody?” Her mother’s expression had turned troubled.
Louisa nodded.
“How is he?”
Beautiful. Kind. Muscular. Handsome. Strong. Gorgeous. Broken. “Fine, I guess.”
“Is he speaking to you?”
“We’re working on the regatta together, Mother,” Louisa said, realizing they were veering wildly off course. “Hey, do you know anything about that memorial someone put up for Daniel?”
“The cross?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Louisa eyed her mother.
“I mean, I know it exists.”
“Do you know who put it there?”
Her mother shrugged. “How would I?”
“You and Dad were his closest friends.”
“That was a long time ago. Maybe Marissa had it installed. Or Cody?”
“They didn’t.”
Her mother shifted. She looked uncomfortable. Did she have something to hide?
She opened the refrigerator and pulled out an apple, then found a cutting board and knife and started slicing. She’d eat it with sharp cheddar cheese, same way she had when Louisa was a girl. It was a JoEllen delicacy Louisa had never cared for.
She liked her cheese on crackers and her apples with peanut butter.
Or maybe she just didn’t want to be anything like her mother.
“Cody found something on the back of the cross,” she said cautiously, scrutinizing her mother’s every move.
Mom glanced up mindlessly but continued cutting. “And?”
“It was a note for his dad.”
Her mother stopped cutting.
“It was addressed to Danny.”
“Danny?”
Louisa nodded. “Danny.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Did you leave the note, Mom?”
“I did not,” she said. “Other people on this island knew Daniel Boggs. Maggie, for instance.”
“Maggie knows nothing about it,” Louisa said. “And to my knowledge, she never called him Danny.”