Meet Me at Sunset (Evening Island) - Olivia Miles Page 0,65

island. She didn’t quite know what to make of that.

“I can’t say anything yet,” he said, but his eyes gave her the answer. He sniffed the air for a moment, looking perplexed, and then seemed to shrug it off. “These things don’t always work out.”

“Of course,” she said. She’d been inside the Lakeside Inn a few times, to use the bathroom, to have lunch on the large front porch, to play hide and seek in the lobby when she was too young to know better. It had been family owned for as long as she knew, owned by the Altmans, who had a place at the northern tip of West End Road. “I hadn’t realized that they were selling. You know that their family house is near my cottage.”

“I might have put that together when you mentioned where you lived,” he said, laughing.

“Are they selling that too?” she asked. She hadn’t seen a sign, but if plans moved forward to sell Sunset Cottage, that couldn’t be good for her or her sisters.

Although, selling the house meant leaving. No job. No getaway. No more summers with her sisters or even the hopes of one. No more memories that seemed to come alive at every turn.

No John.

For reasons she couldn’t explain, even to herself, she suddenly said, “We’re hosting a dinner at our house, actually. This Sunday. If you’re around.”

She didn’t know where that had come from, but as she said it, the idea took hold, and it sounded wonderful. A dinner on the patio. She’d light tea candles and put out colorful centerpieces and a blue table runner to match the lake across the street. She’d make grilled fish and a strawberry pie for dessert. Her sisters would have to pull together for that. It would be fun—just the fun they needed to bring them closer again. And it might just make Gemma look at Sunset Cottage in a different light. Because while selling the house may be the practical thing to do, Hope was finding that following her heart was leading to a lot more happiness these days.

His gaze locked with hers. “Sunday night. I’ll be there.”

She pulled in a breath. He’d be there. Just like that. Just like she knew that he would.

“Sunset Cottage. There’s a sign near the maple in the front. Seven o’clock.”

“Looking forward to it,” he said, giving her an unreadable look, but she could see the smile in his eyes as she pushed the girls on by.

A party. And this one didn’t even feel like work!

She didn’t even stop to think that her sisters would probably have something to say about a man who was not her husband coming to their house for dinner. She’d just have to conjure up a few more invites.

.

Chapter Eighteen

Gemma

Gemma finished replying to her editor’s email and sat back with a smile. Leo had been right—getting out had helped her, and so had their conversation. She was finally making real progress in the book. Why not use some of her personal experience? It flowed from her fingertips and filled page after page. It was heartfelt, and real, and the more that she gave of herself, the less her chest ached. Life wasn’t a fairytale, but if her heroine could come through a bad patch and find everlasting love, then maybe she could too. Someday.

She’d gotten out a few more days this week, too, taking her laptop to the Cottage Coffeehouse or working on the front porch when Hope took the girls out or settled them for their naps. And she’d taken walks, long ones, bringing a notebook to the beach and immersing herself in the setting of the story she was creating.

Why hadn’t she done this in Chicago? She lived across from the park, not far from the lakefront either. Her neighborhood was full of cafés where other people seemed to have no problems being productive despite the chatter and the hiss of the espresso machine.

But she knew the answer. Because Sean was in Chicago.

And so was his new fiancée.

They’d gotten engaged three months after he’d ended things with her, meaning that they had now been engaged for two months. For two months he had called another woman his fiancée, when she’d never even made it to the altar.

That was the worst part of it, really. It wasn’t that he’d gotten cold feet, wasn’t ready to get married. It was that he didn’t want to marry her.

She looked down at her ring finger. She’d been walking so much that she