front entrance to the hotel. Alex’s younger brother, Andrew, and his family had apparently arrived just moments earlier from Washington, D.C.
She watched as her son, Timmy, like a perfect young gentleman, opened the front passenger door for his future aunt, Marcy. Then the sliding back door opened, and seven-year-old Johnny jumped out and hugged Timmy as Uncle Andrew helped his four-year-old twin daughters from the van. Timmy had already begun calling Andrew’s three children his “little cousins.”
Charlotte tapped the horn of her convertible lightly with a short beep beep to announce their arrival. When Alex looked up, she saw that his nose already had a touch of color from the afternoon sun, and his dark hair was windblown. He broke out into a broad smile.
Charlotte feigned an enamored swoon. “Look at your guy, Laurie. I’d say the feelings there are mutual.”
Laurie returned his smile. Charlotte was right about Alex and the work that would be waiting for her in two weeks. Until then, she was going to focus on her family.
Amid the joyous greetings, no one noticed the white Chrysler that pulled into the resort parking lot as Charlotte drove away.
Chapter 2
From the back deck of the South Shore Resort, Marcy Buckley looked out at the ocean and took in a deep breath of salty air. It felt good to stand after spending more than seven hours in the minivan. They had left D.C. before dawn to try to make it to the Hamptons in time for lunch. God bless Johnny for his willingness to keep his twin sisters entertained, but she would leave this world a happy woman if she never heard another round of that “Baby Shark” song again.
Now that they were at the hotel, Emily and Chloe had shifted whatever focus two four-year-olds could muster from their big brother to Alex’s fiancée, Laurie. Laurie had accompanied Marcy to take a quick look at the beach with the kids while Andrew and Alex handled the check-in process. The twins tugged at the linen of Laurie’s white wide-legged pants, eager to tell her the mystery story they had made up the previous night for her benefit, about a puppy who gets left home when the family goes on vacation. The girls had always been enthralled by their Uncle Alex, a well-known criminal defense attorney who was regularly in the news and on TV. When he had agreed to become the host of a series called Under Suspicion, oh, how they had begged to watch.
They were even more excited once they met Laurie, who explained that she also worked on the show, not to mention her NYPD-honcho father. Marcy knew it was normal for children to think other adults were more exciting than their boring old parents, but sometimes Marcy wanted to point out that she and Andrew weren’t exactly chopped liver. Andrew was a sought-after commercial litigator in D.C., and Marcy had been a successful actress for five years after she graduated from college in California. But to Johnny and the girls, she was always Mommy, and, after everything they had gone through to have a family, that was perfectly fine with Marcy.
While the girls were fawning over Laurie, Johnny was riveted by Laurie’s ten-year-old son, Timmy. Three years younger, Johnny had been referring to Timmy as his “cool cousin” since the moment he had heard about the engagement. Now she watched as the two boys threw a Nerf football back and forth near the shoreline. Although they were about to become cousins by marriage, they could easily have passed as siblings. Like Laurie, Timmy and Johnny had straight honey-colored hair and fair skin, whereas she, Andrew, and the twins were all dark waves and olive tones. It made Marcy happy that Johnny would finally have some family members who looked more like him.
“We want to play, too,” Chloe squealed. Emily looked up at Marcy with pleading dark brown eyes. The two of them had always charged ahead as a single unit, but of the twins it was easier to get Emily to calm down. Marcy scanned the beach, searching for ways her risk-taking girls could find danger. Most of the other people on the beach were couples, families, and groups. She noticed one woman alone in a billowing maxi dress, taking photographs of the water while smoking a cigarette. The only other person who appeared to be solo wore shorts, a T-shirt, and a light blue hat that reminded her of the one her mother used to wear