Sand Castle Bay (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,100
lockers to store your books. You can study up there if you have homework from school.”
Predictably, both girls made faces that had Emily laughing. “Then how about we go back downstairs and you can take a look at the playroom? Would that be more to your liking?”
“Yes, please,” the older girl said politely.
“An honest-to-goodness playroom?” the mother breathed as if she couldn’t quite believe it.
Emily nodded. “We tried to think of everything that would make it comfortable. If there’s anything we didn’t think of, though, please be sure to let us know.”
For the first time, a smile teased at the woman’s lips. “If you understood where we’ve been and even half of what we’ve been through, you’d know that bare walls and a blanket on the floor would be a thousand times better as long as we’re safe. This is heaven.”
To Emily’s surprise, the woman embraced her in a hug. “Thank you.”
“I’m just the designer. The people you really need to thank are downstairs.”
“Believe me, I’ll be thanking them every day of my life. And once I get on my feet and I can provide a safe place for myself and my kids, I will come back here and return the favor. I promise you that.”
The whole day was like that, with women who had so little showing boundless gratitude for what was being provided and promising to give back when they could. By the end of the day they’d already worked out a rotation among themselves for cooking and child care.
The experience left Emily with a full heart. She could hardly wait to get to Sand Castle Bay to share everything that had happened today with Boone. This, she thought as she flew across the country, was what she’d been meant to do.
* * *
Emily pounded on Gabi’s door to no avail. Either her sister had gone to Grandmother’s for the holiday, was off somewhere with friends, or—and this was what Emily feared—was hiding out.
She called Cora Jane’s first. It was Samantha who picked up. “Any sign of Gabi over there?” she asked Samantha.
“Nope. Grandmother said Gabi insisted she had other things to do.”
“Well, she’s not home, or at least she’s not answering the door,” Emily reported.
“Did you look in the garage? Is her car there?”
Walking with her cell phone in hand, Emily crossed the small patch of lawn in front of the brick town house and tried to get a glimpse inside the garage, but the windows were too high. “I can’t tell,” she said in frustration. “Maybe I should call Dad. It’s possible she’s spoken to him.”
“Afraid not,” Samantha said. “He arrived here an hour ago. He said he hasn’t talked to her for a couple of weeks.”
“Off with the boyfriend?” Emily speculated.
“I suppose that’s possible,” Samantha said. “But I don’t like this, Em.”
“Neither do I,” Emily admitted.
“If she were spending the holiday with that man, don’t you think she’d have been so excited, she’d have mentioned it?”
“Absolutely,” Emily agreed.
“Well, if she doesn’t call at some point today to wish us all a happy Thanksgiving, then I say we need to go back tomorrow and do a thorough search for her,” Samantha said. “I’m really worried.”
Emily thought of her plans with Boone for tomorrow. If they had to be sacrificed in order to make sure her sister was okay, well, that’s just the way it had to be.
“I’m taking off from here now,” she told Samantha. “See you later. Don’t you dare eat all the turkey before I get there.”
“Trust me, that bird won’t come out of the oven until you and Boone are on the premises, even though Dad’s already grumbling about needing to leave to get back to Raleigh. Grandmother’s dug in her heels this time.”
Emily laughed. “Good for her. Once in a while it’s good for Dad to discover that the whole world doesn’t revolve around him.”
After she’d disconnected the call, Emily walked around the town house one last time, looking for signs of life, but it appeared eerily quiet. She was tempted to knock on a couple of the neighbors’ doors but knew Gabi would never forgive her for stirring up talk. She’d also admitted more than once that she barely even knew the people who lived around her. With the hours Gabi worked, she never saw them.
Emily fretted over her sister’s whereabouts and her odd behavior all during the drive to Cora Jane’s. She was convinced it had something to do with this man none of them had met, but with Gabi