Wishing Beach - Heather Burch Page 0,1

And now it’s going to come true.”

Chapter One

Early summer, Present Day

Wishing Beach, FL

Angela

No one expects their life to crumble like mushy baby cookies. But sometimes that’s what happens. No one sits around thinking, Hey, maybe I’ll just throw out the last fifteen years and start over. But sometimes you have to. We breathe. We live. We love. We die. We own our decisions. What is outside our power is the certainty that the life we planned and painstakingly created will remain. Is there life after? Or is it all just silly wishes?

Angela Reed-Baker tallied the things in her future. Tropical breezes, palm trees, sunshine. She stepped from her car and was immediately assaulted by the coastal wind. Digging her fingers into her hair, she let the breeze work on her, hoping it might brush off some of the internal dirt she carried. She was the emotional equivalent of Pigpen from the Peanuts comics, aimlessly wandering around in a cloud of sentiment.

The clatter of palm fronds reset her focus. You’re here. Life begins anew. Salty air filled her lungs while her mantra continued like a song on repeat. Jogging on the beach, sunrise coffee on the terra cotta patio. Midnight dips in the pool. She swallowed the cotton in her throat.

Although she tried to stop the second mantra, it rushed forth unwanted, uninvited, and most definitely undeniable. Things that would be no longer in her future: cooking dinner for two, conversation with the man she loved, family meals, holidays with a house full of noisy people arguing about the stock market and politics.

And just like that, the ache was back, settling in the bottom of her heart so far down it would take a deep-sea rescue team to raise that sunken ship. Abandonment was a monster with teeth. And yet, this was a monster of her own design. After all, she was the one who left. The onset of fresh tears was all too familiar to deny.

The beautiful beach house she’d gotten in the divorce sat before her, a shimmering jewel on the edge of Wishing Beach. Yet her joy waned. Angela’s mind had been a battlefield for the last several months. It was time to let it go. Let it all go. Brice, the marriage that was no more, the life she’d spent fifteen years building. At thirty-nine, surely life wasn’t over. The thought niggled. Just as she drew a deep breath of warm Florida air, the front door of her beach house opened.

Jesse Malone stepped out, his deep Florida tan emphasized by the fresh white T-shirt, khaki shorts, and canvas topsiders. His face was creased with sixty years of age and the unrelenting sun. Dark wavy hair streaked with gray was pulled back in a short ponytail at the back of his neck. The scarring on the side of his face was barely noticeable, as were the fingers on his left hand that were frozen in a natural cupped position, injuries from some terrible incident in his youth. He made his way down the steps, his slight limp hardly visible as he approached. A smile overtook the concern on his face and the familiar sparkle lit his green eyes as he moved closer with outstretched arms. “Angie!” He scooped her into a strong hug.

He knows, Angela realized.

“Uncle Jesse.” The warmth in her heart overflowed in the comfort and security of his embrace. She breathed deeply of his clean aroma that mixed with the magnolia scented air.

And then the tears came.

Jesse wasn’t really her uncle, but he had been caretaker for the Baker family beach house for as long as she could remember. She and Brice, along with Brice’s two boys Braxton and Bryan, spent every summer on Wishing Beach, fifteen summers in a row. And Jesse was always there for whatever was needed. He spent a lot of time with the boys since Brice was never around for them.

Early on, the boys began calling him Uncle Jesse instead of Mr. Malone. She couldn’t remember at whose suggestion, it just was. Somewhere along the way she became Angie to him which always made her smile. Only a few close friends had ever called her that. She considered Jesse a friend.

Released from his tight hug, Angie pressed both hands on her cheeks and looked up at the mansion of a beach house that would be her permanent home. She’d never be able to handle the place alone. The fact that Jesse was there to fill some of the gaps made this