Summer at Hideaway Key Read online

  “Miss St. Claire?”

  Lily blinked, vaguely aware, as she stared at the sheaf of papers being pushed across the desk, that a response of some kind was expected. “I’m sorry, what?”

  Stephen Singer smiled, tapping the stack of pages with the flats of his fingers the way one might pat a puppy or child on the head. “I was saying we’ve come to the portion of your father’s will that concerns you.”

  “Oh yes. Thank you.”

  She really didn’t understand why they needed to sit through this. Her father’s holdings, liquid or otherwise, were hardly a secret, at least not to anyone who read the Wall Street Journal or Fortune magazine. Nor was it likely she or her mother would ever starve. They were grieving—or at least she was—wearing black and sipping bad coffee while they pored over the man’s portfolio, carving up things he’d spent his life building. She just wanted it over.

  Lily picked up the papers and placed them in her lap, not bothering to follow along as Mr. Singer started to read. It was mostly about her trust fund—dollar amounts, dates of scheduled payouts. None of it interested her. She was staring out the window, at the smoggy stretch of Manhattan skyline, when a sharp intake of breath got her attention. Snapping her head around, she was surprised to see that the color had all but drained from her mother’s cheeks.

  “That isn’t possible,” Caroline replied emphatically to whatever her father’s attorney had just said. “Roland hasn’t owned that property for years.”

  Singer cleared his throat, adjusting himself uneasily in his high-backed leather chair. “Mrs. St. Claire, you might not be aware that your husband reacquired the property last year. Your sister—that is, Ms. Boyle—bequeathed it to him upon her death. And now Roland has bequeathed it to your daughter.”

  Lily blinked at Singer, then turned to her mother. “What property?”

  Caroline stared back as if she hadn’t heard the question. Beneath all the carefully applied makeup, her face had suddenly gone the color of ash.

  “Mother?”

  Singer jumped in to fill the void when it became obvious that Caroline wouldn’t answer. “The property in question is Sand Pearl Cottage.”

  Lily ran the name around in her head but came up empty. “I’ve never heard of it.”

  He shot Caroline a pointed look before going on. “No, I don’t suppose you would have. It’s down on the Gulf Coast of Florida, on a little spit of beach called Hideaway Key. It used to belong to your mother’s sister.” He paused briefly when Caroline opened her mouth to interrupt, sending her a quelling look. “As I was saying, your aunt Lily-Mae owned the cottage for years, and then left it to your father. Now he’s passed it on to you.”

  All of a sudden, Singer had her full attention. Lily-Mae Boyle had left her a cottage? “Why me? I’ve never laid eyes on the woman.”

  Singer’s lips thinned. “Yes, well . . . perhaps that’s why.”

  Lily tried to wrap her head around what she was being told, but she wasn’t having much luck. For as long as she could remember, the name Lily-Mae Boyle had been forbidden in their home, an edict Lily-Mae’s death, one year ago, had done nothing to change. And yet she had remained a part of their lives, a shadowy but palpable presence in the St. Claire household. It irked her that despite her thirty-year fascination with the exiled Lily-Mae, she still didn’t understand the long-standing feud between her mother and her aunt. She only knew the sisters had sparred briefly for her father’s affections, and that her mother had emerged the victor.

  “I won’t allow it.” Caroline’s voice crackled in the silence. “It’s a mistake. My daughter will not have anything to do with that . . . that . . . place.”

  “Caroline.” Singer drew the name out on a sigh, as if addressing a headstrong child. “Do I need to remind you that your daughter is well beyond the age of twenty-one? In fact, if memory serves, and you can trust me when I tell you it does, Lily will be thirty-six on her next birthday, which means you have absolutely no say—in this or in anything else she might choose to do. Roland was very clear about her having the cottage. Period. Now, with your permission, I’d like to move on to the final paperwork.”

  Caroline’s chin came up a notch, as it always did when she didn’t get her way, but she said nothing more.

  • • •

  As Lily navigated the snarl of downtown traffic, she could barely recall the rest of the meeting, except that it had all been rather surreal. She had signed where she was told to sign, initialed where she was told to initial, and then dutifully accepted the paperwork Singer handed her as she left his office, including the key to a beach house that until two hours ago she hadn’t known existed.

  She was leaving for Milan in a few weeks. What was she supposed to do with a beach house? Although, at the moment, she had to admit the prospect of hiding out for a few weeks at a seaside cottage had its appeal. Just the thought of returning to her parents’ Gramercy town house made her squirm, especially now that her father was gone. Unfortunately, short of checking into a hotel, she had nowhere else to go. It hadn’t made sense to hang on to her loft when she left for Paris. And she’d been right. In nine years she’d been home less than a dozen times, usually for Christmas, or her father’s birthday. Now, she would have happily paid rent on an empty flat if it meant having a place to escape her mother’s present mood, or for that matter, most of her moods.

  Lily stole a sidelong glance at Caroline, sitting sullen and white-faced in the passenger seat. She refused to talk about her outburst in Singer’s office, or to explain her reaction when the cottage became part of the conversation. Fine. Let her pout, or fume, or whatever this was. At the moment, Lily was too jet-lagged to launch into a proper cross-examination, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to get to the bottom of whatever was going on—because something was definitely going on.

  She swallowed a groan as she stepped into the elaborate foyer and kicked off her shoes. It was full of flowers, sickly sweet blooms that kept arriving every day as news of her father’s death rippled through the world of international finance. Roses, lilies, gardenias—their cloying scent made her stomach turn. And the sight of them broke her heart. Stacks of sympathy cards crowded the foyer table, condolences from friends and colleagues all over the world. Most would have gone unopened had she not come home. Her mother couldn’t be bothered.

  It was true that her parents hadn’t been close; they’d never pretended otherwise, even for her sake. But there was such a thing as decency, as respectful grieving for a husband of thirty-plus years. So far, her mother hadn’t shown any.

  Caroline pushed past her, making a beeline for the bar. Lily checked her watch; a little past noon, so technically a martini wasn’t a complete no-no, but she couldn’t help wondering when her mother had started drinking so early. She’d never been an easy woman to read, her emotions wrapped so tightly that Lily sometimes wondered if she had any at all. But then, maybe her husband’s death was affecting her more than she cared to let on. On impulse, Lily crossed the living room, laying a hand on Caroline’s arm.

  “Mother . . .”

  Before she could form her next words, Caroline pivoted to face her. “You will not keep that cottage—do you hear me? Your father had no business leaving it to you.”

  Lily dropped her hand and stood studying her mother with something like fascination. Her cheeks were a mottled crimson, and she was actually trembling. “All right, Mother. What’s this about? All this anger, and . . . I don’t know what. You obviously have some sort of problem with Daddy leaving me this cottage, so what is it?”

  “He had no right.”

  “No right to what? Have a place of his own?”

  “Not that place—no.”

  “So this is about Lily-Mae? Because the cottage used to belong to her, and Daddy accepted it without your permission?”

  Caroline faltered as she filled a martini glass, sloshing
Tanqueray onto the marble bar top. She ignored the mess, lifting the half-full glass and draining it in one long swallow. “You know you’re not to use that name in my house. Not today. Not ever.”

  Lily felt her patience starting to fray. “Honestly, Mother, the woman is dead—your sister is dead—and so is Daddy. And you still can’t let go of this ridiculous feud. Why? Please tell me you’re not still nursing a grudge against a dead woman because a million years ago she had eyes for my father. He married you. And she never married at all, which means we’re all the family she had. Why wouldn’t she leave the cottage to Daddy? She knew you’d never accept it.”

  Caroline glared at her like a truculent child. “No, I wouldn’t have. And you’re not accepting it, either.”

  “That’s ridiculous, and you know it! Your feud with Lily-Mae has nothing to do with me. How could it? I never met the woman. But maybe Mr. Singer was right. Maybe that is why Daddy left me the cottage. Because he thought I should at least know something about the woman I was named for. God knows, I’ve never learned anything about her from you.”

  Caroline turned back to her pitcher of martinis, the thin glass rod tinkling as she stirred. “No, you haven’t. And there’s no point now. She’s dead, and it’s over.”

  “What’s over?” Lily demanded, frustration finally boiling over. “What happened to make you hate her so? To make you still hate her? Are you jealous? Is that it? She was famous, and you weren’t? Is that what all this has been about?”

  “That’s enough!”

  “No, it really isn’t. I want to understand, and have since the day I found that magazine clipping of Lily-Mae in your dresser. Do you remember that? I was snooping around, and there it was, at the bottom of one of the drawers. You walked in and I held it up. When you saw what it was you snatched it out of my hand, and then you slapped me. Six years old, and you slapped me in the face. You’d never laid a hand on me until then, and never have since.”

  “I was trying to teach you about going through people’s things,” Caroline said stiffly, but she had gone a little pale, her free hand fluttering anxiously at her throat. “It’s what parents do.”

  “No, you just pretended it was about the snooping. Even then, I knew there was something else going on, something you were hiding. I’ve never forgotten that day, or stopped wondering what it was you weren’t telling. I’m wondering about it right now, quite a lot, in fact. So why not just tell me the truth? Is this about Daddy? Because all those years ago he and Lily-Mae went out a couple of times? Because, honestly, Mother, it feels like more than that—a lot more.”

  Caroline picked up her freshened glass and moved to the window, gazing out at the hazy city skyline. When she finally turned back, her eyes held a note of pleading. “Isn’t it enough that I’m asking you to leave this be, Lily? Can you not be loyal to me just this once?”

  Lily caught the faint Tennessee drawl that sometimes crept into her mother’s speech when she was upset. But it was the word loyal that jumped out at her now, better suited to wars and territorial disputes than conversations between mother and daughter. But then, the word war wasn’t completely off the mark when describing their relationship over the years, the cool, careful distances, tensions that never quite erupted into full-scale conflict. A cold war. And now, for reasons she couldn’t fathom, at a time when they should be bonding over the death of her father, it seemed the hostilities had resumed.

  “Just this once?” Lily repeated softly, still absorbing the sting of the words. “You’re saying I’ve been disloyal to you in the past? That I’ve always been disloyal?”

  Caroline’s face didn’t soften. “I’m saying you’ve always taken your father’s side in everything, and now you’re doing it again. You know how I feel—how I’ve always felt—and still, you keep prying. If you care about my feelings you’ll drop this obsession of yours, and get rid of that horrible place.”

  “Why horrible? You keep saying that, but you won’t say why.”

  “The why isn’t important, Lily.”

  “Of course it’s important. Look, I’m trying to understand all this. I really am. But you’re not helping. Mr. Singer said Daddy had reacquired the property, which makes it sound like it was his to begin with, and that Lily-Mae was just giving it back. Is that what all this loyalty talk is about? You think Daddy should have said no to the cottage? Or is it because he accepted it without telling you? Because I can totally see him not sharing that information. I mean . . . look at you. This is not normal behavior.”

  Caroline was trembling in earnest now, her fingers white around the stem of her glass. “Your father was a fool. He couldn’t help . . .”

  “What?” Lily shot back. “Being decent? It was obviously more than you were willing to do. Maybe my getting the cottage was what Lily-Mae had in mind when she left it to Daddy. Did you ever think of that? That maybe she just wanted to leave me something?”

  “She never cared about you. She never cared about anyone but herself.”

  “And Daddy,” Lily said softly. “That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”

  Caroline took a step back, as if the words had touched her physically. “She always won. Whatever she wanted, she got. But not your father. Your father belonged to me. And now she’s dead—done with things that don’t belong to her.”

  Lily heaved a sigh. “I don’t know what that means, Mother.”

  “It means the less you have to do with that woman—and that place—the better for all concerned. The job in Milan is what you should be thinking about, Lily, your career. Not wasting your time worrying about a dead woman you never met.”

  Lily blinked at Caroline, not bothering to hide her surprise. “Suddenly you’re interested in my career? When you’ve barely bothered to keep up with where I’ve been the past nine years? Pardon me if I’m just a little bit skeptical. I also find it odd that you can’t wait to send me packing. Most mothers would want their daughter with them after losing their husbands, but not you. You can’t wait to send me off to Milan. Why is that?”

  Caroline’s gaze narrowed, the whites of her eyes flashing as she waved a finger under Lily’s nose. “I will not stand here and be questioned in my own home, not about that woman, and not by you.”

  Lily simply stared at her. Something about that finger, about the way her mother stood there glaring, as if her word were absolute, sent some tiny wheel or gear clicking into place. She was finished arguing, finished asking questions.

  “Don’t worry, Mother. You won’t have to. I’m leaving. But before I do, let me remind you that that woman, as you insist on calling her, was your sister. And that place you talk about with such contempt was a gift from my father—my dead father—and it’s the last thing he’s ever going to give me. So I’d appreciate it if you’d at least pretend to respect Daddy’s wishes. Now, if we’re finished here, I’ll go and pack.”

  Caroline’s eyes had lost some of their fire. “You’re leaving for Milan? Now?”

  “No. I’m leaving for Florida. I’m going to see what all the fuss is about.”

  TWO

  1995

  Hideaway Key, Florida

  Lily lowered all four windows, savoring the gush of sticky, salty air that poured in as she blew past the shell-shaped sign welcoming her to Hideaway Key. For a moment she felt an absurd urge to turn on the radio and find a Jimmy Buffett tune—or maybe the Beach Boys. Her father had been crazy about the Beach Boys.

  She couldn’t help smiling as she recalled the Saturday afternoon he had dragged out his album collection and cranked up the old stereo, how he had lifted her into his arms and slow danced with her in the living room, crooning the words to “Don’t Worry Baby” softly against her cheek.

  The memory brought a sudden sting of tears. She hadn’t thought of that day in years, but was glad she’d recalled it now. She would like to think he was happy once, that he had at least a f
ew good memories to sustain him through less happy times, but she wasn’t sure. As far back as she could remember he had stressed the importance of finding her right place in the world, of listening to her heart and following her own North Star. There had always been something faintly intense about those lectures, as if drawn from a deep well of unhappy experience.

  Lily pushed the thought away as she cruised past ice-cream parlors and hot dog stands, surfside bars and beachwear shops. There were a handful of motels, too, flat-roofed mom-and-pops with names like the Surf Rider and the Sea Grape Inn. Sadly, none of them were advertising vacancies. It was starting to look as if she would have to head out of town to find a bed for the night. But first, she wanted to find the cottage while it was still light and give it a quick once-over.

  Sand Pearl Cottage.

  She liked the name. It was charming, like something from a fairy tale. And it was hers. Over the past two days, what had begun as an impulse was starting to feel like a much-needed reprieve, a bit of breathing room before she headed to Milan at the end of the month. Or maybe she just wanted somewhere to hide, a place to lick her wounds and sift through her emotions. Grief over the loss of her father and mentor. Resentment of her mother’s petty dramas. Guilt for the way she had ended her relationship with Luc.

  And beneath it all, a restlessness that never seemed to leave her, the sense that there was something more she was meant to do, something just beyond her grasp that would finally feel right—her elusive North Star, perhaps. Or maybe it was only a fancy, felt more keenly now that her father was gone.

  The first three emotions she understood. It was the last that baffled her. Since her first conversation with Dario Enzi, her contact at Izzani, she’d been trying to convince herself that she was excited about going to Milan. She wasn’t, though. It was just what she did, what she had always done, because her work was who she was, a way of proving to the world that she was more than just Roland St. Claire’s little girl. So, here she was, twelve hundred miles from home with three weeks to figure it all out, and not the slightest idea where she was going to sleep.