The Sweetest Summer: A Bayberry Island Novel

  Last evening, he seemed preoccupied and unfocused. This morning, he was exhilarated. She sensed a joy in Clancy she hadn’t seen since he was a kid, spiced with a pinch of danger. When she sat with him on the couch, she had known he was on the verge of transformation.

  Surely, this change in his vibe was not due to his police work. He never got wound up about his job, not even during festival week.

  Mona went around her house turning off lights, checking that the coffeepot was unplugged, and giving a last-minute tug on her long blond wig. It was unheard of—Clancy just walking in and announcing he needed help. He was self-sufficient to a fault. Even something as overwhelming as his cottage renovation was primarily a solo endeavor. It was how Clancy saw himself—a man who gave help instead of asking for it. As police chief, he spent his life assisting others. As the only Flynn son on the island, he was forever helping his family.

  And this was why she was so puzzled. What revolution was taking place in the spirit of her unflappable middle child? And the mermaid ensemble for a tall and slender woman? And a kid’s pirate costume? What was that all about?

  Mona smiled in the hallway mirror. Of course it was a woman. A woman with a child.

  Mona grabbed her tote bag and headed out for her busy day as ambassador of the Mermaid Society. She had to remind herself that she would not get involved with Clancy’s personal life, at least not directly. Her days trying to coordinate her children’s happiness were behind her, but, that said, she was curious to see what would happen with the costume she’d given him.

  He had no way of knowing, but the mermaid ensemble he’d borrowed was more than just spandex and sequins. It was the regalia Mona had worn for her last six swearing-in ceremonies. She had renewed her devotion to the legend six times in that tail, and believed it had absorbed the purest of light, been infused with love energy, and now hummed at an advanced, openhearted frequency. In short, any woman who wore that ensemble would receive protection and strength from none other than the Great Mermaid herself, the goddess of the sea, the patroness of true love.

  Mona hoped whoever this girl was, she would make the most of it.

  * * *

  Clancy had been right. Christina needed a nap. The little girl was so tired that she conked out within five minutes, despite the unfamiliar environment. The lovely ocean breeze moving through the window soothed both of them, and forced Evelyn to admit that the motel had felt more like a prison cell than a rented room. She lay next to Christina on the bed until her niece’s breathing fell into the settled rhythm of deep sleep.

  Evelyn then stood and went to the back deck of Clancy’s house, watching the sunshine burn through the clouds. His place was small but comfortable, and it was clear he’d put a lot of effort and time into making it his own. The kitchen and bathroom looked recently modernized, both rooms featuring light gray marble counters and a variety of repurposed antique cabinets and shelves of all kinds of shapes and sizes. They were all painted the same glossy off-white, giving them a harmonious appearance despite their differences. Then he’d added touches of color with backsplash tile in blues and grays. She was impressed. Clancy had an eye for detail, and the colors and textures inside blended seamlessly with the beach house setting.

  She was enjoying the view from that beach house now. Sea grass and squat pine trees fringed Clancy’s property, and a crooked walking path wound its way from his yard down to the waterline. But all that was window dressing for the spectacular, front-row seat at seaside. With the sun’s help, she could see that Clancy’s house actually sat on the highest point of a little spit of land jutting into the water. Off to the left, breakers crashed up against an outcropping of sharp and foreboding boulders, but on the other side, waves spilled peacefully on a couple acres’ worth of pretty beach. Funny how such extremes existed side by side on one sliver of land.

  Evelyn gazed out over the expanse of blue, green, and gray sea stretching into forever.

  Like most Mainers, Evelyn knew and loved the state’s lacy edge of seashore, but because she grew up in the foothills and worked in the state capital, she never felt as if the ocean dominated her surroundings. It was easy to forget that nearly two-thirds of the earth was covered in water when you lived inland. Not here. The view from Clancy’s little backyard gave Evelyn a to-scale view of the world: she was a tiny speck, standing on a small rock, surrounded on all sides by a vast ocean. Wasn’t it interesting that only a few days before she had imagined Bayberry to be the ideal place to hide? Now she realized she might have backed herself into a corner. If it wasn’t for Clancy Flynn, she’d already be in handcuffs.

  * * *

  “Son, I need your help at the chili cook-off. It’s an emergency.” Clancy could tell by his father’s authoritative tone of voice that Frasier Flynn was in official mayoral mode.

  “What’s up?”

  “I think one of these smart-asses from the mainland put psychedelic mushrooms in his entry. Dammit! I hate when this happens!”

  “Can I send one of my crew over?”

  “Are you nuts?” Frasier caught himself in midshout and lowered his voice to as much of a whisper as he could manage, which was none at all. The Flynn kids had always snickered at the “Irish whisper” their father was known for.

  “We must keep this quiet, son. Come alone. Act casual. The story they ran in the Bulletin two years ago nearly shut this whole pop stand down and you know it. We . . .” Frasier stopped suddenly to dole out a few hearty greetings to passersby. “I’m back,” he said with a loud sigh. “We simply can’t have the cook-off judges wandering around Island Day tripping on ’shrooms again. I need you to take care of this.”

  Clancy rolled his eyes. His father had been known to become slightly paranoid executing his official duties during festival week. Rowan had long ago given it a nickname: “Mayornoia.”

  “Relax, Da. I’ll be there as soon as the one o’clock unloads.”

  “Fine. Fine.”

  Clancy finished greeting the latest batch of tourists as they disembarked from the ferry, shaking hands and getting hugs from repeat visitors. All the while his mind was on his two houseguests. What were they doing? Were they staying inside out of sight? Had they watched the news on his TV? Was she finding anything there to keep Christina occupied? The Flynns didn’t have any little kids around. He didn’t know much about children—especially little girls—and what they might like to play with.

  Were they even still there?

  As Clancy headed over to the cook-off stage, he decided he needed to be clear in his own head about what he was doing. Did he regret the situation he’d put himself in? No. In fact, he knew from the second he saw Evie what was ahead for him. Even when he didn’t realize who she was, he felt compelled to help her carry whatever burdened her.

  After Clancy had finished roll call and shift change that morning, he managed to catch a few moments in his office with the door shut. An FBI memo said they planned to sweep through Bayberry in the afternoon and would contact Clancy when they were en route via helicopter from the Vineyard. In the meantime, video of the congressman making a spectacle of himself was being replayed everywhere on TV and online. He issued a formal statement in which he took full responsibility for seducing Amanda McGuinness, admitting he had abused his position of authority with a staff member. He went on to claim he would gladly abandon his political career if it brought his daughter back safely. The guy even addressed rumors of his impending divorce, saying that whatever his wife chose to do he couldn’t blame her. “I haven’t been a very good husband. I don’t deserve her.”

  Clancy didn’t trust a word that came out of either side of that man’s mouth. Nobody got to serve four terms in Congress by baring his soul. Politics didn’t work that way. Richard Wahlman was doing this for a reason. He had to gain something from his public shaming, either politically, financially, or personally.

  It took time for Clancy
to wind his way through the Island Day crowds, not only because Main Street was packed but because he was on alert. It was his job. Every time he nodded toward someone, caught someone’s eye, or returned a smile or friendly greeting, he was checking for any sign of illegal or dangerous activity. It’s just what cops did—a lost kid, concealed weapons, shoplifting, narcotics possession, indecent exposure, young men on the verge of fistfights, public intox. The vast majority of visitors to Bayberry Island were there simply to commune with the mermaid while letting their inner oddball out to play. Yet it was his job to find anyone who could potentially pose a threat to public safety.

  Clancy caught himself, and laughed out loud. Here he was, worried about someone stealing an origami seagull when the nation’s most-wanted kidnapper was hanging out at his place doing a load of laundry. Sometimes, you just had to believe everything would work out fine. Otherwise, life could make you crazy.

  Clancy had been there a few times. There were mornings when he woke up and assumed it would be just another day, only to find himself living a different life by the time the sun set. Some changes were good, some bad, and others would take years before he knew what the hell had happened. The day Frasier told the family that the fishery was bankrupt was a bad day. The day he—and Mr. Katsakis—found Barbie in room forty-seven of the Sand Dollar Motel appeared to be a bad day at first, but Clancy soon saw it was a blessing. But never had his life been tossed up in the air and turned upside down as it was the day Evie returned to Bayberry Island. He chose to have faith—because the alternative was unthinkable.

  All that said, Clancy had to be honest with himself. He wanted her. In the middle of this giant shit storm, he wanted to touch her more, kiss her longer, and discover what her life had been like through the years.

  He needed to know if that summer had ever meant anything to her.

  Clancy wasn’t proud of the level of his frustration. It took everything he had not to stare at Evie like a starving man, and it was downright painful to not be able to talk to her freely. It wasn’t Christina’s fault, but the little girl’s presence complicated things, big-time.

  Clancy saw his father waving.

  “Oh thank God!” Frasier clomped down the steps of the cook-off stage and gestured for Clancy to meet him behind the Island Day command center, otherwise known as the family’s 1978 Winnebago trailer. He pointed to a covered lobster pot sitting on the grass. “Here it is. Exhibit A.”

  Clancy was confused. “Uh, what am I supposed to do with a giant-assed tub of chili? Why don’t you just dispose of it?”

  Frasier shook his head. “If I poured it down the sewer the whole island would be seeing tie-dyed dolphins.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it works, Da.”

  “I want arrests made. I need you to take this in for evidence.”

  “Take it where?” Clancy chuckled. “You know I don’t work for NCIS, right? I don’t have some cute Goth chick in pigtails in the basement, fiddling with every technology known to forensic science. If I took this chili in as evidence, I’d have to ship it to the state police lab in Sudbury, and it could take months to get results back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Clancy put his arm around his father’s shoulder and grinned. “Well, now, you might have a point. Seeing as how there’s no actual crime associated with this pot of allegedly tainted chili, it could take years.”

  Frasier’s mouth fell open. “So . . . that’s it? That’s all you’re going to do?”

  Clancy patted his dad’s back. “I’m afraid so.” Just then, he was struck with an idea. “Unless we can work out a deal.”

  Frasier narrowed his eyes. “Does this have anything to do with your mother?”

  “Uh, wow. No.” Clancy shook his head nice and slow. “I don’t want anywhere near that subject.”

  Frasier glanced up to the heavens and said, “Thank Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the wee donkey.” Then he returned his attention to Clancy. “What do you propose?”

  “I’ll take the hallucinogenic chili back to the station if you fill in for me the rest of the week at the dock.”

  Frasier grimaced. “The rest of the week? Ah, son. That’s harsh.”

  “Remember that year you made me clean bird shit from the mermaid scales?”

  His father narrowed one eye.

  “Payback is a bitch, Da.”

  “You drive a hard bargain.” Frasier held out his hand to shake on the deal. “Done. Thank you. We’re gonna throw the book at them.”

  Clancy carried the heavy chili pot a full block before he reached the police Jeep. He tucked it between the passenger seat and the dash, moving the sun hat and baseball cap far away just in case there was any chili spillage. He wanted to be careful even though the hats weren’t anything fancy. He’d stopped by a couple vendor tents so he’d have something to give the girls. For Evie he got a generic straw hat with a wide brim and a flowery ribbon. It was a lot more girlie-girlie than the one she lost in the water, and much larger, and it would hide her face better. And for Christina—Chris—he found a kid-sized Red Sox cap, which he hoped would check the “unisex” box because he had to cut his Island Day shopping trip short.

  A few minutes later, Clancy let himself in the back entrance of the police station and went immediately to the break room. He transferred a decent amount of the chili to a plastic container and poured the rest down the garbage disposal, public acid trips be damned. He placed the container into an evidence bag and scrawled on a Post-it Note, which he stuck to the bag. It read: “Do not eat. May be tainted. Sending to Sudbury for analysis.” He stuck the bag in the freezer.

  He went into the front office, where he found a solo Jake. “What’s up?”

  “Hey, Chief.”

  The dogs burst from their sleeping spot under the desk, nearly knocking Jake onto his ass.

  “Whoa. Settle down,” Clancy said, petting them. “Where is everyone today. Anything going on?”

  “Just sent Deon out to check on a couple cyclists who crashed into each other on the southern side of the bike trail.”

  “Injuries?”

  “Scraped knees. EMTs responding.”

  “Ordinance violations?”

  “Deon says they were wearing helmets and didn’t appear to be intoxicated, so unless we’re citing people for being dumbshits, then no.”

  “Ha. All right. Look, I’d like to be off the grid for a couple hours. Call if it’s an emergency. I’ll be back for the dogs later.”

  “Got it, Chief.”

  “Any news on the kidnapping suspect?”

  “Not a peep.”

  On the drive home, Clancy realized he should be feeling relieved that there were no Evie sightings. Instead, the closer he got to his house, the more wound-up he felt. His emotions and thoughts were whipping around like an invisible cyclone. This was it. If Evie was still there, then he was about to cross a line. Clancy had already pledged to help her—and now he was going to discover just what he’d signed up for. He was a man of his word, but what would she tell him? How would he find a way to help her without compromising everything he believed in?

  He had butterflies, too. Jesus, he actually had butterflies in his stomach at the idea that Evie could be there when he opened the door.

  He’d felt like this only one other time, the summer he was fourteen. He would jump out of bed each morning and race to see the pretty tourist girl. They would meet at the boat dock, or at Haven Beach, or in front of Frankie’s, and then spend every possible second with each other. Every day it was the same—butterflies in his belly, his brain charged with the thrill of sexual chemistry, and his heart exploding with something powerful and strange.

  Over the years, Clancy told himself the experience had been nothing but the chemical mirage of puberty, a cocktail of hormones, summertime freedom, and the ego boost of being crazy about a girl who was crazy
about him, too. Turned out he was wrong.

  It wasn’t hormones or ego—it was Evie.

  Clancy pulled the Jeep into the drive and took a deep steadying breath. The situation was far more complicated this go-round. It was time for them to sort it all out.

  Eighteen years ago . . .

  As much fun as he was having with Evie, and as crazy as he was about her, Clancy wouldn’t be able to see her that evening. Technically, he could see her, but that would mean he’d have to invite her to his family’s annual festival-week cookout—something he wouldn’t do even to his worst enemy.

  It just wouldn’t work. There would be relatives there from the mainland and all kinds of nosy questions and comments—ooh, do you have a girlfriend? She’s a tourist girl? Well aren’t you Mr. Hot Stuff! He didn’t want to embarrass her like that. Also, he didn’t want Evie to meet Duncan. She’d probably be offended by the shit he would say to Clancy, right in front of her, and he might even try to hit on Evie just to see if he could steal her away. Sometimes, he wished his big brother was still sick and stuck in bed. He’d been a lot easier to deal with back then. Duncan had gotten a fat head on him lately. He thought he was the shit.

  Clancy walked toward the boatyard, where they’d planned to meet to go for a run on the beach together. When they discovered that they both competed in distance events for their track teams, it opened a whole world in common. It gave him yet another reason to want to spend time with her.

  But he really shouldn’t have said he could go out with her tonight to watch the reenactment. He just didn’t want to hurt her feelings or make her think he wasn’t into her. Because he was. He was seriously into Evie.

  It was hard to believe that he’d known her for only five days. It seemed like forever to him, like there was nothing but a big blank before she showed up on the island and tried to drown herself at the Point. Clancy asked himself many times when exactly he knew she was special. He always came up with the same answer: the moment she reached out through the waves to shake his hand and thank him for saving her. Most other girls would have been hanging on him, crying and shaking and gulping for air because they’d almost died. Not Evie.