As it turned out, her charming, handsome, and witty stranger might have loved her, but he also happened to be a Wall Street con man who used her to steal what remained of her family’s money. Destiny sucked.
Of course, her mother wasn’t entirely to blame for her downfall. Rowan should have known better. But she still had the right to despise anything and everything related to the frickin’ mermaid until the day she died.
The familiar putt-putt of a car engine caught her attention, and Rowan raised her head to look out the beveled glass of the heavily carved front doors. She watched the VW Bug plastered with iridescent fish scales come to a stop in the semicircle driveway. Since it was festival week, the car was decked out for maximum gawking effect, with its headlights covered in huge plastic seashells and a giant-assed mermaid tail sticking out from the trunk. Her mother got out of the car and strolled through the door.
“Hi, honey! Everything going smoothly? How many more are due on the last ferry?”
Rowan gave Mona the once-over and smiled. Like the car, her mother was in her festival finery, in her case the formal costume of the president of the Bayberry Island Mermaid Society. Mona’s flowing blond wig was parted in the center and fell down her back. She wore shells on her boobs, sea glass drop earrings, and a spandex skirt of mother-of-pearl scales that hugged her hips, thighs, and legs. The skirt’s hem fanned out into a mermaid flipper that provided just enough ankle room for her to walk around like Morticia Addams. Unlike Morticia, however, Rowan’s mother wore a pair of coral-embellished flip-flops.
“Hi, Ma.” Rowan checked the B and B reservation list. “Two doubles and a quad—parents and two kids.”
“Will you put the family in the Seahorse Suite?”
“No. I’ve already got a family in there. I’m putting the new arrivals in the Dolphin Suite.”
Her mother approached the front desk, leaned in close, and whispered, “What’s the status of the commode?”
“I’m hoping it’ll get fixed before they check in.”
One of Mona’s eyebrows arched high, and she tapped a finger on the front desk. “You’d better do more than hope, my dear. The Safe Haven Bed-and-Breakfast has a reputation to uphold.”
Rowan held her tongue. Some might argue the establishment’s only reputation was that it had seen better days and was owned by the island’s first family of cray-cray.
“But why worry?” Mona waved an arm around dramatically, a move that caused one of her shells to shift slightly north of decent. “The evening ferry might not even make it here. Did you hear the forecast?”
This was a rhetorical question, Rowan suspected, but she could tell by the tone of her mother’s voice that the news wasn’t good. “Last I heard, it was just some rain.”
Mona shook her head, her blond tresses swinging. “Ten-foot swells. Wind gusts up to forty-five knots. Lightning. The coast guard’s already issued a small-craft advisory. And the island council is meeting with Clancy right now to decide if they should take down the outdoor festival decorations—a public safety concern, you know. We wouldn’t want that giant starfish flying around the boardwalk like back in 1995. Nearly killed that poor man from Arkansas.”
“Absolutely.” Rowan pretended to tidy some papers on the desk as she forced her chuckle into submission. They both knew the real public safety risk was that council members could come to blows deciding whether to undecorate for what might be just a quick-moving summer squall. She didn’t pity her older brother Clancy. Tempers were known to flare up during festival week, a make-or-break seven days for anyone trying to eke out a living on this island, which was nearly everyone. And that didn’t count the latest twist. A Boston developer’s plans to build a swanky marina, golf course, and casino hotel had split the locals into two warring factions. About half of the island’s residents preferred to keep Bayberry’s quaint New England vibe. The other half wanted increased tourism revenue, even if it meant crowds, traffic, noise, and pollution. And the Flynns were at the center of the dispute, since their land sat smack dab in the middle of the mile-long cove and was essential to the development plans. Much to the dismay of every other property owner on the cove, both Mona and Frasier were listed as owners, and Mona forbade Rowan’s father to sell the land. This meant that one little, middle-aged, spandex-clad mermaid was holding a major real estate developer, every other cove landowner, and half the population of the island hostage.
Rowan had come to view the conflict as a kind of civil war, and like the more historically significant one, the conflict had pitted family member against family member, neighbor against neighbor. The weapon of choice around here wasn’t cannon or musket, though. It was endless squabbling, ruthless name-calling, and an occasional episode of hair pulling or tire slashing.
Rowan might not be thrilled about running from Manhattan with her life in shambles, but one thing could be said for her place of birth. It wasn’t dull.
“Well, Ma, I’m sure Clancy will handle the situation with tact and diplomacy. He always does.”
“That is so true.” As Mona’s gaze wandered off past the French doors and into the parlor, a faint smile settled on her lips. Rowan was well aware that her mother was enamored with her two grown sons—Clancy, a former Boston patrol officer who was now the island’s chief of police, and Duncan, a Navy SEAL deployed somewhere in the Middle East. As the baby of the family, Rowan had grown up accepting that her mother was unabashedly proud of her two smart, handsome, and capable boys. Of course Mona had always loved Rowan, too—but enamored? Not so much. Exasperated was more like it, especially starting in about fifth grade, when Rowan began talking about how she couldn’t wait to escape the island and start her real life.
“This is your real life,” her mother would say. “Every day you’re alive is real. And if you can’t be really alive here on Bayberry Island, you’ll never be really alive, no matter where you go.”
God, how that used to piss Rowan off. It still did.
Mona adjusted her shell bra and returned her attention to her daughter. “I told Clancy to come over here after the meeting and help you with the storm shutters. God knows your father is useless when it comes to that sort of thing, if he cared enough to check on the house in the first place.”
Rowan ignored the jab. She’d adopted a hands-off policy when it came to her parents’ ongoing power struggles, including their opposing positions on the development plans. “Only a few shutters are in good enough condition to make a difference, and besides, Clancy’s got more important things to do right now.”
Mona didn’t like that response, apparently. Her brow crinkled up. “Who’s going to help you, then? Has a handsome and single handyman managed to check in without me noticing?”
“Not possible, Ma.”
“It’s not possible that such a man would want to visit Bayberry Island?”
“No—it’s not possible you wouldn’t have noticed.”
“True enough.” Mona giggled. “It is my job, you know.”
Rowan’s eyes got big, and all she could think was, Dear God, not this again. Her mother was the retired principal of the island’s only school, but she’d just alluded to her other “job”—that of Mermaid Society president and keeper of all things legend related. It was a wide net that Mona and her posse used to fish around in other people’s love lives.
Her mother glanced down at Rowan and put her hands on her scale-covered hips. “You look like you have something facetious to say.”
“Nope. Not me, Ma. I’m totally cool with the legend. Love is a many-splendored thing . . . all you need is love . . . back that ass up and all that shit.”
Mona gasped. “Rowan Moira Flynn!”
Just then, the tap-tap of quick footsteps moved through the huge formal dining room and headed toward the foyer, which was enough to divert Mona’s attention.
“Imelda!”
The petite older woman
clutched her chest in surprise, then cut loose with a long string of Portuguese-laced obscenities. “You’re gonna give me a heart attack one day, Mona.”
“I was just happy to see you.”
Imelda Silva, who had once been the family’s private housekeeper and was now the B and B’s cook, shook her head and marched through the foyer on her way to the staircase. “I’ve been working for your family for twenty-five years. You and I both know you’re not happy to see me. You just want me to do something for that fruity mermaid group of yours and the answer is still não! I’d rather fix the toilet in the Dolphin Suite! And you, Rowan.” Imelda pointed an accusatory finger in her direction. “Stay out of the butter pecan ice cream. It’s the topping for tomorrow’s waffles.”
Mona looked hurt as she watched Imelda trudge up the grand staircase. “What is wrong with everybody this year?” She sighed loudly. “Everywhere I turn, it’s just one bad attitude after another! What happened to the joy and delight of the biggest week of the whole summer season? Why aren’t people filled with excitement?”
“We’re tired.”
“Ha!” Mona narrowed her eyes at Rowan. “We are the people of Bayberry Island, my dear, caretakers of the mermaid, the sea goddess of love. This week is nothing short of sacred to us, to our way of life. We have no time to be tired.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Mark my words, honey. If we don’t perk the hell up around here, we’re completely screwed.”
Susan Donovan, The Sweetest Summer: A Bayberry Island Novel
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