Wendy was on a mission to collect more information from each incarnation of the Cape Hope Lighthouse.
She had recently been promised a batch of letters written by a soldier who’d been stationed here during WWII, offered generously by his family. They were in the process of having copies made so that the family could hang on to the legacy, but the letters would be coming soon and Wendy was pleased at the thought of adding them.
She was having more trouble finding something personal from the time the inn had been a dorm, but she was confident she could find something. A little piece from that unique time.
She took the bottle of furniture polish off the coffee table and began to condition the wood pieces in the room.
This place was her pride and joy. Her salvation.
Thirty-three years ago she’d found herself single, with two daughters and no idea what she’d wanted from life with her ex gone for good.
She had been waiting tables, hoarding the small amount of money she’d gotten from her ex, and trying to stretch it all, worrying every night how it could continue. How she was going to find a way to keep a roof over their heads, to make her girls happy.
She had been frayed down to her soul and the idea of just getting by—after so many years of living a life she hadn’t been happy in—had made her want to walk into the sea and let the water wash over her head.
Then she’d heard an ad on the radio that had sounded to Wendy like the voice of God.
The United States Forest Service wanted to turn the Lighthouse at Cape Hope, just outside the town of Sunset Bay, Oregon, into a bed-and-breakfast. And they were running a contest to find an innkeeper.
Someone who could restore the place and find a way to make it attractive to tourists. Someone who could bring in revenue, both for themself and the department.
The time was almost up for the contest.
Wendy wrote a letter with shaking hands and more passion than skill. Then she’d bundled up baby Anna and six-year-old Rachel in their old car, and driven to Sunset Bay all the way from Medford.
She’d slid the letter under the door with a voiceless prayer. And then she’d spent the last ten dollars in her purse buying ice cream while she sat there with a stomach churning from hunger, and nerves.
Somehow, she’d won.
Somehow, they’d seen that a single mother who had two of the most precious incentives a person could ask for would be the one to make this place special.
And she had.
They had.
For six months she’d worked without pay. They’d bought necessities with her settlement, their lodging part and parcel of their role as innkeepers.
And Wendy had prayed harder than she ever had in her life. Because if they could make the place profitable, she could teach her daughters that you could do anything. That you could heal from any wound.
When Rick had walked away from her she’d been devastated. And she’d been afraid that having his children meant she would always live with one foot left in that life. They were pieces of him, after all.
Bit by bit that had changed. As they’d built this property it had bonded her to her girls in a way that went deep. Until they’d been knit together so tightly there was no missing piece between them. Until they were a piece of her, and this place.
As Wendy moved her rag over the banisters, making them gleam, she remembered the work she’d put in back then. How she’d spent days up on a stepladder restaining the cherry trim on every door and window frame—all hand carved in the 1800s by a German artist.
With her restoration budget, she’d combed through antiques shops to find furniture that fit the Queen Anne–style of the home. Vanities with intricately carved legs, four-poster beds and claw-foot tubs.
She’d shown her daughters that they could fashion a life from rubble. That miracles could come in the form of radio ads, as long as you were willing to take the drive, to write the letter and make that miracle happen. That old, rustic wood could shine again, and lace curtains in the window and a coat of fresh paint could make all the difference.
They had lived in various homes on the property over the years. They’d started in the biggest house, the Captain’s House—which now boasted six guest rooms—until it was restored and ready for guests.
It was all done now. Beautiful, restored. Like her life.
She had done right.
She had been so desperate to do right.
Both of her daughters had married young, and to very good men.
Rachel’d had it hard. But Jacob was a wonderful husband and father. They were close, at least, living on the other side of the duplex Wendy herself occupied.
Then there was Anna.
Beautiful Anna, with her bright red hair and freckles, who had always been such a bubbly and willful child. And in her she’d seen the potential for the kind of passion that could go wrong.
Wendy knew it too well.
Wendy had never been so thankful as when Anna started dating Thomas Martin. He had been bound for such great things, and it had been apparent even then. He led prayer around the flagpole at school, and gave a bible study at his house that was attended by almost all of the kids in their classes.
It hadn’t been a surprise when he’d become an associate pastor at the largest church in town, and then had become the youngest head pastor to ever hold the position at Sunset Church.
Then there was Emma. Her granddaughter. She had grown into such a beautiful young woman, and she had brilliant goals and aspirations. Her focus, her determination, gave Wendy the confidence that Emma would never fall into the kind of trap that Wendy herself had as a young girl.
Falling in love with the wrong man had nearly ruined Wendy’s life.
But she hadn’t let it. Not in the end.
And she had done everything in her power to instill the right values in her girls, so that they wouldn’t have to deal with the heartache she’d had to.
Here, they’d been safe. Here, they’d found refuge.
Just as she finished with her polishing, there was a knock on her door.
ANNA
When Anna walked into her sister’s house and saw her, pale, tearstained and silent, the stark reality was undeniable. Jacob was gone.
And Anna didn’t have the words.
But her husband, Thomas, did.
Because Thomas always had words for other people.
She was the one that he never had them for.
But it wasn’t the best time to worry about that. Maybe she was worrying about it because she was in shock. She’d expected the news of Jacob’s passing to come over a late-night phone call.
She didn’t know why. She had just imagined that it would.