“It’s not so great,” I say with a shy sort of grin.
“Where are you from?” Clara asks.
“Connecticut. I love the seasons we get there. It’s a good place to live. Hell, I have no idea why I’m even entertaining doing something with the building. Maybe I’m bored.” I shake my head and cross my arms.
“I can’t say enough good things about Sunrise Bay. If you want to stay, I’ll abandon my stake and give it to you.”
My head whips in her direction. “Clara, no.”
She looks at the bay and back at me. “It’s the least I can do. I mean, I’m happy you’ve had a great life and your parents were good to you, but I had my whole life here with your birth parents. You should have a piece of her. That store was a huge part of her life. She worked so much, night and day.”
“You must have memories there too?”
She nods. “Yeah, running around while she was teaching ladies how to make their own clothes. Overhearing the gossip. But once I got older, I never really went with her. Like I said, you deserve a piece of her.”
“I can’t do that. It’s both of ours, and I’m probably crazy for thinking I might want to stay. Do Cade and Jed have a point?” I stand and walk closer to the bay, unsure why I’m even asking someone who doesn’t know me.
“I think you schooled them pretty good.” She chuckles. “I can’t tell you what to do, but what does your gut tell you?”
“I’m not sure I should listen to my gut right now.”
She tilts her head. “Why?”
“Because it’s telling me to prove Cade Greene wrong. Show that I can start this business and be successful and live in this town.”
Clara smiles. “Then do it. Nothing has to be written in stone. If it doesn’t work out, you can leave, and Sunrise Bay can just be a chapter of your life.”
I look at her with a small smile. “Spoken like a true librarian.”
She laughs. “I suppose so.” Then she sighs. “I’d like to get to know you better. I know you have your entire family, but I don’t have anyone left…” Tears fill her eyes.
I move to touch her but retract, unsure if it’s my place.
She’s quick to put up her hand and shake her head. “Please do not stay because of me.” She wipes her tears. “You don’t need to pity me, but even if you leave, would you mind keeping in touch?”
“Not at all. Regardless of our situation, you are my only blood relative.”
I used to beg my parents for a sibling. Little did I know I’d get one at the age of twenty-nine. If I stay here, I could get to know Clara. Form a true friendship and maybe a sisterly bond. She’s a reason for me to stay, at least temporarily.
As I stand on the edge of a bay in a town far away from my hometown, I take the biggest leap I ever have in my life.
“I think I want to stay,” I whisper.
Clara’s mitten-covered hand falls into mine and she squeezes. “Then stay.”
I guess that’s that.
When Clara and I return from the bay, Cade’s coming out of the coffee shop, The Grind.
She touches my forearm to stop us when my eyes lock with his. “He’s a good guy, just harbors some… well, you know how when you’re younger, things define you—”
I hold up my hand to stop her. “That sounds incredibly too complicated for my life right now.” The last thing I need is a man in my life who has more emotional issues than I do.
She shakes her head. “I’m selling him all wrong.”
“In my experience, if you have to sell him, there’s a problem.”
She nods. “True, but he is my best friend’s brother, so I feel the need to tell you one small thing about this town.”
We walk back into the store, and I’m not gonna lie, I feel a little defeated looking at this mess. “That being?”
“Cade is a Greene and there are a lot of Greenes in Sunrise Bay. So maybe just watch what you say in front of people.”
I nod. No talking shit about Cade Greene to anyone. Easy-peasy. I’m not a shit-stirrer anyway.
“I’ll help you pack all this up. I might want to keep some stuff if that’s okay?” Clara asks.
“Of course.” I look up from a pile of patterns. “I really want you to have your money for your half of the building, but I can’t afford to buy you out and renovate this place to be what I want it to be. Still, I can’t allow you to just give me your half.”
She takes a moment and looks around then shrugs. “I don’t really care about the building. I mean, it’s where my mom did her business, but I have the house, so let’s just call it even.”
It doesn’t sit right with me, so I make a mental note to figure out some way to pay Clara back.
“What are you thinking you want to do with this place anyway?” She sits on a table.
“I think I should do an inventory of what Sunrise Bay already has. And the shops in the neighboring towns.”
“Definitely. That’s a great idea.” She hops off the table. “I can totally—”
We’re interrupted when the bell rings. An elderly woman with hair as white as fresh-fallen snow comes in with another woman who has the bluish tint a lot of older women have in their hair, followed by a third woman with dark-rimmed glasses.
“Presley Knight?”
“Grandma Ethel.” Clara walks over to the woman with white hair.
My throat closes up. Another grandma I didn’t know about?
“Clara dear, how are you? The news just hit Northern Lights Retirement Home, so I told Dori and Midge here, we need to get over there and figure this all out.”
Clara laughs. “I’ll admit at first—”
She’s cut off by Ethel, who approaches me. “You two look so much alike.” She holds my upper arms as though she’s getting a good look at me. Almost as if she’s appraising my worth. It’s a tad creepy. “Welcome to Sunrise Bay. I heard Denise left the two of you this building.”
“Yeah, Jed and—” Clara gets cut off again.
“Rumor is you might be staying. Opening a place of your own,” Ethel says.
I catch the dark-rimmed glasses granny walking around and inspecting the spools of thread, and I watch as she shoves one in her purse. What the heck? “Yeah, I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the space yet.”
“Not a sewing store. You’re much too young,” the one I think is Dori says.
Midge sticks another spool of thread into her purse and my eyes widen.
“Presley was just saying that she was going to go around town and see what we already had, and I suggested that maybe Lake Starlight—”
Grandma Ethel doesn’t allow Clara to finish, and Clara huffs at the third interruption.
“That is a great idea. I have just the person to show you around.”
“Oh, I was going to Uber or rent a car,” I say.
Dori waves. “Duke Thompson doesn’t have time to take only one client around all day.”
“I could rent…” I stop, seeing Dori’s lips twist in displeasure. “Or not?”
“You need someone who knows where to take you,” Dori says.