“Thank you. The brownies look great. I’ve had this wine before and it’s very good.” She put it in the fridge to keep it chilled.
Kristen set her salad on the table and joined them at the island. Abby handed them each a glass of wine and they snacked on the bruschetta while they enjoyed their wine.
“Kate, I just saw the announcement online about your book being made into a TV series. Congrats, that’s exciting,” Taylor said.
“Thank you! I wasn’t sure if we’d ever actually get it made. It was a brother-sister team that optioned it and it took forever before a studio actually gave it the green light. But Netflix is doing it as a ten-episode series, with the potential for a second season if it goes well,” Kate said.
Abby was so proud of her sister. She’d moved home to Nantucket a few years ago after getting laid off from a Boston magazine and freelanced while writing her first mystery novel, which had always been a dream. She now had two books out and was working on a third.
Abby put the fish back in the oven for a few minutes to warm up, along with a casserole dish with mashed potatoes. Once everything was hot, they moved to the kitchen table and spent the next few hours eating and drinking and laughing. When they were totally full and nibbling on the brownies that Taylor brought, the conversation turned to Taylor’s new job.
“So, Abby said you start at the paper tomorrow. Are you excited or nervous?” Kristen asked.
Taylor laughed. “Both. The job sounds perfect and I love that it’s here on Nantucket.” She glanced at Abby. “Your mother mentioned that you told her another girl just started too. I didn’t realize they were hiring two people. Do you know her?”
“I know of her. Victoria is a local girl, a few years younger than us. I only just heard about this yesterday and mentioned it to my mother at breakfast. I heard she was working in Boston, but got engaged and moved home to Nantucket and in with her boyfriend. He does something here in real estate.”
“What is she like?” Taylor looked a little nervous, and that was why Abby hadn’t mentioned it. Victoria wasn’t the warm, fuzzy type. She’d been head of the debate team and competitive in everything that she did—sports, and academics. Abby didn’t think she and Taylor were likely to be close friends. But maybe she was wrong and Victoria had mellowed out since high school.
“She was a good student, captain of the field hockey team. I didn’t really know her, though,” Abby said.
Taylor took a bite of her brownie and looked thoughtful. “Well, business must be good if they hired both of us, right?”
“I’m sure it is.” As far as Abby knew, the newspaper was doing well. And it probably was a good sign that they were able to hire two new people. Abby really didn’t think it was anything to worry about.
“You don’t like your steak?”
Marley snapped her attention back to the dinner she was sharing with Mark. It was Sunday night, and he’d called mid-day and invited her to his house for dinner. Usually, they either went out to one of the many great restaurants downtown, or Marley cooked in. She loved to cook and since he never let her pay when they went out, she enjoyed cooking for him. But now and then, he liked to have her over for dinner and cook on his grill. She glanced down at the perfectly cooked sirloin strip steak on her plate. She’d taken one bite, and it was delicious, but then her thoughts had drifted. Which was rude of her.
“I’m sorry. It’s wonderful.”
He looked at her closely. “Something on your mind? You looked a million miles away.”
Marley sighed. She didn’t want Mark to think there was anything to worry about with her ex. But she didn’t want to not tell him and have him see a picture of the two of them at The Whitley event or elsewhere if she agreed to meet with him. She’d been thinking about the best way to do that and decided that going to any of the restaurants downtown was out of the question. They were both too high-profile, especially Frank, as he was still running the company that they’d built together.
The Attic was a public company, very well-known and one of the more volatile stocks due to the company’s status as a front-runner in its e-commerce space. And unlike Marley, who had always hated media attention, Frank loved it. So, he wouldn’t exactly mind if the media created a story if they saw the two of them together. In fact, the more she thought about it, if he wanted her back, he’d be all for it.
“Frank is in town for an e-commerce conference at The Whitley. He wants to meet for a drink.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed. “He wants you back?” He didn’t seem at all surprised.
Marley nodded. “He says he does. I’m sure there’s something driving this. His very young girlfriend probably dumped him.”
“And he really thinks you might want to try again? Why would he think that?”
“Because he’s a bit of a narcissist?” She smiled. “He’s really not a bad guy. Our divorce wasn’t because he cheated. We just grew apart. It was a mutual decision.”
Mark took a sip of his scotch. There was a long moment of silence before he spoke again. “Have you ever thought about taking him back”
“Of course I have. The day I received the divorce papers, I wondered if we were making a mistake. But the feeling passed quickly. We both wanted this and we’ve both moved on. At least I have.”
“So why meet with him, then?”
“I think it might help give him closure—for it to sink in that it’s really over. He might be sad now if a relationship ended, but running back to me isn’t the answer.”
Mark looked satisfied with that. “Good. I like what we’ve started, Marley. I’m not in any hurry to see it end.”
She smiled. “I’m not either. I love spending time with you.” Meeting Mark had taken Marley completely by surprise. He was just a year older than her and also divorced. When he’d been referred to her for help selling his photos online, she’d initially been intrigued by what he was looking to do. As she got to know him, she found they had a lot in common. He had a dry sense of humor that she appreciated and he was easy to be around.
At first, she’d thought it was just a nice new friendship, as the last thing on her radar was romance. But it snuck up on both of them and one night when they were watching live music at a bar by the beach, his hand had brushed against hers and her reaction had surprised her. He’d felt it too, and they’d had their first kiss that night. They’d been spending lots of time together ever since.
“So, he’s just in town for a few days, for the conference, and then he’ll be gone?”
“Yes, the conference ends on Thursday and he should fly back after that, I would think.”
“Okay, enough about him. Save some room for dessert. My mother dropped off one of her homemade apple pies today. Unless you’re too full?”
She laughed. “There’s always room for pie.” She was glad she’d told him about Frank. She didn’t want there to be any secrets between them.
* * *
Chapter 5
“Taylor, this is Victoria Carson. She’s new here too, just started a week ago.”