Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze Read Online Free PDF Page A

childish jealousy surfaced as she watched Abbie hug Emma. Good grief, she was twenty-two, she was an adult; when would she stop feeling so third wheel whenever she saw her sisters together?
    It was only natural that they’d be close. They had only two years between them, not the eight-year ravine that existed between Abbie and Lily, or the six years between Lily and Emma.
    Her two older sisters looked alike, too, both of them with their father’s curly brown hair and huge hazel eyes. Lily got her coloring from her mother, which was a good thing; Lily liked being a redhead. But still, she was set apart.
    Now Emma collapsed in Abbie’s arms and was sobbing and blubbering out in choking gasps. “Duncan … money … want to die.” She wailed so terribly that Cinnamon leapt up, startled, and raced from the room.
    Abbie kept her arms around Emma. Over and over she said, “I know, honey. I know.”
    Lily stood by the end of the bed. Wanting to be closer, to be included, she leaned down to put her hand on Emma’s leg. “Want some iced tea, Emma? Maybe a beer?”
    “Oh, sure,” Emma wailed. “Iced tea would change everything.”
    “I’m only trying to help.” Lily moved away from the bed and sat down in the old wicker rocking chair in the corner of the room.
    After awhile Emma’s sobs subsided. She leaned back against the headboard. Abbie handed her a tissue and Emma noisily blew her nose. Her voice was clogged with tears when she said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to go on.”
    “First,” Abbie said, and the authority she’d had when they were growing up rang steadily in her voice, “you’re going to get up, take a shower, wash your hair, and put on some clothes.”
    Emma sagged. “I don’t want to.”
    “I don’t care,” Abbie retorted calmly. “While you’re in the shower, Lily and I are going to change your sheets.”
    “Hey, let her change her own—” Lily began to protest, but Abbie shot her a look.
    “Then we’re going for a walk around town, and we’ll stop someplace for a drink.”
    “I don’t have the money for a drink,” Emma objected sulkily.
    “My treat.” Abbie gave her sister an affectionate pat on her thigh. “Get moving.” She stood up and nodded at Lily. “You get the sheets. I’ll strip the bed.”
    Lily stood up, too, and snapped a brisk salute at her sister. It was really mind-boggling, she thought as she wandered out into the hall and down to the linen closet at the end, how Abbie could just waltz in like this after eighteen months away and take over. Plus, suddenly everything was all about Emma. Abbie hadn’t even asked Lily how she was!
    Back in Emma’s bedroom, Lily dropped the sheets on the bureau, found the bottom sheet, and sailed it out over Emma’s double bed. Abbie grabbed the other side and together they lifted the corners and slipped the sheet over the mattress.
    “Well done,” Lily told Abbie, and trying to create a sense of conspiracy between them, she nodded toward the bathroom, where the shower ran full force.
    “Poor kid,” Abbie said. “She worked so hard.”
    “
I
work hard, too!” Lily protested.
    “Oh, right.” Abbie hefted the mattress to tuck the sheet under. Of course she did it quickly and perfectly, as if she’d been trained by the order of excellent innkeepers or something. “You’re writing a weekly social column for
Nantucket Talk.
Tell me about it.”
    “Oh, it’s such a cool job.” Lily vigorously stuffed a pillow into the case. “It
is
hard work, though. I have to drive all over the island;I have to go right up to people I don’t know to ask if I can interview them; I have to take notes and remember a million things at once because I can’t use a tape recorder; I have to try to remember everyone’s face and name and be really nice.”
    Abbie laughed. “That sounds like fun, Lily, and perfect for you. Is it a year-round job?”
    “Absolutely! Something’s always happening on the island now.