Sunshine Beach Read Online Free PDF Page A

building. This property was worth millions of dollars and yet it sat like the land time had forgotten. The question of course was whom did it belong to and why had they left it here to rot?

Chapter Four

    The day had already begun to fade but the sun had not yet set when Maddie pulled her trusty minivan into Bella Flora’s driveway behind Avery’s bright blue Mini Cooper and Nikki’s green Jag.
    Bella Flora’s plaster walls glowed a dusky pink. Her white trim had begun to shadow. Her barrel roof looked burnt red against the lightening sky. She was elegant and beautiful, yet warmly comforting. The sight of her sent Maddie flashing back to the day she’d arrived and met Nicole and Avery for the first time, all three of them aghast at the sorry state of their shared remaining asset. Out of desperation they’d brought her back to life not once but twice. Bella Flora had done the same for them, sending them all down a path that none of them had envisioned. That she belonged to Kyra and Dustin now and had turned into “home” was beyond amazing.
    â€œGeema!”
    Maddie had barely extracted herself from the driver’s seat when Dustin launched himself out of Bella Flora’s large wooden front door, down the steps of the windowed arcade, and through the front garden toward Maddie.
    He hurled himself into her arms and began to cover her face and neck with noisy kisses. She kissed him back just as noisily, both of them laughing as Kyra came to join them.
    â€œMommy tolded me I could stay up ’til you gots here,” he said happily.
    â€œI see that,” Maddie said, cuddling his sturdy warm body close as she leaned over to kiss Kyra on the cheek. “Have you had your bedtime story yet?”
    â€œHe’s got it all picked out.” Kyra pulled Maddie’s suitcase and hanging bag out of the backseat. “Nikki just got here a few minutes ago. I thought we’d have munchies and drinks over sunset once Dustin’s tucked in.”
    Maddie carried her grandson into the high-ceilinged entry and felt Bella Flora enfold her. The first time she’d stepped into this foyer it had looked and smelled more locker room than grande dame. A trapped bird had winged by them in a mad escape. If there’d been the slightest alternative, she, Avery, and Nikki would have turned and fled, too.
    She peered into the formal living room and study to the left and right of the foyer. A formal guest bath lay across from the elegant staircase that led to the second story. The central hall led past the formal dining room and Casbah Lounge with its Moroccan-tiled décor and on to the eat-in kitchen and salon. Nikki and Avery stood in front of the salon’s floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the loggia, the pool, and the pass, where the Gulf and bay came together.
    â€œThe pool house is clean and available if anybody’s interested,” Kyra said after hugs and greetings had been exchanged. “Or we can double up upstairs.”
    Avery hesitated and Maddie knew that although she’d spent time at Bella Flora since they’d lost Deirdre, had even helped Kyra move into the master bedroom suite, which Deirdre had claimed upon her then-unwelcome arrival, it was hard to be in the house without thinking of the woman whose interior design had so transformed her.
    â€œWhy don’t you bunk with me?” Maddie said. “I have the extra bed and bathroom. It’ll be like a slumber party.”
    â€œThanks.” Avery’s smile was a bit wobbly. “That would be great.”
    â€œI’m not going to complain about having a bedroom and bath to myself,” Nikki said. “We’ve been forced to share a single bathroom far more times than is healthy for any friendship.”
    They shuddered in unison at the memory of five women and Dustin sharing the tiny prefabbed houseboat bathroom on Mermaid Point. They’d shared at Bella Flora out of