“You can wear it to the barbecue tomorrow. I can’t believe you left this place. The people are so friendly.”

Joanna thought about Nate. She thought about Cliff. “I wasn’t in a good place when I left.” She’d wanted to put it all behind her. She’d shared so much with Ashley, but she hadn’t shared the detail of that day with her. With anyone.

“Because you’d broken up with Nate, and because you didn’t have a good relationship with your stepmother. That’s tough.”

The three worst days of her life had been losing her baby, losing her father and the last time she’d seen her stepmother.

Was she going to visit Denise?

The question had been niggling in the back of her brain since she arrived here.

To take her mind off Denise she tried to imagine Cliff staying in Otter’s Nest as it had been then. He was a man who had enjoyed his creature comforts. The sight of a rickety beach house would have had him booking a room at the nearest five-star hotel within minutes. “There wasn’t a reason to come back.”

“Well, everyone seems pleased that you have. Oh, look! The Beach Bookstore. Is that the place you wanted to work?” Ashley caught her arm. “It’s so pretty. Like something out of a movie.”

“Yes.” Joanna felt a rush of nostalgia. “It was my favorite place when I was growing up. This place was a sanctuary for me. I used to come here after school and stay until they closed the doors.” Anything rather than go home. “I stepped through those doors and all my stress fell away. I liked the way the books looked on the shelves, rows and rows of color and possibility. All those stories. All those worlds that weren’t mine. I loved the way the place smelled. I loved the quietness and the way people looked when they browsed. I liked the way Vivian, the owner, would push a book into another person’s hand and say, Try this. I used to watch her, and wonder how she knew exactly what a person would enjoy. It was a gift.” She hadn’t thought about those days in a while, but now she was remembering. “She let me read whatever I wanted to. She’d let me take them home. I was grateful, but at the time I didn’t think much of it. It was only later that I realized how much money I must have been losing her.”

“She sounds like a good person.”

“She was. Is.” And Mel had mentioned that she was struggling with arthritis. “I used to tell her that one day I was going to apply for a job at the store and work right beside her. It was my dream.”

“And what did she say?”