Sea Pine Cottages: Closed for Summer Renovations.

Letting her forehead rest briefly on the steering wheel, she took a deep breath. What was she going to do now?

This whole mad, cross-country trek had been a terrible mistake.

“Mommy? Are we there yet?” Hayley’s voice piped up from the backseat.

Uh-oh. When one twin woke up, so did the other, and patience wasn’t a virtue most five-year-olds possessed. Anna needed a plan, fast.

She knew no one in South Carolina—which was the point—but as she and the twins had fled the cold mountains of Montana, she’d told them all about the low country’s cute, friendly little towns, salt marshes, and warm, welcoming beaches. Right now, though, the closed gates in front of them blocked the first step of her plan.

“Mommy?” Hope was awake now, too, and her voice sounded anxious. “Where are we?”

“Let me think a minute.” Anna reached a hand to the backseat and gave each girl a reassuring leg pat. After what they’d seen and heard, they needed to know that they were safe, and that she was safe, and that she had a plan.

There were nice hotels, farther down the coast, but prices were too high. And the kind of small motels she could afford didn’t offer the protection and privacy she and her daughters needed.

Her stomach twisted and turned, but she didn’t dare panic. She wiped wet palms down the sides of her shorts and studied the sign again. If the place was closed for renovations, they had to be renovating something. Ideally, the cabins she remembered from her sole, idyllic childhood vacation—the same cabins that were supposed to house them now. And, God willing, the renovations wouldn’t have started yet and would happen at a slow Southern pace. Or maybe never; sometimes places put up an optimistic Reopening Soon! sign when it was doubtful they’d ever do business again.

The girls were murmuring in their abbreviated secret twin language, and they apparently reached a conclusion. “We want out of the car!”

“Okay. One minute.” She put the car in Reverse, backed up and pulled off to the side of the gates, where shiny azalea bushes grew thick and high. She eased deep into a hollow section, well sheltered from the road and entrance. Grabbed a couple of tools from the glove box.

You can do this, Anna. You don’t have a choice.

“Come on, girls,” she said, forcing cheer into her voice. “Let’s go exploring!”

Fifteen minutes later, they’d ascertained that there were no construction machines and no signs of workers. The place was deserted, which suited Anna just fine. From the road, they scouted the row of tumbledown cabins and selected a sturdy-looking one.

“Come on, it’s going to be an adventure!” She pushed sweaty hair out of her eyes and urged the girls up the overgrown path toward the cabin. This had to work.

“I don’t like bugs!” Hope, always more fearful and fretful, waved away a cloud of tiny sand flies and leaned into Anna’s leg, making it hard to walk.