As Sydney stewed over that possibility, they arrived at the Beachcomber lounge, where a trio played live music. The small dance floor was crowded with couples and just about every seat at the bar was taken.

Mac’s sister Janey, Maddie’s sister Tiffany, Abby who owned Abby’s Attic, and several other women Maddie knew from her job at McCarthy’s Gansett Inn waited for them. Maddie made the introductions, and the others put Sydney immediately at ease. She had no doubt Maddie had fully briefed her friends on Sydney’s tragedy, but unlike the social gatherings at home where Sydney usually felt like a pariah since the accident, here she was far more comfortable.

“Janey,” Maddie said as she sipped a club soda, “you have to tell Syd how you and Joe got together.”

After much hooting, hollering and catcalling, Janey waved her hands to quiet the others. She was tiny and blonde but seemed to make up for her lack of height with a larger-than-life personality. “I was engaged to someone else,” Janey began. “I’d been with David, a medical student in Boston, for thirteen years.”

“Can you even believe that?” Maddie asked.

Amazed, Sydney shook her head. “That’s a long courtship.”

“Too long, as it turned out. I caught him in bed with another woman.”

Sydney gasped. “No way! What did you do?”

“After I ran away from David’s Boston apartment, my car broke down. I called Mac’s best friend Joe, who has always been like a fifth brother to me, and he came to my rescue.”

“In more ways than one,” Tiffany said with a snort, and the other women howled with laughter.

Janey’s face turned bright red. “Turns out,” she said, “Joe had been secretly in love with me for years. We’ve been together ever since.”

“That’s such a great story,” Sydney said.

“You left out a few very important parts,” Maddie said with a pointed look for her sister-in-law. “They’d only been together a short time when Janey realized a lifelong dream of getting accepted to veterinary school at Ohio State. Joe owns and operates the Gansett Island Ferry Company, so Janey naturally assumed he wouldn’t be able to go with her to Ohio.”

“I just couldn’t do another long-distance relationship,” Janey said ruefully, “so I made the supreme mistake of breaking up with him.”

Maddie started laughing, an infectious sound that quickly spread around the table. “He carted her right out of our wedding reception and let her know there was nothing he wouldn’t do, nothing he wouldn’t give up, nowhere he wouldn’t go to be with her. So romantic! And, he proposed—in bed!”

Janey stuck her tongue out at Maddie. “You had to get that in there, didn’t you?”

“That’s the best part! They’re back from their first year in Ohio, and how was that, exactly?”