“Okay,” said Maggie. Then, “What are you going to do while I’m gone?”

“I have a meeting with Bridezilla,” said Joy. Bridezilla, whose real name was Kimberly, was a cranky bride-to-be from Boston who was due to be married at the Narragansett Inn at the end of August. Joy had met her a few times and she’d never seen the young woman smile. Her mother, Linda, a nonconfrontational woman with a prodigious J.Jill collection who’d been a regular at the shop for years, was as lovely as Kimberly was unlovely. Linda had put in an order for a thousand whoopie pies to be served at the two-hundred-guest wedding and also to be boxed up as wedding favors, three per guest. It was a significant order, especially since the pies for the wedding would have specific, island-themed decorations—sailboats and seashells—which raised the price by almost a dollar per pie. For these reasons, Joy was trying to overlook Kimberly’s unpleasantness. “After that,” Joy told Maggie, “I’m not sure. Pickles and I might go out and paint the town.”

“Oh, please, Mom.”

“What? We might. Pickles likes to get out as much as the next dog.”

Maggie rolled her eyes a third time. “Just don’t do anything embarrassing. Seriously, okay?”

The hours before Joy had to meet with Bridezilla stretched out endlessly. The shop was in the capable hands of Olivia Rossi, Joy Bombs’ summer assistant manager. Early in the season Joy could manage well enough alone, but as tourist traffic picked up she always needed someone to help at the counter while Joy baked or to oversee the ovens or fill the pies. This was Olivia’s first day on her own, and as tempted as she was, Joy knew it would be too Type A of her to stop by and see how Olivia was doing. Olivia was capable and mature, with a level head that belied her sixteen years.

The day was enchanting, and Joy knew the beaches would be wall-to-wall. She could wander down to Fred Benson on foot or hop on her bike and cross the island to Stevens Cove.

“I don’t feel like doing any of those fun things,” she told Pickles when she was back home from the ferry, sitting on her couch, resting her feet on the coffee table. “I just feel like sulking.” What she wanted to do was indulge the insidious worry she felt every time Maggie was with Dustin. What if, now that she’d been visiting regularly for almost two years, Maggie decided she liked it better at Dustin’s house? What if Sandy was more patient than Joy, and kinder? Dustin had somehow secured a job that allowed Sandy to stay home with Tiki; what if Maggie realized that what she was missing in her life was a mother figure who didn’t have to go to work at dawn every day?

What if the most important person in Joy’s life fell in love with Dustin’s second family?

After she’d had a very brief conversation with Dustin confirming that he had Maggie in hand, Joy wandered around the cottage. She dialed Joy Bombs and hung up before Olivia Rossi could answer. She spent more time than she should have in Maggie’s room. First she lay down on Maggie’s bed, on top of the black (black!) comforter Maggie had asked for on her twelfth birthday. She sniffed the pillow to see if she could locate the scent of Maggie’s shampoo. She couldn’t. Had she forgotten to remind Maggie to wash her hair? She dialed Maggie’s number, then hung up before she could answer. She was becoming a stalker.