“Nice to meet you, Hope,” Greg McQueen flashed a handsome smile at her. Oh, this one was trouble, and he knew it! Hope decided his jawline could cut glass and break hearts. For a moment she remembered the old Hope, the one that used to shamelessly flirt as a pastime. She stifled the urge, that was a younger version of her. This version of Hope had had wrinkles, gray hair, and probably seemed totally inept to the next door neighbor man.
“Thank you for the assistance. And I’m sorry I made you think there was an ax murderer in here.”
“You’re welcome, and I mean, I didn’t think you were someone who worried about formal attire. I mean, you do swim in your underwear, so.” Whoa! Greg McQueen beat her to the flirt.
Her new neighbor gave her a wink and walked swiftly toward his cottage.
Oh, my goodness, he’d seen her in her underwear in the water! She’d thought she was alone. In an effort to defend herself, she called after him, “I didn’t know anyone was around!”
“Didn’t say I minded,” Greg McQueen replied as he disappeared into the neighboring cottage.
Well, that was some first impression she’d made.
* * *
A few minutes later, Hope stood, salad in hand and pride in the dustbin, waiting for her ride. The girls picked her up on the water, not on the road.
Hope didn’t look back to the neighboring cottage again, fearing she’d say or do something ridiculous. Swimming in her skivvies and screaming bloody murder at a pair of amorous robins were enough for one week.
A red and silver vessel came into view soon after her encounter, thank goodness! She could flee.
At the helm of the slow-moving but glorious old boat was another old friend she hadn’t seen forever and ever.
“Captain Keith.”
Keith was the honorary sixth Sandbar Sister. He was like a brother to all of them—well, all of them except, of course, Libby. It had been obvious to everyone but them that he was in love with Libby all those summers ago.
“Hiya, it’s been a while,” Keith said.
They docked the boat.
“Permission to come aboard,” Hope asked Keith.
“Oh, it’s her boat. I’m just the hired help.”
“Permission granted,” Libby said.
Keith put his arms out. Hope stepped inside and couldn’t really believe this middle-aged man was Keith. He was still handsome and boyish at the same time. But the gawkiness of youth was a memory. He was a vet, had lost his wife, Libby had told her. He had been through so much.
She thought back to the time Keith took the hit for things they asked him to do, from running off boys they didn’t want to waste time on, to telling ones they did that they were interested.
The stuff he’d put up with from them! Suddenly, she was flooded with love for him, for J.J. and Libby.
“Wow, this is weird,” she said.
“Weird and totally normal at the same time,” J.J. pointed out. She was right.
Libby and Keith had rekindled their relationship after all these years. It made Hope so happy to see.
And also sad, that her life, since the time she knew them, had changed so drastically. Her personality as Mrs. Marcia Venerable was nothing like it had been when they knew her.
The Hope Benton they knew was in charge of her teenage love life. But that self-assured teen turned into a disappointed wife.
During her entire marriage with Archie she tried to find a way to make him feel as cool as he seemed when they first met. She was attracted to Archie because he made her mom mad. It wasn’t the best foundation for a harmonious adult relationship.
She shook it off. And the melancholy that wanted to overcome her when she thought about time past, and time wasted.
“Find a comfortable spot on the floating porch, and I’ll ferry you three ladies around the lake,” Keith said.
