Page 49 of A Pinch of Magic

Cam’s mind raced. She wasn’t about to share the story of the ghost with Ian. Not that he would immediately dismiss it, she thought. A guy like him who thought old houses could talk might just understand something that far-fetched. But what she didn’t want was another intimacy between the two of them. Another bond. As far as she was concerned, the less Ian McCabe knew about her and her life, the better.

“It’s an old family friend,” Birdie swooped in with a save, clearly sensing Cam’s discomfort. “I mean, not her, of course, but her family.”

“Those stupid bows are back in style,” Paige said after taking a not-too-interested look.

Birdie laughed with her usual disarming cackle. “Sweetheart, I have come to learn, in the wisdom of my years, that there is absolutely nothing new under this sun.”

Ian reached for his hat and put a hand on Paige’s shoulder. “C’mon,” he said. “We better run to pick up Davis from soccer.”

Ian and Paige said good night, and as Ian’s truck pulled away, Birdie turned to the three young women. “Cam and Avery, why don’t the two of you take Parsley for a nice, long walk before dinner? Izzy, maybe you could help me get the table ready,” she suggested, although her words had the ring of a command, the kind that she would sometimes issue to them when they were younger and had spent too much time in front of the old television and not enough time outside. “Summer Sisters shouldn’t have secrets.”

Cam immediately felt worried as she tried to understand Birdie. She wasn’t the one keeping a secret. Avery knew all about Izzy and the cookbook. And she had shared with Avery all the details of the awful night with Ian and how she was never, never going to give him and his baggage another thought.

But Cam had thought it odd at the time that Avery hadn’t done what she had expected her cousin to do, which was to urge her to give him a chance. She was usually the biggest cheerleader for romance, especially when it came to prodding her cousin to give it a try. Instead, she had just listened and been sympathetic.

“I think that’s our cue,” Avery said, reaching for her coat and Parsley’s leash.

They walked in the direction of the harbor, and Cam tried starting off with a non-personal topic. If Avery had something to tell her, she would, eventually.

“How amazing is it that we found that clipping of Ada?” Cam asked. “The interesting thing about it is that it indicates that she was a writer, too—I mean, beyond the cookbook, which we already knew about, of course. But she won a prize for a short story, which is a real accomplishment.”

“That made her a writer married to another writer,” Avery said. “In my experience, two artists are never going to make it.” Cam could hear her cousin’s voice growing thick. Avery reached into her pocket for a tissue to wipe the tears that were coming fast.

Parsley let out a little moan of sympathy.

Cam led the three of them to a bench by the marina. Above them, a sign declared it to be LIAR’S BENCH, because this was where boaters coming back from a day on the water would rest and tell each other about the size of the fish they’d reeled in.

“Ignore that sign,” Cam told her cousin. “And tell me everything.”

As Avery wiped her nose, she told Cam the whole story. She hadn’t, in fact, resisted the charms of the married sculptor in Budapest. Instead, she had fallen for him, hard, as usual. Harder. And after she found out about the wife and the affair had blown up in spectacular fashion, she had left the program and come to Silver Cove to lie low. The story she had given about the gallery was only a half-truth.

“And this time, I’m sick of it, sick of myself for always ending up like this,” Avery said with a sniffle. “I’ve decided that I am one hundred percent finished with love. Maybe it doesn’t even exist in the first place.”

Cam handed her a fresh tissue from her coat pocket, feeling unsettled. She had nursed Avery back from heartbreaks before with Netflix marathons and chocolate desserts and plenty of wine. But she hadn’t heard her usually optimistic cousin sound quite so bleak about her future prospects. No matter what, Avery had always believed in love.

“I feel stupid saying this now, but I really thought he was the one—like, really the one,” Avery continued.

“You always think that,” Cam said, trying to lighten her cousin’s spirits. But Avery buried her face into Cam’s coat.

“This was different,” she said, with a touch of hotness.

Avery’s tone instantly made Cam feel bad for having attempted humor. Maybe her carefree cousin wasn’t as bulletproof as she had always thought. Their whole lives, she had watched her cousin move so easily through the world, and she had never considered that Avery could be struggling just as much as anyone. Like the elegant swans that seemed to glide across the water with zero effort, but below the surface they were paddling like mad.

“I’m sorry, Av,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me all this?”

Avery raised her wet face from where it had been resting on Cam’s shoulder. “You’ve always had a thousand reasons to be closed off,” Avery said. “And then I got here, and I saw that you seemed to be opening up, finally. You’re making friends, you’re being vulnerable, and you have this crazy ghost thing going on! And then I could see how you felt about Ian—the way you look at him like he’s one of those French macarons you love—and I felt like he might be a big chance for you. I just didn’t want to crash your coming-out party with my new death-to-love outlook. I tried pushing you and Ian together at first, but I have to say that my heart’s not in it. Love sucks,” Avery concluded fiercely.

“Love sucks,” Cam repeated, more softly. She hadn’t actually fallen in love with Ian, but it felt like she could have. Like that moment when you were trying to get a sauce to simmer and you knew, if you let it go just a second or two longer before turning down the heat, it would start to boil. But, she reminded herself, a boiling sauce was apt to scorch.

“Anyway, I told Birdie all about what’s happening with me, and she insisted I tell you,” Avery said. “And I’m glad. I hate not telling you stuff.”

“I hate it when you don’t tell me stuff, too,” Cam said.

As they sat in the chilly air with the saltwater scent surrounding them, Cam felt the momentary annoyance that she’d had with her cousin for not being straight with her melt away. Avery had been trying to do Cam a kindness by hiding her own pain. She thought of how the two of them must look, staring out into the black-green waters of the bay, both with tears in their eyes, like they were watermen’s widows whose loves had been lost in a terrible storm.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

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