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Chapter 1
Bayou Cottage sat at the edge of a small cove that led to a larger bay and out to the Gulf of Mexico. The whinnies of wild horses grazing in the yard, the rumble of a motorboat in the distance echoing across the water, and the chirping of tree toads in the marsh were comforting and familiar to Maggie. The ceiling fan provided enough breeze to work comfortably at her computer on the screened-in porch in the morning hours. With the nanny, Rhonda, caring for Tina, Maggie had grown her graphic design business over the past two years to where she was no longer taking new customers.
To the left of the cottage, within shouting distance, they’d recently added a barn with a small clinic attached so that on the weekends, Justin could work from home. The advantage was having him nearby, the disadvantage being clients coming on the property. But it was only on the weekend and usually only Saturday. The rest of the week was peaceful and private.
Her phone beeped with a text from Justin.
My father just told me he has my mother’s wedding dress. Are you game?
She hit the call icon on her phone.
“How did this come about?” she asked when he answered.
“Your mother found it.”
Maggie’s mother, Rose Angel, had moved into the Chastain family home after dating Justin’s father, Vic, for over a year. Rose had moved to Cypress Cove shortly after Maggie and had previously lived with her aunt Elizabeth. After making the move with Vic, she’d begun finding a space for herself, sorting through Vic’s late wife Emily’s belongings and offering items to Dave and Justin.
The process had made Emily’s sons uncomfortable, but they were dealing with it. Now, with a treasure like Emily’s wedding dress unearthed, Maggie wondered what else Rose was going to find.
***
Vic’s grandfather had built Chastain Lodge, a rambling structure of stone and cypress, a hundred years earlier. Its dark interior with leather furniture, handwoven rugs, and wood walls felt oppressive to Rose, and as much as he loved it, Vic had given her carte blanche to redecorate.
“I’ll leave the great room alone,” she said, looking around the space. “It’ll work with the grandkids because they can’t ruin anything in there. But the master bedroom feels like you and Emily. I can’t live in there permanently.”
“Change it,” Vic said. “The only thing I don’t want to change is the furniture because it was built for the house.”
The oversized pieces included a chest-on-chest made of cypress milled on the property, so she understood why he wanted it to stay. But the window treatments and painted plaster were all going to change.
The biggest shock—finding that there were two closets in the bedroom, and Emily’s was just as she had left it when she died almost ten years earlier.
“What should I do with her things? Vic, you must want them since you’ve kept them all this time.”
“It’s not that. I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t want to throw them away. I doubt the boys would want them, and I certainly didn’t want them going to the thrift store.”
She moved hangers to see what was in there, and she thought of her daughter right away. “Maggie would probably like Emily’s riding clothes. She’s as tall as Emily was, maybe a little curvier, but I bet she’d love them. What do you think?”
“I’d like Maggie to have Emily’s clothes. Whatever she wants. Katrina, too.”
Rose rifled through the closet and then discovered the wedding dress. It had been professionally cleaned and boxed with a cellophane window on the front of the box that displayed the dress.
“Wow, look at this.” She pulled the box out of the closet and set it on the bed. Looking up at Vic, she could see he was moved.
“The kids are getting married at Christmastime, Vic. Maggie doesn’t have time to get a proper wedding dress. How would you feel about allowing her to wear this?”
“It would be wonderful if Maggie wore the dress. Justin probably doesn’t remember that Emily and I got married December twenty-first.”
“Wow, that is so special, Vic. You should remind him. Call Justin, then, and let him tell Maggie the dress is available. If I say anything, she’ll think I’m trying to control her.”
“You two,” Vic said, chuckling. “I’ll walk over to the clinic and talk to Justin.”
“Okay. I’ll keep exploring,” she said.
Emily had been Rose’s childhood friend, and being given the privilege of sorting through her belongings felt right to Rose. She might be in love with and sleeping and living with Emily’s husband, but she had loved Emily and respected her when they were children. When Rose had left Cypress Cove at age nineteen to go with John Angel to live in Florida, she and Emily had lost touch, and Rose regretted that now more than anything else.
In the far back of the closet, on a stack of hat boxes and plastic storage containers, Rose found a cardboard box that had been covered with pink floral contact paper. She brought it out and placed it on a towel on the bed to protect it from dust.
Hesitating, she wondered if she should wait and ask Vic if she could open it. But he’d given her permission to clean out the closet, so she lifted the lid on the box. It was filled with what appeared to be greeting cards, some of them handmade children’s artwork. A paper plate had the outline of a tiny hand and, in the center, a tiny photo of a small boy. Flipping it over, she saw the uneven printed name Justin C. Smiling, she thought Maggie might want it. She’d go through the rest and, if it was okay with Vic, offer them back to the boys.
