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This was it; she was really doing it. At twenty-three years old, she was in love, chasing her career dreams, and out on an adventure all by herself.
Just before Orcas Island appeared in the distance, Anna’s little sister, Rachel, texted from the University of Michigan.
RACHEL: Hey Anna! Good luck tonight on Orcas Island!
RACHEL: It’s so exciting!
Anna smiled into her phone and typed back a thank you. She then studied her little sister’s profile picture on the messenger app, which showed a beautiful young woman just a few years younger than Anna. They’d been raised together with their brother, Henry, in a suburb of Chicago called Bartlett. Anna hadn’t been back to Bartlett in just about a year, at which time her father, Jackson Crawford, had told his family he’d taken a position in China. Little did Anna and her siblings know that Jackson’s announcement of the job change had also served as a divorce announcement. Her parents’ divorce had been officially finalized at the end of the previous year.
News of her father’s abandonment of her mother had shattered Anna’s heart. Since Jackson’s departure, she’d hardly spoken to him at all and had told Dean that, in many ways, she felt she no longer had a father.
Once Julia had arrived on Nantucket, however, she’d reconnected with her high school sweetheart, Charlie, with whom she’d fled to New York City at the age of seventeen. Charlie was a professional carpenter, incredibly handsome, with two girls of his own. His wife had passed away a few years ago, which meant that both he and Julia returned to one another, battered and bruised. Together, they worked on healing from the tremendous pain of their past.
It was just about the most romantic thing Anna knew.
Anna drove her car from the ferry and onto Orcas Island with the windows cracked. The breeze through the car was fresh and clean, smelling of pines and salt water. Anna imagined several years down the road when perhaps she and Dean would bring their children here to hike, swim, and eat delicious seafood. She imagined Dean with a toddler on his knee, laughing at Anna with immense joy reflecting from his face.
Anna parked behind the Harbor Inn and hauled her suitcase to the front desk, where a chipper woman in her forties greeted her and checked her into her room. Because Anna still wasn’t an “important” travel writer, her editor had booked her a small room with a double bed and a view of the parking lot. Anna took a photograph of it and sent it to Dean, saying, “Maybe in ten years, they’ll give me a room by the sea.” Dean wrote back with a laughing emoji and said, “At least the sea is only a few minutes’ walk away.”
Anna, dressed in a black turtleneck and a pair of dark green pants, slid golden earrings into her ears, spritzed herself with perfume, then hurried out the door to meet Everett and his fiancé. Anna walked down Main Street as the sky cooled to a hazy bluish green, and bars and restaurants snapped on their welcoming orange lights. Behind windows, tourists and locals alike sat at thick wooden tables and pinched lemons over slabs of pink salmon, dining to their hearts’ content.
Everett had agreed to meet Anna at the very restaurant she’d been asked to review, as he already had a good relationship with the owner and could make a nice introduction. Anna stepped through the thick door and into the warmth of the restaurant, scanning the tops of diners’ heads for the sight of Everett, whom she’d only seen photographs of in travel magazines and his website. Previously, Everett had been a sought-after photographer and had even cut his teeth taking photographs of celebrities before he’d switched careers to write full-time.
“Anna?” A confident voice boomed behind her, and Anna turned to find Everett and a beautiful woman in her forties smiling at her. “I thought that was you,” Everett continued. “We just got here. We didn’t mean to creep up on you.”
Anna laughed and stretched out her hand to shake his. “It’s so good to meet you in person!”
Everett nodded. “You too. It’s so awesome you could make it out.” He said it as though he meant it, which was a rare thing in the world of arts, Anna knew. “This is my fiancé, Charlotte.”
Charlotte shook Anna’s hand next and complimented her writing. “Your recent article blew me away. I told Everett he better watch his back.”
Anna felt herself blush and was unsure of what to say. Luckily, the server approached to seat them, and the three of them were soon at the most beautiful table, which featured a view of the harbor. After they ordered drinks, Everett told her that previously, he’d lived out on Martha’s Vineyard with Charlotte but that he hadn’t been able to turn down the job on Orcas Island.
“Martha’s Vineyard! You’re kidding!” Anna felt herself open up. “A lot of my family live on Nantucket.”
“No way.” Charlotte leaned forward. “I was born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard. Were you born and raised on Nantucket?”
“Not quite,” Anna explained. “It’s a long story.”
Everett spread his hands out above the table. “We have all night.”
The server arrived with their drinks and a few appetizers, at which time he explained the owner wasn’t there that evening— and asked if they wouldn’t mind coming back tomorrow for the interview. “He’s very sorry. Something came up.”
“Of course,” Anna assured him. “It’ll be good to get a feel for the menu before I speak with him, anyway.”
Everett’s eyes twinkled. “I see you already have good instincts around being a travel writer.”
“I don’t know about that.” Anna sipped her chardonnay, letting the flavor roll over her tongue. “But goodness, this wine is divine!”
“Isn’t it? I can’t get enough of this place,” Charlotte said. “Every time I come out to visit, I demand we come here.”
Anna’s smile widened.
“So, tell us,” Everett urged. “What is this ‘long story’ about why you weren’t raised on Nantucket?”
“Well, my grandparents raised my mother and her siblings there,” Anna tried, stumbling into the story. “But in the nineties, my grandfather was wrongfully accused of stealing millions of dollars from friends and associates on the island, and…”
“No!” Everett was stick-straight in his chair.
