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Robin sat up, away from Duke’s body. “Okay, number one, Madeline, I need to see you and if at all possible, your son and daughter-in-law first thing in the morning. Number two, you tell Theresa this squares us. I don’t owe her anything after this.”
“If you can pull it off!” Theresa yelled, and Robin heard her loud and clear.
“Oh, I’ll pull it off,” she said. “Madeline, can you come by around eight? I have another client call at nine, and then a luncheon I’m doing.”
“I’ll be there when you tell me to be there,” Madeline said. “And yes, my son and daughter-in-law will be with me.”
“Great,” Robin said. She recited her address, and then said, “I’ll start pulling some strings, and hopefully I’ll have good news for you in the morning.”
The call ended, and Robin wanted to chuck her phone toward the dormant firepit. “Theresa Travis,” she muttered.
“Hey,” Duke said. “Look at it this way. She’s been holding that favor over your head for five years. Now, it’ll be done.”
“Done?” Robin practically screeched. “Where am I going to find a wedding venue that will allow dinner, dancing, and have dressing rooms—oh, oh the beach—for next Friday night?” She shook her head, because she knew every venue in the cove. They weren’t all on Diamond Island either, and Robin’s mind buzzed and boiled.
Then she picked up her phone and started texting. A challenge had just been thrown down, and Robin had never shied away from one of those. She wasn’t going to start now.
ChapterFive
Alice Rice glared as Charlie reached over to adjust the volume on the radio. “I said—leave it.”
“I love this song,” he said.
Part of her wanted to tattle on him to her husband, who rode in the back seat with Ginny. Turned out, Arthur didn’t super-love road trips, and his motion sickness had reared its ugly head several times on the trip out west.
“It’s too loud,” Alice said, using the buttons on the steering wheel to lower the volume again. “We’re trying to talk.”
“There’s an elk!” Ginny yelled. Alice startled, the adrenaline in her spiking and causing her to stomp on the brake pedal.
“Where?” Charlie asked, his attention now out his window.
“It’s a moose,” Ginny said. “Mom, amoose.” She carried wonder in her voice, and Alice grinned at her daughter in the rearview mirror. Ginny wasn’t looking at her, of course. Her eyes were glued to the wildlife beyond the rented SUV, and Charlie practically leaned out the window.
“I’ll pull over,” she said, maneuvering the vehicle off the narrow, winding road in Yellowstone National Park. When she’d first suggested the trip to the twins, neither of them had seemed terribly excited about it. She’d kept bringing it up, and since the twins had lived on the East Coast for their whole lives, they had never seen mountains like the Rockies or the Grand Tetons.
Ginny had been especially touched by the wide open sky and the big spaces in Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. They’d been on the road for four days now, with four more to go before they returned to Five Island Cove and real life.
Alice had a case to settle then, and she’d agreed to help Robin move into her house literally three days after her return to the cove. Not only that, but Clara would be moving on the very same day, and Alice’s back and shoulders already ached from phantom boxes she hadn’t carried yet.
“I’ve never seen a moose before,” Charlie said as they all got out of the car.
“You have to be quiet,” Ginny said. She threw him a dirty look, to which he gave her a glare back.
“I’m quiet.”
“I’m pretty sure you singlehandedly scared away those deer.”
To Charlie’s credit, he didn’t respond. Alice gave Ginny a look too, but she was already focused on the moose.
“Mama,” she whispered. “There’s two of them.” They joined the crowd of onlookers already assembled, and Alice could plainly see the two moose down in the stream. The bigger of the two moved as if in slow motion, and Alice herself was mesmerized by them.
Arthur came up beside her and took her hand in his. “They’re magnificent,” she said, plenty of awe in her voice. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
They’d said that a lot in the past four days, but Alice truly hadn’t. She hadn’t traveled growing up, and then she’d been so focused on keeping up with everyone in the Hamptons that she hadn’t had time to experience the wilderness. She wasn’t even sure places like this existed on the Eastern Seaboard.
“No,” Arthur said. “This is amazing.” His fingers around hers tightened, and Alice squeezed back. She’d booked two rooms for them everywhere they’d been. They’d spent two days in Jackson Hole, but they now had a couple of cabins just outside the west entrance to the National Park.
They stood there for a long time watching the moose. People came and went, and a couple of park rangers came to make sure the people and the animals stayed safe. Eventually Alice realized the time, and she reached over to touch Ginny’s arm.
