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Chapter 1
“Do you think he’s lookingat me?”
Sally looked over to where her friend, Norma Jean, indicated.
Peter Slessing stood on the sidewalk outside of the diner in Strawberry Sands, lifting his face to the wind and gazing out on the beautiful blue waters of Lake Michigan.
“I can’t tell,” Sally said sincerely from where she stood, two steps up on the ladder, hooking a string of lights to a post.
She and Norma Jean were helping to decorate for the Beach Bash that Strawberry Sands was putting on to celebrate the end of summer.
Not that Strawberry Sands really was happy about the end of summer. Since it meant the end of tourist season and the end of good business and lots of tourist dollars.
Although the town would be much quieter from here on out, and Sally wasn’t upset about that.
At her job as an accountant at the inn on the edge of town, things would definitely be slowing down. She already didn’t have as many hours as what she needed since her Aunt Wilma had passed away and she lost her caregiving job. Not that she’d only cared for her Aunt Wilma for the money. She’d loved the lady. Although Sally had gotten a little crazy there for a bit when she’d been stuck inside doing nothing but taking care of her twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
She’d done one of the silliest things she’d ever done in her life during that time, and it involved her best friend, Norma Jean.
“I think he is. I think he might be coming this way!” Norma Jean’s voice contained thrilled excitement.
Ever since Sally had tried to set Norma Jean and Peter up, Norma Jean had been infatuated with the man.
Peter seemed, if not oblivious, only casually interested, and not the kind of interest that made a man propose marriage.
But Sally could never tell Norma Jean that, because Norma Jean was more than just casually interested. She was obsessed with Peter.
“How’s my hair look? I wore this shirt because I thought it made my eyes look more blue, but...does it make me look sallow?” Norma Jean’s voice held an edge of panic, and Sally tried to infuse calmness into hers.
“You look amazing. As you always do.”
Norma Jean had been blessed with beautiful looks, golden hair that flowed in perfect waves past the middle of her back, along with sultry blue eyes and a perfect bone structure.
She was curvy in all the right places, and she turned more than a few heads.
Unfortunately, her personality didn’t always match her looks.
“Quick! Get down!”
“From the ladder?” Sally said, confused.
“Yes!” Norma Jean tugged on Sally’s shirt, pulling her down and almost making her lose her balance.
“I’m coming,” Sally said, somehow allowing Norma Jean’s panic to infuse into her own voice. “What’s the matter?”
“I need it! If I get up, I can accidentally fall as soon as Peter walks by. Hurry up. I can’t fall if you don’t move! And if we don’t hurry, he’ll know we switched on purpose.”
He was probably already going to know. The man was less than fifty feet from them, and he would need to walk by if he continued to follow the sidewalk to the sand.
The party was at the edge of town, and the people of Strawberry Sands had been working for days. All of it had been headed up by Eleanor, Sally’s friend who had done such a great job on the first annual barn dance last Christmas.
That had been such a raging success that the town had decided to do something like that for the tourists who came every summer.
They hadn’t gotten organized in time to do it during the summer, so they decided to celebrate the end of summer.
They were expecting a huge turnout and were hoping to make a good bit of money off of it, enough to hopefully tide everyone over until the next tourist season.
Money might have been the first consideration, but the town wanted everyone to have a good time as well.
