Beau frowns as he screws the lid back on. “Why don’t you hire that out? You could ask Cat.” He nods to indicate someone behind me, and I turn around.
Two dozen feet away is a platinum blonde with beach waves, holding bags of produce in both hands.
I watch her for a second, narrowing my eyes to reach deep into the memories I purposely discarded a long time ago. She moves her head, giving me a view of her profile, and my eyes widen. “Cat Keene?”
“The one and only,” Beau replies.
Cat and I were friends in elementary school and junior high.She was one of the people I was really sad to leave behind when we moved to California.
“She runs the bed and breakfast with her uncle and cleans for the Belacourts and a couple others, but I’m sure she’d squeeze you in if you asked.”
The Keenes are—or at leastwere—Team Sawyer. I’ll gladly pay her to clean Grams’s house. She’ll do a much better job of it than I would.
“Okay, yeah,” I say. “I’ll go check with her. Thanks.”
“I’ll be over around one,” Beau says as I start walking away.
I give a grimacing smile and head for Cat, hoping I can shore up my defenses a bit by one.
I’ve gotthat same tightness in my stomach as I approach Cat, probably because I realize that in the fourteen years since I was last in Sunset Harbor, it’s possible she’s turned to the Dark Side and now identifies as Team Palmer.
But I need a cleaner if I’m going to have the house looking its best for pictures, so I pull up my bootstraps.
“Cat?”
She turns and looks at me, her eyes searching my face for a second. She smiles. “Gemma!”
Relief floods me as she pulls me in for a hug.
“I heard you were back,” she says, “but I swore not to believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.”
I put out my hands to display myself. “Duty calls. How have you been?”
We catch up for a few minutes on things at Keene B&B and the work she’s doing for the Belacourts, including a side job with Noah—the only son to even out a whole lot of estrogen. Beau wasn’t lying when he said Cat keeps busy.
“Wow,” I say. “So, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have time to come clean Grams’s house, right? I’m trying to get it ready for pictures so we can sell it.”
“I’d love to,” she says. “How much cleaning are we talking?”
“It’s in decent shape, so nothing major.”
She nods. “When do youneed it done?”
I display a smile full of clenched teeth. “Um…before Monday at five?”
Her mouth twists to the side. “I’ve got some work I’ve got to do for Noah on Monday.”
“Look at you, hanging with the bougie Belacourts! Is there something I should be aware of?” I cock a brow.
“Oh, gosh no,” she says, but her cheeks go pink. “I’m just taking all the side jobs I can to earn some extra money. Speaking of which, as long as you’re okay cutting it close, I could come clean for a while tomorrow, then finish up on Monday afternoon?”
I shut my eyes with relief. “You’re an angel! That’s perfect.Ifyou’re sure.”
“Absolutely.”
“Thank you! What’s your favorite drink?”
“Um, LaCroix. Why?”
