Apart from Mary being escorted from the farmers market by police and Hank filing a restraining order against her, the next few weeks in the Bennet household were fairly uneventful. Lydia spent almost every night out at a different party, Kitty toiled away on her top secret business plan, and Mary continued to add to her climate change manifesto. Meanwhile, Lizzy spent all her time at the bakery. She had to. While business was negligible during the fall and winter months, summer held the best chance for profit.
The only real change to the Bennet dynamic was Jane’s sudden absence from it. As the school year at East Hampton Elementary wrapped up, it wasn’t unusual for the eldest Bennet daughter to spend more time at home, but now her days were filled with walks on the beach with Charlie, tours of the Gardner Windmill with Charlie, dinners and lunches and endless coffees with Charlie.
Lizzy couldn’t be happier for her, even though there was an inevitable issue ahead. Every summer, Jane picked up extra shifts at the bakery. She never missed one—she even showed up to help with others. But that was before she met Charlie, back when shehad nothing better to do. And despite the extra strain it would inevitably put on Lizzy’s schedule, it would be up to her to convince Jane that sheshouldbe doing better things.
Such as spending the last Friday in June getting ready for a date rather than nailing plywood to the bakery’s front window.
“Hold it straight or I’m going to put this nail through my hand,” Mr. Bennet grumbled.
Lizzy rolled her eyes, even as she lifted her side of the wooden sheet up a few inches.
A tropical storm was barreling up the eastern seaboard, set to hit East Hampton that night. There was usually at least one every year, and they knew how to prepare. It was the same routine they followed for years, a fact Lizzy was reminded of when she dragged the large piece of plywood used to protect the front window up from the basement and found it still hadONE DIRECTION 4EVERscrawled on one side, right where she’d written it twelve years ago.
“I thought you were supposed to replace these after every storm,” she said.
“They’re fine,” Mr. Bennet said, waving her off. He pounded in another nail, then stepped back to observe his work. “All right, I think that’s it. Let’s go ahead and close up so we can get out of here.”
“You sure? What about those outstanding invoices? We have to pay those before the end of the day.”
He nodded. “I got it, kiddo.”
She hesitated. Did he?
“I got it,” he repeated, giving her a look from under his brow like he could read her mind. “You reel in the awning, and don’t forget to take off the crank wand.”
She gave him a small salute and was rewarded with a crooked smile before he disappeared inside.
A gust of wind sent strands of her red hair dancing across her face as she spun the hand crank for the awning. The blue-and-white-striped canopy slowly retracted, groaning with each turn. Did she want to think about how much this early closure was going to cost them? How one lost afternoon during their busiest time of year could set them back weeks? Or the financial hit the bakery would take if this tropical storm left any damage in its wake? No, not really. Lizzy already knew the worry would eventually come. For now, she wanted to focus on the fact that it was Friday, the impending storm was sending six-foot waves crashing onto the beach, and her surfboard was waiting in the flatbed of her truck.
Then Hank Donato’s voice called out behind her. “Lizzy!”
Lizzy closed her eyes, fortifying her patience. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Hank Donato—if anything, Piper’s father was more like family than anything else. It was just that he loved to talk and also had an uncanny ability to misread all social cues.
That’s why Lizzy took a deep breath before donning a smile and turning around to face him. “Hi, Hank.”
Sure enough, there he was, standing just a few feet away on the sidewalk. His belly was a bit rounder than it had been when Lizzy was a child, but otherwise he looked just about the same, thanks to what she could only assume was a monthly application of dark brown hair dye. She had seen photos of him in his youth, when he lived in the city and wore ripped jeans and T-shirts, but those had long been replaced with khakis and polo shirts.
But Hank wasn’t alone. There was someone else standing beside him, a tall someone with dark hair, green eyes…
“Lord Magnus,” Lizzy blurted out before she could stop herself.
Hank’s forehead wrinkled with confusion even as his companion’s mouth curved up into a smile.
“Sorry,” Lizzy continued, squeezing her eyes together for amoment before turning her attention back to Hank. “Um. How are you?”
“Good! I’m good!” His smile faltered slightly. “Mary’s not working today, is she?”
“Nope.”
His smile returned, even brighter than before. “Good! That’s great. Yes, well, I see you’re getting ready for the storm. We have the windows at the Lodge shuttered up, too, but I’m not worried. Maybe some flooding by the beach, but that’s to be expected, isn’t it?”
Silence as he stared at her, as if waiting for a reply. Then his companion cleared his throat.
“Oh! Of course. Lizzy Bennet! This is Tristan Cole. He’s come on board to help get HamptonFest off the ground.”
The memory of Piper’s comments from a few weeks ago, about how her father was expecting a potential new partner to come by the Lodge, and the image of the two men at the farmers market the following day, clicked into place in Lizzy’s mind.
“Oh right. I think Piper mentioned something,” Lizzy said, turning to Tristan. “You’re from the city.”
