“Me, neither.” Wendell rolled onto his back, and she rested her chin on his chest. “I hope it was okay. Showing up like that. And… this.” He smiled at her.
“It was perfect,” she said, pressing closer. “All of it.” Then, “I needed that.”
Wendell kissed her head. “I needed you.”
Later, as they sat on her deck with a bottle of wine between them, Ginny tried again. “When you got here, you said you had something to tell me?”
He turned to her. “You first.”
When morning light flooded her bedroom, Ginny stretched luxuriously. Beside her, Wendell roused. She watched him blink, then turn to her. She smiled sadly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, rolling toward her.
“I have to go the Wetlands Commission. And ask about the turtles.”
It would be unethical to keep it to herself. But the truth was, it didn’t just halt the development of White Pines. It also halted a deal that could change the course of her family’s struggling business. Without the boon of that sale, Feldman Agency might not survive.
Wendell pulled her against him. “Did I ever tell you about those turtles?” he asked.
Ginny shook her head.
“My mother used to take Wesley and me hiking at the town meadows when we were really little. To the ponds and the wetlands to search for frogs and turtles.”
Ginny smiled. “I can’t picture that. From all the photos you’ve shared, she looked so dressed up. So stylish.”
“She was. But she loved nature.” He paused. “During my dad’s term as first selectman, we stumbled across the red spotted turtleson one of our hikes. She loved that we’d found something thriving that had once been almost extinct. I still remember the uproar it caused my dad during a reelection year.”
“What happened?”
“The town wanted to sell the meadows to a developer. My mother got pretty bent out of shape; she wanted my dad to fight it. And he did. The trouble was, he was just one vote on a board of selectmen. And it was while my mother was fighting breast cancer.”
Ginny sucked in her breath. “So he wanted to fight it for her?”
“And he did. For a long time.” Wendell shook his head sadly. “That was my mother. Dying of cancer and still trying to take care of everyone else around her. Me, Wesley. The damn turtles.”
A tear spilled from his eye, and Ginny pressed her fingertip to it. “I wish I’d known her. I wish she was still here for you.”
Wendell propped himself up on his elbow and looked at her. “That’s the funny thing. Those turtles are back now. It makes you wonder.”
It was eerie and yet seemed somehow fitting. “I don’t know if the turtles will change everything for White Pines, but reporting what I know is the right thing to do.” Ginny let a long breath out. “Whatever happens next, I guess we’ll all have to find our way through it.”
“We will. We are already.” He pulled her closer, and Ginny pressed her forehead to his. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel sure about anything in my life again.”
“But you’re sure about the girls.”
He nodded. “There are two things I’m sure of in this world. The girls are one.”
“And the other?”
Wendell leaned over and kissed her once, then again. “This.”
Thirty-SixJulia
After the judge denied her petition for emancipation, Julia felt her insides give in a way they hadn’t done since her parents died. All along she’d been tensed and ready to fight. Her fists clenched, her body coiled. She’d felt a steady course of adrenaline that had served to drown out the grief for some time, both protecting her from its pull and propelling her forward to do what had to be done.
Gone was the fire in her belly that had driven her through each day. Gone, too, was the hope that somehow she’d remain in Saybrook. She holed up in her room, until Pippa trotted in and begged and fussed and pulled her from the safety of her bed. Julia had sat obediently on the bedroom rug, packing boxes that Candace brought in. There were two kinds: one to bring to London and one to donate. Surrounded by all her things, Julia was too numb to differentiate between the two. What did it matter anymore?
Chloe cried with her on the phone when she broke the news. But Julia refused to let her come over. Sam was harder. He was beside himself. “Meet me at the lake,” he texted. “There has to be another way.”
