Page 30 of Bluebell Tides

“You did everything right,” Dina said to Ruth, squeezing her hand. “She’s perfect.”

“Where is she going to school?” Kelly asked.

“She got in everywhere she applied,” Ruth said proudly. “But she wants to go to Yale, like us.”

Kelly, Reese, and Dina cried out happily, then got up to hug and high-five their graduate. Ruth watched them, her heart swelling. The truth was, when Sloane first told her she wanted to go to Yale, Ruth nearly had a panic attack. But she’d checked online to see that Quentin’s children were quite a bit younger than Sloane. It meant that their times at Yale wouldn’t overlap. Maybe Sloane would never encounter her father. Maybe everything would be all right.

On move-in day, Ruth drove the once-familiar route to the Yale campus and moved her daughter into the very dormitory where she’d met Kelly, Dina, and Reese. Feeling exuberant and silly, she and Sloane took numerous photographs and sent them to the girls, pulling them down memory lane. Ruth helped Sloane unpack, securing her the better of the two beds, then waited with her for her roommate to arrive. She was a girl from Indiana named Frankie. Her major was mathematics. She said, “Because I’m a nerd.”

Sloane laughed. “We’re all nerds. We’re at Yale.”

When it was time for Ruth to say goodbye, she squeezed her daughter tightly and whispered in her ear, “I love you, sweetheart. You’re my everything. Go into the world and be everything you want to be.” She kissed her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut to keep from crying.

The walk to the parking lot was ten minutes. Ruth walked slowly, enjoying the August sun on her shoulders and neck. Once she got in the car, she drove around campus, allowing herself to remember those glittering first days, when she’d just bused in from Nantucket Island, feeling like a girl who was getting away with something.

It wasn’t till she decided to head back to Manhattan that she spotted them.

The Caldwecks. She would have recognized them anywhere, standing outside one of the most-beloved restaurants in all of New Haven, wearing polo shirts and linen. Quentin wasn’t among them, but his brother, Ren, and his sister, Sissy, were, as were his parents. And between them stood a truly beautiful young woman—around eighteen, who could have been Sloane’s twin.

16

Present Day

Two hours after Quentin Caldweck’s surprise visit to the Eco-Lodge, Sophie pulled her mother’s car around the side of the inn and waited, the engine still running. She felt as though she’d entered a spy thriller. A moment later, Ruth Landers appeared between the trees, hauling her suitcase behind her, glancing left and right. She was a woman on the run. But what was she running from? When she reached the car, she threw her bags in the back and catapulted herself in, slamming the door behind her. Sophie hit the gas. She bit her lip to keep from laughing. Nothing about this was terribly funny, but her nerves made her apt to do silly things.

Back at the home her mother and Landon shared with their children, the home Sophie had called her own since she’d abandoned East Oregon State at the beginning of May, Sophie was relieved to find nobody there. She tried to give Ruth a sense of comfort, of safety. She led Ruth to the guest bedroom, which had been Sophie’s all summer long.

“I don’t want to take your room,” Ruth said sternly.

“I want you to have it,” Sophie said. “Honestly, you need it more than me.” Even as she said it, she wasn’t sure why she was so sure about that. Ruth still hadn’t told her much of anything.

“Where will you sleep?” Ruth demanded, opening and closing her hands.

Sophie shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. But we should talk. Do you want a glass of wine or something?”

“It’s one in the afternoon,” Ruth pointed out.

“I don’t think we have to operate on anyone’s rules right now.” Sophie led Ruth downstairs, where they sat on the back patio, which was hidden from view by massive pine trees on either side. Sophie poured them both glasses of white wine and waited, watching as Ruth scanned the periphery, making sure she was safe from prying Caldweck eyes. On the phone back at the Eco-Lodge, Ruth had been cagey about Quentin Caldweck and why he was after her. It had been Sophie’s instinct to ask, “Should we get you out of here?” And Ruth had said yes.

Here they were, in a world of mysteries and secrets. How could Sophie crack Ruth?

Sophie remembered the online baby announcement from 2003—the one that called Ruth’s baby Sloane Landers—and wondered if Quentin Caldweck could be Sloane’s father? Although that wasn’t impossible, it felt improbable. And why would Quentin be chasing Ruth around so many decades after their daughter’s birth?

Ruth’s fingers fidgeted around the stem of her glass. “Your mother tells me that you’re quite a researcher.”

Sophie made a sound in her throat. The last thing she wanted to do was get into the fact of her own career—or lack thereof.

“It’s just that I need information about the Caldwecks, about their business practices, about anything their factories are doing wrong. I want to corner them, while they’re trying to corner me,” Ruth said, her eyes furtive. “I’m curious if you can help me. I asked your mother about it, but she knows only the basics. She knows they’re up to no good, but not what, exactly. And I don’t want to burden her with more work.”

Sophie pressed her lips together.

“It’s imperative that I figure this out,” Ruth breathed. “I need to beat them at their own game. Sooner rather than later.”

“What is their game?” Sophie asked.

Ruth lowered her gaze. Sophie wet her lips, knowing that Ruth didn’t trust her yet.

“If this is so important,” Sophie said. “If this needs to happen so quickly, why have you been in Bluebell Cove for so long?”