“Cool,” said Virginia. “I vote you go for it.”

“I second that.” Lindy beamed. “We had a lot of fun sewing together when you were a girl, didn’t we?”

Caroline looked from Lindy to Echo. An older woman, calm now, and a younger one, tentative but eager. After what had happened to Angelique, she had been thinking a lot about the things women hid. Everything from the smallest slight or dismissal to outright physical abuse. Yet there was something indomitable about them—a sturdiness. It wasn’t the sewing project that bolstered their spirits, she realized. It was something more. A sense of purpose, perhaps.

“I’ve been thinking about what you shared with me,” she said. “I wish it hadn’t happened to you.”

“Thank you, Caroline,” said Lindy. “Echo and I are two of the lucky ones.”

She looked around the shop, empty now, save for the four of them. The space held the comfort of old memories. She wondered if it had been a refuge for Lindy. “What if there was a safe place to talk and listen?” she suggested.

“Her wheels never stop turning,” Virginia said.

“I had this idea. Suppose there was a support group. I mean, it would take a bit of organizing, but . . . what if? I never examined or understood what was going on with Angelique until it was too late. I want to do better. If there’s a way to help other women . . .”

“It’s a fine idea,” Lindy said. “I can’t imagine how it would work, though.”

“Watch me,” Caroline said. “I bet I could organize something.”

“If you do, I’m in,” said Echo. “Lindy?”

“Of course. Your idea is a kind one. You have a big heart, Caroline.”

“Do I?” She shook her head. “I feel as if I’ve been oblivious. I’m going to do it,” she said decisively. “My sisters will help.”

“We will,” Virginia agreed. “I can’t speak for Georgia, but I bet she’d want to be part of it.”

“You let me know,” Lindy said.

Caroline checked her watch. “We’d better get the kids.”

Lindy walked to the door with her and gave her a quick hug. “I’m glad you’re back. You used to be such a ball of energy around here, you and your friends. Have you seen Will Jensen yet? His grandmother was one of my best customers. Such an avid quilter. You and Will used to be inseparable.”

“I’ve run into him a time or two,” Caroline said, feeling a funny flutter in her stomach.

“Well, I’m sure he and Sierra are delighted you’re back.”

Caroline gritted her teeth. I’m sure.

Chapter 11

Sierra Jensen pulled up at Star of the Sea, knowing there would be a wait for a table at the popular, buzzy restaurant. But the cranberry scones with brown butter glaze were worth the wait. So were the buckwheat griddle cakes with bourbon-barrel-aged maple syrup. And the fried green tomato Benedict.

Every once in a while, Sierra allowed herself to splurge on calories, and she usually did so at the Shelby family’s restaurant, which was housed in a weather-beaten clapboard building at the edge of the dunes. Thanks to its reputation for mind-blowing baked goods and the freshest local seafood, the place was now legendary up and down the coast, a favorite of locals as well as a destination for tourists.

Georgia Shelby Ryerson, the general manager, had come up with creative ways to make the waiting more pleasant. The front porch of the building, which faced Pioneer Park, featured a coffee bar with gathering tables and a strict ban on smoking and electronics. Instead, each of the tall tables was furnished with local and national papers, and patrons were invited to mingle and chat about the news of the day while sipping complimentary coffee from organic beans roasted in small batches on the peninsula.

As often happened, this week’s photo shoot had run late the night before. Too exhausted for the long drive home, Sierra had stayed over in the city, grabbing a last-minute hotel deal at a place that was nicer than she could afford. Will worried when he knew she was out driving late at night. The coastal byways that veined the lowlands were twisty and deserted, and she preferred a nice room and a few hits of quality weed before bed to help her relax.

She missed life in the city. In the past, while Will was on deployment, she had lived and worked in Seattle and Portland. She’d gotten used to the bustle and traffic, the shopping and nightlife. After his discharge, they’d moved to Water’s Edge, the remote, beautiful Jensen family property. It was a homecoming for them both—for her as a local girl who had lived on the peninsula from the age of fourteen, the year her father became pastor of Oceanside Congregational, and for Will, who’d spent his boyhood summers at the shore.

As a restless teenager, Sierra had yearned for a different life somewhere far from the humble string of beach towns. Settling down at Water’s Edge, restoring the old place, and starting a family had been Will’s dream. When they were first married, dizzy in love and full of plans, she’d shared that dream. Ten years later, she wasn’t so certain.

Her frequent trips to the city should have been a happy compromise. But sometimes, maybe too often, she wasn’t happy. She just felt . . . compromised.

And now her career was on shaky ground. Back when she was in her early twenties, she’d booked fashion shoots for luxury stores and high-end labels, loving the excitement and attention from stylists and photographers. As the years passed, she became a fanatic about staying thin, taking care of her skin and hair, but there were some things that couldn’t be protected from the relentless march of time. She could no longer get away with telling people she was nineteen in order to book more jobs. Gradually she was being supplanted by the never-ending influx of young, willowy, fresh-faced teenagers. Never mind that they were often emaciated, coked-up minors clinging to their much older boyfriends. Never mind that they could barely find their way to the end of a runway without directions. All the experience and knowledge in the world didn’t trump a size 2, five-ten teenager.

Even though Sierra could almost single-handedly style and set up a shoot in record time, she lacked the one asset the industry valued most: youthful innocence. These days, she found herself doing catalog shoots for discount stores or circulars that ended up in the recycle bin. Though the work was steady, the bookings through her agency lacked the prestige she’d enjoyed early in her career.

Have a baby, her well-meaning parents advised her, as if this might be the magic solution to her career frustration. They believed heart and soul in the importance of family. Her father preached it to his congregation every Sunday morning.

Fuck it, she thought, wishing she could sneak off somewhere to smoke a cigarette. But this was a small town and she was a preacher’s daughter, married to the high school football coach, so it would be bad form to be seen smoking in public.

Besides, Will hated it. They were supposed to be trying for a baby. They were trying.

One of them was, anyway.

“Sierra? Oh my gosh. Hi!”

Sierra turned to see Caroline Shelby approaching her. She was so startled that for a moment she couldn’t move. Caroline looked amazing, years younger than her actual age. Her dark hair was a tousled mop tipped in lavender, her jeans perfectly slouchy under a crisp, fitted white blouse. She wore purple-framed glasses and chunky jewelry, wedge ankle boots and a vintage bag. She was with two adorable mixed-race kids.

With a sudden rush of emotion, Sierra opened her arms. “Get over here, stranger. Holy shit. It’s been forever.”

“Forever and a day.” Caroline hugged her.

Sierra sensed something tentative about the embrace, as if she were hugging a stranger. After all this time, they were strangers. But their coming-of-age years together had created a solid foundation. As young teenagers, they had been best friends, as close as sisters. Closer, Caroline used to joke. Sisters without the fighting. There had been a time when they’d known each other so well they could finish each other’s sentences. The inside jokes, the nicknames, the secrets and shared heartbreaks of high school created a bond that felt different from the ones with friends Sierra had made since those days.

After high school, the two of them had drifted apart, a slow and natural seismic progression that sent Caroline to New York and the Fashion Institute of Technology and Sierra into the arms of the man she would eventually marry.

Now here they were again, back in the place they had both longed to leave.

“Join us at our table,” Caroline said. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

They crossed the bustling dining room, managed under the eagle eye of Caroline’s sister, Georgia, and settled at a table by the window, which framed a view of the dunes, the distant cliffs, and the wild forested headlands to the south.

“Jesus Christ, you’re a mom,” Sierra said, feeling shell-shocked as she regarded the boy and girl.