“She forgot to close the window again,” Jenna whispered as she tiptoed around the side of Leanna’s cottage. “Typical Leanna. I’m just going to close it.”
Leanna had fallen in love with bestselling author Kurt Remington the previous summer, and although they had a house on the bay, they often stayed in the two-bedroom cottage so Leanna could enjoy her summer friends. The Seaside cottages in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, had been in the girls’ families for years, and they had spent summers together since they were kids.
“Wait, Jenna. Let’s get the toilet to Theresa’s first.” Bella placed her hands on her hips so they knew she meant business. Jenna stopped before she reached for the window, and Bella realized it would have been a futile effort anyway. Jenna would need a stepstool to pull that window down.
“Oh…Kurt.” Leanna’s voice split the night air.
Amy covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Fine, but let’s hurry. Poor Leanna will be mortified to find out she left the window open again.”
“I’m the last one who wants to hear her having sex. I’m done with men, or at least with commitments, until my life is back on track.” Ever since last summer, when Leanna had met Kurt, started her own jam-making business, and moved to the Cape full-time, Bella had been thinking of making a change of her own. Leanna’s success had inspired her to finally go for it. Well, that and the fact that she’d made the mistake of dating a fellow teacher, Jay Cook. It had been months since they broke up, but they’d taught at the same Connecticut high school, and until she left for the summer, she couldn’t avoid running in to him on a daily basis. It was just the nudge she needed to take the plunge and finally quit her job and start over. New job, new life, new location. She just hadn’t told her friends yet. She’d thought she would tell them the minute she arrived at Seaside and they were all together, maybe over a bottle of wine or on the beach. But Leanna had been spending a lot of time with Kurt, and every time it was just the four of them, she hadn’t been ready to come clean. She knew they’d worry and ask questions, and she wanted to have some of the transition sorted out before answering them.
“Bella, you can’t give up on men. Jay was just a jerk.” Amy touched her arm.
She really needed to fill them in on the whole Jay and quitting her job thing. She was beyond over Jay, but they knew Bella to be the stable one of the group, and learning of her sudden change was a conversation that needed to be handled when they weren’t wrestling a fifty-pound toilet.
“Fine. You’re right. But I’m going to make all of my future decisions separate from any man. So…until my life is in order, no commitments for me.”
“Not me. I’d give anything to have what Kurt and Leanna have,” Amy said.
Bella lifted her end of the toilet easily as Jenna and Amy struggled to lift theirs. “Got it?”
“Yeah. Go quick. This stupid thing is heavy,” Jenna said as they shuffled along the grass.
“More…” Leanna pleaded.
Amy stumbled and lost her grip. The toilet dropped to the ground, and Jenna yelped.
“Shh. You’re going to wake up the whole complex!” Bella stalked over to them.
“Oh, Kurt!” Jenna rocked her hips. “More, baby, more!”
“Really?” Bella tried to keep a straight face, but when Leanna cried out again, she doubled over with laughter.
Amy, always the voice of reason, whispered, “Come on. We need to close her window.”
“Yes!” Leanna cried.
They fell against one another in a fit of laughter, stumbling beside Leanna’s cottage.
“I could make popcorn.” Jenna said, struggling to keep a straight face.
Amy scowled at her. “She got pissed the last time you did that.” She grabbed Bella’s hand and whispered through gritted teeth, “Take out the screen so you can shut the window, please.”
“I told you we should have put a lock on the outside of her window,” Jenna reminded them. Last summer, when Leanna and Kurt had first begun dating, they often forgot to close the window. To save Leanna embarrassment, Jenna had offered to be on sex-noise mission control and close the window if Leanna ever forgot to. A few drinks later, she’d mistakenly abandoned the idea for the summer.
“While you close the window, I’ll get the sign for the toilet.” Amy hurried back toward Bella’s deck in her boy-shorts underwear and a T-shirt.
Bella tossed the screen to the side so she could reach inside and close the window. The side of Leanna’s cottage was on a slight incline, and although Bella was tall, she needed to stand on her tiptoes to get a good grip on the window. The hem of the nightie caught on her underwear, exposing her ample derriere.
“Cute satin skivvies.” Jenna reached out to tug Bella’s shirt down and Bella swatted her.
Bella pushed as hard as she could on the top of the window, trying to ignore the sensuous moans and the creaking of bedsprings coming from inside the cottage.
“The darn thing’s stuck,” she whispered.
Jenna moved beside her and reached for the window. Her fingertips barely grazed the bottom edge.
Amy ran toward them, waving a long stick with a paper sign taped to the top that read, WELCOME BACK.
Leanna moaned, and Jenna laughed and lost her footing. Bella reached for her, and the window slammed shut, catching Bella’s hair. Leanna’s dog, Pepper, barked, sending Amy and Jenna into more fits of laughter.
With her hair caught in the window and her head plastered to the sill, Bella put a finger to her lips. “Shh!”
Headlights flashed across Leanna’s cottage as a car turned up the gravel road.
“Oh no!” Bella went up on her toes, struggled to lift the window and free her hair, which felt like it was being ripped from her skull. The curtains flew open and Leanna peered through the glass. Bella lifted a hand and waved. Shoot. She heard Leanna’s front door open, and Pepper bolted around the corner, barking a blue streak and knocking Jenna to the ground just as a police car rolled up next to them and shined a spotlight on Bella’s butt.
CADEN GRANT HAD been with the Wellfleet Police Department for only three months, having moved after his partner of nine years was killed in the line of duty. He’d relocated to the small town with his teenage son, Evan, in hopes of working in a safer location. So far, he’d found the people of Wellfleet to be respectful and thankful for the efforts of the local law enforcement officers, a welcome change after dealing with rebellion on every corner in Boston. Wellfleet had recently experienced a rash of small thefts—cars being broken into, cottages being ransacked, and the police had begun patrolling the private communities along Route 6, communities that in the past had taken care of their own security. Caden rolled up the gravel road in the Seaside Cottage community and spotted a dog running circles around a person rolling on the ground.