Lauren

By Shannon Waverly

CIRCLE of FRIENDSMay the circle be unbroken

Christmas. A time for first love and second chances.

As a girl, Lauren DeStefano fell in love with Cameron Hathaway the gold boy of Harmony, Massachusetts. The innocence of that first love was followed by grief and by rejection and finally, a long slow climb to success.

Lauren, now living in Boston, is still close to her circle of Harmony friends Julia, Cathryn and the others. But she thumbs her nose at the rest of the community especially when she buys historic Rockland House.

She plans to remodel it in time for Christmas and gets more than she bargained for. More expenses, more problems more memories. All of which she figures she can handle. But discovering she still has feelings for Cameron? That's something else. Can the past repeat itself with a different and happier ending? With marriage to Cam, a home on Harmony and a baby?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jul 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781460860335

Shannon Waverly

Shannon Waverly has always lived on the southeast coast of Massachusetts, an area she loves and frequently uses as the setting for her stories. Born in Fall River, a city better known as the home of Lizzie Borden (of ax fame), the author grew up in a lively, old-fashioned household that at one time encompassed four generations. She graduated from Stonehill College, near Boston, with a B.A. in English and, two months later married the young man who'd been editor of the literary magazine during her freshman year - the very same young man who'd embarrassed her totally by rejecting a story she'd submitted. "I reclaimed my pride, however," she says, "when I became editor during my own senior year." She and her husband have been married for 32 years. They have a grown son and daughter, always a source of pride, two granddaughters, "who are the light of our lives;" and two cats, Bizarra and Monet, the fattest feline in the world, who made an appearance in Three For The Road. Shannon Waverly taught school briefly before her children were born, and when they were teenagers she worked as a temporary secretary, which she considers a great way to research careers for characters. While her children were young, however, she was mostly a stay-at-home mom, busy with housework, crafts, little league, girls scouts, school productions, and the myriad other activities that keep a young mother hopping. It was during those busy at-home years that she read her first Harlequin and became hooked as a reader. Soon after, she began to think she'd also like to write one. She'd always enjoyed writing. She remembers trying to write a novel when she was 12 or 13. "I only got to about the third chapter." About the same time, she also sent out a couple of stories to Seventeen Magazine, which "came back on a sling-shot." School publications were more welcoming of her efforts, and she served as newspaper and magazine editor both in high school and college. Writing professionally, however, was a venture she'd never seriously considered until then. Several years passed between her decision to write a romance and her actual first sale. "I didn't take writing courses or go to conferences. I didn't even know about RWA (Romance Writers of America). I simply read, picked apart the books I liked, and wrote and wrote and wrote." After planning four novels that she says are still collecting dust somewhere in her house, she finally made a sale to Harlequin Romance. Since that debut in 1990, she has published nine more books within the romance line, and has many more on the way!

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

IF YOU THINK Money Can’t Buy Happiness, You Don’t Know Where To Shop. Lauren held up the T-shirt to better display the slogan. This would make her mother laugh. What do you think, Ma? One for each of us?

Audrey DeStefano didn’t answer. In fact, Lauren doubted her mother had even heard the question. She stood as pale and motionless as one of the mannequins that graced the small Hyannis boutique.

Ma? Alarmed, Lauren laid a hand on her mother’s shoulder. Audrey was just fifty-five, but two years of widowhood had taken their toll. Her hair, with its distinctive copper shade that she’d passed on to all five of her children, was now liberally streaked with gray, and her pretty sea-green eyes, another gift to her offspring, were dark with sorrow. Lauren could only wonder if her health had been adversely affected, as well.

Audrey blinked and focused. Let’s go, she said quietly.

Are you all right?

Yes. Let’s go.

Lauren frowned. They’d barely looked at anything in this particular store. Not that she minded. She’d always considered recreational shopping a waste of good time. But her mother seemed to benefit from these Sunday excursions, and for her mother, Lauren would do anything.

"Come on," Audrey said more urgently. She was standing in a hunched position so that she appeared inches shorter than normal.

Lauren’s internal radar switched on. She scanned the crowded shop and, sure enough, three racks to their left stood a woman who looked vaguely familiar. Lauren searched her memory. Mrs. Dumont, she said with a snap of her fingers. Her mother’s cheeks flushed. Ma-a, she said accusingly, you used to be good friends with her.

Audrey raised two hands and shook her head, wordlessly begging Lauren not to push her into something she couldn’t handle.

But you haven’t seen her in years. Wouldn’t you like to find out how she is and what’s been happening on Harmony? Wouldn’t it be nice to do a little bragging about your kids and grandkids? Lauren was talking to thin air. Her mother was already halfway to the door. Lauren replaced the T-shirt and followed.

Outside, Audrey was beating a swift retreat up the sidewalk, heedless of the people she was bumping into. Lauren caught up with her and gripped her by the arm. Slow down, lady. She tugged her over to a bench in front of a gourmet fudge shop. Talk to me, she said, although she already knew what was bothering her mother.

I’m sorry. Audrey hung her head, looking weak and embarrassed.

Lauren swayed between anger and heartbreak. Oh, Ma! she chided, softening her reprimand with an arm across her mother’s too-thin shoulders. So much has changed since we moved.

Yes, thanks to you. But to folks back home everything’s exactly the same. Audrey’s unthinking reference to Harmony as home wasn’t lost on Lauren. What they know about us is only what they remember—your father’s business schemes that never worked, his political rabble-rousing... She paused, a pained expression sharpening the fine lines around her eyes. Us losing our house to the bank. That, no doubt, is what they remember best.

Lauren’s chest tightened with frustration. It had been twelve years since they’d moved to Boston, but her mother’s humiliation over her life on Harmony was still as fresh as the day they’d left.

She retracted her arm and sat back, her frustration nettled with guilt. Financial failure and losing their home weren’t the only humiliations the DeStefanos had suffered. They’d also had to put up with a daughter who’d gotten pregnant at fifteen. Not just a misfortune, it had turned into a veritable scandal because the boy was even younger. A mere fourteen. He was a Hathaway, too. A Hathaway, for pity’s sake! Lauren couldn’t have messed up worse if she’d had ten lifetimes to work on it.

She sighed, her shoulders slumping. Although her mother never mentioned that time in their lives anymore, Lauren knew she hadn’t forgotten. It obviously continued to bother her, contributing to her overall embarrassment whenever she ran into old friends. Suddenly everything Lauren had done for herself and her family, everything she’d worked so hard to attain, seemed like nothing.

Damn, it wasn’t nothing! she thought with a mulish lift of her chin. She owned and managed property worth five million dollars and added to her holdings continually. But it wasn’t her monetary worth per se that pleased her so much; it was the good she was able to accomplish through it. College educations for her siblings, weddings, vacations, loans at no interest for cars and down payments on homes. She even provided employment for her two sisters.

Being the oldest, Lauren had always felt responsible for the younger kids, and now, to her deep satisfaction, they all seemed to be doing well. Only her mother worried her. Only Audrey, who’d lent Lauren her strength when she’d needed it most. Without her husband, she’d turned in on herself, withdrawing from friends and activities and becoming prematurely old when she was just in her fifties—the prime of her life. Last fall the situation had gotten worse when her youngest had gone off to college.

Lauren cast her mother a troubled glance. She was still peering down the street, on the lookout for Mrs. Dumont. Ma, does it really matter what people back on Harmony think about us?

No. Audrey shook her head and quietly repeated, No. But in her eyes shone a great big yes.

Lauren bristled with anger, at her father, at herself, at the Hathaways who’d made their lives so miserable. But she was especially angry at a sorry spit of land twelve miles out to sea.

As quickly as her anger rose, it faded, because reluctant though she was to admit it, Lauren understood her mother’s abiding affection for the island. Once you’d lived there it was in your blood forever. You miss Harmony, don’t you? Lauren said empathetically.

Audrey concentrated on something across the street, her thin lips pressed tightly together. She raised one shoulder in a careless shrug, yet tears had welled in her eyes.

Lauren clasped her mother’s hand and gave it a squeeze. For several minutes they sat without speaking. Lauren’s mind was far from idle, though. For a while now, she’d been thinking of buying her mother a house on Harmony, but this incident convinced her she needed to get moving on it soon.

Lauren’s stomach lurched unexpectedly. She hadn’t spent any appreciable time on Harmony since leaving it at the age of eighteen. She’d returned a year later for her best friend Cathryn McGrath’s wedding, and last fall she’d gone back to attend the combined class reunion and memorial for their schoolmate, Amber Loring Davoll, who’d recently died—been murdered, actually. Then, just two months ago, she’d served as a bridesmaid for her other lifelong friend, Julia Lewis. Those visits didn’t count, though.

She hadn’t run into Cameron on any of those occasions.

But if she planned to buy a house on Harmony for her mother, she didn’t see how she could avoid it. Finding the right house would take time, and the island was only fifteen square miles in area. And it would be the right house, she vowed, one that would command respect and rekindle every bit of her mother’s lost pride.

Respect and pride were just the beginning of the benefits Lauren could foresee resulting from her mother’s return to Harmony. Audrey had old friends there. Renewing those friendships, no matter how difficult at first, would do her good. As would resuming her favorite pastimes of gardening and taking long brisk walks on the beach. Those would benefit her emotionally as much as physically.

Lauren was sure her brothers and sisters would visit often, too. Their mother wouldn’t have a chance to miss them. In fact, since they’d be staying at her house whenever they went to the island, she’d probably see them more than she did now.

And when the family wasn’t visiting? Another idea Lauren had been toying with began to solidify into conviction. Her mother could run the house as a bed-and-breakfast. Lauren had gotten the idea when she was there in April for Julia’s wedding. She’d noticed Band Bs everywhere on the island. Some had been open right through the winter, too, a sign that they were in high demand.

Yes, she’d definitely encourage her mother in that direction. Audrey desperately needed a sense of purpose—a business of her own would give her that. Lauren knew she’d enjoy the work, too. She loved to cook, loved to keep house and have people over. On a couple of weekend jaunts to B and Bs in Maine, she’d even remarked to Lauren that she thought the owners of those inns led enviable lives.

Of course, there was the possibility Audrey wouldn’t want to stay on the island year-round. Not a problem. Lauren would simply maintain her mother’s apartment in Boston for the off-seasons. And wouldn’t that tweak a few aristocratic noses—Audrey DeStefano keeping a vacation house on Harmony!

Lauren could feel her enthusiasm building from one heartbeat to the next. It was mid-June. If she started now, she might have the purchase and all its paperwork settled by mid to late July, a perfect time to begin remodeling. With good weather and no construction delays, the place could probably be ready by—

She jolted forward. Shazam! The place could probably be ready by December. It could be a Christmas present! Lauren got so excited by the idea, she wanted to jump up and shout it to the world. But that would spoil the surprise, and she definitely wanted her mother to be surprised.

Being a consummate realist, Lauren knew that this project would present all kinds of problems she normally didn’t encounter on the mainland, but she would tackle those when they came along. For now, all she wanted to think about was how wonderful it was going to be, taking the family out to Harmony at Christmas, seeing the look on her mother’s face. It was going to be just great...

If only she didn’t have to spend so much time there beforehand. She was bound to run into Cameron and his parents and their gossipy friends. On an island as small as Harmony, with a year-round population of barely six hundred, the question wasn’t if but when.

Her trepidation bewildered her. She’d left Harmony brimful of anger and vengefulness. The Hathaways, Pru especially, had hurt her and her family—deeply, cruelly, unfairly. Although Lauren had fought back, a sizable segment of Harmony had believed Mrs. Hathaway’s lies. They’d spread the word that the DeStefano girl slept around and anyone could be the father. But not Cam. Never Cam. A boy of his breeding didn’t do such things, and the only reason he’d been accused was that Tom DeStefano had put his daughter up to it. They were both money-grubbing opportunists who’d seen a chance to lay claim to Hathaway money through child support or a trust fund.

Later, that same segment had also believed what Pru Hathaway had said about Lauren’s miscarriage, that it was really an abortion. She’d told people that once Lauren and her family realized they weren’t going to succeed in extorting money from the Hathaways, they’d opted to dispose of the baby. They’d had no more use for it.

What had hurt the most was that Cameron had believed it, too—Cameron, who’d been her closest friend. Cameron, who’d once been completely crazy about her. His parents had sent him away to boarding school, but when he’d come home that Christmas he’d made a point of telling Lauren exactly what he thought of her.

Lauren had spent three more years on Harmony, three excruciating years of keeping her head held defiantly high and pretending she didn’t care. But she did, and when she left, she vowed to become incredibly wealthy and return someday to rub it in. Oh, yes, she was going to stand up to the Hathaways and say, Look at me. Look who I’ve become . She knew she could do it, too. Her classmates—all nine of them—hadn’t voted her Most Likely To Succeed for nothing.

Well, here she was, not incredibly wealthy, but wealthy enough. So what was this reluctance she was feeling? She was ready. She was set. Why couldn’t she just go?

Lauren rested her head against the shingled siding of the shop behind her, closed her eyes and searched her heart, turning over the stones of anger, resentment, old hurts that cried out to be avenged. On their pale undersides she thought she glimpsed a few reasons.

Age had matured her, for one thing, and she now saw vengefulness as the unflattering trait it was. But lingering humiliation over her pregnancy was also a factor. People on Harmony had long memories, and if she’d ever thought differently, returning for Julia’s wedding had disabused her of that idea. Of course, no one had been rude or said anything outright, but the look was still there in certain people’s eyes, the awareness that she was that DeStefano girl, the one who’d gotten into trouble so young.

Lauren realized somewhat unexpectedly that she also felt fear, fear of failing in this venture and appearing foolish. She couldn’t imagine how she could fail in such a simple venture; still, the fear was there, probably rooted deep in her father’s misfortunes. And then there was simply the fear of running into the Hathaways, particularly Cameron, although why she dreaded that so much, she couldn’t say.

Humiliation. Fear. They were insidious emotions, undercutting a person’s best efforts, exposing vulnerabilities, and almost always guaranteeing unhappiness. Lauren wanted to be done with them—done with the past that spawned them, as well. She wanted to be able to travel to Harmony anytime she chose and feel good about herself. She missed her friends, Julia and Cathryn, and wanted to start visiting them more often. Amber’s death had awakened her to how fleeting and fragile life was. And after years of denial, she was finally able to admit that she missed the island, too—a lot.

Lauren opened her eyes and sighed, already feeling better. Sometimes just recognizing a problem was enough to begin the process of dealing with it. She turned and gazed at her mother. Do you feel like shopping anymore?

Audrey shook her head. I’d just like to go home.

Lauren’s smile was ironic. Me, too, Ma. With a quick, resolute movement, she got to her feet. Me, too.

CAMERON HATHAWAY sat in his usual booth by the window, cutting into a stack of johnnycakes with molasses—one of the specialties of the Water Street Diner—and listening to Fred Gardiner, across the table from him, complain about the upcoming auction of Rockland House.

Cameron wasn’t listening very attentively, though. Outside, Harmony Harbor was coming awake. Up and down the landward side of the street, proprietors were preparing for another summer day, cranking out awnings on sidewalk cafés, right-ending chairs and wiping dew off tables. Some were watering flower boxes. Others were rolling out merchandise—T-shirts with island logos, books, postcards, sunglasses, saltwater taffy, paintings of seascapes and handcrafted jewelry. Across the street the waterfront was coming awake, too; several people were already on the pier, awaiting the first ferry of the day.

The sky was powder-blue this morning. The light was sharp and bright, gilding the east sides of things white-gold and casting west sides in stark shadow. Everything seemed touched by this contrast: porch railings on Victorian hotels, bicycles in their racks, gabled rooflines, cupolas, flagpoles, dock pilings, even buoys bobbing in the channel.

Out on their moored sailboats, a few barefoot overnighters in rumpled shorts and yesterday’s shirts were savoring their first coffee of the day, their faces, forearms and knees gilded with the same brilliant light that plated the masts above them and the ripples of water all around. Along the far western curve of the harbor, Hathaway Marina caught the morning light especially well, the slanting rays clearly delineating each building and shed, dock and diesel pump, yacht and dinghy.

Cameron loved early morning in summer. In a couple of hours the streets and shops would be swarming with day-trippers and cottagers. The buzz of mopeds and ski jets would rend the air, and the roads to the outlying beaches would be clogged with cars. But now, Harmony was just about the most perfect place on earth...even if Fred Gardiner was bending his ear.

But actually that was another advantage to this time of day—the year-round regulars at the diner got a chance to socialize before the place filled with strangers. Of course, it wasn’t as theirs as it got in winter. Still, sitting here amid the familiar clatter and clink of dishes and cutlery, with the same old smells of bacon and coffee in the air, he had to wonder: could winter be far behind?

Greed. That’s all this auction is about, Fred grumbled, as he slathered butter onto a blueberry muffin.

Well, of course it’s greed, Cameron said, nodding casually to his father who’d just entered the diner and was heading to his favorite stool at the counter. Pru always cooked a hearty breakfast, but before he went to the marina Clay liked to stop in for coffee. If he just wanted to unload the property, he would’ve set a reasonable price on it and put it up for sale the usual way.

Fred scowled, looking more like a longshoreman than the interior designer he really was. No, if he just wanted to unload it, he would’ve given it to the H.P.L.

Cameron smiled, sympathizing with his friend. As president of the Harmony Preservation League, Fred had offered to buy Rockland House, but he’d been turned down. Granted, the amount he’d offered was low, but it was all the H.P.L. had in its coffers. What especially aggravated Fred, though, was that most of the league’s holdings were donated, given free and clear out of their benefactors’ appreciation for the work the organization did—yet here was someone actually refusing its hard-earned money. That someone was a mainlander who’d recently inherited the island property but preferred to turn it into cash.

I hope the scheme blows up in his face, Fred complained. I hope nobody shows up. He paused. Oh. Except you, of course.

That’d be convenient.

Fred chuckled into his coffee mug. What the hell, if we can’t have it.... But his heavy-featured face quickly fell again. Damn. It would’ve become the centerpiece of our house tour in no time flat. He shook his head, lips pressed tight with regret.

Cameron swallowed the last bite of his johnnycakes and wiped his mouth with a coarse paper napkin. "Especially with its connection to the Lady Gray."

Absolutely. Fred’s gaze became speculative. Maybe the H.P.L. can work something out with you. A few summer tours. Benefit concerts on the lawn. Christmas open house. What do you think?

Cameron thought that was a definite possibility, but all he said was, I think I have to get through tomorrow’s auction first.

Fred waved his hand. You will, you will. People here’ll back off once they realize you want it.

It isn’t people from here who have me concerned. There are going to be off-islanders crawling all over the place, including developers.

So? Fred countered in a cavalier tone. "You’re going to be there, too, aren’t you? Stop worrying. You’ll get the house. At a decent price, too."

Cameron could only hope. He’d always admired Rockland House, even as a kid, but lately his admiration had grown to an obsession. The book he was currently writing, Legends of Harmony, Massachusetts, was undoubtedly to blame.

His favorite legend involved a schooner from Rockland, Maine, called the Lady Gray that went aground on the shoals off Harmony during a brutal nor‘easter in December of 1843. By the time the Harmony lifesavers could get out to the vessel, most of its crew, including its captain, John Gray, had been swept overboard. However they did save his wife, half frozen though she was. Isabel had climbed the rigging and hung on for dear life—her own, of course, but also the life of the child she was carrying—and unfortunately lost soon after.

Isabel Gray was a strong, free-thinking woman for her day. Instead of returning to her native Rockland, she chose to build a house on Harmony, one befitting the wife of a wealthy sea merchant, and there she remained the rest of her life, so averse was she to leaving her husband.

Apparently he couldn’t bear to leave her, either, because before she died forty years later she’d seen his ship at least two dozen times, or so she said, appearing as if it were made of glass and filled with white fire.

The story might have ended there, been chalked up to the delusions of a grief-crazed woman, but after her death several other people professed to seeing the ghost ship, too, and thus the legend took hold.

Time had added details, one version claiming that if a person saw the ship it meant he’d be lucky in love, another claiming just the opposite, while yet another maintained that the ship materialized simply to warn of approaching storms.

Cameron’s favorite spin on the tale alleged that the Lady Gray was caught in time, trying to navigate the shoals correctly to come for Isabel, but whenever it reached the spot where it went down, it disappeared. Trapped in this cycle, John and his wife were fated to remain apart throughout eternity.

Others, however, believed he would get through one day; he would finally reach Isabel, and when that happened the ship would sail away and never be seen again. But there was no explanation as to how or why this would finally occur. Cameron figured some folks just couldn’t tolerate unhappy endings.

Whatever the reality, the Lady Gray made for a fascinating legend, and Cameron thought the house that was so integral to it deserved to be properly restored and preserved. Even without the legend, Cameron would’ve felt that way. It was a beautifully designed house and a unique structure, the only Greek Revival mansion on the island.

Cameron was just the person to tackle the restoration, too. At the age of twenty-nine—young, some people thought—he was already considered something of an expert on island history and architecture. He’d written two books and several articles on these subjects. He’d helped with a few important restorations. And for the past couple of years, he’d also served as chairman of the Historic District Commission.

What are you planning to do with the place, anyway? asked Asa Hodge, owner of the Water Street Diner, showing not the least compunction over eavesdropping on Cam’s conversation with Fred. A few of the stools at the counter squeaked as customers, including Clayton Hathaway, turned to glance in his direction.

Cameron sent his father a private smile, full of love and respect. All the values he prized most in himself had been instilled by this man: his work ethic, his appreciation for their heritage, his reverence for the island and the waters surrounding it, and of course the Hathaway sense of responsibility to maintain it all.

Cameron lifted his coffee mug and sipped thoughtfully before answering Asa. A mistake. Birdie Ames, who worked as a taxi driver in summer, jumped into his pause. Fixed up, it’d make a mighty nice wedding gift for a new wife, don’t you think?

Cameron heard a few muffled snickers. That it would, Birdie, he replied, "if a guy was planning to get married anytime soon." He refused to discuss whether he and Erica had set a date yet, which was the only information Birdie actually wanted. She wasn’t alone in her curiosity. His mother, eager to throw herself into wedding preparations, kept bugging him, too. Even his father was beginning to irk him with his frequent reminders that he was the only Hathaway of his generation, and if he didn’t have kids, he’d be the last Hathaway, ever, and everything they owned, everything they meant or had ever meant for more than three hundred years would go down the tubes.

Cameron had every intention of getting married someday and having kids. He had no desire to see his heritage die out or the family holdings dissipated. Besides, marriage was simply and inevitably the way life went. However, he wouldn’t be rushed into anything.

Getting back to Asa’s question, Cameron said, much to Birdie’s disappointment, I intend to do the same thing the Preservation League would do if it owned Rockland House, except it’ll be a private venture.

Skip Reed, who hired out a fishing boat for a living, tipped back his grimy billed cap and squinted at Cam from his stool beside Birdie’s. You planning to open it as a museum house?

That’s what I’m hoping, Skip.

"And you’ll be living there, too,