Lighthouse Cove (South Carolina Sunsets Book 7)

knelt in the middle of the flower bed, hunched over as she pulled out weed after weed. It was amazing any flowers were growing at all, but daffodils were hearty plants, apparently. When Henrietta had called to say that the flower beds needed to look perfect before they started giving tours, Emma realized just how much she’d taken on. Was it going to be worth it just to hide from her old life?
Plus, she’d never been much of a gardener. Living in apartments for her whole adult life didn’t lend itself well to getting in the dirt. Her job had been far too demanding to worry about planting flowers. Most of the time, she was working overnight hours and wouldn’t see the fruits of her labor if she had planted a garden.
As she stood over the plant bed, catching her breath, she felt a small sense of accomplishment when she looked at the pile of weeds she’d pulled. Each one represented a cleaning out of sorts, although she wasn’t prone to deep metaphorical thoughts.
“Well, hello there, new neighbor!”
Emma turned to see three women standing there. The one who spoke was older, and she was carrying a large glass cake plate with something inside. The other two women, one with shoulder length straight hair and the other with a huge head of curly hair, stood there like they were embarrassed.
“Hi,” Emma said. She felt a bit like the new kid at school.
“Sorry if we scared you,” the straight haired woman said. She figured she should learn their names.
“Oh, it’s fine. I was just working on this flower bed. I’m Emma,” she said, reaching out her hand.
“Nice to meet you. I’m SuAnn, and these are my daughters, Julie and Janine.”
After all of the handshakes, Emma stepped back and forced a smile. An awkward silence hung in the air for a long moment before SuAnn took over again. She was a forceful one, that was for sure.
“I own the bakery in town, so I brought you one of my famous pound cakes as a welcome to the island.” SuAnn handed her the domed cake plate.
“Thank you. It’ll take me awhile to finish it.” The cake was huge, and Emma was never going to be able to finish it, but she appreciated the effort anyway.
“Well, we’re already here. What do you say we come in and have a piece together? We’d love to get to know you!”
Oh dear God. She wanted to come inside? The cottage was a wreck, and she wasn’t really up for company right now.
“Mom, let’s not intrude,” Janine said, elbowing her mother.
“No, it’s fine. Really. But I have to warn you that I’m still unpacking, so the house is a bit of a mess,” Emma said, wishing she was brave enough to tell this woman no.
“Oh, we totally understand!” SuAnn said, smiling expectantly.
Emma turned and walked toward the front door, the three women trailing behind her. Gosh, she hoped her underwear wasn’t on the top of her laundry pile in the living room.
As they walked inside, she hurried over to the living room and cleared the sofas. “Please, have a seat. I’ll get us some plates.”
SuAnn nodded as they all sat down on the sofa. Emma dug through the cabinets in the kitchen, trying to remember where the plates were. She still hadn’t gotten the hang of the place yet. Finally, she found some small salad plates. She quickly cut four pieces of the moist poundcake and put them on the plates, grabbing some plastic forks she’d bought before returning to the living room.
“Sorry about the plastic ware. The kitchen wasn’t exactly stocked when I got here. I just haven’t had time to go shopping yet.”
“I’ll bet. It must be a huge undertaking to get this place ready for visitors,” Julie said, smiling. She seemed nice. Her mother, on the other hand, seemed a bit… much. But she made a great poundcake.
“We start doing tours next week, so I’m in a bit of a time crunch.”
“Hen was certainly behind the eight ball with this one,” SuAnn said, shaking her head.
“Hen?”
“Henrietta. You’ve met her, right?”
“Oh, yes. I didn’t know anyone called her Hen.”
“Nobody but me,” SuAnn said, smiling proudly. “But I can get away with it since we’re best friends.”
Noted. Don’t say anything bad about Hen around SuAnn.
“Is there anything we can do to help you, Emma?” Janine asked.
Emma smiled. “Thank you, but I’ve got it under control even if it doesn’t look that way. Where do you ladies live?”
“I have an apartment in town,” SuAnn interjected before taking a bite of her cake.
“We live here on the island,” Julie said. “My husband and I run The Inn At Seagrove, and I’m also part owner at the bookstore. Janine lives in my old cottage.”
“I run the yoga studio in town,” Janine said.
“Wow. Very accomplished women,” Emma said.
“We believe in strong women around here,” SuAnn said, setting her empty plate on the table.
“Sorry I didn’t have any coffee,” Emma said, suddenly feeling like a terrible host.
“No problem. We invited ourselves at a very inopportune time,” Julie said, standing up. “And we aren’t going to keep you from what you need to do anymore.” Janine stood too, but SuAnn wasn’t budging until Julie walked over and pulled on her arm. “Besides, I need to get to work and Janine has classes to teach. Come on, Mom.”
“Already? We didn’t get a very long visit. I wanted to know more about you, Emma.”
Emma wasn’t ready to share much about herself, especially her recent past. She was thankful that Julie was practically dragging her mother out of the cottage.
“She has work to do, Mom. Let’s leave her to it.”
SuAnn finally stood and walked toward the door. “We’ll be sure to come back and take the tour next week, so we’ll get plenty of time to chat then.”
Janine rolled her eyes. “Let’s not threaten her, Mom.”
Emma loved the back-and-forth relationship that these grown daughters seemed to have with their mother. She wished that she’d had that, even