Second-Chance Summer
highlight_author
Jo McNally
highlight_reads
17,3K
highlight_chapters
19
HarlequinChapter One
“You can’t possibly have a closet just for your—”
Julie Brown yanked open the closet door in her spare room, then turned to face her best friend, Amanda Randall, hand on her hip. “You were saying?”
“Holy...” Amanda stepped forward, running her hand along the hangers that held nothing but bridesmaid dresses. “I don’t know if I should be impressed or horrified. I had no idea you’d been a bridesmaid so many...” She started to laugh, then caught herself, covering her mouth. “I’m sorry, but all I can think of is that movie—”
“27 Dresses? Yeah, I know.” Julie sighed. “But in the movie, the character did it because she loved weddings so much.”
They stared at the colorful array of gowns and cocktail dresses. Satin. Polyester. Velvet. Cotton. Pink. Black. Orange. Blue. Her wide range of friends and family represented an equally wide range of fashion tastes, and Julie had gone along with them all. It was funny at first, the whole always-a-bridesmaid-and-never-a-bride schtick. But this last wedding—a high school classmate’s third in the twenty-two years since graduation—had been the one that made her confront that proverbial clock ticking away on her life.
“But you love weddings, too, right?” Amanda reached in and pulled out an elegant gown of deep pink silk. “And you weren’t always a bridesmaid. You were my maid of honor in this dress and you looked gorgeous.” Amanda held out the dress and frowned at it. “You should shorten this into a cocktail dress. I’ll bet you could find an occasion to wear it. It’s full of happy memories, right?”
“You know I love you, and your Christmas wedding in your Christmas castle was a magical day. But it was your day.” Julie took the dress from Amanda and squinted at it. “The saving grace for this one is that it was custom-designed by your cousin, Mel, so at least it has some style. But how often do you see me wearing pink?” Melanie Brannigan was a former model turned designer turned small-town boutique owner. Her shop in Gallant Lake—Five and Design—was one of Julie’s favorite places, but more for sweaters and jeans than couture gowns.
“It definitely has more style than some of these others.” Amanda pulled out a peacock-blue sequined short dress with a floor-length train of teal tulle. “This is, uh, a statement?”
Julie let out a groan. “My cousin’s idea of a classy wedding theme. The train was supposed to be our ‘tail.’ We each had a peacock feather in our hair. This fabric is like chainmail. By the end of the reception I was ready to squawk like a peacock and fly away.”
They both laughed, and Julie felt her tension easing. Amanda always found a way to get her smiling, even in the middle of a mini midlife crisis. Amanda started counting when she put back the sparkly dress.
“You don’t quite have twenty-seven.”
“Thank God for small favors. There are fourteen dresses here. I’m telling you right now, there won’t be a fifteenth, no matter who asks me. I’m done.” She closed the door and they went back to her kitchen.
The house was small and tidy, just the way Julie liked things. Located on one of Gallant Lake’s quiet side streets, the cute 1950s ranch was close to her job at the Gallant Lake Resort and Spa, which was owned by Amanda and her husband, Blake. It was also close enough to Main Street that Julie could walk there, which she often did, taking the newly expanded lakeshore trail through a small park and into town. The trail would take her all the way to the resort if she cut through the golf course, but she preferred to show up to work without being out of breath from a long uphill hike. And the golfers got really huffy if they found anyone walking along their cart paths. That stuck-up golf pro, Quinn Walker, got even huffier.
Amanda sat at the vintage red Formica-topped kitchen table and took a cookie from the plate in front of her. There were three different recipes represented there. Julie often cooked on Mondays—her day off—for stress relief, and this last weekend had built up some major stress to be relieved. There were two big weddings at the resort with guests flying in from all over the country. They’d hired multiple shuttle vans and limos, but the logistics of dealing with pickups and drop-offs at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark with multiple flight delays due to spring storms in the southeast had just about broken Julie and her team. When one bride’s grandmother arrived at JFK only two hours before the wedding ceremony, it was Julie herself who had driven to the city to make sure Grandma made it.
Amanda closed her eyes and moaned with pleasure. She often stopped by to help Julie dispense with her cooking projects.
“Oh. My. God. What is this?”
“It’s a German crescent cookie. The dough is actually yeast-based, with sour cream in it. A bit of a pain to make, but I think it was worth it, don’t you?”
“Oh, hell yeah. This is amazing. Can I take some home to Blake and the kids?”
“Of course. I have almost five dozen of the things.” Julie took a crescent for herself. They really were yummy. “I found an old German cookbook at the flea market last week and I’m going to work my way through it in honor of Grandma Ina.”
She refilled their coffee mugs and sat at the table. The nearby window overlooked a yard as simple and tidy as the house.
“You know, I keep thinking about your bridesmaid closet,” Amanda said. “Some of those dresses could be salvaged into something more practical. You should talk to Mel.” She winked. “Except the peacock dress. That needs to go.”
“Trust me, that’s not the only dress that has to go.” Julie set down her coffee. “And where exactly do you think I’m going to wear the others?”
“You manage the swankiest resort in the Catskills, my dear. There are plenty of events you could dress up for.”
“I work most of those events, my dear. I’d think my boss would remember that.”
Amanda’s nose wrinkled. “Ew. Don’t call me that. Blake, maybe, but you and I are friends first. Besides, you run the place, so you can wear what you want.”
“You know how much running around I do. Practicality first for me.” Julie always laughed when people complained about how hard it was to get in 10,000 steps a day. That was a slow day for her. The three-story historic lakefront resort had over two hundred rooms, two ballrooms, a restaurant, spa, a pool and, of course, the golf course. As if reading her mind, Amanda finished her coffee and waggled her eyebrows at Julie.
“Our big charity golf tournament is coming up in August. Blake said we’re booked to the rafters. There’s bound to be someplace to wear a pretty dress there.”
“For what purpose? Just to dust them off and bring them out of my closet?”
“Think about it—you said you don’t always want to be a bridesmaid. Well, maybe it’s time to get more proactive in finding a potential groom. Lots of well-heeled men at the tournament.”
Julie rolled her eyes. “I’m not looking for a sugar daddy. I want to meet a nice guy to share my life with before I turn into some spinster cat lady.” Right on cue, her calico cat, Fluff, walked into the kitchen, paused to give the women a baleful stare, then sauntered into the living room. Julie leveled a stern look at Amanda. “And that golf tournament isn’t exactly my favorite weekend anymore. Not since Walker showed up.”
In the three years that he’d been in charge of the golf course at the resort, Walker and she had butted heads more than once. Blake Randall called them territorial skirmishes, since Quinn ran the course and Julie managed the resort itself. They always seemed to have lots of opinions on how the other ran their end of things.
The Travis Foundation Charity Weekend was the biggest annual event the resort held. It benefited a charity Amanda’s North Carolina cousin, Bree Caldwell, had established to help veterans adapt to civilian life, particularly those with PTSD or physical injuries. Bree was a former Hollywood reality television star, so the event often drew a few celebrities along with other affluent golfers. The stakes were high, and so were tempers when Julie and Quinn worked on the schedule and logistics of it all.
“I don’t get it.” Amanda flipped her long blond curls over her shoulder and grabbed another crescent cookie. “You and Quinn are two of the nicest people I know, and you can’t stand each other.”
“He said he can’t stand me?” Julie straightened, trying to ignore the pinprick she felt against her pride.
“Of course not. It’s just the impression I get from both of you. Whenever you work together, you end up arguing. And he really is a nice man. I mean, he quit the pro tour to raise his daughter after his wife died, and—”
“I know, I know.” Julie waved her hand to stop Amanda from reciting his impressive biography. “And I do respect what he did for Katie. She’s a lovely young woman. In fact, she’s going to intern at the resort this summer before she heads off to college. But Quinn is so, I don’t know...pretentious? He acts like golf is a real sport and takes it all so seriously.” Julie was more of a football and hockey fan herself.
“Well, it is his livelihood—”
“Yes, but good grief. It’s a country club, not a cathedral. All those rules and whispered voices and ridiculous plaid shorts. I stopped by once on my day off to drop off some brochures, and I was in denim shorts. Everyone stared at me like I was Lady Godiva riding in there naked. Especially Quinn. He scolded me about it like I was some heathen come to destroy their sanctuary. I told him to get a grip, which made some of the guys snicker for some reason...” She paused, noting Amanda’s curiously unreadable expression. “What?”
“Nothing!” Amanda folded her napkin carefully, her mouth pinched as if she was holding in laughter. “I didn’t realize you’d leased the man quite so much space in your head, that’s all.”
“I know you think he’s a saint, but you don’t know him like I do. That Mr. Nice Guy routine isn’t genuine, at least not on the job. He doesn’t listen, and I swear he looks down his nose at me. Thank God we only have to work together on the big events and can ignore each other the rest of the time.”
“Again...” Amanda moved her hand in a circular motion, gesturing at Julie. “Lots of headspace.”
“That woman is going to be the death of me.” Quinn Walker stared at his computer screen in disbelief. “I seriously think she’s trying to kill me by giving me a heart attack.”
His eighteen-year-old daughter looked up from the nest she’d built in what used to be Quinn’s recliner. Katie’s strawberry blond hair fell across her face, like Anne’s used to do. Even worse, she reached up with one finger and flipped it back over her shoulder, exactly like Anne would have. Four years later, it still pinched his heart.
Katie had taken over Quinn’s chair a year ago and enhanced it with pillows, a furry pink throw and a pastel quilt that had belonged to her mother. She was curled up in the seat, tablet in hand, feet tucked under herself. He’d get his chair back when she went off to college in August. It was a thought that brought him no joy.
She plucked out one earbud and shook her head at him. “Let me take a wild guess. Julie Brown did something to tick you off again. Like...breathing. Existing on the planet.”
“Yeah, yeah, everyone loves Saint Julie.” His temper cooled somewhat as he acknowledged that the resort manager had always been kind to Katie and had even offered her a paid internship that summer. “But she’s not like that with me. She’s a constant thorn in my side, and I think she wants to be the thorn. Every time we agree on a schedule for the Travis Foundation weekend, she goes and changes it without telling me.” He gestured toward his laptop.
“She has the practice round teeing off at one o’clock on Friday when I told her we should tee off at eleven. And she has some fancy cocktail-hour thing starting at the resort at five. If we don’t tee off until one, the teams won’t even be off the course by five, much less showered, changed and ready for cocktails.” He shoved the laptop in frustration, trying not to show his concern when it came perilously close to the edge of the kitchen island where he was sitting. “Besides, Friday is the fun night for the golf teams. It’s when we announce the team flights and golfers figure out the best teams to sponsor.” That was a nice way of saying which teams to bet on. “It’s our night.”
“You sound like a pouty five-year-old stomping your feet about getting your way. You two have this battle every year, Dad. Figure it out already.”
If only it was that easy. He and Julie Brown did not see eye-to-eye. They weren’t sworn enemies or anything—it wasn’t as if they’d ever had some big, unforgivable battle over anything. But she had a habit of changing things without telling him and generally making his life as the golf pro for Gallant Lake Golf Club more difficult.
He fired off an email in response to her schedule change and told her the revised schedule would not work for the golfers. He reminded her that this was, first and foremost, a golf tournament. It was his job to keep the golfers happy. It was Julie’s job to keep the spouses and partners happy while the golfers golfed. Spa treatments. Shopping excursions through the Catskills. That was her domain. The golf course was his.
Of course, the actual email didn’t contain that exact wording, but he was sure she’d get the message. A one-o’clock tee time wasn’t happening. Neither was a five-o’clock cocktail party. Nice try. Thank you, next. Before he hit Send, he included an offer to schedule a meeting—perhaps with Blake Randall in attendance—to hammer out a schedule for the big weekend that would work for both of them.
Invoking Blake’s name wasn’t an automatic win for Quinn. He got along great with his boss, who’d renewed his love of golf since Quinn’s arrival three years ago. The two of them often played a few holes in the late evening, when things were quiet. He’d like to think they’d become friends. Blake seemed happy with the golf course operations.
But Julie had been maid of honor at Blake and Amanda’s wedding at the historic stone mansion they called home. When it came to scoring points with the boss, she probably held the upper hand. And she wouldn’t hesitate to use that advantage against him.
Her email response came fast and hot.
Fine. I’ll set up a meeting. Tomorrow afternoon work for you?
He grinned as he read it. He’d ticked her off, for sure. He could play the cool one, too. He sent his response.
Sounds good.
He was looking forward to seeing her. No, wait... He was looking forward to convincing her he was right about the tee times. There was no reason in the world he’d look forward to just...seeing her. It was something he actively avoided.
