A Nantucket Affair (Nantucket Beach Plum Cove #4)(31)

Which gave her the house to herself all day. She went shopping in the morning, stopping by Barrett’s farm for fresh vegetables and then to Trattel’s seafood market. Kate’s boyfriend, Jack Trattel, was behind the counter and smiled when he saw her.

“We just got some great wild salmon in.” It was the only thing she ever bought at the seafood market. Jack had a good memory.

“Perfect, I’ll take two pounds, and a couple of lemons, too.” She’d forgotten to get the lemons at Bartlett’s.

Jack rang her up and handed her the salmon. “Here you go. Enjoy!”

“Thank you. Be sure to tell Kate I said ‘hello’.”

“I’ll do that.”





Unlike Lisa, who loved to cook and was good at it, Sue did the bare minimum. She had a handful of things she knew how to cook well and rotated through them or more often, ordered takeout. Curt wasn’t much of a cook, either, but he liked to grill in the summer and he wasn’t picky. He said everything she made was ‘outstanding’, no matter how ordinary it was. She’d always loved that about him.

Tonight, she was making her ‘having company over’ dish, lemon salmon. It was the easiest thing in the world to make, and everyone always raved over it. She’d throw some asparagus and potatoes in the oven to roast, and that would be dinner. Lisa said she was bringing dessert, so Sue didn’t have to worry about that. And she had plenty of wine on hand. Once she put everything away in the kitchen, she headed upstairs to her office and lost herself in her work for a while.

Sue had started the website a few years back, as an off-shoot of the insurance company’s blog. She had taken a course from HubSpot, a company in Cambridge, on content marketing. The idea was to drive traffic to the company website by posting informative articles on the blog on topics people were likely to search online. It worked well, but what had surprised Sue was how many requests she’d received from other insurance brokers looking for more information.

So, she’d put up a basic website with more in-depth content on the different topics. Then she developed a few online courses that related to the content, and that’s when sales took off. Related podcasts and ebooks followed, and there was no shortage of ideas for new content. Curt didn’t understand any of it, that her website was earning them money while they slept as people ordered products and courses. He liked that the money showed up in their account, though, so he didn’t complain when she started working from home more as she could still handle most of the day-to-day operations of the agency. Everyone knew she was always available by phone for any questions, though, and she enjoyed helping and trouble-shooting.

At first, Curt had complained that she wasn’t in the office enough. But when the bank deposits from the website kept increasing, he asked less often. And once Brandi started, he stopped asking entirely. Sue did try to make it in for the weekly meetings, though, and she enjoyed seeing everyone and hearing how their week went. She usually had a good idea anyway, since she always had several calls with questions from different people throughout the week, and it was all Curt ever talked about—especially how well Brandi was doing.

She was glad that Brandi had turned out to be such a good hire. She hadn’t been an inexpensive one. They found most of their people through word of mouth, but when they needed to hire again and that well was dry, they’d worked with a headhunter that specialized in the insurance industry and he found Brandi. The fee was not insignificant, but Brandi quickly paid for herself by bringing in some good new accounts.

Sue thought about what Lisa and Paige had said about Brandi and understood how it may have looked. Brandi was naturally outgoing, and very physical with people. She was an enthusiastic hugger and often touched people’s arms when she talked to them. But if you didn’t know that about her, she could see how maybe it could raise eyebrows. Especially if a married man like Curt appeared to be hanging on her every word. Knowing Curt, she was pretty sure that he just liked the attention. Curt flirted with women of all ages, but it was harmless.

She turned her attention back to her work and at about four thirty, she stopped for the day and jumped in the shower. Once she was all changed and her hair was dry, she made her way downstairs and got busy in the kitchen, putting the potatoes and asparagus in the oven to roast. She decided to make a big salad with the leafy greens and veggies she’d found earlier.

The very last step was to put the salmon on, but she wasn’t even going to do that until Lisa and Rhett arrived. She got everything ready, though—put the fish in the large saute pan and sliced the lemon and butter that she’d add to the pan. It wouldn’t take long to cook, and they could snack on cheese, crackers and wine in the meantime.

But by twenty past five, Curt wasn’t home yet and Sue started feeling annoyed. She texted him.

‘Where are you?’

And he immediately replied back, ‘on my way’.

He flew through the door fifteen minutes later and looked a mess. His tie was undone, his sleeves were rolled up, and his hair was all disheveled.

“What on earth have you been up to?”

“I was at Brandi’s and she had a plumbing issue. I tried to help, but I think I just made things worse.”

“What were you doing at Brandi’s?” Sue thought he’d been at the office.

“She had the committee meeting at her place. She wanted to show us her place and just had a new dining room table delivered.” He wasn’t looking at her, and Sue knew he wasn’t telling her everything.