A Nantucket Affair (Nantucket Beach Plum Cove #4)(43)

“It should be ready in a few minutes. What is that?”

Kristen held out a bag of chocolate chip cookies. She had them in the freezer and took them out to thaw when she got home earlier.

“Dessert. Leftover cookies.”

“Excellent. Help yourself to whatever you want to drink. I’d offer you wine, but as you can imagine there’s none of that in the house.”

“I don’t need wine. Water is perfectly fine.” Kristen set the cookies on the counter and grabbed a bottle of water. “Can I do anything to help?”

“Sure. Do you want to find some salad dressing in the fridge? The salads are all set.” She found a bottle of Italian dressing and set it by the two salads.

“Those are impressive.” The salads weren’t your typical garden salads. They were full of all kinds of interesting things—artichoke hearts, chick peas, sliced avocado, bits of blue cheese and crumbled bacon.

“I like a good salad. And you guys put all this cool stuff in the fridge so we have to take advantage.”

A few minutes later, Tyler pulled a sheet pan of roasted potatoes and baked haddock out of the oven.

“Are those Ritz crackers?” She’d once told him that was the secret to her mother’s seafood stuffing.

“Is there any other way? Butter, lemon and crushed Ritz crackers. I’ve made it a bunch of times now. It’s hard to screw up and is delicious.”

They ate at Tyler’s island and it was almost like he’d never relapsed. She helped him clean up when they were done and as they were finishing up, there was a knock on the door and she realized it was probably Scotty, Tyler’s sponsor. As much as she wanted to meet him, it was also a reminder that Tyler had relapsed and even though he seemed perfectly fine now, it was going to take work to stay there.

Scotty walked in holding a gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream and handed it to Tyler. “Welcome home.”

Tyler pulled him in for a quick hug. “Thank you.” He took the ice cream and put it next to the other gallon in the freezer.

“Scotty, this is Kristen. Kristen, Scotty. You guys are two of the most important people in my life. I thought it was about time you met.”

“It’s good to meet you. Tyler talks about you a lot.” Scotty reached out his hand and Kristen shook it. His hand was strong and calloused. She wasn’t sure what he did for work, but guessed it was something physical.

“I’ve heard a lot about you, too.”

“You’re Chase’s sister, right?”

Kristen nodded.

“I do some work with him from time to time. I’m an electrician.” He reached in his wallet and pulled out a business car and handed it to her. “My cell phone is on there, just in case you ever need to reach me for anything.” Tyler nodded as she took the car.

“Hopefully you’ll never need to call Scotty or my brother about me again, but just in case.”

“And on that note, we should head off to that meeting. Nice to meet you, Kristen.”

“I’ll call you later.” Tyler gave her a quick kiss, and she walked out with them and headed home.





Chapter 26





A week before Chase and Beth were supposed to close with their buyers, Lauren called with some frustrating news. Chase had stopped into the office for lunch and thought Lauren was calling with good news and put her on speakerphone.

“I’ve been dreading this call all day. I was hoping that a miracle would happen and they’d get it figured out, but your buyers just let me know that despite their pleading, the bank has declined to finance the mortgage for the house. They’re out.”

“What about the other couple, that had the cash offer? Can we see if they might still be interested?” Beth asked.

“Or should we do another open house? I hate to lose the twenty thousand,” Chase said.

“We could do that, but there’re no guarantees we’ll get another offer that fast, let alone a cash offer. Realistically, you’re probably looking at another month or two at least unless that couple is still interested and you are willing to accept their offer.”

Chase glanced at Beth and she nodded. She’d wanted to take the cash offer from the beginning.

“Okay, please see if that couple is still interested,” Chase said.

“Will do. Stay tuned..”

“Well, that stinks. I thought we’d be closing next week.” Chase stood and crumpled his bag of chips and tossed it in the trash. “I’m going to head back out to the job site. I’ll keep you posted if Lauren calls.”





Later that afternoon, Chase called with an update.

“The cash buyers are out—they are closing on a different property next week. That could have been us.”

Beth resisted the urge to say, “I told you so.”

“So, Lauren will do another open house then? It’s a great property, I’m sure we’ll have more interest. Nothing we can do about it, except cross our fingers and hope Lauren can get it done again.”

“Right. She said she’ll do one next Saturday so we’ll wait and see.”

“The Nantucket Affair event is that night. Would be great to have something to celebrate.