On Sunset Beach Read Online Free Page A

since I left.”
    He got out of the car and looked around. While so much was different, the inn still somehow felt the same. Of course, he reminded himself as he gathered his bags out of the trunk of the car, it was still home.
    Home. He stared at the building that loomed before him, where a seemingly endless stream of people came and went through the door to the back lobby. No amount of paint or landscaping or added features could change the way he felt when his feet touched ground at Sinclair’s Point. The restlessness he’d felt when his plane landed that morning began to fade, but it was still there, under the surface. He knew that the sense of peace he felt would be fleeting, and could not be trusted.
    He barely made it across the parking lot when his sister flew out the back door.
    “You’re late, you bugger! We’ve been waiting for hours!” Lucy threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.
    “My plane was late.” He dropped his bags and returned the hug for a moment, then held her at arm’s length. “But look at you. You’re all tan and your hair’s long again.” He tugged on her ponytail. “When I left, you had that short do and you were working your tail off out in L.A., and now you’re—”
    “Working my tail off in St. Dennis.” She laughed.
    “Business is good?”
    “Business is great. If we were any busier, we’d be double-booking dates and holding weddings in the parking lot.”
    “Well, you must be doing something right, becauseyou look a million times better than you did the last time I saw you. I’m guessing marriage agrees with you.”
    “Totally. Work is good, home life is fantastic. I never thought I’d come back to St. Dennis to live—and me, live on a farm? Ha! But I guess it just goes to show, never say never.”
    “I’m glad you’re happy, sis.”
    “Never happier.” Lucy took his arm. “Let’s go inside. Mom has been pacing like you wouldn’t believe.”
    “I would believe. Mom never changes.”
    “I hope not. She’s amazing, with all she does here at the inn, and still she keeps the newspaper going. Of course, that’s her baby.” Lucy chatted away as they walked to the inn. “She still does the features and most of the photographs—though sometimes someone in town will have a great shot of something or other and she’ll use it. She did hire someone to do the ads, though, and someone to handle the books. And of course, the printing and mailing …”
    Ford frowned. “Mailing? Since when has she mailed out the paper? Who’s she mailing it to?”
    “You
have
been gone awhile. Gone are the days when you could only pick up a copy at the grocery store or the gas station or Walt’s.” Lucy grinned. “The
St. Dennis Gazette
now has out-of-town subscribers, mostly summer people who want to keep up with what’s going on so they’ll know when to plan to come back. She mails the paper every week to places as far away as Maine, Illinois, Nebraska. In your absence, little brother, the family business has become the go-to spot on the Chesapeake. We’re big doin’s, kiddo.”
    He paused and looked around. “The place looksamazing. And busy! I don’t remember ever seeing so many people here, especially this late in the summer. And I see there’s been a lot of work done on the grounds. I don’t remember a gazebo there.” He nodded toward the structure that sat between colorful flower beds and the water.
    “We had a professional landscaper in last summer and he suggested the new gazebo and designed the new gardens at my request,” Lucy explained. “I had a big-ticket wedding here and the bride wanted the ceremony out on the lawn overlooking the bay. Since she was dropping a bundle, we did what we had to do to make the area as gorgeous as we could.”
    “Well, you succeeded. It’s really beautiful.” He took one more look around before reaching for the door. “Who’d have ever thought the old place could look like this?”
    “Dan, that’s who. That