The Guest House Read Online Free

be Hudson
. The plea came reflexively. Edie lowered her eyes, as if her friend might detect her unfounded dread.
    “When did you hear about this?” Edie asked, smoothing down the short graying red hairs at the base of her neck and forcing a casual tone to her voice that she most certainly didn’t feel.
    “Yesterday, at the post office—it’s a little over two; that okay?”
    Edie nodded dully, not even looking at the scale. Faye was an old friend, one of the few left of the old guard in Harrisport who remembered the days when the Moss family had swooped in and out of their town like a flock of exotic birds every summer. But for most of the residents, this news would be good for little more than a few minutes of gossip at Pip’s counter. After all, it had been years since the Moss family had held court at their seaside kingdom on Birch Drive. That was practically a lifetime, the way summer families turned over along the shore nowadays—a footnote.
    She wondered what her daughter would think to learn the news. Would Lexi care? Probably not.
    What was she so worried about, anyway? It wasn’t as if the Mosses were moving back to Harrisport. Faye had claimed they were returning for a quick visit to sell the house, to be done with it.
    Lexi might never even know they’d come and gone.
    •   •   •
    T he frozen custard stand was already busy with the early evening crowd when Owen Wright swung his truck into the gravel lot at seven ten and waved to his sixteen-year-old daughter where she waited for him on one of the stand’s weathered benches. Meg was hard to miss in her blinding electric-pink T-shirt and matching visor, the unfortunate uniform implemented by the stand’s owners—an outfit that would surely have resulted in life-ending humiliation for the fashion-obsessed girls his daughter went to school with in New York City.
    “Busy day?” he asked when she’d climbed into the passenger seat and buckled up, her loose red ponytail swinging around.
    “Crazy.” She fell back against the seat. “A Little League team showed up at four, and of course
every kid
wanted a Pirate Ship Split, and
every kid
wanted substitutions. And then Andy started freaking out because Sydney was putting the hats on upside down—like the kids even
cared
. I mean, seriously!”
    Owen grinned as he steered them out of the parking lot. He loved his daughter’s work reports, loved every mundane second. The summer weeks she spent with him were a treasure, each day a piece of gold, and he pocketed every minute. He knew that scooping ice cream six days a week couldn’t compare to the excitement of her life with Heather in Manhattan, but he wouldn’t apologize for that. After all, Meg had spent the first fourteen years of her life in Harrisport; coming back for the summer may not have been exotic, but it was familiar, and Meg seemed to genuinely enjoy reconnecting with the places—and people—from her childhood. If her enthusiasm was false, Owen was ashamed to say he was grateful to her for it.
    “Daaad . . .” Meg’s stern voice drew him out of his reverie. He glanced to where her narrow eyes pointed and saw the offending Tupperware on the end of the dash. “You didn’t eat your salad.”
    “I know, I know,” he admitted. “I was just so busy.”
    “Too busy to eat an already made salad? That’s so lame.”
    “I’ll have it tomorrow.”
    “After it’s been sitting all day in the sun? Gross. You will not.” She wrinkled her mouth. She always reminded him of Lexi when she did that; Owen’s grin widened. “It isn’t funny, Dad.”
    He nodded, forcing his amusement down. “I know.”
    “You’ll never live to see my wedding at the rate you’re going.”
    “Oh, so you
are
getting married now?” Just the other day, she’d assured him she’d be a proud old maid, a declaration that had left him at turns relieved and guilty.
    “I never said I wasn’t getting married,” Meg clarified. “I just said I wasn’t