Sophie made Emma some tea, texted Logan that they should come home ASAP, then walked up to the house. She didn’t know what she would say or do, but she didn’t think leaving a stranger alone there was a good idea.
What she did know, deep down, was that it would be the woman from the patio of the pub. And, even though she was expecting to find her there, it still took her aback to see her asleep on one of the loungers on the deck.
Sophie didn’t like to leap straight into wondering if someone had a drug problem, and tried not to judge them if they did, but Tiffany’s sister had had some kind of trouble with the law. That’s why lawyers hadn’t been able to reach her to tell her that her sister had died.
Her sister had died. It had happened only a few short months ago. Sophie swallowed the burn of her own very fresh grief and reminded herself to tread carefully.
She knocked on the glass door, then slid it open. “Hi, again.”
Cloe sat up, startled and disoriented.
“Um.” She frowned with confusion, looking back into the house before trying to make sense of Sophie not being Em.
“I’m Sophie, Emma’s friend. You’re Cloe? Tiffany’s sister?” She moved close enough to offer her hand.
“Oh, um, hi. Yes, I am.” She rose and shook Sophie’s hand. “Tiff and I had different dads.” She said it in a rueful, philosophical way that suggested it was something she had had to say often so she just pushed it right out there. “That’s why she was so much taller than me. Older. Blonder.” She waved at her hair. “I cut all my blonde off, actually.” She seemed really nervous.
Sophie could have told her that blended roots were kind of a theme in this family, but only said, “I can see your resemblance to her.”
Tiffany had had the same gray-blue eyes and the slight overbite that made her smile very cute and engaging.
Cloe was still trying to catch her bearings after waking up so abruptly, hugging herself and blinking dazed eyes, brow creased with anxiety.
Now that Sophie got a better look at her, she saw Cloe’s blue jeans and striped T-shirt were a little too big on her and well worn. So was her small backpack. She looked tired. Not from one lost night of sleep, but months of them. Weary tired. Sad. And vulnerable.
Since the men had arrived to look after Storm, Tiffany’s sister had loomed as a huge threat, distressing Emma and the Fraser men with what could happen if she decided she wanted custody of her niece.
It was still a mystery what she might expect or why she had shown up here unannounced like this, but Sophie instinctively felt for her. She seemed at a loss and Sophie kind of wanted to hug her.
“Do you live here?” Cloe asked with sudden shock. Her expression grew appalled as she seemed to realize Sophie was the woman she’d seen in coveralls earlier. “The server at the pub told me this was where Reid Fraser lives. Was she messing with me to mess with you?”
“No.” Sophie had to chuckle at that. “I mean, she would. We behave worse than our children, as you witnessed. I do, anyway.” She hitched her shoulder in self-deprecation.
“Been there,” Cloe said wryly and they shared a smirk.
“No, this is the Fraser house,” Sophie assured her. “They should be back soon. They won’t mind that we’re here, waiting for them.”
She checked her phone and saw Logan had texted, Leaving now.
“Do you want water? Coffee?” Sophie waved toward the kitchen.
“I have a glass of water.” Cloe picked it up from the table next to her lounger. “The nanny gave it to me then… I don’t know where she went.” She craned her neck to peer with puzzlement toward the glass doors. She grimaced as she caught her reflection and smoothed her shirt. A sigh of defeat followed. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. The ferry dropped me off really late last night. I knew I had to get into town to catch the water taxi, but I didn’t realize how far I’d have to walk.”
“You walked?” It was three kilometers.
“I waited until it started to get light. I thought I’d see traffic by then, but nope. It was just me and whatever those noises were in the bushes. I’m a city girl.” She pulled her bottom lip wide in a grimace. “I was thinking the whole time, So this is how I die.”
“At least it wasn’t raining,” Sophie said with amused sympathy, thinking, Help. I like her.
“It was actually kind of peaceful, once I got to the wharf.” She looked out at the water. “Listening to the waves and watching the sun hit the other side of the bay.”
Passage, but Sophie didn’t correct her.
“I should have called first, instead of showing up like this.” Her brows crinkled with consternation. She picked at a hangnail. “I don’t actually have a phone. It’s a whole thing. My life has been really complicated since before Tiff passed. Now that I’m out of that vortex, I wanted to get away and”—she sent a wistful look toward the upper level of the house, then down toward the marina and village—“I wanted to see where she was.”
Storm? Or Tiffany?
“I’m really sorry about Tiffany.” Sophie waved at the lounger where Cloe had been sleeping, inviting her to retake her seat while she lowered onto the one beside it, facing her. “You probably have questions. Is that why you’re here? To find out more about what happened? I’ll tell you anything I can.”
“I know what was on the news, that it was a plane crash.” Cloe sat and looked into her half-empty glass. It wobbled as her hand began to shake. “Wilf was the pilot. He was flying them to Vegas to get married. Tiff asked me to meet them there and come back with them, but I couldn’t. Was he nice, though?” Her worried gaze came up. “I know he was a lot older than her. I was surprised when she told me she was pregnant, but she was really happy about it.”
“She was,” Sophie agreed, even though it had been in the way of certain women who went into a blissful state of denial when they got pregnant. This baby won’t change my life. I can do it all. Then the baby arrived and everything changed and it nearly broke them in half, they were so unprepared.
But Sophie was trying to be kind so she didn’t get into how Tiffany had seemed at the end of her rope from the jump. Looking back, maybe her underlying tension had had something to do with her sister’s legal troubles? Sophie didn’t think it was appropriate to ask what kind of “vortex” Cloe had been spinning in all this time.
“I knew Wilf my whole life,” Sophie volunteered, smiling with genuine affection. “My granddad worked for him and so did my mom. He gave me my first job, then hired me again four years ago when I came back here. He was colorful.” Understatement. “Not the most sentimental person. He definitely fancied himself both a man’s man and a ladies’ man, but he was funny. Generous. Definitely too old for Tiffany, but he really cared about her.”
For all the talk among the locals that Tiffany had been his nurse and Wilf her purse, they had seemed to have more between them than that.
“Wilf had always had a vision for this place that he never quite got off the ground. Before Tiffany came along, it was falling into disrepair. She saw its potential, though. She was willing to do the work to make it happen. That put a fresh sparkle in his eye. I think, in some ways, he saw their marriage as a do-over.” Sophie hadn’t completely put that together until she said it, but it rang true. “He had a couple of failed marriages behind him. His sons were grown and gone. He had regrets about his relationships with them.” Estranged. Strained. “When Storm came along, he wanted to get it right. He was definitely happier with Tiffany than he’d been in a long time.”
“And Tiff? She was about to marry him so she must have been in love? Did she really want to stay here with him forever?” She sent another uncertain look toward the marina and its desolate location.
“Honestly? I wish I’d made more of an effort to get to know her.” It was true. Sophie regretted now that she’d remained so aloof, but she’d only been back a couple of years when Tiffany had arrived and started changing things. Her defenses had been pretty high.
“Tiffany was the boss’s wife and was pushing to make all these changes,” Sophie noted with a quirk of her mouth. “I don’t know why we all felt so threatened by that. Small town, small minds, I guess.” Also, Tiffany had skimmed all the working capital from the marina, making Sophie’s job infinitely harder, but Tiffany hadn’t been trying to line her own pockets with it.
“She seemed to want to make an impact. I could see that she was excited to do something big and meaningful. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
