Harper's Island - Chapter One

‘Okay, girls, we’re almost there.’ Glancing in the rearview mirror, Lauren’s eyes skipped from one baby to the other. Abigail gave her a cheeky grin and Katie blinked, her thumb stuck safely in her mouth. Thankfully her twins didn’t mind facing backwards, because this trip was enough of a nightmare without throwing two screaming eight month olds into the bargain.

Slowing the car, she began to look for the turnoff for the ferry. Her sister had said the big red sign had blown down, and that was the only real way Lauren remembered the directions. Spying a line of cars waiting to turn onto a sideroad, she eased the car in behind them.

‘This must be it. Your first ride on a ferry, your first trip to Harper’s Island.’ Lauren felt her stomach twist in the familiar twin mother guilt. ‘If there was only one of you, I’d take you out of the car to look around, but by the time I …’

Her voice dropped off as the cars began to move. The ferry was wide enough to take three cars, and long enough for four cars in each row. It was basically a floating platform, and it always made her a little nervous driving onto it. Concentrating, she followed the waved instructions of the ferry operator, pulling into the left row of cars. She was the last car on board.

‘End of the line,’ she muttered.

The ride across the channel of water took only ten minutes, and she was pulling onto the tiny island road. A feeling of familiarity swept over her. Driving along, she couldn’t help remember the last time she’d been on this road – going the other direction.

How wrong she had been. About everything. About her, about Colin, about the pregnancy. She wouldn’t trade her girls for the world, but what a price she had paid to have them. Her marriage was over, another statistic. Her doctor had briefly mentioned that parents of twins had a statistically higher divorce rate, but it had been said in a joking way. Lauren had never imagined that a year later she’d be raising newborns by herself.

Yes, he’d been shocked by the news of her pregnancy, but she knew things would have worked out. He’d stuck by her side throughout the whole pregnancy and in the weeks after the birth, but then he’d begun pulling away. Saying he couldn’t handle it, wasn’t cut out to be a father.

Abigail let loose with a little hoot in the back of the car, bringing Lauren back to the present.

‘Almost there, baby girl.’

‘There’ was a place where she had practically grown up. Her grandmother’s cottage. It was on an island within Harper’s Island itself – canals ran throughout the island, breaking it into different pieces. Most everyone had a boat. Lauren had spent most of her summers as a child alone in a canoe, mapping out the area near the cottage. She knew it like the back of her hand.

Looking around, she saw nothing had changed. Smiling, she rolled down the window a bit. Houses were small, a little weatherbeaten. Long grasses lined the edges of the road, cattails bobbing at the tips. The marshland had that special damp, earthy, watery smell she remembered. The road was a faded grey from years of exposure to the elements. Despite the fact that eleven other cars had come over on the ferry with her, the road was completely empty.

This was the only road on this side of the island, and it reached its culmination just past the small dirt road leading to the cottage. She turned into the road, noting that the Carsen’s wooden sign was still there. She and Holly had made fun of that sign every time they saw it – Mr. Carsen had made it and was so proud of it, but it was lopsided and the letters were uneven. The years passed softened it a bit and made it look better, Lauren reflected.

She pulled into the gravel lot. Along with the Carsen’s house, her sister’s house was on this side of the small canal. She stepped out of the car, and a sense of homecoming washed over her. She heard the distant buzz of boats speeding along, childen screaming and laughing, life swirling all around her.

She reached into the car for a baby carrier to put one of the girls on her back while she held the other in front, when a pair of arms encircled her and squeezed.

‘Lauren!’

‘Holly!’ She spun around and relished the warm arms that were wrapped around her. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘Ah, you have no idea! Cooper and I have been dying to see you and the girls. Now, let me at the girls. Which one is this?’ She reached in and scooped out Abigail, who crowed and looked pleased.

‘That’s Abigail. And this is Katie.’ She picked up Katie, who curled shyly into her shoulder. ‘Katie takes a little while to get used to new…to people she hasn’t seen in awhile.’

‘It’s okay. I guess I am new to her. We’ll be great friends, though, I can tell. And you.’ She kissed Abigail on her nose. ‘You remind me of me.’

‘And Katie,’ Lauren said, ‘reminds you of me?’ Katie peeked over at her sister, and the laughing brunette holding her. Holly’s hair looked almost identical to Lauren’s, except it looked like it had seen a brush recently. Both women had shining brunette hair that fell in loose waves – Lauren’s to her shoulder blades, Holly’s in a neater layered cut to her shoulders.

‘Yes, the shy, sweet one.’ Holly laughed and shook her head. ‘Man, I can’t believe you’re a mother now.’

‘Just like my big sis. Where is that nephew of mine, anyway?’

The women walked towards Holly’s backdoor. The smell of freshly baked cookies mingled with the smell of the fresh laundry she had hanging. Lauren inhaled deeply.

‘Hear those kids screaming? That’s him, swimming out front with some friends from down the river. I actually need to check on them. There’s some new family renting in this area, and their teenagers are contantly zipping around on jet skis without paying the slightest bit of attention to the younger kids.’

Holly plopped Abigail onto the floor and said, ‘Be right back.’ Lauren set Katie next to her sister – thankful they weren’t really crawling yet – and stepped to the front bay window. She saw her sister lean down by the breakwall, talking to a group of kids in the water. Her eyes lifted to the house directly opposite.

The cottage shared the island with a second cottage – it had been her great-aunt’s and she remembered the ugly tiles in the front bathroom. Avacado green with brown stenciling. Her eyes drifted back to the cottage where she had spent so much time with her grandmother. Where she was going to spend this summer with her daughters, where she was going to try to figure out what to do with her life. How to move on. If that was even possible.

She had her daughters, and they had to be enough. No way would she risk letting another man into her life or heart, only to disappoint her. To get close to her daughters, to make them depend on him. No man was ready to raise someone else’s twins, not when their own father wanted nothing to do with them.

The sound of big baby laughs caught her attention, and she turned to watch her daughters, a smile playing across her soft lips.

And that’s how he saw her for the first time. A woman in her early thirties, a soft blue shirt flowing around her curves, hands resting on her hips. Her hair was curling and wild looking, and her lips. Oh, her lips. His stomach quivered, his hands felt the urge to touch that hair…to trace her lips.

The expression on her face was radiant and full of love and – looking at two little babies on the floor.

Andrew looked at them, and his face was soon creased into a warm smile. One little girl had dark ringlets of hair…in her sister’s fist. Her sister was holding the hair and rubbing her hand back and forth other her head, and both babies were laughing. As he watched, the one wiggling with the other’s hair fell over.

‘Abby!’ the woman exclaimed, laughter in her voice. She strode across the floor to set the baby back upright, dropping a kiss on her head – when she looked up.

The man was stood in Holly’s door, only the thin screen separating him from the house. Her first instinct was to protect her daughters, her second to protect herself. But from what? He looked harmless.

Harmless and….hot.

‘Uh, can I help you?’ Lauren kept her voice steady, standing between the man and her babies.

‘Hi, I’m Andy. I was looking for Holly…seeing as she’s not in here, I’m guessing she’s out front chasing after Cooper.’

Holly has a boyfriend? How could she not tell me? Lauren wondered, then realized there hadn’t been a lot of sharing conversations over the past few years. First with Colin wanting her full attention, then with the demands of pregnancy, then with being on her own with the girls. She’s got good taste, though.

Lauren let her eyes slide over Andy. He had dark, tousled hair. He was dressed casually in a pair of well broken in jeans and a grey t shirt, with a blue logo of a gym on the front of it. And from what she could see, the money he was spending on the gym was well spent.

Stop. He is your sister’s boyfriend, for god’s sake.

‘Uh, so should I look out front? I don’t want to interrupt you.’

Lauren blinked. God, how long had she been zoned out, staring at his chest? How embarrassing. And pointless.

‘Sorry, yeah. Holly is out front checking on Cooper. She should be back in a sec, or you can catch her there…’ Babbling. You’re babbling.

He nodded easily. ‘Fine. I’ll go out front. But – sorry, what was your name?’

‘Oh! Sorry, not trying to be rude…just…’

A howl broke out at her feet. Expecting to see Katie pouting, she was surprised to find Abigail lying down again, scootching backwards and flailing around with a red face. Katie sat calmly, looking up at the man in the doorway.

‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘I can see you have your hands full. Unless…would you like some help?’

‘Help?’ Lauren said, blankly. ‘Uh, no. They just need to eat. I just need to grab their bottles…’ Too late, she realized she’d left the change bag in the car. Shoot.

'What? Is everything okay?' Andy opened the door and took a step in. 'Would you like me to watch the girls while you make the bottles?'

Lauren smiled stiffly, preparing to make her excuses, when a very wet Cooper whooped and ran into the house, hugging Lauren around the middle. Lauren noticed Holly holding the change bag.

'Aunt Lauren! Do you want to come see me swim? Can Katie and Abigail swim? What do babies wear to swim?' Cooper was a very active and curious six year old. Holly had been raising him alone since her husband had died three years before.

The women in our family always seem to end up alone, looking after their children. Lauren wondered how she could stop this pattern from going down another generation.

'Easy, Cooper. You're getting Lauren soaking wet, and I think the babies are hungry. Maybe you can help her make some bottles.' Turning to Lauren, she grinned. 'The backdoor was left open and went I went to shut it, I saw this and thought you might need it. And I see you've met Andy.' She bumped her hip against him. 'Good to see you. Thought you weren't coming over till later.'

Lauren felt like she was intruding on some intimate scene, so she grabbed the bag and headed to the kitchen, her eager nephew following and blasting off question after question. Phew. And she thought twin infants were hard!

Looking back over her shoulder, she saw her sister laughing with Andy. As happy as she was that Holly was moving forward with her life, she couldn’t help but sigh. That would never be her.

Twenty minutes later, she had two full babies and two empty bottles. Both girls were rubbing their eyes.

‘Listen, Holly, I need to get them down for a nap. But I think it might be too much to take them over to the cottage. Is it okay if they nap here? I’ve got a blanket for them to lay on – they like sleeping together and playpens are just too small.’

Holly nodded. ‘Of course. Maybe my room? If they are out here Cooper will trample them.’

Lauren carried Katie into the back room, while her sister followed with Abigail.

After getting the girls settled, both women sat down at the small, well-loved wooden table. The kitchen was at the front of the house, adjoining the lounge with no wall in between. Like most of the houses in the area, the side of the house facing the water was lined with windows.

Cooper appeared out of nowhere to take a cookie from the jar Holly offered Lauren, before disappearing back into his room.

‘Nervous about going over?’ Holly nodded toward the cottage.

Lauren’s mind drifted to her childhood. Their third sister often refused to come out to stay with their grandmother in the summer, and Holly was often out running around with friends. Lauren stayed closer to her grandmother, sitting in the boathouse, feet dangling over the clear water.

Was she nervous?

Colin hadn’t really liked to spend too much time with her family – or maybe that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be around her family, it was that he did want to be around work. He wanted to buy them a huge house, and he had promised he would buy them their own cottage on Harper’s Island.

Which is why she was now pretty much broke with no place to live.

When her grandmother had died seven years earlier, she had owned both her cottage and the one sharing the island, left to her by her sister. Holly and her husband had already bought the house on the other side of the small canal. The cottages were to be left to all three sisters, but Colin had insisted that they did not want or need anything from her family, that they would be self sufficient. That he would buy her something better than the tiny cottages.

She knew that Farrah, their sister, had agreed to take their great-aunt’s cottage, while Holly had taken their grandmother’s. While Holly had told Lauren it was in name only, Farrah lost no time in renting out the cottage. Lauren knew it had been a constant thorn in Holly’s side – the summer people not caring about the small island, not knowing about the years of family history.

Farrah had sold the cottage the winter before, not offering to share any money with her sisters. This time there was no Colin around to scoff and say he wouldn’t take the money, anyway. Because Lauren would have taken it.

Holly hadn’t been able to bring herself to sell her grandmother’s little cottage, and other family members often came out to use it. She had offered Lauren the place for the summer, a chance to recoup and figure out what to do next.

‘I haven’t been here in a long time. I’m sorry about that.’

‘You have nothing to be sorry for…’ Holly said, before Lauren broke in.

‘I do. I let Colin decide how things were going to be. I missed a lot. I missed so much of your life, Cooper’s life. And…I haven’t been here for you. Not since Thom died. I have a lot to be sorry for, to try to move on. And as for the cottage…’ Lauren paused. What to say about the one place that had always offered her safe haven, that she had been blocked ownership of by the one man who now begrudgingly coughed up monthly child maintenance payments.

‘I’m happy to be here. I can’t wait to see what it’s like, if things have changed.’

‘Why don’t you go over? I can watch the girls, you can start getting things set up.’

Lauren hadn’t left the babies since they were born. She hadn’t had a chance to.

Taking a deep breath, she agreed. ‘Okay, that’d be nice.’

Holly said, ‘Just go out front and give Andy a wave. He can come over with the boat and give you a lift over.’

‘Andy?’ Lauren’s mouth went curiously dry.

‘Yeah, you met him earlier, right? Or didn’t you? I didn’t really introduce you. Sorry.’

‘You looked busy. That’s okay.’

Holly raised her eyebrows. ‘Anyway, yeah, give him a wave.’

‘A wave? I don’t get it.’

‘Andy is the one who bought Aunt Doris’ place. He moved in a couple of months ago, but has been working on it since he bought it. I’m sure he’ll be happy to help you move in. Now go on, before these girls wake up.’

Lauren felt like a kid again. The only way onto her grandmother’s island was, well, what she was doing now. Standing in front of her sister’s house, peering across the narrow strip of shining water….trying to find the man with the boat.

Looking over the water, it was sad to see her grandmother’s cottage looking so shabby. Holly hadn’t been able to devote much time to the upkeep, she knew, but the little cottage looked unloved. When her grandmother had been alive, the woman had run round in circles keeping the windows shined and the porch swept. Now it looked like it needed a good coat of paint – and maybe some flowerbeds.

The other house on the island had obviously just had a new coat of paint. It was a soft off white apricot colour – matching the exact colour the house had always been. Lauren was surprised a man would keep it that way. Perhaps he was just fixing it up to make a profit.

She spied his shirt moving around the back corner of his house. She stood a little closer to the water, feeling slightly foolish. She didn’t want to have to wave both arms and make a fool of herself.

She debated just going back into Holly’s house, then took a few steps to the left, willing him to turn and look at her.

‘Come on,’ she mumbled. ‘Turn around, turn around.’

At that instant, he turned and locked eyed with her across the water. Lauren felt shivers run up her body. She rubbed her hands on her suddenly goose pimpled arms.

Andy beckoned to the island with a question on his face. Lauren nodded, and he walked to the back dock.

Lauren went back to the car and quickly grabbed a couple of bags. She had very little – most of her belongings were in storage. She’d brought along minimum clothes for the girls, along with their toys and books. About the only thing of hers she’d brought was her camera…though she ruefully admitted to herself that the only thing she’d been using it for lately was taking pictures of her daughters.

Hearing the familiar putt putt noise of a small outboard, she began to lug bags around front. The more she got over now, the less she’d have to do later with two babies in tow.

Approaching the water, she saw Andy casually throwing the tie rope around her sister’s docking pole. All of the houses were fronted with metal breakwalls to stop waves and water eating in the land, and like most of the houses, Holly had a few tall wooden poles spread evenly along the wall for boats to pull up next to.

He lightly hopped out of the boat. This side had always been hard as there was no dock, but luckily the water was a little high this year.

‘You need some help with those bags?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ Lauren said, but he was already by her side, gently pulling some of the bag straps off her shoulder and easily carrying them. She found herself looking at his arms, but it was his face she studied.

Laugh lines were lightly visible around his eyes. His skin was kissed by the sun, but not too dark. And there was just something. He was incredibly handsome, but there seemed to be something extra. Warmth and good humour practically radiated from the guy.

She didn’t trust it. She found herself wondering what he did. Sales? Marketing? Something involving putting a good face forward?

He climbed back into the boat, put her bags down, and held a hand out to help her in. Seeing no way of avoiding it, and telling herself to stop being ridiculous as he was just being nice, she grasped his hand and prepared to step into the boat.

His fingers were warm, his grip strong but gentle. He looked up at her, gave her a smile, and she couldn’t help but smile back. In fact, she was so busy looking in his eyes that she managed to catch her foot on the edge of the breakwall and half fall forward into the boat.

Without thinking, she threw her other arm around his neck, while tightening her grip on his hand.

‘Woah!’ he exclaimed, steadying her. He helped her step back into the boat, and held her hand an extra beat to make sure she was steady.

I am such a moron. I fell into his boat. Oh, God.

‘Are you alright? Lauren?’

His concerned voice shot right through her, and she found herself longing to just…to just lean on this man. To have him wrap his arms around her and just tell her it would all be okay. To laugh with him in his little boat, to cruise down to the local restaurant on the water and eat chips while watching the world go by.

Stop. This is your sister’s boyfriend.


Her studied her face. It was as if she had gone into herself for a few seconds, and she had a slightly dreamy look on her face. Andy’s lips curved into a smile without him realizing it. God, she was beautiful. There was just something about her; he would be hard pressed to pinpoint what it was.

She was an all-natural woman, though, and he found that deeply appealing. Aside from Holly, he hadn’t met many women like that – or at least spent any time with them.

Moving here was the right thing to do. And for some reason, he felt as if this had a lot more to do with the woman he’d be sharing the tiny island with for the summer than anything else.