“A little late for that.”

“A fling is one thing. A relationship is another. I mean, do I really want to take on another relationship so soon? All I want is to have a little fun. I’ve got enough to deal with without sparking gossip.”

“Honey, no one’s looking that close. If any tongues wag, they’re just jealous. Look at your sister. Carson goes through men like nobody’s business. You think she cares what people think?”

“I’m not like Carson.”

“No, you ain’t. You ain’t like Harper, neither. Each of you girls have changed some since you were little and you’re gonna change more in the years to come. But you’re the same at the core. Carson, now she’s what you might call fearless. She takes the world head-on. But she gets knocked down on her bottom plenty, too. Harper, she likes to watch. She might seem to be on the sidelines, but she’s taking everything in. That girl don’t miss a trick. Something’s bubbling in that brain of hers, and I don’t know what it is. She might not either. Yet.” Lucille half turned to look at Dora and let her gaze sweep slowly over her.

“And me?”

“And you, Dora, you’re the rock. You always have both feet planted firmly on the ground. The one we can depend on.”

“I don’t feel like a rock.”

“You’re going through an earthquake now. Your world is shifting. That’s okay. Happens to all of us. Some folks crumble, but not you. You’ll settle again, and when you do, you’ll feel solid and strong again. Maybe even more than you did before. I know it.”

Dora reached out to take Lucille’s hand. “Oh, Lucille, thank you. I needed to hear that tonight.”

“It’s all gonna be all right,” Lucille said in a soothing voice, patting Dora’s hand over hers.

“Can I come back again, to chat like this? Just you and me?”

Lucille smiled and her eyes grew misty. “Why, I’d like that. For true.”

Chapter Thirteen

The day was starting out to be a scorcher on Sullivan’s Island. No cloud broke the sun’s relentless heat, no breeze blew from the ocean. Sweat poured down the overheated faces of both Dora and Harper as they fought backbreaking struggles with deep-rooted monster weeds in the garden. They’d been at it for over an hour and had managed to clear nearly half of the garden. They’d been ambitious with their original design, but once they comprehended the great battle, they edited the garden to a more manageable size.

Today, even that felt like too much.

“Why are we even doing this?” Dora whined, pausing her digging to swipe the sweat from her brow. “My back aches and my mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton balls.”

“Because it’s fun?” Harper replied in jest, whacking at the parched earth with her hoe.

“Yeah, it’s a riot,” Dora said with heavy sarcasm.

Harper leaned on her hoe and caught her breath.

“Really, what’s the point?” Dora asked. “Mamaw’s just going to sell the place. We won’t see it come to glory.”

“Maybe not,” Harper said. Wiping her brow, she left a mud streak in the sweat. “But we’ll know it’s here, won’t we? Like it used to be.”

Dora wasn’t convinced. “So what . . .”

“So what, indeed,” Harper muttered as she let her gaze sweep Sea Breeze.

The view from the Cove was its best side, she decided. Her Muir ancestors knew what they were doing when they’d chosen this spot on the quiet end of Sullivan’s Island. The old house was well situated on higher ground, with a broad rear porch facing the Cove. The porch provided a magnificent vantage point from which to view the Intracoastal Waterway. Mamaw had added the long black-and-white awning that provided shade for the oversized black wicker chairs, with their plump black-and-white cushions. A few steps down from the porch was another level of decking that surrounded the swimming pool and stretched the entire length of the porch. From this level, more steps led to the small patch of grass that continued on a downward slope to where the wild grasses bordered the marsh.

This was where the long wooden dock extended over the marsh to the winding water of the Cove. The old, elegant Southern house, the broad veranda with chairs, the dock with a boat tied up were, for Harper, the very definition of a lowcountry setting. She was surprised by the love she felt for this place and how heartsick she was to see it leave family hands. So what, she wondered, feeling a bubbling resistance to the idea that she’d never be able to come back here, to Sea Breeze, to the only place she’d ever truly felt safe. So what . . . She didn’t want that to happen, that was so what.

She heard Dora laughing and turned her head to see her sister looking at her with amusement.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. Even digging in the garden, you make a fashion statement.”

Harper looked down at her long-sleeved white cotton shirt and designer jeans. “It’s all I had,” she said, a tad defensively.

“I don’t want to think how much those jeans cost,” Dora said.

“After today, they’ll be worthless. And this shirt will officially be my gardening shirt because it won’t be fit to wear in public. Sort of like yours,” she teased, indicating Cal’s old Gamecock T-shirt, now relegated to garden duty. Dora’s jeans might’ve been Cal’s, too. They were too big and unhemmed. Under her large floppy straw hat, Dora’s face was as bright as a cherry.

“Maybe we should both take a break,” Harper said. “You shouldn’t push too hard, with your heart and all. I don’t want you digging your grave here.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Dora said with a dismissive wave. “The doctor wants me to have a good cardio workout every day and I’m thinkin’ this applies.”

“I have to admit, this is a lot harder than I thought.” Harper wiped at her brow. “How big did you say your garden was in Summerville?”

“A quarter acre.”

Harper shook her head, incredulous. “Amazing. And ambitious.”

“It was already framed out when I moved in. And I was younger.” Dora laughed. “It was in the same sorry shape as this when I took it over. Lord, I slaved over that plot of earth. But it was worth every minute. I grew all our vegetables for Nate. Everything was natural, no pesticides. And the butterflies!” She smiled wistfully.