A Vineyard
Thanksgiving
The Vineyard Sunset Series
Book Four
By
Katie Winters
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2020 by Katie Winters
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
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Prologue
1996
Just after five in the evening on a particularly sunny day in late August, Lola Sheridan pressed her hands over her older cousin, Charlotte Montgomery’s eyes, and said, “Guess who’s coming out on the boat tonight?”
Charlotte hated it when Lola played games like that. Lola was always the charismatic, loud one, and she liked to create chaos out of nothing. Still, the love she had for her fifteen-year-old cousin led her to say, “I don’t know. Who?”
With that, Lola yanked her hands off of Charlotte’s eyes and pointed at the dock in front of them. There, Lola’s new boyfriend, Peter, stood next to his best friend, the handsome, broad-shouldered Jason Hamner. It was no secret among the Sheridan and Montgomery cousins that Charlotte had a pretty serious crush on Jason Hamner, and the fact that she had been too terrified to do anything about it? They didn’t let her forget it.
“Now’s your chance,” Lola breathed excitedly.
“I don’t know,” Charlotte whispered. Her throat tightened.
“You can’t just let life pass you by, Charlotte,” Lola said. She thought she was something of an authority on the subject, especially since her mother had died in a horrible boating accident a little over three years before. “You have to take it by the horns, you know? Get what you want.”
“Ha. Did you read that in a magazine somewhere?” Charlotte asked.
Lola leaped out of Charlotte’s clunky convertible and danced toward the dock, where she hung her arms around Peter’s neck and gave him a tender kiss. Charlotte was nothing like Lola in terms of bravery, and she’d still never been kissed. She was already seventeen years old. According to her moodier cousin Christine, this was “borderline pathetic.”
Charlotte got out of the car, looked into the back seat and the front to make sure nothing of value remained, and then walked toward the other three. She wore a jean miniskirt and a yellow tank top, and her long brown curls wafted down her shoulders and back, catching in the breeze. She quietly thanked Lola for demanding that she wear eyeliner and lip gloss, rather than shooting for the natural look for a little stint on the boat.
“There she is. Charlotte Montgomery herself,” Peter said, grinning broadly.
“Hey,” Charlotte replied. She didn’t trust her tone. Did she sound cool enough to be among them? “Whose boat is that?”
The speed boat clunked against the dock and glittered in the gorgeous orange evening light.
“It’s mine,” Jason affirmed. “My dad just bought it.”
“Wow. It’s beautiful,” Charlotte said. She forced her eyes to meet Jason’s altogether perfect green ones. He was just as beautiful as anyone on the TV shows she ate up with her sister, Claire, and maybe even more so.
What would Claire think of her now?
They got into the speedboat. Immediately, Lola ripped off her tank top to reveal her bikini beneath. Charlotte also wore a bikini; it was just what you did on Martha’s Vineyard in the summertime. Still, she felt too awkward about just whipping off her shirt in front of Jason. She didn’t want him to think she was easy. According to her mother, this was one of the worst things to make a boy think you were.
Lola doesn’t have a mother. She can act, however she wants.
The second the thoughts ran through her mind, Charlotte regretted them. It wasn’t like she wished that reality on herself, not in a million years. When Aunt Anna had passed away, the entire island had shifted. Susan had run as fast as she could away from all of them. Apparently, she already had a baby and lived this whole other life. Christine had her eyes elsewhere, as well. This was so different from what Charlotte had assumed they would do. She’d thought she would have her family around her always.
Jason cranked up the boat’s engine and shot them out through the turquoise waters. His large hand across the steering wheel looked more like a man’s hand than a boy’s. Charlotte knew he had been dating someone back at school, but she had heard they’d broken up. Was he sad about it? Did he need to talk? Did boys ever need to talk, or were they just less emotional, made of muscle and sweat, with a love of sports?
“How was your summer, Char?” he asked suddenly.
He turned his face toward hers, and every single cell in her body caught fire. They had hardly spoken, and here he was, calling her Char.
“It was okay,” she admitted. In her mind, cool girls never got too excited about anything. “What about you?”
“Ah, you know. Dad thinks it’s time I start fishing with him most mornings, so I’ve been pretty tired a lot. The wake-up call is four in the morning. I crash early.”
“Wow. Yeah. That’s intense,” Charlotte said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
“It really is. But there’s something about the water in the mornings, you know? It’s like I get to see this whole other world that other people miss because they’re asleep,” he said.
As they spoke, Lola and Peter fell into one another’s arms and busied themselves, making out and whispering to one another. Charlotte’s cheeks burned with embarrassment.
Jason eased the boat toward the western part of the island, toward the edges of the cliffs. He then cut the engine and cranked the anchor
