Hannah winced, envisioning a garish result that would rob the inn ofwhatever tiny scrap of class it had.
“Well, come on,” her grandmother called back. “Daylight’s wasting.”
With a sigh, Hannah followed her outside.
Over the years, the inn had grown from the original sprawling,two-story beach house that had been built in the thirties as a private home. Because ofits size and her great-grandparents’ enthusiasm for meeting people, they’d opened theirspare rooms to paying guests. That first experimental season had been so successful,they’d officially named it Seaview Inn and expanded over the next few years, adding onesection in the early forties, another in the fifties, operating much like thebed-and-breakfasts that had come along later.
Unfortunately, there hadn’t been much attention to architectural detailin the additions. Wings jutted out haphazardly, one on each side, angled so that theguest rooms on the right and the big formal dining room on the left, with its soaringwindows and hodgepodge collection of antique tables and chairs, and the second-floorfamily quarters all had a view of the beach across the road. To Hannah’s disapprovingeye, it looked like a cross between a halfway decent home and a seedy motel. It wouldtake more than a coat of paint, no matter the color, to fix it.
Her favorite part was the porch, which stretched across the front ofthe original house with a row of white rockers and a collection of antique wicker chairswith fading flowered cushions. In past years there had been hanging baskets of flowers,but this year neither her mother nor grandmother had had the time or energy to spare onsuch things.
As a child, Hannah had had tea parties with all her dolls on the porch.Sometimes her mom and her grandmother had joined her. Those afternoons had been thebest. Later, as a teenager, the porch had been a place for sharing dreams and plans withher friends over sodas and snacks. Eventually her first kiss had been in the shadows onthe porch.
Now, bathed in the light of a spectacular sunset, the inn didn’t lookas bad as it had at first glance. She could almost see its idiosyncratic charm andunderstand why her grandmother wanted to keep it open and in the family. The problem wasthat Grandma Jenny couldn’t possibly do it alone and there was no one in the family tohelp her. Hannah didn’t want to leave New York, especially with her team of physiciansthere, to say nothing of the demanding career she loved. Her twenty-year-old daughter,Kelsey, would probably wind up staying in California once she completed her studies atStanford. Why keep the inn now, only to sell it to strangers in a few years, anyway? Hergrandmother deserved to enjoy whatever years were left to her, not to spend them workingher fingers to the bone waiting on strangers.
Hannah turned and caught her grandmother eyeing her speculatively.
“It’s a good time of day, isn’t it?” Grandma Jenny said quietly, herexpression nostalgic. “Your grandfather and I spent many an evening out here watchingthe sunset with music drifting out the downstairs windows. And before that, my parentswould spend their evenings doing the same thing. We didn’t sit inside and stare at a TVscreen the way folks do today. We talked, getting to know the people who stayed here. Weenjoyed the beauty God gave us in this place.” Her gaze met Hannah’s. “You loved it,too, once. Do you remember that? There were nights we could hardly drag you home fromthe beach.”
Suddenly Hannah remembered being maybe five or six and working all dayon a sand castle, then being called inside. The next morning she’d rushed across theroad to see her handiwork, only to discover that the tide had washed it away overnight.It had been her first hard lesson in the fact that some things simply didn’t last, nomatter how well built and solid they seemed. Sometimes it was the foundation thatmattered, not the structure, and sand had a way of shifting underfoot, much as her ownparents’ marriage had crumbled a few years later.
As the years had passed and she’d developed more insights, there’d beenlittle question in her mind that after the divorce her mother had felt trapped here bycircumstances. What else could she do with a daughter not yet in her teens and no workexperience beyond the family inn?
“I remember,” she said at last, but it was said in a faintly bittertone that drew a sharp glance from her grandmother.
“There were good times, Hannah, whether youchoose to remember them that way or not.”
“I wonder if Mom felt that way after Dad left. Wasn’t there a time inher life when she dreamed of going away and doing something else? He got to run awayfrom her and from all of his responsibilities, but she was stuck.”
“What are you suggesting?” her grandmother asked indignantly. “That Ikept her here when she wanted to go? Nothing could be further from the truth. She lovedit here. She knew it was the best place to raise a child, surrounded by family andfriends.”
“Dad obviously didn’t love it,” Hannah said.
“Oh, Hannah, that’s not so. Surely by now you’ve learned thatrelationships are complicated. Your parents were happy for a time, and then theyweren’t. It had nothing to do with Seaview Key or the inn.”
Hannah didn’t waste her breath trying to argue. How could she? She’dbeen so young, just on the verge of adolescence. It was entirely possible that she’dbeen totally oblivious to whatever rifts there had been in her parents’ marriage. Sherelented now just to keep peace. “I suppose.”
Her grandmother’s shoulders seemed to sag. “I need to sit down,” shesaid flatly, clutching the railing tightly as she climbed the steps to the porch. Shesank into her favorite rocker as the sun slowly slid into the waters of the Gulf ofMexico, leaving the sky painted with streaks of orange and gold.
“Gran, are you okay?”
“Just a
