Page 14 of Sandbar Summer (Summer Cottage #3)

“Greg is a retired Detroit detective. The town hires him to freelance to keep an eye on the rampant crime.”

“Crime’s rampant?”

“Ha, no, that’s why he likes it. He’s got precious little to do, but make sure I don’t get into a screaming match with my ex-husband.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be. We’re happily divorced, or well, we’re working on the happy part. It’s all pretty new. Anyway, Greg is my neighbor, my friend. Don’t listen to these two.”

“Her neighbor who can’t take his eyes off of her,” J.J. said.

“And you’re married to, uh, Dean, right?”

“Yep, he was a fixer-upper, but I’ve got him just the way I like him now,” J.J. said.

“Don’t listen to her now. Dean is the best man on the planet. Saved my plans a million times over with fixing up Irish Hills, and now with the hotel.”

“On that, so Joe is there to do what, exactly?” Goldie was woefully under-informed. She’d flown here with one thought and that was to hide. Maybe get some rest after the stress of fighting the Hollywood machine while fitting into her super suit.

“Let’s sit, have some food, some uh, green juice, and catch up on all of it.” Libby was a consummate hostess. She was gracious, in control, and still looked like she’d be just as at home having lunch with the Queen of England as she did on waterskis.

“I have to admit, I am starving.” Goldie didn’t know how to cook.

She didn’t have her personal chef here and, in the last few days, had not eaten.

She knew this was a cycle that could get her into trouble.

It was one thing to blame the roles she had to play for skipping meals.

It was another to let it be how she dealt with stress.

Controlling the one thing she could, food, had messed with her health more than once.

Having a balanced attitude toward food was something she fought hard for, and it was precarious. Hope handed her a plate. It was an antique, clearly, probably from Aunt Emma’s collection. Goldie began to fill the plate with the lovely crackers, the creamy dip, the cheeses, and a sprig of grapes.

“This is lovely, Hope.”

“This woman is so talented; I mean, we used to be her sous chefs for cookie baking, but it did not wear off on me. I can’t cook, not a lick. Well, I do mix a great cocktail. But that’s a whole different skill set.”

Goldie remembered taking Hope’s orders in the kitchen, everything from lemonade to chocolate chip cookies.

Goldie sank her teeth into the cracker. The cheese melted in her mouth, and the seasoning was better than anything she’d sampled at the poshest places in Beverly Hills.

“Hope, this is sooo good.”

A bit of cheese slopped out of the corner of her mouth. She quickly used her finger to pop it in. She didn’t want to waste a morsel.

“Thank you, all local ingredients. That’s my schtick.”

“Wow, we’ve come a long way from Pop Tarts,” Goldie said.

“But here we are, back again,” J.J. said. “So, fill us in. You’re a movie star, we all know you’ve dated just about every People’s Sexy Man cover boy since the nineties, you have an Oscar, but in my opinion, you should have two. I got all the Goldie Hayes headlines, but fill us in.”

“Two, eh?”

“Yes, Tenured, you should have been nominated for best actress, not supporting, and you should have won.”

“Studio thought I had a better shot at supporting. Kim Basinger swooped in and won the thing.”

“Yeah, I’m still bitter about it,” J.J. said.

Goldie laughed. Most people in today’s Hollywood weren’t even born in 1999, much less remember her turn in Tenured.

“Kim was very sweet about it,” Goldie said.

“But what about the real you? You keep that personal life locked up pretty tightly,” Hope said.

“Yeah, most of what you see is made to order from my P.R. team. Heck, if I dated George Clooney, I don’t remember it. But rumors that I did were enough to get me seen for a couple of big parts back in the early aughts.”

“Well, who have you been in love with that we don’t know about? The real Goldie didn’t fall for anyone back in the day,” J.J. said.

“Oh, I had a few pretty close calls at marriage but never really had the time to make that my priority. I’m wondering if I made a miscalculation. Here we all are, pushing fifty. My closest friend is an assistant I pay.”

“Well, not anymore. You’re a Sandbar Sister. We took a pause, a big one while we did big stuff, now we back, to whip this town into shape,” Libby said.

“Here, here,” Hope said.

They raised their glasses, filled with the potent green juice, which Goldie had come to realize, was a margarita `a la J.J.

“To the Sandbar Sisters,” J.J. said. “Minus, Viv, wherever she is right now!”

Goldie didn’t have the right to tell some stories, or the courage to, quite yet.

There were sacrifices she’d made for her rise to fame that maybe her friends wouldn’t easily understand. They all had husbands, ex-husbands, and kids. Goldie had an Oscar. That seemed like not quite enough.

“So, saving Irish Hills, what’s the grand plan?”

“Have you ever heard of Stirling Stone?” J.J. asked.

“Oh yes, Libby mentioned him, her arch enemy. I actually have met him once or twice at events. Handsome devil, for sure.”

“He’s been pushing to buy everything. Aunt Emma stopped him, bought everything, paid folks’ rent, I stopped him with eminent domain, and we all pulled tougher to win a grant for downtown improvement. He just keeps on ticking, though.”

“What now?”

Libby hesitated and switched focus. It was easy to see there was something she wasn’t telling Goldie.

“You know what, our job, right now, is to make sure the jackals don’t get you. That’s it. No pressure. No need to be on. No need to be Goldie Hayes. Just be.”

“Thank you.” She wanted to help them, she wanted to be a part of their enthusiasm for their little project, but right now, she needed to lie low. She needed to disappear.

“I heard you put the kibosh on a film festival. I was looking forward to finding a sequined gown,” J.J. said.

Hope swatted her with a napkin.

Libby changed the subject.

“I’m sorry Joe’s going to be there at Two Lakes at the same time you’re there, but I do need to make sure it is ready for a buyer.

Ha, unless you’re interested. If I don’t prove that we’ve got lovely accommodations here, Stirling’s libel to put a strip club on Lake Manitou where the hotel used to be,” Libby said.

“It’s fine, it’s really lovely, and I’m sure he will stay out of my way.

And no, I really love the place, but you know,” Goldie said.

She suspected Joe liked getting in her way, but she wasn’t going to complain to Libby.

Libby was an adult. She didn’t need Goldie acting like a child over nothing. That was a movie star tactic.

Libby’s body language turned serious all of a sudden. And she looked Goldie in the eyes.

“Now, there’s one more bit of old news we need to tell you about. It haunted me for decades. Just so you know, we did not kill Bruce.”

“What? Who?”

“Bruce, my mom’s abusive toadstool of a boyfriend. You know how we locked him out of Nora House during the tornado?”

J.J. explained, and it came back to Goldie, that moment they’d run down to the basement.

“Ha, you felt bad? Ladies! I haven’t thought about that since the moment we came up out of the basement. Truly. What a waste of guilt!”

“I thought we legit murdered the guy,” Libby said. “And Aunt Emma blackmailed me, more or less, to get me to help her save Irish Hills on the basis of that little moment.”

“Wow, she’s good. She would have fit right in Hollywood. Heck, I need a new shark agent. Maybe I should call Aunt Emma.”

Goldie remembered the tornado, the destruction of the old cottages her parents owned, but she hadn’t shed one tear worrying about locking that dirtbag outside.

She barely remembered that. She had guilt, but it wasn’t about that.

Her guilt was more personal. In her heart, she knew she did the right thing at a critical moment, so maybe it wasn’t guilt she was feeling.

Maybe it was regret.