Page 28 of The Beach Shack (Laguna Beach #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

M eg stepped out onto Tyler’s porch with a glass of wine and her laptop, the sun just beginning to set over the ocean.

The evening air still held the salt-sharp edge of the day, but it was softened now by birdsong and the rhythmic hush of waves below.

Somewhere behind the neighbor’s fence, a sprinkler kicked on with a hiss.

She hadn’t planned to call Anna. The last thing she wanted was to rehash how her grand plan for streamlining the Beach Shack had gone over like a lukewarm sandwich.

But when she opened her inbox, there was a message from her sister waiting.

Subject: For the ceiling. Bea picked it. Don’t overanalyze.

Attached was a photo of a shell—iridescent and blue-green, spiraled like a galaxy. In the background, Bea’s sketchbook lay open to a loose drawing of the same shape .

Meg stared at it for a long moment.

Then clicked the video icon.

Anna picked up almost immediately, her face framed by soft Florence twilight and the cracked-open windows of their flat. Somewhere offscreen, church bells were ringing.

“Wow,” Anna said, blinking. “I expected a reply tomorrow, not your actual face. What time is it there?”

“Late,” Meg said. She adjusted the laptop slightly. “You’re not at the studio.”

“Home day,” Anna replied. “Bea and I had pasta for lunch and argued about gelato flavors like proper locals. She says pistachio is for babies.”

Meg smiled, settling back in the Adirondack chair. “She’s not wrong.”

Anna tilted her head. “You okay? You look like someone who got feedback they didn’t enjoy.”

“The Shack staff were... diplomatic,” Meg said, rubbing a hand over her forehead. “Let’s just say no one jumped to adopt my new systems.”

“They said no to Meg Walsh’s color-coded flow charts? Shocking.”

Meg rolled her eyes, but the teasing was welcome. “Apparently they prefer chaos. Or intuition. Or... I don’t know, ritual?”

Anna watched her for a beat, expression softening. “Maybe it’s a language thing. Like how Bea thinks in metaphors now. You can’t just drop new systems in the middle of an old story.”

Meg glanced down at the shell photo still open on her screen. “You know Margo adds shells to the ceiling herself? One at a time. With a tiny brush and everything.”

“That sounds like her.”

“She was cleaning a new one when I got there earlier today. Said it was from New Zealand. Said it mattered.”

They sat in silence for a beat, the conversation pressing into a quieter place.

“Speaking of which,” Anna said, “please tell me you’re not surviving on grilled cheese and energy bars.”

Meg laughed, but it sounded a little guilty. “Tyler’s fridge is a bachelor’s dream—two kinds of mustard and leftover takeout containers I’m afraid to open.”

“Meg.” Anna’s voice carried that particular mix of amusement and concern that only sisters could manage. “You used to cook. Remember? Those elaborate weekend breakfasts you’d make in college? You had that one pasta dish—the one with lemon cream sauce that you perfected after like fifteen attempts.”

Meg felt something tighten in her chest. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long. And you were good at it. You’d drag me to farmer’s markets and spend an hour picking the perfect tomatoes.” Anna leaned closer to the camera. “What happened to that?”

Meg looked out at the ocean, watching a pelican skim the surface of the waves. “Life got efficient, I guess. Meal delivery services, protein bars, grabbing lunch between meetings. Who has time to shop for the perfect tomato?”

“Apparently you do now.”

“I’m here temporarily,” Meg said automatically.

“Right,” Anna said, but her tone suggested she wasn’t entirely buying it. “Well, while you’re there temporarily, maybe try cooking something that doesn’t come in a wrapper. Margo has that herb garden—I bet she’d love to share.”

Meg found herself thinking about the small plot behind the Beach Shack, rows of basil and rosemary and something that smelled like summer when Margo brushed past it.

“I was thinking of Mom,” Meg said, changing the subject but not really.

“Me too,” Anna said. “Every time Bea asks where the ocean ends.”

Meg swallowed. “Margo said Mom helped with the shell ceiling. That she understood the patterns before anyone else did. I don’t remember that.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Anna said gently. “You were in motion back then. Always on the next thing.”

Another silence stretched between them—comfortable, this time. The kind that existed only between people who’d been far apart and were slowly, carefully, knitting the threads back together.

“Bea’s doing okay?” Meg asked.

“She is.” Anna smiled, but her eyes had that distant-mother look—half pride, half exhaustion. “She told me yesterday that maybe she wants to come back to Laguna someday and open a bookstore that also serves focaccia.”

“Ambitious.”

“She asked if you’d be there.”

Meg blinked. “Why? She doesn’t know me.”

“She’s been watching those videos I showed her—Mom’s old beach clips. You’re in a few of them. You looked happy. That made an impression.”

Meg shifted, uncomfortable with how easily that pierced.

Anna didn’t push. Instead, she reached offscreen and held up a paint-smeared cup. “To evolution, not revolution.”

Meg raised her glass. “To messy kitchens and abandoned spreadsheets.”

They drank.

A sound came from offscreen—footsteps, maybe, and a young voice calling something in what might have been Italian.

“That’s Bea,” Anna said, glancing over her shoulder. “She’s practicing her Italian on the neighbors. They’re very patient.”

“Does she know you’re talking to me?”

“She’s been hovering,” Anna admitted. “I think she wants to say something but keeps changing her mind.”

“No pressure,” Meg said quickly. “I’m just glad she’s not completely horrified by my existence.”

Anna laughed. “She’s not horrified. She’s curious. She asked if you still make those little origami cranes you used to fold when you were nervous. ”

Meg’s hand stilled on her water glass. “You told her about that?”

“She noticed me doing it during a particularly stressful faculty meeting. Apparently it’s genetic.”

Another sound from offscreen, and Anna turned again. This time, Meg caught a glimpse of movement—a flash of dark hair and what looked like paint-stained fingers.

“Bea says to tell you the Art Walk next weekend has amazing food vendors,” Anna said, turning back. “Apparently there’s one that makes these herb-crusted flatbreads that she’s been dreaming about since last summer.”

“Art Walk?”

“The monthly Laguna Art Walk. First Saturday. Very touristy, but kind of wonderful. You should go with Natalie and Paige—they used to tag along when I was sketching downtown. You were always the practical one who remembered sunscreen and brought the good snacks.”

Meg smiled at the memory. “Someone had to keep you from getting heatstroke while you chased the perfect light.”

“Exactly. And now you can chase the perfect flatbread.”

Another silence. A plane passed overhead on Meg’s side of the world, faint and distant.

“I don’t know how long I’m staying,” Meg said, almost to herself.

Anna didn’t answer right away. When she did, it was soft. “Stay as long as it takes. No one’s keeping score.”

Meg looked out at the ocean, then back at her sister’s face, flickering slightly on the screen.

“Thank you for that. And for picking up the phone even when you know I’m going to be cagey and avoid anything emotional.”

“Anytime,” Anna said. Then added, “Bea says you should write back to her next time, not just heart her photos.”

Meg smiled. “Tell her pistachio is a power move.”

The call ended a few minutes later, but Meg stayed on the porch, laptop shut now, feet curled under her, watching the light change across the water.

No messages from Brad. No crisis emails.

Just the porch, the breeze, and the faint memory of her mother’s hands helping place shells in the ceiling above a little seaside café that had somehow outlasted them all.

Eventually, she stood and wandered into Tyler’s kitchen, opening cabinets mostly out of habit. There were, in fact, three jars of mustard and no eggs.

But there was a single red onion, nearly forgotten in the vegetable drawer. A bag of spinach that still had a day or two left. And tucked in the back of the refrigerator, a carton of cream that hadn’t yet gone bad.

Meg stared at the ingredients for a long moment, Anna’s words echoing: You used to cook.

She found a pan in the cabinet below the stove.

Peeled the onion without thinking, her hands remembering the motion even if her mind had forgotten the pleasure of it.

The knife moved in steady rhythm—thin slices that would caramelize properly, the way she’d learned in that tiny galley kitchen of her first apartment.

The smell of warm onion and butter filled the air as the spinach wilted and the cream simmered. She found herself humming—something she couldn’t name, maybe something her mother had hummed while cooking Sunday breakfasts a lifetime ago.

When it was done, she sat at Tyler’s small table, the bowl cradled in her hands, and took a bite.

It wasn’t perfect. The onions could have cooked longer, and she’d forgotten salt. But it was hers. Made by her hands, seasoned by instinct rather than efficiency.

She took another bite and smiled.

Tomorrow, maybe she’d ask Margo about the herb garden. Maybe she’d remember how to choose the perfect tomato.