Chapter 1

Chapter One

Isla

I lunged for the oven timer. The house was so still it sounded like the clang of church bells echoing off stone walls. I winced as I looked over at the couch.

Layla growled. “It was a valiant effort, but I’m awake.”

“Sorry.” I grabbed the oven mitt and opened the oven door. The chocolatey aroma of brownies filled the small kitchen. I pulled the tray from the oven and set it on the cooling rack.

Layla’s incredibly thick hair stuck out in many directions as she plodded on bare feet into the kitchen. Aria and Layla were both blessed with cinnamon-copper hair—a color that people would pay big bucks for at a salon, but my sisters were born with it. Nonna used to call them her bronze bookends, because Aria was the oldest and Layla was the youngest.

The otters on Layla’s oversized T-shirt appeared to be swimming in their kelp forest as she lifted her arm to make a quick run at smoothing her hair. I tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back a laugh.

“Let’s see how you look after sleeping on that ancient couch.” Layla twisted her upper torso a few times to take the kinks out of her back. She leaned down and glanced at her reflection in the glass on the microwave. “I look like Medusa.” She spun around and reached for one of the small cakes on the baking tray, my latest creation.

“I filled them with mascarpone.”

Layla took hold of the treat. “What are these? Is this a candied fig on top?”

“Yes. Pretty, right?” I picked up my phone to show her my Instagram post.

She took a bite and hummed with pleasure. “Wow, Isla, this is delicious.”

“Thanks. That’s the first official review of my honey pistachio cakes.”

Layla laughed. “I do feel very official with my otter T-shirt and Medusa hair.” She licked her finger as she glanced out the tiny kitchen window. It was a small square of glass that provided a magnificent view of Whisper Cove. Nonna used to call it her portal to the world. She’d wash dishes in the cracked porcelain sink and stare out at the seagulls as they dashed along the choppy surface. For the last hour, the sun had been trying its hardest to poke through the usual layer of summer morning fog.

“It’s so early, even the ocean looks sleepy.” Layla finished the sentence, appropriately enough, with a long, luxurious yawn.

I packed oatmeal butterscotch cookies into a box. “Why were you sleeping on the couch?”

Layla patted her mouth to stifle another yawn. “Ella was up late writing on the laptop, and you know how she gets when she’s written something she likes.”

We both waved a fist in the air. “Bloody brilliant!” we said in unison.

Layla surveyed the kitchen table. It was a scarred-pine beauty with four legs so sturdy, it never wobbled, even when the five of us were leaning over it, diving for the last pancake or piece of fried chicken. Nonna had grown up at the same table, and she always considered it a part of the family. This morning the table overflowed with baked goods: brownies, cookies and my honey pistachio cakes.

“Both my sisters are vampires who never need sleep. You must have been up since three in the morning,” Layla said.

“Sleep is overrated. But I believe vampires do sleep … in coffins … apparently.”

Layla tilted her head and added a wry smile.

“Right. Guess that’s not really the point. And I know how Ella feels. When creativity takes hold, it’s impossible to ignore.” The timer on my phone went off. “Is it that late already?” I picked up the cookie-packing pace. “I need to take the cookies and brownies over to the café. Aria will be opening soon.”

Layla shuffled toward the hallway. “I’m going to try to get a few more hours of sleep. I assume Ernestine Hemmingway has closed her laptop and is out cold.”

Four of us shared the two-bedroom cottage—Nonna’s beloved home—but my roommate, our sister Ava, was currently on one of her worldwide adventures, discovering and cataloguing new fungus species in the rainforest.

Through the years, many greedy developers had been trying to get their hands on the cottage and its primely located parcel of land. We’d had several offers to buy the cottage in the past ten years. The cracked plaster walls and creaky wood floors held far too many memories, both happy and sad, to hand it off to a fast-talking realtor who would eventually sell it to some starry-eyed flippers, or, worse, a contractor who’d, no doubt, tear it down so a set of shiny, void-of-character condos could be built in its place.

Nonna’s sweet, unassuming cottage, with its gabled roof, diamond-paned windows and slightly tilted exterior, had not only the best view of the cove, but it was situated directly over a silky stretch of beach. When we were younger, we’d fill our arms with buckets, plastic shovels, brown paper-wrapped pickle-and-cheese sandwiches, and mason jars of lemonade, and we’d trudge down the steep, winding trail that stretched between our back door and the pristine sand below. We’d spend hours building the castles from Nonna’s stories. When the sun got too hot, we’d wade into the shallow, crystal blue water and float around, holding our legs together, flipping them like mermaid tails. Sometimes we’d be out on that beach until the sun took its final bow. Now it seemed we were all far too busy to enjoy the beach below. When Nonna died, just after Layla graduated high school, her amazing stories faded from our lives. We all held them tightly somewhere in our memories, but there just wasn’t time anymore to dream about princes and pirates and mysterious castles.

The morning air was still chilly enough for a sweatshirt. I pulled one on and headed out the door with my boxes. I rolled my bike out of the shed, set the boxes in the wagon I'd padded to use as my makeshift trailer, and took off on the two-mile journey to Whisper Café. Aria opened the restaurant nine years ago at the tender but energy-filled age of twenty-five. She came out of college with a business degree, worked in a few offices and quickly discovered the business world wasn’t for her. Henry and Theresa Gramble, the previous owners of the café, were retiring, so Aria cobbled together enough money to finance her takeover of the place. She laughed, admitting that the business degree came in handy after all, just not in the way she and her professors thought.

It was late July, so the morning fog was a much lighter version of the pea soup we got during winter. Rays of sunshine were breaking through, producing a smear of pastel as they illuminated the houses along the western shore. The hills overlooking the cove were populated by an eclectic mix of architecture—traditional timber A-frames like Nonna’s cottage, stalwart and stout brick houses from the late twentieth century, and new shiny baubles of glass and stucco, built recently after a treacherous storm took out a small cluster of old cottages. Nonna’s house stood tall, although not exactly erect, through the brutal lashing of wind and rain. There were a few times when my sisters and I wondered if we should huddle down in the basement for shelter. However, ever since a thirteen-year-old Aria had convinced all her younger sisters that a grizzled, old troll lived in the basement and that was why there were occasionally fewer cookies in the cookie jar, none of us relished the notion of taking shelter in the dark, dank basement, even though we were well past our teens and should have been well past believing in trolls.

Juniper Road, the street that would take me to the café, was being repaved, so I took a shortcut past the marina. The pathway was rough and crumbly, and the wagon hopped up and down over the ruts. There would probably be some cookie casualties before I reached the café. The slips in the harbor were filled with a dozen or so boats, vessels as different as the array of houses on the lush, sloping banks overlooking the cove. Oscar Mittel, an old friend of Nonna’s, was out washing the dove gray hull of his fishing boat. Oscar grew up in Whisper Cove, and while we didn’t know his exact age, we were convinced he was close to a hundred.

My shortcut took me along a dirt path bordered on both sides by tall, feathery dune grass. The coastal breeze pushed the tips just enough in my direction to tickle my calves. My wagon squeaked in protest as I pedaled my way behind the shops on Juniper Road. Aria’s café was nestled between Stylish Stitches, a clothing boutique owned by a woman named Claire who had a heavy French accent and wonderful taste (though most of the clothes were far too fussy and expensive for my closet), and Wolfsong’s Fishing Supply Store.

There was a light on in Aria’s café, and the aroma of bacon curled up from the vents on the roof. I rode between the café and the boutique and parked my bike out front. Aria was rolling out the chalkboard easel that listed today’s specials.

“You made corn chowder?” I asked as I glanced at the chalky sign.

“I thought I ordered three pounds of corn, but apparently, I clicked three crates. I needed to do something with all that corn.” I handed her a box of cookies and carried the other box into the café behind her. Aria’s silky copper hair was tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head. She was tall, and she walked so gracefully, Nonna was convinced she should have been a ballerina. My sister never thought much of the idea, deciding that spending that much time on one’s toes was nothing short of torture.

“Coffee?”

“Do you even need to ask?” I sat on one of the kitchen stools. Roberto, her main cook, stopped to wave his spatula at me before returning his focus to the stove.

Aria returned with a mug of hot coffee. “So, my first date with the guy who was supposed to be my perfect match turned out to be a complete disaster.” She joined me with her own cup of coffee. “He kept telling me about his coin collection. I listened politely the first three times he brought it up, but when it came up a fourth time, I developed an evening-ending headache—a real one.” She blew into her cup of coffee. “Dating is impossible. I give up.”

“I blame Nonna for setting the bar too high with her stories. I mean, let’s face it, I’m never going to meet Prince Charming, and Captain Blackthorn is never going to show up in the harbor on his pirate ship.” Aria was the one sister who’d come closest to getting married. Paul was a nice, sensible man who wore leather loafers and spoke a lot about good investments. The invites had gone out, and the dress was chosen and heading for a second alteration. We called it her “almost-nearly-phew” wedding. Two weeks before the big day, Aria showed up at the cottage, mid-panic attack, and asked us to brainstorm the best way to get out of an engagement. She told us she wasn’t beyond faking her own death, so we knew it was over.

“You’re too picky,” Roberto called from the stove.

Aria rolled her eyes and ignored the comment.

“Where are those mushrooms?” Roberto asked as he turned to his cutting board.

“Oh, that’s right.” Aria stood. “I’ll get them.”

My phone rang as I finished my coffee. “Hey, Amber, what’s up?” I glanced at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

A cough preceded her answer. “I’m at death’s door,” she said weakly. Amber and I had been friends since school. I couldn’t call her my best friend because I had four sisters for that, but she was definitely number five on the list. She also tended to exaggerate her frequent illnesses.

“What’s wrong?”

She coughed a few times for good measure, but it sounded a little rehearsed. “I can’t find anyone to cover my shift at the coffee cart. I asked Mary to stay and cover for me, but she has to get her nails done.” I could almost hear the eye roll through the phone. “Stan will fire me if I don’t find someone to run the cart. Do you have time this morning?”

“I was hoping to take a quick nap before I started walking dogs. Then I only have a short break before I go to my cleaning job.”

“Are you still working for that horrid lady with the office cleaning service?”

“Until I find something else, yes. It’s one of the few jobs I can do at night.” I was working multiple jobs to save money for my true dream—opening my own bakery. Unfortunately, that dream was still as far out of reach as Prince Charming.

“Please, please, please do this for me, Isla, and I will owe you big time.” She added a few coughs for sympathy. I sighed in resignation.

“Fine. I’ll do it.” In truth, it gave me a chance to hand out some of my new little cakes and see if people liked the flavor combo. I spent my free time, which was mostly in the middle of the night, experimenting with baked goodies. It wasn’t easy, because Nonna’s kitchen was still set in early last century and because there were only twenty-four hours in the day, but I was collecting successful recipes for my future bakery. “I’ll come get the key. And you owe me.”

“I do and of course I’ll pay you and I love you and thank you so much.” Another cough. This one sounded entirely forced.

I put my coffee mug in the dishwashing sink. “I’ve got to go. Amber needs me to run the coffee cart,” I called to Aria.

She popped her head out of the storeroom. “Guess we’ll both be slinging coffee this morning. See you later.”