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Chasing Dreams

By Deborah Raney

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Chapter 1


May


Monday, May 1
“Oh, brother . . . ” Joanna Chandler shifted the bag of groceries she was carrying and unlooped a pretty little tin can filled with flowers from the front door of the cottage. A May basket—no doubt Quinn Mitchell’s doing. The man had it bad for her sister. And if not for the fact that Phylicia was so deliriously happy these days, the two lovebirds would be getting on Jo’s last nerve. This romance had been in high gear for a week now, ever since the night Phee and Quinn stayed up till the wee hours “defining the relationship.” Though Phee denied it, Quinn claimed she’d proposed to him that night.
Jo unlocked the door, propped the May basket on the mantel where her older sister would see it, and deposited the groceries on the kitchen table. “Britt? You home?” There was no sign of her younger sister inside.
She went down the short hallway and peeked into Britt’s room. Melvin, the spoiled black-and-white tuxedo cat they’d inherited from their mom, looked up from his spot on the bed and yawned. But all was quiet in the house. Did she dare to hope her younger sister was at a job interview?
Jo went back to her car and carried in two more loads of groceries from the trunk. With any luck, one of her sisters would be home in time to help put all this stuff away. Graduation at the local university was less than two weeks away, and not only was the cottage booked for a four-day weekend, but they’d promised breakfast all four days. For five guests.
This was their first official Airbnb rental, and it would take all three of them working overtime to get the place ready for guests. At least they could stay in one of the cabins across the lane this time instead of camping out in the woods like they’d done after a semi-disastrous accidental booking that had led to Phylicia’s unofficial engagement.
Jo pulled a jug of coffee creamer from a bag and stuck it in the fridge, begrudgingly grateful that Britt hadn’t yet found a job. The bulk of the hostess duties would fall to Britt, since Phee would be working overtime at the flower shop, thanks to the perfect storm that May Day, Mother’s Day, and graduations created for the floral industry.
Jo peered out the tiny kitchen window, loving the dappled view of the woods behind the cottage. She’d be lucky to get the weekend off since her boss and his wife had just returned from a ten-day whirlwind tour of Europe. The entire law office was scrambling to get caught up.
Turning to glance through the archway that led to the combined living and dining room, Jo smiled at Quinn’s primitive tin-can bouquet on the mantel. It looked like something a kindergartner had fashioned. He’d used picture wire to form a handle around the tomato can with a pretty label, then filled the can with wildflowers. Jo recognized tickseed, purple prairie clover, and what looked like chicory—all flowers that grew wild along Poplar Brook Road.
The back door slammed and Britt blew in, singing something from Beauty and the Beast at the top of her lungs.
“Hey, where’d you come from?” Joanna peeked through the doorway off the hall that led to the cottage’s two bedrooms and the back door.
The singing stopped abruptly. “Oh. I didn’t know you were home.” Her cheeks rosy, Britt slipped out of her Crocs and went to the kitchen sink. She scrubbed her hands and tried to blow aside honey-brown bangs that were plastered to her forehead with sweat.
“Where did you think all these groceries came from?” Jo pointed to the grocery bags crowding the kitchen table.
Her sister shrugged. “I didn’t notice them. I was working in the garden.”
“Um . . . We have a garden?”
Britt shot her a smug grin. “We do now. The start of one at least. In the yard behind the cabin.”
“Cool. What did you plant?”
“Flowers. Plants Plus still has flats on sale in Cape, so I figured I’d take advantage. Petunias and coleus and begonias. Oh, and a couple of tomato plants. But mostly begonias.” Drying her hands, she tossed her head toward the wooded backyard. “I’ll plant a few of them behind the cottage. It’s too shady there for anything else.”
“Well, good for you.” Jo bit her tongue, wondering how much that trip to the nursery had set them back. She and her sisters had bought the property with its three cottages free and clear, thanks to the inheritance their mother had left them. They were living in this cottage, but the funds they’d each contributed to for renovating the two smaller cabins was dwindling at an alarming rate.
And Britt still hadn’t found a job. Not that she’d looked that hard.
“There’s another load of groceries to carry in.”
“I’ll get them.” Britt started through the living room then paused by the fireplace. “A May basket? Where did that come from?”
“Unless you have a boyfriend I don’t know about, I’m guessing they’re from Quinn.”
“Aww. How adorable.”
“Yeah, well, I have a sneaking suspicion that bouquet came straight off our property.”
“Oh, so what. I think it’s sweet.” Britt hugged herself.
“Phee will think so too.” Jo shook her head, but laughed. She couldn’t wait to give her future brother-in-law a hard time about gathering Phee’s bouquet from the Chandler sisters’ property. Still, she had to give the man credit: a flower-shop bouquet would never have stolen her sister’s heart the way these hand-picked wildflowers would.
Jo’s smile faded as a twinge of jealousy pricked. She was truly happy for Phylicia. Her older sister would turn thirty in a few weeks, and Jo was glad Phee had found love before that ominous over-thirty stigma descended on her. But now—Jo cringed at the thought—all eyes would be on her, waiting to see if the second Chandler sister would find her man before she was “over the hill.” Stupid small-town gossip.
Joanna stifled a sigh. She shouldn’t care. She wasn’t even twenty-seven yet! But soon enough twenty-eight would be nipping at her heels, and that felt so far up the proverbial hill, she could almost touch the top.
The ominous thoughts settled heavier inside her than she would have liked. She watched storm clouds building across the cove beyond the cabins, and the light inside the house gradually faded, as if someone had turned a dimmer switch. Jo walked through the rooms, turning on lamps and flicking light switches as she went.
She and Britt worked together to put groceries away, growling as they collided in the tiny kitchen. This cottage could feel a bit claustrophobic when all three of them were home, but when Jo was here by herself, she loved the place and secretly hoped she’d end up claiming this one as her own after the two smaller cabins were finished. Of course with Phee getting married sometime soon, she’d probably get dibs on the larger cottage. Unless she and Quinn moved into the house he was building.
But now wasn’t the time to think about that. They had less than two weeks to get this place ready for their first official guests, at which time they would all be sleeping on the hardwood floor of an unfinished two-bedroom cabin that still reeked of paint, sawdust, and refinishing fumes.
Her phone trilled from its charger in her bedroom and she raced down the hall to get it.
Her boss. Trent almost never called her at home, but when he did, it was to ask her to come back in to work. She wanted to pretend she hadn’t seen his call, but the truth was, she could use the overtime pay. And tonight, she didn’t really have a good excuse anyway. She pressed Accept. “Hi, Trent.”
“Hey, Joanna. Sorry to bother you at home, but we’ve got a bit of an emergency here. Could you come in for a couple of hours?”
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “What time were you thinking?”
“Right now, actually. The sooner the better.” Something in Trent’s voice gave her pause.
“Oh. Okay. Yes. I guess I can come in. Is this—”
The line went dead. Now that was the Trenton Pritchert she knew. Never give anyone a chance to argue or even ask questions. At least she hadn’t changed out of her work clothes. She blew out a sigh and went to the kitchen to find Britt.
“I’ve got to go back in to work.”
“You just got home.”
“Tell me about it.” She grabbed her purse and fished her keys out of its depths. “I might be late. Don’t worry about me.”
“Never do,” Britt deadpanned.
“Liar.” Her baby sister was a consummate worry wart. Or at least had become one since the onset of their mother’s three-year battle with pancreatic cancer. It had been more than five months now since they’d lost Mom—almost half a year—and sometimes it still seemed the grief was as fresh as it had been that dark day last fall.
Pushing away the image of her mom lying in the hospital bed at home, eyes sunken and complexion ashen, she closed the door behind her and climbed into her car. She’d purposefully parked in the shade but now—looking at the windshield—she realized the cooler interior came at the expense of a deluge of bird droppings. Shoot! Quinn had warned her not to park under the trees once spring came.
But driving beneath the leafy canopy that rambled out to Poplar Brook Road, she couldn’t muster one regret that they’d bought this idyllic property. It had been hard work and brought with it some difficult adjustments, especially where her sisters were concerned. But she loved this place as much as if she’d grown up here. And she had ideas about what their little investment venture could become—even if her sisters didn’t quite share her enthusiasm.
She drove through the carwash at the edge of town before heading for the law office where she’d worked the past three years. She’d just started law school at Columbia when Mom was diagnosed. And though her career had been sidelined, she was grateful she’d found a job in the legal field as Trenton Pritchert’s administrative assistant. If nothing else, when she finally was able to return to law school, she’d be going in with a more realistic picture of what an attorney did all day.
Pulling into the parking lot of the business complex, Jo was surprised to see Trent’s SUV in the front lot. Even more surprising, Cinda, Trent’s wife, had parked her ten-year-old—but pristine—Saab beside him. That was odd. They both had reserved covered parking near the back entrance.
Leaving one space between her and the Saab, Jo pressed the lock button on her key fob and hurried into the building. The downstairs lobby echoed with emptiness on this Monday night after business hours.
Clutching the hem of her skirt, she took the stairs two at a time, her footfalls echoing in the concrete space. She reached the third floor out of breath, growing more concerned by the minute. Something felt . . . off.
As she opened the door to Trent’s office suite a woman’s wailing, an eerie keening, carried down the plush carpeted hallway, sending chills up Joanna’s spine.

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