CHAPTER 1

“Got a minute?” Traci Eddings looked up from the spreadsheet of doom that she’d been studying. Her GM was standing just outside her office doorway, and from the pained expression on his usually sunny countenance she knew the news wasn’t good.

Charlie Burroughs had worked at the Saint since the age of fourteen, and he was in his early sixties now. His face, wreathed in wrinkles and sun blotches, was a roadmap of all the disasters he’d witnessed: the 1972 hurricane that had peeled the roof off the main lodge; the food poisoning debacle in the men’s grill in 1988; the drought of 1996, when temperatures had hovered in the nineties for thirty-seven days straight and a watering ban had burned every blade of turf on the golf course. He’d seen the Saint through stuff nobody talked about, stuff that still made Traci shudder. Charlie had been there the summer of 2001, when the red tide had caused a massive fish kill resulting in three tons of dead fish washed up on the beach, and of course, the plane crash four years ago that had claimed the life of Hoke Eddings and transformed her into a widow at the age of forty.

Charlie had been a tower of strength to Traci in the years that followed.

Traci pushed her reading glasses into her hair and waved him inside, pointing at the chair across from Hoke’s desk. Well, her desk now.

“Do I even want to know?” She rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes.

“Mehdi’s leaving us,” Charlie said as soon as he was seated. “Accepted an offer at that new resort up the coast.”

“Nooo,” Traci moaned. “Not Mehdi.”

“Afraid so. And of course, Sam is going with her.”

“Which means I’m out my guest relations director, as well as a chef who went to culinary school on our dime,” Traci said. She looked over at Charlie. “Is it definite? I mean, could we offer them both a raise, some kind of incentive to persuade them to stay on?”

“No. Mehdi showed me their offer. It’s stupid money and she’d be stupid not to take it. Hell, I’d take it if they were looking for a washed-up old grouch with a bad knee.”

“You’re not that old,” Traci said. “But don’t kid yourself. I happen to know you can’t cook for shit.”

“Memorial Day is only a month away,” Charlie said gloomily. “We were already shorthanded, and now we’re losing two of our best.”

“So we’ll hire some more help,” Traci said unconvincingly.

“From where? The spring hiring fair was a bust. High school kids don’t want to spend a summer sweating their balls off as lifeguards or caddies or housekeepers.”

“Like you and I did,” Traci put in.

“The locals are all going to tennis camp in Florida, or doing TikTok videos for an energy drink that costs eleven bucks a bottle. Have you seen all the businesses in the village with HELP WANTED signs in their windows? Everybody’s hiring but nobody wants to work.”

“Maybe we need to try something different,” Traci said. “Can we recruit from farther away? We’re a beach resort, Charlie. Who doesn’t want to spend the summer at the beach?”

“We could, but where are these kids from Sumpter or Jacksonville going to live? It ain’t like it was when you were growing up here. Do you have any idea what the rents around here are now? Folks who used to rent to our summer help have turned their cottages or garage apartments into short-term vacation rentals.”

She swiveled her chair around and stared out the office window at the postcard-pretty view of the Saint Cecelia, the venerable beach resort and country club that had been founded by her late husband’s grandfather in the Roaring Twenties.

Nestled on a tiny private island off the Georgia coast, the Saint, as it was known locally and formally, had been a mainstay destination for generations of upper-crust families who’d flocked there for over a hundred years. If Traci squinted, she could see the pink-and- white candy-striped cabanas that lined the beach. And if she leaned out her office window, she might spot white-garbed players whacking croquet balls on the “village green” that had been added to the resort in the postwar years. One thing that had changed little over the decades was the presence of designer-clad moms watching as their little darlings splashed in the pool, while dads sipped martinis and plotted business deals après-golf at the Watering Hole lounge.

The golf course was lush and green, and just beyond the beach club and pool was a wide, sandy strip of shore and the shimmering green Atlantic.

If she closed her eyes she could almost picture walking along the beach, hand in hand with Hoke, after their first real date. Even at twenty-nine, he’d been so awkward, so tentative, bumbling even, in an adorable way, as he pulled her behind a palm tree for a kiss. Reliving the moment, she felt the inevitable lump in her throat and was glad her back was to Charlie.

“Traci?” Charlie’s voice brought her back to her present-day problems.

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

“Housing. What if we turned the old golf cart barn into a sort of dorm? Like the one everybody stayed in back in the day.”

“The one from back in the day that was a firetrap? That the county would have condemned if your father-in-law hadn’t paid off the inspectors?”

“Not like that,” she said firmly. “There are bathrooms in the cart barn, right? One for caddies and one for guests?”

“There were. The roof on that barn is falling in, Traci. The electrical wasn’t up to code when it was built, so it sure as hell ain’t gonna meet code now. It wasn’t fit to house golf carts, which is why we built a new one, and it sure as hell ain’t fit to house our summer help.”

“We’ll put a new roof on it, bring the electrical up to code, get some of those splitter heat and air units, like the ones we put up in the cottages by the lagoon.”

Charlie shook his head. “You want all that done in less than a month? You know what that’ll cost? In materials and labor?”

“You know what it’ll cost if we have to delay—or even cancel opening up by Memorial Day? How much money we’ll lose? You remember the pandemic? We’re still bleeding red ink. Now, we’ve got an almost fully booked summer season ahead of us, Charlie. We can’t afford to take that kind of a financial hit.”

His mouth opened to protest, but then he thought better of it.

“What’s the absolute minimum number we need to be staffed up?” Traci pressed. “How many more bodies do we need?”

“Nine would be ideal. But I guess, if we offer overtime, and maybe come up with some decent signing incentives, we could do with seven. But no less than that.”

“Some of the hotels out by the interstate are offering signing bonuses to new employees, or current employees who recruit someone new,” Traci said. “Maybe we could try something like that.”

“I can make some calls,” Charlie said. “Chefs come and go all the time. We can find somebody in the kitchen, but as for the front desk…”

She swiveled back around. “I’ll talk to Parrish.”

“I don’t know if that’s a great idea,” Charlie said slowly. “How will it look to the rest of the staff if you install your niece in a high-visibility job like that?”

“It’ll look like this is a family-owned company and she’s family,” Traci said.

Charlie clearly wasn’t in favor of the idea. “Didn’t I hear something about her spending the summer in Europe?”

“I’ll talk to her,” Traci said firmly. “But if you see Ric? Don’t mention it, understand?”

“Got it.” Charlie didn’t need to ask any more questions. He’d worked for the Eddings family all this time; he knew where all the bodies were buried. Literally. Like her, he’d grown up in the business. Traci knew he’d do whatever it took to keep the Saint afloat. Just as she would.

CHAPTER 2

Parrish Eddings watched from her bedroom window as her father’s car sped backward down the sloping driveway. She heard the gears of the Porsche grind as Ric slammed it into first gear and raced away. Toward where?

“Anywhere but here,” she whispered aloud. Downstairs, she heard her stepmother slamming things. Pots and pans in the kitchen. She heard the sound of a glass shattering. The front door closed heavily with a thud, then reopened and slammed again. And again.

Just another typical Monday. No telling what the fight was about. Madelyn’s new kitten, a Himalayan, refused to use the litter box, preferring the clothes Ric inevitably left on their bedroom floor. Or maybe it was about Ric’s late hours. She’d heard him creeping up the stairs at 3:15 A.M. on Sunday night.

More likely it was about money. Madelyn no longer cared about her husband’s comings and goings. She’d known exactly what she was getting when she married Ric. Or so she thought.

Parrish went back to her packing. Her clothes were folded and arranged in tidy little piles atop her neatly made bed in her very adorable bedroom, which Madelyn had decorated without Parrish’s consent or input, after marrying Ric.

She could never pin down why she hated this room so much. She loved soft teal, aquas, and pale pinks, which was the current color palette. The bed was big and soft, and the first time she’d brought a boy home to it, she’d delighted in imagining what Madelyn would say if she’d known all the things they’d done atop that fluffy down duvet.

It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Back to packing. She’d given herself a strict mandate: the medium-sized rolling suitcase, and her backpack. Anything more she needed in Europe, she could buy. With her own damn money. She couldn’t wait to wave goodbye to the drama and the trauma of the Ric and Maddy show. Whee!

When her phone rang she almost didn’t pick up, but when she saw the caller ID, her resolve softened.

“Heyyyy,” Traci said.

Parrish’s body relaxed at the sound of her favorite aunt’s voice. Traci was on her side, always and forever. They were a team.

“Got plans for lunch?” Traci asked.

“I’m packing, but I guess I could take a break. What did you have in mind?”

“I’ll pick you up in ten,” Traci said. “And hey, this is just us. Right? Your dad and stepmom don’t need to know our plans.”

“As if,” Parrish said. “I’ll meet you down by the mailbox. You know what a sneaky little spy Madelyn can be.”

* * *

Traci took the coast road and they ended up at BluePointe, a new planned development fifteen miles north of the Saint.

“Checking out the competition?” Parrish asked as they walked toward the restaurant, which was located in the middle of the resort’s faux village of expensive shops and food trucks.

“Something like that. I’ll tell you after we’ve ordered.”

Parrish’s spidy-sense antennae were activated. Her aunt was being deliberately evasive.

They waited at the hostess stand for five minutes before a harried server rushed up and showed them to a table, handing them vinyl-covered menus that were sticky with what smelled like maple syrup.

“Ick.” Parrish pushed her menu away, squirting her hands from the tiny bottle of hand sanitizer she kept in her purse. “Since when does a fine dining restaurant hand customers a plastic menu? These aren’t exactly Waffle House prices, right?”

Traci was watching the server, who looked to be around Parrish’s age: petite, with white-blond hair chopped chin-length, and a tattoo of some sort peeking out from the short sleeve of her uniform blouse. “Looks like they’re shorthanded too. No valet parking. No hostess.” She nodded toward the steam table prominently displayed in the middle of the room. “And a lunch buffet. Not a healthy sign.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Parrish said. “Thanks but no thanks to the wilted iceberg lettuce and freeze-dried bacon bits and your gross gravy- covered chicken. I’ll just have a nineteen-dollar club sandwich. They can’t screw that up. Right?”

Traci laughed. “Nobody would ever know you were raised in the business.”

The server reappeared. “You ladies want the buffet? We have baked cod today. And fried shrimp!”

Parrish shuddered. “Just a club sandwich. And iced tea.”

“I’ll have the same,” Traci added. “No mayo on my bread.”

“Fries or coleslaw?”

“Fries,” the women said in unison.

They watched the girl hurry away. “How long has this place been open?” Parrish asked.

“Not even a year. You wouldn’t believe all the free publicity they got when they opened. The Atlanta paper sent reporters down. Southern Living did a piece because they hired some fancy chef away from a restaurant in Buckhead.” She looked around the dining room.

“See that wallpaper, and those window treatments? That’s Scalamandré, the paper and the fabric, done in a custom colorway too, which makes it even more ungodly expensive. I priced that same fabric out when we redid the garden room at the hotel years ago, and when I gave Hoke the quote he almost had a myocardial infarction.”

Parrish laughed. “Yeah, Uncle Hoke was not one to throw money around, that’s for sure.”

“All the same, that year, for my birthday, he had a pillow made out of that same fabric, sort of as a joke, but I loved it. Loved that he remembered, loved that he made the gesture,” Traci said.

Parrish needed to change the subject before her aunt got all misty-eyed the way she still did, even though Hoke had been gone for four years now.

“That poor girl,” Parrish murmured, nodding in the direction of their server as she hustled back toward the kitchen. “I think she’s the only one working this dining room today. I hope they at least let her keep all her tips.”

Their server brought their orders a few minutes later. Traci lifted the top slice of bread on her sandwich and sighed. “I knew it. Absolutely plastered with mayonnaise.” She set the bread aside and attacked the sandwich with knife and fork.

Parrish held up a pale, limp French fry. “Straight out of the freezer bag. I guess they must have waved it in the direction of the deep fryer before they plated up this mess.”

“Never mind,” Traci said, sipping her tea. “I’ve got something important I need to discuss with you.” She took a deep breath.

Parrish felt her stomach do a flip-flop. She grabbed for her aunt’s hand. “Traci? What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

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