Butterfly Cove. Christina Skye

      “That’s right.”

      “This is for you.” The man turned around and walked away before she could ask who he was or why he had left an envelope on her desk.

      Olivia looked down and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache begin. But those were nothing new. For months she had been working ten-hour days and she still had no idea whether she’d be kept on after her one-year assessment was done.

      She picked up the envelope and turned it over. She saw a woman across the hall glance across at her uncertainly and then look away.

      Olivia suddenly knew what was waiting inside that envelope. She frowned and tore open the cheap paper. She saw a check inside, her salary for the last pay period. The amount was prorated to end exactly at noon that day. Beneath the pay stub with her total accrued hours, Olivia saw a letter typed on company letterhead.

      Dear Olivia Sullivan,

      Notice of termination is hereby given. Enclosed check will serve as final wages due.

      Thank you for your services.

      Olivia stared at the impersonal, stamped signature of the company’s president. Thank you for your services?

      After eight months of drudgery, this was all she got? Thank you for your services and a pay stub?

      She folded and unfolded the sheet, feeling the blood drain from her face. Couldn’t someone have had the decency to sign her letter himself? Was an actual signature too much to ask? Or even a phone call from someone in Personnel?

      With shaking fingers she gathered her reference books and papers and drafting pens. Quickly she slid her framed picture of Summer Island into the knitting bag she kept hidden in the bottom drawer. Professional women did not knit in public, at least not while at the office. Knitting needles made people uncomfortable, an employment officer had told her quietly. It had to do with the sharp points and the quick movements.

      Olivia grabbed the bag and swung it over her shoulder like a flag of angry protest. Maybe some people ought to be made uncomfortable.

      A security guard showed up two minutes later. When you gave someone the boot, the security guard was there to collect their keys and badges and escort them out of the building. Olivia knew the drill.

      She had just never expected to be on the receiving end.

      Silently she gathered her other belongings and marched outside with her head held high. She met no one’s eyes. She didn’t speak on the way down in the elevator or on her angry walk to her car, where she dumped her box and knitting and then sank into the driver’s seat.

      The guard left. But Olivia sat white-faced and shaking, trying to figure out how her life could possibly get any worse, and what she was going to do to dig herself out of the looming disaster that her father had left behind after his death.

      And now she had lost her job. Something burned at her eyelids. She gripped the steering wheel hard and told herself to stay strong.

      But it wasn’t working. She didn’t feel strong. A wave of panic struck and Olivia closed her eyes, knowing what would come next when her anxiety grew into a sickening wave.

      She had to get home.

      She had to find the only place where she had ever felt safe and the friends who had been her anchor through uncertainty and pain. Her hands tightened. Summer Island was waiting for her in the mist, golden in the morning sun.

      Olivia had driven the road south many times before, but this was different. This time she was going home.

      For good.

      Oregon Coast

      Late afternoon

      THIRTY MILES SOUTH of the Oregon border, the fog appeared. Olivia opened her window and drank in the smells of salt and sea, feeling the wind comb through her hair. The sun was gone and shadows touched the coast. Waves boiled up over black rocks where seals and otters fished in clusters.

      A small sign pointed out the turn to the coast road. Her heart kicked up as she saw the misty outline of hills and trees ahead.

      Summer Island’s only bridge was half-veiled in fog when she turned south and rounded the curve at the top of the island. Olivia looked up, entranced by the big house that glowed in the twilight. Stained glass panels lit the front of the tall Victorian building above the harbor. Freshly painted, the long pier shepherded fishing boats that Olivia knew from childhood.

      Princess of Storms.

      Sea King.

      Bella Luna.

      The boats rocked at anchor, secure in the harbor. Warmth touched Olivia at the familiar sight. Summer Island never seemed to change, and she liked that sense of certainty. Slowly she drove along the cobbled streets and turned at the magnificent old building that she and her friends had renovated with loving care.

      Imposing in a new coat of paint, the Harbor House gleamed in the twilight, its new windows blazing above the freshly restored porch. Strains of Chopin drifted from the open French doors above the side lawn filled with late-summer roses.

      Home.

      This beautiful old house with all its vibrant colors and inspiring energy.

      Not the big modern house where Olivia had grown up, struggling to make her way through childhood, always too tall and too shy for her critical father. She had never been smart enough to suit her father. He had always expected more and more from her and never showed much real pleasure in any of her accomplishments. He seemed happiest when he was alone, working in his office, a phone in one hand and a keyboard in the other, barking out negotiations for a real estate deal. When he wasn’t working, he liked to give big, elegant parties in the house on the cliffs, gathering smart, sophisticated guests who left Olivia feeling awkward and tongue-tied.

      No, her safety lay here in the Harbor House. She had always dreamed about restoring the old rooms with her three oldest friends.

      And they had done it. A new wrought-iron sign swung in the wind, a cat holding a ball of yarn. Olivia smiled and grabbed her big knitting bag and suitcase, following the steep steps up to the front porch. At the top she was greeted by shelf after shelf of bright yarns, glowing through the front windows.

      Island Yarns.

      Her title. Her concept. Her joy. With her job gone, she could finally focus on the new shop. But how long would her money last? And then what would she do, with the employment market for architects so depressed?

      The big blue door swung open and her friend Jilly O’Hara looked out. Jilly’s big white dog barked in the doorway as she peered over the porch. “Livie? Is that you?”

      Olivia walked up through the twilight past bobbing roses and fragrant lavender and boxes of glowing geraniums. “It’s me. Everything looks wonderful, Jilly. I love that new sign for the yarn shop.”

      “Caro and I found it in yesterday’s mail. We’d ordered it weeks ago. Walker helped us hang it. We put out another shipment of yarn today, too.” Jilly frowned at her friend. “I didn’t expect you here until next week. Is everything okay?”

      “Just perfect.” Olivia forced a smile to hide her worry.

      As always, she smiled brightly and stayed calm; the habit was too old to change now. She kept her smile solidly in place as she swung her bag over one shoulder and turned to study the roses above the pier and the restless sea. “I love this place. It always makes me feel so alive, as if everything is possible.”

      Jilly stood beside her, watching a hummingbird shoot over the roses. “Same for me. Even when the house was a wreck and the garden thick with weeds, this view could sweep me away.”

      The two women stood for long minutes in the twilight while the sea wind danced through their hair and they savored old memories. Then the hummingbird zipped away and Jilly swung around, frowning at Olivia’s big suitcase. “Why so much stuff for a short visit? Did