The first ten chapters are free on Kindle Vella. You can read the chapters at https://amzn.to/3zw0kkH.
Teaser
Rose, Casey, and Nita were best friends until tragedy sent them on different paths but now they’re back in their quaint Jersey Shore town, trying to rebuild their lives. Anger and alcohol drove Rose from a successful chef’s career in New York City. Casey’s lifelong home, a family-run inn, is in danger of foreclosure. An unexpected but much-wanted pregnancy has Nita seeking peace and balance. Together the three women will find the everyday happiness they thought could no longer be theirs.
Excerpt
Prologue
The tide had gone out hours earlier, leaving the sand beneath the pier damp against her bare skin.
Scratchy as Rose wiggled her butt to try and get comfortable, while beside her Catalina almost jumped with nervous excitement, harshing Rose’s pleasant buzz.
She and her friends had snuck a few drinks at an end-of-summer party, a last blast together before they all headed their separate ways just before Labor Day.
Nita would be going to Columbia while Catalina would be heading south to Philly for Drexel. Casey was staying local, doing the community college route so she could continue to help her grandmother run the inn where they lived and worked.
Rose was counting the days until she went to the Culinary Institute of America and then hopefully to a chef’s gig in Manhattan. Maybe she and Nita could even hang out there. Have Casey and Catalina visit.
Catalina, Rose thought again as her friend jostled her.
“What’s up with you? You’re as jumpy as a cat,” she teased, glancing over at her friend and then toward Casey and Nita, who were lying a few feet away on the beach. Moonlight bathed their bodies with silvery light, making them appear ghostly. Like they were already drifting away from her. They were her two best friends in all the world, but in less than a week, they’d be gone. Catalina, too, although as she banged into her again, it might be welcome.
“Come on, Cat. Chill,” she urged and playfully elbowed her friend.
“Ssshhh, I am chill. I’m rolling,” Catalina said, a little too loudly, a finger pressed to her lips. Her words slightly slurred.
Rose narrowed her gaze and peered at her friend. Even in the dim light beneath the pier, it was impossible to miss that her pupils were dilated and beads of sweat dotted her upper lip.
“Rolling?” Rose asked, unfamiliar with the phrase.
“Ssh,” Catalina hissed again, turned toward her, and dug her hand into her board short pocket. When she pulled her hand out and opened it up, she held what looked like a candy necklace on a string. “My happy candy. Want one?”
Happy candy? Rose wondered, worry totally wrecking the last remnants of the beer buzz she’d had just seconds earlier.
But before she could do anything, Catalina jumped to her feet and said, “It’s hot. Too hot.”
As warm as the summer day had been, a cool nighttime breeze bathed the beachfront, creating even more worry inside Rose that something was not right with her friend.
When Catalina rushed out from beneath the pier, Rose chased after her, calling out, “Cat. Come on, Cat. Wait for me.”
But Catalina was fast. Way faster than Rose had ever seen and by the time she caught up with Catalina, her friend was at the tip of the pier. At one time fencing around a small fishing club shack kept people from wandering to the very end, but Hurricane Sandy had swept away the fence and the shack. Over a decade later, a new pier had risen from the ocean.
“Get down, Cat,” she shouted as her friend climbed up on the railing and precariously balanced on the edge, barely staying upright.
The planks of the pier vibrated beneath her feet as Nita and Casey ran up to join her, also admonishing their friend to get down. The vibrations continued as others from the nearby boardwalk came to help.
“Please, Cat. Please,” she said and slowly inched toward her friend, but Cat teetered on the edge with her approach, arms outstretched for balance. As Cat rocked unsteadily from side to side, Rose stopped short, afraid that any movement might distract her friend and make her fall.
“I’m so hot and the water is so nice. So nice,” she said, staring down at the waves lapping up beneath the pier.
“Shit. Don’t do it, Cat,” Nita called out and Casey added her warning, “It’s not safe, Cat. Please come down. Please.”
Catalina smiled dreamily, eyes unfocused, and said, “So nice.” She opened her arms wider, fingers stretching and wiggling. Staring up at the night sky, she smiled and dove off the railing.