Tessa groaned and twisted her hands. Would Felicity think Tessa was cool if she arrived to find her on a horse, or would she think she was dinky? Neither one of the horses was exactly Black Beauty.

  “Tessa?” Mont called down. “Would you do me a favor and bring me a glass of water?”

  “Sure, Grandpops.”

  Tessa raced into the kitchen, glad for something to do. The kitchen smelled even better than the outside. Mont had made coffeecake this morning, one of Madeline’s recipes, with walnuts and brown sugar and tons of butter. He’d made two, actually, and good thing, because Tessa had already eaten almost half of one.

  She got a glass down from the cupboard, then another one. Dad was probably thirsty, too. As she stood, holding them under the tap, she looked at the postcard held to the refrigerator with magnets. Two different shots of Washington, D.C. One at day, one at night.

  Tessa’s mother rocked. She was doing so much cool stuff. Her picture was in the Globe like all the time. People thought she might be a senator someday, or even a vice president of the entire United States. Everyone at school wanted to be Tessa’s friend because of her mother. And the weird thing was that now when Anne took Tessa with her to do her political stuff, Tessa actually enjoyed it. She didn’t even mind wearing those dorky dresses. And her mom was happy, so happy she hadn’t even criticized Tessa for gaining weight.

  As Tessa carried the glasses of water out to the barn, she saw a silver Subaru come down the road. She looked down at her tummy. What if this Felicity was, like, thin? Would she think Tessa was fat? Would she think that Tessa, in her jeans and T-shirt and riding boots, was geeky? Would she even talk to Tessa? Maybe she’d just snort and roll her eyes and go in the house and watch television. What would Tessa do then? She was kind of terrified.

  Kelly steered her car down the gravel lane, bringing it neatly to a stop next to Randall’s Jeep.

  “Look. Horses,” Felicity said. “Cool.”

  “Ummm,” Kelly agreed. Her voice wasn’t working. Her face felt hot. She hadn’t been this excited, and hopeful, and terrified since—well, since her swearing-in ceremony.

  Felicity got out of the car, slamming the door. Kelly got out and went to the trunk. She’d brought cider doughnuts she and Felicity had made the night before. She lifted the basket out, glad to have something to do.

  “Hey!” Randall came out of the barn. He wore jeans, boots, and a blue denim shirt with bits of straw stuck to it here and there. His hair was as golden as the sun, and over the past few days he’d acquired a sunburn across his nose and cheeks. “Hi, Felicity.” Without any self-consciousness at all, he enveloped the girl in a hug. “Good to see you.”

  “You, too,” Felicity muttered.

  “Hey, beauty,” Randall said to Kelly. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

  “We made doughnuts,” Kelly said.

  He looked down at the basket in her arms. “Great.”

  “Kelly!” Mont strode toward them, a handsome man, tall and distinguished-looking. “Good to see you again, Kelly. And you must be Felicity.”

  Felicity stood paralyzed.

  Mont didn’t try to shake Felicity’s hand, but gave her a great big smile, then went right up to Kelly and gave her a hug. “How’s business, Judge?”

  “Frantic,” Kelly said. “It was an exhausting week. I can’t tell you how glad I am to be out here in the fresh air.”

  “Well, as a doctor, can I advise some physical therapy? There’s nothing like good hard labor to take your mind off your work.”

  “Pay no attention to him, Kelly,” Randall said, laughing. “He’s just trying to get out of lifting all those bales of hay.”

  “Actually,” Mont said, “I was thinking that if Kelly could help you, I could take Felicity and Tessa with me over to the Meyers’. They’ve got some six-week-old pups. Lab-and-husky mix. I was thinking we ought to get one for the farm. Maybe two.” He looked at Felicity. “Do you like dogs, Felicity?”

  “I don’t know,” Felicity replied. “I’ve never had one.”

  “Ever ridden a horse?”

  “No.”

  “City girl, huh. Well, come on over and meet our horses. Don’t be afraid. They’re big, but pet their noses and give them an apple, and they’ll follow you anywhere.”

  “Where did Tessa go?” Randall asked.

  “I don’t know. Tessa?”

  Mont led them across the yard to the pasture. They leaned on the white boards, looking at the two horses who grazed idly nearby, their ears pricked in expectation.

  “The gray one’s Blue Boy,” Mont said. “The chestnut’s Frisk.”

  At their names, the horses snickered softly and ambled over to the fence, sniffing the air.

  Behind them, the screen door slammed. They all turned to see Tessa coming toward them, a bunch of carrots in her hands.

  Her blond hair was braided and fastened with colored rubber bands. She wore a baggy T-shirt, blue jeans, and boots. Her cheeks were pink, her nose sprinkled with freckles. She was tall for her age, and slender.

  “Hi,” she said, approaching the group.

  “Tessa,” Randall said. “This is my friend, Kelly. And her sister, Felicity.”

  “Hi,” Tessa said to Kelly, flashing a careless smile. Her attention was drawn to Felicity, lounging against a fencepost. “Do you like to ride horses?”

  “I don’t know,” Felicity said. “I’ve never tried.”

  “Want to try?”

  Felicity shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.”

  “Here,” Tessa said, holding out a carrot. “You give one to Frisk, and I’ll give one to Blue Boy. Then they’ll be our slaves for life.”

  Felicity took a carrot.

  “Like this,” Tessa said, holding the carrot flat on the palm of her hand.

  Tessa stretched out her hand. Felicity stretched out hers. The horses leaned out their powerful necks, drew back their rubbery lips, and picked the carrots up in their long yellow teeth.

  “Good boys,” Mont said.

  “Their breath tickles!” Felicity whispered.

  “Want another?” Tessa asked.

  “Yeah.” Felicity reached out and took another carrot from Tessa. “Here, Frisk,” she said.

  Randall looked over at Kelly and smiled.

  Some days, Kelly thought, are more important than others. Some days you wake with your heart pounding and your hopes higher than the sky. Some days you know you are exactly where you are meant to be.

  For my lovely mother, Jane Findly Wright Patton, and for my lovely mother-in-law, Martha Johnson Walters

  Acknowledgments

  I couldn’t have written this book without the assistance of many informed and generous people.

  My deepest gratitude and most profound admiration to: the Honorable Sheila E. McGovern, First Justice of the Middlesex County Probate and Family Court; the Honorable Beverly W. Boorstein, Associate Justice of the Middlesex County Probate and Family Court; the Honorable Angela Maria Ordonez, First Justice of the Nantucket County Probate and Family Court; and the Honorable Paula Marie Carey, Associate Justice of the Middlesex County Probate and Family Court.

  I am tremendously indebted to Sylvia Howard, Register of Probate, Nantucket County Probate and Family Court, for her kindness, knowledge, inspiration, and assistance.

  Enormous thanks go to Jennifer Maggiacomo, Assistant Register of Probate, and Maria Nannini-Dunn, Assistant Register of Probate, Middlesex County Probate and Family Court.

  Many thanks to Sophia C. O’Brien, M.Ed., Chief Probation Officer, and Kevin Coughlin, M.A., Assistant Chief Probation Officer, Middlesex County Probate and Family Court.

  Also to Barbara B. Hauser, LICSW, Director, Family Service Clinic, Sherry B. Moss, M.A., clinical social worker, and Adam Rosen, J.D., Ph.D., licensed clinical psychologist.

  Thanks also to A1 Moses, Assistant Chief Court Officer, and Joe Barbati, Court Officer, Middlesex County Probate and Family Court.

  Much appreciation to Massachusetts State Representative James Marzilli.

  On Nantucket, my thanks to Kevin Dale, attorney. Also, to Tim Howard, Court Officer; Michelle Cranston, First Assistant Register; and Susan D. Beamish, Deputy Assistant Register of the Nantucket County Probate and Family Court.

  I send my thanks to Dr. Elizabeth Panke, Director, Genetica DNA Laboratories.

  Many thanks to librarian Susan Pitard, for her help in understanding twelve-year-old girls.

  Thanks to the multi-talented Buzz Williams and the beautiful Min Adinolfi, and to George Hull.

  Many thanks to my editor, Jennifer Weis, and my agent, Emma Sweeney.

  And as always, much love and continuing gratitude to Josh Thayer, Sam Wilde, Dionis Gauvin, Jill Hunter Wickes, Pam Pindell, Martha Foshee, and my husband, Charley Walters.

  BY NANCY THAYER

  Nantucket Sisters

  A Nantucket Christmas

  Island Girls

  Summer Breeze

  Heat Wave

  Beachcombers

  Summer House

  Moon Shell Beach

  The Hot Flash Club Chills Out

  Hot Flash Holidays

  The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again

  The Hot Flash Club

  Custody

  Between Husbands and Friends

  An Act of Love

  Family Secrets

  Everlasting

  My Dearest Friend

  Spirit Lost

  Morning

  Nell

  Bodies and Souls

  Three Women at the Water’s Edge

  Stepping

  Nancy Thayer is the New York Times bestselling author of Island Girls, Summer Breeze, Heat Wave, Beachcombers, Summer House, Moon Shell Beach, and The Hot Flash Club. She lives in Nantucket.

  nancythayer.com

  Facebook.com/NancyThayerAuthor

  Read on for an excerpt from Nancy Thayer’s

  Nantucket Sisters

  Ballantine Books

  It’s like a morning in Heaven. From a blue sky, the sun, fat and buttery as one a child would draw in school, shines down on a sapphire ocean. Eleven-year-old Emily Porter stands at the edge of a cliff high above the beach, her blond hair rippled by a light breeze.

  The edge of the cliff is an abrupt, jagged border, into which a small landing is built, with railings you can lean against, looking out at the sea. Before her, weathered wooden steps cut back and forth down the steep bluff to the beach.

  Behind her lies the grassy lawn and their large gray summer house, so different from their apartment on East 86th in New York City.

  Last night, as the Porters flew away from Manhattan, Emily looked down on the familiar fantastic panorama of sparkling lights, urging the plane onward with her excitement, with her longing to see the darkness and then, in the distance, the flash and flare of the lighthouse beacons.

  Nantucket begins today.

  Today, while her father plays golf and her beautiful mother, Cara, organizes the house, Emily is free to do as she pleases. And what she’s waited for all winter is to run down the street into the small village of ’Sconset and along the narrow path to the cottages in Codfish Park, where she’ll knock on Maggie’s door.

  First, she waves back at the ocean. Next, she turns and runs, half skipping, waving her arms, singing. She exults in the soft grass under her feet instead of hard sidewalk, salt air in her lungs instead of soot, the laughter of gulls instead of the blare of car horns, and the sweet perfume of new dawn roses.

  She flies along past the old town water pump, past the ’Sconset Market, past the post office, past Claudette’s Box Lunches. Down the steep cobblestoned hill to Codfish Park. Here, the houses used to be shacks where fishermen spread their nets to dry, so the roofs are low and the walls are ramshackle. Maggie’s house is a crooked, funny little place, but roses curl over the roof, morning glories climb up a trellis, and pansy faces smile from window boxes.

  Before she can knock, the door flies open.

  “Emily!” Maggie’s hair’s been cut into an elf’s cap and she’s taller than Emily now, and she has more freckles over her nose and cheeks.

  Behind Maggie stands Maggie’s mother, Frances, wearing a red sundress with an apron over it. Emily’s never seen anyone but caterers and cooks wear an apron. It has lots of pockets. It makes Maggie’s mother look like someone from a book.

  “You’re here!” Maggie squeals.

  “Welcome back, Emily.” Frances smiles. “Come in. I’ve made gingerbread.”

  The fragrant scent of ginger and sugar wafts out enticingly from the house, which is, Emily admits privately to her own secret self, the strangest place Emily’s ever seen. The living room’s in the kitchen; the sofa, armchairs, television set, and coffee table, all covered with books and games, are just on the other side of the round table from the sink and appliances. In the dining room, a sewing machine stands on a long table, and piles of fabric bloom from every surface in a crazy hodgepodge. Frances is divorced and makes her living as a seamstress, which is why Emily’s parents aren’t crazy about her friendship with Maggie, who is only a poor island girl.

  But Maggie and Emily have been best friends since they met on the beach when they were five years old. With Maggie, Emily is her true self. Maggie understands Emily in a way her parents never could. Now that the girls are growing up, Emily senses change in the air—but not yet. Not yet. There is still this summer ahead.

  And summer lasts forever.

  “I’d love some gingerbread, thank you, Mrs. McIntyre,” Emily says politely.

  “Oh, holy moly, call her Frances.” Maggie tugs on Emily’s hand and pulls her into the house.

  Maggie acts blasé and bossy around Emily, but the truth is, she’s always kind of astounded at the friendship she and Emily have created. Emily Porter is rich, the big fat New York/Nantucket rich.

  In comparison, Maggie’s family is just plain poor. The McIntyres live on Nantucket year-round but are considered off-islanders, “wash-ashores,” because they weren’t born on the island. They came from Boston, where Frances grew up, met and married Billy McIntyre, and had two children with him. Soon after, they divorced, and he disappeared from their lives. When Maggie was a year old, Frances moved them all to the island, because she’d heard the island needed a good seamstress. She’s made a decent living for them—some women call Frances “a treasure.”

  Still, it’s hard. It isn’t that kids made fun of Maggie at school. Lots of kids don’t have fathers, or have fathers who live in different houses or states. It’s a personal thing. The sight of a television show, even a television ad, with a little girl running to greet her father when he returns from work at the end of the day, or a bride in her white wedding gown being twirled on the dance floor by her beaming, loving father, can make a sadness stab through her all the way down into her stomach.

  Plus, her life is so cramped by their lack of money.

  When a friend asks her to go to a movie in the summer at the Dreamland Theater, Maggie always says no, thanks. She can’t ask her mom for the money. In the winter, when friends take a plane off island to Hyannis where they stay in a motel and swim in the heated pools and see movies on huge screens and shop at the mall, they ask Maggie along, but she never can go. She hates the things her mom makes for her out of leftover material saved from dresses she’s sewn for grown women. Frances always tries to make the clothes look like those bought in stores, but they aren’t bought in stores, and Maggie, and everyone else, knows it.

  Frances never makes her brother Ben wear homemade stuff. Ben always gets store-bought clothes—and nice ones, ones that all the other guys wear. Their mom knows Ben would walk stark naked into the school before he’d wear a single shirt stitched up by his mother. Ben’s two years older than Maggie, and bright, perhaps brilliant—that’s what his teachers say. Everything about him’s excessive, his tangle of curly black hair, the thick dark lashes, his deep blue eyes, his energy, his temperament.

  During good weather, he’s outside, his legs furiously pumping the pedals of his bike as he tears through the streets of ’Sconset, or scaling a tree like a monkey, hiding in the highest branches, tossing bits of bark on the heads of puzzled pedestrians. He’s a genius at sports and never notices when he skids the skin of both knees and elbows into tatters, as long as he makes first base or tackles his opponent.

  During bad weather, Ben becomes the torment of Maggie’s life. When the wind howls against the windows, she’ll be curled up with a book, assuming he is, too, for he does like to read—then she’ll discover that while he was so quiet, he’d been removing her dolls’ eyeballs in an unsuccessful attempt to give all the dolls one blue eye and one brown. One rainy summer day, he scraped the flakes of his sunburned skin into her hairbrush. Another time he put glue between the pages of her treasured books.

  From day to day and often minute to minute, Maggie never knows whether she loves or hates Ben more.

  Emily says she’d give anything for a brother or sister. Maggie tells her she can have Ben any time.

  Emily is only on the island for three months in the summer, so Maggie doesn’t understand why, during the school year, she misses Emily so much. It’s not like she doesn’t have friends. She has lots of friends.

  Alisha is fun, but she’s pure jock. Alisha’s perfect day is going to the beach, running into the water, shrieking and jumping until a wave knocks her down. She comes up laughing, knees scratched from the sand, and runs back into the waves, over and over again. If Maggie suggests a game of make believe, Alisha looks at her like bugs are coming out her ears.

  Delphine loves horses. Her parents have a farm. They sell veggies and plants in the summer and Christmas trees in the winter. When Maggie goes to Delphine’s house, she spends all day on horseback, or helps Delphine curry the horses or muck out the stalls. Delphine doesn’t like to come to Maggie’s house—no horses there.

  Kerrie reads and sometimes plays pretend, but Kerrie has an entrepreneurial mind. She started a summer newspaper for children that she writes, illustrates, and sells from a little newsstand she built out of crates and set up on the corner of Orange and Main. When she isn’t selling her newspaper, she’s selling lemonade and cookies she bakes herself.