A silver lining, p.1
A Silver Lining, page 1
A Silver Lining
The Coleman Series
Katie Winters
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2024 by Katie Winters
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Coming Next in the Coleman Series
Other Books by Katie Winters
Connect with Katie Winters
Chapter One
It was the beginning of August. For Ida, that meant the beginning of the end.
The beauty of that final evening should have served as a warning. There was something too cerulean about the sky, something overwrought and almost turquoise about the Nantucket Sound as it sloshed around the Benson yacht. Something in the summer wind whispered that everything is about to change.
Ida hung back on the docks, watching her family board the yacht. First came her mother and father, Katrina and Grant Coleman. It was her father’s birthday—his seventy-first, which seemed impossible. He was dressed in a linen button-down and a pair of slacks, neatly pressed by Katrina, probably that morning. He looked handsome. His hair hadn’t lost all its color, and it was still thick across, tamed with gel. He flashed Katrina a smile that proved the two of them were still smitten with each other, a smile that proved that love grew deeper and more interesting with time.
“Ida?”
Ida blinked out of her reverie and turned to find her business partner and best friend beside her. Shelby had a clipboard pressed against her chest and wore a shade of lipstick Ida had picked up for her in Manhattan. Theirs was a friendship for the ages, the sort that allowed for “picking out lipstick shades for one another” and sharing every conceivable secret.
“I just wanted to let you know,” Shelby said. “The Grayson party made it to the island on time. They’ll be here soon.”
Ida breathed a sigh of relief. The Grayson party was one of their biggest clients, clients they couldn’t afford not to accommodate: a family of billionaires and millionaires who had, incidentally, decided Shelby and Ida’s “little” business was one of their favorites on the island of Nantucket. But earlier that afternoon, one of the Grayson sons had contacted Shelby and Ida to alert them that they weren’t running on schedule and might have to postpone their dinner and sunset cocktail cruise for tomorrow. Shelby and Ida didn’t know what to do. They were fully booked for tomorrow night and the one after that. They couldn’t just move people around at will—even to accommodate the Graysons.
“Crisis averted,” Ida said with a laugh.
“Right?” Shelby’s blue eyes glinted. “Never a dull moment in this business.”
Ida and Shelby had opened the doors of their business—Nantucket Sunset Cruisers—nearly fifteen years ago. Back when it started, they’d only had two sailboats and two small-sized yachts, which they’d used for dinner cruises, sailing tourists around the island to see Nantucket from “different perspectives” and serving plenty of cocktails as the sun spread its orange light across the water. Ida and Shelby never could have imagined the tremendous success the company would have. They also couldn’t have imagined the heartache and the stress that working in tourism brought. Every day was an adventure. Every day was a chance to fall apart.
“You sure you’ll be all right tonight?” Ida asked Shelby now.
Shelby waved her hand. “Go! Enjoy your father’s birthday. You haven’t taken a night off all summer.”
“Neither have you,” Ida reminded her.
Shelby laughed and tucked her blond bob behind her ear. “Autumn is around the corner. I’ll sleep then.”
“I owe you.”
“We don’t owe each other anything,” Shelby assured her.
Ida kissed her cheek and hurried off to join the rest of the Colemans as they clambered onto the Benson yacht for the big night ahead. Soft wind swept through her white skirt and her dark hair, and she flashed a smile at her family—her pregnant sister, Sophie; Sophie’s new husband, Patrick; Ida’s daughters, Nellie and Frankie; Ida’s husband, Rick; her grandfather, Chuck Coleman; her uncle Roland and aunt Estelle; her brand-new aunt Oriana and aunt Meghan and their husbands, Reese and Hugo.
The bartender, Vinny, mixed cocktails, and a beat surged from the speaker system. Ida watched as the skipper unfurled the rope from the dock. The yacht drifted away from shore and out into the open blue. Something delicious floated up from the lower deck, where Ida knew the catering staff prepared hors d’oeuvres for the party.
Suddenly, an arm stretched across Ida’s stomach. Next came a whisper in her ear. “This is a perfect night.”
Ida turned and gazed up at her husband, Rick. Her heart surged with love for him.
“Can you do me a favor?” Rick asked, his eyes sparkling.
“Ugh, another favor?” Ida teased. She couldn’t help but smile. “What is it this time?”
“Can you try to have a good time? Just for tonight?” Rick said. He pressed an Aperol spritz into her hand and rubbed her shoulder. The drink glinted orange on his cheek.
Ida filled her mouth with the tangy drink, then said, “Are you suggesting that I don’t know how to have a good time?”
Rick laughed. “You know how to have a good time better than most. But you’ve been working hard all summer long. It’s time to relax a little.”
Suddenly, Ida’s father and mother were in their orbit, holding cocktails.
“Ida, you’ve outdone yourself,” Grant said. “I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.”
Ida lifted on her tiptoes and kissed her father’s cheek. Katrina smiled and raised her glass of champagne.
“You spoil us, Ida,” Katrina said. “We can’t thank you enough.”
Behind Katrina and Grant were Ida’s girls—Frankie and Nellie. They were wearing summer dresses and were barefoot, having already removed the high heels they’d adorned for the party. Ida saw the heels cast off in the corner. Frankie and Nellie spoke in low voices, sipping cocktails and watching the water. Ida wondered what they were talking about.
Frankie was twenty-three; Nellie was twenty-one. Ida wasn’t clueless about this age range. She knew that her daughters were in the midst of the most emotional, confusing, and gut-wrenching times of their lives. Frankie had just graduated from university with a degree in linguistics, which offered a career trajectory that Ida didn’t pretend to understand. Well, she would have been more understanding about it if Frankie had a single clue about what she wanted to do next with her hard-earned degree. But Frankie had returned from graduation with a glum look in her eye and what seemed like endless fatigue. Eventually, Ida had taken Frankie to the doctor; she’d wanted to beg the doctor for answers. Depression? A bad cold? Long COVID? The doctor had prescribed Frankie medication meant to assist her thyroid. Ultimately, the medication had led to a rapid fifteen-pound weight gain that, Ida knew, had destroyed Frankie’s sense of herself this summer. Even now, wearing a sundress that looked splendid on her, Frankie stood with her shoulders rounded forward and her hand trying to hide her stomach.
Fifteen pounds wasn’t nothing. Ida knew Frankie felt uncomfortable. But weight gain was a part of life. Bodies changed. It’s okay, honey, Ida wanted to tell her. Everything is going to be okay.
Ida wasn’t sure how to help her daughter. She felt unsure of herself. She felt as though twenty-three years of motherhood hadn’t prepared her in the slightest for mothering adults.
Now, Frankie slumped away from Nellie and disappeared to the lower deck. Ida slipped away from her father and her husband and greeted Nellie with a side hug. Nellie smiled easily at her mother.
“How are you doing, honey?” Ida asked.
Nellie raised her cocktail. “I have a delicious drink; the weather’s perfect; I love my new dress. I can’t complain about anything right now.”
“You look stunning,” Ida said. She allowed a beat to pass, then lowered her voice to ask, “Has your sister mentioned anything to you? Anything about how she’s feeling?”
A shadow passed over Nellie’s face, one that told Ida that Nellie would keep her sister’s secrets safe forever.
“She’s good,” Nellie said with a shrug. “I mean, the breakup was not easy for her. But breakups are always hard.”
To add insult to injury, Frankie’s college boyfriend Colin had broken up with her a few weeks before graduation. He’d gotten a job offer in Manhattan and decided he didn’t want to do long-distance. Ida didn’t say so, but she understood why he
“And the medicine,” Nellie reminded Ida. “It’s just messing with her. But I think everything will equalize soon. Everything always does, right?”
Ida swallowed too much of her Aperol spritz and stared into the dark abyss of the stairwell where Frankie had disappeared. She probably had time for a few more probing questions before Frankie returned.
“Is she excited about the job interview?” Ida asked.
Nellie pulled a face. “Mom, why can’t you just ask her yourself?”
Ida rubbed her chest, puffed out her cheeks, and considered her answers. Because Frankie won’t talk to me? Because Frankie seems to hate everything her father and I stand for this summer? Because I don’t want her to hate me any more than she already does?
But Frankie had already returned, wearing a glum expression. Ida put on an overwrought smile and hugged her eldest.
“You look beautiful, honey. You and your sister both do,” Ida said.
Frankie scoffed.
Stop it! Ida wanted to demand. You look beautiful! But she didn’t want to frustrate Frankie any more than she already was.
Luckily, Sophie scooped her away a few seconds later so that Ida could help her tell a story from their childhood. It involved Sophie trying to hide a kitten she’d discovered, crying and lost along the bluffs. Sophie had been terrified that Grant and Katrina would take the kitten away, and she’d demanded that Ida keep it a secret. Ida had struggled with this, she remembered. Because Ida had always been the Goody Two-shoes, she’d always been the one who’d obeyed their parents, who’d done what was right, who’d gotten home before curfew every night of her life. She’d had to, especially later. Sophie was an addict. Sophie was still an addict although she was in recovery. It was a disease that never went away.
Ida smiled and looked out across the top deck, thinking, We look so happy. Nobody would ever guess that we’ve been through so many trials together.
Well, everyone looks happy except for Frankie.
Ida wanted to tell Frankie to snap out of it.
Katrina sidled up to Ida to mutter, “Frankie isn’t doing too well, is she?”
Ida gave her mother a half smile. “She’s just preparing for the next part of her life. You know, she has a job interview in Manhattan?”
Katrina brightened. “Your father and I are overjoyed. We can’t wait to hear how it goes!”
Ida’s smile felt strained. She hated that her parents were so worried about Frankie. Frankie’s not like Sophie, she wanted to say. And then she inevitably felt ashamed for thinking that.
It wasn’t long till dinner. A few of the caterers set up tables and chairs, getting Coleman family members situated. Frankie and Nellie sat together and got more drinks. Aunt Oriana and Uncle Reese approached Ida to compliment her company. “I’ve sent so many of my clients to your cruises,” Aunt Oriana said, speaking of her very exclusive and wealthy art-buying clients.
“That means a lot,” Ida said, smiling. Her smile hurt her face.
It’s a family party. Everyone here loves me for me. Everyone loves Frankie. It’s going to be okay.
Why was she feeling so stressed? She couldn’t say.
Rick appeared and led her to the table with Katrina and Grant. A caterer arrived with a glass of champagne and chatted with Ida easily. Ida remembered having hired him herself, maybe two or three years ago, when they’d bought another collection of yachts—an enormous purchase that had not come lightly but that had very much electrified their sales.
Ida and Shelby had agreed early on that they wanted to pay higher rates for their catering and staff members. They didn’t want to be those overwhelmingly evil members of society, those business owners who took and took and didn’t give back to the people who made their companies run well. And Ida could see, in the way this caterer spoke to her and smiled at her, that Ida was well-liked by members of the staff. Shelby was, too. People very rarely left their company. They only did if they decided to pursue different careers or left the island for good.
Dinner was fish, lobster, and oysters. There were buttery potatoes and divine slices of bread, artichokes, and olives. There was wine, plenty of it, although Ida abstained after her second glass because she was a control freak. Well, that was what Sophie had always called her when they were younger. She’d also called her “perfect,” but Ida knew that wasn’t true. Until recently, Ida had been a longtime vegetarian, eating only vegetables, fruits, and occasional dairy products. But lately, she’d been giving in to fish and even had a burger a few weeks ago. It had rattled her. It had made her feel as though she was losing control.
“It was one burger,” Rick had said when she’d confessed, trying to make her laugh it off. “You need to find ways to forgive yourself.”
“Easier said than done,” Ida had said.
But now, Ida’s plate was piled high with fish. She’d feel guilty later, she knew. But feeling guilty was just what Ida Coleman Benson did best.
I hope I didn’t pass that on to Frankie, she thought. Maybe guilt is genetic.
But suddenly, there was a commotion downstairs. A caterer had dropped a plate, maybe. She heard the soprano sound of glass breaking.
Ida leaped to her feet, prepared to run downstairs and help out. That was when a skipper hurried across the deck and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “There’s a phone call for you,” he explained timidly. “From the main office. It’s urgent.”
Ida’s heart nearly burst from her chest. But she maintained a smile and followed the skipper to the walkie-talkie. Making sure to close the door behind her, she pressed the button on the walkie-talkie and said, “Central office? This is Ida speaking. Over.”
There was a muffled gasp and scattered static. Ida’s heartbeat thudded.
“Ida?” It was Shelby. “Ida, there’s been an incident with the Grayson party. Over.”
Ida closed her eyes, and panic flooded through her. “Can you elaborate?”
“I think it’s best if you just get to shore as soon as possible,” Shelby said.
Ida took a staggered breath. This is not the way the night was supposed to go. This is not what I planned.
“I’ll be there in twenty. Over.”
Then she prepared herself for the unbelievable.
Chapter Two
Frankie folded her napkin halfway, then the opposite way. Her head throbbed, and there was a black spot in her vision—hovering just above the center of Nellie’s head and moving around every time Frankie twisted around to talk to anyone else. The black spot was proof she hadn’t slept well last night nor the one before that. Maybe she hadn’t slept well all summer long. Not since Colin had dumped her. Not since she’d graduated and floundered around Nantucket like a plastic bag floating in the wind.
Nellie sat in front of her, giving her one of her looks. Frankie had grown accustomed to Nellie looking at her like that this summer. It was a role reversal, the youngest child worrying about the oldest child. It had never happened to Sophie and Ida, their aunt and their mother. But maybe it was healthy, Frankie thought. Perhaps it meant that she didn’t always have to be the one to carry the burden. Nellie could pick up the slack, too.
Suddenly, their mother burst from the cockpit. Her face was pale, and she tugged at her hair the way she always did when she was panicked about something. Panic was the name of the game in Ida’s chosen industry. All summer long, Ida and her business partner, Shelby, rushed from one proverbial fire to another, tending to the Nantucket Sunset Cruisers.
Now, Ida wore an expression that meant that something else was amiss. Something she had to handle immediately.
The only problem was, of course, that they were more than a half mile out to sea. And Ida wasn’t one to ruin Grant Coleman’s seventy-first birthday party.
Frankie watched her mother like a hawk. Ida scurried over to their father and bent to whisper in his ear. Rick pulled a face immediately and got up, his chair making an ominous screech across the wooden floorboards of the yacht. They were talking to the captain in a flash, who adjusted his captain’s hat and gestured toward the lower deck.
