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  Outstanding praise for the novels of Holly Chamberlin!

  THE SUMMER NANNY

  “A satisfying and multifaceted story that keeps readers guessing. For fans of similar works by authors such as Shelley Noble and Nancy Thayer.”

  –Library Journal

  THE SEASON OF US

  “A warm and witty tale. This heartfelt and emotional story will appeal to members of the Sandwich Generation or anyone who has had to set aside long-buried childhood resentments for the well-being of an aging parent. Fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Wendy Wax will adore this genuine exploration of family bonds, personal growth, and acceptance.”

  –Booklist

  THE BEACH QUILT

  “Particularly compelling.”

  –The Pilot

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  “A thoughtful novel.”

  –Shelf Awareness

  “A great summer read.”

  –Fresh Fiction

  “A novel rich in drama and insights into what factors bring people together and, just as fatefully, tear them apart.”

  –The Portland Press Herald

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  “Explores questions about the meaning of home, family dynamics and tolerance.”

  –The Bangor Daily News

  “An enjoyable summer read, but it’s more. It is a novel for all seasons that adds to the enduring excitement of Ogunquit.”

  –The Maine Sunday Telegram

  “It does the trick as a beach book and provides a touristy taste of Maine’s seasonal attractions.”

  –Publishers Weekly

  Books by Holly Chamberlin

  LIVING SINGLE

  THE SUMMER OF US

  BABYLAND

  BACK IN THE GAME

  THE FRIENDS WE KEEP

  TUSCAN HOLIDAY

  ONE WEEK IN DECEMBER

  THE FAMILY BEACH HOUSE

  SUMMER FRIENDS

  LAST SUMMER

  THE SUMMER EVERYTHING CHANGED

  THE BEACH QUILT

  SUMMER WITH MY SISTERS

  SEASHELL SEASON

  THE SEASON OF US

  HOME FOR THE SUMMER

  HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

  THE SUMMER NANNY

  A WEDDING ON THE BEACH

  ALL OUR SUMMERS

  BAREFOOT IN THE SAND

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  BAREFOOT IN THE SAND

  HOLLY CHAMBERLIN

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Acknowledgments

  Teaser chapter

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by Elise Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  The K logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1924-9

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1924-9

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1924-7

  As always, for Stephen

  And this time also for Flick

  While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I

  enjoyed!

  —Charlotte Brontë, Villette

  Chapter 1

  Summer 1984

  At the head of the grand staircase, Victoria stopped to glance around the dark landing. By the dim light that was coming from the pendant globe just inside the front doors to the big old house on Old Orchard Hill, she could just make out that she was alone. At least, she prayed that she was.

  She had to go on. She simply had to. Slowly, carefully, her slim hand firmly holding the wooden banister, Victoria made her way to the ground floor. There was only one phone in the house and that was in her father’s study. She had been forbidden any contact with the outside world but simply had to try and . . .

  In the center hall, to the right of which was Herbert Aldridge’s study, Victoria glanced up at the portraits of Joseph, the brother she had never known. If he had lived, would he have come to her aid in this moment of crisis? Impossible to know. Victoria looked away and continued on, her slippers making only the tiniest brushing sound over the marble-tiled floor.

  It had taken every ounce of her courage, a fortitude she hadn’t been at all certain she could muster, to sneak out of her bedroom that night. She was desperately afraid of being found out. She dreaded that stern and disappointed look she was sure to receive from her father, that anxious and confused expression she was sure to perceive on her mother’s face when she stood
in front of them to accept her punishment.

  It was a hot, still night in late August. Victoria was wearing her lightest nightgown but sweat was running down her neck and chest. Her parents refused to install air-conditioning for a reason that was obscure to Victoria. It couldn’t be the cost. The Aldridge family was wealthy.

  The door to Herbert Aldridge’s study was always kept closed but not locked unless the family was out of the house. Slowly, wincing with anxiety, Victoria opened the heavy wood door. When there was enough of a gap for her to slip through, she stepped inside. Her heart was racing madly and the sweat continued to pour from her. No sooner had she begun to ease the door closed behind her than the sound of a footstep on the stair, the creak of a floorboard overhead, the rustle of a robe at the far end of the hall, made her freeze.

  Someone was coming. Someone had heard her moving around. She couldn’t be found, she just couldn’t!

  Without further thought, Victoria slipped out of the study, careful to close the door behind her, and back into the dimly lit hall. From there she fled toward the stairs. On the very first step she stumbled and smashed her toe. A small whimper escaped from her lips. Onward she raced, heart pounding, onto the second-floor landing and down the hall to her bedroom at the far end, where she threw open the door and closed it behind her. There was no lock on this door. Her parents didn’t approve of children locking doors behind them.

  With another whimper, Victoria hugged her arms tightly around her waist and waited for her father to find her, to demand to know what she had been doing in his study in the middle of the night.

  A minute passed, and another, and another. No one came.

  She was safe. But she had failed.

  Had the footstep, the creaking of the floorboard, the rustling of a robe, been real, or had her weak and terrified mind conjured them to send her scurrying like a prey animal back to the safety of her room?

  Shame flooded Victoria Aldridge, and in that moment, she knew without a doubt that she would never again find the courage to make that forbidden phone call.

  It was over.

  Chapter 2

  Today

  Arden Bell locked the door of the bookshop behind her and turned left toward home. She was a tall, slim woman; her long blond hair, threaded now with shades of silver and white, was coiled at the base of her neck in a casual chignon. Her eyes were blue, and aside from needing reading glasses, her vision was still strong. For a time when she was young, she had a habit of ducking her head in a way that had earned her the nickname Shy Di, but Arden had long since ceased to duck her head or to hunch her shoulders. If she wasn’t the most outgoing resident of Eliot’s Corner, she was also not the most retiring.

  Arden waved to the owner of Chez Claudine, the Parisian-style bakery across the street, just closing his store for the evening. Not much stayed open past six or seven in Eliot’s Corner, not until after the Fourth of July. The town wasn’t a big tourist draw, unlike many other coastal towns in southern Maine, but it had its fair share of day-trippers in the summer months and right through leaf-peeping season. Visitors enjoyed poking around the craft and jewelry stores; eating lobster rolls at the waterfront seafood shack at the far end of town; and browsing Arden Forest, Eliot’s Corner’s beloved bookshop.

  It was all of a ten-minute walk from the bookshop to Arden’s cottage, but in the space of those ten minutes she exchanged greetings with three other residents of the charming little town she had called home for fifteen years. Harry Lohsen, principal of the grammar school. Emile DuPonte, whose family had owned the hardware store for generations. Judy Twain, whose law practice was known for the large amount of pro bono work it undertook.

  Finally, Arden turned onto Juniper Road and a smile came to her face. A smile always dawned when home was in sight. While its official address was 10 Juniper Road, everyone in Eliot’s Corner referred to the little house as Juniper End. Only two other houses were on Juniper Road, number 8 and number 9; house numbers 1 through 7 had disappeared into the mists of time. Ben and Marla Swenson had lived in number 9 for the fifty-two years of their married lives and continued to keep a spectacular garden. Number 8 was currently being rented by a young couple who were having a house custom built some miles away. Arden rarely saw the Harrisons; they seemed to spend a good deal of time at the building site or taking weekend jaunts to Portland and Boston.

  As Arden approached Juniper End, she said a silent word of thanks to her dear friend Margery Hopkins. The former owner of Arden Forest, and an old hand at property deals, Margery had helped Arden, a first-time home buyer, through the endlessly detailed back-and-forth between buyer and seller. In this way and in so many others, Margery had been like a fairy godmother as well as a friend and mentor.

  But Margery had died some time ago, peacefully, after a long and fruitful life. What mattered at the moment, Arden thought, as she opened the front door of the cottage, was the ecstatic greeting she was about to get from her cats. Ophelia was a long-haired gray-and-white mixed breed; Prospero was sleek, black, and short-haired; and Falstaff was a big tiger. Arden had adopted the motley bunch two years earlier from a shelter in Portland in a three-for-one deal, so eager were the shelter staff that the cats be adopted together.

  “I’m home,” Arden called out, and within seconds three large felines were meowing madly and circling her feet. She shuffled through to the kitchen, avoiding paws and tails, where she dished out food for her ravenous fur children. Side by side they settled to their dinner, noisily chomping and chewing.

  While the cats ate, Arden removed the old leather cross-body bag she used for going to and from the bookshop and surveyed her home with satisfaction. The ground floor was a modest twelve hundred square feet, but with an open-plan layout the space seemed a good deal larger.

  The cottage’s kitchen and dining area was large enough for a table that sat four comfortably. For most of her adult life Arden had been on a stringently tiny budget. Dinner was often a cup of ramen noodles or a can of soup. Lunches consisted of a piece of fruit or a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Now, with a business that was solvent if not always thriving, Arden enjoyed cooking real meals for herself, as well as for her friends. And she loved to bake, especially at the holidays. Buttery shortbread. Super-chocolaty cookies. Spicy gingerbread. Fresh raspberry muffins. There was something so therapeutic about baking—the enticing smells, the comforting warmth, the delicious results.

  Beyond the kitchen there was a bathroom, with a pedestal sink and a charming four-clawfooted tub equipped with a handheld shower attachment. A small window gave a view of green leaves on waving branches; Arden had painted the room white to make the most of the natural light.

  The bedroom was at the back of the cottage; it was just large enough for a double bed, a tall dresser, and a wooden bookcase Arden had salvaged from the bookshop back when Margery had been making a few upgrades. The closet was ridiculously narrow and shallow, but for Arden this didn’t pose a problem. Her wardrobe was small and she kept her coats and jackets on a clothes tree by the front door.

  It was in the wooden bookcase that Arden kept her most precious possession, a rather battered, late-nineteenth-century edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. The book had been a gift from the only man Arden had ever truly loved and was priceless because of that. Some people might hide such a treasure in a locked safe, and that certainly made practical sense, but Arden liked to cast her eyes on the book each morning upon awakening and each evening just before sleep. Once a year, on a particular day in October, she reread her favorite sections of the novel in a tribute of sorts to a time in her past when, however briefly, like the heroine Lucy Snowe’s spirit, her spirit had shaken “its always-fettered wings half loose.”

  Prospero suddenly lifted his head and made a throaty noise in Arden’s direction. “You’re welcome,” she said with a laugh. Prospero went back to his meal.

  The living room—more properly, the living area—was hands down Arden’s favorite room in the cottage. Wh
en she had first arrived in town, the only material goods she possessed fit into two old hard-backed plastic suitcases, the kind that predated wheelie bags. A person on the move tended not to accumulate odds and ends. Now, the living room was the definition of supreme comfort. A couch covered in lots of cozy throws and pillows. A cushiony armchair she had found at an estate sale. Paintings of local scenes by local artists. Two occasional tables on which were stacked books and magazines. A collection of seashells in a basket on the coffee table, next to a vase of whatever flowers were currently in bloom, often a gift from the Swensons.

  The focal point of the room was the large stone fireplace. Around Labor Day each year, the son of one of the bookshop’s most devoted customers, now a young man of nineteen, helped Arden to replenish the woodpile at the side of the house. Replenishing the supply of wood each year was a task that had taken on the weight of a ritual, marking for Arden more than anything else did the inevitability of seasonal change and the passing of time.

  A set of stairs in the far corner of the living room led up to a semi-enclosed landing, complete with a window that afforded a view of the small yard where Arden often sat in privacy to enjoy a colorful sunset or a pleasant afternoon breeze. There was just room enough on the landing for a high-backed armchair and a narrow sofa that could double as a bed should anyone need to spend the night. So far, there had been no such person. Everyone Arden knew lived in Eliot’s Corner. People from her past remained in the past, that other country from which everyone came and to which none, if they were wise, ever returned.

  Falstaff, having scarfed his dinner, was now trying to edge Ophelia from her bowl, but she was having none of it. Prospero gave way without protest; of the three cats, he was the least food motivated and the politest. Arden’s own dinner could wait. Brent, her assistant at the shop, had convinced her that sharing a specialty sandwich from Chez Claudine for lunch was a good idea, and she still felt pleasantly full.