CHAPTER ONE

      AS SIGNS FROM heaven went, this one seemed fairly prosaic.

      No choir of angels, no booming voice from above or anything like that. It was simply a hand-lettered placard shoved into the seagrass in front of the massive, ornate Victorian that had drifted through her memory for most of her life.

      Apartment For Rent.

      Julia stared at the sign with growing excitement. It seemed impossible, a miracle. That this house, of all places, would be available for rent just as she was looking for a temporary home seemed just the encouragement her doubting heart needed to reaffirm her decision to pack up her twins and take a new teaching job in Cannon Beach.

      Not even to herself had she truly admitted how worried she was that she’d made a terrible mistake moving here, leaving everything familiar and heading into the unknown.

      Seeing that sign in front of Brambleberry House seemed an answer to prayer, a confirmation that this was where she and her little family were supposed to be.

      “Cool house!” Maddie exclaimed softly, gazing up in awe at the three stories of Queen Anne Victorian, with its elaborate trim, cupolas and weathered shake roof. “It looks like a gingerbread house!”

      Julia squeezed her daughter’s hand, certain Maddie looked a little healthier today in the bracing sea air of the Oregon Coast.

      “Cool dog!” her twin, Simon, yelled. The words were barely out of his mouth when a giant red blur leaped over the low wrought-iron fence surrounding the house and wriggled around them with glee, as if he’d been waiting years just for them to walk down the beach.

      The dog licked Simon’s face and headbutted his stomach like an old friend. Julia braced herself to push him away if he got too rough with Maddie, but she needn’t have worried. As if guided by some sixth sense, the dog stopped his wild gyrations and waited docilely for Maddie to reach out a tentative hand and pet him. Maddie giggled, a sound that was priceless as all the sea glass in the world to Julia.

      “I think he likes me,” she whispered.

      “I think so, too, sweetheart.” Julia smiled and tucked a strand of Maddie’s fine short hair behind her ear.

      “Do you really know the lady who lives here?” Maddie asked, while Simon was busy wrestling the dog in the sand.

      “I used to, a long, long time ago,” Julia answered. “She was my very best friend.”

      Her heart warmed as she remembered Abigail Dandridge and her unfailing kindness to a lonely little girl. Her mind filled with memories of admiring her vast doll collection, of pruning the rose hedge along the fence with her, of shared confidences and tea parties and sand dollar hunts along the beach.

      “Like Jenna back home is my best friend?” Maddie asked.

      “That’s right.”

      Every summer of her childhood, Brambleberry House became a haven of serenity and peace for her. Her family rented the same cottage just down the beach each July. It should have been a time of rest and enjoyment, but her parents couldn’t stop fighting even on vacation.

      Whenever she managed to escape to Abigail and Brambleberry House, though, Julia didn’t have to listen to their arguments, didn’t have to see her mother’s tears or her father’s obvious impatience at the enforced holiday, his wandering eye.

      Her fifteenth summer was the last time she’d been here. Her parents finally divorced, much to her and her older brother Charlie’s relief, and they never returned to Cannon Beach. But over the years, she had used the image of this house, with its soaring gables and turrets, and the peace she had known here to help center her during difficult times.

      Through her parents’ bitter divorce, through her own separation from Kevin and worse. Much worse.

      “Is she still your best friend?” Maddie asked.

      “I haven’t seen Miss Abigail for many, many years,” she said. “But you know, I don’t think I realized until just this moment how very much I’ve missed her.”

      She should never have let so much time pass before coming back to Cannon Beach. She had let their friendship slip away, too busy being a confused and rebellious teenager caught in the middle of the endless drama between her parents. And then had come college and marriage and family.

      Perhaps now that she was back, they could find that friendship once more. She couldn’t wait to find out.

      She opened the wrought-iron gate and headed up the walkway feeling as if she were on the verge of something oddly portentous.

      She rang the doorbell and heard it echo through the house. Anticipation zinged through her as she waited, wondering what she would possibly say to Abigail after all these years. Would her lovely, wrinkled features match Julia’s memory?

      No one answered after several moments, even after she rang the doorbell a second time. She stood on the porch, wondering if she ought to leave a note with their hotel and her cell phone number, but it seemed impersonal, somehow, after all these years.

      They would just have to check back, she decided. She headed back down the stairs and started for the gate again just as she heard the whine of a power tool from behind the house.

      The dog, who looked like a mix between an Irish setter and a golden retriever, barked and headed toward the sound,