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  For Louise Burke and Jennifer Bergstrom

  With great love and deep appreciation

  Dear Reader,

  If you are like me, you love to walk the beach and see flocks of shorebirds and seabirds gathered at the water’s edge . . . pelicans gliding gracefully over the sea in formation . . . peeps playing tag with the waves. Shorebirds are some of the world’s most amazing migrants. Many species journey thousands of miles each year. During their travels, they stop to rest and fuel at important way stations, which is critical for their survival. Disturbances force them to use vital energy. For nesting birds, the parents must leave their nest exposing eggs and/or young to predation. Surveys of migrant shorebirds in the last three decades indicate most shorebirds are in serious decline.

  Many of my readers ask, What can I do to help?

  There are simple but crucially important steps you can take to make a difference.

  •  Do not let dogs or children chase or scatter shorebirds. Leash dogs when shorebirds are near. Honestly, if we just do this we will have made a difference!

  •  Keep away from posted nesting and feeding areas. You can unknowingly step on nests.

  •  Be aware of birds calling loudly nearby, which indicates that you are too close to nests or chicks.

  •  Avoid the ends of barrier islands, inlets, and remote stretches of beach where birds cluster. Again, don’t let your dogs run free in these areas.

  •  Take your trash with you.

  •  Avoid landing boats on small islands where birds (i.e. pelicans) nest.

  •  Make certain all fishing line and hooks are cleared away after use and not left in the water.

  •  Teach your children and grandchildren to appreciate shorebirds and seabirds. They are tomorrow’s stewards!

  With your help, our beloved shorebirds will be here for future generations to enjoy.

  Mary Alice Monroe

  Part One

  ARRIVAL

  Barbara J. Bergwerf

  RED KNOT

  One of the largest sandpipers, red knots are bulky with a medium-size bill and ruddy-colored plumage in the breeding season. A large portion of the species travel thousands of miles to spend the winter in the southern part of South America, while another portion of the species spends the winter on the southeastern coast of the United States. Knots nest each year in high arctic regions. Overall, the number of red knots has declined nearly 75 percent over the last fifteen years.

  Conservation status: Greatest Concern

  Chapter One

  Isle of Palms, South Carolina

  April 2016

  THE BEACH HOUSE sat perched on a dune overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Small and yellow, it blended in with the waves of sweetgrass and sea oats and the delicate yellow primroses for which the cottage was named. For eighty-five years it had endured the fury of hurricanes, the rush of tidal surges, and the ravages of the salt-tinged air. It had withstood the test of time.

  The beach house was a survivor.

  As was she, Cara Rutledge thought, staring up at the house. She held a paintbrush in one hand and, shading her eyes from the gentle rays of the sun with the other, surveyed the fresh coat of gleaming white paint she’d just finished applying to the front porch and railings. How many times had she painted these porches? she wondered. Or repaired the pergola, fixed the plumbing, trimmed the shrubs and trees? Living by the sea was a constant exercise in the art of nip and tuck, especially for an old cottage like Primrose. But she didn’t mind the time or expense. She would repair and paint it every year she could still lift a paintbrush or afford a plumber. Because even more than the historic house on Tradd Street in Charleston, or the treasured, centuries-old family antiques that filled the Rutledge family’s home, this modest 1930s beach house held the real memories of her family.

  Only the good memories, she corrected herself with a wistful smile as her thoughts floated back to the halcyon days of her childhood.

  When she was growing up, summer meant leaving the bustle and noise of Charleston and coming out to Primrose Cottage on the Isle of Palms with her mother, Olivia, and older brother, Palmer. It might have been only a trip across the Grace Bridge, some twenty miles, but back in the day, the change was so significant they might as well have journeyed to another country. Many of the girls she knew from school spent summers at family cottages on Sullivan’s Island. But her mother claimed she preferred the relative isolation and the maritime forest on Isle of Palms. Cara, too, had preferred the Huck Finn lifestyle of Isle of Palms, where her mother would open the screen door and let her children run wild till the dinner bell at 5 p.m.

  Cara sighed, slipping into the vortex of memories. Her gaze scanned the quaint cottage under the brilliant azure sky. She had achieved many lifetime firsts here. She’d learned to swim on the beach just beyond the house, kissed her first boyfriend on the back porch, confided secrets with her best friend, Emmi, over cookies and sweet tea in the kitchen, broken her first bone falling from the live oak tree that thrived until Hurricane Hugo blew it down. She’d caught her first fish from Hamlin Creek on the back of the island, and made love with Brett amid the clicking sea oats on the dunes. Of all her memories, those of the man she’d fallen in love with late in life, married, and forged a new life with here on Isle of Palms were the sweetest.

  Cara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet sea air. She heard the sounds of the island—the soft humming of bees, the purr of the ocean. She felt the caress of a breeze ruffle her hair. Whenever she had memories of the beach house, the image of her mother formed in her mind. Olivia Rutledge, affectionately known as Lovie—slight, ageless, her blond hair pulled back into a stylish chignon, her blue eyes shining with warmth. Opening her eyes, Cara almost expected to see her mother walking around the corner carrying the red turtle team bucket.

  Primrose Cottage had been her mother’s beach house. No, Cara thought on reflection. More than her house. The cottage had been her mother’s sanctuary. Her place of refuge. Her source of inspiration. Lovie had come here to escape the burdens of her social obligations in Charleston. On the island she was free to pursue her passion—sea turtles. Lovie had been the Isle of Palms’s first “sea turtle lady.” She’d formed the first turtle team. She’d even named her only daughter Caretta, after the Latin name for the loggerhead, much to Cara’s lifelong chagrin.

  They’d been close when she was young, but as Cara grew tall and statuesque, her opinions matured as well. She’d found herself growing increasingly distant from her mother—in fact, from both her parents.

  Especially her father.

  When Cara was eighteen, to her traditional father Stratton Rutledge’s disappointment, she had refused to become the southern belle she was expected to be. Her hair was too dark, her feet too big. She was too tall, too bookish, and far too independent-minded. After graduating high school with honors, Cara had informed her parents, in a tone of voice that implied she was well aware they would not approve, that she wasn’t going to the local college they’d selected for her but would instead attend a northeastern college. Perhaps Boston University. Maybe even Harvard. She was proud she’d been accepted. Her father, however, wasn’t accustomed to back talk, especially from his
daughter.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, little girl?” he’d roared, his voice echoing in the large dining room of their grand home. Her mother had sat quietly at the other end of the table, her eyes meekly downcast. “You’ll do as I say. And if you step one foot outside this town—out of this house—that’ll tear it between us, you hear? You leave and you’ll not get one dollar, not one stick of furniture, not so much as a nod of the head when you pass me or your mother on the street, hear?”

  But Cara was more like her father than he’d realized. She’d turned heel and run as far away from her parents, that house, Charleston, and all the expectations and demands of a southern woman from South of Broad as she could get, heading to points north to seek her freedom, fame, and fortune. Her father was as good as his word. He’d cut her off and never looked back. He refused to pay her tuition, so she’d never gone to a prestigious Boston college. Instead she’d nailed an interview for an entry-level position at an advertising firm in Chicago, and had gone to night school for seven years while working full-time, finally earning her degree in communications. She’d climbed the corporate ladder and, though she wasn’t wealthy, she’d achieved success on her own merit. Cara had come home only once, for her brother’s wedding, and sent a handful of Christmas and birthday cards over the years. There was the occasional phone call with her mother. Her relationship with her family was polite at best.

  When her father died, Cara returned home for his funeral. Like the man he’d been throughout his lifetime, his will was cold and vindictive. As Stratton had sworn all those years ago, he didn’t leave her as much as a stick of furniture. Cara had neither expected nor wanted anything from him. But the silence from her mother upon finding out that he’d made good on his pledge had hurt.

  Then, on Cara’s fortieth birthday, her mother had written asking her to come home for a visit. And she’d obliged. A weekend at the beach house had turned into a summer of reconciliation.

  “Oh, Mama,” she whispered so softly that her voice was carried off by the breeze. Cara had lost Lovie again to cancer right after they’d found each other once more. Even after ten years, Cara’s heart yearned for her.

  Her father had left everything to Palmer. But the beach house was her mother’s, and when Lovie died she’d left it to Cara, knowing she would care for Primrose Cottage—and all the secrets associated with it—with the love and attention to detail that Lovie herself had exhibited. And Cara had fulfilled that promise.

  Studying the beach house in the softening light of day’s end, Cara shook her head ruefully. If someone had told her when she was eighteen that decades later she’d be back on the Isle of Palms as mistress of Primrose Cottage, she would have laughed out loud with disbelief.

  But here she was, turning fifty, living on the Isle of Palms again, married to the love of her life and giving Primrose Cottage yet another coat of paint. “What goes around comes around,” her mother used to say. Cara chortled and shook her head. As usual, her mother was right.

  Cara rolled her stiff shoulders, then traipsed across the sand and wildflowers to the waiting bucket of soapy water. She set her brush to soak, then put her hands on her back and once again stretched her aching muscles. Fifty certainly wasn’t the new forty, not in Cara’s opinion anyway.

  No more daydreaming, she told herself as her usual practical, no-nonsense attitude kicked in. Rental season was around the corner and there was a lot left to do—and she couldn’t afford to hire anyone else. She was committed to keeping the beach house up to the standards set by her mother. Still, she’d miscalculated the strength of the early spring sun and she could feel the pinpricks of sunburn on her arms.

  The sound of a car pulling up the gravel driveway distracted her. She stopped studying her arm and looked over her shoulder to see her brother’s gleaming white Mercedes sedan easing to a stop. He gave a gentle toot of the horn to herald his arrival. She chuckled, thinking Palmer always arrived with fanfare. She removed the man’s denim shirt irretrievably splattered with paint, one of Brett’s rejects, from over her black T-shirt and tossed it on a nearby wheelbarrow. The front car door swung open and one polished slip-on tasseled loafer peeked out from the car, then Palmer Rutledge hoisted himself out with a muffled grunt.

  At fifty-two, Palmer was two years older than Cara, but he looked a good decade older, thanks to the bloated, florid face and the paunch at his waist from his lifestyle as a businessman and successful real estate maven. While his habits had led to a less-than-healthy physique, Cara couldn’t deny that Palmer had an enviable sense of style. Even as a boy he’d always been an impeccable dresser, a sharp contrast to Cara’s tattered, beachy sartorial choices. Today he wore a tan golf jacket over a polo shirt and pressed khakis. Cara wiped the flecks of paint from her hands onto her torn jeans and took a step toward him, a smile of welcome spread across her tanned face.

  “Palmer!” she exclaimed with an exuberant wave. “Come to see how the other half lives?”

  Her brother held out his arms and she walked into them for a bear hug, highlighting the physical ease and sense of closeness that they shared as children remained. Cara believed their mother’s death had made them not simply orphans, but all too aware of their own mortality.

  “That’s enough of that,” Palmer said with a low laugh, gently disentangling himself. “You smell ripe, sister mine.”

  “Thanks,” Cara replied breezily, not in the least embarrassed. “Comes from decent hard work.”

  “Mama never lifted a paintbrush in her delicate hands.”

  “Mama had more money than me. And, brother mine, I believe you do, too. So if the sight of my chipped nails and paint-splattered clothes offends you, kindly offer me the funds to hire out.”

  “I’d love to, honey, but we both know Julia spends every penny I earn faster than sand through fingers.” Palmer rolled his eyes as he so often did when speaking of his socially conscious, designer-driven wife. His gaze shifted to the cottage. “Nice job,” he said. Then he slanted her a look. “Do you hire out?”

  Cara slapped his arm teasingly. “Don’t get me started.”

  “Seriously,” Palmer said, crossing his arms over his belly, “the place looks good. Real good.”

  “It’s a pretty place,” she said, looking again at the beach house. And it was true. With its mullioned windows and broad porch filled with baskets of ferns and white rockers, she’d always thought that it was a picturesque image of a lowcountry cottage. “Say what you will about all these mansions,” she said with another wave of her hand, indicating the enormous newer houses. “You can’t buy that old-world charm.”

  “You ever been in those big houses?” Palmer teased. He looked around, searching. “So where’s your better half?”

  “Brett is out back building a new pergola over the enclosed back porch. He’s worked so hard on it. It’s almost done, and I have to say it turned out so well.”

  “Wait,” Palmer said, holding up his hand. “What enclosed porch?”

  “You haven’t seen it yet, have you?” Cara asked in surprise. Though Palmer and Julia lived just over the bridge in Charleston with their two children, Linnea and Cooper, she and they didn’t spend time together outside of family events and holidays. Cara doted on her niece and nephew, but with school and social schedules it seemed everyone was always too busy. “Come on ’round. Brett will want to show it off. He did all the work himself.”

  “That man sure is handy,” Palmer said as he followed her.

  Cara knew he meant it as a compliment. Palmer had tried for years to get Brett involved in flipping houses, especially on the islands. But Brett was as stubborn as he was talented. He truly loved working with wood. He was as much a craftsman as a builder. Like so much else in his life, he did things his own way and wouldn’t be hurried.

  She led the way around the cottage, her shoes crunching in the dry sand and shells. Cara kept the property wild, as nature had intended. Only palm trees, wild grasses, and flowers sprouted on her prope
rty, especially in the spring, when the island was practically bursting with life. Wildflowers colored the dunes with soft yellows, vibrant blues, and fiery oranges. In the trees birds sang out mating calls, while overhead migrating birds soared, returning home from southern climes.

  This side of the beach house faced the long stretch of dunes that reached out to the Atlantic Ocean. The mighty sea reflected the mood of the sky—sometimes dark, turbulent, and gloomy, other times a soft, introspective gray-blue. Today the water was the color of unbridled joy and hope, a blue so vivid the horizon line disappeared where sea met sky, creating an infinite stretch of blue. Sunlight danced on the ocean, making it appear a living, breathing thing. Cara paused to stare out in awe. The dazzling sea always had the power to take her breath away.

  “Beautiful day,” Palmer said with gusto, rocking back on his heels and echoing her thoughts.

  “It is,” she replied softly, sharing the moment with her brother.

  “And a stunning view. I’ve always said that,” he added, then gestured toward the ocean. “No houses standing in the way. You’ve got a straight shot to the sea with that vacant lot in front of you.”

  His words broke through her quiet reverie as she realized Palmer wasn’t appreciating the spiritual quality of the view, but rather the commercial value. He spoke as if she didn’t realize all these fine points of her own home. Going for the hard sell, as always. She turned her head to scrutinize him.

  Her brother was, in fact, wearing business attire, she suddenly realized, not the sporty shorts and Tommy Bahama shirts he wore for leisure. His gold signet ring caught the sunlight and drew her attention to the papers he was carrying in his doughy hand. Cara sighed inwardly, even as she steeled her resolve.

  This wasn’t a social call. Palmer had come on business. Without speaking, she turned the corner of the house toward the back.