Enright Family Collection by Mariah Stewart Read Free Book Online

from the blanket onto the sand. “Ow!”
    “What did you step on?” India bent down to inspect the bottom of Corri’s foot.
    “A sharp shell!” Corri wailed, pointing to the offending piece of clamshell.
    “Well then, looks like I’ll have to give you a ride back to the house.” Nick swept her into the air and plopped her onto his shoulders. The small cut on her foot immediately forgotten, Corri threw her thin arms around his neck and squealed her approval.
    Nick took a few steps toward the dune, then turned to call over his shoulder to India, “Are you with us?”
    “Yes,” she said, “I am with you.”
    “Good.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched her approach. “I’m all out of shoulders, but I can offer you a hand.”
    He held one out to her, and she took it.
    “A hand will do just fine today,” she said quietly as she folded her fingers into his and walked with him across the dune.

Chapter 4
    “Aunt August, what do you know about Nick Enright?” Feigning a nonchalance that didn’t fool either her or her aunt, India poured cream from a blue and white pitcher into the morning’s first cup of coffee while she rummaged through the flatware drawer in search of a spoon.
    “Nick?” August set her own cup down on the counter and opened the back door to allow some early morning breeze to fill the kitchen. The last bit of dawn lingered in the semidarkness, but already the birds were gathering to sing in the branches of the pines. August never seemed to get enough of their songs.
    “Well, I know he was a good friend to Ry, India.” August sat down on the edge of the bench forming the window seat overlooking the side yard. From there she could watch the wrens. “And that he’s been a good friend to me. What exactly did you want to know?”
    “Who is he?” India wished it hadn’t come out in such a blurt, but there it was. “Where did he come from? Why is he in Devlin’s Light?”
    “Ry met Nick in graduate school at Rutgers years back. I believe they were both going for their master’s in marine biology at the time. They stayed in touch afterward. Nick visited several times over the past few years.” August sipped cautiously at her coffee, testing the temperature of the brew,and, finding it to her satisfaction, took another sip or two before continuing. “Nick decided to go for his doctorate and began a study on the ecosystem of the bay, what species were here ten thousand years ago, five thousand years ago, a thousand, which are still present in one form or another today. How the bay has changed, and how it is likely to evolve, and so on.”
    “You seem to know a lot about him,” India noted.
    “We spent many an hour talking about the bay, Nick and Ry and I. Nick spends a lot of time here,” August said, then corrected herself, “or at least he did. I hope he still will. For Corri’s sake. And for mine. I’d miss his conversation and his company, I don’t mind saying.”
    “That’s why Ry talked me into agreeing to sell the old crabbers cabin to Nick.”
    “Yes. And I have to say that at first, there was no one more surprised than I was when Ry told me he was selling it. There hasn’t been so much as a foot of Devlin land sold in over a hundred years, since your greatgrandfather sold off that parcel to the town for the park and the library. Charged ’em a whole dollar for the entire transaction. But after I got to know Nick a little better, I knew it was a good thing. He respects the bay, respects its life. He’s been an asset to Devlin’s Light, I don’t mind saying so.”
    “Somehow I can’t seem to picture him living in that little ramshackle cabin.” India smiled, amused at the thought of the handsome Mr. Enright sharing his limited living space with a couple of raccoons.
    “Oh, but you haven’t seen it lately.” August’s eyes began to twinkle. “Nick’s mother came down from someplace outside of Philadelphia and practically had it totally