The Barefoot Believers by Annie Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

had gone fishing for the whole summer that year and had come back with a two-pack-a-day cigarette habit and a chronic cough.
    From that came the second momentous event. Moxie had changed her name.
    Goodbye Molly Christina, a name that she had always felt made people think of a chubby-cheeked girl in a pleated plaid jumper that never fit right and with the personality of porridge.
    Enter: Moxie. The girl who could take care of herself and rise to any challenge.
    She only learned later that she, in fact, sort of liked porridge and that while moxie did mean spunky and bold, it was also the name of an old, mediciney-tasting soda pop. But by that time, the deed was done.
    Lastly, she had asked, no begged, her father to allow her to take over the job of managing the cottage on Dream Away Bay Court for the absentee owners. She’d done it to ease her father’s burden as much as she could but found quickly that she had a knack for property management.
    Well, for people management, really, but she had discovered early on they were one and the same.
    The work was easy enough. Clean, prep, mend, book the rooms, handle the accounting. But mostly she loved the chance to meet all those new and interesting people from all over. People who for a while—a long weekend or a whole season—pulled up roots, left their normal lives behind and came here. Some to get away from their problems. Some to seek out a whole new set of them—problems, that is. They didn’t call it that of course; they called it “seeking adventure.”
    After that year, she’d started saving her money and by the time she was twenty-one and the only other cottage, the smaller of the two, on Dream Away Bay Court came up for sale, she’d bought it. Not long after that, a highway project had made it possible for people to go zipping along to more popular sites. Still, they had their regulars and every year a new crop of travelers “discovered” the peaceful serenity of Santa Sofia.
    The town aged.
    It lost favor with the younger tourist set. The older people no longer wanted to take care of houses they didn’t live in year round.
    More and more houses came up for grabs. Year after year, investment by investment she built her own little empire and looked after her dad. She never pulled up roots or took a vacation, not even for a little while. She never went in search of adventure or found the answer to her mother’s question: Isn’t there something better than this?
    Not that Moxie wanted to leave Santa Sofia. She actually liked it here. She liked the way the town looked with its narrow streets, peculiar shops and mix of tacky beach culture and elegant old-world architecture. She liked the people, the quirky mix of native Floridians, Hispanic newcomers and people who’d come down to get away from it all.
    Not too close to the Gulf but not too far away, Moxie had the best of town and oceanfront life. Santa Sofia had the security and predictability of a small community peppered with the novelty and energy of a bona fide tourist trap. Moxie never felt bored here.
    Snowbirds in the winter.
    Family vacationers in the summer.
    With a brief respite twice a year while most of the rest of the country enjoyed spring and fall. Santa Sofia had spring and fall, of course. They just didn’t look or feel much different than the rest of the year.
    Ever changing, never changed. That would have been a great motto for the town as it summed up the place’s greatest charm…and its biggest drawback.
    She sighed and opened the car door. “The sooner begun, the sooner done.”
    In a few steps she had the back down on the old truck and had pulled out her basic cleaning supplies. She wished she knew more about the owners. That would help her know where to focus. For some people the outside of their house—the part that other people saw—was the end all and be all. For others the outside could be a wreck as long as the