Wind Chime Café (A Wind Chime Novel) by Sophie Moss Read Free Book Online Page A

occasions—anniversaries, birthdays, graduations.
    When she’d first contacted Spencer about the building on Main Street and he’d told her about the resort, she’d researched the local area and found that the closest fine dining restaurant was twenty miles away from Heron Island.
    She’d seen a need in the market, and she’d decided to fill it.
    Across the table, Grace shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.”
    Annie picked up her glass, taking a sip of her white wine. “If it makes you feel any better, it might not even happen now.”
    “It better not.” Grace looked out at the water. “I can’t believe Will even considered selling his grandparents’ land to a developer.”
    “He didn’t.” Annie set down her wine. “He didn’t even know about it until last night.”
    “Wait…what?” Grace’s head swiveled back to face her. “You’ve talked to him?”
    Annie nodded.
    “Will’s here ?” Grace’s mouth fell open. “On the island?”
    “Yes.”
    Grace grabbed her phone, punching in a new number. She lifted it back to her ear, and the person on the other end answered immediately. “Hey…yeah, I just heard. Did he tell you he was coming home? No, me neither. He’s having drinks with us tonight? What? You want me to be nice ? It’s been ten years, Ryan!” She shook her head at the voice on the other end of the line. “Yeah, sure…whatever. I’ll see you at five.”
    Annie watched as Grace hung up the call and dropped the phone back on the table. “Were you and Will…friends?”
    “Yeah,” Grace said bitterly. “You could say that.” She shook her head as the blue heron squawked and spread its long wings, lifting into a low glide over the surface. “We used to be best friends.”
    “Did something happen before he left?”
    Grace picked up her beer, taking a long sip. “What happened is that he left, and never looked back.”
     

     
    Annie and Taylor sat on Taylor’s bed after school, surrounded by construction paper, colored yarn, and a box of trinkets they’d collected on their walks in D.C. over the years: feathers, beads, glossy rocks, jingle bells that had fallen off the floats during the Christmas parade, green glass bottles that had washed ashore along the Potomac, and—Taylor’s favorite—shiny pink ribbons that had been left on the fences after the Cherry Blossom Festival.
    “Look.” Taylor held up a strand of yarn decorated with blue jay feathers and sparkling red beads.
    Annie forced a smile, taking the strand of yarn and standing on the bed in her socks. If what Grace had told her that afternoon was true, that Chase Townsend wouldn’t think twice about backing out on her loan if it wasn’t a sound investment, then she needed to come up with a new plan fast.
    She looped it around a hook and sat back down, watching Taylor pull out another spool of yarn from the box. “You still haven’t told me how the rest of your day at school went.”
    Taylor dug through the rest of the trinkets, pulling out a charm bracelet someone had left on the floor of the S2 bus that ran down 16th Street. “I like my teacher. She’s nice.”
    Annie threaded a piece of string through a yellow construction paper gingko leaf. “How about the other kids in your class? How were they?”
    Taylor looped the yarn through the links of the bracelet and the charms jangled as she held it up, like a tiny wind chime. “They called me Cinderella.”
    Annie’s heart sank. Because of the broom. “Did you tell Miss Haddaway?”
    Taylor looked down, fiddling with the strings on the charm. “She overheard and made them apologize. She said I was supposed to tell her if they did it again.”
    “Good,” Annie said. “I want you to tell me, too.”
    Taylor nodded and Annie added a silver bell to the end of the string. The quiet tinkling brought her back to the day, over a month ago, when she’d first seen the ad for this property online. It was the day after the