Summer Beach Reads 5-Book Bundle: Beachcombers, Heat Wave, Moon Shell Beach, Summer House, Summer Breeze by Nancy Thayer

morning.”
    Marina lingered by the “Nantucket” table. “I wonder, could I buy a few of these now?”
    “If you want, just borrow them,” Sheila told her. “Bring them back when you return—you are coming back, aren’t you?”
    “Absolutely,” Marina told her. She gathered five books up in her arms. As she walked out of the library, she took a moment to stand on the wide front steps and consider the day. On either side of her, in the shade of the overhang, people sat talking into their cell phones. In the Atheneum garden, people lolled on benches, reading books, eating ice-cream cones, and watching their children swing from the sturdy crabapple trees. At the corner of the street, three women in bright sundresses stood chatting.
    Crossing the street from the post office came a woman with hair in a French braid, like Dara wore hers. She was pushing a stroller with a fat baby in it.
    Marina clutched her books to her chest, but the arrow of envyhad already struck her heart. She knew she could recover from the divorce, and even from the loss of her best friend, but it would take her a long time to resign herself to childlessness.
    A light touch on her shoulder broke her away from her thoughts. She turned to see Sheila Lester there.
    “Want to have lunch?” the other woman asked.
    “Oh. Sure!”
    “I’ve only got an hour,” Sheila said. “Let’s go over to the Fog.”
    At the restaurant, they settled into a booth, leaned toward each other over the table, and began to chat. Marina gave Sheila a very condensed account of her past, but rather than get mired in the mud of Dara, Gerry, and the divorce, she turned the conversation back to Sheila. Over salads with walnuts and cranberries, Sheila told her about her own work.
    “I make lightship baskets. Do you know about lightships?”
    “Not a thing,” Marina admitted. “Tell me.”
    “Lightships were floating lighthouses in the nineteenth century, stationed at certain places around the island to warn passing ships of dangerous shoals so they didn’t get lost in the fog and run aground. Crews stayed out in the lightships for six months at a time. Needless to say they didn’t have television, so they did craft work. Some made sailor’s valentines, intricate little combinations of shells put together to form a pretty picture. Some made lightship baskets, which involved lots of patient weaving of canes.” She held up her own basket, which she carried as a purse.
    “It must take patience to make one,” Marina said.
    “It does,” Sheila agreed. “You might want to give it a try. I teach classes and give individual lessons, too.”
    “I’ll think about it,” Marina told her. “Patience isn’t really my strong suit.”
    After lunch, they went their separate ways. Marina gave herself a gold star for making a friend and not whining and moaning about her pathetic past year. There was a kind of tranquillity about the other woman that Marina felt terribly appealing. It was rather like the calm that Jim Fox radiated. Both people paid attention to her when they talked. They weren’t looking over her shoulder for something better.
    Back in her cottage, Marina spread the books out on the coffeetable, loving the way the covers brightened the room. The one on découpage had such a gorgeous cover of blue hydrangea that she propped it on the table like a painting.
    She checked her calendar. Determined not to spend her life hiding away weeping, she had gone through the arts and entertainment section of the newspaper and scheduled events in throughout the week. She would absolutely go to them, every single one. And now that Sheila had reminded her of all the museums on the island, she would add those to the mix.
    And of course, she reminded herself, there was the island itself. She hadn’t been swimming yet. She studied her calendar. It read: Book sale. Swimming. Theater.
    The closest beach was Jetties, which would be a long walk from her cottage. She decided to rent a