Seabreeze Wedding (Summer Beach #5) - Jan Moran Page 0,2

actor drown? That would’ve landed us on the celebrity graveyard tour list.”

Shelly laughed. “I can just imagine how that would go.”

Poppy snapped her fingers. “Hey, that might be an idea. With such an old house, I wonder if anyone famous has ever died here?” Her eyes glittered at the possibilities. “Or even better—murdered? What with Amelia Erickson’s ghost already here, I could really promote that—”

“No,” Ivy and Shelly cried in unison, holding up their hands.

Ivy shivered. “There is no ghost. No spirits, no apparitions. Nothing. Rumors like that can chase away potential guests. Besides, we all have to sleep here.”

Shelly and Poppy suppressed smiles.

“I mean it.” Glaring at them, Ivy took her phone from her pocket. “Now, if you’ll watch the desk, Poppy, I’ll call Mrs. York. We’re also expecting that group from Los Angeles any time now. They called and asked to check in early.”

“All the rooms are ready,” Poppy said as she peered at her laptop screen. “Wow, the Yorks look loaded. Billionaire-rich. But I wonder why they’d want to have their daughter’s wedding here?”

“People have their reasons,” Ivy replied, though she was curious about the couple, too. “Maybe they want an intimate setting. Just because they’re wealthy doesn’t mean they want an extravagant affair.”

“I have to clip flowers for the guestrooms,” Shelly said, disappearing through the front door with her shears and pail.

A new guest strolled in, and Ivy nodded in greeting. Mrs. Mehta was a retired schoolteacher from Seattle and still had the sweet voice and manner of the kindergarten teacher she had been for years. She and Ivy had chatted at length over breakfast. Mrs. Mehta had spoken so fondly of her young students, many of whom still kept in contact with her. She had even taught the children of former students.

Meeting interesting people was a bonus that Ivy enjoyed, and their stories often moved her.

“Could one of you help me with the coffeemaker in the dining room?” Mrs. Mehta asked. “I don’t know how to use those new-fangled machines with those little cups. I’m afraid I’ll break it, but I sure would like another cup of that delicious coffee.”

“I’ll help you,” Poppy said. “Those are coffee pods. It’s easy to use them once you know how.”

Ivy eased behind the desk. “I’ll watch the front.”

Mrs. Mehta told Ivy she had traveled the length of the western coast from Seattle to see her children. She planned to go first to San Diego and then continue to Phoenix to visit another child. Although Summer Beach was just an hour north of San Diego, the older woman said she needed to rest from her drive before taking on five grandchildren.

Ivy could only imagine, but with Sunny and Misty now in their twenties, she might soon be a grandmother, too. Still, with Sunny in college and Misty determined to make a career out of acting, even marriage was on the distant horizon.

After Poppy left, Ivy put down her phone and glanced at her niece’s computer screen, squinting without her reading glasses. Images of Eleanor York dressed in eveningwear filled the screen, although photos of the husband weren’t clear. “Hmm, you certainly go to a lot of fancy parties. Who are you?”

She clicked on another link, and photos of an older professorial gentleman in a herringbone coat popped up. Hardly the same one, she thought, dismissing the image.

Ivy had attended the occasional office holiday party with Jeremy, so she had a couple of black evening dresses she rotated. As a stay-at-home mom, she hadn’t needed much. She peered closer and enlarged an image. Eleanor York’s jewelry was quite impressive.

As guest voices floated downstairs, Ivy felt a twinge of guilt about snooping. She closed the laptop and rested her hands on it. Her fingers were bare of rings. She stroked the faint indentation where her wedding band had rested, growing tighter over the years until she didn’t bother taking it off.

She had a few other rings she wore from time to time, including a modest, ruby-and-diamond ring she’d found tucked under one of the wooden floorboards in her bedroom. It had belonged to the original owner of the house, Amelia Erickson, whose presence they all felt from time to time.

Amelia had left a trail of secrets in the old house she had christened Las Brisas Del Mar, from historic art and important jewels she’d tucked away to hidden rooms she’d built in the attic during the war.

Yet after discovering a cache of beautiful vintage Christmas ornaments in the garage, Ivy couldn’t