Elizabeth of East Hampton (For the Love of Austen #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

The Atlantic Ocean hated her. It was the only feasible explanation.

Elizabeth Bennet stared out at the horizon, her surfboard bobbing lazily between her legs. The sunrise painted the clouds in grays and yellows and pinks, colors reflected in the endless expanse of water ahead. It would have been a perfect morning, really, except for one problem: the water was absolutely flat.

Lizzy squeezed her eyes shut and lifted her face to the sky, silently praying to whoever might be listening: Come on. All I want is one wave. Just one, and I promise to go the rest of the summer without rolling my eyes at anybody. Please?

A moment, then she peeked out at the water around her. Still flat as a pancake.

Well, that settled it. Mother Nature was a sadist.

It was no secret that the beach break off East Hampton was mediocre at best, especially this late in May. Yet somehow the waves had been fantastic over the past two weeks—something akin to a miracle. But today, the one day Lizzy really needed it, the ocean had flatlined.

It wasn’t that the summers in East Hampton were awful, per se. Lizzy used to love them when she was younger and would steal muffins from the family bakery to eat amid the dunes on the beach. But as she grew older, she began to recognize how, for three months every year, their small village became something else entirely. Starting Memorial Day weekend, traffic clogged Montauk Highway all the way from the city to the eastern tip of Long Island. Manhattanites crowded the beaches, more intent on posting photos to social media than swimming. The local gossip mill consumed every family conversation, nourishing her mother more than anything they made at Bennet Bakery. It was the same every year.

And Lizzy could just about face it all—she really could—if she could just catch one last wave before summer officially began.

The ocean had other plans, apparently.

She pushed the wet strands of her long red hair away from her face and closed her eyes again, ready to offer the last twenty-one dollars in her savings account—maybe even a few of Bennet Bakery’s popular sour cherry muffins—when a sharp ping pierced the silence. She glanced down at her wrist to where her old digital watch was blinking.

5:30 a.m.

Time to go to work.

For a half second, she debated ignoring it. Her dad was probably at the bakery already. He would turn on the ovens, put the cinnamon rolls in the proofer, take the scones out of the fridge, and—

The thought was cut short by a familiar pang of guilt. Wasn’t this the whole reason she had put graduate school on hold a few months ago? So she could help out at the bakery while her dad recovered from his stroke and the rest of the family came up with a plan?

You mean the same family who hasn’t been able to agree on a movie to watch together in over a decade? a small voice whispered in her head.

Lizzy frowned. It was true, long-term planning was not a Bennet strong suit.

She avoided that sobering train of thought—and the second round of guilt it introduced—to send one last glance out at the ocean ahead.

A minute passed, then a seagull bobbed by. It stared at her expectantly.

“What?” she asked.

It cawed at her.

“I know, I know.” She sighed. “I’m going.”

The bird looked doubtful.

To prove her point, she turned away and began paddling her board toward shore. That’s when something in the periphery caught her eye. Just there, set back on the dark beach.

The lights were on at Marv’s Lament.

Huh . Now, that was different.

While most of the houses neatly lining East Hampton’s stretch of coastline were fun-house mirror versions of small shingle-sided cottages—bloated in size but still following the unwritten rules of Hamptons aesthetics—the house overlooking Georgica Beach near the end of Lily Pond Lane was a geometric amalgamation of steel and glass, all right angles and sharp lines.

The village dubbed it Marv’s Lament over the fact that, despite a public petition that claimed it was an “eyesore” and “insulted the architectural integrity of the village,” their mayor, Marvin Long, hadn’t found a way to halt its construction. But just as quickly as the nickname had become ubiquitous, the house was mostly forgotten about, sitting dormant except for a few weekends in the summer. Even then, Lizzy couldn’t remember who actually owned it. Some tech billionaire? A celebrity? She had no idea, and it never occurred to her to find out, especially after the house went on the market as a summer rental a few years ago. Thanks to its questionable design and a ridiculous price tag, it had been empty and dark ever since.

But not today.

Today every light was on, revealing the modern furniture sparsely placed throughout. As Lizzy emerged from the water and made her way past the wind-sculpted sand dunes peppered with beach grass to the parking lot, she could see a cleaning crew vacuuming around a long, low sofa, meticulously scouring the kitchen’s marble countertops. They were still there after she threw her board into the bed of her old Chevy truck and changed from her wetsuit into a T-shirt and her favorite overalls.

Well, well, well , she thought as she slid onto the truck’s cracked pleather driver’s seat, turning on the heat as soon as the engine roared to life. Someone finally rented Marv’s Lament. Maybe it was a person her own age, for once. Maybe even someone who knew how to surf. It would be a nice change of pace, exactly the kind of thing she needed after the past year.

Then she turned right out of the beach’s parking lot and found a half dozen trucks parked along Lily Pond Lane in front of Marv’s Lament, almost entirely blocking the road. The same cluster of cleaners and landscapers and delivery vans from the city that became pervasive every Memorial Day weekend.

She rolled her eyes and laughed to herself, maneuvering around the vehicles as “Fake ID” by the Anemic Boyfriends blared out of her truck’s speakers. She should have known better. Hoping for summers out east to change was like hoping for her mother to start speaking at a decibel below screaming: impossible.

Bennet Bakery sat between the Mulford Credit Union and East Hampton Hardware in the center of East Hampton Village. Everyone called it “downtown,” but really it was just the row of shops lining the corner of Main Street and Newtown Lane. When Lizzy was growing up, there had been more local businesses, but year by year they had been swallowed up by high-end boutiques and brands. Minny Conklin’s salon, where Lizzy had gotten her first haircut, was now a gourmet food market. Barbara Long’s bridal shop had been replaced by Gucci. Even the old library building was now a Chanel boutique. Bennet Bakery and its two neighbors were some of the last locally owned storefronts in the Village, a fact that had more to do with the building’s inexplicably low rent than their profit margin.

Lizzy parked in her usual spot around the back, then gathered her still-damp hair into a bun on top of her head before getting out and entering through the kitchen door. Just like that, the morning’s chill evaporated in a fog of heat and powdered sugar. Metal tray racks and bags of flour lined the warm yellow walls, while the smell of vanilla and yeast floated in the air. It hadn’t changed much since the bakery opened forty-eight years ago, when her grandparents opened it with the last of their life savings. They had retired and moved to Florida before any of the Bennet sisters were born, leaving the business to Lizzy’s dad.

She was fairly certain that nothing had been updated since. They still had her grandfather’s original answering machine. The walls were still the same color as they were when Lizzy took her first steps across the red clay tile floors. They even had the same sign in the window, which her grandfather had painted himself.

Lizzy smiled. Every detail fit together like puzzle pieces in one fully formed memory. Remove any one detail and it just wouldn’t be the same.

“Morning,” she said to the broad back of the man who was pulling a tray out of the bread oven.

Mr. Bennet shifted, turning enough to peer over his shoulder at her. The hard line of his brow accentuated his frown, the fluorescent light above half illuminating his downturned mustache.

“Well?” he asked, his voice gruff.

“Mother Nature hates me,” she said with a heavy sigh.

His mouth ticked up with a smile. It was still a bit lopsided on the right side—a subtle reminder of his stroke a few months before. “Or that low-pressure system moved off the coast.”

She shrugged. “Tomato, tomahto.”

“Right.” He turned back to the oven. “Well, I need to start on those delivery invoices, so why don’t you get going on the croissants.”

Lizzy gave him a small salute, the same one they shared at the start of every shift since she was a teenager, and tied her apron over her overalls, kicking off their morning routine. It was the same every day. Every year.

Apparently, this summer wasn’t going to be that different at all.