Introduction

"[Thayne] engages the reader's heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief that miracles are possible." —Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author

From the beloved bestselling author of Season of Wonder and The Cliff House comes a poignant and uplifting novel about forgiveness, family and all the complications—and joy—that come with it

As the older sibling to identical twins Violet and Lily, Cami Porter was always the odd sister out. The divide grew even wider when their parents split up—while the twins stayed in Cape Sanctuary with their free-spirited mother, Rosemary, fourteen-year-old Cami moved to LA with her attorney father. Nearly twenty years later, when Cami gets the terrible news that Lily has drowned saving a child’s life, her mother begs her to return home to help untangle the complicated estate issues her sister left behind.

Navigating their own strained relationship, Cami readjusts to the family and community she hasn’t known for decades, including the neighbor who stands in the way of her late sister’s dream, while Violet grieves the loss of her twin and struggles to figure out who she is now, without her other half, as the little girl Lily saved pulls her back into the orbit of the man she once loved.

With poignancy and heart, RaeAnne Thayne once again delivers her charming signature blend of warmth, wit and wisdom.

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Excerpt

Wild, frenzied barking rang out when Violet Porter let herself into the back door of her mother’s comfortable kitchen at Moongate Farm.

Rosemary was nowhere in sight. Instead, a cranky-faced schnauzer–toy poodle mix planted himself in front of the door, telling her in no uncertain terms that she was an intruder who wasn’t welcome here.

“Hi, Baxter,” she said, mouth stretched thin in what she knew was an insincere smile. “How are you, buddy?”

Lily’s dog only growled at her, baring his teeth with his hackles raised as if he wanted to rip her throat out.

The dog hated her. Violet wasn’t exactly sure why.

She might have thought he would look more fondly toward her, considering she was the identical twin to his late owner. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe the fact that she looked so much like Lily but clearly wasn’t her sister confused the dog and made him view her as a threat.

He had never really warmed to her, even when he lived in her condo with Lily. Since Lily’s death, he had become downright hostile.

“Stop that. What’s gotten into you? I could hear you clear back in my bedroom.”

Her mother’s voice trailed out from down the hall, becoming louder as she approached the kitchen, still fastening an earring.

She stopped dead when she spotted Violet.

“Oh! Violet! You scared me! What are you doing here?”

“You invited me. Remember? You’ve known for months I was coming to help you out during my summer break.”

“You were coming tomorrow. Not today!”

Okay. That wasn’t exactly the warm welcome she might have expected, Violet thought wryly. Instead, her mother was staring at her with an expression that seemed a curious mix of chagrin and dismay.

She shrugged as Baxter continued to growl. Wasn’t anybody happy to see her?

“I finished cleaning out my classroom and calculating final grades this morning. Since all my things were already packed and loaded into my car, I couldn’t see any reason to wait until the morning to drive up. Is there a problem?”

Rosemary, usually so even-tempered, looked at her, then at the giant wrought iron clock on the wall of the Moongate Farm kitchen with a hint of panic in her eyes.

“No. It’s only…this is, er, a bit of a complication. I’m expecting dinner guests any moment.”

“That must be why it smells so good in here.”

It smelled like roasting vegetables mixed with garlic and cheese. Violet’s stomach rumbled loud enough she was certain her mother had to hear but Rosemary didn’t seem to notice, looking at the clock again.

Why was she so nervous? Who was coming? If she didn’t know better, Violet might have suspected her mother was expecting a date.

Not impossible, she supposed. Her mother was still a beautiful woman, with high cheekbones, a wide smile and the deep blue eyes she had handed down to Violet and her identical twin.

Rosemary didn’t date much, though she’d had a few relationships since her divorce from Violet’s father.

As far as Violet knew, she had broken up with the most recent man she had dated one more than a year earlier and Rosemary hadn’t mentioned anyone else.

Then again, just as Violet didn’t tell her mother everything that went on in her life in Sacramento, Rosemary likely had secrets of her own here in Cape Sanctuary.

“No problem,” she said, trying for a cheerful tone. “You don’t have to worry about feeding me. If I get hungry later, I’ll make a sandwich or something. I’ll get out of your way.”

“You’re not in the way,” Rosemary protested. “It’s just, well…”

She didn’t have time to finish before a knock sounded at the back door. Baxter, annoying little beast, gave one sharp bark, sniffed at the door, then plopped down expectantly.

Violet thought she heard a man’s deep voice say something on the other side of the door and then a child’s laughter in response.

Something about that voice rang a chord. She frowned, suddenly unsettled. “Mom. Who are you expecting?”

“Just some…some friends from town.” Rosemary said vaguely.

She heard the man’s voice again and her disquiet turned into full-fledged dismay.

No. Rosemary wouldn’t have. Would she?

“Mom. Who’s here?” Her voice sounded shrill and she was quite sure Rosemary could pick up on it.

“I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” her mom said defensively. “You told me you were coming tomorrow so I… I invited Alexandro and his daughter for dinner. He’s been such a help to me with Wild Hearts. I could never have set up all those tents or moved in the furniture without him. I’ve been meaning to have him and his daughter over for dinner but the time got away from me, until here we are. I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow and I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

The news hit her like a hatchet to the chest. Alex was here, on the other side of the door. Alex, who had once been her best friend, the man she thought would be her forever.

Alex, who had betrayed her.

She had seen him exactly twice since they broke up a decade ago.

One previous encounter had been a few years after he married Claudia Crane, when she had bumped into him at the grocery store while home from college for a brief visit.

The second time had been four months earlier at Lily’s memorial service.

That was two times too many, really. Three encounters was asking far too much of her.

She wanted to jump back into her car and head back to Sacramento.

No. This was silly. She had known she would see him this summer. How could she avoid it? Cape Sanctuary was a small town. Not only that, but his house and boat charter business were both just down the road from Moongate Farm.

The concept had seemed fine in the abstract. Like algebra and the periodic table.

It had been nearly a decade, after all. She was a completely different person from that besotted girl she had once been.

He meant nothing to her anymore. She should be able to blithely chat with him about what he had been up to the past decade.

Yeah. Not happening.

Maybe she could turn around, climb back into her car and go hang out at The Sea Shanty until he was gone.

No. That was just kicking the can down the road. She had to face him eventually. Why not now?

She could come up with a dozen reasons but none of them seemed compelling enough for her to flee without at least saying hello.

“I’m sorry,” Rosemary said again, her hand on the doorknob.

“It’s fine, Mom. Don’t worry about it. Don’t leave them standing outside. I’ll just say hello and then head over to the bunkhouse to settle in. You won’t even know I’m here. It will be fine.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute, but she forced herself to put on a pleasant smile as her mother opened the door.

And there he was.

As gorgeous as ever, with those thick dark eyelashes, strong features, full mouth that could kiss like no one else she had ever met…

Her toes curled at the unwelcome memories and she forced her attention away from Alex to the young girl standing beside him. She had dark hair that swung to her shoulders, bright brown eyes and dimples like her father.

Right now she was staring at Violet like she had just grown a second head.

“Miss Lily?” she whispered, big brown eyes wide and mouth ajar.

Of course. Ariana thought Violet was her sister. It was a natural mistake, as they were identical twins, though as an adult, Vi had mostly seen the differences between them.

She approached the girl with the same patient, reassuring smile she used in her classroom when one of her students was upset about something.

“Hi, there,” she said calmly, doing her best to ignore Alex’s intense gaze for now. “You must be Ariana. I’m Violet. Lily was my twin sister.”

“You look just like her,” the girl said breathlessly. Her gaze narrowed. “Except I think maybe your hair is a little shorter than hers was. And she had a tattoo of flowers on her wrist and you don’t.”

When they were in college, Lily had insisted on getting a tiny bouquet of flowers, intertwined lilies and violets and camellias to represent the three Porter sisters.

She had begged Violet and Cami to both get one, too. Cami, older by two years and always far more mature than either Vi or Lily, had politely explained that she didn’t want any tattoos because of the serious nature of the law career she was pursuing. Violet had promised she would but then kept putting it off.

She still could go get a tattoo. After Lily's death, she had had thought more seriously about it but the loss of her sister was always with her. She didn’t need a mark on her skin to remind her Lily wasn’t here.

She forced a smile for the girl. “Right. No tattoo. That’s one sure way of telling us apart.”

Plus, she was alive and Lily wasn’t. But she wasn’t cruel enough to say that out loud, especially not to this child.

Lily had drowned after rescuing Ariana and a visiting friend when a rogue wave from an offshore winter storm dragged the girls out to sea. Lily had somehow managed to get both girls back to safety, but the Pacific had been relentless that day and before Lily could climb out herself, another wave had pulled her under.

Violet certainly couldn’t blame this child for a cruel act of nature.

Or for her parentage.

Alex stepped forward and she finally had to face the man she had once loved with all her heart.

“Violet.”

That was all he said, only her name. His voice was the same as she remembered, deep, fluid, with a timbre that always seemed to shiver down her spine like a caress.

She ignored her reaction. She’d had nearly a decade to get over the man, for heaven’s sake.

Once, she had known him well enough to guess what he was thinking most of the time. Either she was out of practice or he had become much harder to read over the years because she had no idea what was going through his head.

“I didn’t know you would be here tonight,” he went on. “I thought you weren’t coming back to town until tomorrow.”

“Surprise.” She gave him a cool smile, determined not to show by even a hitch in her breathing how he could still leave her flustered.

A timer rang out and Rosemary, who had said nothing at this awkward reunion, hurried to the oven and pulled out a tray of what looked like her famous veggie lasagna, bubbling with cheese.

“Here we are,” she announced. “Zucchini lasagna and salad with baby lettuce and early tomatoes from my greenhouse.”

“Yum. It looks delicious.” Alex gave Violet’s mother a genuine smile. It was so familiar, once so beloved, that it made her heart hurt.

Rosemary looked at him with a fondness that baffled Violet. Had her mother completely forgotten that this man had once shattered her daughter’s heart?

“Thank you,” Violet’s mother said, sliding the pan onto a trivet. “I hope it’s as good as it looks.”

She turned to Violet. “There’s plenty for you. I just need to set out another plate and some silverware for you.”

“Not necessary,” she assured her quickly. “I’m not hungry.”

It was a lie but she wasn’t about to sit down for a meal with Alex as if their shared past meant nothing.

Not to mention with his daughter.

“I’ll just unload my things from the car and start settling into the bunkhouse.”

“You don’t have to leave on our account,” Alex protested.

Oh, she absolutely did but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, she forced another polite smile.

She waved at them all. “I’ll talk to you later, Mom. Nice to meet you, Ariana. Enjoy the lasagna.”

The girl still looked at her as if she expected Violet to start floating around the room any minute and disappear through the wall.

“Welcome back,” Alex said, that beautiful voice low.

She couldn’t think of an answer so she hurried out of the kitchen, down the back porch steps and to her car.

She didn’t realize Baxter, the cranky schnoodle, had followed her until he planted his haunches beside her car and gave her a baleful look.

She suddenly feared she had made a terrible mistake coming home.

Since Lily died, all she could think about was being here at Moongate Farm with her mother and the chickens and the quiet peace of the garden.

The notion had been the only thing keeping her going through the hectic end of the school year, when she was burned out from lesson planning and grading assignments and Individualized Education Plans with parents while her students were all wild with anticipation for the summer break.

Here beside the ocean, perhaps she could finally breathe past the ache in her chest and come to terms with the grief and the guilt that both seemed to prowl restlessly through her subconscious.

She hadn’t lived in Cape Sanctuary for any length of time since the summer after her freshman year of college, when she had come home for a few months to wait tables and to be with Alex, who was living at home and taking business classes at the nearby community college while he helped his dad at the marina.

That had been their last glorious summer as a couple. They had spent every possible moment together.

By the next summer, their relationship had shattered.

She had been back to visit, of course. Holidays. A week here or there. She had always carefully managed to avoid seeing him and the new family he had started with someone else.

She grabbed her suitcase out of her car.

She could do this. Alex meant nothing to her anymore. She was here to help her mother, not to spend even another moment thinking about a past she could never recapture. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

Jon faces a difficult choice concerning whether he should put his passion for archeological exploration on hold in order to remain in Cape Sanctuary to care for his father after a difficult health diagnosis. Women often have to make sacrifices for family in caregiving situations. Would you have made the same choice Jon did? If not, why not? If so, how do you avoid resentment and regret?

Summer at the Cape features two romance subplots, between Cami/Jon and Violet/Alex. Which is your favorite trope of the two featured in the book? Enemies to Lovers or Second Chance at Romance? Why? What are your other favorite romance tropes?

The relationship between Cami and Violet (and Lily too) was affected by the divorce of their parents and the split custody agreement between Rosemary and Ted. Can adult siblings whose families were fractured in their youth rebuild relationships as they grow older? How? How could Ted and Rosemary have done a better job helping their daughters stay close into adulthood?

Violet is struggling with understandable grief because of her twin sister’s death, compounded by guilt that Lily died while the two of them were in the middle of a difficult stretch in their relationship. Does Violet have reason for her guilt? Is there a more healthy way the two of them could have resolved their differences, rather than separation?

Are you a twin or do you have twins in your family? What have you observed or experienced about the unique bond between twins compared to between regular non-multiple siblings?

Have you ever been Glamping? Do you you think it’s something you would enjoy or would you rather go camping old-school? Where would you like to go?

How does the title SUMMER AT THE CAPE work in relation to the book's contents? If you could give the book a new title, what would it be?

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