“Can I help you?” she called sharply. Fuckface had some nerve wandering around the place like he already owned it.

“Nope,” Ryan said, immune to her tone. “Say, you have any idea how many square feet are in that apartment up there?”

“No,” Ellis said woodenly.

“But it’s got a kitchen, right, like an efficiency? And a bathroom? Is it a full or half bath? We’re trying to figure out if the apartment would work out as income property. It’s hell to get new bathrooms approved, is why I ask, so if there’s an existing full bath up there, that would be awesome.”

“Honey, I think I remember that it’s got a sink and a toilet, with the shower out on the deck,” Kendra called down.

Ellis whirled around. Kendra was not only still on the deck, she was actually peering in the glass insert in the door, her hands cupped to shut out the glare of the sunlight. “The kitchen’s small, but it’s got everything you’d need. We’d want to replace the appliances, and the linoleum would have to go right away too. New cupboards and countertops, of course. It might be worth a trip to IKEA for that stuff.”

“Hey!” Ellis called. “I don’t think Ty would appreciate having you poking around his apartment while he’s gone.”

“Okay,” Kendra said. She came bopping down the stairs and joined her husband, who’d finished inspecting the garage. Ellis noticed that Kendra’s sun visor was the exact same shade of Carolina blue as her sleek sleeveless top and running shorts. And, of course, her Carolina blue running shoes matched everything else she wore, including the scrunchy that held her long blond hair in a ponytail.

“Say, Alice…” Kendra started.

“It’s Ellis. E-L-L-I-S.”

“Right, sorry. Listen, you don’t happen to know who’s renting Ebbtide right now, do you?”

“No,” Ellis lied.

“Hmm,” Kendra said, turning to stare up at the house. A trio of damp bathing suits clipped to the clothesline stretched between the porch posts flapped in the breeze. As she watched, Booker emerged from the house with a camera slung around his neck.

“I really, really need to get a look inside the house, hon,” Kendra told her husband. “Ty’s nana was sweet, but she was really not much of a housekeeper, and God knows, Ty never cared about that kind of stuff. As long as the fish were biting or the surf was up, he didn’t care what the house looked like.”

She pursed her lips, still looking up at the house, thoughtfully. “Window air conditioners. And I’m sure there’s no insulation, or even a furnace. Guess I’m not surprised. I don’t think the Culpeppers ever did winterize the house.” She gave Ellis a sad smile. “Ty’s grandparents were the salt of the earth, but there was never much money there.”

“Roof looks pretty bad too, sweetness,” Ryan added. “We’d have to gut the place.”

Ellis’s stomach twinged at the word “gut.” She wanted to grab the broom she’d recently abandoned and chase these two opportunists down the driveway and off the Ebbtide property. Even though it wasn’t her place, she felt strongly that Ty would approve of such a course of action.

Before she could suggest that Kendra and Fuckface vacate the premises, she was saved by the cheery chirping of Kendra’s cell phone.

“Hi-i-i,” Kendra said, her face brightening. “No, nope. He’s not here. His friend says she doesn’t know where he’s gone, or when he’ll be back. What’s new about that, right? Probably off surfing with some of those lowlife buddies of his.”

Kendra’s caller talked for a while, and she listened intently. “No, we won’t give up. I’ll leave him another message, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll just check back later. I promise you, Daddy, when we hand him a check, he’ll be happy to take it and walk away. Okay? See you at lunch, then.”

She clicked disconnect and pocketed the phone. “So,” she said brightly. “You’ll be sure and tell Ty we came by?”

“As soon as I see him,” Ellis promised.

Kendra turned to her husband. “Daddy wants us to meet them at the club for lunch. That leaves us a couple hours to kill. We could run up to Duck in the meantime. Bailey and Ferris have been pestering me to drop by and see what they’ve done to their place, and then we’d have an excuse to leave.”

Ryan nodded enthusiastically, and without another word to Ellis, they jumped in the Mercedes and sped off.

Ellis watched them go, her fists clenched in rage. She marched herself back to Ebbtide, dumped her load of laundry into the washing machine, spun the dial, and punched the start button.

*   *   *

Late afternoon, and the house was eerily quiet. Booker had insisted on treating all of them, including Madison, who’d tried without success to beg off, to a late lunch at the Beach Grill.

When they were seated at a table overlooking the dunes, Booker gave Julia an ill-concealed wink. She produced a bottle of champagne from her big straw beach tote, and Booker stood up and tapped his water glass with a spoon.

The other diners in the restaurant turned, gave them a look of mild interest, and then turned back to the Braves baseball game they were watching on the big-screen television mounted over the bar.

Booker pulled Julia to her feet, and for the first time any of the girls could remember, Julia was actually blushing.

“I have an announcement to make,” Booker said, wrapping an arm around Julia’s waist and struggling to look serious.

“Yessss!” Ellis squealed.

“Oh, hell yeah!” Dorie squealed in unison.

“Quiet!” Julia demanded. “Have you no sense of decorum?”

The waitress returned to their table, bearing a tray of cloudy, water-spotted champagne glasses and a basket of individually wrapped saltine crackers. “Thank you,” Booker said, dismissing her with a nod.

“Now, as I was saying,” Booker continued. “As you may know, I have been pursuing this flower of southern womanhood, Julia Elizabeth Capelli, for well over a decade. And as you also know, your friend Julia has, thus far, refused—nay, scorned—my entreaties to allow me to make of her an honest woman.”

“Boo!” Dorie booed.

“Hiss,” Ellis hissed. “Get to the good part, would you?”

Julia rolled her eyes. “Now you know what I’ve been dealing with for all these years.”

“Be that as it may,” Booker went on, gesturing grandly. “Last night, under the influence of a full moon, not to mention nearly two bottles of very good French pinot gris, your friend, and my beloved, did me the great honor of agreeing to, at a date to be announced, make me the happiest man on earth. May I introduce to you all my fiancée, the future Mrs. Julia Capelli-hyphen-Calloway.”

With that, Booker grabbed the champagne bottle and popped the cork, and with the champagne spewing over his hands, he clasped Julia and planted a huge, noisy kiss directly on her laughing lips, while Dorie, Ellis, and Madison cheered wildly.

The lunch that followed was the happiest, craziest, loudest meal Ellis could remember attending in recent memory.

Julia had finally, after much baiting and begging, agreed that the wedding would take place sometime in the fall. “Before you get too fat,” she told Dorie, “and he,” she said, turning fondly to Booker, “has time to change his mind and find another girl.”

But Booker had more than one surprise up his sleeve, they soon discovered. When their appetizers arrived, Julia stared down at her plate of calamari, and finally, with a fork, picked up a vinaigrette-drenched ring—platinum, with a band of small diamond chips surrounding an enormous, glittering cushion-cut diamond.

“Booker!” Julia sputtered. “What the hell?”

Booker lifted the ring from the tines of Julia’s fork and slid it, dressing and all, onto her left hand. He kissed the ring, and then Julia’s palm, and finally, her lips.

When she’d recovered from the shock, Julia held her hand up and twisted it back and forth, admiring the glint of sunlight on the diamond. “It’s perfect,” she declared. “If I’d designed it myself, it could not have been more perfect. It looks so much like my grandmother’s engagement ring. How did you know? And where on earth…?”