Beach House for Rent (The Beach House) - Softcover

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Mary Alice Monroe is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-seven books, including the bestselling The Beach House series. Monroe also writes children’s picture books, and a middle grade fiction series called The Islanders. She is a member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors’ Hall of Fame, and her books have received numerous awards, including the South Carolina Center for the Book Award for Writing; the South Carolina Award for Literary Excellence; the SW Florida Author of Distinction Award; the RT Lifetime Achievement Award; the International Book Award for Green Fiction; the Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award; and her novel, A Lowcountry Christmas, won the prestigious Southern Prize for Fiction. The Beach House is a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, starring Andie MacDowell. Several of her novels have been optioned for film. She is the cocreator and cohost of the weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction. Monroe is also an active conservationist and serves on several boards. She lives on the South Carolina coast, which is a source of inspiration for many of her books. 

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Beach House for Rent

Chapter One

Isle of Palms, South Carolina

April 2016

THE BEACH HOUSE sat perched on a dune overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Small and yellow, it blended in with the waves of sweetgrass and sea oats and the delicate yellow primroses for which the cottage was named. For eighty-five years it had endured the fury of hurricanes, the rush of tidal surges, and the ravages of the salt-tinged air. It had withstood the test of time.

The beach house was a survivor.

As was she, Cara Rutledge thought, staring up at the house. She held a paintbrush in one hand and, shading her eyes from the gentle rays of the sun with the other, surveyed the fresh coat of gleaming white paint she’d just finished applying to the front porch and railings. How many times had she painted these porches? she wondered. Or repaired the pergola, fixed the plumbing, trimmed the shrubs and trees? Living by the sea was a constant exercise in the art of nip and tuck, especially for an old cottage like Primrose. But she didn’t mind the time or expense. She would repair and paint it every year she could still lift a paintbrush or afford a plumber. Because even more than the historic house on Tradd Street in Charleston, or the treasured, centuries-old family antiques that filled the Rutledge family’s home, this modest 1930s beach house held the real memories of her family.

Only the good memories, she corrected herself with a wistful smile as her thoughts floated back to the halcyon days of her childhood.

When she was growing up, summer meant leaving the bustle and noise of Charleston and coming out to Primrose Cottage on the Isle of Palms with her mother, Olivia, and older brother, Palmer. It might have been only a trip across the Grace Bridge, some twenty miles, but back in the day, the change was so significant they might as well have journeyed to another country. Many of the girls she knew from school spent summers at family cottages on Sullivan’s Island. But her mother claimed she preferred the relative isolation and the maritime forest on Isle of Palms. Cara, too, had preferred the Huck Finn lifestyle of Isle of Palms, where her mother would open the screen door and let her children run wild till the dinner bell at 5 p.m.

Cara sighed, slipping into the vortex of memories. Her gaze scanned the quaint cottage under the brilliant azure sky. She had achieved many lifetime firsts here. She’d learned to swim on the beach just beyond the house, kissed her first boyfriend on the back porch, confided secrets with her best friend, Emmi, over cookies and sweet tea in the kitchen, broken her first bone falling from the live oak tree that thrived until Hurricane Hugo blew it down. She’d caught her first fish from Hamlin Creek on the back of the island, and made love with Brett amid the clicking sea oats on the dunes. Of all her memories, those of the man she’d fallen in love with late in life, married, and forged a new life with here on Isle of Palms were the sweetest.

Cara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet sea air. She heard the sounds of the island—the soft humming of bees, the purr of the ocean. She felt the caress of a breeze ruffle her hair. Whenever she had memories of the beach house, the image of her mother formed in her mind. Olivia Rutledge, affectionately known as Lovie—slight, ageless, her blond hair pulled back into a stylish chignon, her blue eyes shining with warmth. Opening her eyes, Cara almost expected to see her mother walking around the corner carrying the red turtle team bucket.

Primrose Cottage had been her mother’s beach house. No, Cara thought on reflection. More than her house. The cottage had been her mother’s sanctuary. Her place of refuge. Her source of inspiration. Lovie had come here to escape the burdens of her social obligations in Charleston. On the island she was free to pursue her passion—sea turtles. Lovie had been the Isle of Palms’s first “sea turtle lady.” She’d formed the first turtle team. She’d even named her only daughter Caretta, after the Latin name for the loggerhead, much to Cara’s lifelong chagrin.

They’d been close when she was young, but as Cara grew tall and statuesque, her opinions matured as well. She’d found herself growing increasingly distant from her mother—in fact, from both her parents.

Especially her father.

When Cara was eighteen, to her traditional father Stratton Rutledge’s disappointment, she had refused to become the southern belle she was expected to be. Her hair was too dark, her feet too big. She was too tall, too bookish, and far too independent-minded. After graduating high school with honors, Cara had informed her parents, in a tone of voice that implied she was well aware they would not approve, that she wasn’t going to the local college they’d selected for her but would instead attend a northeastern college. Perhaps Boston University. Maybe even Harvard. She was proud she’d been accepted. Her father, however, wasn’t accustomed to back talk, especially from his daughter.

“Who the hell do you think you are, little girl?” he’d roared, his voice echoing in the large dining room of their grand home. Her mother had sat quietly at the other end of the table, her eyes meekly downcast. “You’ll do as I say. And if you step one foot outside this town—out of this house—that’ll tear it between us, you hear? You leave and you’ll not get one dollar, not one stick of furniture, not so much as a nod of the head when you pass me or your mother on the street, hear?”

But Cara was more like her father than he’d realized. She’d turned heel and run as far away from her parents, that house, Charleston, and all the expectations and demands of a southern woman from South of Broad as she could get, heading to points north to seek her freedom, fame, and fortune. Her father was as good as his word. He’d cut her off and never looked back. He refused to pay her tuition, so she’d never gone to a prestigious Boston college. Instead she’d nailed an interview for an entry-level position at an advertising firm in Chicago, and had gone to night school for seven years while working full-time, finally earning her degree in communications. She’d climbed the corporate ladder and, though she wasn’t wealthy, she’d achieved success on her own merit. Cara had come home only once, for her brother’s wedding, and sent a handful of Christmas and birthday cards over the years. There was the occasional phone call with her mother. Her relationship with her family was polite at best.

When her father died, Cara returned home for his funeral. Like the man he’d been throughout his lifetime, his will was cold and vindictive. As Stratton had sworn all those years ago, he didn’t leave her as much as a stick of furniture. Cara had neither expected nor wanted anything from him. But the silence from her mother upon finding out that he’d made good on his pledge had hurt.

Then, on Cara’s fortieth birthday, her mother had written asking her to come home for a visit. And she’d obliged. A weekend at the beach house had turned into a summer of reconciliation.

“Oh, Mama,” she whispered so softly that her voice was carried off by the breeze. Cara had lost Lovie again to cancer right after they’d found...