Sunshine Beach

PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF WENDY WAX

“[A] sparkling, deeply satisfying tale.”

—Karen White,
New York Times
bestselling author

“Wax offers her trademark form of fiction, the beach read with substance.”

—
Booklist

“Wax really knows how to make a cast of characters come alive . . . [She] infuses each chapter with enough drama, laughter, family angst, and friendship to keep readers greedily turning pages until the end.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“This season's perfect beach read!”

—Single Titles

“A tribute to the transformative power of female friendship, and reading Wendy Wax is like discovering a witty, wise, and wonderful new friend.”

—Claire Cook,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Must Love Dogs

“Quite a clever, fun little novel . . . If you're a sucker for plucky women who rise to the occasion, this is for you.”

—
USA Today

“Just the right amount of suspense and drama for a beach read.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Beautifully written and constructed by an author who evidently knows what she is doing . . . One fantastic read.”

—Book Binge

“A lovely story that recognizes the power of the female spirit, while being fun, emotional, and a little romantic.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Funny, heartbreaking, romantic, and so much more . . . just delightful!”

—The Best
Reviews

A WEEK AT THE LAKE

WHILE WE WERE WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY

MAGNOLIA WEDNESDAYS

THE ACCIDENTAL BESTSELLER

SINGLE IN SUBURBIA

HOSTILE MAKEOVER

LEAVE IT TO CLEAVAGE

7 DAYS AND 7 NIGHTS

Ten Beach Road Titles by Wendy Wax

TEN BEACH ROAD

OCEAN BEACH

CHRISTMAS AT THE BEACH (NOVELLA)

THE HOUSE ON MERMAID POINT

SUNSHINE
BEACH

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of Penguin Random House LLC.

Copyright © 2016 by Wendy Wax.

“Readers Guide” copyright © 2016 by Penguin Random House LLC.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

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For more information, visit
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.

eBook ISBN: 9780698157194

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wax, Wendy, author.

Title: Sunshine Beach / Wendy Wax.

Description: Berkley trade paperback edition. | New York : Berkley Books, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015043729 | ISBN 9780425274484

Classification: LCC PS3623.A893 S86 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015043729

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / June 2016

Cover art: Seaside patio © Imagin.gr Photography / Shutterstock; Mediterranean style terrace © Andrei Nekrassov / Shutterstock; Outdoor lamp © La Forza Deztino / Shutterstock.

Cover design by Danielle Mazella di Bosco.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

For my parents, Elaine and Ken Wax, who gave me a beach for my birthday and a childhood spent cartwheeling across sugar-white sand and floating in the warm salt water of the Gulf of Mexico. I miss you both.

And for “Aunt” Sonya and “Uncle” Irwin, longtime family friends who owned and ran the Rellim (Miller spelled backward!) where I spent so many magical summer days. The hotel of my youth has been gone for many years, but my memories of it remain.

Although my Sunshine Hotel, and the characters who own, run, and visit it are fictional, I hope they'll give you at least an idea of how lovingly I remember the real hotel that inspired
it.

As always, thanks go to my longtime critique partners, Karen White and Susan Crandall, talented authors and BFFs with whom I'm grateful to be sharing this crazy journey.

Thanks, too, to my agent, Stephanie Rostan, who is also very talented at what she does and can always be counted on to tell it like it is.

In every book there are an amazing number of small details that can have great impact. Rebecca Ritchie has once again helped me envision what a space can be and answered countless questions. Tito Vargas shared information on construction and its cost. Thomas Lange, Chief of Police (Ret.), St. Pete Beach, Florida, offered insights into policing a small beach community and how a case might be dealt with “then” and now.

I've taken liberties and exaggerated where necessary. This is, after all, a work of fiction and “making things up” is a critical part of every novelist's job
description.

J
ULY
1952

Sunshine Hotel and Beach Club
Pass-a-Grille, Florida

She climbed onto the diving board and waited until she had an audience. Waited for the fathers to look up from their newspapers. The mothers to stop fingering the smooth ivory mah-jongg tiles.

The winter residents were gone, the cottages closed up. But the beach club was open. Children spent entire days running from the pool, across the white sand beach, into the Gulf of Mexico and back again—stopping just long enough to build a sand castle or etch a hopscotch board—while their mothers sat at card tables arranged in the shade and gossiped. She had no idea what their fathers did during the sweltering weekdays, but on the weekends they came to lie on the chaises, or stand in the water talking business while they threw pennies into the pool for their children to dive after.

She checked to make sure her audience did not include her grandparents or her parents, who would be somewhere on the
property making sure everything ran “like clockwork.” Or her bossy big sister. Or the lifeguard who'd “closed” the pool so that he could spend his break k-i-s-s-i-n-g her sister behind a palm tree.

When she had everyone's attention she took three short running steps, bounced once on the end of the diving board, and dove headfirst into the deep end of the swimming pool just like her daddy had taught her. She did not come up. Nor did she emit so much as a single bubble.

The scorching summer sun cast shimmery beams all around her as she hung motionless beneath the surface. It was perfectly quiet here; the
rat-a-tat
of the jackhammers digging up the cottage patios silenced. She was queen of the water kingdom and all the subjects that dwelt in its depths.

Above her she could just make out figures standing near the edge of the pool, a group of dark shapes leaning over, peering down. She imagined them holding their breath as carefully as she was holding hers. Trying to decide whether someone should jump in after her.

When no one did she began to swim toward the shallow end, slicing through the water with a long gliding breaststroke, her long blond mermaid hair streaming behind her. Silent and smooth, she used the same stroke with which she flew through the night sky in her dreams, soaring high above the ground free and unbound, pulling hard with her arms and legs to make sure she didn't fall. Or get low enough for anyone—or anything—to touch her.

It wasn't a huge pool, not Olympic sized or anything, and she knew every inch of it. According to her Nana, she'd learned to swim in it before she could walk. Had been swimming its length underwater since she was three. She was five now and could do ten full underwater summersaults without coming up to breathe.

Almost out of air, she reached for the wall, ready to surface to gasps of relief and admiration. But when she stood
and wiped the water from her eyes there were no oohs or aahs. Just her know-it-all sister, who'd obviously told her audience that there was nothing to worry about and who was giving her the evil eye for being in the pool when she wasn't supposed to be.

Regally, she stepped out of the pool keeping her eyes straight ahead and her head up so that the diamonds in her tiara would sparkle in the sunlight. Without so much as a nod, she accepted the towel from her sister, then draped it across her shoulders like a cape. She did not deign to speak nor even stop to accept the ice cream sandwich her Pop Pop offered her as she swept down the path to the family cottage. Everyone knew that a queen should never be ignored. And the people the queen loved most should not be allowed to die or
disappear.