Blue Moon Bay by Lisa Wingate

undercover-agent style. The silver Cadillac rolled to a stop behind the first two vehicles, and doors opened on both sides. The puffy blond hair and peach pantsuit were unmistakable. The venerable Mrs. Underhill, whose stepson I was supposed to help elect to the county commission. She came bearing a foil-wrapped plate, and she had someone with her.
    The holly bushes combed my hair as I leaned closer. Who was that with her? Someone young, svelte, and blond in a perky above-the-knee skirt and high heels. Blaine Underhill had a couple of half-sisters, as I recalled, but they didn’t look like that. The Underhill girls had the misfortune of having the same figure as their father. They were stocky, muscular, and athletic. When we graduated from high school, they were entering middle school, and Mrs. Underhill was still cramming them into ruffled gowns and making them stroll the catwalk at beauty pageants, and attend cotillion classes. The kids at school used to tease Blaine about it, and ask him if his stepmother expected him to make a bid for Cotton Queen one of these days, too.
    The girl with Mrs. Underhill today was definitely not one of Blaine’s half-sisters.
    She trotted up the steps, the dress swaying back and forth across her knees. My brother, of all people, answered the door, his dishwater blond hair sporting a bad case of bed head. I noted, in the split second before the newest visitors reached the porch, that Clay didn’t seem to have changed much. Same rumpled look—khaki shorts, washed-out T-shirt, flip-flops. Mom’s soft, slightly curly hair and hazel eyes, a green tone where mine were brown. His face had matured a little in the . . . how long had it been since I’d seen him, other than on his Facebook posts from the far parts of the universe?
    Three-and-a-half years. He’d called on the Fourth of July. Just called me out of the blue. He was a hundred miles from Seattle on a bicycle tour—not the organized kind with other people, but a solitary, unplanned journey of his own making. He’d been rained on for three days, was running a fever, and wanted to know if I’d like to come get him. He wasn’t complaining about the conditions, really. It was more like he was offering me the opportunity, and he was fine, either way. Maybe the choice between biking in the rain with a fever and visiting with me was pretty much a toss-up. He probably knew I’d ask why he was out of college for the summer and not working anywhere.
    The girl in the cute dress tackled Clay with an exuberant hug. I watched in fascination, my mouth dropping open. What in the world was going on? Who was the girl, and why was my brother . . . slipping an arm around her waist and lifting her off her feet?
    The casserole ladies twittered, giggled, and seemed delighted— even Mrs. Underhill. They politely pretended to be commenting on the condition of the memory gardens, as Clay gave the girl a peck and then set her down again.
    Suddenly the ladies were looking in my direction, pointing, and I was cognizant of the idiotic position I’d put myself in, hiding in the bushes, spying on the funeral home. Another thought followed—something petty, and immature, and born of sibling rivalry. It wasn’t fair that I was hiding in the bushes while Clay was getting hugs and cookie plates. Moses Lake had always loved Clay. The year we lived here, he was a cute, gap-toothed fourth grader—goofy, precocious, innocent, a little charmer who was easy to like. After my father’s death, Clay had slipped neatly under the sheltering wings of not only his school teacher, but his Sunday school teachers and a half-dozen adopted grannies around town, including Mama B. They loved him then, and apparently still loved him now.
    â€œThere’s someone over there,” one of the ladies observed. “In the bushes . . . Look!”
    â€œWhere?” That was Mrs. Underhill’s