Page 1 of Three Little Wishes

Chapter One

What was it you said last night on the evening news,Lucy? A thirty percent chance of light rain, was it?” Amos, the seventysomething fisherman in the yellow raincoat and hat shouted at Willow as she battled the gale-force winds and lashing rain on her way back to the TV station, goading her as he always did whenever her weather forecast was the least bit off.

He’d no doubt been standing in the window of Brew Bros hoping to catch a glimpse of her. The coffee shop was half a block from the station. She cupped one claw-covered hand to the side of her mouth while clamping her other claw-covered hand on the head of her lobster costume to keep the wind from ripping it off.

“The rainislight, Amos!” At least it had been when it started twenty minutes before. “It’s just that the winds are a little stronger than the satellite images indicated. Blame it on climate change,” she yelled, forcing a wide smile so he wouldn’t think she was shouting at him because he’d embarrassed her.

She was a Rosetti. She didn’t embarrass easily.

But besides Amos and the over-seventy crowd, no one inher seaside hometown took her forecasts seriously. How could they when she delivered the weather in costume? Which was one of the reasons she hadn’t complained—much—a few months earlier when her boss at Channel 5 had informed her she’d be reporting the weather as Lucy the Lobster. The Lobster Pot on Main Street must be raking it in if it could afford to advertise on Channel 5 from May through September.

She looked down at the costume clinging to her like a second skin. It was an improvement over the itsy-bitsy yellow polka-dot bikini that Don, her boss, had made her wear the previous summer.

“A little rain? It’ll take me at least three hours to bail out my boat. If I hadn’t listened to you, I would’ve put the cover on!” Amos yelled, throwing up his arms and nearly upending his to-go cup of coffee.

The violent flapping of the awning above Brew Bros’ front window drowned out Willow’s sigh. Amos had a point, and she felt a smidgen of guilt for missing the band of storms currently in a holding pattern over Sunshine Bay. She’d had a lot on her mind the night before so it was possible her calculations had been off and this wasn’t a fluke weather event.

“Tomorrow’s going to be a gorgeous, sunshiny seventy-three degrees, and I’ll come give you a hand after I wrap up the morning weather report. We’ll have your boat mopped up in no time.” Her heartfelt offer earned her a derisive lip curl. Honestly, there was no pleasing the man.

“You know, Amos, not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path,” she said, quoting Paulo Coelho while walking backward into the wind on the sidewalk. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something.”

Like that it was time for him to sell his boat. Last month, asearch party had gone out at two in the morning looking for him. He’d fallen asleep on board his boat and was headed for Canada.

“Stop spouting claptrap and watch where you’re…” He trailed off, his eyes going wide.

She was about to glance over her shoulder to see what had caught his attention when her back slammed into the pole holding up the Bookworm’s awning, the action emptying a gallon of water onto her head.

Sputtering, she jumped out of the way to avoid another bucketful, only to get hit by a surf-size wave when a black Mercedes sped through a puddle on the road. Muddy water dripping off her face and her costume, she roundly cursed the entitled jerk as he whizzed by. Of course it was a man, and a tourist. Those definitely weren’t cape plates.

As she wiped her face with her forearm while the driver continued blithely along Main Street, all smug and warm and dry, a gust of wind pushed her around as if she were a blow-up punching bag.

Willow wondered what else life had in store for her. The wind picking her up and hurling her onto the roof of a car? The poles holding up the awning coming loose and stabbing her in the heart?

All right, so she was being dramatic. But in her defense, if she had any luck at all these days, it was bad luck. Case in point, two weeks earlier, her landlord had informed her his son was moving back to town and Willow had a month to find somewhere else to live. Right, because finding a place to rent mid-July in a beach town was so easy. Don’t even get her started on affordability.

Everything in and around Sunshine Bay was rented untilat least September. Everything except her aunt Eva’s place, which was located within spitting distance of her mother’s and grandmother’s apartments. It was also within spitting distance of La Dolce Vita, her family’s restaurant, where Willow was currently waitressing part-time in order to cover her monthly expenses. She was as close to broke as she’d ever been, and that wasn’t going to change if the rumor at work was true.

After the death of the founding family’s matriarch and company CEO fifteen months earlier, Bennett Broadcasting Group had begun divesting its assets, of which Channel 5 was one. Except that according to gossip, Bennett Broadcasting wasn’t selling the TV station in Sunshine Bay, they were closing it.

Willow stomped along the sidewalk, cursing Bennett Broadcasting Group’s acting CEO, Noah Elliot, entitled tourists with no respect for pedestrians, and the gale-force winds and teeming rain.

“You’ve got the face of an angel and the mouth of a fisherman, Lucy!” Amos shouted after her with what sounded like an admiring chuckle.

She waved goodbye as the wind buffeted her from one side of the sidewalk to the other. Amos was right. She had been spouting a pile of crap. Storms weren’t a good thing. They didn’t clear a path. They wreaked havoc wherever they went, and she had a feeling a storm of epic proportions was coming her way if actress Camilla Monroe, her estranged aunt, agreed to appear onGood Morning, Sunshine!They needed star power to launch the inaugural episode of their new and improved morning show, and people would definitely tune in to see her aunt.

The objective was to convince Bennett’s acting CEO that they had a viable business plan to increase Channel 5’s viewership exponentially as well as its advertising dollars, and Willow’s idea forGood Morning, Sunshine!was how they’d do it. Surely then Noah Elliot would see the value of selling the station instead of closing it.

But Willow was getting ahead of herself. Her aunt might not even agree to appear on the morning show. After all, she hadn’t spoken to Camilla directly. Her aunt’s agent had finally gotten back to her with a number, and she’d spoken to Camilla’s assistant earlier that morning, explaining that she had something urgent to discuss with her aunt.

If Willow thought her life had sucked these past few weeks, it was nothing compared to how badly it would suck when her family found out she was inviting Camilla to Sunshine Bay. In Willow’s twenty-eight trips around the sun, it was the most disloyal thing she’d ever done. She was selling out her family for a chance at making her dreams come true.

But it wasn’t just about her and her dreams. It was about everyone she worked with at Channel 5. They were her family too, and they needed the inaugural episode ofGood Morning, Sunshine!to wow Noah Elliot when he met with Don in two weeks’ time.

Willow’s aunt wasn’t exactly an A-list celebrity but she’d had the dubious honor of spending the better part of the year on the front pages of the tabloids. She was also a hometown girl, even if she hadn’t set foot in Sunshine Bay for the past two decades, which would make her appearance on the morning show even more of a draw.

Willow’s boss had agreed. It was just a happy coincidence that hosting a show likeGood Morning, Sunshine!wasWillow’s dream job and Don had promised her a seat at the table.Ifthey could change Noah Elliot’s mind about closing the station. They had to change his mind.

She waited for her internal defense of why she’d had no choice but to call her aunt to relieve the guilt she felt at betraying her family. Instead, the mistress of guilt, her grandmother, Carmen Rosetti, popped into her head, listing everything the family had ever done for Willow while demanding to know what they’d done to deserve her betrayal.

---