June

The Gypsy Moth Chronicles, Book One

Ruby Tellison needs a job to help finance her law school education. Originally from a wealthy NYC background, Ruby's father gets involved in a Ponzi scheme and loses all of the family money, is jailed and shamed. Not knowing the true details of what happened to her dad but wanting to get away from her life in NY, Ruby heads up to the one place she loves to be: Bluff's Cove in Cape Cod, MA. Even though her parent's summer home there was sold, she knows the town and realizes that if she can get a job waitressing at the Hut, the most famous beach bar/restaurant on the East Coast, she can make enough money in the three months of summer to pay for school on her own.

            She drives up to the Cape in early May and breaks into her old home, which is totally unchanged – it was sold fully furnished -- to sleep there one last time. In the morning, she takes the beach rocks she'd collected as a child off the windowsill of her former bedroom and drives to the Hut to apply for a job. The owner of the restaurant, Terry, sees right through Ruby's story and won't give her a position as a waitress. Terry is a tough older woman with a soft spot – she recognizes Ruby's last name, knows about her father and gives her a chance to run the concession stand and sell tee shirts and shot glasses to the tourist clientele. She also allows Ruby to live in the staff housing for the summer.

            Ruby finds all the other waitresses to be cold and unfriendly toward her, with the exception of one woman, CeCe. The two become fast friends. The other women want to know more about Ruby and one of them, Jenny, starts digging around to see if she can gather up any information making Ruby's life up on the Cape very difficult at first. But then she meets Cooper.

            Cooper Martins is the main bartender at the Hut. He also has a small artisanal beer brewing business that he's trying to get off the ground. From their first meeting, they are attracted to one another. Usually cautious, Ruby can't deny the immediate attraction she feels toward Cooper, and accepts his invitation to dinner. He wants to impress her, so he cooks her a gourmet meal in his home. One thing leads to another and she spends the night, immediately regretting her decision. It's unlike her to jump into bed with a man and Ruby doesn't know at first how to handle it.

            Cooper feels the same attraction and is determined to make Ruby his own. He continues to woo her with romantic gestures until he convinces her that his feelings are real. She holds back her real emotions at first, but after the constant gossip about what happened to her family refuses to abate, she falls totally in love with him when he offers to go with her to see her parents in NYC to see if she can finally convince her father to fill her in with the truth. Although her dad won't tell her any more than she already knows, Ruby makes her peace with that, only to be faced with the approaching end of the summer. Cooper is offered an opportunity to learn a more sophisticated method of beer brewing in Amsterdam, and he accepts. Ruby knows she needs to go to Cambridge and attend law school. Ruby needs to summon the strength to leave him and go. Book one ends with them hoping that a long-distance relationship is possible with the promise that they will reunite the next summer up on the Cape.