Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Aria
I had flopped onto the couch, hiding under my two favorite blankets and bundled head-to-toe in my favorite sweats. They were purple, and they’d been worn so thin and soft by years of use they’d become like an old, reliable friend whenever I was feeling down. And I was definitely feeling down. I was mostly disappointed in myself. I’d let myself believe that a man like Dex, handsome, rugged and with an edge of danger about him, would make a reliable, trustworthy and devoted boyfriend. Big mistake—something I seemed to be very good at lately. I badly wanted it to be true. He had all the qualities that could make me fall madly in love. Thank goodness I learned the truth before I’d handed it all to him, my heart, my soul, my trust.
The phone rang, and I lifted out of my blanket cocoon just high enough to read the screen. Just seeing his name on my phone sent shockwaves through me. I had it bad, but I’d get past this soon enough. We hadn’t known each other long, so I hadn’t wasted too much time thinking about him.
It took all my will not to grab the phone and let him know what I thought about his deceit and lies, but I didn’t have the energy to do it right now. I was especially upset knowing that I’d have to start my search for a cook again. I couldn’t possibly keep him on. That was my fault for being so na?ve in the first place. I knew this would end badly, but I allowed it to happen, and for that, I would never forgive myself. Once I worked up the courage, I’d send him a text letting him know that I was going to hire another cook and that our brief friendship was over. I just didn’t have it in me yet.
There was nothing on television. I turned it off and stared at my empty front room. I felt sad and lonely, and there was only one cure for that. I got up from the couch to get dressed. I needed to go to the cottage. I had no idea who’d be home right now, but that was what was so great about my sisters. Any one of them would know what to say to make me feel better.
I carried the bag with Isla’s spices and vanilla into the house. Ella was sitting crossed legged on the couch with her laptop balanced on a pillow. Ava was stretched out on the floor in front of the couch with her laptop on her belly. It shook precariously when she laughed at something on the screen.
Ava turned her head without lifting it from the pillow she’d dropped on the floor. “Hey, Ar, we weren’t expecting you.”
“Thought maybe you’d be out with the new hunk,” Ella teased, before sending her fingers over the keyboard at the speed of light. She was focused on her screen, too.
I walked to the kitchen and put Isla’s things on the counter. I glanced in the refrigerator, but aside from some leftover mac and cheese and tubs of Isla’s cookie dough, it was empty. I opened a bottle of sparkling water.
“What are you guys doing for dinner?” I asked.
“Not sure. Isla is out with Luke, and Layla is still at work,” Ava said.
Ella looked at her screen, read her words with her lips and looked up. “Bloody brilliant. Pithy, my a—Whoa, what’s wrong? You look discombobulated.”
Ava lifted her head and looked at me. “You sure do, and I hardly know what the word means.” Both sisters, realizing that I wasn’t myself, set aside their laptops. Ava sat up and turned to sit back against the bottom of the couch.
“No, does this have to do with the aforementioned new hunk?” Ella asked. “I was so hoping I was going to get a storyline out of your new relationship. The last one was a clunker. I mean, every other romance starts with two people accidentally reaching for a coffee or a loaf of bread or some other boring thing. But being chased off a boat dock by his pet gull, so much better.”
Ava’s mouth dropped. “His gull chased you off the dock?”
I waved my hand. “Don’t want to talk about him.” I dropped into Nonna’s big easy chair. It was creaky and tattered and way past its prime, but none of us had the heart to get rid of it. If you sat in it long enough you could still feel her presence in the chair. And I really needed that presence right now. I was the older sister who solved problems and healed sadness boo-boos, as Nonna used to call them, but tonight, I needed my own boo-boo healer. I needed my grandmother to sit in her big chair and tell me that everything I was feeling was just that—a feeling and none of it was permanent and time would eventually wash it all away.
“He has a family,” I blurted into the quiet room.
Ava looked confused. “So, are we talking about him, or is this about someone else? Boy, I really need to stay in town longer to keep up with the Whisper Cove soap opera.”
Ella wasn’t confused. She smacked both her feet down on the floor and sat forward. “New hunk has a family? I mean we knew he had a brother, and I assume that means there were parents at one time or another.”
“A family with a cute brunette wife or girlfriend or someone close enough to him to walk with her arm wrapped around his as he carried their cute little boy on his shoulders into the ice cream shop. He cancelled our date because he told me he needed to check on his friend in the hospital. Some kind of emergency,” I scoffed.
“What a bum,” Ava said. “Why on earth would he start something with you if he had a family?” She nodded. “Yes, I heard the stupidity of that question as I asked it. Plenty of men—and women—do it.”
“I’m beginning to worry that he orchestrated all of this just to hurt his brother. What do you know? It worked.”
Ella pulled on her thick socks. “Yes, but it was over with Kellan long before Dex showed up.”
I looked at her with surprise.
“You didn’t realize it, but the rest of us already knew,” she said confidently.
“Not me,” Ava said.
“That’s because you’re always somewhere in the middle of nowhere on a faraway continent with your hiking boots trekking through swamps and quicksand and being Jane with a pith helmet and your khaki shorts?—”
We both looked at Ella.
She smiled. “Oops, guess my mind is still on my story.”
“Are you writing about me?” Ava asked, and twisted around to grab the laptop.
Ella lunged for it and shut it down. “It’s not about you. It’s about a woman named Jane. She just happens to travel.”
Ava shook her head and then pressed her arm against her stomach. “You know I am getting kind of hungry. Should we cook something?” She looked at Ella and me, hoping we’d volunteer. Ava was never keen to stand in the kitchen.
“There’s stuff for s’mores,” Ella suggested.
Ava turned a questioning glance my direction.
“Works for me,” I said. “Is there any white wine to wash them down with?”
“Sure is. Luke brought some the other night, and they never opened it, so it’ll be a good one. The perfect accompaniment to burnt marshmallows and chocolate.” Ella got up from the couch. “We’ll have to bundle up, so we can roast the marshmallows on the firepit. The last time Layla and I made s’mores in the house, we set off the fire alarms.”
I borrowed Isla’s knit scarf and beanie, and the three of us headed out to the back patio with our marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate and wine. Minutes later the smell of burnt sugar circled our heads as we turned and jostled our marshmallows to perfection. Ella and I were all-over scorch types, whereas Ava preferred to patiently toast hers to golden perfection. The warmth of the fire drew us closer as a cool coastal mist started to take hold of the hillside.
I lifted my marshmallows and blew on them frantically to put out the flames. Scorched was one thing, but I’d lost many a mallow to an uncontrollable wildfire. “Have you heard any more about the faculty position at the university, Ava?”
Ava’s face was getting pink from the flames as she leaned close enough to keep a watchful eye on her stick. “I’ve applied. Now, it’s just a waiting game. And in the meantime?—”
“In the meantime, you’re having your doubts about staying in one place for so long,” Ella said.
Ava blew a puff of air. It curled the flame tips away from her. “I don’t know what I want. When I’m three months deep into a research expedition, all I can think about is getting home to the cottage, to Whisper Cove … to my sisters.” She smiled at both of us. Ava, with her green eyes and black hair, was an exotic beauty. But she was never interested in cosmetics and fashion, the stuff the rest of us found fun and important. She didn’t need all the embellishments. Ava could wear a pair of faded khakis and black T-shirt into a room filled with women in glittering designer dresses, and she would still steal all the attention. She blew on her marshmallow to stop a tiny red glow and continued. “Then I get home, and immediately, I start feeling restless, and the walls start to close in and?—”
Ella’s mouth dropped. “You don’t like living here? With us?”
“I don’t think that’s what she said, El.” My marshmallows were properly charred, so I pulled them from the fire.
“Aria’s right, El. That’s not at all what I meant. I’ve just been cursed or blessed, not sure which, with wanderlust. I love to travel. This world is so big, and each place is so unique, I want to see every inch of it.”
Ella’s shoulders sank. “So, you aren’t going to stay and work at the university?”
“I didn’t say that either. Let’s switch subjects for now.”
Ella sat up straighter and stretched up to get a view of the beach below. “Here’s a new subject. I think your hunky”—she paused and cleared her throat—“your traitorous hunk is back. I see a flashlight down on the beach. What is it he’s looking for? Buried treasure?” Both Ava and Ella had a laugh about that. When I didn’t join them, they stopped their laughter and looked at me.
I shrugged. “You’re not too far off. Although, now I’m wondering if everything he told me was a lie. Like everything else about him.” I pushed my marshmallows between the graham crackers and chocolate and left the s’more on the plate. “I wasn’t in the mood to confront him earlier, but I am now.” I licked some sticky marshmallow off my finger. “Wish me luck and hands off my s’more. I’m going to need it when I return.”
I tossed the scarf importantly around my neck and marched sure-footedly down to the beach. The usual bank of fog hadn’t rolled in yet, so it was easy to make my way down to the sand. He was down by the same rocks we’d found him at the night my sisters hastily invited him up for dinner. My sisters were immediately taken with him. He sure had all of us fooled. Me especially.
Even though the lights from the house above only provided a weak glow, there was no mistaking the massive shoulder span. His flashlight dipped in and out of the rocks on that side of the cove. I adjusted my beanie and marched (as best I could in soft sand) to where he was leaning over, looking for his lost treasure .
“You’ve already searched these rocks. I’m starting to think—” My words trailed off, and I stepped back with a gasp as the man turned around. It wasn’t Dex. The shadows made his cruel grin look even more menacing. A second man, smaller in stature but equally scary, stepped out from behind the outcropping.
I took another step backward.
The big man pointed his flashlight in my face. I put up my hands to block the beam.
“Look what we have here. Seems like a pretty little mermaid just washed up on shore.” He lowered the flashlight down to my legs. “That ain’t no fish tail. You live around here, sweetums?” He took a step forward. I turned around. Sand kicked up behind me as I ran for the path to the house. I flew up it without looking back. Ella was mid-bite as she looked up from her plate.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Ava turned to look at me.
“Inside,” I said between breaths. “Now. And bring my s’more.” (Oversized villain or not, I saw no reason to waste a perfectly good s’more.)
I locked the door behind us and turned out the lights, so we could huddle in front of the window unseen.
“I don’t understand. Was it Dex?” Ella asked.
“No, two strangers, and not kind-looking ones either.”
“But they were looking for same thing as Dex?” Ava asked. “Couldn’t just be a coincidence.”
I put up my hand to stop the chat. We watched as the two figures marched across the sand. We all released a simultaneous sigh of relief when they walked past the path leading up to the cottage. They reached the rocky hillside that led back up to the road and started their climb out of the cove.
“Not a coincidence,” I finally said. “And I’m going to get to the bottom of this soon.”