Chapter Forty-Eight Lucky
Chapter Forty-Eight
Lucky
On the plane ride home, I considered texting Georgia and having her get the full story from Emilie during the crew’s next night off. It wouldn’t be hard. After a couple of drinks, Emilie was fond of oversharing. If anything, she would probably be happy to brag about how she and Hunter had pulled the wool over my eyes.
But Emilie’s side in this didn’t matter.
The only thing that did was whether or not I was willing to believe Hunter.
And honestly? I’d let Georgia interfere too much already. It was her doubts and fears that she’d expressed to me just before I saw the kiss that pushed me toward disbelief.
Not that I’d needed much of a push, with my dating past.
The farther I got from Italy, the more I started to question the conclusions I’d leapt to. Did I really think that Hunter was the kind of man who would lead me on for weeks as some sort of game? Because he saw me as ungettable and thought it would be amusing to make me fall in love with him? While keeping Emilie in his back pocket to pull out whenever he felt like it?
That would have meant he was some kind of psychopath, and that was the last thing Hunter would ever be.
You know him, that voice inside me said. You know him and love him and he wouldn’t deliberately hurt you.
If he was telling the truth ... then Emilie had cornered him and forced herself on him, which was not okay.
And entirely within character for her.
I took a car home from the airport in Hartford and thought about what I would do next. The Mio Tesoro was not the only superyacht in the ocean. Tomorrow I would email some crew agents and send them my CV. I wasn’t going to have a recommendation but that was okay. I could go back to being a second or third stew and just start over with my savings plan.
The car went past my nonna’s old bakery. The building had remained empty ever since the bakery had been foreclosed on. I was still going to reopen it. It was just going to take a bit longer than I had anticipated.
When I got to my sisters’ apartment, I knocked and heard Chauncy barking. Rose opened the door and her face lit up when she saw me. “Lucky!”
She hugged me tightly, which was so unlike my younger sister that I felt like I’d stepped into a parallel universe.
“Come in, come in!” she said, taking my bags from me. Chauncy jumped up on me until Rose told him to get down. He did so immediately and I scratched him behind the ears to reward him for being a good boy.
Lily was seated on the couch with her foot propped up, in a cast. Definitely broken. “Are you doing okay?” I asked.
“I have to wear this thing for like, six weeks, but I’m fine. Come sit down! How was your flight?”
“Good.” I sat down on the couch and asked what had happened with the accident and the twins fell all over themselves giving me the details. Someone had blown through a red light and hit Lily’s car.
I was so grateful that she had come out of it with only a broken foot. The twins didn’t really remember our dad, so I was sure the accident didn’t affect them the same way it did me.
“I’m really glad you’re doing okay,” I said, my eyes going blurry from the tears that wanted to fall.
“Oh, Lucky!” Lily said, pulling me in for a hug.
I let her hold me for a second and then sat back up, reaching for my purse. “How much?”
She blinked at me, confused. “What do you mean?”
“The hospital bill. How much do you need?”
Rose and Lily exchanged glances, and then Lily put her hand on top of mine. “Zero. We don’t need anything.”
Now I was the one confused.
“You were right,” Rose said. “We took advantage of you. So we’re not taking any more money from you. And we’re going to pay you back.”
“And we really mean it this time,” Lily added. “We shouldn’t have been so reliant on you. Or expected you to take care of us. We’re going to get one of the budget thingies and do that!”
Rose smiled. “We downloaded some financial apps for our phones and everything.”
Lily squeezed my hand. “I think having you there like that made it so we didn’t miss Mom so much. You’re not our mother, though. And it’s time we helped take care of you. We are the only family that we have left. So we’re going to give instead of always asking. Do you want to stay here with us?”
I had assumed I’d go to a hotel. That probably would’ve been more comfortable, but I couldn’t turn down my sisters’ kind offer. My throat burned with unshed tears at their words. I really had thought they wouldn’t want to talk to me after I told them I wouldn’t send them any more money.
“I’d love to stay with you,” I said, my voice tight. “I just hadn’t heard from you in so long that I thought—”
“You thought we were upset with you,” Rose finished for me. “We’re sorry we didn’t reach out to you sooner, but we wanted to get our situation straightened out first so that you would know we meant it. Actions instead of just words. Plus, we know how much you worry and wanted to show you that we were okay.”
“Car accident notwithstanding,” Lily added with a grin.
“Wow,” I said, knowing that if I tried to say more, I was going to cry.
“We’re growing up, right?” Rose preened, clearly proud of what they were doing.
“You are.” Yep, my voice was definitely wobbly.
Lily noticed. “What’s going on with you? And what happened with your job? And your boyfriend?”
And even though it felt too painful, the entire story came pouring out of me. Every single little detail.
I cried the entire time, sobbing and talking, snot dripping from my nose. Rose went and grabbed me a roll of toilet paper and handed it to me so that I could keep telling them everything. My throat ached, my eyes burned, but I kept going until I had shared it all.
Chauncy came over and rested his head in my lap. I allowed myself to finally break down, with my sisters there to hug and listen to me.
It made me feel not so alone.
And after I had told them the whole story, they were both quiet. I had expected them to offer me advice or tell me what they thought I should do. In the past they’d always had opinions about everything.
Instead Rose brought me a pillow, blanket, and sheets and helped me make up the couch so that I could sleep there. She showed me where the bathroom was and then helped Lily to bed.
They paused at the doorway. “We’ll talk more in the morning,” Rose said.
“We’re here for you,” Lily said with a smile.
I didn’t even know what to make of this. That surreal feeling returned, like I had wandered into someone else’s life.
But if this was how my relationship with my sisters was going to be from now on? I would very happily take it.
And as I lay down to go to sleep, I realized that the person I most wanted to tell about how things had changed with the twins was Hunter.
The next morning I began to contact crew agents to see if there were any openings. I sent out emails with my CV and said I was available for immediate hire.
I heard back immediately from one of the agencies, and the woman there warned me that, at this point in the season, crews were well established. The only way I’d find a new position would be a situation like the one I’d just left—where the former crewmembers were either jumping ship or being fired due to a somewhat toxic environment. I was used to that, though.
She was the only agent who responded the first day. It made me wonder if Captain Carl had called crew agents and told them not to hire me.
Word spread fast in our industry.
I helped take care of Lily, as she was still recovering. She asked me more questions about Hunter and I found that I loved talking about him nearly as much as I loved being with him.
“And do you believe him? That he didn’t kiss that girl?” she asked carefully.
“I want to. More than anything. And if I can’t believe him, there can’t be a relationship. I’m just scared. But I don’t know if I’m letting the fear take over and crowd everything else out. I don’t want to do that. I want to make the right choice.”
“Do you miss him?”
“So much that it’s hard to breathe when I think about him too often.”
“That kind of feels like an answer,” she said.
“Maybe. Or maybe I need to give it more time.”
That evening I got a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
Lucky?
My first wild, heart-thumping thought was that it was Hunter. That he had borrowed someone else’s phone and was texting me. In case I had blocked him, even though I would never do that.
Who’s this?
Rodney Whitlock.
The disappointment I felt was palpable. It made me wonder if that was another clue to my true feelings.
How are you?
I’m good. I have something I wanted to send over to you. Can I get your address?
Right. He had wanted to send me his wife’s recipes. I gave him my sisters’ address.
Thank you. It will be there tomorrow.
My heart skipped a beat. What if ...
What if what he planned on sending me was Hunter?