Chapter 1
Bryony
Maybe the full-sized camel balloon was a bad idea. It’s nearly impossible to wrangle, especially off an uneven dock onto a boat. In the wind.
In heels.
“You okay, Bryony?” my friend Deanie shouts as she jumps out of the back of the rental van. She’s got a dozen more balloons, each thwapping hard in the gusts coming off the ocean.
Nope! My life is a shitshow!
“Totally good!” I yell as my caramel brown ponytail fully whips me in the face.
I jerk the single string keeping the camel from flying over the ocean in front of us or the mountain range behind us as I step onto the boat, narrowly avoiding breaking an ankle and going overboard.
“Ma’am, I know I said it was a short ride to the island,” says the grizzled but not unkind water taxi driver as he takes the string from me. “But I can’t guarantee the safety of this horse.”
“It’s a camel!” I exclaim. “Does it not look like a camel?”
He’s too busy stuffing the four-legged creature into the cabin of the boat to answer me.
“It has to be a camel,” I say, propping a hand over my eyes and peering out at the tiny island a kilometer offshore where we’re headed. “The camel’s the whole point!”
I love camels. How could you not? They’re so adorably awkward with those big brown eyes and knobby knees. And humps!
But this camel’s not for me.
I pat the pocket of my blazer for the thing I’ve got in there. I feel the tiny reassurance of it under the fabric.
This is going to go great. She’s going to love it. It’ll change everything.
“She’s going to hate it,” I groan, hopping back onto the dock.
Deanie, who’s just arrived with another load, thrusts a box of party décor at me. “If she does, she’s nuts. This kind of ingenuity is why you’re CEO of Visionary and not me.”
But the camel isn’t for our business.
It’s for my mom.
My deeply serious mom.
Fuck, she’s going to hate it.
“You’d be a great CEO,” I say as I transfer the box to the captain.
Deanie laughs as she heads back down the little dock for what I hope is the last trip to the van.
She’s still laughing as she comes back with the last of the balloons.
That is, until she readjusts the balloons and freezes, looking back over her shoulder.
I try to see what she’s looking at, but I can’t see through the multicolored cloud of helium.
“Deanie, the balloons,” I say. “I have to go.” I’ve only got an hour to get everything perfect on the island before Mom’s boat gets there.
“Right,” Deanie says. She absently hands them over, letting go before I’ve finished closing my hand over the ribbons. A bright yellow one—a sun with a camel on it—goes sailing up into the gray sky.
“Deanie!” I exclaim, nearly sailing off the end of the dock myself as I try to reach for it.
“Oh shit. Sorry, Bryony!”
I lose a few more as Deanie helps me readjust.
Those colorful dots in the sky feel like the last pieces of my confidence about this plan. We probably just signed an orca’s death warrant, too. Isn’t this exactly where you’re not supposed to lose balloons?
“I’m sorry,” Deanie says distractedly. “But”—she glances back over her shoulder—“did you see that guy?”
“Guy?” I wrap the ribbons around my wrists for the final trip to the boat, still looking at those balloons.
Seeing a camel float away like that feels like a bad omen.
And yet somehow…I’m jealous. It’s literally floating on air.
Free, with no pressure; no responsibilities. Nothing to do but bob along in the sky—
“The hottest man alive just walked into that bar,” Deanie says, cutting into my thoughts.
I glance over at the beach as we walk back down the dock. The only building there, besides a few gorgeous beach houses farther down the sandy crescent, is a pub called the Rusty Dinghy.
“Worthy of killing an endangered animal for?” I stare up at the camel balloon, now a rapidly shrinking yellow dot in the sky. My stomach churns.
“A chest as wide as that island.” Deanie says, oblivious. “The kind of biceps that could pick me up like I was a pool noodle.”
I resist rolling my eyes. Easy for Deanie to say. Her petite frame is about the size of a pool noodle. “You couldn’t even see his face from here. He could be missing teeth. Or have an offensive tattoo or something. Plus, he’s walking into a bar at nine in the morning.”
She sighs again as we reach the boat again. “I love tattoos. Ooh, maybe he’s the bartender!” She sees my single raised eyebrow. “Okay. You’re right. But you forget what it’s like to be single at our age.”
“We’re twenty-nine!”
“Exactly.”
I laugh, and I have to admit it feels good. I’m wound up so tight my teeth hurt.
Also, I’m kind of sad I missed him. I can admire a handsome guy from afar, though I don’t go gooey for them the way Deanie does.
I think it’s a lifetime of knowing those gorgeous guys don’t really go for girls like me—on the plainer side of pretty, with my basic, wavy brown hair and freckles, short, and a little thicker than what’s considered ideal.
I get called cute but rarely beautiful like Deanie.
It’s fine. It just takes the pressure off.
But I’m not single, either. I think of Richard and how sweet it was that he volunteered to ride on the boat with my parents over here. Of course, it would have been better if he drove up with me and Deanie to help set up. Funny how immovable his golf plans suddenly were this morning.
Once the boat’s finally loaded, grizzled boat guy looking like he’s deeply regretting his life choices, I give Deanie a hug. “Thanks again for looking after things while I’m gone.”
Deanie’s my friend, but that’s because she’s also VP of the company I founded, Visionary Consulting, which specializes in company rebranding.
I’ve forwarded all calls to her until tomorrow night when I’m back in Vancouver.
She’s my right-hand woman, and she promised she could handle it for a few days.
“Three, max,” she’d said though. “Sorry.”
No one wants my job. It’s thankless. I don’t get to do any of the fun projects anymore. I just run the show. Fix the problems. Manage the crises and nightmare clients.
Deanie grimaces as if remembering what she’s taking on. But she puts on a perky face. “Of course. It’s no problem. And maybe someday you won’t need anyone to look after things over the weekend.”
The fact that I don’t ever see that happening—at least not in the foreseeable future—is enough to make my breathing a little tight.
“When Clientzilla calls”—because it’s not if, but when—“remind her to do her mindfulness exercises.” Clientzilla is our worst but most lucrative client, who loves to text me 911 branding emergencies twenty-four hours a day. “Anyone else, tell them I’ll call when I’m back.”
“I’ll be fine!” Deanie says, waving at me as we pull away from the dock. She chews her nails, probably already having received a hundred texts from Clientzilla. But before the driver turns the boat around, I see her staring wistfully at the bar as she heads back to the van.
I laugh because it’s easier than focusing on the nerves jangling in my stomach, hoping I pull this off.
An hour later, my phone buzzes.
RICHARD: we’re at the dock.
My stomach flips with excitement. The room is decorated, and I’ve just laid out the food items on the main catering table.
The owners of the resort only let me use the retreat center if I booked the whole thing—the hall and all the rooms—so even though it’s a little overkill having the place decorated just for the four of us, it’ll all be worth it to see Mom’s face.
brYONY: sounds good. I’m ready!
I’m not quite. I rush to the bathroom to change into the linen suit Mom likes—at least it’s the only one she doesn’t criticize as fitting me “poorly.”
I throw a brush through my hair and slick a last-minute coating of gloss on my lips, then rush back out.
They’re arriving at the dock on the other side of the tiny island, the bigger one for larger watercraft, only a five-minute walk up to the retreat center.
I know; I timed it. I wait until I hear voices from the path before swinging the main doors open.
Mom and Dad are bickering as they make their way up the path, and Richard’s on his phone behind them. As usual. I try to ignore the way that jabs at me. My mom’s birthday—the one where I told him I was taking a big risk in trying to connect with her—is kind of a big deal.
Still, I lift my chin, setting my smile back on straight.
“Hi!” I close the doors behind me, wanting to preserve the surprise.
Mom swats at a bug that’s flying in front of her face. “Bryony, really. Was coming all the way over here really necessary?”
“Brunch reservations in the city would have been a lot simpler,” Dad says, almost angrily.
They look like they’re doing me a huge favor by being here.
My shoulders threaten to sink.
Richard’s still on his phone.
It’s okay. I haven’t explained yet, and they haven’t seen the inside.
I fortify my voice with a brightness that came easy a moment ago. “Well, Mom, there’s a reason we’re here.”
“I certainly hope so,” Dad mutters.
While there was a time I was close to Mom, I’ve never been close to my dad.
He was hardly home when I was a kid. Not even when…
well, not even when we needed him the most. After what happened with Jessica, Mom kind of…
folded in on herself, almost like it wasn’t possible for her to love me like she used to.
But I know she’s in there. Somewhere.
I focus on Mom, clearing my throat.
Here goes nothing.
“Mom, when I was little, you used to tell me and…”
I swallow as Mom blanches. Shit, I messed it up already. I clear my throat again. I don’t get nervous making presentations at corporate events. But my own parents? I lose it.
“Well, uh, when I was little, you once told us about the very first birthday of yours you remember. It was on a farm somewhere around here.” I gesture to the pastiche of sea and mountains behind them where Mom grew up.
My heart pounds.
Mom’s eyes widen.