Drift

Chapter 1

Overcast with a chance of heartbreak

Kristen isn’t supposed to be at the wharf.

Not on a Thursday. Not any day.

I creep past Mulligan’s Bait and Tackle, my fingertips bumping along the chipped blue paint as I inch closer to the edge.

Why is Kristen here?

She reeks of privilege. Upmarket, platinum blonde, she wears designer clothes and totes a luxury handbag over the crook of her arm whenever she breezes around town.

I know labels. Nouveau riche is a world where I used to belong.

But before today, I’d bet every last penny of my divorce settlement that Kristen’s stilettos have never stepped on the sun-bleached wharf in all her thirty-something years.

But the laugh floating on the breeze is hers.

“The woman is a beige tragedy.”

The bored, monotone drawl is unmistakably hers, too.

I know it is.

Just like I know almost everyone in St Helens. It’s impossible not to. After three months as a medical receptionist at the only clinic in town, I’ve learned too much about the locals.

The guy running the gas station has a case of crabs. Yes, those crabs. The girl working at the grocery store is pregnant but hasn’t told her boyfriend yet. Twins. That man is about to get the shock of his life.

Sure, I know the ins-and-outs of everyone’s life, but I’m good at keeping secrets.

On New Year’s Eve, huddled alone in my apartment, sipping boxed wine from my grandmother’s tiny teacup, I watched the clock tick over to not only a new year but a whole new millennium.

I made a single resolution: no more drama.

Kristen is nothing but drama… and the dread hollowing deep in my chest warns me I might be her latest victim.

I hook a thumb under the strap of my leather satchel, locking it in place as I shuffle to a stop at the edge of the shop. I tilt my head, listening, waiting…

Another breathy laugh bubbles my way.

“I shudder to think where she found the plaid skirt I saw her in today. She probably fished it out of her grandmother’s closet, mothballs and all.” That’s definitely Kristen, and she’s definitely talking about me. “Luke, you can’t seriously be interested in her.”

My shoulder hits the wall, but at least I’ll stay upright if I’m slumped against the side of the shop.

Is Luke here?

I know his secrets, too. I’m one of them. He’s the reason I’m at the waterfront. We have what he calls an “arrangement.”

Usually, on Thursdays, I sneak down the alley beside Mulligan’s so no one sees me, the gravel crunching under the heels of my patent Mary Janes with every step I get closer to the wharf.

Luke’s always there.

That man’s crafted like an Italian god—dark hair, olive skin—and he speaks like the fading aristocracy after years in an English boarding school.

Every so often, I’ll catch the sound of him laughing as he finishes buying whatever he needs for his restaurant.

Seafood, I suppose. People rave that his Linguine all’Astice is to die for, but I’ve never eaten at Fuoco.

The prices he commands don’t fit the budget of a woman who only scraped together enough money to lease the loft above the post office.

On Thursdays, the fisherman hangs around too.

Sawyer.

He doesn’t look like a man who enjoys fine dining. He’s rugged. Too tall and too wide, the wind always tosses his sandy hair, and inky black tattoos hide most of his forearms. He never has much to say. Not to me, anyway. If he catches me waiting—and he has more than once—he only nods.

That’s usually how I spend every Monday and Thursday. Twelve weeks have disappeared, just like that.

Not today.

Luke’s bored tone matches Kristen’s. “What makes you think I’m interested in Elsie?”

“You’ve been seen with her.”

“And where did this miraculous event allegedly take place?”

“Behind the pharmacy.”

“Standing in close proximity in a parking lot doesn’t equate to anything even close to interest.”

“Honey, the story I heard was that your hands were all over the back of her embarrassingly high-waisted trousers.”

“And who told you this fairy tale?”

Kristen rattles off a name, but I don’t hear it. I gulp air as my thoughts whirl into a bottomless spiral.

Most of the stories floating around town are fiction, but that one’s true.

Luke insists on discretion. We got sloppy.

Well, he did. He sneaked up behind me when I was shoving a box of pharmacy supplies into the trunk of the doctor’s car.

He nibbled on my neck, and his wayward palm squeezed my backside.

“Let me spoil you tonight,” he murmured. “Dinner. Then…” He filled the gap with a kiss.

It was the first time he asked me over to do anything except—and this is the polite way to put it—fornicate.

That night was the most fun I’ve had since my divorce.

Luke isn’t just a chef. He’s a celebrity chef.

His face is everywhere now that he’s guest-starred on a TV cooking show.

The night he invited me over, he whipped up a roast chicken for dinner, but somehow, that simple meal was the best I’ve ever eaten.

Dessert was sipping champagne on his deck overlooking the ocean and then rolling around in his silk sheets for a few hours.

It was almost morning when I snuck out, barefoot, my loafers clutched in my hand like a guilty college kid stealing home before the world woke up.

Luke spoils me. It’s nice. Having someone care about whether I breathe again is addictive, but he made no promises to me. He doesn’t want everyone to know his business. I understand. I don’t want anyone to know mine, either. Certainly not Kristen.

“So, that’s the town scandal?” Faint amusement edges Luke’s voice. “I offered to help Elsie carry a few boxes. Bloody hell. This is why I avoid dating.”

“There’s a difference between dating and fu—”

“Ignore the gossip, Kris.”

“There’s never been much gossip about you.”

“And I’d like to keep it that way—especially with that bottom-feeding journalist sniffing around ahead of the festival next month.”

“A tabloid scoop about you and the pretentious old maid?” Kristen laughs. “I’ll buy a copy and frame it.”

He laughs with her. “I have absolutely no interest in settling down. And if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be with a train wreck like Elsie Hoskins.”

“Not your type?”

“She’s a zero out of ten.”

Luke’s cruel words twist around my chest until all the air squeezes out of my lungs. The gravel sways and swirls beneath my feet.

Train wreck?

Zero?

My mind claws through the last three months, desperately grasping for something—anything—that makes sense. I almost miss the deep grunt of annoyance.

“Something to add, Sawyer?” Kristen demands. “Surely you don’t care about the dating life of the woman who answers telephones at the clinic?”

As if the humiliation can’t get any worse. The fisherman’s there too.

“Keep me out of your bullshit,” is the blunt reply. “I won’t stand around listenin’ while you two spew trash about that woman. Take a hard fuckin’ look at yourselves.”

At least someone’s looking out for me.

I sink lower down the wall, my eyes fixing on the fading sunset and my chest heavy under the crush of ugly words I was never meant to hear.

I’m so stupid.

I thought I finally learned a thing or two about life, but here I am, a bigger laughingstock than ever.

Forget my marriage and the eight years I was Ethan Whitehall’s wife.

The name I used to sign had opened doors until our divorce slammed every last one of them shut in my face.

“Friends” picked sides. Not my side, though.

Now, I’m on the wrong side of thirty, stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere, and working a dead-end job, barely making ends meet.

My family loves me, but they tiptoe around me.

I don’t travel anymore. I can’t afford to, and, worse still, I’m not even sure I want to.

What’s the point?

The first man I trusted after my divorce used me up and spat me out, and I didn’t even realize it. I let him.

Because I’m nothing.

A train wreck.

Zero out of ten.

Maybe I don’t have the prettiest face. My features are sharp, and my nose is too pointy, but my hair is nice.

It’s long and dark, and it curls so pretty if I take the time.

That should edge me up to at least three, shouldn’t it?

If I doll on a bit of make-up, my rank has to rise to at least a passable five.

The plod of heavy boots on the gravel interrupts my spiraling thoughts, but not enough to remember how to move my feet. I should shuffle behind the shop, hide myself, but my body refuses to budge. I manage to turn a defeated gaze just as Sawyer lumbers around the corner.

His hazel eyes pop so wide that all the crinkles in the corners disappear. “Elsie Hoskins? How long you been hidin’ back here?”

I blink up at him. Too long.

He frowns. “You heard what they were sayin’?”

This time, I answer with a nod.

“You goin’ to march over there and give them a piece of your mind?”

Have I ever done anything that brave?

I’ve spent most of my life lost in the comfort of books and other people’s histories because I’m hopeless at standing up for myself.

That’s why I walked away from my marriage with so much less than I deserved—my dignity and a lifetime of knowing I never had to see my ex-husband again, but almost no money.

I shake my head. “I’m not good at”—I gulp—“confrontation.”

Gravel scatters under footsteps that close in from the beach.

My heart hammers in my chest, and I flick a wild, panicked look in every direction. “God.” There’s no escape.

Sawyer’s hand cups my shoulder. “Elsie.” He jingles a set of keys before reaching around me to unlock the door. “Don’t give them the satisfaction of seein’ you all worked up.” Hinges groan open. “You go in there. I’ll get rid of them.”

There’s nothing but pitch black on the other side of the door.

I dive in anyway.