by Lori Wilde
Still, while Raoul was shallow and self-absorbed, he was trying. He was getting help. Attending meetings. That did mean something. Didn’t she owe him a chance to explain?
“Okay,” she said. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
“Thank you.” He pressed his palms together in front of his heart, bowed his head. “First, I am very sorry I hurt you.”
“I accept your apology.”
“Really?” A hopeful smile plucked at his lips.
“Yes.”
“I never thought you would forgive me.”
“I didn’t say I forgave you. I said I accepted your apology.”
“Can you forgive me?”
“I don’t know. You humiliated me with my sister on our wedding day. That’s a pretty big sin.”
“I was wrong, so wrong.” He did look contrite, but he’d always been pretty good at presenting what he knew she needed to see and hear.
“Yes, you were.”
“You were the best thing that ever happened to me.” Still clutching his hands to his heart beseechingly, he dropped to his knees in the sand at her feet. “And I threw it all away.”
“Look,” Madison said, backing away, “you figure out your life. Do the twelve steps, or whatever. I’ve got problems of my own.”
She headed toward the inn.
“Madison,” Raoul called. “Just know this one thing.”
She stopped, inhaled sharply, turned back around. “What is it?”
“I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your full forgiveness. I messed up and I lost the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Just do better with the next woman, Raoul,” she said. “That’s all I ask.”
“Yes, yes, but, Madison, do know that I am truly, deeply sorry, to the bottom of my heart, that I had sex with your sister.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Gia
BLEEDING: When colors or dyes from one fabric transfer to another during washing.
WHILE MADISON WAS walking the beach, Gia lay sated and drowsy in Mike’s arms as the rays of dawn pushed through the curtains.
Mike reached over to brush the hair from her face, grinned. “Hey, you.”
He looked so happy, so warm and comfy, and his tone was so loving that Gia got scared. They were moving too fast. Yes, they’d known each other for twenty years, but not in this way. Was she ready for this?
He was treating her as if their engagement was real, and while she had deep feelings for Mike, so much had happened in such a short time she didn’t know if she could trust her emotions.
Mike tightened his arms around her, holding her close, their legs entangled willy-nilly.
Oh, but he made her feel good, better than she’d felt in ages. Being with him was easy and fun, relaxed and breezy. A man who was at peace with himself and his world.
She rested her head on his chest. She lay listening to his heart beating, strong and solid. Contentment stole over her, and she realized she wasn’t thinking about anything. She smiled. It felt like recess. A time-out from the craziness her life had become.
“Are you hungry?” Mike asked. “I have all the makings for breakfast burritos.”
“Oh yum. I’ll go wash up and then come help you in the kitchen.”
He kissed her forehead and untangled himself from her. “You can use my bathroom. I’ll take the guest bath. Meet you in the kitchen in ten.”
Smiling, Gia padded into his bathroom and caught sight of herself in the mirror. Her hair was all over the place, messy and tangled. Bedhead. Her eyes seemed wider and her cheeks hollower.
She took a quick shower and dressed in the clothes she’d worn the night before. She started to apply the makeup she kept tucked into her purse, then decided, Screw it. Mike thought she was beautiful no matter what. She had no one to impress. She could be herself with him.
That felt good.
How many times had she tried too hard to please guys in the past? After a late-night tryst, she’d sneak out of bed before her dates awoke, slipping into the bathroom to brush her teeth, scrub her face, and apply fresh makeup and then slip back under the covers, to act as if she naturally woke up like that.
Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she realized how silly she’d been. Thinking she couldn’t be herself in order to find love. That she was responsible for everyone else getting along. That it was her job to keep the peace at all costs.
Her family had put her in that role. Not intentionally, to be sure. But they’d done it nonetheless; and Gia, because she was naturally empathetic and easygoing, had been unaware it was happening.
And when she’d had flashes of awareness, she’d brushed them aside, buried the effects that people-pleasing had on her down deep, numbed out, and rolled with the flow.
The need to stay comfortable had kept her from growing as a person.
Laziness.
She wasn’t lazy about working a job. In fact, she used kitemaking as a method of zoning out. To her way of thinking, anger and conflict should be avoided at all costs and creativity gave her that escape.
Rather, she used people-pleasing as a way of going unconscious to her own needs. Instead of expressing her wants and desires and tolerating conflict, she sank into sleepwalking through life.
Laziness.
It had closed her off.
Oof!
She did not know what jostled this realization loose. Success with the pop-up store? The invitation from Pippa to make wedding kites? Working on the quilt that held so many memories in the fabric? Faking an engagement to get her sisters to sew the quilt in an underhanded bid for control? Learning that Madison had lost a baby, and Shelley had joined a cult? Finding out how Grammy and Darynda had hidden their love to please society? Sex with Mike?
All of the above?
This then was her wake-up call. Her invitation to move through life with increased attentiveness and to stop hiding her own wants and needs in favor of catering to the needs of others.
But first, she had one last task to finish before she could turn her attention to fully healing herself. One last person to please.
Grammy.
She had to make sure she and her sisters finished the wedding quilt before Grammy came home next week. Honor her grandmother’s last request while they still had time.
Suddenly overwhelmed, she felt tears pushing at the back of her eyes as emotions swelled. Emotions she’d been tamping down and avoiding for a very long time.
Don’t cry, don’t cry.
But the dam had broken.
Great wrenching sobs rolled through her and Gia sank to the bathroom floor. She hugged herself. Told herself to snap out of it. Sobbed some more. Reached for big gobs of toilet paper. Sopped at her face.
Stop it, stop it, stop it.
Nothing doing. Her body shook. Her mouth filled with salty tears.
A gentle knock sounded at the door.
“Honeysuckle? You okay?”
Honeysuckle.
A fake term of endearment for a fake engagement. She felt sad. Sad and angry and filled with grief she had not processed for twenty years because she hadn’t wanted to burden her family with her sorrow.
She couldn’t answer him. Her throat was too constricted.
“Gia?”
“Pl-please . . .” She gulped back the knot of tears blocking her throat.
The next thing she knew he was in the bathroom with her. Darn it. Why hadn’t she locked the door?
He took one look at her and shook his head.
From her past relationships with men, she expected him to either panic over the tears, and get the hell out of there, or ask her a million questions as he went into caveman mode to solve her problems for her.
But Mike did neither of those things.
Instead, he sank down on the floor beside her and hauled her into his lap. He did not say a word. Just held her and let her sob it out against his shoulder.
When she was done, he handed her a fresh batch of toilet paper.
>
She dabbed her face and apologized. “I’m an ugly crier.”
“Don’t put labels on yourself like that, Short Stack. No one looks good swamped in tears. You’re not supposed to look good when you’re crying, but damn if you don’t. Even red-eyed and runny-nosed, you look beautiful to me.”
Her body shuddered as she shook off the rest of the tears.
They sat for a good long time on the floor until Gia’s butt got numb. “I hope you didn’t start those eggs for the breakfast burritos yet. Otherwise they’re burned.”
“They’re ready to assemble. I was waiting for you.”
Gia swiped at her eyes. “You’re amazing.”
“Nah,” he said. “Just a guy who finally learned how to give women the space they need to feel what they’re feeling.”
“You should teach classes,” she said. “I know a few guys who could use your brand of sensitivity training.”
“Ah, Short Stack, you’re not calling me sensitive, are you? I’ll have to surrender my man card.”
“I’m just stunned to have a friend like you.”
His eyes darkened, and his voice lowered. “After last night, I hope you’re looking at me as a whole lot more than that.”
There was that panic again that she’d felt earlier. The squeeze that said, slow down, Gia, things are moving too fast.
But this was Mike and he was so great. Why was she afraid of progressing?
“Thanks for putting up with me, but I’m going to have to skip breakfast. Madison and Shelley promised they’d get back to work on the wedding quilt and I need to be there to make sure they don’t flake.”
“Okay.” He looked confused but didn’t push her. “Just know I’m right here if you should need me.”
“Thanks,” Gia said, but instead of making her feel safe and secure, that only caused her to feel more pressured than ever.
* * *
GIA ESCAPED MIKE’S house as fast as her legs would carry her. Heart pounding, confounded by her desire to run, she rushed up the back steps of the Moonglow Inn to find Shelley waiting on the porch.
Her sister had put the quilt in the wooden frame and arranged three chairs around it, and set out the sewing notions, but there was no sign of Maddie.
“Are you all right?” Shelley asked.
“Yes, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” You slept with Mike. Everything’s changed. You can’t handle it. You’re anything but all right.
“O-kay.” Shelley held up both palms. “Forget I asked.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be snappy. Was I snappy?”
“You were channeling Madison a bit, but that’s not always a bad thing. The woman does know how to stand up for herself.”
“And I don’t.” Sighing, Gia sank down in the chair across from Shelley.
“Are you sure you’re—”
“I’m fine.”
“Gotcha.”
Just then Madison came into view, storming up from the beach, and headed toward the porch, a thundercloud frown on her face.
“Uh-oh,” Shelley said. “She makes your mood look like a smile convention.”
Simultaneously, they stood.
Her face twisted into a mask of rage, Madison stalked up the steps on wooden legs, her fisted hands clutched at her sides, her rage directed squarely at Shelley.
“You slept with Raoul?” she howled.
Shelley shrunk back and raised her arms over her face as if to protect herself from physical blows. “N-no. Why are you saying that?”
“I met Raoul on the beach,” Maddie said. “He’s in a twelve-step program for sexual addiction and one of the steps is to make amends. Maybe Raoul isn’t the one who needs to be in recovery. Maybe it’s you.” Madison threw words like stones.
Shelley flinched, shot a desperate gaze at Gia.
“Did you sleep with Raoul, Shelley?” Gia asked in a small, tight voice.
“No, no.” Shelley looked and sounded desperate. “Madison, Gia, you’ve got to understand. Anything I did, I did it to protect our family. I thought—”
“Liar!” Madison exploded. “You didn’t think at all. You had an impulse and you followed it. Just like you always do. It wasn’t so much that you crushed my soul on my wedding day. It was the fact that you’re claiming you did it for my good. That you wanted to help me.”
“I-I . . .” Shelley’s knees bobbled.
“Let’s explore the real reason you slept with my fiancé, Shelley. You wanted attention. Yes, maybe Raoul was a cheating jerk. Maybe I was blind and stubborn, and you felt like it was your place to force me to see Raoul for what he was. But don’t pretend it was for me. It was for you, Shelley. You wanted to rub my face in my mistake.”
“No, no, Maddie, no.”
Madison was wound up and taking no prisoners. “You wanted to look like my savior while you were having sex with my fiancé behind my back. You wanted the spotlight on my wedding day. For once in your life, just admit the truth of it.”
Shelley shook her head, and a strangled cry of pain and shame escaped her throat. “No, no. You don’t understand. I—”
“You wanted me to praise you for being such a wonderful sister. You wanted to cast me in the role of villain again. Poor misunderstood Shelley. Her mean old sister Madison doesn’t get what she’s trying to do. Shelley means well, and Madison is just so hard and unforgiving.” Madison knotted her hands into fists and jumped across the porch to toe off with Shelley nose to nose.
Shelley gaped like a landed fish, her mouth moving but no words coming out. Her face flushed. “Me? I’m the one looking for attention? I’m not the one desperate to be on TV. I’m not the perfectionist who spends a ridiculous amount of time creating fancy-schmancy art, food, flowers, and design. You’re the selfish one. Thinking only your feelings and opinions matter.”
“Stop it!” Gia yelled. “Stop it right now. Both of you.”
Pyewacket, who’d been curled on the porch when this started, yowled at them and took off. The Siamese made a strong point.
For her entire life, Gia had been the mediator between these two fiery women, who were so different on the surface, but underneath both of them so similar. Both headstrong and defiant, each in her own way.
“I won’t tolerate this. If you can’t be civil to each other, you have to leave.”
“You?” Madison turned on Gia. “You’re no golden child either. You wouldn’t even take my side when Shelley ruined everything.”
“Madison,” Shelley insisted, “I’m telling you that I did not sleep with Raoul! There are circumstances you know nothing—”
“You want me to take sides?” Gia rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and stalked over to Madison. “Well, I’m taking sides now, Maddie. It doesn’t matter whether Shelley actually slept with him or not. You’ve got to forgive her and let it go, or you’ll go to your grave a bitter old woman.”
Madison blanched. “You’re siding with her?”
“Shelley might have been misguided, but she has a good heart and she’s been trying so hard since she came home. Give her a chance to explain.”
Madison folded her arms over her chest, and her face hardened to slate.
“Shelley is trying, dammit,” Gia roared. “But I can’t say the same for you.”
Madison’s face went completely blank. “That’s it then.”
“No! It’s not it. For twenty-three years, I’ve been between the two of you. I’m tired of being pulled apart. I’m tired of trying to smooth things over and make this family work. If you two want to destroy what’s left of us, then fine. I give up.” Gia threw her hands in the air. “Have at it.”
“When did you try to put us back together?” Shelley asked, turning on Gia, who’d just stood up for her. “You never once tried to contact me in Costa Rica.”
“I had no idea where you were.”
“I got sucked into a cult, dammit, and not one of you people tried to get me out. Do you know how abandoned that makes me feel? If I tried to get at
tention, well, no wonder. Everyone thinks the sun shines out of Maddie’s butt because she’s so accomplished. And of course, the youngest, sweet one got all the petting from everyone. There was nothing left for me. So yeah, I took love where I could find it, in a damn cult. But neither one of you cared.”
“Oh, Shelley,” Gia said. “Maybe we could have tried harder to follow you, but Grammy knew where you were, and we thought if you wanted to be contacted, you would let us know. We didn’t realize you were in a cult! We thought you could come home whenever you wanted!”
“Easy to say now.” Shelley’s chin hardened.
“I don’t like the way this family communicates,” Gia said. “It’s gotten so toxic. Maybe we’re all better off apart than together.”
“You don’t really mean that.” Madison gasped.
Gia was breathing hard. Twenty-three years of walking the tightrope between these two and it had come to this. The truth will out. She’d let the chips fall. “Guess what? Mike and I aren’t really engaged. Yep, it’s a bald-faced lie. If you guys can have secrets, so can I.”
“What?” Shelley and Madison said in unison.
“The fake engagement was a ploy to get you two to stay here and talk to each other. Yes, I’m a big fat liar! I compromised my values for you two and you don’t appreciate what I’ve done. Grammy wrote that letter to me begging me to get you two back together and finish this stupid quilt and the only way I could think to make that happen was to come up with a fake engagement. That is the craziness I’ve sunk to and it’s not worth it. You know what? I’m done. D. O. N. E!”
Her sisters were standing side by side now. Finally, they were united by their stark disbelief. Too damn little, too damn late.
Gia was finished talking. She would show them exactly just how done she was. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the cordless power scissors sitting next to the quilting frame and sliced the triple wedding ring quilt straight down the middle.
“Gia!” Madison cried. “What are you doing?”
“Putting an end to this nonsense! If you are done being sisters, that’s fine with me.”
Never in her life had Gia felt such anger. She didn’t stop with cutting the quilt in half; she attacked each square, hacking it into pieces. Cotton batting floated in the air.