by Lori Wilde
She’d avoided this moment for as long as possible, but it was time to reveal her deepest secret. The one she’d kept hidden for five long years. The secret that had sent her seeking refuge in a cult. There was no way to avoid telling this truth. Not if she wanted a permanent mending to her family.
Unfortunately, what she had to say would emotionally destroy kindhearted Gia.
Hitching in a breath, Shelley gathered her courage and joined her sisters.
Madison was calm. Not speaking for once. Listening as Gia spoke a mile a minute, rattling about her fake engagement and her jumbled feelings for Mike. She loved him, but could she trust it? Was a relationship born in a lie really something she could count on?
“That’s something you need to discuss with Mike,” Madison said. “He’s manning the boardwalk kiosk if you want to go talk to him.”
As Shelley drew closer, she saw Gia’s body tense. The muscles in her sister’s jaw clenched. She turned her back to Shelley and started reeling in the pink dragon kite.
That hurt.
Even though Gia had refused to take sides after The Incident with Raoul, Shelley had known Gia agreed with her that Raoul was the wrong guy for Madison. And although she’d been hurt by Gia’s lack of support at the time, this seething anger directed toward her was new and hurt like hell.
Gia didn’t get mad. She zoned out.
Ahem, apparently not anymore.
Nervously, Shelley darted a glance at Madison. Her older sister shrugged, lifted her palms as if to say, Out of my hands.
How to start this conversation?
Gia busied herself with folding up the kite, assiduously avoiding Shelley’s gaze. Okay, she was not making this easy.
She reached to touch Gia’s shoulder, but her sister shied away, leaving Shelley patting air. Oh boy.
“Do you need any help?” Shelley ventured.
Gia folded the kite with practiced precision. “I’ve got it.”
“No, really, let me help.” Shelley grabbed for the dragon’s tail spilling onto the sand.
“Back off!” Gia said, high and shrill, as she jerked the kite from Shelley’s grasp. Then came a ripping sound that froze Shelley’s heart. She held Puff the Magic Dragon’s pink tail in her hand.
Gia stood in front of her, the body of the dragon tucked against her chest, her mouth agape.
Shelley surged forward, stricken. She had torn the first kite her sister had ever made. “Oh my gosh, Gia, I am so sorry—”
“Stay back.” Gia held up a palm. She was shaking all over. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”
That was a knife straight through her heart. “I am sorry about Puff and I’m sorry if I drove you to cut up the quilt.”
“Give me that.” Gia snatched Puff’s tail from her hand.
Shelley’s chin quivered as she fought hard not to cry. There had been too many damn tears today.
“Why did you do it, Shelley?” Gia rasped.
“I didn’t mean to tear Puff—”
“I’m not talking about Puff!”
Shelley stepped back at the anger in Gia’s voice. Felt the salt water lap against her ankles.
Madison stood to one side, not getting involved, which was pretty stunning, considering she usually had to be right in the big middle of any conflict.
“Why did you sleep with Raoul? Why did you do that to Maddie? Why, Shelley? Why?”
Oh, here they were. Knocking on the door of the secret she’d kicked into her mental basement and locked the door closed on half a decade ago. It killed Shelley to say what she said next, to watch Gia’s sweet face crumble with shame and remorse.
“Gia, I didn’t sleep with Raoul . . . you did.”
* * *
“EXCUSE ME?” GIA blinked. Had Shelley just said what she thought she’d said? “That never happened.”
“Gia, I saw you.”
“You saw me having sex with Raoul?” Why was Shelley saying this? Gia shot a glance over at Madison, who stood with her arms crossed and eyes bugging.
“Well, I didn’t actually see you doing the deed, but I put two and two together.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” Gia tucked the torn kite under her arm, her heart slamming into her chest. She could sew Puff’s tail back on. The kite would be all right. Too bad she couldn’t say the same for the quilt she’d destroyed.
Gia turned to address Madison. “I swear to you, I never slept with Raoul.”
“You don’t remember it,” Shelley murmured. “Because you were drunk off your gourd.”
Drunk? Gia hadn’t been drunk in years and years. Not since . . . oh wait . . . “When did this happen?”
“The Mardi Gras party two months before Madison’s wedding.”
Gia frowned, her world cocked topsy-turvy. She honestly had no idea what Shelley was talking about.
“The masquerade party we threw at the Moonglow Inn,” Shelley went on. “You’d been flirting with that cute guest who’d come with his parents on vacation.”
Gia’s cheeks burned as the memories slowly unfolded in a mental snapshot of blurry images. That guy had been really cute. His name was Todd, or had it been Tad? Either way, dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean, he’d lured her to the beach to share a bottle of his homemade dandelion wine. They had both been eighteen, way underage, but he’d been cute and charming, and she’d always had a hard time saying no . . .
One thing led to another and they’d gotten pretty looped and were making out on a blanket stretched across the sand when Beach Patrol rousted them off the beach.
They mapped a plan to hook up later, returning to the party to mingle before reconnecting. Then Gia would give him a sign and slip off to her room and Todd or Tad or whatever his name was would follow her when he could.
The main problem? She shared a room with her sisters, so they’d have to be quick. Second problem? There were three Captain Jack Sparrows at the party and through the haze of dandelion wine, she wasn’t totally sure which one he was when she crooked her finger and disappeared upstairs.
It was exciting. Thrilling. Gia had never done anything like this and she felt so adult. Getting drunk and having a wild Mardi Gras fling in costume. She could be anyone. He could be anyone.
She slunk up the stairs, darting glances over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, and slipped into her bedroom, plunked down on the mattress to wait, and . . .
Promptly passed out.
Sometime later, she awoke still in her costume. She could still hear the party going on downstairs. She fumbled for her phone to see what time it was and to text Tad for his whereabouts. And found a text from him already waiting on her phone saying his parents had taken away his dandelion wine and grounded him.
So much for feeling like an adult.
She was about to flop back on the bed and go back to sleep when there was a short, soft knock and her door swung open to reveal Captain Jack Sparrow lounging insouciantly against the doorframe.
“You got away?” She breathed heavily and hopped to her feet.
He didn’t speak, just sauntered in and closed the door behind him.
The second she’d kissed him Gia had known it was Raoul, even in her inebriated state, and she’d cried out and spun away from him, asked him what did he think he was doing?
So drunk that he was unable to answer, he’d stumbled to the floor and passed right out. Gia assumed he’d come looking for Maddie, and not knowing what else to do, Gia crawled back into bed, leaving Madison’s soused fiancé for her to deal with.
When she’d awakened the next morning, with a vicious pounding headache, the bedroom was empty of her sisters and Raoul. She convinced herself it hadn’t been Raoul after all, but Tad (or Todd) who had come to her room in his Captain Jack costume. Downstairs at brunch, she learned he and his family had already checked out and so she never got to ask if it had been him in her room. She’d stuffed the incident into the back of her mind and that was the end of that memo
ry.
Until now.
Madison was staring at her with an icy coldness that chilled Gia to her bones. “Come clean, Gia,” Maddie said in that same stony voice she used with Shelley but had never turned on her. “Time for the truth to come out. Did you sleep with Raoul?”
“No!”
“Then why would Raoul and Shelley say you did?”
“Please, you have to believe me,” Gia begged, then turned to Shelley. “I never slept with Raoul. Why don’t you tell us what you remember about that night?”
* * *
“I SAW YOU on the beach with your date,” Shelley said. “And I saw Raoul watching the two of you.”
“Why were you keeping tabs on Raoul?” Gia scowled. “Were you obsessed with him?”
“I wasn’t.” Shelley shook her head. “I was keeping tabs on you. Where do you think Tad got the dandelion wine?”
“He said he made it.”
Shelley rolled her eyes. “He was showing off. I made the wine in the cellar.”
“As I recall, it had one helluva kick.”
“I wanted you to have fun,” Shelley said. “But not get into too much trouble. Boy, did that backfire.”
“Seriously?” Madison glared at her. “You set Gia up to get drunk?”
The old shame nibbled at Shelley, gnawing away at the emotional gains she’d made since coming home. She paused before continuing, studying her older sister’s face for a moment, the small pearl studs nestled in her earlobes, her proud chin tilted up, her eyelids lowered to cloak her vulnerability.
“I just wanted her to have fun. It was stupid, and I feel guilty as hell. That’s why I never told a soul about what happened.” Shelley sucked in a deep breath. “Not even when it would have saved me from your rage.”
Tears formed in Madison’s eyes. Blinking, she turned her head and pressed a knuckle against her eyelid.
Gia twisted the woven bracelet at her wrist, the torn dragon kite still clutched underneath her armpit. “Go on.”
“I monitored you throughout the party, watching, but out of the way so you couldn’t see me,” Shelley explained.
“Where were you spying on me from?” Gia asked.
“Spying is a strong word—”
“Spying,” Gia said through clenched teeth.
Okay, that was the mood. She accepted it. Still in the weeds with her sisters. “On the back stairs landing.”
From that third-floor vantage point Shelley had been able to look down at the party below and see the bedrooms on the second floor. But the spot had been dark, her viewpoint murky in the shadows.
“I watched you go up to your room and then sometime later, I saw who I thought was Tad, dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow—geez, why does everyone think that costume is sexy—go up to your room. I saw you let him in and I saw you kiss him.”
“It wasn’t Tad,” Gia said. “It was Raoul.”
“Yeah, I found that out later. I stayed on the landing because I wasn’t going into our room while you were having a romantic tryst and Madison was downstairs, ramrodding the party. I fell asleep and when I woke up, I saw your lover leaving your room. Except he’d taken off the Jack Sparrow wig and I saw it wasn’t Tad you’d been with, but Raoul.”
Shelley and Gia both darted glances at Madison, who stood like a stone, hugging herself.
“Here’s what happened, Madison,” Gia said, and she told the story of how Raoul had come into her room while she was expecting Tad. How he’d passed out on the floor and she’d left him there because she thought he’d come to find Madison.
“Why didn’t you tell us when it happened?” Shelley asked.
“Because I wasn’t sure it was Raoul. I was blitzed, and Tad was supposed to be coming to my room. When I woke up and there was no one there, I started to think I dreamt the whole thing.”
Madison’s face paled and she looked as if she might throw up. Her gaze moved from Gia to Shelley and back again. “He was planning it all along.”
“What?” Gia asked.
“Raoul. To take advantage of you. He planned it. We were supposed to attend the party in couple’s costumes as French mimes. When he went to pick up his costume at the rental place he said they didn’t have his size, so he’d gone with the Captain Jack outfit. But that was after he learned you were attending the party as Tad’s date and Tad was wearing the same costume. I remember because I mentioned that Tad was already going as Captain Jack and Raoul should pick another costume. He said it was too much trouble to go back to the rental place.” Madison was trembling all over. “Dear Lord, I was such an idiot.”
“Not an idiot,” Shelley soothed. “You were in love and you thought he loved you too. Raoul could be very charming.”
“Why did Raoul say he had sex with me when he didn’t?” Gia asked.
“Maybe he thought he did,” Shelley said. “And was too drunk to remember. Or maybe it was a roundabout way of hurting Madison all over again.”
“How blind was I?” Maddie put a hand to her mouth.
“Don’t beat yourself up.” Shelley moved to touch Madison’s arm and when her sister didn’t pull away, her heart filled with hope.
“I was so mean to you when he was the problem all along. You were trying to protect me when you kissed him.”
“It’s over, it’s done.” Shelley slid her arm around Madison’s waist.
“You could have thrown Gia under the bus. You could have told the truth about why you kissed Raoul. Even though it wasn’t true, you believed Gia had slept with him. Why didn’t you tell me then?” Madison asked.
“I couldn’t hurt Gia. She was an innocent in all this. She thought she was with Tad. Besides, I felt responsible. It was my wine.” Shelley pressed her lips together to keep them from quivering.
“So you took all the blame.” Madison’s eyes were shiny with tears. “Oh, Shelley, I am so deeply sorry for the way I acted.”
“And you didn’t sleep with Raoul,” Shelley said to Gia. “You don’t know how happy that makes me. All these years I kept thinking I caused you to sleep with him.”
“You protected me at your own peril.” Gia’s eyes misted.
Finally, after five long years Shelley saw that her sisters realized the sacrifices she’d made for them. Yes, she’d acted impulsively and gone about it all wrong, but she had always had their best interest at heart.
Madison slipped her arm around Gia. Gia dropped the kite to the sand to wrap her arm about Shelley’s waist and the three of them stood there in a connected circle.
Shelley inhaled, taking in the moment of her redemption, fully appreciating how far they’d all come.
Cobalt Soul and Guru Meyer had taught her how to center herself through contemplation and reflection, but it was only by coming home and facing her past that she had found herself.
She didn’t need to go beyond her interior borders to find freedom. Didn’t need restless action or relentless distractions to escape from her emotions. Now, she felt free to be herself inside of her family and she found so much richness to feast on.
Accepting herself had in the long run translated into accepting her sisters, because when she was fully and unreservedly Shelley, her inner joy transcended her outer exploits and spilled out in glorious technicolor, tinting her entire world.
When she allowed her joy to bubble up and didn’t try to contain her essence, life was a delight, and she found that she didn’t need to do a lot except accept that her life was already brimming full to the top with love.
Completely engulfed in this beautiful moment of honest reunion, Shelley realized, on a level most profound, that life was a precious gift and she wasn’t going to waste another second on hurt, anger, guilt, or fear.
Overcome with awe and gratitude, she brought her sisters in closer for a tight group hug.
And there she had it.
Her life lesson in a nutshell. The real source of her joy sprang from constant gratitude. Gratitude for her home, for Moonglow Cove, for her family, for the f
ierce, abiding love of her sisters.
Two passersby on the beach stopped to watch them, and Shelley recognized the elderly ladies as members of the Quilting Divas, Erma and Viv.
Viv turned to her friend. “Get a load of that, Erm. The Moonglow sisters are back together again, and by George, I can’t help feeling that all is finally right with the world.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Gia
CHAIN STITCHING: Chain stitching refers to the practice of stitching squares or blocks with one continuous length of thread rather than breaking between pieces.
THE BOARDWALK WAS packed, families everywhere, summer in full swing. Colorful flags flapped in the breeze. Kids ran, giggling, playing hide-and-seek behind the benches and planter boxes. Beach music issued from outdoor speakers on the pier. The smell of cooking food wafted on the air—hot dogs, street tacos, funnel cakes. Gia could almost taste the fried dough dusted with cinnamon and powdered sugar.
Warm sun beat down, but goose bumps carpeted Gia’s arms as she drew closer to the kiosk she’d once rented, now hallmarked with the sign STRAUS HAND-CARVED ART.
Her heart skipped a beat.
Mike saw her at the same time she saw him. He stood in the doorway of the kiosk, his gaze latched on to hers.
Breathlessly, she ran to him.
He gathered her in his arms and hugged her for a long minute.
They didn’t speak. He locked up, hooked a Closed sign to the door of the kiosk, took her elbow, and guided her from the hustle and bustle of the boardwalk to a small park near the pier.
He led her to a picnic table in the shelter of the Moonglow pear trees. Sat her down on one side, took the bench opposite her. Stared into her eyes without a word.
Gia’s heart started pounding.
Today, she had felt a dozen different things at once. Things had piled higher and higher. Her rage, her shame, her regret, her remorse, her embarrassment. And something else, a brave little flower of hope sending up a shoot through the toxic sludge, reaching for the sun.
She and her sisters had come together. They’d talked things out. Cleared the air. Now it was time to do the same with Mike.