Dr. Iddings began today’s session as she always did, asking Cara what she was doing to take care of herself. As always, Cara assured her that she was eating well, pretended she was not drinking too much, and slightly exaggerated how much yoga she was doing because the lie seemed to impress her therapist.
The preliminaries over, Cara could finally move on to what she really wanted to talk about. “A year ago today, I picked Phil up at the ferry. He came out to see me. I told you what happened on that visit, right?”
“You did, yes. How are you feeling about the anniversary of his trip?”
“Conflicted. I only saw him twice after that, and so the guilty part of me wants to look back with nostalgia. But I can’t just forget everything he did to me either. I’m trying to focus on the good memories, but they’re fleeting.”
“How are the memories of that visit affecting your life right now?”
“Well, I’m having those nightmares again. The ones where Phil is on top of me, I’m suffocating, and he tells me he will never let me go. Last night, I made so much noise I woke Amy up, and she sleeps like a rock.”
While it was true that Amy possessed the ability to sleep through anything—alarm clocks, fire alarms, and on one terrifying occasion, a semi-truck crashing through the wall of the apartment beneath her—somehow, she always sensed when Cara needed her. There had been many nights when Cara woke sweating and shaking and crying from a terrible nightmare about Phil, and Amy climbed into bed with her and held her until she fell back asleep.
Unfortunately, talking about the nightmares with Dr. Iddings didn’t help. She offered Cara a prescription for a sleep aid, but Cara wasn’t interested in pills. She wanted something more new-agey, positive-thinking training or meditation advice, that sort of thing. Some kind of activity she could do to block the bad dreams. Truthfully, she was afraid that medication might make her sleep too deeply, so deeply she wouldn’t be able to wake up before dream-Phil hurt her worse.
The therapy session got even more depressing when Dr. Iddings asked her what else was going on in her life right now, and she felt obligated to talk about the date that didn’t happen and how her heart had been ripped out once again.
“I was supposed to go on a date last Thursday, and it didn’t work out.” Saying those words still stung quite a bit. She’d spent the entire fireworks show in the inn’s lobby, glaring at her recalcitrant guest and wondering when Sam would finally come up to look for her. He must have known that if she didn’t make it to meet him, she would still be at work. The inn was only a half-mile walk from the village, it would have taken him less than ten minutes. All he needed to do, if he cared at all, was come back and check. But instead, he went out drinking at The Digs and left with some tourist. A brunette with huge boobs, according to Amy’s description, though Sato said they weren’t that big. It didn’t matter; he had evidently chosen someone else, someone he didn’t even know, over her. And worse, afterwards, he told her he hadn’t intended to ask her on a date, as if he thought she couldn’t tell when he was lying.
“Was this date with someone you actually liked, or is this someone your cousin set you up with?” Dr. Iddings already knew about Amy’s desperation to get Cara back in the saddle again. Sometimes, Amy seemed to be making Cara’s love life her own personal mission. Sometimes, Amy just needed to back the hell off.
“It was with the chef, the one I mentioned before,” Cara mumbled, embarrassed. She had previously confided that she liked the guy, and that, in fact, she had been having some pretty interesting sexual dreams about him (something else she feared would be affected by sleep medication). “I thought I was ready to try dating again and that we could build something special together, and I was wrong. So now I have to rethink everything. Is this because of Phil? Am I ever going to be able to move on? And will there ever be anyone who actually loves me again?”
“Cara, what do you think?” the doctor asked, using that annoying therapist trick of answering a question with a question.
“I think I’m unlovable and that I will be single for the rest of my life. I think it’s my fault Phil is dead, and my penalty will be a lifetime alone.” Even as she said the words, she knew she was being overly dramatic. It sounded like something Amy would say, if Amy ever actually cared what other people thought about her. Amy would have moved on by now. Hell, Amy would have hooked up with someone at her dead fiancé’s funeral just to prove that she could.
“Cara, you know that will only be true if you make it happen. If you isolate yourself and choose to focus on your past, you won’t be able to move on in the future. What did Amy think about your date?”
The question surprised her. “Don’t you always tell me not to worry about other people’s opinions? What difference does it make what Amy thinks?”
“It doesn’t matter what she thinks as much as it matters that you haven’t talked to Amy about this at all, have you? Look at the situation this way—Amy is your closest friend and family member. You’ve always been deeply connected. You’ve always told each other everything, but you’ve avoided sharing some of the worst things that happened to you. You never told her the truth about Phil, which prevents you from telling her the truth about your problems now.”
“I didn’t tell Amy about the date because she doesn’t think the chef is a good guy for me. She calls him Mr. Grabby Hands and thinks he just uses women. And you know I can’t tell her about Phil. You know that. She’d look at me differently. She’d . . . she wouldn’t understand.” It was bad enough that Amy was there at the end, even without her knowing all the details that led up to it. She never wanted Amy to find out the real story. Cara couldn’t handle the contempt she’d see in her cousin’s eyes if she found out the truth.
The call concluded soon after that, and Cara stayed in her uncle’s office afterwards for as long as she could reasonably get away with. Amy was right outside the door, and Cara never liked seeing her after these sessions. Her cousin always read her emotions too well. She knew when Cara was stressed and upset, and Cara didn’t want her to see that today. Not on the anniversary of Phil’s last visit. Not when she already knew she was in for a long night of terrible dreams.
She needed to get away from the inn for a while. Maybe she needed a trip to The Digs. Or, better yet, maybe she needed to call Matteo and kill a bottle of tequila with him. Drowning her problems sometimes helped.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Whispering Pines, July 2012
People seem to think Cara should be excited that Phillip is coming to see her. She’s maintained the mask of their relationship for so long that it’s now in her nature to smile and say, yes, it’s wonderful that my fiancé is visiting. Nobody can hear her inner voice screaming.
She’s a little bit resentful that he’s coming here, that he’ll be encroaching on her territory, especially when she’s not sure which version of Phil will arrive. He’s never come to Whispering Pines, not once in their nearly two-year relationship, not even during the first year when they were genuinely happy. Having him here interrupts her life and disrupts her routine. Summer is for spending time with her uncle, hanging out with Amy, and drinking coffee with Sam—things she doesn’t want to share with her fiancé.
Amy would call that a red flag, she thinks to herself, though Amy doesn’t know the half of it. Her cousin has never been a fan of Phil, even without knowing the truth about him. If Cara were ever brave enough to tell her, Amy would go nuclear on him. That might be nice to watch, though the fallout would be devastating.
Phil sounded happy and optimistic on the phone earlier this week, so she hopes he can maintain his good mood. When she left in the beginning of May, he was so angry. For some reason, he thought their engagement meant she would give up working on the island and find a permanent job in Chicago. When the small boutique hotel she worked at over the winter came up for sale, Phil was furious she declined to purchase it. He pointed out that if she sold her interest in the Inn at Whispering Pines she’d easily be able
to use the proceeds as a down payment, and then she could live with him all of the time. But she’d never sell her share of the inn, and not just because she doesn’t want to tie herself to Phil and the greater-Chicago area.
He’s picked a terrible time to visit. It’s early July, which is always busy. At least she was able to talk him out of coming last week for the fourth. She would barely have had any time to spend with him then. (Though maybe that would have been for the best?) The inn is fully booked right now, at the height of tourist season, but she doesn’t want to stay there with Phil anyway. Does she want Yadira making the bed for her and seeing condoms in the trash? Does she want to see Sam cooking them breakfast? Well, that second one, yes. She loves seeing Sam in the morning. Her feelings for him are not strictly platonic, but she won’t act on them, no matter how much she sometimes wants to. She knows better.
Cara uses one of the inn carts to pick Phil up from the ferry and takes him to the Sunrise Point Campground. Phil is not happy to find out that they are camping, though she swears she told him about it.
“You own the damn place. I can’t understand why you can’t get us a room. Just kick somebody out,” he complains.
“I only own one-third of the inn, so I’d only be able to get one-third of a room,” she jokes. But he doesn’t laugh, so she tries another tactic. “Phil, I thought you would like camping. Remember how much fun we always had when we camped near Lake Michigan? Don’t you think it’s romantic?”
And it could have been romantic. She has a very nice campsite prepared, one with an unobstructed view of the lake. She’s rented an enormous tent and comfortable air mattress from Cap’n Rentals, which Sam helped her set up this morning. (Later, she will discover he pounded the stakes into the ground so hard that she can’t pull them out. She will end up paying Matteo for the damage when she gives up in frustration and cuts the ties.)
This morning, she and Sam lay down on the mattress to test whether it was comfortable for two people, and for a second when she looked at him she wondered . . . no, she can’t think about that now. She can’t think about how Sam propped himself up on his arm and looked down at her with a smile that made her heart twist in her chest, and how she felt electricity between them, and how she just wanted to grab him and feel her skin melt into his. She can’t think about the way his eyes seemed to glow and his face softened, and how for a moment—just one moment—she thought he might kiss her. She would never let that happen though.
After showing Phil the tent and listening to his grudging approval, they drop off his suitcase and head back to the inn. They have to return the cart, but she’s going to take some staff bikes for them to use for the duration of the trip. Phil loves riding bicycles, so she hopes it will help him enjoy the visit.
He’s already met Paddy a few times, and of course he knows her cousin. Unfortunately, as they walk into the lobby to get the keys to the bike shed, Sam is standing behind the reception desk talking to Amy, and she has to introduce him.
There’s a strange tenseness in the air as the two men shake hands. She can see Phil trying to squeeze Sam’s hand hard, in some kind of power play. She’s been carefully vague about Sam, referring to him only as an employee and housemate, never letting on that they speak regularly during the off season, so she can’t imagine Phil would have any reason to be jealous. She walks around the desk and enters the staff office to retrieve the keys. When she comes out, Amy is making small talk with Phil about his visit, and Phil is being his usual charming self. He can turn that façade on so easily. He doesn’t even like Amy—he thinks she’s a bad influence on Cara—but nobody would be able to tell.
“Want me to come to the shed with you so you don’t have to walk all the way back here to return those?” Sam asks, touching her arm. She freezes and hopes Phil doesn’t notice.
“I’ll bring them back, but thanks anyway,” she tells Sam, keeping her tone professional.
Later that afternoon, after she’s taken Phil on a tour and they’ve ridden the loop of the island, they stop to enjoy a snack in a grassy area overlooking the lake. The weather is perfect, and the visit is going much better than she expected. They sit on the ground, and she leans back against him. He wraps his arms around her, and for a second, one foolish second, she relaxes.
And then his fingers dig painfully into her skin.
“What’s going on with you and that guy?” he asks, squeezing just enough to hurt but probably not quite hard enough to leave bruises. He’s careful like that.
His hostile tone makes her wary. Has he been thinking about this for the entire outing? She thought they were having fun.
“Sam? Nothing,” she says, but somehow that makes him angrier.
“So you knew exactly what guy I was talking about? I saw how you are with him. I saw how he puts his hands on you, like he has the right.” Phil’s voice is rough with anger, and she is glad they are in a public place, glad that they are surrounded by other couples and family groups. He is subtly hurting her, but he won’t do anything worse in front of people. He would never do anything to harm his image.
She tries to protest that there is nothing going on. She would never cheat on Phil, ever. She still remembers that dinner party they hosted back in April, when one of Phil’s friends asked how Phil could handle having Cara go away for months at a time. “Aren’t you worried she’s going to cheat on you?” the friend had asked, and it was clear that he was just teasing.
“Oh, I’m not worried at all,” Phil had replied, continuing to cut his steak. “She knows if she cheats on me, I’ll kill her.” He grinned at them, and then looked down at the knife in his hand, and held it up, slashing the air in a joking manner. Everybody laughed. Mild-mannered Phil, sweet Phil who captures spiders and takes them outside instead of smashing them, gentle Phil would never lay a hand on anyone. Cara is the only one who can sense the truth behind the words, the threat in his eyes.
That threat is lurking again, and Cara has to defend herself. “I promise, he’s just one of my employees, that’s all. And he doesn’t put his hands on me.”
This is all a lie. It almost feels like a betrayal of her friendship with Sam to say it so dismissively, as though he is just a minor figure in her life. He’s far more than just an employee, and she knows his hands very well, the weight and comforting warmth of them as he rests one on her shoulder whenever he’s talking to her at the computer. She knows how well she fits against his body when he puts his arm around her, which he does sometimes (but she tells herself it’s friendly, never romantic). She knows his legs too, how he stretches them under the table as they have their morning beverages. Inevitably their legs touch, and he won’t do what most people do and reflexively move away at contact. No, he sips his tea, smiles at her, and lets his calf rest against hers. She never moves either.
But she can’t say any of this to Phil. She can’t tell him that those moments with Sam are the only time she can relax and feel like herself again, just like she can’t tell Sam that he is her escape fantasy. She knows exactly what would happen if Phil ever knew any of it, and she doesn’t think she’d survive his reaction.
For the first evening of his visit, she has reservations at the inn for dinner. It wasn’t her first choice, but Phil insists, and she can’t come up with a reasonable excuse not to go there. They get ready for dinner and bike back to the inn. Phil is pleasant enough. He even jokes around with her, and that gives Cara hope that they can make it through the meal without any issues.
“Sam said to give you the best table,” says Dina as she seats them right next to the kitchen door.
Cara laughs at this. She and Sam have had this argument many times. He insists that if you can see into the kitchen, you have the best seat in the house, while she always tells him that all of the non-chefs in the world disagree.
“Best table, really?” Phil looks at the kitchen door and smirks.
He maintains an unpleasant attitude throughout the meal. He has the aggressive need to point out the flaws in
everything. He complains that the tablecloth is dirty, though Cara can’t see the faint stain he claims exists. The chairs are uncomfortable and probably cause back problems. He feels a breeze and doesn’t like it—are they sitting under an air vent? The kitchen is too loud and destroys the ambiance. The appetizer course is unappealing and barely edible. (Cara disagrees and eats his share as well.) When the entrées arrive, Phil hardly glances at his before he pronounces it burnt and sends it back.
Dina looks at Cara, one eyebrow raised. Cara shrugs and shakes her head. She doesn’t know what to do. Phil is in one of his moods.
A minute later Sam is next to their table in his chef coat and the red bandana he uses to keep his hair back while cooking. For some reason, he appears amused rather than angry. A glint of humor sparkles in his blue eyes as he says, “I heard we had a customer complaint, and somehow, I just knew it came from you.”
Cara is embarrassed and can’t meet his eyes.
Phil is simmering with barely controlled fury. “You knew it came from me because you deliberately burned my food.”
Sam laughs as though it’s a joke. “Sure thing, champ. I burned your meal on purpose because you’re eating with my boss and I wanted to get fired. It was an act of self-sabotage.” He winks. “Wait till you see what I did to your dessert.”
Other diners who have been surreptitiously watching the confrontation lose interest and turn back to their own meals. Sam has successfully converted the situation into a jest between friends rather than a legitimate grievance. This may make it better from a business perspective, but Cara can tell by Phil’s expression that he’s making it worse for her.
“This is ridiculous! You can’t talk to me that way! I expect a new plate. We should get our entire meal comped,” Phil snaps, looking around the room as if searching for agreement. His face is getting red, and Cara worries what will come next. He doesn’t usually act out in front of other people. New behaviors from him scare her.
That Last Summer (Whispering Pines Island Book 1) Page 15