THIRTY-FOUR
1995
Hideaway Key, Florida
Lily checked her watch, relieved to see that she was actually running ahead of schedule. Sheila was already a basket case about her doctor’s appointment. The last thing Lily wanted to do was add to her stress by being late.
She had spent last night at the cottage rather than at Dean’s, using the excuse that she wanted to finish up a few last-minute sketches for Sheila before they hit the road. He hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact, he barely seemed to notice when she slipped out after dinner, leaving him to his blueprints and his calculator. It felt strange sleeping alone again—and waking alone.
Funny how you could find yourself missing something you didn’t realize had become a part of your life, how the absence of a face or a touch could leave an ache at the center of your chest. There had been no sense of loss when she and Luc finally parted ways, only a wave of relief that she wouldn’t have to go on hurting him. The thought that Dean might be feeling the way she had back then—guilty and vaguely claustrophobic—made her cringe. The sensible thing, the merciful thing, would be to end it now, to back away quietly and let him move on, an honorable surrender that would leave her pride—if not her heart—intact.
And what better time to part ways than when they were already heading in different directions—her to Tampa, him to Chicago? They’d wrap things up when he got back. It would all be very civil, a cool handshake, and then he’d make himself scarce while she collected her toothbrush and conditioner from his bathroom. In the end he would be relieved, just as she had been with Luc.
She checked her watch for the umpteenth time: ten after ten. He had promised to stop by on his way to the airport, but part of her hoped he’d forget. She’d just as soon skip the awkward good-bye and let the thing die cleanly. And yet here she was, dragging her feet on the off chance that he would show up.
Annoyed with herself, she crossed to the desk, about to call Sheila, when he stuck his head through the open sliders. He was wearing his client clothes, neatly pressed khakis and a pale blue oxford.
“Good. I caught you. I was afraid we’d missed each other. I wanted to say good-bye.”
Lily busied herself with gathering her purse and sketches from the desk. “I thought we already had.”
“You left in such a hurry last night. There’s something I wanted to tell you before I left, something I probably should have said days ago. I’ve been—”
Lily cut him off before he could get the rest out. Knowing what was coming was one thing; hearing it said out loud was quite another. “You don’t need to explain, Dean. I’ve been thinking about it, too. I’ll be on a plane to Milan next month, and you’ll be here with your blueprints. Why put off the inevitable?”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m okay with it.”
Dean’s eyes narrowed as he studied her face. “Are you sure? Because you don’t sound okay. You sound like something’s wrong.”
Lily pasted on what she hoped would pass for a smile. “I’m fine, really. I just don’t want to be late picking up Sheila.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.” But she was already backing away, determined to maintain a safe distance. “Have a good flight, and good luck with . . . everything.”
“I wish you had stayed last night. We could have talked about this, instead of me just dropping it in your lap before I hop on a plane. I feel like such a heel. I know how you feel, and that this isn’t easy for you.” He fished a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it out to her. “Here’s where I’m staying. Call me tonight when you get back and we’ll talk.”
Lily blinked at him. What more was there to say? Still, she took the note and stuffed it into her purse as she walked to the door, knowing she wouldn’t use it. “Well,” she said, swallowing past the sudden ache in her throat, “you’ve got a plane to catch, and I really do need to get going.”
Dean followed her out, then trailed her down the drive to her car. He stepped toward her as she opened the driver’s-side door, a hand on her arm as he leaned in to kiss her. Lily managed to step away in time, so that his lips just grazed her cheek.
“Good-bye, Dean.”
He frowned as he watched her slide behind the wheel. “Call me tonight. We’ll talk.”
Lily reached for a smile as she turned the key in the ignition, wishing she had paid more attention in Mrs. Wittstein’s drama class. “Have a safe trip,” she said, fighting to keep her emotions in check as she began backing down the drive. “And please keep Sheila in your thoughts.”
THIRTY-FIVE
1995
Hideaway Key, Florida
Sheila was waiting on the front porch when Lily pulled up, pretty as a picture in a buttery silk skirt and top. She flashed one of her signature smiles as she bounced down the steps and out to the curb, but Lily could still see the anxiety shadowing her soft brown eyes.
“This really is sweet of you,” she said a little breathlessly as she belted herself into the passenger seat and tugged a pair of cat-eye sunglasses down from the top of her head. “Seriously, I don’t know how to thank you.”
Lily waved away her thanks. “Sorry I’m late. Dean came by, and it took a few minutes.”
Sheila eyed Lily over her shades. “I thought you were staying at his place.”
“I was.”
“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”
“I stayed at the cottage last night. I had some work to finish up, and Dean had an early flight this morning. He’s on his way to Chicago to meet some clients.”
“Oh, honey, you never said anything about him going out of town. You should have gone with him. I’m perfectly capable of driving myself to the doctor.”
Lily kept her eyes fixed on the road. “Yeah, well. He sort of forgot to tell me he was going. Besides, no way was I bailing on you.”
“Is everything okay with you two?”
Lily groaned inwardly. She’d been dreading this part. “Actually, we’re done.”
“Done? What does that mean—done?”
“It means just what you think it does. It was time, so we ended it.”
“He ended it, or you ended it?”
“Let’s just say I beat him to the punch. He came over to tell me this morning, before he left town, and I sort of . . . helped things along.”
“I don’t understand. You’ve been practically living together the last few weeks.”
“And now we’re not.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Lily did her best to keep her face blank. Sheila had her own worries. She didn’t need anyone else’s. “Why wouldn’t I be? We both knew it was going to end sooner or later. This is just sooner.”
“But you two seemed so cozy.”
“That’s the problem. It got a little too cozy. Everything was great. It was like we were playing house, and then bang, all of a sudden I realize I’m not just playing anymore. I don’t do that.”
Sheila dragged down her glasses, fixing Lily with a hard stare. “You don’t do that?”
“We’ve had this conversation, Sheila. I don’t believe in all that gooey stuff. And neither does he. We had a deal. No expectations for either of us.”
“Oh, right. I almost forgot—the no-strings clause.”
“Go ahead, make fun. But it works for me.”
“Sure, when you don’t care about the guy. But that isn’t the case this time, is it?”
Another silent groan. Why hadn’t she just said everything was fine? “I’m not good at the romantic-bliss stuff, which is why I believe in setting rules. I don’t want to hurt anyone. It just never occurred to me that I’d end up hurting myself. I don’t know how it happened, or when. I just know that it did, and now I have to make it un-happen.”
Sheila let her head fall back a
gainst the headrest and laughed. “Sugar, love doesn’t work like that. It’s not a switch you can flip on and off. It’s hardwired into your DNA, like your heartbeat or your breath. You don’t decide to do it. You just do it.”
“But it wasn’t part of the plan.”
“You had a plan?” Sheila remarked snidely. “An actual plan?”
“Sheila, my life isn’t here. I’m leaving next month. That’s the only reason I started this thing with Dean, because knowing I was leaving made it safe. Only it turned out not to be safe at all.”
“Well, sugar, I’m afraid that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. You love him. Pretending you don’t isn’t going to change it. Neither will running away to Milan, or anywhere else, for that matter. Maybe you should think about holding still for a change, and see what catches up with you.”
Lily stole a glance at Sheila, sitting with her arms folded smugly. “Did you say . . . what catches up with me?”
“That’s what I said. And I didn’t mean Dean, although it still applies. You keep talking about where your life is and where it’s not. The only thing you’re sure of is that it isn’t in Hideaway. So if it’s not here, where is it? New York? Paris? The truth is, I don’t think you know. I’m not even sure you want to.”
Lily’s eyes went wide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that if you decide—if you finally commit to something or someone—you’ve got to find a way to make it work. You can’t just run out when things get tricky. There are no promotions in love, sugar. Or in life. You pick and you stick. That’s it.”
“And you think I’m afraid to do that?”
Sheila’s brows shot up. “Aren’t you?”
Lily pondered the question, recalling the words she had recited to Dean only a few nights before. You know when you realize that you’re absolutely terrified . . .
“The truth?”
“Only thing worth saying out loud, sweetheart.”
“Well, then, the truth is I’m terrified.”
“Good,” Sheila said, with a slow, sly grin. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Lily was both relieved and surprised when Sheila let the subject drop, although something told her she hadn’t heard the last on the subjects of Dean and Milan. For now, though, she seemed content with Lily’s grudging admission. Or maybe the lull in their conversation had to do with the fact that they’d just merged onto I-75 north and the reality of where they were going had suddenly crept back into Sheila’s thoughts.
Lily had to admit to feeling a bit uneasy herself. Lily-Mae had died from cancer, and while there was no way to know for certain that it had been breast cancer, the mention of scars and missing bits of flesh painted a vivid enough image. She had undergone surgery, endured chemo and radiation, and it had still taken her. It was true that years had passed since Sheila’s diagnosis and treatment, but there was a reason women had to go for tests every year. Cancer came back.
By the time Sheila finally stepped back out into the waiting room, Lily felt like she had been holding her breath for hours. Sheila stood clutching her handbag and a handful of paperwork, her face unreadable.
Lily rose from her chair but made no move to go to her. “So?”
Sheila’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She wiped them away, spluttering until she finally found her voice. “I have to wait for some more tests to come back, but she says my scans looked clear, and she didn’t see anything that concerned her.”
“Oh, Sheila, that’s wonderful!”
Sheila nodded, blinking back fresh tears. “It’s not an all clear, but she says she feels good about the preliminary results, and she’ll call me the minute she gets the rest.”
To Lily’s surprise, she found her own eyes welling. She blinked the tears away, in between bursts of relieved laughter. “We’re going out to celebrate. You name the place.”
Sheila smiled, though she was clearly still a little shaky. “Well, if it’s my choice, I think I’d like to go home. I was thinking we could stop by the Sundowner if it’s not too late when we get back.”
“The Sundowner, it is.”
Lily matched the grin with one of her own, her heart filled with gratitude, and a silent prayer that the rest of Sheila’s tests came back clean.
THIRTY-SIX
It was well past ten when Lily finally dropped Sheila off and returned to the cottage. She was exhausted as she slid the key into the lock and pushed inside. She hadn’t remembered to turn on a light before leaving, and didn’t turn one on now. Instead, she made a beeline for the deck, throwing back the wide glass doors and stepping out into the darkness.
The night air greeted her like an old friend, moist and briny, and awash with sound, familiar in a way that suddenly made her heart ache—like a homecoming. Lily inhaled greedily, filling her lungs as she stared up at the night sky. Only a thin white sickle of moon hung out over the water, the stars shining bright in their heaven.
Was it out there—her North Star? Her father had promised her it was. Dozens of times. Hundreds of times. If only he were here now to tell her again, and point the way. She missed him terribly. And yet she felt strangely close to him at that moment, as if he were out there somewhere among all those stars, looking down at her. Perhaps he was. He was the reason she was here, after all.
You keep talking about where your life is and where it’s not . . . if it’s not here, where is it?
Sheila’s words had been in her head all day, perhaps because they were far too close to the truth for her liking. She stood quietly with them now, breathing them in and out, letting them course through her veins. Maybe Sheila was right. She had been running for so long, but never toward something, only away. Maybe it was time to hold still and see what caught up with her, even if that something wasn’t Dean. It would be awkward with him living next door, for a while at least, but eventually they would work it out, perhaps even become friends. And even if that didn’t happen, it was time to stop running away from things that made her squeamish, and learn how to work through them instead. She’d be a fool to let an ex-lover stand in her way if Hideaway was truly where she was meant to be. And she was beginning to think it was. Was it possible her father had known, when he left her Sand Pearl Cottage, that her North Star was right here?
Yes. The answer was yes.
Strange. There had been was no thunderclap, no blinding white light, just the sudden realization that somehow, while she wasn’t looking, this place, with its beach, and its cottage, and its sunsets, had quietly become a part of her. Home. And the beginning of a new story—her story.
She’d call Dario in the morning and tell him she had changed her mind—again. He would understand. Or maybe he wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. And then, when Dean got back from Chicago, she would have to tell him her plans had changed, and in a way he wasn’t likely to be at all happy about. He had signed up for a summer romance, the kind where the lovers happily went their separate ways at the end of the story, not the kind where they lived awkwardly ever after as next-door neighbors.
But first she would need to figure out how to broach the subject, and assure him that her decision to remain in Hideaway had nothing to do with him or their conversation this morning, that she wasn’t nursing some secret hope of a future together. And before she could do that she needed to make sure it was true.
It was nearly eight when the phone jolted Lily awake the next morning. Her eyes were barely open as she fumbled the phone to her ear, her voice still rusty with sleep.
“Lily? Are you all right?”
The sound of Dean’s voice was jarring and unexpected. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“I thought you were going to call when you got in last night.”
“It was late,” she answered thickly. “How was your meeting?”
“Oh, they were thrilled when I told them we could move ahead with the new plans, t
hough they were less than thrilled with the new price tag. They were going home to talk it over last night, so we’ll see. We’re meeting again this morning. So, how was the road trip? And more important, how’s Sheila?”
Lily didn’t know whether to be relieved or piqued by his chatty demeanor. He sounded like he always did, like nothing at all had changed. “She’s relieved, I think,” she said, trying to sound equally chatty. “The preliminary tests all looked good, though she’s still waiting on a few more results. I’m sure she’ll be holding her breath until they’re in, but the doctor did say she was optimistic. We stopped off at the Sundowner to celebrate when we got back to town. Bubba and Drew were there. We stayed way longer than we should have. It ended up being a pretty long day.”
“You do sound tired, but that’s great news about Sheila. So, what’s on the agenda for today? Some rest, I hope.”
“Actually, I was planning to stop by Sassy Rack. I think we’re just about ready to start working on the mock-ups.”
“Wow, that happened fast. Do you really think you’ll have time to get it all done before Milan?”
Lily bit her lip. She wasn’t planning to have this conversation so soon, and definitely not over the phone. Still, he had opened the door. “Actually . . . I was thinking I might hang around for a while.”
“Really.” The word dangled awkwardly, neither statement nor question, but more of a placeholder while he digested the news.
Lily closed her eyes and took a deep breath, sensing that the conversation was about to take an uncomfortable turn. “I know it isn’t what we talked about, Dean, but we can make it work.”
“How long is a while?”
Summer at Hideaway Key Page 27