The Negotiator (Harbor City 1)

“Until Sawyer.”

She sniffled. “Yeah, until Sawyer.”

The smile on her mom’s face was the last thing Clover expected to see after laying everything out there like she had.

“It’s true,” her mom said with a gentle shake of her head. “I gave up a lot when I married your father, but I gained a lot more than I lost. Not to mention I didn’t have to marry your father. I chose to because I loved him, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him—I still do. You’re looking at marriage like it’s a zero sum game with only one winner and loser, but it’s not like that. There’s middle ground. There’s compromise. Your father and I have both made sacrifices, but it’s worth it because we have each other.”

The words hit home in a way Clover hadn’t expected. Middle ground. That’s what Helene had said Sawyer had trouble finding. Up until this moment, Clover hadn’t realized she’d been missing it, too, but her mom was right. She had been living her life on an all or nothing loop.

“Do you ever regret it?” She swallowed past the emotion making her throat tight and asked the question she’d been wanting to voice ever since that overheard conversation when she was eleven. “Do you ever regret having me?”

“Never,” her mom said, her voice firm. “I love your father. I love you and your brother. Would I have gone globetrotting if I hadn’t married your father? Maybe. But if you spend your life just looking for the next big thing because you’re so afraid of missing out, then you’re bound to miss out on what you already have.”

Is that what she’d been doing? Looking so far off into the horizon that she was as guilty of missing the details as Sawyer was? “So you think I should have said yes?”

“Do you love him?” her mom asked.

For all the good it did her. “Yes.”

“Does he love you?”

“No,” she managed to get out without crying despite the bone-deep pain ripping her up. “He said I’d be a good teammate.”

Her mom gasped. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry, but you’ll get through this. You always do.”

Yeah, but before she’d never realized she was running blindly. Everything had made so much more sense before Sawyer. “I should have stuck to my original plan and found a regular temp job to pay for my Australian adventure. Then, none of this would have happened.”

“You can’t say that. Life has a way of working out how it wants to, not necessarily how you imagined it would,” her mom said. “And anyway, not all adventures are of the saving the rainforest variety, some of them involve risking your heart—and that kind are just as important.”

But a hell of a lot more painful.

Still she couldn’t deny her mom was onto something. “Have you always been this brilliant, Mom?”

“Pretty much.” Her mom laughed. “But it’s good of you to finally notice.”

After bringing Clover up to speed on her dad’s recovery and telling her she loved her, her mom hung up. The show Clover had been watching popped back up on the screen all dark lighting and even darker storylines. She didn’t have the heart for it anymore. Instead, Clover pulled the comforter up higher, wishing she could stay buried like this forever or at least until she stopped missing her heart and the man who’d taken it.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Despite Clover’s expectations the sun rose the next day. Birds sang outside her window. People laughed and talked and kissed as they walked on the sidewalk outside her building. Life went on. She could either hole up for another day in her room or start living again.

Determined that if she dressed the part of a woman who wasn’t heartbroken that she’d finally start feeling like it, Clover put on her favorite sun dress. Going to the flea market was out—she just couldn’t stomach it, too many memories of Sawyer—but the Harbor City Farmer’s Market this afternoon was a possibility. She could probably talk Daphne into going with her, maybe they could stop at Grounded Coffee for pastries. And if she was lucky, she’d even make it three minutes without thinking of Sawyer. Then, she’d start working on the next three minutes.

As if the best friend mind meld was in effect, Daphne knocked on her open bedroom door.

“I have a surprise for you,” Daphne said, holding something behind her back.

“Is it more chocolate?” she asked jokingly—or as close to it as she could get right now.

Fake it until you make it, girl.

Daphne’s smile was strained as she walked in. “Maybe.”

Her bestie couldn’t make eye contact and looked totally guilty. Whatever she was up to, it didn’t have anything to do with chocolate.

“You’ve had a rough time, so, I got you a ticket,” Daphne said, her voice like an announcer telling someone they’d just won a new car.

Okay, she hadn’t known what to expect, but that was definitely not on the list. “I’m scared to ask, but for what?”