Wish I Might (Wishful 5)

The guest room she’d stumbled into near midnight the night before was awash in light that bounced off the white and blue beach cottage decor. Definitely not Dinah’s usual style, but Cecily supposed her aunt couldn’t be picky when looking for a fully-furnished rental, and beach chic was de rigueur in Hilton Head. She slid out of bed and padded over to the window, parting the curtains to look out at the beach.

Pale blue sky bled into silver tipped water far off on the horizon. If a boat had been moored at the little dock, Cecily would’ve stepped into it, raised the sails, and kept going until she found some solace. She was, after all, a sailor’s daughter. But that wasn’t practical or feasible. Today was a new day, and she would have to face the thing she’d just run six hundred miles to escape.

Reed Campbell, the man she’d been ready to change her life for, had betrayed her. She’d made yet another crap decision. Picked the wrong man. Again. At least she’d been able to rescind her offer on the train station before the sale went through. This mistake would only affect her. But God, God she thought she’d made a better choice this time. She’d learned absolutely nothing. Her judgment, it seemed, was permanently flawed. Cecily knew running wasn’t a long term answer, but she had to get away, had to be able to think and decide what was next.

The fist around her heart gave a vicious squeeze.

Okay. Soon. But not yet. She was still in an hour-at-a-time mode. For the next hour, priorities were shower, hydration, and caffeine.

And then she remembered she had nothing but the clothes she’d been wearing and what had been in her car when she bolted.

Great job planning there, Cecily. It occurred to you to stop and get a new cell phone so Reed can’t reach you, but not to pick up a toothbrush and clean underwear?

She’d have to go into

town later and pick up the basics.

Settling for cleaning her face with a couple of the makeup wipes from her purse, she revised her order of priorities to put caffeine first and headed for the kitchen. As she passed the other spare room, she could hear Dinah’s fingers tap tap tapping away on the keys of her laptop. Cecily had been welcomed last night with open arms and no questions, but she knew better than to interrupt now to thank her. The writer at work was an intense creature. Dangerous when provoked.

Dinah kept coffee on until noon, so Cecily found a mug and poured herself a cup before settling into the window seat of the breakfast nook. To keep from falling into a brood, she began mulling over the issue of Tony Becker’s canceled book signing. Reed would be out a significant chunk of money. Regardless of their personal issues, she had no desire to see Inglenook fail or the community suffer. Was there some way to turn the marketing at this late date?

“Jesus, honey, you look worse this morning than you did last night.”

Startled, Cecily looked up, realizing the half cup of coffee in her hands had gone cold. “Yeah, well, sixteen hours of sobbing will do that to you.”

Dinah crossed the room, her bare feet soundless on the tile floor, and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She plucked the mug from Cecily’s hands and shoved the bottle into it. “Drink.”

“Yes ma’am.” Dutifully, Cecily took a slug.

“What’s his name?”

“How do you know it’s a man?”

“Please. I write romance for a living. I know that look perfectly well. I put it on my heroines’ faces on a routine basis—usually with a fair amount of malicious glee. Besides, I just talked to your mother yesterday, so I know everyone in the family is fine. Spill.”

“And if I’m not ready to talk about it?”

“Then you crashed at the wrong house. You had last night to keep the trauma to yourself. Now you purge it.”

Cecily pouted. “If I’m going to be spilling my heartsblood, can’t you at least bribe me with pancakes?”

Dinah’s lips twitched. “I suppose I can take that much pity on you.” She began moving around the room at lightning speed, and Cecily wondered that the two pencils sticking out of her messy strawberry blonde bun didn’t fall.

She took another fortifying glug of water and let the whole story spill out, from their long flirtation, to the weekend at the lake, to how they’d finally gotten together. By the time she got to the damning texts, Dinah slid a plateful of golden, fluffy pancakes in front of her with a bottle of real maple syrup.

“So, let me get this straight. You’re head over heels in love with this guy—”

“I never said I was in love with Reed.” Her stomach flopped like a beached fish. Just because she hadn’t said it, didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

Dinah rolled her eyes. “Yes, you did. You just didn’t use those exact words. Anyway, you’re in love with him, and at the first real test of your relationship, you cut and run?”

“Excuse me? He cheated on me. Or, no,” Cecily corrected, “apparently he cheated with me since it seems she was with him first.”

“Says a girl you don’t know in a series of text messages that you didn’t even stick around to talk to him about. Come on, Cecily, this is not the kind of shero you are. At the very least you should’ve had the moxie to confront him.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you by not being as brave as the women in your books.”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous. You’re every bit as brave as they are. But that’s not the point. You don’t come to me to sugar coat things. You come because I’ll tell you the hard truths. And the truth I’m hearing is that cheating doesn’t fit at all with the actions of the man you’ve described to me. In my experience, when things seem out of character, it’s because I don’t know the character as well as I thought I did or there are circumstances I wasn’t aware of. In your case, I’d say because of that fiasco in college and the fact that you hide who you are and don’t let yourself get close, you don’t know everything there is to know about Reed.”