Page 47 of Falling for the Wrong Guy

It took all my will not to grab the phone and let him know what I thought about his deceit and lies, but I didn’t have the energy to do it right now. I was especially upset knowing that I’d have to start my search for a cook again. I couldn’t possibly keep him on. That was my fault for being so naïve in the first place. I knew this would end badly, but I allowed it to happen, and for that, I would never forgive myself. Once I worked up the courage, I’d send him a text letting him know that I was going to hire another cook and that our brief friendship was over. I just didn’t have it in me yet.

There was nothing on television. I turned it off and stared at my empty front room. I felt sad and lonely, and there was only one cure for that. I got up from the couch to get dressed. I needed to go to the cottage. I had no idea who’d be home right now, but that was what was so great about my sisters. Any one of them would know what to say to make me feel better.

Icarried the bag with Isla’s spices and vanilla into the house. Ella was sitting crossed legged on the couch with her laptop balanced on a pillow. Ava was stretched out on the floor in front of the couch with her laptop on her belly. It shook precariously when she laughed at something on the screen.

Ava turned her head without lifting it from the pillow she’d dropped on the floor. “Hey, Ar, we weren’t expecting you.”

“Thought maybe you’d be out with the new hunk,” Ella teased, before sending her fingers over the keyboard at the speed of light. She was focused on her screen, too.

I walked to the kitchen and put Isla’s things on the counter. I glanced in the refrigerator, but aside from some leftover mac and cheese and tubs of Isla’s cookie dough, it was empty. I opened a bottle of sparkling water.

“What are you guys doing for dinner?” I asked.

“Not sure. Isla is out with Luke, and Layla is still at work,” Ava said.

Ella looked at her screen, read her words with her lips and looked up. “Bloody brilliant. Pithy, my a—Whoa, what’s wrong? You look discombobulated.”

Ava lifted her head and looked at me. “You sure do, and I hardly know what the word means.” Both sisters, realizing that I wasn’t myself, set aside their laptops. Ava sat up and turned to sit back against the bottom of the couch.

“No, does this have to do with the aforementioned new hunk?” Ella asked. “I was so hoping I was going to get a storyline out of your new relationship. The last one was a clunker. I mean, every other romance starts with two people accidentally reaching for a coffee or a loaf of bread or some other boring thing. But being chased off a boat dock by his pet gull, so much better.”

Ava’s mouth dropped. “His gull chased you off the dock?”

I waved my hand. “Don’t want to talk about him.” I dropped into Nonna’s big easy chair. It was creaky and tattered and way past its prime, but none of us had the heart to get rid of it. If you sat in it long enough you could still feel her presence in the chair. And I really needed that presence right now. I was the older sister who solved problems and healed sadness boo-boos, as Nonna used to call them, but tonight, I needed my own boo-boo healer. I needed my grandmother to sit in her big chair and tell me that everything I was feeling was just that—a feeling and none of it was permanent and time would eventually wash it all away.

“He has a family,” I blurted into the quiet room.

Ava looked confused. “So, are we talking about him, or is this about someone else? Boy, I really need to stay in town longer to keep up with the Whisper Cove soap opera.”

Ella wasn’t confused. She smacked both her feet down on the floor and sat forward. “New hunk has a family? I mean we knew he had a brother, and I assume that means there were parents at one time or another.”

“A family with a cute brunette wife or girlfriend or someone close enough to him to walk with her arm wrapped around his as he carried their cute little boy on his shoulders into the ice cream shop. He cancelled our date because he told me he needed to check on his friend in the hospital. Some kind of emergency,” I scoffed.

“What a bum,” Ava said. “Why on earth would he start something with you if he had a family?” She nodded. “Yes, I heard the stupidity of that question as I asked it. Plenty of men—and women—do it.”

“I’m beginning to worry that he orchestrated all of this just to hurt his brother. What do you know? It worked.”

Ella pulled on her thick socks. “Yes, but it was over with Kellan long before Dex showed up.”

I looked at her with surprise.

“You didn’t realize it, but the rest of us already knew,” she said confidently.

“Not me,” Ava said.

“That’s because you’re always somewhere in the middle of nowhere on a faraway continent with your hiking boots trekking through swamps and quicksand and being Jane with a pith helmet and your khaki shorts?—”

We both looked at Ella.

She smiled. “Oops, guess my mind is still on my story.”

“Are you writing about me?” Ava asked, and twisted around to grab the laptop.

Ella lunged for it and shut it down. “It’s not about you. It’s about a woman named Jane. She just happens to travel.”

Ava shook her head and then pressed her arm against her stomach. “You know I am getting kind of hungry. Should we cook something?” She looked at Ella and me, hoping we’d volunteer. Ava was never keen to stand in the kitchen.

“There’s stuff for s’mores,” Ella suggested.

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