Page 132 of Our Little Secret

“It’s Christmas,” he reminded her.

“In a few days.” She opened the refrigerator and began filling it. “So what are you saying, that I should call her? Because it’s Christmas?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“I’ve tried, remember?”

“What’s the old saying, ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’?”

“Spare me the antiquated pat phrases,” she said sarcastically as she slid a carton of eggs onto a shelf in the fridge. Then she paused to meet his gaze. “You’re really pushing this.”

He was handing her a quart of milk. “’Tis the season, but it’s up to you.”

“Then I’ll handle it my way.” She was more than a little irritated but didn’t want to fight. “I’ll finish here,” she said, motioning to the kitchen, “then I think I’ll take Shep to the beach so we can stretch our legs.” She glanced out the window to the gray day. “Before the storm.”

“It’s cold.”

“I know.” She sent him a reproachful look. “I can handle it.”

“Right.” He nodded and headed for the front door. “I’ll finish unloading the car.”

She unpacked the rest of the groceries and went to the alcove off the kitchen that they’d dedicated as Shep’s when he was just a puppy. A leash hung on the inside of the door and toys and blankets were stuffed into a basket on a shelf. She located his water dish and filled it, leaving it in its usual spot on the floor near the stacked washer and dryer.

“No?” she asked when he ignored the chance to drink. “Suit yourself.” She slipped on running shoes and a windbreaker, then scraped her hair back into a loose ponytail. “Let’s go.” Together, they took off through the back door, jogging across the clearing and cutting through the woods along a trail that ran from the east side of the island, where the cabin was located, to the western shore.

A tinge of exhilaration flowed through her as she circumvented the wet branches of fir trees and the rocks and roots buckling the path. Within minutes the trees gave way to the dunes, where beach grass shivered in the wind. From the sandy crest she viewed the ocean, vast and wide, gray as the sky, white caps roiling as huge waves pounded the shore.

She’d forgotten how much she loved it here: the salt air, the wild sea, and the dull roar. All so exhilarating. She’d missed it. More than she’d imagined.

“Come on,” she said to the dog, and together they raced to the shoreline and took off to the south. Shep shot ahead of her, streaking near the water’s edge as she jogged behind him.

How many times had she run on this beach, playing tag with the waves, chasing her sister and splashing in the icy water, dodging the icy waves as Nana and Mama had followed after? Even her father, his khakis pushed up to his knees, was here a few times, but of course, she thought, kicking at a bit of crab shell that had washed onto the shore, Douglas Fletcher’s last visit to this sandy stretch of beach was a lifetime ago.

This had been her summer home, a place of solace, and she decided it was time she’d returned, forgot about her few hours with Gideon here and reclaimed her connection to Piper Island. Neal had pressed her to make the trip.

She’d been reluctant to return. Hadn’t wanted to face the memories that lingered. She’d tried to talk Neal out of the trip, but he’d been adamant, surprising her.

“Come on,” Neal had insisted as they’d watched rain drizzle down the window of their home just last week. “We haven’t been there in years and it will be good for us to reconnect with Marilee.”

She hadn’t put up too much of an argument even though she’d had more than her share of trepidations. There were just too many memories here, good and bad, too many ghosts from the past. And yet she was opposed to selling the cabin on the island that Nana and her mother had loved.

Thatshehad once loved.

“It’ll be fun. An adventure.” He’d slung his arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “God knows we need one.” Then he’d gotten serious. “It’ll be good, Brooke.”

She hadn’t been convinced. “I have a bad feeling about this,” she’d admitted as they’d left Seattle in what seemed the middle of the night. The entire trip down in the predawn hours, she’d been anxious, no doubt because the last time she was here it was with Gideon. She’d thought his ghost would haunt the place, but she’d been wrong. She had a connection here to this island, and it wasn’t one that could be destroyed by one fanciful trip with a man she hoped to forget.

As she ran, ever faster, her blood pumping, she told herself it was time to cleanse.

Time to wash away the past and her nightmares of Gideon.

Time to look to the future for their small family to heal. She and Neal still weren’t as in love as they once were, but at least Jennifer Adkins was in the past. Brooke had found out that she had left the firm and moved to Boise. If she and Neal had been intimate, it appeared to be over.

Just as Brooke’s relationship with Gideon Ross was in the past.

Maybe the closeness, that unity Brooke had once felt with Neal, would never return. And maybe that was okay. They each had stepped over the vows of marriage, so it was likely those bonds would never be as strong as they once were.

She caught up with Shep at a tangled mass of seaweed and eased her speed. “Let’s head back,” she said and whistled to the dog before turning and heading north, the muscles of her legs beginning to protest. She glanced up at the few houses that faced the ocean, rarely occupied except in summer. And she thought she spied the trail up the dunes that led to “the cave,” as she and Leah had dubbed it. It wasn’t a real cave, just a ravine splitting the dunes where Scotch broom had grown into a canopy, leaving a space beneath where they could play—when they got along.

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