Page 75 of Sunset Tides
He smiled as he got in line.
Chapter Thirty-two
Getting off the phone with Rob wasn’t quite the balm to Lucy’s nerves she hoped it would be. After restocking the egg display, she flitted from one side of the shop to the other, trying to come up with something to do. There were emails to answer and online orders to fill, and she set her mind to attending to that.
Annoyingly, all of those tasks only took half an hour, leaving her time to think.
Lucy could kick herself for calling Rob. Why had she worked herself into thinking he’d been hurt? Lillian’s words now haunted her, along with the biting comments he’d made. Could everyone see her so clearly? Was she really just running from everything and everyone?
After an hour of hemming and hawing, Lucy finally broke down and called Lillian.
“Hey,” Lucy said gruffly.
“Hey! How’s it going?”
“Everything’s fine. I just wanted you to know I talked to Rob.”
“Rob?” Lillian paused. “And? What did he say?”
Lucy waved a hand. “Lots of stuff. I don’t know. He was nice. He said he was sorry, but the important thing is that he’s okay.”
“Right. Of course.”
Lucy fiddled with her pen and the clip snapped off into her hand. “Yeah.”
“Is something the matter?”
She stood from her stool, then sat, then stood again before walking to look out the window. There were no customerscoming. She had time to talk. “He’s about to fly out. He’s leaving.”
“Oh. How does that make you feel?”
“Worried!” Lucy let out a nervous laugh. “What if his plane goes down? I told him not to die, but I probably should’ve addressed if I forgive him or not, just in case. He kept OSS away from the hearing.”
“Wow. Do you forgive him?”
Lucy sat down again. “I don’t know.”
He’d admitted it was his idea to target the hotel. That was unforgivable!
On the other hand, he’d also held a bunch of lawyers and experts hostage at sea to keep them from getting to the hearing. That meant something. That had to mean something…
“Lucy? Are you still there?”
Lillian was going to try to analyze her again if she didn’t come up with something. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”
“I have a question for you,” Lillian said.
“Okay.”
“How would you feel if his plane did go down? Just bam! Right into the ocean?”
A pit opened in her stomach. “I’d feel awful! I don’t want him to die!”
Lillian laughed. “Right. I don’t mean that. Would you regret not telling him how you feel?”
Lucy opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. Her knee-jerk reaction was to say she didn’t know how she felt, but that wasn’t going to cut it.
The thought of his plane going down was, of course, horrifying, and Lucy’s worst fear.
