Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (98 page)

“There’s nothing to think about, Renny. I can’t stay here now that he knows. He’ll hate me.”

“Well, he might hate Sabrina, but he won’t hate Sweetpea.”

Sabrina set her shoes in the suitcase. That was true. It was something, at least. But she couldn’t face him every day at the café, knowing what she’d done and what he thought of her.

“You still have your email relationship.”

Thank God for that. It was salvaged at least. Maybe she should write him now. But no, that would slow her down. And she was supposed to be at work and he’d wonder why she was—

Another realization dawned. He was going to write tonight and tell her about his discovery. He would tell her exactly what he thought of Sabrina. She was going to hear every vicious thought running through his head—not that she didn’t deserve it.

But she couldn’t bear to know what he thought of her now.

“Or maybe . . .” Renny was massaging her scalp with all ten fingers. “Maybe you should tell him everything.”

Renny had missed the point. “He already knows everything.”

“Not
everything
.” Renny’s eyes were wide as she nodded her head slowly.

Sabrina sighed. “The only thing he doesn’t know is—no. No, I can’t tell him I’m Sweetpea.”

“Why not,
amita
? What’ve you got to lose?”

“Tucker.” Well, not Tucker, but Harbormaster. Sabrina shook her head. Such a mess. She grabbed a novel from the end table and stuffed it in the suitcase. Like she’d be able to read.

She had to make a plan. She could take her bike on the ferry, but she’d have to rent a car in Hyannis. Thank God money wasn’t an issue. She didn’t make great money at the café, but she spent little of it since she didn’t pay rent.

Renny laid a hand on her arm. She hadn’t even noticed the woman approach. Renny’s sympathetic expression contrasted with the wildness of her hair after her “massage.”

“All you have is a correspondence with the man. If you love him, tell him the truth. Maybe there’s
tikva
.”

“English, Renny.”

“Hope. Maybe there’s hope.”

Sabrina was already shaking her head. “You didn’t see his sister’s face. She was livid. I wanted to die on the spot.”

“That’s her. Not Tucker.”

“You don’t know how close they are. You don’t know the things he said when he was telling me—telling Sweetpea—what happened with his sister and her husband. He used a word to describe that other woman—me, Renny!—that I don’t even want to repeat, much less think of being!”

She had to go, had to finish packing. Renny was only holding her up.

“What about honesty? What about doing the right thing and trusting God to work things as he wills? You’re strong enough to do the right thing. You’ve already come through so much.” She shrugged. “I’m just trying to be the voice of reason here.”

Ha! There was nothing reasonable about that plan. She had to think. She needed to take her address book, her cell phone and charger, what else? She saw the paper on the counter, opened to the editorial ad. So much for that new job.

“Sabrina, stop for a moment and think.”

“I can’t think with you hounding me, Renny.” She regretted the snap of her voice as soon as the words were out. “I’m sorry. I’m just—feeling a little scattered.” She walked toward the door. “Thanks for telling me about your manuscripts. I’m happy for you, really. I know there are wonderful things in store for you. But I need to finish packing now.”

She wondered for a minute if Renny was going to take the hint. Renny finally lumbered toward the door, but she wasn’t quite finished.

“One more thing and then I’ll leave.”

Sabrina sighed heavily.

“Last spring I was eager for gardening season, and I started some seeds indoors. A few varieties, but among them were sweet peas.”

Sabrina barely kept from rolling her eyes. “I feel a metaphor coming on.”

Renny ignored her comment. “The seeds have a hard coat that can cause the plant to sprout slowly or unevenly. Before you plant them, it’s recommended that you chip away a piece of the shell. Once they go through that, they sprout quite nicely and will even survive a hardy frost.”

Sabrina checked her watch. The meaning wasn’t lost on her, but she didn’t have time to psychoanalyze herself.

“Okay then. I’ll let you get back to your packing.” Renny turned on the landing, her eyes wet. “I’ll be praying for you. Call me when you find a place tonight and let me know you’re all right.”

Hearing her gentle words, Sabrina really regretted the tone she’d taken. She nodded. The woman loved her, was only trying to help. “I will.”

Renny patted her shoulder and left. Sabrina started to close the door but stopped when her eyes settled on the branch outside her door. She followed the length of it once. Twice. Finally settling in the empty crook where two branches met.

It was gone. The nest had finally given way to the wind and fallen. When had it happened? The emptiness that filled her defied all logic.

She closed the door and returned to the task at hand. After changing out of her uniform, she went to the bathroom and gathered the shampoo and a few rubber bands. She chucked the things in her suitcase, then went to the kitchen for her vitamins, checking her watch again.

A pink patch blotched her wrist from the spilled coffee. It still burned, but there was no time for such trivialities. She was going to be too late for the early ferry, but she could catch the next one. Hopefully there was space. She should call and reserve a spot.

The light was flashing on her machine. Char, no doubt, calling to say Gordon was in an uproar about her MIA status. Ignoring the pulsing light, she looked up the number for the fast ferry and dialed.

As she punched in the last numbers, a knock sounded. Renny must’ve massaged out another metaphor and was back to give her another reason to stay. The line rang while she went to the door.

She was going to tell Renny she didn’t have time for this. She’d call her from the ferry or something. They could talk it out then.

On the other end of the phone, a woman picked up. “Hy-Line Cruises, how may I help you?”

Sabrina swung open the door, signaling just a minute with her finger. But her hand froze in the air. Her fingers tightened on the phone.

“Hello?” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “May I help you?”

Sabrina needed more help than the woman on the phone could offer, because the face she was staring into wasn’t the pudgy face of her eccentric friend, but the strained, rain-dampened face of the man she loved.

Sweetpea: Happy endings are for fairy tales, right?

Chapter Thirty-nine

“Hello?” the woman on the phone repeated.

Sabrina stared at Tucker, watched as rivulets of rain ran down his face. His hair hung in wet strands, matted to his head.

The other end of the phone went dead, but Sabrina didn’t know what to do. Invite Tucker in? Slam the door and lock it?

He made the decision for her, squeezing past, out of the weather. When a recording came on the line, Sabrina turned off the phone.

Tucker took a few steps into the room. The lighting suddenly seemed as bright as a spotlighted stage, and the bulging suitcase, square on the sofa, was the star of the show.

The doorway, still open, beckoned. If only she could dart through the door. How could she face him now?

But she needed her suitcase. She needed her purse, lying on the table across the room.

Tucker turned, looking her in the eye.

What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell, couldn’t read the features that were normally so easily discerned. Unable to meet his gaze any longer, she turned and closed the door.

You deserve everything you get. Just face it like a woman.
Straightening her shoulders, she turned, though she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes.

“Tell me everything.” His words were barely discernible over the pattering of rain.

“I think you pretty much know everything now.”

He took one step closer, then stopped as if his sandals were glued to the floor.

She wanted to melt into a puddle and pour through the floorboards. To think he knew what she’d done. That she’d behaved so loosely, that she’d slept with a married man—his sister’s husband, no less. It was what Jaylee had done to her. Worse, even.

“I want to hear it from you.”

“Do you doubt your sister?” Was he giving her the benefit of the doubt? Surely not. And yet, why would he care about her side? She’d done it, she was guilty.

“I don’t doubt Tracey. I want to understand.”

Sabrina laughed bitterly. “I have no excuse, Tucker. Everything you’re thinking about me is true.”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Because anyone would be thinking it!” She crossed her arms over her heart as if she could protect it from the coming pain.

“I’m not just anyone. And neither are you.”

“I’m the woman who slept with your brother-in-law. The whore who broke up your sister’s marriage.” The phrase slipped out, and she recognized her blunder.

He winced, looking away. She watched the straight line of his back as he walked toward the patio door and looked out.

Did he remember his own words sent to Sweetpea all those months ago? But he knew she’d read the emails right there in his office. He just didn’t know she’d originally read them as Sweetpea.

His broad shoulders hunched as he crossed his arms. She couldn’t believe he was so calm. Why didn’t he just have his say and leave?

Because he was Tucker. That’s not who he was.

But his words from that long-ago email pricked her. He’d been angry when Tracey had told him about that morning, about Sebastian’s infidelity. He’d been ready to hunt the man down and beat him to a bloody pulp. He’d made no secret what he thought of the woman his brother-in-law had been with. What he thought of
her
.

“Tell me what happened.” He was facing her again.

Her mind went back to that night. Back to the depressive state she’d been in when she’d come on her solo honeymoon. He wanted to know everything, and what could it hurt? It didn’t excuse what she’d done, but Tucker deserved to know the whole story.

But she had to be careful. Tucker knew Sweetpea’s story. She had to be vague.

“I was going through a—a dark time when I came here. I was alone and depressed. Barely made it out of my hotel room for days. I—” She could hardly find words to describe her desperation, to describe how the pain of betrayal had swallowed her whole.

“Go on.” His gentle tone spurred her on.

She picked at the cuff of her blouse where it had frayed. “After a while I found an effective, if not necessarily brilliant, way to escape my sorrows. I went to a bar and got drunk.” Shame flooded her face as she recalled the way the night culminated. But she was going to be woman enough to admit in broad daylight what she’d done under the cover of night.

“There was a man across the room. He was nicely dressed, and he was looking at me. I—I couldn’t believe someone who looked like that could find me interesting, but he bought me a drink.” Her eyes sought out his, testing the waters. But Tucker was silhouetted by the light from the patio door.

“I went home with him. I don’t remember everything. I never even noticed his ring . . .” Such a feeble excuse.

“I didn’t realize until the next morning when his wife—when Tracey—came in.” Mortification cloaked her. Her hand went to her throat. She was so dirty. And admitting her transgression to the man she loved was beyond humiliating.

And yet, it didn’t compare to what Tracey had suffered.

Nothing she said would rectify or justify it. Jaylee’s words, spoken the night she’d discovered her with Jared, haunted Sabrina now.
“We didn’t mean for it to happen—didn’t mean for you to find out like this.”
They were empty words that changed nothing.

Sabrina had still been betrayed, just as Tracey had been. Sorry didn’t change a thing. Tracey’s marriage was still over.

The air felt heavy, unbreathable. Sabrina needed to get out of there, she wanted to run as far away from this place, away from Tucker and his steady gaze, as she could. She could send for her things later. There was no returning, she knew that now.

She rushed to her suitcase and closed it, pulling the zipper.

“What are you doing?”

She hauled the case off the couch and set it on the floor. Her purse was beyond Tucker. She went for it.

He took her arm. “Sabrina.”

She shrugged out of his grasp and grabbed her things. “I’ve got to go.”

“Where?”

Sabrina pulled her suitcase across the floor. It snagged on the rug’s edge, and she jerked it loose.

Tucker grabbed the handle.

“Let go!”

“Tell me where you’re going.”

“Out of here, away, what does it matter?” She tugged the suitcase from his grasp and pulled open the door.

He followed her down the steps. Rain poured down her face and soaked her clothes within seconds. The suitcase was heavy and awkward.

“You’re running,” he said. “Where are you going to hide? You can’t hide from what you did.”

The accusation stung. She blocked out his words, pretended the rain washed them away. There was nothing he could say to make her feel worse, was there? And yet, his presence convicted her, made her ever more cognizant of her offense.

She reached the bottom of the steps. Tucker caught her arm. The suitcase slipped from her wet palm and tipped, landing on the gravel with a thud. Her purse fell to the ground afterward.

Before she could stop him, Tucker snatched it.

He had her purse, and where could she go without money? She felt trapped, and it wasn’t a feeling she liked. “Give it back.” She glared.

“Not until we talk.”

“We have talked.”

“No. You’ve talked and I’ve listened. Now it’s my turn.”

Her eyes burned. She wanted to cover her ears with both hands.

She didn’t want to hear what he had to say. It would hurt too much, and she was tired of hurting. Maybe it was selfish, but she wanted to go away and forget everything that had happened. She wanted to start over fresh someplace where she hadn’t done so many wrong things, hurt so many people.