Dear Selfishly Selfish Sister,
If you were still around, and hadn’t stolen Walter, and we were speaking, I know you’d have told me to tell Knox the truth about Nikki. And Alice that I’m the one who talked to the police about Will’s speeding. And Lauren that her father could be a spoiled little shit who never appreciated what he had, instead always needing more. But I wanted to bring the three of them together, not tear them apart. Look, we both know I’m not good at this. You’re the one who’s good at keeping secrets . . .
Signed The Not Selfishly Selfish Sister
Three days later, Alice was in the kitchen finishing her last project—conditioning all the beadboard in the house. Lauren had come into the room and was sitting on the counter with legs crisscrossed, alternately working on her laptop and FaceTiming with Ben.
Mostly Alice was trying not to think about what next week would bring, and to do that, she distracted herself by sleeping with Knox. The good thing about that was Knox was a firm believer that a cup of Folgers should not be the best part of waking up. He preferred morning sex to caffeine, and she was a convert.
She realized she’d cleaned the last beadboard during her musings and stepped back to admire her handiwork. “Fini!”
Lauren whooped, jumped down, and together they went to find Knox, who was putting the very last piece of molding back on in the living room.
They all stared at each other.
“Did we just finish with a few days to spare?” Alice asked in a whisper, almost afraid to believe it.
Lauren beamed. “Yes!” She turned to Knox. “Right?”
He looked around at the homey, rustic inn and smiled. “Just about, yeah. There’s a few tiny pickup items left, but we did a pretty damn amazing job.”
Lauren clapped and jumped up and down. “You know what we need now?”
“A nap?” Alice asked. “For, like, a week?”
“No, a celebration!” Lauren said. “At the firepit with s’mores!”
“I was hoping you were going to say a vacation in Maui,” Alice said.
Lauren rolled her eyes in what Alice thought was a great imitation of herself. It was a proud moment. “Okay, but I need a shower first.”
“Don’t take too long or I’ll eat them all,” Lauren said.
“She’s not lying,” Alice told Knox. “One time at summer camp, I had to leave the campfire for a few minutes and she ate all my s’more supplies. Didn’t even bother to toast the marshmallows first.”
“That’s what you get for sneaking off to make out with Richie Emerson,” Lauren said.
Knox raised a brow. “Richie Emerson? That guy was a tool.”
“Yeah, he was,” Alice said. “And from then on, I always chose dessert over a boy.” She looked at Lauren suspiciously. “Do you have the real stuff for s’mores or the fake stuff?”
“Ohmigod, for the last time, vegan stuff isn’t fake,” Lauren said. “It’s just plant based. And last time you never even noticed.”
Alice blinked. “You cheated me out of real crap food?”
“Yes, and you’re welcome.”
Alice sighed and hit the shower. She had a whirlwind of emotions about the inn being done, all conflicting. They’d actually done it, pulled off the near impossible. Which was good. Hell, it was great. And so was the fact that after tomorrow’s meeting with the management company, where they’d sign on the dotted line, she was free to go on with her life.
Except . . . that was also the bad.
A month ago, she hadn’t wanted to come here at all, and now . . . well, now she wasn’t even sure how to leave. How to walk away from Lauren again. How to not see Knox every day . . .
When she was clean and dressed, she walked out to the firepit. Lauren was wearing the pink hat Alice had made her, which was too big and fell nearly over her eyes. Knox was in the blue and green scarf, which was too small. Apparently things didn’t have to be perfect to be loved or to be beautiful, and that was quite the revelation. “You don’t have to wear them!”
Lauren lifted her chin. “Are you saying I don’t look amazing?”
“You look ridiculous.” Alice plopped down in the chair between Lauren and Knox and shook her head again. “Ridiculously adorable.”
Lauren beamed. “I knew it.”
Knox gave Alice a look of warmth, affection, and a whole bunch more that changed her heart rate. He handed them each a bottle of beer. “We did it and we didn’t kill each other,” he said.
“Annnnnddddd . . . I think we even like each other,” Lauren said. “I mean, not like you two like each other. You two naked like each other . . .”
“Seriously?” Alice said.
Lauren laughed. “I don’t know, you tell me.”
“You want to tell stories, let’s start with you and Ben.”
Lauren went as pink as her hat.
“Thought so,” Alice said and lifted her bottle. “To surviving the last month together. I have no idea how we did it.”
Knox laughed and lifted his bottle. “To making something of this place. I think we can all rest easy as we move on, knowing we did our best.”
At the words as we move on, Alice’s stomach did a nosedive, which was dumb. This was what she’d wanted. So she said, “Speaking of that, the hotel management firm emailed us the credentials for the three on-site managers they’d like to have on rotating shift here. We just need to approve them.”
Lauren cleared her throat. “Actually, um, I’ve got a better option.” She gave a nervous smile and waved her hand. “Me.”
Alice blinked. “You?”
“I’m perfect for it,” Lauren said, lifting her chin, as if expecting an argument. “I’ve got a business degree, I know this place inside and out, and . . .” She drew a deep breath. “I need the job. But more importantly, I want the job. So I’m suggesting we not hire the management firm and let me handle it. All of it.”
Stunned, Alice looked at Knox, who lifted his hands. “Hey, she had me at ‘I’m perfect for it,’” he said. “Because she is. She’s the only one of us who’s available and will for sure still be living here next week.”
If Alice had thought her stomach had hit her toes before, she’d been wrong. It hit now, and she had to remind herself to breathe. That’s what the thought of Knox leaving did—stole the breath from her lungs. Same when she thought about going back to her old job when there was so much for her right here.
“You don’t think I can do it,” Lauren said slowly to Alice, smile gone now.
“I—”
Lauren set her beer aside. “You still don’t trust me, even after this past month.”
“Whoa.” Alice shook her head. “I didn’t say any of that.”
Lauren stood up. “You actually didn’t say anything, which is the same thing as you not believing in me.”
“I didn’t say anything because you keep cutting me off.”
Lauren sucked in a breath, took a beat, and then exhaled. “I’m sorry. I like to preempt disappointment. Talk. I’ll try not to spin out of control while you do.”
“I do think you can run this inn,” Alice said carefully. “I just didn’t want you to do it out of obligation to me or Knox, or Eleanor, for that matter. It should be for you. But I do trust you, Lor. In fact, I can’t think of anyone better to handle this business than you.”
Lauren smiled, looking misty-eyed. “Yeah?”
Alice smiled back. “Yeah.”
So they drank to that too, and by then needed a second round of beers. After they’d all been cracked open and given a toast to their new manager in the pink hat, they sat back, Lauren looking so happy she could burst, and Knox . . . well, he was looking pretty damn satisfied with everything himself.
And yet here Alice sat, feeling decidedly let down and unable to put her finger on why. Oh wait, she did know. She was the only one of the three who had no idea what her life was going to look like next week.
Then there was the fact that she’d fallen stupidly, irrevocably, ridiculously in love with the man seated next to her, his warm thigh against hers. Which she couldn’t even fully concentrate on because she was about to have her heart ripped out when they went their separate ways . . .
She closed her eyes. Lauren was telling Knox a story, and they were both chuckling. Do not ruin this for them. You wanted this. Just keep smiling and putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what.
Far easier said than done.
LAUREN, TOASTY IN front of the fire, sipped her beer, unable to remember a time when she’d been so . . . content. Alice was sitting, head back, eyes closed, but not asleep. This was Alice’s thinking position. Lauren nudged her with the stick she was using to toast marshmallows. “You okay?”
“Yep.” Alice opened her eyes. “Is Ben coming tonight?”
“If I have anything to say about it.”
Knox choked on his beer.
Lauren grinned. She and Ben had been together three of the five nights this week. Hope had joined them for their first and also second date, where they’d gone horseback riding at a nearby ranch. Last night Ben had come over to the inn and had dinner with Lauren, Knox, and Alice. Lauren had never felt as at home with anyone in her entire life.
So she’d brought him back to her place.
He hadn’t been able to spend the night. In fact, he’d been Cinderella, having to get home in time to relieve the babysitter, but the evening had been magical, and her fears about not remembering what to do or how to act had turned out to be unfounded. Ben had been tender and yet playful, managing to effortlessly bring out an equally playful side of her she hadn’t even known she had. It’d been the most sensual, magical evening of her life.
Alice was watching all of it cross her face. “I’m happy for you.”
Lauren met her gaze, feeling so much relief it was hard to even breathe. The two of them were really going to be okay, and she wanted to say that out loud, but Alice usually had to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything emotional and heartfelt, so instead she gave her something within her comfort range—sarcasm. And another poke with the stick. “Is that why you printed the pic that hit the local paper, the one of Ben kissing me as Mother Goose in the library, and then put it in a frame on the reception desk?”
“Oh, no, I did that for me.” Alice let her smile fade as she eyed Knox and Lauren, whose stomach told her she wasn’t going to like whatever came out of Alice’s mouth next.
“We have one last letter from Eleanor,” Alice said. “We need to read it.”
Her stomach had been right. She didn’t like it. “Do we have to? I mean, we all like each other right now.” Plus there was that one pesky little detail Lauren had never shared, the one she hoped Eleanor wouldn’t reveal, but Lauren had never been all that lucky.
“Your name’s on the subject line,” Alice said.
Yep. It was exactly what she feared. “I vote that we leave the past in the past. Who’s with me?”
Knox shook his head. “The past never stays in the past. It will always come back to bite you in the ass. Always.”
“Agreed,” Alice said softly. “And plus, I don’t think it’s a good idea to walk away without knowing everything, every last one of Eleanor’s little secrets. It gives those secrets far too much power over us.”
Feeling more than a little panicky, Lauren stood. “You know what? It’s my name, my letter. And the only one in the whole bunch of them too. So I should get to choose if we read it, and I choose no. Let’s let the secrets die. Please. They don’t matter anymore.”
Alice stood too. She put her drink down and came to Lauren, gently squeezing her hand. “She can only hurt you if you let her.”
Lauren turned desperately to Knox.
He gave her a sympathetic look but a slow shake of his head. “Sorry, Pink, but she’s right.” He held out the iPad.
Lauren shook her head, refusing to take it.
Knox swiped his way to the draft emails, and Lauren tried to just breathe, but this was going to be bad, she could feel it to the depths of her soul. Dropping to her seat, she pulled her beanie all the way over her eyes as Knox began to read. “Hello, Horrible Sister. It’s been quite a few days. Yesterday was Will Moore’s funeral, which was sad and tragic. And then today, I got an engagement ring.”
Lauren sank lower into her chair.
Alice gave her an odd look, but Lauren pretended not to see it. Apparently she’d gotten good at pretending, real good. She’d even fooled herself that this last secret could stay a secret.
“I’d like to say the ring was for me,” Knox read on. “But I gave up on love and all that bullshit a long time ago. You remember why, don’t you, sister? Anyway, although I was looking fine in my magenta tracksuit and new white Hush Puppies, the diamond wasn’t for me. I was walking through town minding my own business, and you’re never going to guess who approached me and started a conversation. Lauren. Yes, your very own granddaughter, the one you never got to know because karma came around and killed you too young. I have stayed away from her because they’d asked me to, but Lauren finally came to me.”
Knox paused and, in unison with Alice, looked at Lauren with surprise. Probably because she’d told them she’d never spoken to Eleanor. As in ever. She pulled her hat lower—wishing it were the Hat of Invisibility—and studied her white sneaks. Huh. She had a chocolate stain over her big right toe . . .
Knox went back to reading. “She looks so much like you, Ruth. Beautiful, of course. The Graham genes are strong. But she was distraught. At first I thought she was upset because that boyfriend of hers had just died. But that wasn’t it. She was panicked because she was carrying—”
“Oh my God.” Alice stood up and turned to Lauren, her face white with shock. “You were carrying Will’s baby?”
Lauren stared up at her, stunned at the conclusion she’d jumped to. “What? No!”
“—an engagement ring,” Knox finished.
Alice blinked and sat back down hard. “An engagement ring.” She looked at Lauren. “Will asked you to marry him? When?”
“There’s more,” Knox said quietly. “Should I stop?”
“No,” Alice said. “Keep going.”
So Knox drew a breath and read on. “Lauren said Will had asked her to marry him, just before he drove off and decided to kill himself by driving too fast. Lauren was panicked because she was meeting Alice, who didn’t know that—” Knox cut himself off with a sharp inhale, and clearly was reading silently to himself now.
“Out loud,” Alice said tightly. “What else didn’t I know?”
Lauren tried to sink farther into her chair, but she was as low as she could go, metaphorically and physically. So far, good ol’ Great-aunt Eleanor was doing a bang-up job of destroying her newfound happiness.
Actually, you did this all by yourself . . .
Knox lifted his head and looked at Alice, his gaze filled with concern, worry lines tight around his eyes.
Alice took the iPad from Knox. Lauren closed her eyes, heart thundering in her ears. This was it. This was where her entire world blew up.
“She was meeting Alice, who didn’t know,” Alice repeated as she read out loud, “that Lauren had rejected Will’s proposal. Clearly, the girl got my brains. But the boy had insisted she keep the ring and think about it. Only he died that very night. Lauren knew I’d been close to the Moore family and she thought I might be willing to hold on to the ring—which had been Alice and Will’s grandma’s. Lauren was hoping I’d hold it until she was ready to tell Alice the truth, that she’d rejected Will’s proposal.”
Lauren opened her eyes, and their gazes locked for a long beat. “I thought my grandma’s ring had been lost,” Alice said.
More than anything, Lauren wished she could go back in time and redo that night, making a cleaner, healthier break from Will. She wanted a second chance to be there for Alice in the aftermath, but she had no idea how to say any of that.
In the taut silence, Alice drew a deep breath and went back to the iPad. “Considering how distressed and guilty Lauren looked,” she read, “I doubt she’ll ever come clean. Which is a shame, because as you know, betrayal eats and eats at a family until it tears them apart. Those two girls were as close as sisters. Not like us, mind you, because neither of them are cheaters. As always, The Better Sister.”
They fell silent, the kind you couldn’t cut with the sharpest knife in the world.
Finally, Alice stood up and walked away.
Lauren implored Knox with her eyes to stay and let her go after Alice. Looking tense, he gave a short nod.
Lauren caught her at the stairs. “Alice.”
She turned on Lauren, face pale, her body looking tense enough to shatter. “Will asked you to marry him? And you said no? And then you let me feel guilty all these years for that accident, when you were the one who sent him away that night upset and devastated and distracted?”
Lauren opened her mouth, then closed it again. Because what could she say? It was the truth.
“Oh my God.” Alice staggered back a step. “My dad used to tell me you thought you were too good for Will and I always defended you. Always. But all along, it was true.”
Lauren tore off the hat. “No. I never thought I was too good for Will. Never, Alice.” She paused on the edge of a precipice. She could tell the truth . . . or continue to hide. Either way, she’d lost Alice, so what the hell, she might as well try the truth for a change. “But I also knew it was never going to work.”
“You don’t know that,” Alice said tightly, her eyes bright, shimmering with shock and pain. “You didn’t give it a chance.”
Lauren drew a deep breath. “Will wanted to leave Sunrise Cove. He wanted to go on the European racing circuit. It would’ve been an exciting, but vagabond, life for us, but I’m a homebody, always have been. You knew that. You also knew I wanted to stay here in Sunrise Cove and have a family.”
Alice started to say something, but Lauren held up a hand. “He was going to go, Alice, with or without me. So tell me this—do you think I should’ve said yes and waited for him to get it out of his system, just hoping he would come back?”
“He loved you, Lauren.”
“Yes. He loved me. But he loved his dreams more. He was never going to settle down, not for me, not for anything.”
Alice softened her voice. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
That night had been a nightmare from start to finish, one that still haunted her. Lauren had raced to the hospital to see Will, but he’d already gone. And to her eternal shame, she’d then let the grief consume her and she’d turned on Alice. She had yelled at her right there in the hospital hallway. “You know how he gets when he’s upset, but you let him go anyway, what were you thinking?”
Alice had looked shattered as she’d whispered, “What did you expect me to do, stop all one hundred and seventy-five pounds of him?”
Which was when Lauren had doubled down on her assholery. “Yes! And if that hadn’t worked, you should have called me. Or your dad.”
Alice’s dad had been standing behind Lauren, stoically destroyed as he’d solemnly nodded his head in agreement with Lauren, and she’d never forget the look in Alice’s eyes.
Devastation. “He made me promise,” Alice had whispered. And Lauren hadn’t been smart enough to just hug her and hold on. Instead, she’d opened her mouth and spewed the poison that had broken them. “That’s the trouble with you Moores, you’re so set on protecting yourselves from getting hurt, you chase everyone away.”
Now, looking at Alice, the chasm between them felt bigger than ever, and she knew it was just as much her fault as Alice’s. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you didn’t give me much of a chance. After the investigation, you bailed, and I—” Damn. She refused to cry but her throat equally refused to let air pass, so she couldn’t talk either. “I didn’t know how to make things right. You’re not the only one who’s a hot mess, Alice.”
Alice looked away for a long beat. “I’m sorry that you felt like I abandoned you,” Alice said quietly, eyes dark and haunted.
She sat on the stairs as if her legs were too weak to hold her up. “I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
“And I should’ve understood.” Lauren sucked in a relieved breath. “So . . . are we okay?”
Alice opened her mouth to say something, but then covered her mouth with her hand, as if she couldn’t bear to let out her pain. “Yes, but I can’t—” She shook her head. “I don’t know how to do this. How to find my way back to you, to . . . everything.”
Lauren looked into her best friend’s pain-filled gaze and felt a calm come over her as she sat next to her on the step. “That’s okay,” she said. “Because I do.” And she pulled Alice into her arms. “I’ve got you, Alice. And this time, I’m never letting go.”
Alice stilled. Lauren knew she’d always felt uncomfortable with physical affection, an after-effect of being raised by a man who knew cars, not people. Of having only a male sibling who’d been a chip off the old block. Yes, she’d had Eleanor, but that woman had been colder and harder than even Alice’s dad.
But maybe it’d been the time away without letting anyone too close, because suddenly Alice was holding on to Lauren right back, letting out a shuddery breath, setting her head on Lauren’s shoulder.
“I missed you, Alice.”
Alice tried to pull back but Lauren tightened her grip. “Say it back. Say you missed me.”
“Can’t. Breathe.”
“Say it.”
Alice sighed and gave in. “Okay, maybe there was once or twice I missed you, like the time I went into a library—”
“You went into a library that wasn’t mine?” Lauren cried. “How dare you!” But she didn’t want to joke this away, so she met Alice’s gaze straight on. “I need you to know something. Ever since we’ve been here working on the inn together, my life’s felt . . .” She lifted her hands, searching for the right words. “Right. It’s felt right, Alice, for the first time in a long time.”
“That’s the sex. You should be thanking Ben.”
“That’s not it! And we’ve only been together like that once so far!” She felt herself blush as she thought about how great that one time had been. “Okay, maybe it’s partly about the sex,” she allowed. “But it’s mostly about you. I’ve loved having you in my life again. Are you really going to try and tell me you haven’t felt the same?”
“Fine. It’s been . . .” Alice’s eyes suddenly went suspiciously shiny, and then filled. “Dammit! You’re contagious!”
“Say it,” Lauren demanded. “Finish that sentence!”
“Okay, okay, it’s been amazing to have you back in my life!” Alice swiped her cheeks. “There. You happy? I said it and I mean it, but it doesn’t change anything. Too much time has passed. We’ve moved on. We’ve got very different lives now. And mine isn’t even here, wasn’t ever meant to be here.” And with that, she hugged Lauren once more and then . . . headed up the stairs.
With her stomach back at her feet, Lauren turned and found Knox leaning in the doorway to the living room. “I think she’s really going to leave,” she said, shocked. “I mean, she always said she would, but I’d hoped . . .”
“I refuse to believe it,” Knox said. “She’s no longer the same person she was. She can’t just walk away, not this time. She’ll work something out, where she comes and goes, she won’t just walk away from us.”
But Lauren’s heart was cracked in two. “I know you love her, so for your sake, I’m going to really hope you’re right.” She rose to her feet and hugged him. “You’re one of the good ones, Knox. No matter what happens, I’m glad we’re stuck together as friends and partners.”
“That sounded like a goodbye.”
She gave him a look.
“No,” he said. “First of all, you’re our new manager, you’re not going anywhere.”
“No, but you are.”
He shook his head. “I’m sticking right along with you.”
Lauren felt so grateful for that, even as they both looked up the stairs. “Are you okay, Knox?”
“TBD. But I do know it’s not over.”
Lauren really wanted to believe him, but she wasn’t a naive kid anymore, and dreams didn’t always come true.