Blackout After Dark (Gansett Island #21) - Marie Force Page 0,109

different about coming there than she had on the day they arrived. The time with Mac and Linda had been priceless, a thought she shared with Oliver when he got back in the car.

“I agree. Being with them was very special.”

“Will you keep going to the morning meeting?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. You seemed to enjoy it.”

“I did, and you seem to like spending time with Linda and her grandchildren.”

“I wouldn’t have thought that was something I’d want to do, but I was enjoying her company so much that when she asked me to go with her, I did. And I really loved it.”

“Look at us, making friends and having fun, and that’s in just the first couple of days.”

“I like it here. I feel less… raw here.”

“Me, too. Doesn’t hurt that the people are great.”

“No, it certainly doesn’t.”

It was the longest conversation they’d had since Lewis died and almost seemed like the old days, when she’d felt like she could talk to him about anything. Oliver had been her best friend since the day they met, and she’d missed him. Before tragedy struck, she would’ve thought that nothing could ever come between them. She knew better now.

They got out of the car, and Maisy ran ahead of them toward the door. Even she seemed to have new pep in her step after a few days on Gansett Island.

Dara followed Oliver and Maisy into the lighthouse and up the spiral staircase to the second floor where they unpacked their bags and got settled. “Home” was another thing that had been fraught with peril since they lost Lewis. Dara couldn’t bear to be in their home without their little boy. She’d stayed with her parents for months, until their financial reality became such that they had to sell the house anyway.

Before they came to Gansett, they’d been basically living separate lives within the same small space. Here, they had no choice but to sleep together, since there was only one bed. Maybe that would turn out to be a good thing. It couldn’t get any worse, that was for sure.

Dara sat on the edge of the bed, not sure what to do with herself now that they were back at the lighthouse. When Maisy nudged her, she scratched between the dog’s ears.

“Do you feel like going into town and having dinner?” Oliver asked.

The hope she heard in his voice and saw in his expression moved her to agree. “Sure, that sounds good.”

His face lit up with the first genuine smile she’d seen in longer than she could remember.

“Hey, Ol?”

“Yeah?”

“Come here, will you?”

He came to sit next to her on the bed.

“I was just wondering if we could…”

“What, honey?”

“Would you hold me?”

For a second, he seemed so surprised that she wondered if he’d do it. But then he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in close to him and reminding her that he’d always been her home. She breathed in his familiar scent and rested her head in the curve of the shoulder where she fit so perfectly.

“Feels good,” he said.

“Feels like coming home.”

“Dara…”

“Don’t. Let’s just do this and go to dinner and celebrate a good day. Okay?”

“Yeah, that’s okay.”

Chapter 42

It’d taken nearly a week to schedule an appointment with Kevin McCarthy, but now that the appointed time was upon them, Sydney was unreasonably nervous. Seeing a therapist reminded her too much of the unbearable months that’d followed the deaths of her first husband and their two children.

That it’d nearly happened again was too much for her to handle, and no amount of therapy was going to change that.

“Luke filled me in on why you’re here,” Kevin said.

His warmth and calming demeanor helped to set the tone, but the agitation inside her was hard to ignore.

“How about we start by you telling me about the accident from your point of view and how you’ve been feeling about it in the months since.”

The last thing in the world Sydney wanted to do was revisit the terrifying minutes in which she’d been convinced that she and Lily were going to die. Only the eager, expectant, hopeful look on Luke’s face could get her to bare her soul this way. She ran through the events of that awful day, from leaving home with Lily and stopping to see a client on the way to lunch with Luke at the marina.

“One minute we were sitting in the parking lot, and the next we were in the water. I banged my head on the steering