The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,150
texting him back that same emoji.
“Autumn?” her mother said.
“What?”
“Do you want to come meet Tammy?”
She set her phone down. “When?”
“In two weeks?”
Now that the possibility of a visit had been raised, she wanted to come even sooner—today—but she could hold out that long, couldn’t she? “Okay.”
“Should I schedule your flight?” Her mother sounded relieved.
“No, I have to talk to Nick about it first. Then I’ll make the arrangements.”
“I can’t wait,” her mother said. “I hope he’s okay with it.”
Autumn knew he would probably want to come with her, but she was going to ask him to stay so one of them would be home with Caden. Returning to the place where she grew up, to the sand and the sea and the bird with just one eye, not to mention the bookstore, Aunt Laurie, her mother and Taylor, sounded like a welcome break if not a much-needed escape. Maybe if she went back alone, she could get her feet underneath her again and wouldn’t feel as though she’d left such a huge chunk of herself behind. By leaving Nick in Tampa, she might realize just how much she loved him, and when she came home, be able to give him her whole heart, as he deserved.
That was what she told herself as she finished the conversation with her mother.
But she knew, if she happened to see Quinn, the opposite could also prove to be true.
* * *
Autumn could hear Nick getting into the cupboards behind her as she waited at the kitchen table for the Skype session she had scheduled with her mother. He’d worked a few days over the past couple of weeks, but not anywhere close to full-time, like she’d expected when he leased the new office. She’d anticipated having hours and hours to herself while planting her fall garden and cleaning the house, had been counting on the solitude.
But he would hardly let her out of his sight. And the more days and weeks that passed, the more possessive he got. He even made a few comments that led her to believe, if he did leave the house, he secretly checked up on her when he got back by going through her phone and computer.
There was nothing for him to find, of course. Except for that one exchange of heart emojis, she and Quinn hadn’t communicated since she left him on the beach. She could easily have deleted their whole chain of texts, so that Nick wouldn’t be able to scroll through them even if he tried. But she couldn’t bring herself to give them up. Those texts were all she had left of Quinn. Sometimes, when Nick did go to work, she reread them.
She didn’t know whether Nick ever snooped on her or not, but whenever she tried to tell him to back off a little, that she needed more space, they got into an argument. That was exactly what’d happened when she’d said she wanted to go back to Sable Beach to meet Tammy. He’d said she could go as long as he went with her—that it wouldn’t be wise for them to separate so soon—and because she didn’t want to pull Caden out of school during the first month, she’d decided to stay home.
“I’ve been through enough. I’m not going to lose you on top of everything else,” Nick told her, over and over.
She bit back a sigh as she opened the Skype app on her computer and tried to put her husband and her marriage out of her mind. Tammy was staying with her mother in Sable Beach. She was about to meet her half sister for the first time, and she didn’t want to be dwelling on her problems when she did.
Almost immediately, an electronic pop sounded, and her mother appeared on the screen. Punctual, as usual. “There you are. All set?”
“I am.”
Nick leaned over her shoulder. “Hi, Mom. Where’s Taylor?”
“She’s at Sierra’s,” Mary said. “Because we’re telling her and Caden that Tammy is an old childhood friend of mine, I figured it would be better to do this when she wasn’t around.”
Autumn had an aunt that was really a friend and a friend who was really a half sister. But it was more important to cut Jeff and Nora out of their narrative than to get all the labels right.
“Of course,” Nick said. “I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Good, because she’s right here.” Mary turned the computer so they could see the woman sitting next to her.