Rica.
Last night filled her mind. Had she and Madison made headway toward repairing their relationship? It was hard to tell. Could her older sister be closer to forgiving her? Hope pounded through her with each footstep.
Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.
Don’t count on it, whispered a skeptical, naysaying voice.
Okay, perhaps she and Madison would never be close again. It was something she was prepared to accept. Life at Cobalt Soul had taught her a few things about acceptance and letting go. The trick was separating the beneficial lessons from the dogma and rhetoric.
Bigger question: Why had Shelley expected things to be different simply because five years had passed?
Magical thinking.
On the trip home, she’d indulged in magical thinking, the same way a child fervently believed in Santa Claus, expecting a miraculous family reunion. Ha! They were trapped in the same old crazy-making conversations and conflicts.
Madison wanted to control her.
Shelley resisted being controlled.
Would she ever learn? She was the odd one out. Always had been. Apparently always would be.
Accept what is. Guru Meyer’s voice was in her head.
Dammit.
Shelley ran, flying down the beach, bare feet pounding the sand, heart slamming into her chest. Tears burned her eyes. The T-shirt she had on, relegated to a rag drawer, smelled like cedar and mothballs, but underneath that strong scent, a hint of lavender that reminded her of her mother.
Shelley might not remember what her mother looked like, or the sound of her voice, but she remembered her smell. When she was little, Shelley would crawl up in her parents’ bed and bury her face in her mother’s pillow and take a big whiff, filling her lungs with the fragrance of Mom.
After their parents, Beth and Liam Clark, died in an avalanche during a skiing trip, Madison put up a fight over the pillow. Since she was the oldest she claimed she should get it. But their foster mom, who’d looked after them immediately following their parents’ deaths, said Shelley needed the pillow more than Madison did.
The message she’d taken from that conversation?
Needy. She was too needy.
In retrospect, a childish distortion. They were all needy, all of them crippled by their parents’ sudden deaths. But the foster mom’s words had seemed like an indictment. Shelley’s needs were a burden.
Shelley kept the pillow long past the time it was threadbare. And Maddie claimed Shelley wasn’t sentimental. Grammy, who’d come into the picture at that point, had thrown away the gunky pillow one day while Shelley was at school.
She recalled the stark hit of pain when she realized she’d lost the beloved pillow forever. Her last real connection with her mother severed. She’d acted out, howling like a she-wolf and trashing the bedroom she shared with Gia and Maddie.
Her feet sank into the sand as she ran, pushing herself harder. She ran until her lungs felt as if they might burst, leaving the Moonglow Inn and her sisters miles behind. The sun gleamed orange, bluing the sky and spreading it with pink and purple hues.
Dawning of a new day.
Up ahead lay a fishing pier with a charming little gazebo. A tuxedoed man stood beside a woman in a wedding dress. Well-wishers in nice clothes surrounded the couple.
Shelley stopped running, chest heaving, and bent over to catch her breath. She straightened, pressed her palms to her back, and stood on the beach near the pier, watching the ceremony unfold.
A dawn wedding. How beautiful.
Soon, her baby sister would get married to their next-door neighbor, Mike Straus. No, not their next-door neighbor. Not anymore. Shelley no longer belonged at the Moonglow Inn. Nor did she belong at Cobalt Soul. Not after she’d run away taking nothing with her but her knapsack and the clothes on her back.
Honestly, she belonged nowhere.
“I’m a woman without a home,” she whispered under her breath and clenched her hands.
But you have a family.
Ah, but did she? Yesterday’s welcome, especially from Madison, suggested otherwise. A fresh pain knifed her gut. Madison clung to her grudge with both hands. But Shelley deserved it. She had no right to expect sympathy, even though at the bottom of her actions, her motives had been pure.
Shelley shifted her thoughts back to Gia and Mike. So sweet. She was beyond happy for her baby sister. Mike was a stand-up guy. Salt of the earth. Honest and open. The sort of guy who’d never appealed to Shelley. She’d gone for the bad boys, the rebels, the fringe dwellers, the disenfranchised.
Which explained how she’d ended up in a place like Cobalt Soul.
Would she ever have a