up for myself. And now that I’m doing it, you’re upset with me?”
“I’m not upset with you.”
“Aren’t you? Be honest.”
“All right,” he said. “I’d gotten my hopes up that maybe for once our timing wasn’t off. That you and I had—” He broke off. “Never mind. Go do what you need to do.”
Tears burned her eyes and she swallowed them back. “Mike.”
“Please go.” His voice cracked.
“I—”
“Not now, Gia.” He clenched his jaw and went to open the front door.
Heartbroken over her feuding sisters and Mike’s lack of understanding, she walked past him and out the door. On the steps, she turned to tell him how disappointed she was with his response.
He stood there, fist unfurled, staring at the engagement ring he’d bought her lying in his open palm.
“Mike?”
He raised his head, met her gaze with tears in his blue eyes, and then quietly but firmly shut the door in her face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Madison
SQUARE UP: After quilting, square up by trimming the edges of the quilt so that the measurements are even.
MADISON COULDN’T BELIEVE Gia had cut the wedding quilt right in two. Seeing the quilt sliced and scattered around the porch in little pieces hit her hard.
The shock of it blasted her with hurricane force, knocking her breath from her body. It wasn’t so much the destroyed quilt, although that was damn symbolic of her destroyed relationships with her sisters, but rather the fact that sweet, kind, gentle Gia had been the one to do it.
She stared after Gia’s retreating back. She didn’t dare look at Shelley. Her own emotions were too raw, too volatile.
A dozen different feelings flooded her at once. Hurt, pain, betrayal, shock. But there were more feelings underneath. Sadness, nostalgia, longing. And beneath that, she hit a wellspring of bad moods—agitation, irritability, frustration. Building and growing.
All the feelings she had run from. All the feelings she fought to control. All the feelings she’d hidden behind her climb up the ladder of success. She thought achievement would bring her the happiness she longed for. The peace of mind she’d lost in childhood after her parents’ death. She had achieved much in her life, things many people envied.
Success, in and of itself, did not bring happiness. It wasn’t the things that mattered. Not the house, the cars, the designer clothes and expensive haircuts. Not the honors or awards, promotions or titles. It was the journey and the people you met along the way. It was the experiences that mattered and the relationships you built.
And she’d done a damn shabby job on both accounts.
Her experiences centered around her goal—sewing, entertaining, cooking, decorating, making a home look pretty. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Unless you made a single-minded goal the whole center of your life and neglected the people who loved you.
Ahh, new feelings. New pain.
But this time, the feelings weren’t directed outward. She wasn’t angry at Gia or Shelley or Raoul. Rather, Madison was mad at herself.
Wow, oh wow. She was angry at herself for not knowing how to make peace with her sisters.
Something else hit her.
She’d ended up with Raoul not because she was, as she feared, a loser magnet, but because somewhere deep inside, she’d been seeking to punish herself.
Finally, Madison shattered the shell of her anger with a stark laugh and sucked in salty sea air. She was so thankful to see that stupid quilt destroyed that she took several heartier gulps to steady herself before she noticed, Something’s wrong with Shelley.
Her sister seemed wrecked—even more so than when she first showed up, bedraggled and woebegone after escaping her cult. She wasn’t just upset. She was . . . vaporized.
Shelley crawled on her hands and knees, picking up scraps of severed quilt pieces and tucking them in the front of her shirt that she had fashioned as a sling. Tears streamed down her face, dripping off her chin as she mumbled, over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Watching her, Madison felt her heart break and she realized that it didn’t matter if Shelley had slept with Raoul or not. That was the past. It was over. What mattered was this precise moment and her sister’s fragility.
Madison dropped to her knees in front of her. Touched her shoulder. “Shell?”
Shelley’s eyes met hers and she looked utterly grief-stricken. “Gia,” she choked out. “Rampage.”
“She finally had enough of our crap.” Madison laughed.
Shelley stared at her as if she’d lost her marbles, but Madison was done being angry. She’d been angry for twenty years and it