I pictured the ocean rolling up, the waves swallowing me whole and pulling me out and into that expanse. I craved it, letting myself go. I blinked against the sting of the salt air.
I guess I wasn’t so different from my mother, after all. Eighteen. Pregnant. Alone. I gave myself a good shake. No. I’d fight with tooth and nail to make sure that’s where the similarities ended. Even if I had to do it with no help at all.
1
Kenna
PRESENT
“How the hell has she roped us into doing this foo-foo bendy stuff more than once a week?”
Bell laughed as we watched Caelyn ease Harriet into a gentle stretch. “Because you love Harriet more than any other human on this planet, and the foo-foo bendy stuff has been good for her blood pressure.”
I huffed and leaned back on my mat. Bell was right. Yoga had been good for Harriet’s heart and her spirit. Plus, it was an excuse to get outside and enjoy The Gables’ grounds. No matter how much time passed, I never tired of the gorgeous view.
“You’re supposed to be in pigeon pose, Kenna. That looks great, Bell.”
I growled something unintelligible at Caelyn before getting into the posture. “Teacher’s pet,” I groused at Bell.
She grinned and shrugged. “I like yoga.”
I sighed and attempted to relax into the stretch. I did my best to force my mental to-do list out of my mind, to not think about everything I could’ve used this hour and a half to accomplish. It was Saturday, and I was with my favorite people in the world. These women were my rocks. They’d been beacons of light when my entire world had been pitch-black.
And now, years later, we were all back on the island where we’d grown up together. Time had passed, but the closeness we shared hadn’t changed a bit. If anything, it had grown stronger, the bond cementing itself into the marrow of who we were.
“How are things with Henry?”
Bell’s question jolted me out of my memories. I pushed deeper into the stretch, relishing the bite of burn. “They’re fine.”
“Sounds like things are hot and heavy, just full of passion.”
I grabbed the towel at the end of my mat and chucked it at her. “Not everyone gets reunited with their lost love and spends days at a time locked away in their brand-new house in the hills.” But not everyone wanted that either. If I never saw my lost love again, it would be too soon.
The smile fell from Bell’s face, and I wanted to kick myself. “You deserve real love, Ken. Not just the imitation kind that makes you feel safe.”
I focused my attention on switching my pigeon pose to the other side. I didn’t want to think about just how little of a spark I had with Henry. “We’ve only been on a couple of dates. It’s not serious.”
Bell made a humming noise. Years of friendship meant that I could translate the sound to: bullshit. I cleared my throat. “So, how’s the new space coming along?”
It was just the thing to ask. Bell’s eyes lit with excitement, something I hadn’t seen in my own in a decade. “I think it’s going to be perfect. I should be ready to open the shop doors in just a few weeks.”
I twisted to face her. “That’s great. You couldn’t find a more ideal location.” Main Street housed all of the essential tourist stops for our small island of fifteen hundred people, and it was just a stone’s throw from the bar Bell’s fiancé owned. “Is Ford happy?”
“He’s happy I’ll be so close to The Catch, but you know him, he wanted to float me the money to rent the biggest, most extravagant space we could find.”
I chuckled. “Of course, he did.” But Bell would never take him up on something like that. She needed to make her dream of owning a furniture shop full of her painstakingly restored pieces happen all on her own. And I respected the hell out of her for it.
“How are things at number crunchers?”
My lips twitched. Bell had never thought accounting was exactly thrilling. But I loved it. While the world was shades of gray, my job was all black and white. Every problem had an answer, and I could always find it.
But there was a flicker of jealousy whenever Bell spoke about her new shop. I’d considered going out on my own more times than I could count. Thoughts of getting out from under