Sand Castle Bay (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,35
known you wouldn’t forget. Your brain’s like one of those fancy new phones that has little reminders that pop up.”
Gabi laughed. “A godsend, by the way. And yes, my mind is exactly like that.” She studied Emily. “So, do you want to hear what I have to say or not?”
“Go ahead,” Emily said, oddly reluctant, but suspecting that she needed to hear whatever her sister had observed. Since it was coming from Gabi, rather than Samantha, she could take it.
“I think you’re at a turning point in your life,” Gabi began. “A really important one. You can have this extraordinary career, fill every minute of your day with work the way I have, or you can try to find some balance.”
“Are you sure you’re not still talking about you?” Emily asked.
“Absolutely, but the same thing applies. Here’s where it’s different,” she said, holding Emily’s gaze. “You used to have this softness about you with Boone. You had the ambition, sure, but it was tempered by the crazy love you felt for him. You had the balance I’m talking about. Now, you’re a hundred percent focused. You’re tense, maybe even a little hard. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that someone could throw a major interior design project your way, give you an impossible deadline to meet, and you’d do it without batting an eye.”
“Why doesn’t that sound very complimentary when you say it?” Emily grumbled.
“Oh, it is complimentary, if that’s all you want out of life. Me, I’d like to see you truly happy again, laughing the way you used to with Boone, sneaking off to be with him in the middle of the night. I’m not sure I’m explaining this right, but there was a lightness about you then, a rightness, if you will. You were a complete woman.”
“Are you suggesting I can’t be complete without a man in my life?” Emily asked, indignation stirring.
“Absolutely not. But you—Emily Castle—can’t be complete without the kind of deep-down happiness you had with Boone. Maybe you can find that in your work eventually. I don’t know. But I’m not seeing it now.” She shrugged. “Not any more than I’ve found it in mine, and, believe me, no one is more stunned by that than I am.”
Emily let her sister’s words sink in. Gabi had been right, they did hurt, but there was an undeniable ring of truth in them. She hadn’t been happy, not a hundred percent carefree and deliriously happy, in a very long time. How had she not noticed that? How had she missed that all the successes in the world, all the demands for her talents didn’t add up to real fulfillment? The jobs she took on were challenging, but not ultimately rewarding, at least not in the way she thought maybe work should be.
Gabi reached over and put a hand atop hers. “You’re not furious with me, are you?”
“How could I be? You were just calling it like you see it.”
“I could be wrong,” Gabi said, clearly hoping to take the sting out of her words.
Emily shook her head. “You’re not wrong,” she admitted. “I wish you were. Unfortunately I have no idea how to change things. It’s not as if I can snap my fingers and have a whole new life.”
Gabi smiled at her. “You sure about that? Maybe you just have to snap them when the right person is in the vicinity.”
“Meaning Boone?”
“Meaning Boone,” Gabi confirmed.
“You still think he’s the right man for me or that I’m the right woman for him, even after the way I hurt him, even after everything he’s been through?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. Or what Grandmother and Samantha think—and they’re both on the same page, by the way. It only matters what you think.”
“And Boone,” Emily said. “He has a pretty big say, and he’s not all that happy with me.”
“You can hardly blame him,” Gabi said.
“Hardly,” Emily agreed. “But that would make it an uphill battle.”
“The Emily I grew up with wouldn’t be daunted by that.”
“But the Emily you knew doesn’t exist anymore. Didn’t you just get through making that point?”
“Oh, I think she’s still in there,” Gabi said. “You just have to want to find her. You just have to remember what it felt like to fight for a relationship the way you’ve learned to fight for bigger and bigger jobs.”
“And Boone? Do you think the man who was once head-over-heels in love with me still exists?”