thought as she headed back to her mother’s room. They faced danger constantly.
They couldn’t know how it felt to receive undeniable proof that you were a coward.
CAITLIN
She didn’t want to feel sympathy for Olivia. Caitlin wanted to nurture her anger and hurt against her aunt, this deep sense of betrayal that had been building inside her for months. As they walked back to Mimi’s hospital room, all of that seemed to fade, replaced with curiosity and something that felt like pity.
“What was that about? You sliding under the table like it was an active shooter drill at school or something?”
Olivia didn’t meet her gaze. “I was startled. That’s all. Can we just forget it happened? It was an embarrassing overreaction. I didn’t ask—how was your pizza?”
Huh. Did her aunt really think she was that stupid? But if Olivia didn’t want to talk about it, Caitlin wasn’t going to push.
“Fine.”
She had more important things to worry about than Olivia’s weird freak-out, anyway. For one thing, she couldn’t believe that she had just sat next to Cooper Vance for fifteen minutes and hadn’t been able to find the nerve to ask him more questions about her mother. What was wrong with her?
Just the day before, Jake had been bugging her to bring up Natalie with him.
“Everybody says they were best friends. Don’t you think he might have known who your dad was?”
“I can’t ask,” she had protested. “I don’t even know him!”
“Chief Vance is a great guy. Not scary at all. He’ll answer your questions. If he knows anything, I’m sure he would tell you.”
How could she possibly simply blurt out the question? “Look, I know you were my mom’s best friend for years. Do you have any idea who her baby daddy might have been? Any idea at all? I would kind of like to know.”
It should be easy to do but she could never seem to find the words around him. She would stick to the DNA test. That would give her answers and then she would know.
Another week or two. Excitement shivered through her. Soon enough, she would know who her father was. She was close; she sensed it. Soon she would have answers about who she was and where she came from.
Then what?
The question had bothered her since she started looking for her birth father. What if she found the man and discovered he had known all along about her, he just hadn’t given a shit?
As always, that thought made her feel a little sick to her stomach. No. She wouldn’t believe that. She couldn’t.
Instead, she focused on her aunt, who still looked red in the face as they reached Juliet’s room.
What the hell had happened back there? Why had Olivia freaked like that?
While she did feel sorry for her, Caitlin also couldn’t deny she kind of liked finding out Olivia wasn’t perfect.
Her aunt might be successful and cool and always put together. But she could still shriek like a little kid scared by a monster when she heard a loud noise.
Why, though? She wanted to ask again but knew it was a waste of breath.
12
OLIVIA
“Are you good? Can I bring you anything before dinner?”
From the recliner in the whitewashed and timbered front room of Sea Glass Cottage that had become her favorite spot in the week she had been home from the hospital, Juliet gave Olivia a small smile.
“I’m perfectly fine,” her mother insisted. “Why wouldn’t I be? I have a good book, a glass of water and a view of the ocean. I’ve told you before. You don’t have to hover over me all the time.”
What her mother called hovering, Olivia preferred to think of as concern. Juliet wasn’t doing as well as Olivia had hoped. A week out of the hospital, she was still in a great deal of pain and struggled to get around, yet she never complained. The ribs seemed almost more painful than the hip, yet she took as few of the prescribed painkillers as she could get away with.
She slept restlessly and had difficulty even with the simplest movements.
She seemed oddly fragile.
Olivia had started sleeping on the sofa outside her mother’s room so she could hear Juliet stir and help her to the bathroom if she needed it. Because she was splitting her time between here and the garden center, Olivia had enlisted a willing army of Juliet’s friends to sit with her for a few hours in the morning so she could work. They were managing, though Olivia couldn’t remember