Chapter 18

Deirdre rolled over when she heard her phone buzz against the nightstand. She was awake anyway, and had been for about an hour. Just because she picked up her phone didn’t mean she had to get out of bed.

Thinking about you this morning, Wyatt had sent. Are you okay?

Deirdre sighed as she looked up at the ceiling. The phone dropped to her chest, and she made no effort to pick it up again. Was she okay?

She honestly didn’t know. What she did know was that spending the day with Wyatt’s family yesterday had made everything clear in her mind. They simply existed on two different spheres right now, and his happy, loving family made everything about her family seem twice as bad.

And it was already bad.

Without thinking too hard about it, she picked up her phone. But she didn’t text Wyatt.

Hey Dalton, she typed. Would now be a good time to call?

Because the protective order was between Emma and Deirdre, she could talk to Dalton. The judge had warned her to keep the communication as infrequent as possible, but he’d agreed that because they were Emma’s parents, they needed to be able to talk.

Dalton could say no, of course. And he had full custody now. If he felt like Deirdre’s questions or calls were inappropriate, he could file an injunction with the court. He never had, because Deirdre’s calls and questions were never inappropriate.

Give me ten minutes, Dalton said. I’m dropping Emma at surfing lessons, and then I’ll be alone.

Deirdre didn’t respond. Ten minutes felt like forever, so she got up and got in the shower. That would make the time go faster, and she needed to do it anyway. She’d just stepped into a pair of joggers when her phone rang.

She lunged for it and swiped on the call from her ex-husband, her heart pounding beneath her breastbone. “Hello?”

“Deirdre,” Dalton said, and he actually sounded happy to hear from her. “How are you?”

“Good,” she lied. “Fine. You?”

Dalton chuckled, and it sounded like he was outside. Wind or waves came through the line, only drowned out when he said, “We’re doing great.”

Good. Fine. Great. Generic words for how people were really doing. Dalton gave no details, and Deirdre hadn’t expected any.

“Listen,” she said. “I know it’s a long shot, and you can just say no right now. But I’m wondering if Emma would consider withdrawing the protective order. I haven’t been in town for almost twenty months now. I’m not going to contact her.”

A healthy dose of silence came through the line. Finally, Dalton said, “Why, Deirdre? If you’re not going to contact her—or come back to the North Shore—why does it matter?”

She wrapped her free arm around herself, trying to find an answer to the question. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Just that it matters to me.”

Dalton sighed as if she’d just asked him to give up both of his kidneys. “I can talk to her about it.”

Tears filled Deirdre’s eyes. “How is she?” she asked. “How was your Thanksgiving? What did you do?”

“She’s doing great,” he said, but his voice pitched up on the last word. “Thanksgiving was good. She made the turkey, and I did everything else. We ate with a few guys from down the beach who don’t have family on the island. Spent some time on the beach.”

Dalton was an expert at spending time on the beach. He worked at a beachside restaurant, and the man had been born with sand in his blood. “You love the beach,” Deirdre said.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Oh, uh, I went out to the Shark Fin Cove area.”

“Huh. That’s quite the drive. What’s over there?”

Of course he would ask. Deirdre wasn’t sure what to tell him. Would it be worse if she’d stayed home alone, or told him she had a boyfriend?

She wasn’t sure why it mattered. Dalton had had many girlfriends besides Deirdre, most of them while he’d been married.

“My boyfriend’s family lives over there,” she said. “Well, his mother does. We ate at her place, only half a block from the beach.”

“My kind of place,” Dalton said without missing a beat. “How long have you been seeing this boyfriend?”

“A couple of months,” Deirdre said. And she realized in that moment why everything had spiraled out of control yesterday. She wanted to share Wyatt with Emma. She wanted Emma to meet his siblings and have those other teenagers as step-cousins. She hated how isolated she’d become, and she hated that she couldn’t have her family in her life the way others did.

“He’s a nice guy?”

Deirdre sighed. “Dalton, you’re not my father.”

“No, I know. You’re right.” He exhaled. “Look, Emma is pretty much exactly like every other fifteen-year-old: self-centered. I don’t know that I can convince her to drop the order. But I’ll try. I’ve told her how asinine it is.”

“You have?” Surprise filled Deirdre’s heart. She’d never heard Dalton say that before. In fact, from her perspective, all Dalton had done was cheat on her, make life more difficult for her, and then take Emma’s side with every lie that came out of her daughter’s mouth.

But she couldn’t turn her back on the girl. She was her daughter, and that meant something to Deirdre.

“Yes,” Dalton said. “I’ll talk to her but give me a few days. I have to bring things up…delicately.”

Boy, did Deirdre understand that. “Okay,” she said. “No rush. I appreciate you even saying you’ll try.” She drew in a deep breath. “Things are really okay?” She wasn’t sure why, but her stomach was still knotted, and something just felt off.

“I’m getting another call. I’ll call you back.” The line went dead, and Deirdre let her hand holding the phone drop to her side. There was definitely something wrong, and Dalton just didn’t want to say what it was. Deirdre knew, because she’d been on the receiving end of abruptly-ended phone calls exactly like that one before. And there’d been something wrong then too.

Dalton did not call back, not that Deirdre expected him to. She put out food for the strays, and then she pulled on her hiking boots and filled up her water sack for her backpack. She felt out of sorts too, but surely a hike through the rainforest would cure what was crooked in her mind.

By the time she returned to her backyard, the only thing happening was a violent cramp in her calf. Deirdre panted as she limped across the thin grass and up the steps to the back door. She was home. She’d done it.

She paused on the top step and stretched her calf, groaning with the pain that felt so good. With the cramp finally subsiding, she went inside and filled up a glass with ice and water. She’d taken plenty to drink on the hike, but she’d been gone for six hours, and she needed more.

Her stomach growled, and she needed painkillers, so she set about getting a pan on the stove to make a grilled cheese sandwich. With that going, she downed a few pills and drank all the water.

Properly cheesed up, with toasty bread and lots of butter, Deirdre finally sat down at her dining room table. The silence in her house permeated everything, and she paused after eating half her sandwich to look around.

She wondered if Wyatt was working today. He kept a different schedule than most, as crime didn’t take vacation days. Looking at her phone, she toyed with the idea of texting him back.

In the end, she didn’t want to complicate her day. The hike through the lush trees, the air scented with hibiscus, had not helped with much—besides producing a couple of blisters and that calf cramp.

She finished eating, checked all the doors and windows to make sure they were locked, and grabbed her phone and a bag of lemon drops before heading for the bathroom. Dalton still had not called back, and at this point, Deirdre didn’t think she’d hear from him for a while.

“If ever,” she said, locking her bedroom door behind her. When she finally sank into the eucalyptus scented bath water, the steam rising into the air, Deirdre had found the calmest part of herself.

And it still vibrated with a quiet wail over walking away from Wyatt.

***

Deirdre went to work on Monday, plenty to keep her occupied. She barely took a break for lunch, as Michelle DeGraw had thought she’d known exactly what she wanted for her wedding. But when Deirdre produced the three dress sketches, none of them were right. So Deirdre called in Ash Lawson, and they started from scratch. That meant more meetings. More talks about what Michelle really wanted. And a very awkward session where she’d actually brought another dress designer’s drawings to Your Tidal Forever.

Deirdre knew it took all types to make the world go round, and she was getting paid to sit with Michelle and go over beads and lace. So she did.

She’d been meeting with her other bride too, who was only doing the reception through Your Tidal Forever, working with vendors to procure the items each bride wanted, and putting things in place for reception halls and venues for the I-do’s.

In addition to that, she had the police department holiday party coming up. Most of the items for that had been decided upon and finalized, but she always met with clients with only a week to go before their big event.

But she put off calling Norma on Monday. And Tuesday. Before she knew it, it was Friday, and the department party was only seven days away. Finally, with only an hour left in the work week, she picked up the phone and called Norma.

“Norma Halstrom,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“Hi, Norma,” she said. “It’s Deirdre. I just need maybe twenty minutes with you on Monday or Tuesday to make sure we’re on track for the party next Friday?” Why she’d ended it as a question, she wasn’t sure.

“Oh, hello, Deirdre,” she said loudly. “Monday or Tuesday, let me see what we have going on…”

Deirdre waited, her heartbeat speeding with every second that went by.

Norma finally said, “Monday at ten-forty would work,” she said. “If you really only need twenty minutes. I have another meeting at eleven.”

“I don’t want to rush you,” Deirdre said. Maybe she could get out of this. She’d have to see Wyatt at the party, probably, but it would be crowded with the whole department there. She could avoid him easily. Get in, get the food set up and the décor out, and disappear. She didn’t work for the police department, and she didn’t need to stay to mingle.

“Our schedule next week is insane,” she said. “It’s fine. This is how things are.”

“Ten-forty then,” Deirdre said. “I really will be quick.”

“Sounds good, dear. See you then.” Norma hung up, and Deirdre did too. Her heart felt like someone had raked it up and down on a washboard, wrung it out, and hung it up to dry. But in Hawaii, the humidity kept everything from truly drying, and now her most vital organ was starting to mold.

She hadn’t texted Wyatt, and he’d only messaged one other time to let her know that they’d had a break in the vehicle-meets-building case. She’d wanted to celebrate with him, but honestly, it was easier to eat ice cream and barricade herself behind locked doors.

Sighing, she didn’t notice right away when Meg entered her office. “What was that?” her best friend demanded.

“What?” Deirdre started organizing papers that were already neat.

“You broke up with the Chief?”

Deirdre gave a long, over-exaggerated sigh this time. “Yes, all right? And it took you a week to find out.”

“Oh, I knew,” Meg said, collapsing into the chair where Deirdre’s clients usually sat. She picked up a mint from the bowl Deirdre kept on the front of her desk. “I was just waiting for you to say something.”

“Nothing to say,” Deirdre said.

“It wasn’t over Emma, was it?”

Deirdre gave up trying to work. She tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned back in her chair. Meg was a good friend. She’d started at nearly the same time as Deirdre, and they’d worked together a lot to figure out the ropes at Your Tidal Forever. She had hair that sat between brown and auburn, and she was much more adventurous in the men she dated than Deirdre.

“I don’t know,” Deirdre said.

“How can you not know?”

“It was really because of his family,” Deirdre said slowly, trying to figure out how to articulate how she felt. She hadn’t been able to, which was why she’d never messaged Wyatt back.

“His family? They’re that bad?”

“No,” Deirdre said. “They’re that good.”

Sudden understanding entered Meg’s expression, and Deirdre didn’t need to say more. “Honey,” she said. “You can’t compare.”

“Actually, I can,” she said. “And it was almost insufferable being with them. I’m not like them at all, and there’s no way I’d ever fit.” She got up and headed for the cupboard behind the door, where she stored her purse. “They reminded me of just how badly I want a family like theirs. And how royally I’ve screwed up. I don’t need that in my life every time someone has a birthday.”

She headed for the door, and Meg scrambled to her feet. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes,” she said. “I get here before everyone else every single day. I can leave thirty minutes early.”

“Wait, what are you doing this weekend?” Meg all but ran in front of her, her eyes a bit wild now.

“Why? What’s going on?”

Meg’s vulnerability wasn’t hard to see, and Deirdre couldn’t believe she’d missed it. Just another failure to add to her list. She’d been so caught up in her own turmoil, she hadn’t even seen Meg’s.

“Why don’t you and Father John come over for dinner tonight?” Deirdre suggested. “I’ll make sushi, and we can swap Thanksgiving horror stories.”

Meg’s whole face lit up, and she said, “I’ll be there at six.”