The Good Widow(55)

“Okay,” she said slowly.

“Thank you for talking to me. I needed to hear your voice.”

I told her I’d call her the next day—today—but I haven’t been able to reach her the few times I got a couple bars of reception. I pick up her call as Nick walks into the market.

“Where have you been?” I ask in greeting. “So much for all that concern you had about me,” I tease as I hear rain in the background. “It’s raining in the OC? It’s June!” Rain this time of year is a rare occurrence in Orange County and usually the lead story on every newscast when and if it happens.

“Actually, funny story about that rain you hear . . . ,” Beth begins. “I just landed at the Hana Airport. Can you come pick me up?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN


DYLAN—BEFORE

“I finally got reception!” Dylan said, staring at her phone, waiting for the website to open. “It says here that there aren’t any guardrails!” She finished reading, arching an eyebrow at James. After they’d driven away from the general store, James had sprung on her that he didn’t want to stop when they reached Hana. He wanted to keep going. Around the back side.

James grabbed her cell and tossed it in the backseat next to her purse. “There was a reason I didn’t want you Googling this. What is it with women and their obsession with Google? Is this a phenomenon of some kind? Is the world going to end if you don’t know every single fact about everything?” James laughed, but there was something about its hollow sound that told Dylan he didn’t think it was funny at all.

“What are you talking about?” She studied his face. He seemed different. She couldn’t put a finger on it, but he hadn’t woken up acting like himself. And for that matter, neither had she. She couldn’t get rid of the bad feeling that had been following her around since she tiptoed to the bathroom this morning, turned the water on, and vomited. She knew it wasn’t the baby. That, she was happy about. Frightened, yes. But also content. It was something else. And that scared her more than the life that was growing inside her.

“Nothing,” James said, squeezing her knee, working his lips into a smile. One of his thin, fake ones, but still. He was slowly looking more like him. “Anyway, yes, it’s true that there aren’t guardrails in some places, but driving the back side will be so much cooler—I read that the views are incredible, and if you drive slow it won’t matter that the road isn’t as finished as the one through Hana is.”

“What do you mean, not as finished?” Dylan bit her lip. What had gotten into him? He wasn’t this man. A risk-taker. As far as she knew, this affair was the biggest and only major risk he’d ever taken. And while he didn’t discuss it with her, she could see the toll their secret relationship was taking on him. The fights were getting worse with Jacqueline—probably because his wife sensed something wasn’t right. And Dylan had noticed his fuse had been just a little bit shorter on this trip. It was subtle, like how he’d sighed when she’d forgotten her cell phone and had to run back up to the room. Or when she was telling him a story about her roommates or some catastrophe at work—there was something distant about his expression, and he’d snapped to attention only when she asked him if he was listening.

This slight disconnect made Dylan try harder—to be less forgetful, to be a better storyteller. Her time with James was slipping through her fingers, and she didn’t want to think about what would happen when they returned to reality. Obviously things were going to change once James found out about the baby. The world she’d imagined for just the two of them would now include three. But Dylan couldn’t be sure which way the ax would swing when she told him—or which way she wanted it to. Either direction would bring chaos, burst their bubble, and alter their lives forever.

James had actually described himself as boring when he’d first met Dylan. He was something of a workaholic, working nights and weekends—whatever it took to get the deal closed. When he’d flown, it was always United Airlines, always the aisle seat, always direct. Unless a layover absolutely couldn’t be avoided, like when he was flying to Amarillo, Texas. He followed routines. He was predictable. His words, not hers. Dylan had reasoned that their clandestine relationship had brought something to his life he’d been missing. She just worried now that it was the risks he was taking with her that were addictive, not Dylan herself.

“There are a few miles that aren’t completely paved. But really, it just means the road isn’t as commercialized—it’s what the locals would drive. And I want that. The real experience. We’ve come all the way here; why not go for it?” James smiled at her. That smile that twisted her up inside, that made her giddy and scared and flustered all at once.

Dylan considered his pitch. He had already taken her on some amazing excursions, ones she would have never gone on otherwise. If it had been up to her, they would have lain at the pool all day, her reading fashion magazines and him massaging oil into her shoulders. She remembered Nick asking her to do a ropes course once. She’d scoffed and told him no, that she didn’t want to navigate balance beams hundreds of feet off the ground suspended between trees. What if she fell? She’d said she had zero interest in being a trapeze artist. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall,” he’d said slowly. “I’ll take care of you.”