The Promise of Us (Sanctuary Sound #2)(7)
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Shut up and get inside. Her bark is worse than her bite. Besides, she planned a whole lunch thing.”
“She cooked?” Steffi Lockwood was not someone anyone would deem domestic.
“Takeout.” Ryan smiled and raised his index finger to his lips, forcing a chuckle from Logan. “Lasagna from Lucia’s.”
“Thank God coming home can still yield a few good surprises.” Logan smiled and headed for the door, noticing for the second time its canary-yellow appeal. A nice contrast to the Wedgwood-blue clapboard trimmed in cloud white.
It’d been a long time since he’d spent more than a few hours in Sanctuary Sound. When his sister first announced her wish to come home for her double mastectomy after the final round of chemo, he’d been skeptical. Her relationship with their parents was only slightly better than his own, and Peyton had burned some serious bridges last year. The sleepy town also wouldn’t offer much entertainment.
But a growing part of him had looked forward to catching up with old friends. He’d assumed that list included Claire, but apparently his last name had cost him that privilege. That left him with two choices: pursue his original plan or let her go.
The past six months had been a grueling challenge with Peyton, so how hard could one more battle be?
Chapter Two
Claire frowned, muttering to herself throughout the drive to her mother’s house. She jabbed the seat-heater button, but the lukewarm cushion scarcely melted her frozen behind. The humiliation of landing on her butt in front of Logan had stung a whole lot less than the crestfallen look in his eyes when he’d said, “Pity to learn it was all an act.”
She hated disappointing anyone, including him. The fact that she’d done so with false bravado, well . . . karma had swooped right in to make her pay.
Dicey roads and slippery thoughts made the drive treacherous enough without the added distraction of her phone pinging text messages. Steffi? Logan? A potential client? She couldn’t check while steering, but each ding sparked along a new nerve ending until she shook with frustration.
As soon as she parked in her parents’ driveway, she scrolled through Steffi’s messages.
10:42 a.m.: Sorry! Logan showed up an hour early.
10:43 a.m.: Are you okay? Text me so I know you’re all right. I promise finding new work will be my number one priority this week.
10:46 a.m.: What happened outside with Logan? He’s kinda sullen, and you and I both know that rarely happens.
10:50 a.m.: Logan asked if he should call you to apologize. Since I know you don’t want to deal with him, I said I’d pass along the message and you’d call if you wanted to talk to him. Here’s his number, in case you don’t have it: 203-555-9753.
Claire’s derisive snicker echoed off the windows of her car. As if she didn’t know Logan’s number. She didn’t even need to check her contacts. She’d memorized those digits when he’d been showing her his first iPhone back in 2008.
Sighing, she typed back:
It’s fine. I’m at my mom’s. Tell Logan
She hesitated and then deleted those last two words. Tell him what? She had nothing more to say. As much as she wished things hadn’t ended on a horrid note, she couldn’t pretend that they could pick up as friends now. Not when he’d take Peyton’s side of everything.
She hit “Send” before hauling herself out of the car, which smelled like damp laundry that had been sitting in a warm dryer too long. She peeled the seat of her wet pants away from her bottom. Nice.
“Hello!” Claire called out as she entered her folks’ house. She leaned on Rosie while shucking out of her snow boots.
“Claire?” Her mom appeared from the vicinity of the kitchen, wearing a warm smile and a pink flannel robe. Saturdays at the McKenna home usually involved lazy mornings of crossword puzzles, breakfast strata, and gossip. “I didn’t know you were stopping by.”
Within three seconds, Claire found herself in the middle of her mom’s reassuring bear hug. Ruth McKenna was a champion hugger. When Claire was young, the overt affection had been a bit suffocating and uncool, especially in front of her friends. With time, she’d come to appreciate the comfort.
Her parents had suffered two miscarriages before they had Claire, and one after, which explained why they’d always treated her like she was made of spun glass. Things got worse after the shooting. Those surgeries. The recovery. Back then, Claire could hardly blink without her mom taking her temperature and calling the doctor. If her folks could’ve locked her in the house forever, they might have. She might’ve let them, too.
That was back in the days of frequent nightmares and panic attacks, when any unexpected sound or semblance of a crowd had made Claire nauseated, sweaty, and weak.
Bit by bit, she’d assimilated back into the familiar setting of her hometown, uninterested in venturing out into the nasty world where the news rarely made anyone smile. After all, life-changing danger had visited her just thirty miles up the highway. At least her previous years spent in tennis training and competition had given her a taste of big cities like Boston and the rural beauty of Vermont. Now, her simple, safe life seemed like the smartest choice, and not only because it helped keep the nightmares and panic attacks at bay.
“I just left Steffi’s house.” She yanked her scarf off and tossed it over the back of a wingback chair, then shrugged out of her coat and threw it over the scarf. “Can I borrow some PJ bottoms and toss my pants in the dryer while I’m here?”