CHAPTER 1
Lauren Scott drove up the sloped ramp from the Mukilteo Ferry onto Whidbey Island at the Clinton landing. Almost home.
It was the best kind of island weather; she soaked in the just-washed sparkle of vivid early-summer green and the cool air rushing through her open window, smelling of creosote, salt water, and damp green woods. Right now the sun was out, but she knew it might easily rain again, maybe in an hour or maybe just five miles up the highway. She took a deep breath of the cool air and felt the tension leaving her shoulders and neck, felt herself relaxing, even after so many hours on the road. This was better than any medication for stress.
It had been five years since she had driven this road to visit and eight years since she'd packed up and left for college. She smiled at the memory. She had been eager to fly and hadn't expected to ever come back to the island to live. She hadn't intentionally stayed away, but her parents had moved to Arizona soon after she left. She had gone to college at UCSD, graduated with a degree in English, and stayed in San Diego to get her master's degree. She had found a great job with a publishing agency and lived through a short-term but disastrous marriage to a guy she'd known slightly in high school. She still kicked herself for that since she'd continued paying for her stupidity long after the final papers were signed. She had concluded, during her long period of introspection after the dust settled, that the relationship had been about proximity, inexperience, and a little loneliness—and a solid dose of stupidity—rather than anything remotely resembling love.
When she reached the outskirts of Clinton, she pulled over in a pharmacy parking lot and called Jessie. Her voice mail picked up, so Lauren figured she was out with the Clydesdales or the greenhouse she managed with her brother Clark. "Hey, I'm here. I just got off the ferry, so I'll be home in about an hour. I'm tuckered out, as Mom would say, so you three had better not have any big hoopla planned. I just want to give you all a big hug, then throw a cot down on the floor and sleep for a week. See you soon."
Jessie Jones, Meg Adams, and Allie Harrison née Grover had been her best friends since they were all young enough to think boys were just noisy, dirty kids who had short hair, broke things, and never wore dresses. They'd stayed friends through arguments over toys and then boys, through puberty, acne, college, pregnancy, marriage, death, broken hearts, and broken vows. They'd survived their parents' craziness and deaths, and Lauren was convinced that they'd come out whole because of their friendship. They all had left to go to college except Allie, who had been content to commute to Skagit Valley College in nearby Mount Vernon. They'd all graduated, and now with Lauren's return, all had come back home to live. They'd met from time to time over the years that Lauren had been away, flying to meet wherever one of them lived. Jessie had gone to Washington State University in eastern Washington, and Meg to Boise State University in Idaho, where her grandparents lived. After graduating from the community college, Allie had taken over her parents' bakery, had fallen in love with a deputy sheriff who'd moved to the island after a stint in the Navy, and now had two lively, towheaded boys.
Lauren drove up another long grade and mentally catalogued the landmarks: the turn-offs on the left to Smuggler's Cove and Double Bluff; the road on the right to Langley, with its memories of county fairs with her friends; and then the drive through Freeland and Greenbank and the old vineyards at the "waist" of the island, where the sea was visible on both sides of the highway. She wondered what was planted in the vineyard now. For several years it had been loganberries, and then it had lain fallow for a long time. There had been talk at one time of the land being sold and developed. After the "Californication" of the 1980s, islanders were slow to give away space to developers, though, and she was glad nothing had come of it.
She passed Rhododendron State Park just past the Navy's practice landing field, and then, ten miles north of Greenbank, she spotted the pedestrian overpass over Highway 20 and the big banner hanging on it that welcomed her class to its ten-year reunion. She turned right off the highway onto Main Street in Coupeville, a street that ran straight down the hill to the water and the oldest part of town, which perched on the shore of Penn Cove. She could see changes as she drove. Whidbey General Hospital seemed bigger—another wing? There was a new, well-done bronze statue of a firefighter in front of the old firehouse, and the jail attached to the courthouse seemed bigger than she remembered, too. She noted with pleasure that the Victorian home where Allie and Tom lived and ran the bakery had several cars in the side parking lot, so business must be good.
She was excited at the thought of seeing her friends again. It had been almost three years since they'd all been together, when the women had all flown to San Diego to be with her. She'd called them when she'd finally filed for divorce, after finding Don in their bedroom with the realtor who'd sold them the house. The three women's presence had been comforting, especially when Don—snake that he was—tried to slide everything they jointly owned neatly into his own pocket. Meg had offered to pay for a tattoo on Lauren's ring finger: "Never Marry a Lawyer."
Forget it, she told herself. She was here, and he wasn't, and if he knew what was good for him, he'd avoid her when he came to visit his family. He'd recently started pestering her to come back to him, somehow deluding himself into thinking that it had all been a mistake and that she still loved him. Ugh. She didn't love him and certainly didn't want or need him.
She had escaped, though she knew he would eventually find her here, since this was his home, just as it was hers. She thought back to her last couple of days in San Diego and wondered why it had taken her so long to come to that point.
The night before she started for home, the phone had rung just as she let herself into her apartment. She hobbled across the room, favoring her sore knee, pissed and miserable. She checked the caller ID and groaned. "I really can't deal with you right now," she muttered as she limped on to the bathroom, letting the call go to the machine.
As she dropped her clothes on the floor, she heard his voice. "Are you there? We need to talk. Why aren't you returning my calls? I know you're not gone; I called your office. I'm coming over tonight ... we need to talk, Lauren. You know what I want, and you know I'm right."
She sighed and rested her forehead on the cool tile wall. He wasn't going to give up. She had told him no so many times and in so many ways that she was exhausted from it, but he just wouldn't quit. Tears burned behind her eyes, and anger made her grit her teeth. She would not cry! She was stronger than that, and that rat bastard did not get to decide how she'd feel!
On impulse, she picked up the phone and punched in his number. She didn't give him time to say more than hello. "Listen to me, you son of a bitch! If you set foot on my porch again, I'm not going to call the police; I'm not going to talk to you; I'm not going to play nice. I'm going to blow your goddamned head off! You get that? Stay the hell away from me!" She slammed the receiver down, hoping she'd broken his...
