“If I found Marisol, you bet I’d ask Remy to come with me to go see her. I wouldn’t think of going without Remy.” He shrugged. “For one thing, I don’t drive.”
“Can I get your number? I’d like to check in from time to time to see if you need more tikka masala.”
“Sure. I just have a landline, you know,” the older man warned. “I’m not into cell phones.”
“I respect that position.” Wendell rattled off his number and Jeremiah typed it into his phone. “I hope you enjoy the food.” He walked backward down the front path.
“I will. Thank you.”
“By the way, this is a secret delivery, Wendell. Please don’t tell Remy I brought you food because she worries about your kidneys and will kill me if she finds out.”
“True, true. I won’t tell her.”
“Just between us?”
“Yes.”
Jeremiah turned.
“Have you considered driving for Uber Eats?” the older man asked.
“I’m considering it, Wendell.”
As soon as Jeremiah reached his car, he left a message for Fred Kimley, PI. “I’d like to hire you to find a woman. Her maiden name was Marisol Soto and she’s around the age of eighty-two.”
He disconnected and sat with one wrist resting on the Shelby’s steering wheel. Wendell loved Marisol and Remy loved Wendell.
He was itching todosomething for Remy. Finding Marisol’s location was the only gift she’d accept from him right now . . . if he could pull it off anonymously.
That said, he wasn’t altruistic enough not to use the thing that Remy wanted to gain the thing that he wanted. If Remy returned to the mainland to help Wendell meet Marisol, then he’d find a way to see her.
Many miles to the east, Remy stood on the edge of the cliff in front of her cottage, overlooking the magnificent Atlantic. She pondered the windswept waves and cold sky.
For the first several days after The Fight, she’d remained hard-hearted and angry. But six days had passed now. Enough time for her indignation to cool and her defenses to soften. As Wendell had said, feelings were like storm fronts. This was the most violent storm front she’d lived through since her rape. It hadn’t passed yet and wouldn’t for a long time. But she took comfort in telling herself that itwouldpass.
Right?
She still blocked four out of five thoughts of Jeremiah out of necessity. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to function. But there were times, like now, when she gave her mind the freedom to go there. It was sweet torture. Like scratching a bug bite that itched all the time, even though you knew scratching would make things worse.
She remembered how he’d looked standing in the doorframe of her studio, watching her. She saw him leaning against her table, his face tilted down to hers and just inches away—those hooded eyes hot and tender. She saw him standing at Restoration Point with the sea as his backdrop.
The truth was this. Living with a broken heart day after day was awful. He’d entered her well-ordered life like a meteor. Bright, sparking heat. He’d become a source of joy, friendship, belonging, laughter. He’d been her person,her central person, for months.
She’d lost all that.Jeremiah’s gonewas the first thought that entered her head each morning and the last thought every night. She was aware all the time that if she’d been able to resist loving him, she’d have saved herself this. Thing was, she’d tried. She’d done her best to resist him, but resisting him had proven impossible. There’d been no resisting him then, and now that he’d left, there was no replacing him.
With the benefit of distance, she could acknowledge that Jeremiah had not said or done anything unforgiveable during their fight. He’d spoken things that had been hurtful, yes. But not unforgiveable.
And she’d made mistakes, too. She liked to picture herself as enlightened, as someone who valued each person for who they were without catering to cultural stereotypes. But shehadstereotyped him almost from the start—as a rich untrustworthy playboy—even though his actions and words had only proved the rich part. And she’d stereotyped herself as not good enough to hold him.
Also, her decision to kick him out had likely been too extreme for his perceived crimes. She was a passionate person who felt things strongly. When her buttons were pushed and she got triggered, she reacted strongly. At the time, his going had felt necessary to her survival, so she’d ordered him to leave. But that response had been harsh. And she regretted that she'd injured him.
Admittedly, there had been some flaws in how she’d ended things. But that didn’t mean that ending things had been wrong. Now that a break had been made, no matter how clumsily, it seemed best to leave things as they were and grit it out.
Here on Islehaven, she had the two things she valued most: safety and independence. Jeremiah threatened both of those pillars. Jeremiah scared her. As miserable as she was, she suspected that she’d done the right thing when she’d picked safety and independence over him. And now she only wished those things were bringing her deep satisfaction. That’s what she was owed after all she’d sacrificed. And one day, shewouldfeel deep satisfaction in safety and independence again, surely.
But right now?
Right now, this life she’d protected from Jeremiah felt completely hollow without him in it.
