Cherie sucked in her breath, then let out a sigh of relief. When she’d asked Kayana whether she could work at the café, there was no guarantee she would agree. “Thanks, Kayana.”
“There’s no need to thank me. I would like to thank you because the weeks I don’t cook, I can stay home and read instead of coming in and cleaning up to prepare for the next day.”
“Have you thought about what books or genre we’re going to read for our discussions?”
“No, but we can talk about that tomorrow after we close. And thanks again for the gift.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Cherie left the restaurant to drive to Shelby to look for area rugs and throw pillows.
She didn’t want to admit to Kayana that her obsession with decorating the house was her way of compensating for wanting and never owning a dollhouse, like some other young girls she’d known. There had been a time when some of the girls in her neighborhood were getting dollhouses for Christmas or their birthdays. When she’d asked Edwina for one for her eighth birthday, her mother claimed she did not have the money for the one she’d selected; it was like a mansion, with multiple rooms and floors. Then Edwina suggested buying a kit to build one out of balsa wood, or Cherie could wait until she’d saved enough money to buy the one she wanted. Years went by, and her mother hadn’t saved or had enough to buy the only thing Cherie had ever asked her for. It had become one more thing she’d added to the list of things she’d resented when it came to her mother, because Edwina always found money for her Friday-night card games. Sometimes she would win, but most times she came home without a penny. This is when she would disappear for hours, and when she returned, it was with enough money to last her until she received her monthly check from social services.
Cherie’s new home had become her adult dollhouse, with multiple rooms and floors for her to decorate as she saw fit. However, the house on Coates Island wasn’t a fantasy; it was real, and Cherie was more than content to live in it alone. Marrying or becoming a mother again was no longer a priority.
Leah revealing the most intimate details of her thirty-year marriage was a wakeup call for Cherie, and she learned that not all that glitters is gold. When she’d first met the headmistress of the private school for girls, and seen the size of the diamonds in Leah’s ears and on her wedding band, her resentment for Leah ran deep because she had what Cherie had always wanted: to become the wife of a wealthy man.
Tapping a button on the steering wheel, she tuned the radio to a station featuring show tunes, and she sang along as she drove slowly over the bridge to the mainland. In a couple of days, she would celebrate her first month on Coates Island; she had familiarized herself with most of the small shops, but it was in Shelby, the county seat, where Cherie discovered there were fast-food restaurants, as well as chain and big-box stores.
She drove off the bridge and decelerated. There were no streetlights or stop signs but a few posted speed limits, and she forced herself not to drive more than twenty miles per hour or risk being pulled over, ticketed, and mandated to appear in traffic court. Cherie slowed even more when she spied the deputy who had come into the Seaside Café to pick up an order the day she’d closed on the house. He was talking to a young woman who appeared totally enthralled with what he was saying. Then, without warning, he turned to look her way, and Cherie quickly averted her head as she continued driving. She peered up at the rearview mirror and saw that he was staring in her direction.
“I am not speeding,” she said under her breath. And she had no intention of driving more than the speed limit until she turned onto the county road leading to Shelby.
* * *
Living on the island during the off-season was very different; there were no or very few vacationers. Now there was the possibility that she would run into the same people over and over, and she was certain that, once she began working at the Seaside Café, she would become more than familiar with the restaurant’s regulars.
She made it to Shelby, pulled into a space in the shoppers’ parking lot, and inserted enough money in the meter for the two-hour limit. Cherie was able to select the stools for the breakfast bar and flat-screens for the two guest bedrooms and the home office, and arranged for their delivery; she loaded throw pillows, bed dressings, and area rugs into the cargo area of the SUV.
It wasn’t until she’d returned home with her purchases that she heard her inner voice telling her she was becoming a shopaholic. That the house had become an obsession that had begun years before and was now a fixation. And Cherie didn’t need a therapist to tell her that she’d equated owning property with being better than those with whom she’d grown up. For her, not having to pay rent in a low-income neighborhood meant that she’d made it. That she was entitled to all she’d acquired since graduating from an elite prep school and a prestigious Ivy League college with honors. However, she knew that owning a home on Coates Island would never have been possible if she’d hadn’t slept with a wealthy man and subsequently sold her son to him.
She sat on the floor in the family room, her purchases strewn around her, and knew a time of reckoning had come for Cherie Renee Thompson. All the material goods, the stack of bonds in a safe deposit box, and the priceless baubles she’d been given—and couldn’t wear in public and had been forced to sell—did not bring her the emotional contentment she’d been chasing all her life.
She lost track of time as she sat, eyes closed, the back of her head resting against the seat cushion, and replayed her life in her mind. She silently applauded herself for her accomplishments, and chastised herself for scheming, manipulating, and blackmailing a man who was just as obsessed with her as she had been with him. But, in the end, the user became used. Weylin had turned the tables on her when he used his clout to recommend her brothers for military academies and then to get the baby his wife was unable to give him.
When she finally got up off the floor, she knew she wasn’t the same Cherie who had woken up earlier that morning. Like Leah Kent, she had been given a second chance at life. Leah had left a historic mansion in Richmond, Virginia, to start over as a baker in a small café off the coast of North Carolina, while she had left an exclusive gated Connecticut community to come to Coates Island to work part-time in the café while studying to become a classroom teacher.
Falling in love, marrying, and starting a family were no longer priorities. Now her sole focus was to teach young children.
* * *
Cherie woke to the sound of tapping. She sat up, looked around the room, and then slumped back to the mound of pillows cradling her shoulders. There was a sliver of light coming through the accordion shutters at the French doors, and she realized that the tapping against the glass was sleet.
She raised her arms above her head, moaning softly as she rolled her head from side to side. Lying in the California-king bed, the firm mattress cradling her body, she chided herself for agreeing to start work at the Seaside Café later that afternoon when she wanted to spend the day in bed reading. But that couldn’t happen until Sunday, when the restaurant didn’t open for business.
The Carpenters song “Rainy Days and Mondays” came to mind. But unlike in the iconic song, it wasn’t Monday, and Cherie wasn’t feeling down. In fact, her life was perfect. She was living in her forever home. Reaching for her cell phone, she noted the time and decided that if she didn’t get out of bed, she would go back to sleep and then have to rush to make it to the restaurant for her first day of work.
* * *
The wind was blowing the driving rain sideways, and the umbrella did little to protect her when she got out of the Honda and walked to the front of the Seaside Café. Holding the umbrella lower, she didn’t see the figure coming toward her until it was too late; she struggled to keep her balance and would’ve fallen if a hand hadn’t caught her upper arm.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“There’s no need to apologize.”
Cherie shifted the umbrella to see who belonged to the deep soothing voice. With wide eyes, she stared up at a smiling Reese Matthews. He wasn’t in uniform; he had on a poncho with a US Army insignia and matching baseball cap. Seeing him this close made her aware that the deputy was an extremely attractive man. It was no wonder the woman she saw him with the day before was grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“I wasn’t looking where I was going, Deputy Matthews.”
Black silky eyebrows in a mahogany-brown face lifted slightly. “You know my name?”
