She was the one who was trying to make that flare of attraction—that instant of connection, that moment when she’d felt vibrantly, achingly alive—into something more, projecting her own yearnings onto him.See you. Seeyou. She wanted that so desperately, to be seen. Not through a television screen or the halo of celebrity, but seen for herself.
But he hadn’t even dropped by the bakery this afternoon, when he knew she would be there.
Fine. She didn’t need Jack kissing her. She didn’t want him judging her. She didn’t need a guy to make her feel inadequate. She felt bad enough all by herself.
She pressed her forehead to the screen, the metal mesh biting into her skin.
She’d been stuck on this book for months, unable to let her words or feelings out, afraid of revealing what a hot mess she was inside. Editing her emotions, fudging the truth, until all her words were empty.Hostage Girl: My Life After Crisiswas a joke. Hostage Girl was a fraud.
She wasn’t anyone special. How could she expect to help or inspire anybody when she couldn’t help herself?
She took a shaky breath. Held it.
Okay, that had just used up her entire quota of negative self-judgment for the day. She needed to grow a thicker skin. Or a spine. Positive thoughts, she reminded herself.
Outside her window, over the tops of the trees, the sea shimmered like a promise out of reach. The sun lay down a trail of fire across the water. Lauren blinked hard and climbed to her feet, looking around for her laptop.
It wasn’t there.
Crap. She looked again, on the bed, under the bed, by the dresser. She’d had it with her this morning at the bakery. And then... Had she put it under the counter while she worked? Or left it charging on the corner table? She couldn’t remember. And now she’d forgotten it.
Unless... The thought bloomed inside her, the tight bands easing around her chest.Unless someone stole it.
The relief was shameful.
No more laptop. No more pressure to find the words to put her soul on paper. Nothing she could do about it.
Anyway, her laptop was there, at the bakery. It had to be there, in one place or another. And even if she lost her computer, her work was backed up on the cloud.Like some giant black thundercloud looming on the horizon. Threatening. Inescapable.
She shook the image away. She wasn’t trying to escape. She wasn’t running from her responsibilities or her deadline or anything else.
However much she might want to.
She glanced again out the window to where the sky was turning pink and gold.Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Plenty of time to walk to the bakery and back before dark. Of course, Jane’s would be closed by now. But Lauren had a key.Just in case, Jane had said, pressing it into her hand a week ago, and even though Lauren couldn’t see why she would need one—she was never there alone—it felt so good to be trusted that she’d taken the key anyway.Just in case.
At least retrieving her laptop would be doing something. Not sitting alone in her room or hanging around the guest parlor, intruding on the vacationing couples, hoping Meg or somebody—not Jack, screw Jack—would notice and take pity on her.
She closed the window and locked her door before slipping downstairs and outside into the gilded summer light.
Opening the garden gate, she felt a touch along her spine like the finger of her mother’s fears. She hesitated, looking up and down the empty road. Maybe she should call Jane or Meg. Or at least let Tess know where she was going. But that was anxiety talking. This was Dare Island. Nothing was going to happen to her here. Unless she got run over by a random cyclist.
Anyway, the walk was good exercise, past Fletchers’ Quay and along the harbor before turning inland through more residential streets. Lights blinked on in windows as she passed. A dog barked and was hushed. A line of pelicans glided over the rooftops, black against the radiant sky, and her heart lifted.
She turned into Jane’s drive.
It was... darker under the trees. Chairs loomed out of the shadows. Lauren hurried up the wooden steps, clutching her shiny new key. A security light—new since the vandalism?—threw the spindles of the porch into sharp relief.
Through the front windows, she could make out the silvery glow of the refrigerated cases, a faint spill of light from the kitchen. No laptop in sight.
Swallowing, Lauren unlocked the dead bolt and nudged open the door.
Beep beep beep. A soft, warning sound.
Startled, she looked around. Red lights on the coffee machines. RedEXITsigns above the doors. Nothing unusual, nothing alarming. She ducked behind the counter.There. Her breath whooshed out. Her laptop was there, safely tucked away on a ledge under the register.
She grabbed it.
Beep beep beepfrom the kitchen. Had Jane left an oven on? A timer?
