“I just want her to care the way she used to,” Sophie said.
“She does care,” Landon said, realizing as he said it that it was the truest thing he knew.“But I think she’s emotionally exhausted.”
Sophie pressed her lips together for a long time.“You knew her really well, didn’t you?”
Landon felt a beam of pride.“She was my best friend on the planet.”
And then Sophie surprised him with a big, toothy smile.“She was much more than that for you, wasn’t she?”
Landon shouldn’t have been shocked at the wild ability of young people to perceive what was going on both in their heads and in the past.But as ever, when either Mallory or Isaac or now Sophie saw right through him, he felt exposed and raw.He laughed and sipped his coffee.“You’re going to be a really good journalist one day,” he told her.
Sophie flipped her hair back.“I already am,” she joked, then joined him in laughter.In Landon’s ears, it sounded just as it had when he’d cracked up with her mother.He wondered what Celia would say if she saw him with her daughter like this.He had a hunch that none of this story had been a part of Celia’s plan for her life.His plan—to raise his children with his wife in Bluebell Cove—had been foiled as well.Cancer had had its way with them.Aging took no survivors.Love was never enough.
ChapterThirteen
Autumn and Winter of 2000
It wasn’t that Celia planned to loosen her grip at the Bluebell Cove Inn.It was just that her duties at the newspaper and her super-secret relationship with Hanson Smith kept her away from the front desk and out of the way of her father’s prying eyes, so much so that she went many days without checking in a guest or cleaning the office or tending to her unofficial tasks.A part of her knew that Ivy had picked up the slack, that she spent many hours after school operating the front desk and helping their father.But Celia was too angry with her father to care that she’d dropped the ball.She had one foot out the door of her Bluebell Cove life already.Her other foot felt planted in the world of Hanson Smith—a world of provocative luxuries, a world of sensational restaurants and decadent desserts and secret kisses on the cove.
Celia wasn’t always clear on why she and Hanson kept their romance a secret.At school, they ignored each other, save for passing glances and the occasional note slipped into one another’s lockers.This was both exhilarating and confusing.It made Celia feel as though she were living two different lives.
Landon seemed none the wiser and often made fun of Hanson Smith, his football playing, and his famously wealthy family.Based on his not-so-subtle remarks, Landon was sure that Hanson had a head of bricks.Celia knew better.She felt his empathy, his emotionality.They had wonderful conversations about their future, about how disappointed they were in their parents and how they didn’t want to turn out like them.Hanson confessed that he didn’t think his mother and father were in love any longer, and Celia told him that she’d had suspicions about her own parents’ love or lack thereof before her mother’s death.
“I can’t remember them ever saying a kind word to each other,” she said late one night at the cove.They were wrapped in blankets, gazing at the moon's reflection on the water.Snow spat out of flaky clouds over the woods.“I know I was ten when she died, and maybe I don’t remember it correctly.But that isn’t the kind of relationship I ever want to be in.”
Hanson kissed her cheek and breathed into her ear.“I’ll never talk to you like that.I’ll always tell you how much I…” But he trailed off, as though the idea of telling her that he loved her felt too heavy.Celia sympathized.Love felt like a crazy sensation, one that couldn’t be shoved into so simple a word.
And it wasn’t like she thought she and Hanson would make it past high school.
Well, she thought about the idea of making it in life together, of building a future, a family.She thought about it a lot.But she still had her sights set on Georgetown.And when, in late November, she received her letter of acceptance from Georgetown University, she kept the news a secret from both Hanson and Landon, marveling that she could be in so many different minds at once.
I’m falling for Hanson.I’ll miss Landon deep in my bones when I go.
But was any one person worth giving up on her dreams?
But as their relationship deepened and trust took root, Celia still couldn’t shake something Hanson had once said about his father’s business and its questionable practices.She hadn’t pressed him for details—not yet—but curiosity nagged at her, persistent and unsettling.Worse, the thought lingered that this very thread, once pulled, might be the story that launched her true journalistic career.Because their relationship was a secret, she hadn’t yet been invited to meet Hanson’s parents.If she ever did, would she be able to sense how sinister his father was outright?She wondered if she could read him like a book, the way you could read villains in movies.What would stop her from writing an article about him that would reveal his shady practices?Wasn’t that the ethical thing to do?Reveal secrets and unleash the truth?
Or would an article like that destroy her relationship with Hanson immediately?
She guessed it would.Her heart thudded with the idea of playing with fire.
But with or without her article about Hanson’s father, things at the newspaper were endlessly exciting.Despite her initial fears, Celia took to the editor position easily and soon paraded out one issue after another, pushing her team of journalists to dig into school- and Bluebell Cove-related stories in a way that made them feel united and invigorated.She spent hours with Landon in the newspaper offices, editing articles and fine-tuning the layout of each page.As Christmas approached, Hamilton, the teacher who oversaw their operations, told her privately that he saw great things in her future.He’d already sent a letter of recommendation to the Georgetown University newspaper program, telling them to prepare themselves.On her walk home after that talk, Celia wept until tears froze to her face.
It was that very evening that Hanson crept around the side of her house and beckoned for her to approach.In all the months since their affair had begun, Celia hadn’t met him near her place, not once, and the sight of him there terrified her.She thought for sure he’d come to end it.
A part of her fought to run directly into the Bluebell Cove Inn and hide at the front desk, burrowing herself in the tasks she’d once done without question.But she felt drawn to him like a magnet, following him deeper into the woods beside their place.
“What’s going on?”she asked him, her voice quavering.“Are you all right?”
Hanson turned to look at her.Their breath steamed between their faces.
“I came to invite you,” he said suddenly.“I want you to come to Christmas dinner at my parents’ place.”
Celia was caught off guard, so much so that she nearly tumbled into a moss-covered hole.“You do?”She smiled gently.
Hanson put his hand on her cheek and gazed into her eyes.She felt the love beaming from his heart and pulsating through his fingers.“Saturday night at seven,” he said.“Wear that pretty green dress.You know the one.”With that, he kissed the tip of her nose and sauntered back through the trees, headed toward his parents’ place.Celia remained between the trees, her eyes smarting, her smile so enormous that it tore at her cheeks.Hanson Smith had decided to tell his parents about her.Hanson Smith had decided to take their relationship to the next level.She imagined telling Ivy about her handsome football-playing boyfriend and the jealousy echoing from her sister’s eyes.She imagined Hanson playing football at Georgetown next year, throwing her onto his shoulders at the tail-end of a game.
Could such fabulous things be hers?
