No movement.
Nothing.
I do not like being outside any door that separates me from Kara Stone.
I like it even less when the person trying to reach through that door may already know where to push.
Chapter 16
Kara
The bedroom at Dune Garden Inn is too pretty for a nervous breakdown. That is my first thought, which is absurd, but there it is. White quilt. Pale green walls. A framed watercolor of marsh grass above the bed. A little lamp shaped like a heron standing on one ridiculous metal leg. Someone worked very hard to make this room feel peaceful, and I resent every inch of it because none of it knows what to do with me.
I stand beside the bed with my arms wrapped around my middle and stare at nothing.
Vanessa would never hurt me. The thought comes fast — automatic like a hand reaching for a familiar railing in the dark. Then Cole’s voice follows it.
Or because she knew you were telling the truth.
“No,” I whisper.
I don't want to entertain his idea. I want the old truth back. The simple one. The one where Vanessa is loud and loving and dramatic. The one where she worries too much because she cares too much. The one where she found me a beach cottage because I was scared, not because she wanted to know exactly where I would be. I sit on the edge of the bed, then immediately stand again because sitting feels too much like surrender.
Culinary school comes back in fragments I have not touched in years.
The sugar that should have been salt.
The missing page from my recipe binder before finals.
The oven temperature that no one admitted changing.
The instructor’s frown when my pastry collapsed.
Whispers in the hall.
Maybe Kara’s not as good under pressure as everyone thought.
Maybe the attention got to her.
Maybe she cut corners.
And Vanessa, always Vanessa, appearing after the worst moments with coffee, outrage, and arms wide enough to hide in.
I believed you, babe. I always believed you.
She had. That was the point. Wasn’t it?
A sound breaks out of me, small and sharp, and I clamp a hand over my mouth before it can become anything larger. I will not cry over a suspicion. I will not let amaybetear apart years of friendship.
A knock comes at the bedroom door.
“Kara?”
Cole’s voice is quiet, but urgent. I hate that I want to open the door. But I do. He stands on the other side with one hand braced against the frame, not crowding the threshold. He has taken off his sunglasses, and without them, his eyes look more tired than I expected. More human.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
My chest squeezes. “For what?”
