The Great Escape

“The new carousel labels sealed the deal,” Bree said. “She loves them. Said they give all the products a whimsical elegance. But I still didn’t expect such a big order.”

“She has good taste.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t ordered. Well, I do know, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.” She nodded again as Lucy held up an unopened bag of carrots. “I can’t abide the idea of being financially dependent on Mike. Been there, done that, not doing it again.”

“Poor Mike. All he wants is to take care of you, and all you want is to take care of yourself. You’re going to have to marry him soon.”

“I know. But the thing about Mike Moody …” A dreamy smile came over her. “He’s steadfast. That man is not going anywhere.”

Lucy swallowed her pain. “Other than in and out of your bedroom window every night.”

Bree actually blushed. “I told you about that in confidence.”

“The same way you told me what a lusty lover he is. Something I could have gone to my grave not knowing.”

Bree paid no attention to Lucy’s objections. “I really believed Scott when he said I was the one with the problem, but now all I feel is pity for his poor little nineteen-year-old.” The dreamy smile was back. “Who would have thought a straitlaced, religious guy like Mike could be so—”

“Lusty,” Lucy said, cutting her off.

Bree’s face clouded. “If Toby catches us …”

“Which he’s bound to do sooner or later.” Lucy added a block of Parmesan cheese and—resisting the urge to shatter it against the wall—an unopened jar of Panda’s orange marmalade.

“Mike’s getting more nervous about sneaking around. He actually threatened to withdraw his, uhm, services … until I agree to set a date. Blackmail. Can you imagine?”

Lucy closed the refrigerator door. “What’s holding you back, Bree? Really?”

“I’m just so happy.” She swung her legs, thought it over. “I know I have to get over my aversion to marriage, and I will. Just not yet.” She slid off the counter. “You’ll come back to the island to see us, won’t you?”

Lucy never wanted to come back to the island again. “Sure,” she said. “Now let’s get this stuff over to the cottage. And no long-drawn-out good-byes, okay?”

“Absolutely not.”

But they both knew it wouldn’t be that easy to hold back tears. And it wasn’t.

EVENTUALLY PANDA STOPPED COUGHING AND his energy began to return, but he felt as if he had a limb missing. His reflexes were no longer sharp—not bad enough for anyone else to notice, but he knew. At the shooting range, his aim wasn’t as true, and if he went for a run, he lost his rhythm for no reason. He knocked over his coffee mug, dropped his car keys.

He read Lucy’s interview with the Washington Post. No mention of him, and why should there be? But he didn’t like the way her face was all over the news again.

He noticed a couple threads of gray in his hair. As if that weren’t depressing enough, his job wasn’t going well. The actress who played the secondary lead in the film had started hitting on him and wasn’t taking no for an answer. She was out-of-this-world beautiful, with a body that almost rivaled Dr. Kristi’s, and tumbling in bed with a new female would be the best way to wipe out memories of the last one, but he couldn’t even think about it. He told her he was in love with someone else.

That night he got drunk for the first time in years. He awoke in a panic. Despite all his care, the ghosts he’d been able to keep at bay for so long were coming back. He called the only person he could think of who might be able to help.

“Kristi, it’s me …”

LUCY FOUND AN APARTMENT AND a job in Boston while Nealy’s press secretary dodged an avalanche of calls from the media. Ms. Jorik is beginning a new job soon and too busy for additional interviews. Lucy intended to stay too busy until her first book tour.

On her last night at home in Virginia, she sat with her parents on the patio of the estate where she’d grown up. Nealy wore one of Lucy’s old college sweatshirts to keep warm but still managed to look patrician as she sipped from a mug of hot tea, her normally neat honey-brown hair rumpled from the early October breeze.

Her mother’s fair complexion and Mayflower lineage provided a marked contrast to her father’s darker good looks and steel-town toughness. Mat put a log on the fire in the new fire pit. “We took advantage of you,” he said bluntly.

Nealy cuddled her warm tea mug. “It happened so gradually, and you were always so cheerful about stepping in, that we were oblivious. Reading what you wrote … It was clearheaded and heart-wrenching.”

“I’m glad you’re going to keep writing,” her father said. “You know I’ll help however I can.”

“Thanks,” Lucy replied. “I’m going to take you up on that.”

Out of nowhere, her mother hit Lucy with one of the roundhouse punches that were her political specialty. “Are you ready to tell us about him?”

Lucy tightened her grip on her wineglass. “Who?”