“What I did that night when I served Antoine Dupont was wrong. I’m sorry.” Georgia wanted to say more, to justify and demand his apology, to tell him that he’d hurt her deeply, toshow him her humiliation and sense of betrayal. But she did none of it. She simply owned her part of what had happened. Etienne was responsible for his own actions.
For a beat, then two, she waited. Etienne said nothing. She saw the hesitation on his face, and for a moment, he almost looked ashamed. But then he tossed his hair back and gave her a cool look.
“You should be sorry,” he said. “You caused us a lot of trouble.”
She waited a moment more, but he said nothing else. Instead, he met her eyes, his own a touch defiant. Etienne had never been good at admitting wrongdoing, she recalled. It was always someone else’s fault. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard him apologize for anything. She looked at her former boyfriend, the sexiest chef in Paris, and felt only pity for whatever woman came into his life next. Etienne cared about many things, but none so much as himself. His restaurant came second, and any woman would be a solid third.
For some reason, Georgia thought of Cole, of his generosity and loyalty, of the way he’d sacrificed his time to help Georgia regain her spark, how he’d cared for Justine until she passed away, how he was helping Star now. She looked at Etienne and saw the difference in the two men. Cole cared deeply for others. He sacrificed for the good of those around him. He was a man who had traveled a hard road but who knew how to love others so well. Etienne knew only how to love himself.
As Georgia stood there in front of Etienne, her thoughts raced backward through their years together. The birthdays and anniversaries, the family dinners, the late nights in bars and cafés around Paris after closing, vacations in Provence and Portugal. She expected to feel longing or loss, outrage or humiliation...something. Instead, she felt... nothing. Perhaps just a tiny bit of relief.
“Au revoir, Etienne,” she said at last, turning toward the kitchen. She did not wait for his response. She did not look back, just left him with his excuses and his pride and his enormous, unwieldy ham. She had come to do what she needed to do—to apologize and make things as right as she could before she left. Now she could go.
As she stepped out onto the streets of the Latin Quarter from the kitchen of La Pomme d’Or, Georgia felt giddy with relief. She had just closed this chapter of her life for good. She walked the narrow, winding streets, barely registering the crowded sidewalk cafés or the passersby. She had spent over a decade in Paris and now she was leaving with no idea what the next chapter of her life would hold, and yet as crazy as it seemed, she had the most beautiful sensation of liberation, of anticipation, of hope. It swelled and billowed around her in the soft night air, as light and ebullient as meringue. She was ready for whatever came next.
39
“Star?” Georgia rappedfirmly on the front door to the cottage, expecting to hear Pollen’s deep woof of greeting, but she was met with only silence. She peered through the picture window into the living room. Everything was dark inside. Star’s car was not in front of the house. She was not home.
Georgia sighed, her anticipation slowly deflating into disappointment. She had endured a long and turbulent flight across the Atlantic, a flight delay at O’Hare, and a snarl of traffic from the airport to the ferry terminal, all the while buzzing on a combination of anxiety and anticipation at the thought of seeing Star again. Now standing alone on the porch in the gathering twilight, she felt her energy wilt into a profound sense of exhaustion. All she wanted to do was crawl into Star’s guest bed and sleep forever.
She hesitated, glancing around, then cautiously opened the front door (Star never locked it), and went in. She wandered room to room, but the house was quiet and empty feeling. No Pollen, no Star, and no hint about when Star might return. Georgia wrestled her suitcases up the narrow steps and stowed them temporarily in the guest room. Star had told her she was welcome anytime, but Georgia didn’t want to assume the invitation was still open until she talked with Star. She wondered how long she’d need to wait. She yawned hugely, her jaw cracking with the effort, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the dresser and frowned. Her hair looked like a clown wig, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Perhaps she should take a showerand freshen up while she waited for Star to return home. That sounded like a sensible plan.
Looking out the bedroom window that faced the bay, she noticed a light on in the cabin. Her stomach flipped over. Cole. For a moment, she considered crossing the lawn and knocking on Cole’s door, asking if he knew where Star was and when she’d be home, but it was growing dark and she could barely keep her eyes open. Besides, she looked positively bedraggled after her transatlantic flight. She sniffed her blouse and wrinkled her nose. No way she was facing Cole looking, and smelling, like this. Better to face him in the morning when she’d talked to Star, had a solid night of sleep, and could find her mascara and deodorant.
Her stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing him again. How would he feel about her return? Right now her life consisted of so many variables and unknowns. She decided to get clean and worry about the rest tomorrow.
On impulse Georgia ran a hot bath instead of a shower, adding a generous splash of lavender bubble bath she found sitting on the side of the deep cast-iron claw-foot tub. She slid into the hot water with a muffled cry of relief, letting it soothe her tired body as a soft rain pattered gently on the roof. She sank deeper into the water, her curls splaying out on the surface like duckweed, only her nose and mouth above the mounds of lavender-scented bubbles. It was so peaceful she almost drifted off to sleep as she waited for Star’s return.
COLE
Cole was halfwaythrough Søren Kierkegaard’sFear and Tremblingwhen he glanced out the window and noticed a light onin the upstairs of Star’s cottage. That was strange. Star wasn’t due back from Lopez Island for another two days. He frowned. Had she come back early and not told him? Unlikely. She would have texted him. He sat up. It could be island teenagers up to no good. They always seemed to know which houses were not occupied and were known to occasionally amuse themselves with light breaking and entering, looking for a party spot and a liquor cabinet they could raid. Well, they were going to be sorely disappointed on both counts tonight.
Growling at the inconvenience, he pulled on his boots and threw on a wool jacket, grabbing his splitting axe on the way out the door. He didn’t have any intention of using it, but wanted it more for the impressive effect in case he needed to intimidate some wayward youth. Probably, it was just Star returning from Lopez Island earlier than expected, but just in case...
Feeling irritable, he prowled across the soggy lawn and let himself in the back door quietly, moving like a cat burglar. Nothing was amiss in the darkened downstairs. He peered out the living room window. Star’s Subaru was not parked out front. He frowned. It wasn’t Star in the house then. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. Who in the world was upstairs?
Axe in hand, he crept up the stairs, avoiding the few that squeaked. There was a light seeping under the closed bathroom door. That was odd. He knocked on the door lightly. No answer. No sound from inside either. Puzzled and growing concerned, he twisted the knob and flung open the door.
There was a mermaid floating in the bathtub. For a brief instant, he caught a glimpse of creamy skin and a nimbus of flame-colored curls amid a mound of bubbles before the naked woman in the bath shrieked loud enough to raise the dead and leaped from the water, sloshing bubbles over the side onto the floor. She grabbed the shower curtain and wrapped it aroundherself, then stood there shivering and swearing loudly and creatively in French.
“Georgia?” Cole stared at her in bewilderment. He lowered the axe slowly. She was watching him wide-eyed and sopping, clutching the shower curtain as though it were her salvation.
“You’re here,” he observed stupidly. It felt like his insides were heating up like the coils of a toaster at the sight of her. She had come back. She was standing in front of him, dripping puddles on the floor.
“Hello, Cole,” she said, struggling to look as composed as a person reasonably could while hiding naked behind a shower curtain.
His mouth twitched, and he turned his eyes up toward the ceiling, trying not to laugh. He had a feeling she would not appreciate it.
“Sorry, I saw a light on in here. Thought maybe it was island kids getting into trouble. I knocked, but you didn’t answer.” He studied a crack in the plaster of the ceiling as though it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. He tried not to think about her standing naked five feet from him. The shower curtain was probably more sheer than she realized.
“I had my ears underwater. I didn’t hear you.” She lifted her chin and stared at him reproachfully. She was starting to shiver in the chill of the bathroom.
He cleared his throat. “Uh, right. Sorry. I’ll just leave you to it then.” He slowly backed out of the room and closed the door, still holding the axe. He was gobsmacked. What in the world was she doing standing there on the other side of the door, in the flesh? The very attractive flesh. He backed up a step or two, trying to regain his bearings. Through the wood panel of the door, he heard the slosh of water as Georgia got back in the tuband a second later the unexpected sound of her muffled, hysterical laughter.
“Cole?” she called out.
“Yes?” He cautiously approached the door.
