Chapter Thirty-Seven
Beau seemed to know Blaise was not her usual self this morning. He stayed on the path, sniffed only a few things, and did his business without having to try out a hundred spots before finding the right one.
She was preoccupied. She had the future on her mind.
Yesterday, she’d written and rewritten until the words in front of her had stopped making sense. Then she’d sent the pages off to Cece, who’d returned the document an hour later with all kinds of notes and plenty of complimentary comments.
In short, Blaise had some grammatical issues to work on, but Cece hadravedabout the chapter.
For that, Blaise was grateful. It had been hard, gut-wrenching, even, to put such a terrible experience on the page like that. To expose herself knowing it would be out there for the entire world to see. Cece said she’d even cried.Cece!The woman who sometimes seemed like she was made of steel.
Cece had given her a lot of great ideas and wise thoughts. Blaise had worked on them until almost eight o’clock, at which point she’d decided she couldn’t make the chapter any better.She’d taken a hot bath, drank a cold glass of wine, and gone to bed to read, hoping her own words would go quiet in her head.
They hadn’t.
Not really.
Now, as the morning sun warmed her shoulders through the fabric of her T-shirt, she was still thinking about them. She followed Beau down the familiar sidewalks, only partially paying attention. The Gulf breeze ruffled her hair, but even that pleasant sensation couldn’t blow away the worry in her chest.
Because now came thehardpart.
If she went forward with this book idea, the world was going to discover how she’d been scammed out of her money. Every last horrifying detail. How she’d trusted the wrong person. How she’d ignored her instincts. How she’d lost almost everything.
What would people think? Would they pity her? Judge her? Call her naïve? Worse, would she become the punchline of some joke about how it was a good thing she’d had her looks to rely on?
Beau glanced back at her as if sensing her spiraling thoughts. His floppy ears perked, and Blaise managed a thin smile. “I’m fine,” she told him softly. “Just thinking too much.”
She would have to truly stop caring about strangers’ opinions—at least as much as that was possible. What really knotted her stomach was imagining how Evan would react.
Her son prided himself on logic, on caution, on always doing the sensible thing. He’d been patient with her after the scam. Supportive, even. But she’d seen the disappointment in his eyes. The fear that she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. The worry that someday she might need to lean too heavily on him and his wife.
He still looked at her like she wasn’t as capable as he’d once thought. As though losing his father and her money had left her disabled in some way.
What if he read her memoir and had to deal with the whole world knowing the truth about his mother? What then?
She stopped as Beau sniffed a clump of grass. She could make a pretty good guess. And it wasn’t him being happy.
Beau tugged the leash gently, eager to move on, and Blaise exhaled, doing her best to drop the tension from her shoulders just a little.
The community was waking up around them, the sky brightening, gulls crying. Pretty soon she was going to be in front of her computer again, ready to send that letter and first chapter.
Maybe that was the point of all of this. Learning to deal with the fear, the shame, the uncertainty. Maybe doing this would show Evan she was capable of taking care of herself. Wasn’t telling the truth its own kind of healing?
And maybe Evan needed to see not just where she’d fallen, but how she’d risen. There’d be no denying she was standing on her own two feet if she made some decent money from this. Money was the one thing Evan definitely understood.
Blaise inhaled deeply, the salt air steadying her. This wasn’t going to be easy, but she could do it. She already had Cece and Maude in her corner. She knew Essie and Paige would be there for her, too.
And Brick. She smiled thinking about him. She’d told him about her book idea the night they’d gone to dinner at the fish camp. He’d given her that steady nod and said it sounded like a good idea.
“All right, Beau,” she whispered. “Let’s finish this walk. I’ve got work to do.”
Beau wagged his tail, and together they continued toward home and her laptop, and whatever courage the next step demanded.
By the time Blaise and Beau reached her front door, the sun was climbing higher and the community felt fully awake. Shegave Beau his breakfast, then headed straight for the shower. The hot water loosened her stiff shoulders but didn’t wash away the fluttery nerves building in her stomach.
Today, when she sent that letter and that chapter out, her terrible truth would be available for public consumption.
She wrapped herself in her robe and padded barefoot to the small kitchen table where her laptop waited. The sight of it made her breath catch. It felt like staring over a cliff she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to jump from.
