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“No! That’s the funny thing,” Elise said. “Between Mom and I, I was always the organized one. I liked structure. I liked things to be just-so. Unlike Mom, I got married early, had babies early, got a head-start on my career. I felt like if I could just check off all these boxes, then I would be complete. But here I am, in the middle of nowhere...”
Wayne clucked his tongue. “Everywhere is the middle of nowhere, if you think about it.”
Elise laughed. “That sounds like a line I might put in a script.”
“You can have it if you dedicate the film to me,” Wayne said.
Again, he gave her that ridiculous smile.
It was the kind of smile that made her feel punched through the stomach.
“I barely know you, you know? But you’re the only person on this island I trust,” Elise said.
“And you really shouldn’t trust me,” Wayne said. “I could be working on the inside.”
“You’re in cahoots with Alex?” Elise asked. She swept a strand of hair behind her ear and grinned.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I’m a double agent,” Wayne said.
Elise thought, if she’d written this script, this might have been the point when a more confident, more alive woman would have stepped toward Wayne, placed her hands on his cheeks, and kiss him with reckless abandon.
As it stood, she wasn’t that kind of woman.
She barely knew him.
And she hadn’t kissed anyone since way before her divorce.
Whenhadshe last kissed someone? She suddenly wanted to know. Had Sean planted a brief one on her lips as he’d rushed out to work one morning? Could that even be counted as a kiss?
“Did I lose you?” Wayne asked.
Elise blinked several times, forcing herself back to reality. At that moment, her eyes turned toward the grounds of the Grand Hotel, where she spotted a little gathering. To her surprise, she recognized them.
“Oh my gosh!” Elise pressed the reins of her horse in Wayne’s hands and rushed toward the gathering. When she reached the outskirts of it, she made eye contact with the woman from the previous day—the owner of the dress shop, who’d convinced her to buy that gorgeous green dress.
The woman recognized her immediately and grinned. Her eyes were glorious, big and brown, and her hair had been styled beautifully, all curly and electric.
“Look at you!” the woman said.
A few steps away from her stood Anna, the bride from the previous day’s shopping trip, along with several of the other women Elise had spotted in the shop. Anna was every bit the beautiful bride Elise had known she would be. She wore a high-collared lacey wedding dress, the color of ivory, and a pair of earrings she’d clearly picked out from the woman’s shop dangled from her ears. Anna waved, bug-eyed with happiness, toward Elise, before turning back toward one of her friends to say something Elise couldn’t hear.
“What are you doing down here?” the shop owner asked.
“I was just passing by on horseback,” Elise said.
“Well, we were headed down toward the water for a little bit of a party before the wedding itself,” the woman said. “We’re a small but rowdy crowd.” She furrowed her brow, then said, “You’re alone, aren’t you? Why don’t you stay awhile? Hey, Roger? Pour this woman a glass of champagne.”
Elise wanted to protest. After all, she hardly knew these people, and she wasn’t the kind of woman to just barge into someone’s party.
“Oh, you don’t have to invite me,” Elise said. “Really. Like I said, I was just passing by, and I wanted to thank you again for the dress. I wore it last night and, I have to admit, it was a night I’ll never forget.”
“Oh! That sounds suspicious,” the woman said. “I want to hear more. But only if you stick around.”
Elise cast her eyes back toward the beach. She couldn’t quite catch sight of Wayne, who hovered between the two horses.
“What was your name again?” Elise asked the woman, conscious that she’d never asked for it.
“Oh! I’m so sorry. My name is Tracey,” Tracey said.
