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Luisa spent eleven days with me at Seahorse, and now that she was gone, my house felt painfully quiet, painfully joyless.
Yes, she’d been recovering from being kidnapped and subsequently spending a week locked in a shipping container, facing horrors previously unimaginable to her. She’d struggled with self-doubt, as if she were somehow to blame for her own abduction; nightmares plagued her every night; and during the day, panic attacks came out of seemingly nowhere.
However, mixed in with the bad days, there had been good ones. Through it all, Luisa’s bravery amazed me. While the therapist I’d engaged to assist with her recovery shared little to nothing with me, what she did say was that Luisa’s progress astounded even her.
I recognized I was feeling pathetically sorry for myself, but I couldn’t help it. I ached with missing her, and each time I closed my eyes and saw her smiling face gazing back at me, I wanted to throttle my insensitive brother.
“Good morning,” Luisa said when she answered my daily call.
“Good morning to you. How’s the weather inland?” It was the way we began each of our first conversations of the day for the last eight—since she’d left Seahorse.
“Sunny and beautiful. What’s it like at the beach?”
“Cloudy, overcast, and downright miserable,” I said. However, the misery resided more within me than with the weather. “What do you feel like doing today?”
“Jada is coming over for breakfast, then Dr. Benedict.”
“I see. I suppose, then, I should attempt to get some work done.”
“Can you visit this afternoon?”
“It would be my pleasure. Don’t forget another episode of our duke and his diamond airs this evening. Shall I bring dinner along with me?”
“Sorcha will not be happy if you do. As for me, I’d gladly skip a meal.”
“She’d notice and feed you twice as much tomorrow,” I teased.
“You’re right. It’s her life’s ambition to make me fat.”
“It eases the pain of missing you, knowing she and Laird are taking such good care of you.”
“I doubt you miss me, Press. You see me every day. If you were honest, you’d admit you’re getting sick of me.”
“I never would. Even after a lifetime of daily visits.”
Even without being able to see her, I knew her cheeks were flushed and she was smiling.
I braced myself for the question that would inevitably come, wishing she would stop asking.
“Um, how’s Beau? Are he and Daphne still at Seahorse?”
“They are not. They left this morning for Napa.”
“Oh…Well, you must be glad to have the place to yourself.”
“Not at all. In fact, if you wanted to come back—”
“Hang on, I think Jada just pulled in.”
“You go ahead and greet her. I’ll see you this afternoon.”
“Thanks, Press,” she said right before I heard the chimes of the call ending.
8
LUISA
“Were you talking to Press?” Jada asked when I opened the front door of the cottage where my mom and I had spent the last few nights.
