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“Yes, that’s it.”
“You’re a dick.” I sit back in my chair and open my magazine, roughly turning the pages, not reading the words, but staring at the pages briefly. Then I slam it shut and face her startled face again. “Is this why you’re playing cop again?”
“What?”
“Running off around town telling yourself your dad’s been murdered so you have something to do? A mystery to solve? Something to focus on instead of you and James and the…”
Her lip quivers. “Amber’s inherited it all. You don’t think that’s suspicious? And Dad’s friend, Cartwright. He washed up on the beach. Not suspicious?”
Okay, very suspicious. But... “You’re not a cop anymore, Beau.”
She withdraws, looking stung. “I know, Rose. Everyone keeps reminding me.” She removes her toes from the lamp and gets up, walking off toward the changing rooms, and I look down at the young girl who’s tapping my toenail to check it’s dry.
“You have a massage,” I call, desperate, jumping up and going after her, feeling everyone watching us. I push into the changing rooms and find Beau getting her Converses on. “Beau, come on,” I beg, not because I’ve been told to keep her busy, but because I hate this. Us fighting. I hate it.
“I’m okay,” she assures me, swinging a shirt on over her tank and fastening one button.
“You are not okay,” I say through my teeth as she bends and turns up the bottom of her frayed jeans. She can’t leave. I’ll never forgive myself if something happens. “Beau.” I grab her arm as she tries to pass me, and she freezes. “You’ll never know if you can have a baby if you don’t allow your body to tell you.”
Biting her lip, she stares at the floor, the silence roaring. Short of tackling her and tying her up, I’m fucked. “James doesn’t want one, so this is a pointless conversation.”
“He doesn’t?”
She looks back. “No, he doesn’t, so actually this is all for the best, right?”
I laugh. Anyone who has to end a confident statement with aright?is either not confident at all, or totally full of shit. Beau is both. “Right.” I cannot believe what I’m hearing. “You’re maddening.” I retie my robe, with a lack of anything else to do with my hands other than strangle my best friend, and I can’t do that because I fucking love her. Everyone in this family knows James was mad for a baby. Everyone knows it broke him. Everyone knows he’d do anything to help Beau stay in the light. He was simply worried about her. “So fucking maddening,” I mutter, wrenching on the tie. I suddenly don’t feel like being pampered anymore. “So where are you going now?” I ask, my voice strong. She knows I can’t stop her. “To chase around in circles some more? Put yourself in danger? Leave us all here worrying about whether we might see you alive again?” I disregard the wideness of her eyes. The hurt on her face. Or I try. Goddammit, guilt flares within, and I quickly leave the changing rooms before Beau detects it. She needs to be told.
I close the door and growl, catching Esther’s questioning eye. I shake my head and have a quiet, stern word with myself. I walked into this place filled with excitement. A girlie day. It didn’t matter that my husband engineered it to help his cause. It was something normal in a world where we can’t do normal. I knew I wasn’t getting Beau here for a pedicure or massage unless I made my cause believable. So I told her Danny was buying me a business and I needed help on the interior design. It escalated from there. I listened to Pearl tell me how she studied hairdressing at college. And Anya, apparently, is a super talented nail artist. It was like the fates were talking to me. Hope. I had hope. It’s probably going to cost my husband a few million, but . . . we needsomething.
I let my head rest back on the door, half expecting it to swing open at any moment. But a few minutes later, I’m still standing here, and Beau hasn’t appeared. Naturally, I scan my mind for whether I saw any means of escape in there. “Shit.” I push my way back in.
Beau’s on the bench in the center of the room.
Sobbing.
That guilt? It flares.
I hurry over and sit beside her, pulling her in for a hug. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t be. You’re so right.” She snivels and wipes at her face. “I can’t bear the waiting game, Rose. Every month, holding my breath, waiting to see if I’m broken there too.”
My eyes instinctively drop to my tummy. More guilt. I hug her tighter.
“Having to face James.” She looks at me. “I never knew I needed it. I was so stunned when I found out I was pregnant.” She laughs quietly, looking down at her feet. “And then I looked at James and saw what he saw. Hope. He saw hope for both of us. One more reason to love and not hate. Constant light to chase away the darkness.”
I can hardly breathe through the ball of grief wedged in my throat. “You have to believe it can be yours again.”
She looks at me, her dark eyes welling. “What if it can’t be?”
And it occurs to me. “Are you worried James wouldn’t want you anymore?”
“Maybe.” She looks away.
“He loves you.”
“I know. But I can see him giving up.”
“That’s because you’re hiding, Beau. You’re hiding from facing this, telling yourself you want to be a cop again when you should be asking yourself something else.”
