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Hallie was proud of it, too.
Weird how the worst scenarios coming true could pull everything into perspective. She’d been thriving on distractions and disorder so that she wouldn’t have to decide who to be. But the truth was, she’d already been the exact right person. She just needed to stop waving and shouting and listen. Feel. Center herself now in the stillness and sunshine. She was a survivor. A friend. Someone who brought the color in unconventional ways, but tried her best. She had a broken heart in more ways than one, but she was still standing, and that made her strong. She was stronger than she ever knew possible.
A car horn blared from the front yard.
Hallie’s nose wrinkled. Who was that? Owen had stood her up via text this morning, claiming a work emergency—and anyway, it was late afternoon now and they’d missed the whole home and garden show.
The horn went off again, and the dogs all got up at once, howling at the sky and trotting in circles. “Okay, guys.” Hallie used the fence to stand on legs that were half-asleep from sitting too long. “No need to get worked up.”
Hallie padded through the house on bare feet, moving aside a curtain in the front window to determine who was causing the ruckus.
Lavinia?
Her best friend spied her peeking through the curtains and rolled down the passenger-side window. “Get in, loser.”
Sketchpad still in hand, Hallie unlocked the front door of her house and went down the path, accompanied by three very harried canines. “What is happening here?”
“Get in the car.”
“But . . . What? Why? Is something wrong?”
“No. Well, yes. But hopefully not much longer.” Lavinia snapped her fingers and pointed at the passenger seat. “Get in this bloody Prius, Hallie Welch. I’m a terrible secret keeper, and I’ve got about five minutes before it just bursts out of me.”
Hallie herded the dogs back toward the house, sputtering, “At least let me put on some shoes and lock the door!”
“You’re pushing it!” Lavinia shouted, honking the horn.
Less than a minute later, Hallie was diving into the car in her flip-flops, still holding her sketchpad. She’d forgotten her phone and was pretty sure she’d locked herself out of the house, but at least the honking had ceased.
“What is going on?” She scrutinized Lavinia, but the donut maker remained stubbornly tight-lipped. Literally. She was pressing her lips together so tightly, they were turning white. And that’s when Hallie noticed the necklaces.
Lavinia usually wore a simple chain with a small onyx pendant. Today, there were so many layers of jewelry around Lavinia’s neck, Hallie couldn’t even figure out how many necklaces she was wearing. Silvers and golds and chunky wooden costume pieces.
“Why are you—”
Lavinia cut her off with a middle finger, shaking her head.
All right. She was a hostage. Going sixty miles an hour in a Prius, possibly being mocked for her taste in jewelry, and there was nothing she could do about it, apparently. Hallie leaned back in the seat, fingers wrapped around her sketchbook, staring out through the windshield and trying to determine where Lavinia was taking her. It only took about three minutes for their destination to become obvious.
Hallie lurched forward, very nearly reaching for the steering wheel to prevent Lavinia from turning down the well-manicured road that led to Vos Vineyard. “Oh God. No. Lavinia.” For a beat, she seriously contemplated throwing open the passenger door and casting herself out of the moving vehicle. “I know you think you’re helping, but he doesn’t want to see me.”
“Almost there,” Lavinia gasped. “Almost there. Don’t look at me. I can do this.”
“You’re scaring me.”
The brakes screeched, and Lavinia shut off the car, making a shooing motion at Hallie. “Get out. Go. I’m right behind you.”
“I’m not getting out . . .”
Hallie’s protest died on her lips when three people climbed out of the Jeep beside them . . . laden with necklaces. Like, dozens upon dozens of mismatched ones. Hallie looked down at her own collection, displayed in the V of her white T-shirt, and felt a tug in her rib cage. For the last few days, she’d tried to whittle down her selection to one necklace, but she could never manage it. She liked them all. They represented different parts of her personality and experiences. The pearls were an ode to her romantic side, the gold cross a reminder that she’d been a good granddaughter—the best one she could manage. The pink choker with the bright, pretty flowers once represented the part of her that liked to avoid unwanted conversations, but now it was a reminder to stop using flowers as a distraction and have the tough talks. Especially with herself.
Although, she missed talking to Julian most of all.
The necklaces blurred together, thanks to the moisture in her eyes, and when she looked up and out the windshield again, it took a moment for the figure in front of the Prius to come into focus.
