Forever Friends

by Sarah Mackenzie

But maybe it wasn’t too late. Sadie was here now and Renee was here now. Together they could be unstoppable.

  Grandma Hester could get her bakery after all.

  Chapter Twenty

  When others complained of long, tedious workdays, Renee was the type to shrug. She enjoyed her job, especially these past few months with Dan.

  Today was not one of those days. After watching Lincoln, she made it to work before Dan and then sat anxiously at her desk waiting for his arrival. Would Essie drop him off, Moe cozy in the backseat wearing a jaunty bandanna and doggy sunglasses?

  Et tu, Moe?

  Would Dan be wearing designer loafers and suddenly asking her to pencil in tee times at the nearby country club? She imagined the Coastal Kids Medical Group turning into an old boys’ club of sorts, with wood paneling, hunter green walls, and cigar smoke wafting through the air. She coughed.

  As it turned out, Dan arrived at the office in his own vehicle, having driven himself to work. He was wearing his signature dark slacks and a crisp button-up beneath his white coat, though he did look a little tired, a bit worn. His hair was especially tousled, and he hadn’t shaved that morning.

  Considering the way Renee had tossed and turned last night, she must also be looking a little lackluster. All the lavender-scented lotion in the world and the hundreds of sheep that needed counting could not summon sleep.

  Dan gave her a tight smile as he approached the front desk.

  “Good morning,” she said, sitting up as straight as she could. She immediately launched into overly enthusiastic questions. “How was your weekend? Did you and Essie have a fun night at the dance? Fern outdid herself with those eucalyptus wreaths—did you see them?”

  As if Dan cared to discuss the greenery decor.

  He nodded absently. “Essie and I had a nice enough time. She took Myles and me to her condo afterward to show off her latest renovations. I didn’t realize what a great view she has of the harbor.”

  While it was worrisome Essie had invited Dan back to her place after the dance, it was encouraging that Myles had gone with them. Of course, knowing Myles, he had lit the romantic candles and turned on the jazzy music himself before discreetly slipping away.

  “Could you see your boat? From Essie’s place?”

  “I could.”

  “Cool.” She was jealous Essie could admire Dan’s sloop from her living room chaise. Maybe he had taken her on the boat that following Sunday, and they’d enjoyed a sunny cruise.

  Which he had every right to do.

  Even if the thought made her feel vaguely nauseous.

  “How’s your head?” he asked.

  She blinked. “My head?”

  “Your migraine. The one you had Saturday night?”

  Right. Her migraine. She must sound like such a ditz right now.

  “I took a long hot bath when I got home,” she said, which was the absolute truth. What she didn’t add was that she’d also tried to drown her sorrows in half a bottle of merlot and Sex and the City reruns. “And, um, I took medicine…Excedrin. And then I went to bed. That seemed to kick it.”

  He leaned against the doorframe. “You may want to schedule a visit to your doctor. Migraines can be quite debilitating.”

  He sounded so clinical, like he was speaking to a parent of one of his patients.

  “Yes, absolutely,” she said. “Thank you.”

  He nodded before walking away. She waited for him to come back, to bring her their word of the day, but it never came. The next time she saw him was when their first patient, Poppy Mullaney, arrived with strep throat.

  The poor girl was curled in her mother’s arms and reminded Renee of little Tansy. She’d been plagued with frequent bouts of strep throat before finally having her tonsils removed at age seven. Renee would never forget the sight of her small daughter swimming in the child-sized hospital gown. “Hi Poppy. I know you don’t feel very good right now, but guess what one of the cures to a sore throat is?”

  Poppy shook her head wordlessly.

  “Ice cream!” she said, as Dan rounded the corner. Was she imagining things, or did he just shoot her a disapproving glare? Was he annoyed she’d suggested the sugary treat? Maybe she should have recommended frozen yogurt or something. “Um, you two can go on back with Dr. Hanlon now.”

  Renee stared down at her keyboard.

  So that settled it then.

  Whether he was still mourning the death of his wife or was now hooking up with Essie Park, he was no longer interested. She felt as if she’d failed a test. Dan had liked her enough to invite her on his boat. He’d cared for her enough to make her a lobster dinner, to introduce her to his beloved dog. And he had been attracted to her enough to spend the night, to sleep with her. And yet, he wasn’t biting now. He’d gotten a taste of what Renee Rhodes was like, and he hadn’t gone back for more. He’d spit her into his napkin, uninterested. She had been a flop, a letdown, a disappointment.

  You knew this would happen.

  This was why it was better to stay in her own head, in her daydreams. It was a painful reminder why she hadn’t dated these past twelve years and instead devoted herself to motherhood. Platonic romances were a lot easier than the real things. And they were certainly gentler on her heart.

  I can’t take this again. I can’t let my heart get broken.

  As the day went on, Dan became increasingly distant.

  Each time he went into his office, he closed the door behind him. He chose to eat his lunch in town that afternoon—a rarity for him, as he usually ate a turkey sandwich at his desk—and he kept their interactions brief and professional. Usually, they would chat about all sorts of things, mostly the funny stuff kids would say, Moe’s latest antics, Tansy’s classes, the weather. But today, Dan kept the nature of their conversation practical and painfully formal.

  “Did the Smiths’ insurance company finally call back?” He was holding a clipboard and leafing through a stack of papers. “Fiona Smith, that is. The little girl who came in with the broken collarbone?”

  Renee was insulted, but she hid her annoyance. Of course she knew who Fiona Smith was and remembered her injury. She had a knack for remembering each and every patient as well as the various reasons for their visits. It was something she prided herself on.

  “Yes. Let me just check one thing.” Renee typed a few things and brought up the child’s file on her computer. “That’s right. The insurance company is covering the visit. All taken care of.”

  “Good.”

  “Yep.”

  She watched him disappear back into his office. She wondered what he had done with their word of the day. Had he crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in the trash can? Fed it through the shredder?

  Renee kept busy that afternoon, first making reminder calls to tomorrow’s patients, then recycling old magazines in the waiting room. She even took the time to clean out the little refrigerator in the tiny kitchenette, wiping down each shelf and getting rid of expired mustard and hot sauce that their part-time nurse, Betty, loved to use.

  When it was finally time for Renee to pack her things and power down her computer for the evening, her disappointment had turned into frustration.

  Maybe even anger.

  Whatever the case was with Dan, she deserved closure. She definitely didn’t deserve to be iced out like this. Call her old-fashioned, but wasn’t it considered poor manners to sleep with one’s subordinate and then treat her like a total stranger?

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dan said curtly. He paused in front of her desk. “Before I forget, would you be able to pick up more printer paper? I printed a lengthy article this afternoon, and I’m running low now.”

  The secretarial ask, though appropriate and normally acceptable, felt demeaning and cruel given the current circumstances. That was all he had to say to her after such a strangely tense day? She wasn’t even deserving of a generic “Have a nice night”? What was next—early morning coffee orders? Taking Moe on noontime walks?


  Renee snapped. “What the heck is the matter with you?”

  Dan looked taken aback. “I’m sorry? What’s the matter with me?”

  “Yes, you!” She bolted to her feet. “You’ve been distant all day! I mean, we’re both adults here. You can tell me you’re interested in Essie Park. It’s not like I’m going to break.”

  He stared at her. “Essie Park? You think I’m interested in Essie Park?”

  “Yes, the gorgeous woman you took to the fling two days ago? Ring a bell?” She rolled her eyes, a bad habit of Tansy’s she’d evidently picked up. “I understand if you have feelings for her. But that doesn’t mean we have to act like this at the office. Please be real with me. I’d rather just know so I can move on with my life. I’m not interested in playing games.”

  Dan laughed, but it wasn’t a cheerful sort of chuckle. No, it was a sarcastic, frustrated laugh.

  “I’m the one playing games?” He actually stalked across the waiting room and back, clearly rattled. “Renee, I’m crazy about you! The only reason I went to the fling with Essie was because you passed along her invitation and practically forced her on me.”

  “What?” Renee shook her head. “But…but what was I supposed to think when she came by with that invitation? It wasn’t like you even tried to ask me. I know you’re new to dating and we’re too soon to be exclusive or anything, right?”

  Dan ran a hand through his hair. “Contrary to what you may think, I’m not looking to sleep with every woman in town.”

  Speechless, she stared down at the floor, unable to make eye contact with him. The next subject was a tough one to broach, so she tread lightly. “It isn’t just Essie. After we spent that night together you seemed a little weird. And then I saw you in your office…staring at a photo of Meggie.”

  “Oh.” Dan folded into one of the chairs. It was a strange sight, seeing him sitting in the waiting room. He bent his head over his knees, intertwining his hands in front of them. “I see.”

  “I just figured you might not be ready to commit to much yet.” Renee crossed her arms over her chest. “I worried you thought of our night together as some sort of mistake. I wondered if you were still mourning Meggie. Or if, I don’t know. Maybe I’m not the sort of woman Meggie would have wanted you to be with? I thought maybe that was why you were having reservations. It sounds like she was amazing, caring, altruistic—”

  Dan held up his hands, willing her to stop. “She was all of those things and more. But you’re wrong about the other points. Meggie would have loved you. And she asked me to move on after her death. She made me pinkie promise.”

  “Really?”

  Dan’s voice grew thick and Renee felt her own eyes prickle. “I didn’t want to even consider finding someone else after Meggie passed. But it’s been a few years now, and I’m ready to try. I wouldn’t have asked you out, and I certainly wouldn’t have slept with you, if I wasn’t.”

  “And you like me?” The sentiment still felt too good to be true. Renee felt every muscle in her body tense as she waited for his answer.

  “More than like,” he affirmed after a pause. “I admit it threw me off—how to act around you at work. But maybe we could, you know, figure that out.” He coughed into his fist and raked a hand through his hair while studying the ceiling as if the words he wanted to say were printed up by the crown molding. “I want to see where this goes. I want us to be a part of one another’s lives and not just here in the office. I want to help you make dinner and take you out on the boat with Moe. I want to bring you coffee in bed and hold you while you fall asleep. I want to experience life, all of it, with you.”

  Chills ran through Renee’s core. She could picture it so clearly, and the images made her heart threaten to burst. Without thinking, she moved toward him. She dropped to her knees, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, brushing her lips against his.

  But he pulled away.

  “What?” she murmured, more confused than ever. “What’s wrong?”

  He held her forearms as he spoke, as if she might leap at him once more should he let go. “We’re both too wound up right now. I want to know you’re sure about me before we start this, really start this.”

  Every part of her body was shaking with nervous, excited energy. “But I…I think I am sure.”

  “I don’t want you to think. I want you to know.” He moved his hands down her arms. He interlaced their fingers, squeezing her palms. “A relationship needs to be built on trust, on communication, right? The fact that you questioned my intentions and feelings so early on? I don’t think that’s the best start for us, babe.”

  Babe? She stared up at him, still curled in the space between his knees. Oh God, was she a babe?

  “I realize that’s going to take some time, for you to build up that sort of trust in me. I’m willing to wait for you. I just can’t wait forever.”

  Renee nodded. She understood.

  “You are incredible, more incredible than I think you’ve ever given yourself credit for.” He paused, looking into her eyes meaningfully. “But between Tansy being so far away and this prospective new venture, there are a lot of things you still have to figure out. I believe in you, Renee. I just want you to believe in yourself.”

  With a final nod of his head, he stood and gathered his things. He set a piece of paper on the front desk and walked out the front door.

  It was the word of the day.

  Meditative.

  Spot on, as usual.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ​Mommy? Look.” Lincoln tugged on the sleeve of Sadie’s T-shirt. “See dat.”

  “Hmm?” She’d been only half listening to his chatter. It was hard to focus on anything outside her Weather Channel app. “What’s up, sweet stuff?”

  Lincoln ran to the other side of the living room. “Watch!” he shouted, trying to contort himself into a somersault but tumbling right into her grandparents’ steamer trunk.

  Shit. She hadn’t gotten around to babyproofing its jagged edges just yet.

  She sprinted over. Lincoln howled and there was already a small egg rising in the middle of his forehead. “Shhh…shhh.” She held him against her chest, rubbing his back and kissing the side of his neck. “It’s okay, baby. You’re all right.”

  She carried him into the kitchen where she used one hand to root through the freezer, finally finding his Boo Boo Buddy ice pack under a half open bag of freezer-burned spinach.

  “No touch!” Lincoln flinched when she pressed it against his forehead. “Ouch, Mommy! Too cold. Stop!”

  “I’m sorry but it’s going to help you feel better.” Ugh. His egg was probably going to bruise, a visible testament to her forgetfulness. “How does a strawberry smoothie pouch sound? And some Daniel Tiger?”

  Lincoln nodded somberly and Sadie gently wiped away his remaining tears. She kissed both cheeks and helped him snuggle up on the sofa surrounded by his favorite stuffed animals with his favorite smoothie variety in hand. She draped their softest throw blanket over his lap, tucking its edges around him.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Betta,” he said.

  She returned to her phone to check the progress of a storm making its way up the East Coast. It seemed impossible for a hurricane to ever hit Maine, much less Cranberry Cove. But when she’d stopped into Shopper’s Corner this morning, the nervous chatter had her thinking otherwise.

  “Feels an awful lot like the spring of ’eighty-five,” Dot Turner had said, hefting a pack of water bottles into her cart. “Remember the lines at the hardware store? It was like a ghost town. Everyone boarding their windows up.”

  Fred Weber, a man in his eighties who had lived in the Cove his entire life and would yell at Sadie to get off his lawn as she cut across his corner lot in elementary school, agreed. “I hope folks take these warnings seriously. These early season storms can be doozies.”

  “Sorry, but what?” Sadie had cut in. “We’ve had a hurricane here in the Cove?”
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br />   How had her parents never mentioned this sort of thing before?

  “You bet,” said Fred. “We even had a big one in June before—Hurricane Belinda. Significant damage. Everyone thinks of the wind, but it’s the flooding, let me tell you. Well, the flooding took out half a dozen farms upriver. They never recovered.” Fred had nodded toward Lincoln, who was rearranging the magazine display. Myles would be so pleased. “You make sure to take precautions and stay safe. These storms are no laughing matter.”

  A little unnerved, Sadie had quickly added a few items to her cart, including batteries, five cans of soup, bottled water, and two bars of dark chocolate. She wasn’t exactly a survivalist prepper here.

  She’d tried calling Ethan on her drive home.

  “The number you are calling is disconnected.”

  Crap. Maybe the weather was screwing up the lines. She could try again but didn’t want to drive off the road at a time like this. Since their talk about her starting work again, they’d been polite around each other but he had never gotten around to reopening their discussion and it made things awkward. They should be celebrating their second child and planning for their new future as a family of four, but despite some happy moments, things felt on edge.

  Not to mention the past few weeks he’d been in Boston more than ever.

  Now, sitting on the sofa and watching the foreboding radar, Sadie tried sending her husband another message.

  Please tell me you’ll be home before this storm, she texted. Was just at Shopper’s Corner and some old-timers were talking about past storms. I’m starting to freak out a little.

  She waited a few minutes. Nothing.

  Maybe he was in a meeting and had his phone turned off.

  Probably.

  Hopefully.

  Turning to the window, she idly rubbed her lower belly, thinking of their tiny baby floating around in there, safe and snug. Outside was a perfect Maine day, bluebird skies marred only by the occasional fluffy white cloud. It seemed impossible that within twenty-four hours they could be in hell.

  She nibbled her thumbnail. This was a time to act. Was she supposed to grab a hammer and start boarding up windows? Ethan might be able to do it, but he wasn’t exactly a handy guy. She paced the floor. What good was walking going to do? It was like a dragon menaced them and she was a stupid damsel in distress in her perfect coastal cottage with nothing but some water and a few bars of chocolate.