Page 10 of Bluebell Promises

Ivy didn’t smile. “Are you feeling better?”

“We just went swimming!” Lily answered for Wren.

Ivy stalled with her hand on the top of a kitchen chair. “Are you sure that’s smart?”

“I’m fine,” Wren said, hating that annoyance crept into her voice. Up until very recently, she’d had an incredible amount of freedom. Now, she had to answer to Ivy for everything.

Lily made enough food for everyone, and the five of them sat around eating and sipping coffee and juice. Wren was captivated by the ease with which Ivy and Elliott handled one another. Ivy even laughed several times, which was an Ivy rarity. Wren realized that, in coming home like this, she’d reminded Ivy of her anxieties. She’d torn Ivy’s beautiful and easy life apart, if only because now Ivy felt she had to worry about her.

Wren could only eat half of her breakfast before her stomach told her she needed to get upstairs and lie down again. “Sorry,” she said, watching as Tyler happily filled the rest of his plate with her leftovers. “My stomach is always weird after traveling.”

She knew that Ivy was watching her like a hawk.

Upstairs, Wren got into bed and shivered for a while before opening the banking app on her phone. Again, she stared at the dwindling amount on the screen. Her bank account hadn’t been so low in years. The last time was when she was twenty-seven or twenty-eight and much scrappier than she was now. If she remembered correctly, she’d been in Argentina, and she’d picked up a few under-the-table bar jobs to pay the rent. She’d dated an Argentinian man named José and learned a lot of Spanish and eaten a lot of empanadas, and she hadn’t cared at all.

Now, her situation had changed. She knew she couldn’t just go bartend somewhere, certainly not in Bluebell Cove, certainly not as time went on and things got more dire with her health. More than that, she knew she had to make money quickly, not only for her mental health and Ivy’s mental health, but for reasons she couldn’t fully face or say aloud.

She was a ticking time bomb.

6

Three Months Ago

That first night in Santorini, Wren couldn’t believe how quickly Angelos stole her heart. Despite her jet lag and how far she’d traveled just that morning, she could not pull herself away from him. It was like every joke and every story he told was the very best she’d ever heard. After a third glass of wine, he paid the restaurant owner and led her into the glowing white streets, throwing his arms toward the starry sky above and crying out, “This is my island! Welcome to my island!” Wren could have kissed him right then and there, but she didn’t. She’d never been keen on making the first move, which went against everything else in her life. When it came to romance, she was shy.

Angelos was different from any of the men she’d ever liked before. Maybe it was his European-ness or his island-ness or maybe it was because he’d studied film and had big dreams. But as they sat at yet another Greek taverna and sipped red wine and talked about the past and the present, she found herself dreaming about a future with him. She couldn’t believe it.

Around two in the morning, Angelos brought her back to his parents’ inn. They stood on the front step for ages, unable to stop talking. Wren half expected one of his parents to yell out the window for them to go to bed. Wren’s stomach was twisted in knots, and every cell in her body screamed for Angelos to kiss her already. He did, but only on the cheek.

As soon as Wren got to her room, she collapsed on top of the comforter and slept for ten hours. It was noon when she tumbled out of bed, and she was sweaty, as she hadn’t remembered to turn on the air conditioner. She checked her phone and found messages from her editor, Max, asking how it was going in Santorini. She wrote him back right away.

WREN: Just arrived and got some much-needed rest! Heading out to take some photos. You’ll have plenty to choose from tonight.

Five minutes later, Max responded.

MAX: That’s my girl. If this works out, I have another long list of Greek islands I want you to photograph.

WREN: When has it not worked out with me? Haha.

Max sent back a laughing emoji, then.

MAX: You’re right. You’re my most reliable photographer. Thanks again. Oh, and I wanted to say that I might be in Greece toward the end of the month. Maybe we should finally meet each other in person?

In the shower, as Wren scrubbed herself clean of airplane smells and her long night with Angelos, she thought about what it would be like to meet Max. He was from England, an editor at the travel magazine she’d worked at for many years at this point, and she was pretty sure he was married with children. Maybe he was ten or so years older than she was. Would it be nice to meet in person? She wasn’t sure she needed that. But if it helped maintain their professional relationship, she supposed she had to go for it.

After grabbing a coffee and a quick bite, Wren headed off for a full day of taking pictures. As she adjusted her lenses, she fell into a persona that she could only describe as not herself. When the camera was in front of her, she no longer existed. She was the air, the light, the water, the sand. She tried to capture the mystery and spirit of a place. And after eight hours of traveling around the island, she had what she’d come for.

Back in her hotel room, she lightly edited the photographs and sent them off to Max. He wrote back right away.

MAX: I can’t believe some of these shots, Wren. You’re getting better every month, it seems like. Send me more tomorrow, and we’ll see where to send you next.

Wren blushed. Although she knew it was wrong to agree with him verbally, she did feel she was getting better and more confident and more consistent. Feeling excited and no longer jet-lagged, she changed into a sundress and headed outside, eager for a celebratory glass of wine and maybe, just maybe, a run-in with her favorite Greek.

It didn’t take long to find him. In fact, Angelos was waiting for her in the foyer of the hotel, smiling nervously. “I was hoping to see you today,” he said gently. He wore a linen button-down shirt and a pair of slacks and was more dressed up than he’d been the day before.

Wren’s heart flipped over. Now that her job in Santorini was coming to an end, she knew better than to throw herself into the complications of whatever this was. But the dark glint in Angelos’s eyes told her that maybe she didn’t have a choice. Her heart needed him.

Over the following two weeks, Wren was sent all over the Greek islands—from Santorini to Mykonos to Paros to Antiparos (where Tom Hanks apparently lived part-time). Wren took thousands of photographs of beaches and sunsets, of platters of food, of donkeys and vegetable sellers in squares and old white churches. Every hour, she found herself falling deeper in love with the Greek culture. She couldn’t believe how magical it was.