Page 41 of Bluebell Promises

Present Day

By the time Wren finished her heartbreaking story of loss, Celia, Juliet, and Ivy had their arms around her. Wren was so exhausted by the telling that she couldn’t cry, but her three sisters wept openly and dotted their eyes with a tissue, which Ivy, of course, had in her purse. Nobody could believe what Wren had gone through. Nobody could believe that Wren’s life had flipped upside down so dramatically.

“Oh, Wren,” Ivy whispered, “why didn’t you tell us when you got here?”

Wren wasn’t sure about that. She remembered that first day in August, two months after she’d discovered Angelos’s death, when she was nearly three months pregnant. She remembered not eating enough during her journey, feeling overheated and dehydrated. She remembered collapsing in front of all of Bluebell Cove, only to be carried into her sister’s house and reprimanded for not taking care of herself. But she wasn’t angry, not anymore.

“It was too much to say aloud,” she said. “And I didn’t want to face it. I think a part of me hoped he would find a way back to me soon. That it was all a stupid story.”

Ivy pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “I feel so cruel,” she said.

Celia squeezed Ivy’s shoulder. “It’s in the past now. We’re here for Wren. We’re here for every step of the story now. Aren’t we?”

Ivy and Juliet nodded. Wren felt a warmth through her chest and stomach. She willed herself to accept their love, as it was all she could do, now that she’d lost so much.

“Mom kept so many secrets from everyone,” Wren breathed, looking down at the letter their mother had written to Nelly Winston so many years ago. “I don’t want to be like that. I think it made her miserable, the fact that she couldn’t be herself around anyone.”

Juliet nodded. “I want you to know you can tell us anything, Wrennie. Really.”

“You can tell me anything, too,” Wren said, although she knew it would be hard for all of them.

“Let’s make a pact to do that,” Ivy said.

The four Harper sisters put their hands in the center of their circle and made a promise. It looked childish but felt holy. Wren blinked away tears.

“You know,” Wren said a few minutes later, “I keep thinking about Angelos’s parents. I don’t know where they ended up.”

“Are you angry with them?” Juliet asked.

Wren shook her head. “I can’t be. They lost their son. It’s hard to fathom what that must feel like.”

“But they blame you,” Ivy said darkly.

Wren raised her shoulders. “I can’t help but think they deserve to know about their grandchild. Maybe it would offer them a little bit of hope.”

Her sisters considered this.

“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Celia said softly.

“I don’t think this is really about me,” Wren said, her hand stretched across her pregnant stomach. “Or it’s bigger than me, now.”

Celia closed her eyes for a long time. Headlights from out on the street swept across their faces before the car passed them by. Wren wasn’t sure how she would allow any of them to go home and leave her here in this house by herself tonight, but she knew she had to let it go.

“I think I could track them down,” Celia said finally. Wren knew that Celia was a brilliant journalist, that there was nothing she couldn’t research, nothing she couldn’t get to the bottom of. “If you tell me to look for them, I can find them.”

Wren’s throat tightened. She stroked the top of Pierre’s head and told herself not to panic. “I think it has to be done,” she said.

Before they left, all three of her sisters hugged Wren tightly and made her promise to call if she needed anything “tonight or any other night.” Wren felt the warmth and the tenderness of their embraces. But later, when she lay in bed, listening to the rain outside the window as Pierre slept on the pillow beside her, her chest felt heavy with an ache she couldn’t name. She was alone in a house for the first time in ages. She supposed she would be alone forever.

Several days later, the rain cleared. Wren took Pierre for a walk through downtown, where they sat in the October sunshine with a coffee and a croissant that Wren shared too much of with Pierre. As it turned out, Pierre was just as much of a sucker for pastry and butter as Wren was. As they ate, Wren flicked through the new photographs of the Eco-Lodge, which Celia had posted online for marketing purposes just that morning. Already, the likes were piling up, and prospective guests were writing in the comments, “I NEED to book a night here. I can’t wait.”

It surprised Wren to admit how gorgeous it was to help her family out in this way.

Just then, something caught Wren’s attention out of the corner of her eye, and she turned and watched as Ben and Landon strode toward her. They wore raincoats and hiking boots, as though they’d just spent a day in the forest or along the coast. Wren’s heart pumped harder. She hadn’t seen Ben in a little more than two weeks, and that meeting had been awkward, heavy with memory of their conversation before that: the conversation during which Wren had asked if they could remain friends.

The truth was that since that day, thoughts of Ben had never been far from her mind. She’d considered picking up the phone and asking him to go for a coffee or out to dinner numerous times. But she suspected that Ben had true feelings for her, feelings that could grow to something more, and she didn’t want to tempt fate. Certainly, she didn’t want to tempt his love when she was pregnant with another man’s baby, even if that other man was dead.

From half a block away, Ben spotted her and seemed taken aback. Pierre stood, seeming to smile at him, beckoning Ben with his dark, happy eyes. Landon waved and headed straight for her, as though he didn’t know anything of the awkwardness between them.