Page 10 of Marriage is a Shore Thing (Wilks Beach #2)

nine

Geneva

Ahigh-pitched ringing sound pierces the air of my favorite restaurant as loud as a fire alarm.

I startle, knocking Van in the forehead with the brim of my hat, before staggering back.

It takes two thudding heartbeats to realize that one: I’d been leaning toward Van— to kiss him!

Two: the piercing sound is coming from the sling bag across my chest. And three: it’s my ringtone for Joanna so that I never miss her call.

I turn away, my shaking fingers nearly fumbling the phone twice. “Hello?”

“Hi, Geneva. Are you still on the mainland?”

“Uh-huh.”

The barely verbal answer is all I can manage, because my heartbeat is still in my ears.

I almost kissed Van.

The thought is a bomb blast and an admonishment wrapped into a shame sandwich. Despite my best defenses, Van’s needling smile keeps messing with my well-layered armor. I have no idea why he can make me yield when I’ve successfully kept every man away since finding out what my father did.

It’d been the wakeup call I’d needed, because prior to that, I dated men who were unreliable, self-centered, commitment averse, and emotionally unavailable. That level of betrayal forced me to come to terms with an irrefutable fact: I inherited my mother’s cruddy taste in men.

So as much as Van seems to be the exception to the rule, I need to remind myself that rules exist for a reason.

“Oh, shoot. I think the call must have dropped. Geneva?” Joanna’s voice brings me back to the room.

“I’m here.” I clear the sawdust from my throat.

“Noah mentioned you were going to the superstore.”

I pull the phone away from my ear, putting the call on speaker and tabbing over to my notes app.

Since all islanders have to travel two hours round trip for supplies not available at Dotty’s small market, we usually share the burden.

Joanna almost never leaves Wilks Beach since I’m on the mainland so often and buy her anything she needs.

“Yes. What do you need?”

My index finger is poised to type Joanna’s request for bulk cereal, a tray pack of canned soup, or six tubes of toothpaste.

“I just wanted to remind you not to buy rings at the jewelry counter.”

“Rings?” I ask, tension curling at the base of my skull. “Why would I need—”

Van’s hand on my upper arm, flipping me toward him, nearly makes me lose my balance.

His eyes are the size of Joanna’s cherished heirloom tea saucers.

“I lied,” he mouths to me.

“Lied about what?” I mouth back.

Van gives me an exhausted eye roll. “Everything.”

The otherwise sweet smell of wing sauce grows acrid in my nostrils. I want nothing more than to be outside—away from Van, away from this conversation, away from this careless mistake that’s upending my organized life.

Joanna continues, oblivious to our silent conversation, “Van said you two were picking up temporary silicone rings tomorrow because you didn’t like any of the ones in the jewelry store in Vegas.

But—” It’s the way Joanna’s voice changes that tightens my grip on my phone.

“It would really mean a lot to me if you could wear my grandmother’s ring. ”

“You want me to what?” I nearly choke on the words.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t my wedding ring,” she explains, mistaking the reason for my shocked response. “It’s not tainted like everything else was with…”

The sentence drops off. Joanna hasn’t been able to say my father’s name since she learned about his duplicitous lifestyle. To be fair, I haven’t called him Dad since then either. On the rare occasion I have to refer to that treacherous jerk, I call him Henry.

“Nona wouldn’t give it to him. I guess she had a sixth sense about him that I dumbly ignored.

Since he couldn’t give me the simple antique gold band inlaid with tiny diamonds that’s been in my family for generations, he bought me an ostentatiously large diamond ring instead.

Of course, I had no idea about any of this until much later. ”

“You want me to have your family’s ring?” I try, but I can’t hide the wobble in my words.

Van’s thumb smooths back and forth on my upper arm. I hadn’t realized he was still touching me.

“Of course, honey.” Joanna’s voice softens. “You’re family.”

I have never lost it in public. I’ve shed a fake, tasteful tear when accepting a beauty pageant crown onstage, but I have never allowed my true emotions to show in front of others. But right now, I want nothing more than to cry like a lost, fragile thing at Joanna’s unwavering inclusion.

And I am not fragile.

Even before I took my life into my hands—or rather, my fists—I was taught not to break.

Winners don’t bend to the relentless pressure and catty underhanded jabs of the other contestants.

They tilt their flawlessly contoured cheekbones to the light, set a dazzling smile on their whitened teeth, and never let the clawing remarks of the competition faze them.

When I open my mouth to answer, nothing comes out—only my lower lip shakes.

I bite it for its insolence, frustration teeming through my bloodstream.

Van steps forward, moving close enough that if I needed to, I could lean on his sturdy chest. I should push him away. I should push all of this away. I should tell Joanna that we are dirty rotten liars, but I don’t want to break her heart when she just called me family.

Family.

That word had been problematic even before I learned about my father’s second household.

My whole life, my mother would get angry when I wasn’t the perfect daughter.

If I didn’t smile big enough, or say the polished polite answer, or apply eyeliner flawlessly.

Over and over, she blamed me for the amount of time my father traveled for work.

Had I been a better daughter, he’d want to stick around more.

Looking back on it, only seeing him one week a month should have been a tip-off, but I knew kids whose parents deployed for months at a time. My father supported us financially, paying for our house and my schooling. He was just distant—emotionally and physically.

My mother kept saying that if I won Miss USA, my father would come home to stay.

Even through attending college and moving out, I aimed to win every crown I could.

But after graduating, the tension between my mother and me grew.

I’d breathe a sigh of relief when she didn’t call back or took two days to answer a text.

At that point, contact from my father had been sparse at best. I kept striving for Miss USA, but it became something I shared with my friends who were my roommates and fellow contestants. Not everyone had great parents, but at least I had a group of women I could trust.

Once I narrowly lost the Miss Pennsylvania title—therefore blowing my chances at Miss USA—my mother announced she was moving to Florida.

“I’m going to start over. You probably should too. We spent way too long waiting for that man to choose us.”

I don’t know what possessed me to have a private investigator look into my father, but I never expected that he’d have a whole separate family. And when I told my mother, looking for an ally for this massive betrayal, she told me she already knew—she’d known for years.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, my so-called friends informed me they wouldn’t renew my lease. They didn’t want my ‘family drama’ or my losing streak to infect their perfect lives. In their eyes, I was washed up and no longer of use.

I moved out immediately and checked into a hotel, more untethered and alone than ever. It’d been a lifetime of bad days in the span of a week. Before I understood what I was doing, I found myself on Joanna’s doorstep in Wilks Beach, needing to notify her of my father’s deceit.

When I’d told Joanna who I was, she pulled me straight from her welcome mat into a hug, telling me she’d found out two months ago but didn’t know how to find my mother and me.

It’d shocked me when she whispered wet apologies into my hair on my father’s behalf.

The moment Joanna asked how my mother was holding up, I crumbled and told her everything.

It’d been the one and only time my sparkling veneer shattered.

In the months afterward, I built a new life here.

Joanna helped me find a rental, introduced me to the town and to the half-brother I’d never known existed.

For her kindness, I’ll always be grateful.

But I had learned my lesson. No matter how kind the people of Wilks Beach seemed, I could never fully trust them.

Over the years, I honed cold stares and snappy responses into a near-perfect defense mechanism.

Until I accidentally married a stranger and everything went sideways.

I sigh, my arms suddenly leaden. My phone dips until the edge of it rests on Van’s collarbone.

“You might want to get silicone rings for when you’re teaching or when you’re at the beach, but wait to get something more permanent for Van.

That way, his ring can match yours. When you get home, I’ll give it to you.

Well”—a little laugh bubbles over the line—“I’ll give it to Van so he can give it to you. ”

Her voice is practically sparkling. For the ten millionth time since she mentioned it, I chastise myself for not seeing that Joanna’s light had been dimming for months. I should have noticed. I should have done something about it.

“Oh, and while you’re there, can you get me three containers of kitty litter for Princess and Demon?”

Van’s eyebrows shoot up at the names of Joanna’s cats, but I’m too mentally exhausted to glare back, to tease.

His expression shifts, examining me—almost as if he has x-ray vision.

That must be super handy for an emergency physician.

I’m sure it saves on hospital charges when the doctor assessing you can see right through you.

I turn my face away a second before a broad hand settles between my shoulder blades, rubbing in a slow, steady circle.

My body sways even closer to him, like the traitor it is.

“Sure. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it. Oh, and also, I want you two to come over for dinner. I didn’t get the chance to hear the story of your wedding since it was so busy at the party.”

A sinking sensation tugs low in my stomach. It feels like two rusted-out trucks are chained to my ankles, and someone just threw me off a pier.

“Sure,” I manage. “We’d—”

“Joanna, hey. It’s Van. You’re on speaker.

As much as I’d love to get to know you better, would it be okay if we moved dinner to later in the week?

Maybe Friday?” The entire time he speaks, Van never takes his careful gaze off me.

“I’ll happily drop off the kitty litter later today, but we’d love some time together. ”

“Oh. Of course.” Joanna’s chuckle bursts through the line. “It’s technically your honeymoon, after all.”

“That it is, ma’am.” It’s baffling how Van is able to infuse bashful warmth into his words when a little knot is forming between his brows.

“Don’t worry about the kitty litter. I can get it Friday.”

“Much obliged, Joanna. See you then. Please be sure to let us know if we can bring anything.”

After a short exchange of goodbyes, Van disconnects the call, because apparently my fingers don’t work anymore.

The din of the noisy restaurant is suddenly too loud.

My pulse is too frantic in my ears. My entire existence zeros in on three distinct things: where Van’s warm hand is still rubbing comforting circles on my back, the way his full lips look fundamentally wrong as he frowns, and how his gray eyes mirror the skies of an impending storm.

“Why’d you do that?” I ask, not pulling away. Why am I not pulling away?

The crease between his brows deepens like he’s…worried? Why should Van care about me? We’re essentially strangers. I’ll admit that we’re both attracted to each other, but that shouldn’t mean…

“You…” Van pauses, almost like he’s carefully considering his words. “You looked like you needed help.”

It’s the last hit, the one I can’t come back from—him paying attention, him being there for me, him wanting to help me. The second I lean on someone is the moment I fall flat on my face.

“I didn’t.” Using the last of my self-respect, I grab the to-go bag and storm out the door.