Page 16 of You Had Me at Chocolate

More dots appeared on the screen. Bon voyage. See you in December. Wish me luck on my inn hunt.

A tiny pang of something caused a contraction in the center of Clem’s chest. Part of her wished she could be in Marietta to help him. Not enough to forgo her Mediterranean jaunt but, damn him, why hadn’t he contacted her first? She could have been useful. Not as his wife—seriously, what had he been thinking?—but she was a librarian, research was her jam. It was what she did for a living. She could have done a lot of legwork for him. They could have synchronized their calendars.

He might have been an absent friend but their friendship went back a long way and she’d have been thrilled to see him move to Marietta and set up a business. She’d have been his biggest champion.

If she’d had some kind of heads-up.

Good luck! Can’t wait to see what you find. Send me pics! If you need me to contact anyone about any places just let me know.

Sure, she was on vacation, so she probably shouldn’t offer, but she could probably still be of some assistance to him from afar and old habits die hard. Helpfulness and responsibility were completely ingrained traits.

Deal. As long as you send me Mediterranean pics, too.

The possibilities of that request set her imagination running. How would he feel about a bikini snap? She’d packed one because the weather was milder in the Med than Montana in October. It was supposed to be a very pleasant eighty degrees in Athens when they landed so she might as well grab some sun while she could, given that it’d be freezing for months when she returned. But as they’d already established they were going to be just friends, there was no point in sending mixed messages.

She sent him a blue thumbs-up and put the phone in the side pocket of her bag. She’d call her parents soon but the woman behind the desk in an American Airlines uniform was reeling off a long list of names over the intercom in their lounge which didn’t make for easy telephone conversation.

“I can’t believe this time tomorrow we’ll be drinking ouzo in Athens,” Bella, who was siting opposite, said.

Sitting beside Clem, Merridy added, “Don’t forget the baklava.”

Clem had met the two women on her European Contiki trip last year. Both were from LA. It had been wonderful meeting up with them again and hanging with them this past twenty-four hours before they set out on their next adventure which they’d been planning since they’d returned from Europe.

“I’ve been existing on one meal a day for the past month in preparation for this,” she declared. “I’m going to eat all the baklava!”

Bella and Clem laughed. Merridy’s sweet tooth was legendary.

She’d love Jude.

Clem blinked as the thought popped into her head. And sat uncomfortably in her gut. For god’s sake. She was two thousand miles from him—soon to be six thousand—why was he taking up all her brain space?

So… he’d proposed. That was just a weird, jet-lagged aberration. And resolved now. He needed to get out of her head.

“And I’m going to drink all the ouzo,” Bella chimed in and they all laughed a little harder.

Clem’s phone rang and her pulse kicked up a notch. It was ridiculous to think it was him. If it was, surely he’d just text like he had previously? But still, Jude had been the first place her head had gone when her cell had rung.

But it wasn’t Jude. It was her father.

“Hey, Dad,” Clem said, still smiling at her friends. “I was just going to ring you guys. I’m boarding in about twenty minutes.”

“Oh, Clementine… thank god, you’re still here.”

A cold hand clutched around Clem’s heart as her smile died. Her father never called her Clementine. “Dad.” She sat forward in her chair, her brow furrowing. “What’s wrong?”

Bella and Merridy also stopped smiling as they tuned into Clem’s tone and posture.

“It’s Mom.”

The cold hand squeezed tighter. Her father’s voice was hoarse, strained. It sounded like he was crying. Panic flared through her system, her heart beating loud in her ears. “What about Mom?”

“She… oh, Clem… she’s had a stroke. It’s bad. They’ve… taken her to Bozeman.”

A sudden buzzing in her ears made it impossible to take anything else in. Her mom had suffered a stroke? Hot bile swished in her gut. She was only fifty-four…

Oh god. Was her mother going to die?

Clem swallowed. “Dad?”

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