Page 68 of Dear Ripley

I still wasn’t certain we were sending it—at least not without some caution—but I had to ask. I needed to know who this was going to. As far as I knew, nobody in Jackson Point had just been cheated on, but it wouldn’t be that odd not to know. People could keepsomebusiness to themselves. No, what was weird was that she was here, sending flowers to her wife, implying the wife was in Jackson Point, but I didn’t recognize her. Nobody here had a secret wife none of us ever met. So, it could be someone who was here taking a break—

“Harlow Burnley.”

Or it could be Harlow.

I supposed one person here did have a wife I’d never seen. Except, I was pretty sure she was an ex-wife. And Harlow definitely seemed to still be using Merrington as her last name. I didn’t know if she’d ever actually changed it. But, would it be a surprise if the ex-wife was lying when she’d chased her down to Jackson Point?

Surely she’d had plenty of time to visit when they were married? Why was she only showing up now?

I knew why, but I didn’t like it.

I nodded, feeling hollow as she recited the Merrington address. I didn’t need to write it down. I knew exactly where they lived.

And so did she.

Perhaps she had been here before. And just avoided leaving the house and meeting anyone in town while she was here? It didn’t seem likely.

I rushed through the rest of the order, positively herding the two of them towards the door as soon as I could.

Once they were out of sight, I spun around, throwing my apron at the counter, and snatched up my coat.

The door tinkled again. My heart felt as though it plummeted out of my chest. But, as I turned around, I found Morgan and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank god it’s just you. Have you seen Harlow and Alicia?”

She gestured to the box held in one hand with the other that was holding up a half-eaten doughnut. “Er, yeah. They’re at Didi’s, which is clearly where I just was too.”

“Okay, great. Come on,” I said, scooping her up with me and charging out of the door. “We need to go.”

“What the hell’s going on? Are you this desperate to see your ex-wife?” she complained, attempting to wrangle free of my chaotic movements. As if she wasn’t usually desperate to get me around Alicia.

“It’s not my ex-wife I’m worried about,” I said, practically dragging her down the street with me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked through a mouthful of doughnut. How she was managing to eat, be dragged along, and not drop the rest of her doughnuts, I had no idea. If she dropped them, I’d just buy her some more. We didn’t have time to wait for doughnuts.

I shot a look back at her. “Harlow’s ex is here.”

Her brow crinkled. “That’s a weird coincidence.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a moment, jogging alongside me. “Ohhhh.”

“Yeah, exactly. So we need to see Harlow.”

“And Alicia,” she added, sounding far too smug.

“Not the time, Morgan.”

“Pfft. It’s always the time.”

Chapter 23

Alicia

After massively embarrassing myself at Petal and Pebble, I’d been counting on some time to recover before seeing Ripley again. However, I’d barely finished half of my pancakes before she was bursting through the door at Didi’s, and racing towards our booth.

It honestly felt like some evil spirit was out to get me. Hadn’t I suffered enough embarrassment today? And why on earth was she chasing me down for more? We didn’t speak to each other in person. She was crushing the carefully constructed situation we had. All to, what? Yell at me for throwing an envelope at her and running out of the store? I’d thought the whole thing had amused her.

As my heart practically hummed in my chest, panic filling me up, I noticed Morgan being dragged along behind her. The same Morgan who had been in Didi’s when Harlow and I arrived—a horrifying press to the bruise of my embarrassment. But she’d left. And now, Ripley was dragging her back in. And, actually, they both seemed irate.

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