“Nothing would justify him being with another woman while he was still married. Nothing justified Wyatt being with another woman,” Arianna finished tearfully. “I did nothing wrong. Nothing!”
Nothing other than come home from the hospital, from her long hours, so exhausted that the only thing she could think to use their bed for was sleep. It was hardly any wonder. All health-care workers had been physically pushed to the limit, including Arianna. And Wyatt had done little enough around the house to help her regain her energy.
Was a phase of mental, emotional and physical exhaustion reason enough to leave a woman you’d promised to keep in sickness and in health? To abandon the family you’d built together? Evidently, if someone sexy and fun came skipping along, someone with energy to burn in bed and no leftover baby fat, someone who wasn’t carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders...someone like Sunny.
“Darling, you are well rid of him,” Mia reminded her, probably for the thousandth time since the divorce. “You know that.”
She was, she knew it. But there were times when that old wound opened. Sunny Hollowell had pulled it wide and poured salt in it.
“I still think you might have jumped to conclusions with Sunny,” Mia said.
“You weren’t down here, Mom. You didn’t hear what I heard.” And Arianna knew what she’d heard.
A little elf kept whispering in her ear that her mother might have been right, but she wasn’t about to listen to either her mom or the elf.
Sunny had come home, cleaned the bathrooms, the kitchen counters, the windows, removed every speck of dust from every knickknack and piece of furniture in the house. All the scouring and scowling hadn’t left her feeling any better. She was still steaming when Travis came home from work. Over beers she told him about her severed friendship with Arianna.
“That’s nuts,” he said. “My divorce was almost final when we met, there was zero chance Tansy and I were getting back together and you wouldn’t even give me your phone number until it was.”
She’d been waiting tables at McCloud’s Grill House, a popular down homestyle pub that offered pool tables and a wood dance floor. She’d been working there several nights a week to pay the bills while by day she worked getting her web design business off the ground.
She’d fallen for Travis the minute she saw that hard body and easy smile, enjoyed flirting with him, imagined kissing him, been ready to say yes the second he asked her out. Which he finally did. Still, she’d picked herself right back up when she learned he wasn’t divorced. Separated didn’t cut it. She knew that. And she couldn’t believe that Arianna would think so little of her.
“I don’t care how rotten your wife was, she’s still your wife till you can prove she’s not,” she’d told him. But she’d told him to check back when he was officially a free man.
The day his divorce was final he was at McCloud’s. He’d laid the divorce papers on the table and asked for her phone number. And she’d given it to him.
On their first date, he took her to the Boatshed, a popular waterfront restaurant in Bremerton, making sure they had a window seat and champagne to drink. “I’m a free man,” he said. “Consider yourself taken.”
She had and she’d never regretted it. They’d waited six months before he introduced her to the kids. It had seemed long enough at the time. Clearly it hadn’t been. They’d waited a year to get engaged. That had been too soon, too. Although they could have waited five years and it would have been too soon.
“How about I go over there and fill Arianna in?” he suggested.
Sunny shook her head. “No. If she’s going to be that quick to judge me, I don’t want her for my friend.”
She said as much to Molly the next week when she stopped in at the post office for a stamp for the birthday card she was mailing her aunt in Idaho.
“This is nuts,” Molly said after Sunny had explained what happened and why she needed to bow out of their monthly Christmas celebrations.
“It is what it is,” Sunny said with a philosophical shrug. “I’m sorry. I was really liking hanging out with you.”
“What, you’re dumping me because Arianna dumped you?” Molly demanded. “I’m Switzerland. I’m neutral.”
“You know there’s no such thing when it comes to friendships, and you two knew each other long before I came along.”
“I happen to like you both,” Molly said. “So this ain’t happening, girl.”
That afternoon Arianna got a text from Molly. More like a command.
Dinner at Horse and Cow at 6. Be there.
She showed it to her mother.
“I guess you’d better be there,” said Mia. “I’ll entertain Sophie. She’s been wanting to learn to crochet. Tonight will be a good night to start.”
So Arianna obeyed the summons. It felt strange walking into the restaurant, knowing it would only be Molly and her, that Sunny would be missing from the table. She shoved away the wistful moment with a reminder of what kind of woman Sunny was. She wouldn’t be missed.
Molly had already ordered wings for them, and two glasses of iced tea sat on the table. “We need to talk,” she said firmly as Arianna slid into her seat.
