Charlotte watched as the beautifully suntanned Dawson went utterly pale. Ah, so Janet wasn’t a sister. Not his mother. Definitely a woman from his past, and he’d just made a mistake mentioning her.

He hadn’t sounded choked or like it was hard to say her name. She couldn’t be that big of a deal.

“An old girlfriend,” he said, reaching for the Diet Coke again and sucking down half of it.

“Yeah, I think she’s more than that.” She’d told him about Hunter. Well, kind of.

“She was.” Dawson put his arms on the table and leaned into them. “I guess you want the whole story?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Then you’ll tell me more about your ex-husband.”

“Was Janet your wife?” He’d said he’d never been married.

“No, but I loved her, and she loved me, and we were talking about marriage.” A ghost of something passed through his eyes. “She didn’t like my job. I didn’t want to quit. We broke up.”

There was so much more behind that story, but Charlotte nodded. “She was your opportunity to get married.”

“Yes.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Seven years? Something like that.” He glanced up at the waiter and they put in their orders. Charlotte’s mind spun around a few key details.

Once the waiter moved away, she said, “So you haven’t dated for seven years.” It wasn’t a question, and extreme curiosity coursed through her.

“I mean, here and there,” he said dismissively. “Nothing serious.”

Charlotte gestured to him and then herself. “Is this ‘nothing serious’?”

Dawson’s eyes turned into lasers, and he leaned forward again as if someone at the nearby tables cared what they were talking about. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want a boyfriend.”

“I never said that.”

“You said you’d just gotten divorced and didn’t want to start dating.” Those eyes were sharp and they would not let go of hers. “Then you kissed me. So, honestly, Charlotte, I have no idea what this is.”

Charlotte reeled from the bluntness in his words. But she couldn’t blame him. She had told him those things, and she had kissed him first. She still wanted to kiss him every chance she got. So Wilma being present in his past had been a little speed bump. Dawson obviously hadn’t been that important in her sister’s life, and he wasn’t interested in her sister now.

“You’re right,” she said. “So maybe we just keep seeing where this goes.” She looked at him with hope lifting through her. He didn’t seem like the type to want to settle down, and he nodded, which confirmed it.

Charlotte relaxed and spread her napkin over her leg. “So Janet didn’t like your job in the Air Force. Why not?”

“I was gone too much,” he said. “Moved a lot. She had family in San Diego, same as me, and she wanted to put down roots.” He swallowed and glanced at his soda, which was nearly gone. “Pilots don’t have a lot of roots.”

“Was it hard?” she asked. “Breaking up with her?”

“Yes.” His voice was little more than a whisper amidst all the other chatter in the restaurant.

And he hadn’t dated seriously since. Charlotte took a deep breath and let him off the hook. For now.

“So my husband’s name was Hunter,” she said. “He was, well, he still is, a real estate agent on Carter’s Cove.” She watched him for any sign of recognition. “It’s the number one island destination in the continental United States. Lots of money to be made in time shares, condos, stuff like that.”

“Is that why you left Carter’s Cove?”

Charlotte couldn’t even sort through all the reasons she’d left. There were simply too many. She’d lost all her friends, as she’d done everything as part of a duo. And without Hunter, she didn’t fit. He was everywhere on the island, literally, as his face was on signs, his name on buildings.

“I…didn’t belong there anymore,” she said. “It might have been okay if he hadn’t left town for a weekend and come back with a new wife.” That had definitely been the tipping point. Or maybe she hadn’t reached that until she saw pictures of the newlyweds with all of her friends.

They’d looked so happy. Toasting him like he was the god of the island. And where was Charlotte? In a back room, at the hotel where she had one more job to finish.

“I lost you.” Dawson’s hand came down on hers, startling her out of that black hole in her life. “Look, we don’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s okay,” Charlotte said. “It’s just easy to get bogged down with it. It was so recent.”

The waiter arrived with their food, and the mood lightened once she’d had a bite of her vegetable tempura.

“As soon as I finished my last job there,” Charlotte said. “I moved here.”

He swallowed, smiled, and said, “Like you were starting over.”

“Yeah, kind of. I just needed to get out of there, and Getaway Bay sounded like a great place to get away.”

“I came for a fresh start too,” he said, his dark eyes sparking with that desire she’d seen every time he kissed her.

She lifted her glass of soda. “To fresh starts.” He clinked his against hers, and took another bite of his sushi. Charlotte smiled too, but something writhed way down deep inside her.

Questions spiraled around her head, the biggest, loudest one was Is this a fling?

Because if it wasn’t, she needed a label for their relationship.

September faded into October, and Charlotte expected the island to calm down a little. If anything, there were more tourists than ever. She took on four new clients for the custom wedding packages, a fact that had Hope beaming from the doorway of her office.

“How are things coming with the Grays?” she asked.

Charlotte pulled a green folder toward her. “Since the initial consultation, I’ve been working with the dress designer. She has three sketches for Claudia to look at. She’s coming the day after tomorrow.” She flipped a page. “Once we have the dress, we’ll be able to move on to the cake, dinner, and flowers. Claudia wanted it all to flow around the design of the dress.”

Charlotte had never had a bride who wanted the dress to dictate so much, but Ashley had been more than accommodating. For what Claudia was willing to pay, Ash would probably design fifty dresses and sew the one she picked herself.

“Keep her happy,” Hope said. “Her family owns the largest chain of casinos in Atlanta.”

Charlotte looked up from the folder. “Do they live on the island?”

“No, but they own a home here. They come a couple of times a year.”

Probably for a quick weekend getaway, the way some people went to the beach on a Saturday or up to their cabin for a few days. The Grays hopped on a jet and flew six thousand miles to stay in their island home.

Charlotte pushed away the thoughts, most of which were tinged with sarcasm and jealousy. “I’m sure Claudia will be nothing but pleased with her wedding.” She spoke with confidence, but she had been anxious about the meeting for a week now. Claudia was tall and powerful, with long limbs and a thin, wiry frame.

She exuded an air of importance, and it was assumed that she’d get what she wanted, when she wanted it. She had been pleasant during the initial consultation, and at least Charlotte hadn’t had to guess at what she wanted.

“What about those last two brides? Did they come sign?” Hope scanned Charlotte’s desk as if the contracts would be there.

“Yes, yesterday, actually. I gave the paperwork to Sofia.”

Hope nodded and asked, “Have you booked Aidan for the photos?”

“I sent him the calendar appointment.” Charlotte clicked a few times on her computer, bringing up her calendar. Claudia’s wedding had been colored purple, and she found the first photography appointment—the engagements.

“He hasn’t confirmed it,” Charlotte said. “I’ll contact him.” She pulled a notebook toward her to add the to-do item to her list.

“I’ll talk to him.” Hope pulled out her phone and started tapping. “He’ll respond faster to me.”

Charlotte hoped so, as Aidan was her husband and worked exclusively with the couples at Your Tidal Forever. He was also the best wedding photographer on any island in Hawaii, and some brides brought their business to Your Tidal Forever just to get him to take their pictures.

“He says he’ll go confirm it now, and that it should work.”

“Great,” Charlotte said. “Would you like to sit in on the meeting with Claudia tomorrow?”

Hope looked up from her phone, her face alight with curiosity. “No, I’m sure you’ll handle it fine.”

Charlotte nodded and looked back at the proposal she’d been working on when Hope had come in. Another bride wanted an evening beach wedding, complete with tea lights lining her aisle and arch, and they needed permission from the city council to do that. Apparently, electricity and saltwater had caused problems in the past, and they’d passed an ordinance that didn’t allow extension cords or outlets within two hundred feet of the shoreline.

But Charlotte had found a trailer park on the other side of the bay that had electric and sewer services as close as sixty-four feet from the water. She was hoping to put in a proposal at the next meeting to get approval for the two-hour event on their private beach.

Her phone rang, and Charlotte glanced at it. Her blood turned to ice for a moment and then superheated back to normal. The change left her feeling a bit woozy, especially when Hope asked, “Is that another bride?”

The screen said Sammy, so it definitely wasn’t a bride. And Charlotte didn’t want to answer the call from her once-best-friend who still lived on a different island.

“No,” Charlotte said, silencing the call. “A personal call.” She went back to work, desperately wishing Hope would get back to her own office and her own stack of work. Charlotte reminded herself to be grateful for this job. It paid well, and she enjoyed the work. She got her own office, which was surprising as most of the other bridal consultants—her official title—worked at cubicles in a big room in the corner of this building.

But Hope had wanted Charlotte to have an appealing space to wine and dine the big bridal spenders. And with five clients booked in the first three weeks, Charlotte was glad Hope had the vision for such things.

She finished reviewing the proposal and moved onto calendaring all the items for the two weddings they’d just put under contract the previous day. Hope got up and left at some point, and Charlotte focused on her work so she wouldn’t dive for her phone and see if Sammy had left a message.

When lunchtime came, Charlotte allowed herself to check her phone. Sammy had not left a message but had opted to send a string of texts instead. She steeled herself to read them, reminding herself that she didn’t owe anything to the friends who had so readily abandoned her and embraced Hunter’s new wife.

Hey! Just thinking about you and wondering where you ended up.

Like Charlotte was going to tell her. Sammy and her husband owned three golf courses on Carter’s Cove, and she could hop on a private plane and be teeing off here in Getaway Bay by nightfall.

Rosie’s having a big anniversary party and wanted to invite you.

“Then why didn’t she call me herself?” Charlotte muttered, still reading.

Hunter is insufferable.

Charlotte could’ve told Sammy that. In fact, she might have, during one of their rare lunches when the three of them—Sammy, Charlotte, and Rosie—managed to get together.

And Wilma called me. Asked me all kinds of questions about you. I don’t need to tell you how she is. I’d call her if I were you. She sounded like she was going to go to the FBI if she didn’t figure out where you were.

Charlotte rolled her eyes. Wilma had never cared where Charlotte was or what she was doing. Never.

Why did she care now?

“Never should’ve accepted Dawson’s friend request,” she told herself.

Maybe just text me back? Sammy had sent, and Charlotte’s heart squeezed a little. Maybe her friends did care about her and miss her.

That way I’ll know you’re okay.

Charlotte read the last sentence a few times and then typed out two words: I’m okay.

She feared giving out more information than that. She didn’t want her old life colliding with this new one she was trying to build in Getaway Bay.

She already had more to juggle than she could deal with, from this job, to the house—which Dawson was currently working on—to Dawson himself. She didn’t want to grapple with the ghosts of her past too.

As her phone screen lit up with yet another message from Sammy, Charlotte wondered if she’d ever be truly free from Carter’s Cove.