“I miss you too. I feel like I’ve lost two of my best friends.”
My curiosity got the better of me. “Have you spoken to Beth?”
“I have. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You and Beth are friends.”
“So are you and Beth. She said she’s tried to talk to you, leaving messages and texts. She saw the article about you and Skylar working it out.”
“She should know that’s not true.”
“She doesn’t; she says she’s in limbo. She even called your mom.”
I lay back on the bed. “I heard. Mom thinks I should call her.”
“I don’t,” Vicki said. “She’s my friend, but damn, it’s not like she didn’t tell you she was involved with just someone. She didn’t tell you that she was involved withSkylar.”
Tears I didn’t expect burnt the back of my eyes. “In the long run, she saved me. I keep telling myself that. If Skylar would sleep around on me during our engagement, he would have done it after we married.”
“He’s scum,” Vicki said definitively.
“I’m not sticking up for him, but I think that neither of us was in love with one another. We were just going forward on the road that was laid out for us when we were too young to question.”
“The reason Beth doesn’t know if the news is true or not is because Beth hasn’t spoken to him since you left.”
I sat up. “What?”
“He left town around the same time. He hasn’t returned her calls. Mrs. Butler has been calling everyone to find him.”
Where did he go after he left Ashland?
“Does Skylar’s mom know that Beth is pregnant?” I asked.
Vicki’s volume rose. “Oh, girl, I don’t know, and if I were Beth, it sure as hell wouldn’t be a discussion I’d want to have with the Butlers without Skylar’s support.”
Poor Beth.
Had I really just had that thought?
“When are you coming home?” Vicki asked.
“I got the job that I told you about. I’m going to stay here for a while.”
She laughed. “That’s another weirdTwilight Zone-y thing. I knew you applied for a job, but yesterday, the crazy-ass newspeople have you engaged to someone else. It’s wild. They twist everything.” Before I could reply, she went on. “I looked the man up. He’s uber rich and some good-looking recluse. I told my mom about it and said you’d gone for a job, not a new proposal.”
“The job opportunity is why I came up here. The whole thing hasn’t exactly worked out as I planned.”
“Tell me about the job,” Vicki said.
“The job is to write Donovan Sherman’s memoir.”
“That’s the guy,” she said, her voice rising. “I swear those reporters are crazy.”
I sat taller. “They aren’t. He did propose. I said yes.”
“What the hell?”
I nodded. “I did. I know it’s fast—”