Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
She’d had her heart shattered for her efforts, but look. Look. She was still walking, talking, and breathing. She’d reasoned that if she could survive what happened in that hospital room with Burgess, she could do just about anything, couldn’t she?
Even call her family. Hear their voices without being ashamed of herself for retreating into the safety of solitude, like she’d sworn to them she wouldn’t.
No more postcards.
No more pretense.
She’d reached the end of that lifeline.
Burgess might have been wrong to call her a coward, to wound her like that when she was offering only love and care and support. But his words had rung true, nonetheless. Before she took the final step of calling Istanbul, she wanted to do something big. Something to tear her safety zone wide open once and for all, so here she was. Floating above the tree line, as high and unfettered as a bird. Vulnerable to the wind. And she wasn’t scared.
Burgess had been right about more than one thing. He’d told her she wouldn’t need a bodyguard forever, hadn’t he? Yes. Here she was proving him right. Proving herself capable. She couldn’t help aching to share the moment with him. It was an ache that wouldn’t quit.
Tallulah braced a hand on the tightly woven basket, her heart performing one of those dramatic nose dives into her stomach that it insisted on doing every time she thought of the hockey player too much. Was his back getting better? Was he in pain? Should she have screamed at him for being a dick, but ultimately stayed?
No.
No, he’d lost her.
He’d shown his true colors and abandoned the trust they’d built.
She would never allow him to get close enough to hurt her again.
Ever.
Bolstered by her resolve, Tallulah took her hand off the basket and reached down into its depths for her purse. She took out the ziplock bag containing the postcards she’d been collecting, holding them to her chest for several moments. Finally, with a quick intake of breath that she held until her lungs started to burn, she opened the baggie and turned it over outside of the basket, letting the wind take the dozen or so cards and carry them away, bringing a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. They fluttered toward the ground in spins of color, eventually growing so small they disappeared from view.
Letting go of those postcards, her crutch, was hard, but obviously necessary, because as soon as they were gone, she felt higher than the balloon. Like she could float all on her own.
Before setting down her purse again, she removed her phone.
And with her heart knocking in her ears, she called Istanbul.
“Hey, Lara, it’s me.” She listened for a moment, warmth flooding into her limbs, her face, and heart as exclamations and questions filled her ears. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m . . . going to be fine.”
Five weeks later, Tallulah stood in the reception area of the resort thinking of those postcards and how they’d looked fluttering to the ground. How momentous that moment had been and how she’d grown a little stronger every day since beginning to communicate with her family again.
There was nothing that could rattle Tallulah now. So her ex-boyfriend/boss was attending the same wedding? And due to them being the only members of the bridal party, they were going to be spending a lot of time together? Bring it on, bub. She was wearing an invisible breastplate of steel, reinforced by the closure she’d gotten in New Hampshire. Some hockey player wasn’t going to penetrate it.
Tallulah was one hundred percent confident in the belief that seeing Burgess again wouldn’t rattle her. She’d even vowed it to herself on the plane ride from Boston, during which Chloe chatted her ear off about her secret wish to own a dog grooming company because who wouldn’t want to clip those widdle biddy paws all day? Sig sat beside his future stepsibling reading a book about financial investment strategies, an interesting choice for a professional hockey player, but she didn’t comment.
Once again in the resort shuttle, Tallulah reminded herself that she’d faced harder obstacles than a hulking athlete who’d chosen to cut her off at the knees, instead of accepting her love. Her help. She wasn’t nervous about seeing a man who didn’t even like to dance. A man who didn’t seize his chance to skinny dip or meet new people. A man that didn’t suit her—at all. He could be staring down at her right now and she’d be unaffected. Unmoved.
Thank you, next.
I’m over you, Burgess Abraham.
She believed that right up until she saw him at the resort reception desk—
And her heart tried to swan dive out of her mouth.
Oh. God.
All it took was an instant for the pain of his rejection to come flooding back. The pain that had bloomed in the center of her body as she walked away from his hospital room roared to life now, only it was in more than one spot. It was behind her eyes, in her wrists, the pit of her stomach.