“Try this.”
Hope wriggled into them.
“Better?”
“Yeah, thanks.” All at once, she felt like a teenager again—like she and Jackie were in on some stupid youthful scam. Yet they weren’t so youthful anymore. They were both grown women who should know better. She yanked Jackie’s top over her head and settled it around her hips, deciding the look was okay. She was not wearing Jackie’s high-heeled sandals, however. She reserved the right to keep at least one pair of her own shoes for more comfortable traveling.
“Do you have a belt?” Jackie asked, evidently finding Hope’s jeans too roomy.
“Here,” Hope said, thrusting one through the opening.
They exited the stalls, examining each other. Looking at Jackie was almost like staring at her reflection—only there were those subtle differences between them that only they and their mother knew about. “Not bad.” Jackie looked herself up and down, then stared at Hope. “This will probably do.”
“Cool.” A teenage girl with spiky black-and-purple hair and an eyebrow bar gawked at them. “Are you two twins? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any so old.”
“Uh…thanks,” Hope said to the double-sided compliment.
“Yep,” Jackie said smartly, tugging Hope along. “We’re ancient.” When they were near the restroom door, she screeched, “Eeep. The ring.”
She stared down at Hope’s finger, and Hope tugged off the wedding band, goggling at the engagement ring that Jackie wore. “You’d better remove that and hide it. Brent’s seen me without it all week. He thinks it’s at the jewelers getting resized.”
Jackie nodded and slipped the ring into a small zipper pouch inside her suitcase. “There,” she said, once she’d seated the wedding band on her hand. “That does it.” She shot a cautionary look at Hope. “You should probably stay in here another five minutes just to be safe. I’ll get Brent out of here and moving toward security ASAP.”
The restroom lights swirled around her. “Okay.” She leaned against a wall, afraid she might faint.
Jackie cast her a sidelong glance as she stepped toward the door. “You going to be all right?”
Hope nodded, her stomach churning.
“I’ll text you from Bermuda to let you know we made it.” She rushed back and gave Hope a quick hug. “Love you.”
“Yeah, I…” All around her, Hope saw sparkly silver stars. “…love you, too.” She blinked to clear her vision and then walked to a sink, where she splashed cold water on her face again and again and again. Finally, she realized it was also hitting her neck and the front of Jackie’s top. She’d pretty much soaked herself. But if it hadn’t been water, it might as well have been tears. Hope braced herself against the sink, then stared at her disheveled image in the mirror. Her hair was a wreck, and her eyes were bloodshot. The gold heart pendant dangled from a thin gold chain around her neck.
She recalled her conversation with Brent when he’d asked about the necklace. She’d told him the truth when she said she’d bought it as a gift for herself, because she wanted to believe herself loveable, even if nobody else could love her. The cold truth now was that, at this particular moment, Hope didn’t love herself. On the contrary, she loathed who she’d become and what she’d done to Brent. And not just to him. To his whole family.
And Meredith. Dear, sweet Meredith, who’d been so very kind and doggedly loyal. Hope had dragged her into this, along with their poor mom. Even if Ava had gotten to sing at the wedding, in retrospect, she probably didn’t believe the stress of it all worth it. Hope had made a mess of everything. But she hadn’t acted alone. Jackie had been complicit in this. She’d aided and abetted the entire operation, and today she was planning to benefit from it—without giving a thought to the potential devastation they’d caused.
While Hope was probably the worst culprit, Jackie wasn’t blameless. The two of them were bad news. Shameless. One just as recklessly unthinking and callous as the other. Neither one deserved a guy as amazing as Brent. What’s more, he certainly didn’t deserve either of them.
Hope’s pulse raced, and her head cleared when she understood what she had to do. She had to fix things. Set them right. Even if—by doing so—she risked blowing them apart.
She couldn’t let Brent blindly go to Bermuda with a woman he believed to be someone else—the person he’d bonded with and come to love in Blue Hill.
Hope had to stop him.
She had to stop Jackie, too.
She had to stop them both—before they reached airport security.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jackie returned from the restroom looking like a different person. Seriously. A different person. Her makeup was no longer smeared, and she wore a bright smile, and yet…there was something different about her. “Feeling better?”
“Uh-huh, yep. So much.”
Brent squinted and looked closer. Nope. It was Jackie, all right. Except… “Did you do something different with your eyes?”
“My eyes?” she asked, appearing alarmed. She smoothed back her hair, which was in a ponytail all of a sudden. “What do you mean?”
“They, uh…” Brent shook his head, deciding he was mistaken. He’d know his bride anywhere. And here she was. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “The new eyeliner. Is that it? I just applied some in the restroom.”
Brent didn’t know much about women’s makeup, but he did understand it could have a transformational effect. “That’s it. You’ve enhanced your beautiful eyes.”
“Aww, sweet,” she said, swatting his arm in a supposedly familiar gesture that somehow just felt—wrong.
Brent rolled back his shoulders, deciding he was imagining things. He’d probably feel better once they boarded their plane and were on their way to the sunny Caribbean. “Did you still want coffee?”
“Coffee?” Her gaze darted toward the donut shop. “No, thanks. We’d better move along.”
He stared down at her neck, noticing it was gone. “Your necklace. That’s what it is. You’re not wearing it anymore.”
Jackie clasped a hand to her neck. “Oh. Well. I decided to take it off.”
His forehead rose. “Why?”
“I, um…just thought.” She fiddled with her ponytail holder. “It would get in the way.”
“The way? Of what?”