Cold Feet in Hot Sand Read Free Page B

they’d had one of those all too frequent screaming matches. They’d have to sort things out anyway, like dividing up possessions and selling the house, and he just hoped she would hear him out. Even if she did, it killed him knowing he’d hurt her this badly. She had to be beyond devastated, and he didn’t blame her. She probably hated him as much as he hated himself right about now.
     
    And he was thankful beyond words that Deanna was here. There was more comfort than she could imagine in the fact that she was still talking to him. That, once her initial anger had passed, she was still a friend. Something told him that among the small group who’d come to the island for the wedding, Deanna was very much in the minority.
     
    As the sun sank lower in the sky, inching toward the ocean, they stopped and sat in the sand, gazing out at the reddening sky.
     
    He hadn’t realized how long it had been since either of them had spoken until Deanna broke the silence.
     
    “So what are you going to do?” she asked.
     
    “I don’t know. I need to talk to Kristina eventually.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I doubt she’ll speak to me at this point, but… I do care about her. I want to settle this as much as we can.” He glanced at Deanna. “Do you think she’ll, you know, come around? Eventually?”
     
    “Maybe.” Deanna gave an apologetic shrug with one shoulder. “She’ll need some time to cool off, but you know her. She’s not unreasonable once she’s had a chance to process things.”
     
    “Even something like this?”
     
    “Even something like this.”
     
    Nick hoped she was right. Kristina had a temper and could be impossible to reason with when she lost it, but once she’d caught her breath and thought about things, she was calm and rational. Under any other circumstances, he’d be certain there was a civil conversation just around the corner.
     
    Not this time. As he and Deanna sat in the white sand, as the sun slipped into the ocean and the sky exploded in rich, warm colors, Nick’s mind kept wandering back to the other hotel, to the room where he’d dropped the bomb on his fiancée.
     
    “I’m sorry,” he’d said this morning. How many times had he said that? He’d lost track. “I just, I can’t do this.”
     
    “You can’t do this?” Tears streamed down Kristina’s face as she threw up her hands. “Nick, it’s our wedding day. Today. How can you back out now?”
     
    “Look, I’m sorry.” There they were again. Those two words he’d be saying over and over and over again into the foreseeable future. “I should have said something sooner, I know, I — ”
     
    “Sooner? You’ve been thinking about this?”
     
    “It’s not a sudden decision. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I thought… I thought it was just cold feet, but I…” He’d shaken his head and looked away because the sight of her sobbing like that made him want to take it all back and go through with the wedding after all, and he couldn’t do that to her. “I’m sorry, Kristina.”
     
    I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
     
    Could two words sound more useless?
     
    “You okay?” Deanna asked. “You got quiet.”
     
    “Just thinking.”
     
    “Can’t imagine what could be on your mind.”
     
    “Oh, no. Nothing at all.”
     
    They glanced at each other, and both managed half-hearted laughs.
     
    Both looked out at the fading sunset, but Nick stole a glance at her. It occurred to him that she should have reminded him of Kristina every time he looked at her. The sisters were practically twins — same long, dark hair, same brown eyes, same mischievous grin — but one never reminded him of the other. He only saw Kristina when he looked at Kristina, and he only saw Deanna when he looked at Deanna. Like now, when he caught himself stealing another glance at her.
     
    Oblivious to the thoughts going through his head, Deanna broke the silence. “I, um, I know you