“I do,” Julia agreed. She sighed loudly. “I really thought this guy might be it, you know? He’s totally hot, and he’s hot for her, and I thought she was kinda hot for him.”

“You know something I don’t?” Dorie asked suspiciously.

“I kinda saw them making out the other night,” Julia said sheepishly.

“What?” Dorie slapped her cards down on the table. “And you held out on me? In my condition?”

“It was totally by accident,” Julia said. “Not like I was spying on them or anything. It was late, and Booker called, and I was kinda pacing around the room talking to him. I just happened to look out my window, and I saw this couple—just, wrapped up in each other, out on that boardwalk over the dunes. And it was just so sweet, you know? Summer love, that whole thing. It wasn’t until they pulled apart—reluctantly, I might add—and the girl was walking back towards the house, that I realized it was our Ellie-Belly. With garage guy.”

“I’d never say this to Ellis, but Ty doesn’t really seem like her type,” Dorie mused. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think he’s adorable, but nothing like the guys she used to be attracted to.”

“She is, though,” Julia said. “Sunday night, when we were at Cadillac Jack’s? That whole ‘I’ve got cabin fever, let’s us girls go out on the town?’ All a ploy. She knew he was working there that night. She only dragged me along so it wouldn’t look like she was stalking him. You should have seen Ty’s face when he caught sight of her, Dorie. There were all these hoochie mamas and pretty young things hanging around the bar, hoping he’d give them a glance, but when he saw Ellis, it was like he’d just been handed the biggest lollipop in the store.” She sighed. “So, so, sweet. And of course, Ellis was all nervous and tingly. Dorie, did you know she hasn’t, like, been with anybody since whatsisname?”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Dorie said. “After whatsisname, I didn’t think she’d ever allow herself to fall for another man.”

“She tried, though,” Julia said. “She was doing online dating! Do you believe that?”

“I know a lot of girls who’ve met their husbands online,” Dorie said. “But I am a little surprised that our Ellis got up the nerve to try it. And that she admitted it to you.”

“I swore not to tell,” Julia said. “But she had to know I’d tell you.”

Dorie patted Julia’s hand. “That’s all right. You’re great at keeping your own secrets, but everybody else’s? Not so much.” She yawned again. “God, I feel like I can never get enough sleep. I’m going to bed. Maybe by tomorrow, things won’t look so bad to Ellis. Maybe this was just a little tiff. Or something. I want this for Ellis.”

Julia cocked her head and studied Dorie. Her strawberry blond hair was gathered into pigtails, and her face was pink from the sun and just a little fuller than usual. It was hard to believe her old friend, who looked barely out of her teens, would be a mother in a few months.

“What do you want for Ellis?” Julia asked. “A good lay? God knows, she’s due. It’s been twelve years or something. Who knows, she might have forgotten how.”

Dorie rolled her eyes. “No, not just a good lay. Stop being such a cynic. Ellis deserves everything. True love, a husband, children, all of it. I don’t care what you say, Julia Capelli, I think that’s what all of us really want. You just think it’s not cool to admit it.”

“I do?”

“Absolutely. You had a great career, and I know you say that’s all over, but it still looks pretty fabulous from where I’m sitting. And you’ve got this great guy, Booker, who loves you and wants to marry you and give you whatever you want. And you’re just too stinkin’ cool to say yes.”

Julia pushed her chair away from the table. “Thanks for the cut-rate analysis, Eudora. Now, let me ask you something. Are you telling me that after all you’ve been through with Stephen, who has essentially left you for another man—while you are carrying his child—that you still believe in that happy-ever-after fairy tale stuff? Can you tell me that, straight-faced, with your own screwed-up family history, you buy that crap?”

Dorie leaned forward, her green eyes glittering with intensity.

“Look at me, Julia. I am telling you, yes. Yes, with absolute sincerity, despite Stephen, despite my parents’ shitty marital history, despite all evidence to the contrary, that yes, I do still buy what you call ‘that crap’. I have to believe Stephen really did love me, and that I loved him, and that we will love this baby I’m carrying. I’m furious and sad about what happened with us, but that doesn’t make me believe that what we had wasn’t real. And it doesn’t make me believe that I won’t find something that real again. I may be looking at being a single mother, at having to move in with my mom again, at working my ass off teaching school for peanuts, but you’re the one I feel sorry for, Julia. Because you do have it all, but you don’t believe it, and you don’t appreciate it. And that’s the saddest thing of all.”

*   *   *

Ellis kicked off the high-heeled sandals and peeled herself out of Julia’s clothes. She climbed into her cupcake pajamas and went into the bathroom, where she brushed her teeth until they bled, and scrubbed off every trace of the face Dorie had so carefully painted on her only a few hours earlier.

“Idiot,” she said, scowling into the mirror at the real Ellis Sullivan.

Back in her bedroom, she got out her cell phone, and erased each and every duplicitous e-mail she’d sent or received from [email protected].

When she was done, she padded back and forth in her bedroom, stopping every so often to glare out the window in the direction of the garage apartment. The lights were all on, but she couldn’t see Ty. Wait. As she watched, he came down the stairs from the apartment and went over to the Bronco. A moment later, the headlights flashed on, and he was backing out and down the driveway. Well, it was only 9:30, after all. Maybe he had another date. Maybe he was heading over to Cadillac Jack’s, to hook up with one of the willing women who’d flocked around him at the bar there. She didn’t care, Ellis told herself.

Screw him.

But the thing was, she did care. She’d let down her guard, let herself believe somebody like Ty Bazemore could care about her, let herself believe that she could ever be with somebody like him. Which was a joke, right? And she was the punch line.

Eventually, she heard footsteps on the stairs, light ones that must have been Dorie, barefoot, going to bed early. Maybe half an hour later, she heard the soft flapping of leather-soled sandals—those would be Julia’s. She heard their bedroom doors close, thankful that neither of her best friends had knocked on her own door to enquire about her “big date.”

What a laugh.

She tried to read her paperback, but gave up after realizing she’d reread the same chapter three times. Ellis settled back into the pillows on her bed, staring up at the ceiling fan whirring overhead. She studied all the cracks in the plaster ceiling, the watermarks on the faded flowery wallpaper. The air conditioner wedged into the window by the bed wheezed and rattled the window glass in a futile attempt to cool temperatures that were probably in the eighties. The place really was a dump. She’d been so happy to finally be here with her friends, so full of anticipation of the month, she’d glossed over the truly deplorable condition of Ebbtide.

It had been a grand old house at one time, she could tell. Large, square, high-ceilinged rooms, generous windows with amazing views of the ocean and dunes. Ryan, that guy at the restaurant, had mentioned that the house had belonged to Ty’s family. And that the house was about to be foreclosed on.

Served him right, Ellis tried to tell herself.

But it didn’t wash. Ty had told her he was a day trader, trying to recoup his losses in the stock market. The reality was that he was trying desperately to keep from losing his family home. Which explained why he rented out the big house and lived in the garage apartment. But it still didn’t explain why he couldn’t have just told her, after their first encounter on the beach, that he was Mr. Culpepper.