“No doubt.” She offered a tight smile. It was all she could do—she hadn’t taken a breath since she’d hit him with the drink. “Again, I’m…sorry.” And with little spots of anxiety dancing in her vision, she backed away, heading straight for the door.
Outside, the night was blessedly cold, tendrils of the icy air brushing her hot cheeks. Lucky Harbor was basically a tiny little bowl sitting on the rocky Washington State coast, walled in by majestic peaks and lush forest. It was all an inky shadow now. Aubrey stood still a moment, hand to her thundering heart. It was still threatening to burst out of her rib cage as she worked on sucking in air so chilly it burned her lungs.
Behind her the door opened again. Panicked that it might be Ben, and not nearly ready for another face-to-face, she hightailed it out of the parking lot. In her three-inch high-heeled boots, she wasn’t exactly stealthy, with the loud click-click-click of her heels, but she was fast. In two minutes, she’d rounded the block and finally slowed some, straining to hear any sounds that didn’t belong to the night.
Like footsteps.
Damn it. He was following her. She quickened her pace again until she passed a church. The building, like nearly all the buildings in Lucky Harbor, was a restored Victorian from the late 1800s. It was a pale pink with blue-and-white trim and lit from the inside. The front door was wide open and inviting, at least compared to the rest of the night around her.
Aubrey wasn’t a churchgoer. Her surgeon father hadn’t believed in anything other than what could be found in a science book. Cold, hard facts. As a result, churches always held a sort of morbid fascination for her, one she’d never given in to. But with Ben possibly still on her trail, she hurried up the walk and stepped inside. Trying to catch her breath, she turned around to see if she’d been followed.
“Good evening,” a man said behind her.
She jumped and looked around. He was in his thirties, average height and build, wearing jeans, a cable-knit sweater, and a smile that was as welcoming as the building itself.
But Aubrey didn’t trust welcoming much.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“No, thanks.” Unable to resist, she once again peered outside.
No sign of Ben. That was only a slight relief. She felt like the fly who’d lost track of the spider.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the man asked. “You seem…troubled.”
She resisted the urge to sigh. She was sure he was very nice, but what was it with the male species? Why was it so hard to believe she didn’t need a man’s help? Or a man, period? “Please don’t take this personally, but I’m giving up men. Forever.”
If he was fazed by her abruptness, it didn’t show. Instead, his eyes crinkled in good humor as he slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I’m the pastor here. Pastor Mike,” he said. “A happily married man,” he added with an easy smile.
If that didn’t cap off her evening—realizing she’d been rude to a man of God for having the audacity to be nice to her. “I’m sorry.” It didn’t escape her notice that this was now the second time tonight she’d said those two very foreign words. “My life’s in the toilet today…well, every day this week so far, really.”
His eyes were warm and sympathetic. The opposite, she couldn’t help but note, of the way Ben’s had been.
“We all have rough patches,” he said. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s all me. I just need to stop making the same mistakes over and over.” She took another peek into the night. The coast seemed clear. “Okay, I’m out. I’m going home to have the stiff drink I missed out on earlier at the bar.”
“What’s your name?” Pastor Mike asked.
She considered lying, but didn’t want to further tempt fate—or God, or whoever was in charge of such things. “Aubrey.”
“You don’t have to be alone, Aubrey,” he said very kindly, managing to sound gentle and in charge at the same time. “You’re in a good place here.”
She didn’t have a chance to reply before he’d gently nudged her into a meeting room where about ten people were seated in a circle.
A woman was standing, wringing her hands. “My name’s Kathy,” she said to the group, “and it’s been an hour since I last craved a drink.”
The entire group said in unison, “Hi, Kathy.”
An AA meeting, Aubrey realized, swallowing what would have been a half-hysterical laugh as Pastor Mike gestured to a few empty chairs. He sat next to her and handed her a pamphlet. One glance told her it was a list of the twelve steps to recovery.
Step one: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Oh, boy. Aubrey could probably get on board with the unmanageable life part, but really, what was she doing here? What would she possibly say to these people if she were asked to speak? Hi, my name is Aubrey, and I’m a bitchaholic?
Kathy began to speak about step eight, about how she was making a list of the people she’d wronged and making amends. After she finished and sat down, a man stood. Ryan, he told them. Ryan talked about something called his fearless moral inventory and how he, too, was working on step eight, making amends to the people he’d wronged.
Aubrey bit her lip. She’d never taken a fearless moral inventory, but it sounded daunting. Nor did she have a list of people she’d wronged, but if she did, it would be long. Horrifyingly long.
Ryan continued to talk with heartbreaking earnestness, and somehow, in spite of herself, she couldn’t help but soak it all in, unbearably moved by his bravery. He’d come back from a military stint overseas angry and withdrawn and had driven his family away. He’d lost his job, his home, everything, until he’d found himself homeless on the street, begging strangers for money to buy booze. He spoke of how much he regretted hurting the people in his life and how he hadn’t been able to obtain forgiveness from them. At least not yet, but he was still trying.
Aubrey found herself truly listening and marveling at his courage. She didn’t even realize that she was so transfixed until Mike gently patted her hand. “You see?” he asked quietly. “It’s never too late.”
Aubrey stared at him, wondering if that could really be true. “You don’t know for sure.”
“I do.” He said this with such conviction that she had no choice but to believe.
She thought about that as the meeting ended and she walked home to her loft above the Book & Bean. Her aunt Gwen had run the bookstore until her death last year, and her uncle—the building’s owner—hadn’t been able to bring himself to lease the space to anyone else. He was dating someone new these days, but the bookstore was still very sentimental to him.
Then, last month, Aubrey had left her job at the town hall after what she referred to as the Ted Incident. Restless, needing more from her life but not sure what, she’d signed a lease, both as an homage to her aunt Gwen—the bookstore had been a refuge for Aubrey as a troubled teen—and because she was determined to bring the bookstore back to its former glory.
The Book & Bean had been unofficially open for a week now, so it could start bringing in some desperately needed income, and in a month—after some renovations—she had plans to celebrate with a big grand opening party.