“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. The guy had stuck by my side through thick and thin. I wasn’t about to start lying or pretending to be cool about everything now. “I probably have hundreds of missed calls on my phone, but I can’t quite bring myself to face them. The thing is still charging in my room.”
I wondered how many of those missed calls would be from her. What would she even have to say for herself?
“When does she get back?”
I rolled my shoulders and let my head fall back. “They should still be filming promo shit for the movie today. She was supposed to get back in a couple of days, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Are you going to hear her out?”
I sighed, running my hands through my wet hair to push it out of my face. “I’m not sure. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but hopefully, I won’t have to figure it out today.”
If Angelina forced me to, she might not like the answer. I needed time to wrap my head around this clusterfuck, and then I needed to work out a way forward. Maybe talking to Dave about it wasn’t a bad idea after all.
Chapter 4
ANNA
“Mackinac Island is known as the all-natural theme park of America,” I told the group of tourists who’d come to the Tourism Center after a stroll around the docks.
Getting to speak to the travelers who came to the island from all over was my favorite part of the job. I never got tired of telling them all about our history and how the island came to be. “It’s even considered a National Historic Landmark.”
“Why aren’t there any cars?” one of the women asked. She had a camera around her neck and had been standing the closest to me since they’d come in. “Don’t you miss them?”
I chuckled, shaking my head. “We’ve pretty much escaped the changes of time. I guess you can’t miss something you’ve never had. We do just fine with our horses and buggies, bicycles, or just on our feet.”
“But why?” a teenage boy pressed. “Cars make things so much easier. We had to get five horses to get all our stuff to the hotel.”
“We have a firetruck and police vehicles for safety, but the residents banded together in the eighteen hundreds when people first attempted to bring vehicles here. We like to preserve our rich history, and horses and bicycles are a big part of that. Our infrastructure was built around the width of a carriage not a car. When the time came, we didn’t see any reason to change that.”
“I think it’s really cool,” a little girl said. “Everyone is so friendly here and the fudge is awesome.”
“That’s actually one of my favorite facts about the island,” I said. “Our fudge is world famous. We even refer to tourists as ‘fudgies’ as a term of endearment because almost everyone ends up buying their weight of the stuff here.”
“Is it true that the cars spooked the horses and the people didn’t want them here after that?” the same girl asked.
I nodded, giving her a genuine smile. “It was a safety issue as well as a lifestyle one.”
A man near the back stuck his hand in the air and spoke without waiting to be called on. “Do you really close in winter? How do you people survive?”
“We don’t close totally, although many of the restaurants and shops do. Christmas is actually a magical time of year here. There just aren’t any ferries in, so you have to come by air taxi. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen our ice bridge. It’s spectacular.”
I told them a little more about the ice bridge, how the Victorian era was responsible for turning Mackinac into a premier summer resort that brought in enough money to sustain most of us for the year, and then recommended some more sightseeing activities for them.
As they were leaving, Jessie came in carrying smoothies. My best friend was a gorgeous woman with such a vibrant personality that she instantly warmed any room she walked into.
Her dark brown hair was half pinned back as always, her green eyes were bright, and her bubbly laughter floated over to me when she overheard what some of the tourists were saying. She was wearing dark-wash jeans and a white button-down shirt with light blue stripes, and her fair skin practically sparkled in the midday sun.
There was no doubt about it. When God himself had been dishing out looks, he’d smiled on the Kent family as a whole. I was ninety percent sure that both Jessie and William had stood in the “gorgeous” queue in heaven at least twice before they were sent to earth.
If I didn’t love her, I’d have been supremely jealous of her. As things were though, she was my friendship soulmate. Once upon a time, I’d believed her brother was my romantic soulmate, but alas, puppy love wasn’t meant to last. If it was, people would just have called it big-dog love and there wouldn’t have been a whole thing about how sweet it was.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as I went over to scoop her into a hug. “I didn’t know you were coming by today.”
She waggled her dark brows, eyes darting one way and then the other as if she were a bodyguard or a spy. Her voice was hushed when she spoke, faux seriousness masking the light in her eyes.
“Before I tell you, I need to know if you-know-who is here?”
I laughed. “You can say her name, Jess. Mildred is out for the afternoon. She claimed she had errands to run, but I think she might be having a secret meeting with her coven.”
“Sounds more like her than errands.” She grinned and held up one of the smoothies. “I really did have errands to run, though. Thought I’d pop in to catch up with you while I was in town.”
As I took the smoothie, I popped the lid off and inhaled deeply. “Peanut butter and banana? Have I told you lately that I love you?”
“Have I told you lately that you’re weird?” She winked and moved farther into the Tourism Center, walking right around the counter to sit down in Mildred’s sacred chair. “So, what’s been going on with you? I feel like we’ve hardly seen each other since the season started.”
I joined her behind the counter to catch up, leaning with my hip against the wood as I sipped on the deliciousness that was my smoothie. “That’s because we haven’t. You have wedding planning coming out of your ears and I’ve just been here, trying to get people to fall in love with our home town so they’d come back and get married at your place.”
She made a gagging noise. “Please stop. I don’t know how many more weddings I can do. Unless…”
Bending her arm to jut her elbow out, she nudged my leg. “Have you decided to take me up on my offer? Will I no longer be planning all those weddings by myself?”
“I’m not going to stop. It’s good for your business, and you know I’ll help you in any way I can, but no, I’m not taking you up on your offer.”
She sighed but didn’t seem surprised. “Whenever you’re ready, you know it will always stand. I also feel like I need to reiterate that it’s not a handout. You’d be working your cute little butt off and you certainly have the right experience. I’m not just offering because you’re my friend.”
I reached out to squeeze her shoulder, smiling as I looked into her eyes. “I’m not trying to be stubborn. I just really don’t think it’s a good idea. You know what they say about mixing business with friendship.”