Cedar Cove
MIRA
January 2010
On Sale: January 1, 2010
Featuring: Olivia Lockhart
400 pages ISBN: 0778328600 EAN: 9780778328605 Paperback (reprint) Add to Wish List
Cecilia Randall had heard of people who, if granted one
wish, would choose to live their lives over again. Not her.
She'd be perfectly content to blot just one
twelve-month period from her twenty-two years.
The past twelve months.
Last January, shortly after New Year's, she'd met
Ian Jacob Randall, a Navy man, a submariner. She'd
fallen in love with him and done something completely
irresponsible#nbsp;— she'd gotten pregnant. Then
she'd complicated the whole situation by marrying him.
That was mistake number three and from there, her errors in
judgement had escalated. She hadn't been stupid so much
as naïve and in love and#nbsp;— worst of all#nbsp;—
romantic. The Navy, and life, had cured her of that fast
enough.
Their baby girl had been born premature while Ian was at
sea, and it became immediately apparent that she had a
defective heart. By the time Ian returned home, Allison
Marie had already been laid to rest. It was Cecilia
who'd stood alone in the unrelenting rain of the
Pacific Northwest while her baby's tiny casket was
lowered into the cold, muddy earth. She'd been forced to
make life-and-death decisions without the counsel of
family or the comfort of her husband.
Her mother lived on the East coast and, because of a
snowstorm, had been unable to fly into Washington State.
Her father was as supportive as he knew how to be#nbsp;—
which was damn little. His idea of "being there for
her" consisted of giving Cecilia a sympathy card and
writing a few lines about how sorry he was for her loss.
Cecilia had spent countless days and nights by their
daughter's empty crib, alternately weeping and in shock.
Other Navy wives had tried to console her, but Cecilia
wasn't comfortable with strangers. She'd rejected
their help and their friendship. And because she'd been
in Cedar Cove for such a short time, she hadn't made
any close friends in the community, either. As a result,
she'd borne her grief alone.
When Ian did return, he'd blamed Navy procedures for
his delay. He'd tried to explain, but by then Cecilia
was tired of it all. Only one reality had any meaning: her
daughter was dead. Her husband didn't know and
couldn't possibly understand what she'd endured in
his absence. Since he was on a nuclear submarine, all
transmissions during his tour of duty were limited to fifty
word "family grams." Nothing could have been done,
anyway; the submarine was below the polar ice cap at the
time. She did write to tell him about Allison's birth
and then her death. She'd written out her grief in these
brief messages, not caring that they'd be closely
scrutinized by Navy personnel. But Ian's commanding
officer had seen fit to postpone relaying the information
until the completion of the ten-week tour. I didn't
know, Ian had repeatedly insisted. Surely she
couldn't hold him responsible. But she did. Unfair
though it might be, Cecilia couldn't forgive him.
Now all she wanted was out. Out of her marriage, out of
this emotional morass of guilt and regret, just out.
The simplest form of escape was to divorce Ian.
Sitting in the hallway near the courtroom, she felt more
determined than ever to terminate her marriage. With one
swift strike of a judge's gavel, she could put an end
to the nightmare of the past year. Eventually she would
forget she'd ever met Ian Randall.
Allan Harris, Cecilia's attorney, entered the foyer
outside the Kitsap County courtroom. She watched as he
glanced around until he saw her. He raised his hand in a
brief greeting, then walked over to where she sat on the
hard wooden bench and claimed the empty space beside her.
"Tell me again what's going to happen," she
said, needing the assurance that her life would return to
at least an approximation of what it had been a year ago.
Allan set his briefcase on his lap. "We wait until the
docket is announced. The judge will ask if we're ready,
I'll announce that we are, and we'll be given a
number."
Cecilia nodded, feeling numb.
"We can be assigned any number between one and
fifty," her attorney continued. "Then we wait our
turn."
Cecilia nodded again, hoping she wouldn't be stuck in
the courthouse all day. Bad enough that she had to be here;
even worse that Ian's presence was also required. She
hadn't seen him yet. Maybe he was meeting somewhere
with his own attorney, discussing strategies#nbsp;— not that
she expected him to contest the divorce.
"There won't be a problem, will there?" Her
palms were damp and cold sweat had broken out across her
forehead. She wanted this to be over so she could get on
with her life. She believed that couldn't happen until
the divorce was filed. Only then would the pain start to go
away.
"I can't see that there'll be any hang-ups,
especially since you've agreed to divide all the
debts." He frowned slightly. "Despite that
prenuptial agreement you signed."
A flu-like feeling attacked Cecilia's stomach, and she
clutched her purse tightly against her. Soon, she
reminded herself, soon she could walk out these doors into
a new life.
"It's a rather...unusual agreement," Allan
murmured.
In retrospect, the prenuptial agreement had been another in
the list of mistakes she'd made in the past year, but
according to her attorney one that could easily be
rectified. Back when she'd signed it, their agreement
had made perfect sense. In an effort to prove their
sincerity, they'd come up with the idea that the spouse
who wanted the divorce should pay not only the legal costs
but all debts incurred during the marriage. It could be
seen as either punitive or deterrent; in either case, it
hadn't worked. And now it was just one more nuisance to
be dealt with.
Cecilia blamed herself for insisting on something in
writing. She'd wanted to be absolutely sure that Ian
wasn't marrying her out of any sense of obligation. Yes,
the pregnancy was unplanned, but she would've been
perfectly content to raise her child by herself. She
preferred that to being trapped in an unhappy
marriage#nbsp;— or trapping Ian in a relationship he
didn't want. Ian, however, had been adamant. He'd
sworn that he loved her, loved their unborn child and
wanted to marry her.
As a ten-year-old, Cecilia's entire world had been torn
apart when her parents divorced. She refused to do that to
her own child. In her mind, marriage was forever, so
she'd wanted them to be certain before making a
lifetime commitment. How naïve, she thought now. How
sentimental. How romantic.
Ian had said he wanted their marriage to be forever, too,
but like so much else this past year, that had been an
illusion. Cecilia had needed to believe him,
believe in the power of love, believe it would protect her
from this kind of heartache.
In the end, blinded by the prospect of a husband who seemed
totally committed to her and by the hope of a
happy-ever-after kind of life, Cecilia had acquiesced to
the marriage#nbsp;— with one stipulation. The agreement.
Their marriage was supposed to last as long as they both
lived, so they'd devised an agreement that would help
them stay true to their vows. Or so they'd thought....
Before the ceremony they'd written the prenuptial
contract themselves and had it notarized. She'd
forgotten all about it until she'd made an appointment
with Allan Harris and he'd asked if she'd signed
any agreement prior to the wedding. It certainly wasn't
the standard sort of document; nevertheless Allan felt they
needed to have the court rescind it.
© 2003-2024