Always the Bridesmaid by Whitney Lyles

Author:Whitney Lyles
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

15 • Signs of Life

A torrential downpour hit the island. Paul had to work all day, and Cate was bored out of her mind.

That morning she took a cab to the nearest minimart, where she purchased a tube of anti-itch cream. She and Paul had both been eaten alive by mosquitoes in Hana. They each had awakened several times in the night to scratch various parts of their bodies. She had one on her tush and couldn’t figure out how a mosquito had managed to break through the barrier of her shorts and clingy granny-style underwear to suck the life out of her.

Apparently Paul was allergic to mosquitoes. Some of his bites had swollen to the size of golf balls, and he’d broken out in hives on his face.

At the minimart she also bought a book from the minimal selection. It was a legal thriller written by an author she had never heard of.

After she returned to the hotel, she applied the cream to all of her bites and tried to ignore the itching that plagued her entire body. Out of boredom, she counted the bites: twenty-five in total.

She wished she had brought some beads with her to the island, so she could at least make a necklace. She decided to give the book a try but found that she couldn’t stay focused and that her mind wandered off the pages and onto Paul.

She had hoped this trip would bring them closer, but she had never felt more distant from him. His lack of consideration when he’d left her waiting two nights in a row bothered her, and she was beginning to wonder if they were even compatible. The hike in Hana had been a real eye-opener. She’d known Paul had always been a little anal. The travel candles and his impeccable cleanliness had been indications of this, but now she wondered if his uptight tendencies clashed with her personality.

However, everyone had his or her flaws, and she didn’t know any couples who were perfectly compatible. Example: Leslie and Russ. She was the most precise person that Cate had ever known, and her fiancé, Russ, was so easygoing he had actually forgotten his own birthday one year. From the outside Beth and Ike appeared perfect, but Cate knew that Ike’s failure to express his feelings and Beth’s constant need to be open with hers created friction in their relationship. Even her parents had their differences, and they had been married for thirty-two years. Her poor dad had been nodding his head and keeping his opinions on politics and religion to himself for over three decades, just to avoid lengthy debates with his wife. But he still took her to nice dinners once a week and they did their crossword puzzles together every night. Every now and then, Cate would catch her father looking at her mother when she told a story. She could see a little glow in his eyes, the corners of his mouth turned up in one of the most satisfied smiles Cate had ever seen.

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