LITMIR.BIZ

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sickness.

      Her mind wasn’t even letting her skirt around it now, as if seeing Callan again made everything more real. Even her memories of Hawaii...

      That day had been the ninth anniversary of her wedding to Patrick. The fourth without him. It was still a bad day every year. A day she had to struggle through.

      The first year she’d immersed herself in everything she’d had of Patrick’s, everything that kept him alive for her. She’d set out every picture she had of him, worn one of his shirts, padded around in his bedroom slippers. She’d gone through everything and anything that reminded her of him. She’d wallowed in all she’d lost and her own misery.

      That had been a terrible day.

      So the next year she’d tried plunging herself into work, going into the office at six that morning, staying until the cleaning crew showed up that night, pretending it was just business as usual.

      But the cleaners had found her sobbing at her desk, because work hadn’t made anything better, either.

      Last year she’d tried enlisting her family to distract her. And they had. They’d whisked her off to the mountains to go boating and water-skiing on Dillon Lake.

      But all she’d been able to think about, to talk about, had been Patrick—how much Patrick had loved days like that with her family, how much he’d loved the water and how often he’d talked about retiring seaside somewhere, how much he’d loved barbecuing...

      And by the end of the boating and barbecuing and s’mores, she’d still been a mess.

      So this year, in Hawaii, she’d decided to deal with her anniversary by disengaging. By skipping the conference, not scheduling any meetings, any breakfasts, lunches or dinners. By not doing anything.

      “Pamper yourself,” her sister and Jani had urged, worried about her being so far away and alone on that day.

      Taking their recommendation, Livi had slept until she couldn’t sleep any more—until after noon, something she never did.

      Then she’d gone to the hotel’s luxury spa, where she’d had a massage in near silence, not inviting or welcoming any conversation from the masseuse, trying to keep her mind blank.

      Afterward the massage therapist had advised her to sit in the sauna, to sweat out the toxins. You’ll feel like a new woman, she had said.

      Livi rarely used the sauna because she wasn’t fond of heat like that, but on that day of all days she wanted to feel like a new woman, because feeling like the old one wasn’t good. So she’d sat in the sauna, thinking only about how hot it was, about sweating away the old Livi and emerging a new one.

      Which she’d actually sort of felt she’d accomplished by the time she’d finished. She’d been so calm and relaxed and...well, just different than she usually felt. Especially on her anniversary.

      Different enough to decide to go with the flow of that feeling by moving on to the hotel’s salon.

      She hadn’t had a haircut since Patrick’s death. Four years without so much as a trim.

      Patrick had liked her hair long and she just hadn’t been able to have any of it cut.

      But that day she’d actually felt like it. Nothing short, no huge change, nothing Patrick would have even noticed, just a little something...

      Which was what she’d done—had a scant two inches cut off the length. But she’d also had the sides feathered, and then agreed to the highlights the stylist suggested.

      It was funny how a small change could catapult her even further into feeling like a whole new woman.

      And while she was at it, why not go all the way? The makeup artist had had a cancelation and offered Livi his services. Why not have her face done, too?

      For Lindie’s wedding, Livi had declined the opportunity for that and stuck with her usual subdued blush and mascara. But on that day in Hawaii she’d let the makeup artist go ahead with whatever he wanted to do—nothing dramatic, but different shades of the colors she liked, and slightly more of everything.

      And while he’d worked, she’d also let the manicurist do a skin-softening waxing—feet and hands—for which she’d taken off her wedding rings.

      By then she’d been all in with the idea of a New Livi for just one day, so she’d had her nails painted bright red and stenciled with white flowery designs—something more showy than she’d ever done before.

      She honestly had felt like someone different when she’d left the salon, and she’d decided that maybe doing things she never did was the answer to getting through the anniversary. Certainly it had been helping to keep the sadness away more than anything had before.

      And she’d definitely wanted to keep that going.

      So she’d left her rings in her purse and splurged in the hotel’s dress shop, changing into a halter sundress that exposed so much shoulder that it forced her to include her bra with the bag of clothes she’d had sent to her room.

      She’d never been to a bar alone and she had chosen the table farthest out on the beach, away from the bar itself and the guests mingling around it, but it was still something the Old Livi would never have done.

      And the New Livi had ordered a drink. And then a second one. Because, after all, the sun was low in the sky by then and she’d felt floaty and really, really nice. Really, really as if she were someone else. And that someone else wanted another drink...

      It was that someone else who had looked up to find the oh-so-good-looking guy saying hello to her halfway through her second drink. That someone else who had said yes when he’d asked if he could sit with her. That someone else from then on.

      Maybe it had been the liquor, but she’d found Callan as easy to talk to as Patrick had always been, and after a while she’d realized that she was having a good time with him. That she was feeling a connection—in the most superficial way, of course—with Callan. A connection she hadn’t felt with any man she wasn’t related to since Patrick.

      And it helped that the only similarity between Callan and her Patrick was that she’d found them both easy to talk to. In every other way, Callan was very different.

      Patrick hadn’t been too tall—only five-eight. Patrick had not had an athlete’s body—he’d been slight, weighing only twenty pounds more than she did.

      Patrick’s fair hair had been thin, his hairline receding, and he’d had unremarkable, boy-next-door good looks, with his ruddy cheeks and nondescript hazel eyes hidden behind the glasses he’d needed to wear.

      It had been Patrick’s winning personality that had gained him friends and jobs. And her.

      So sitting at that beachside table—and, yes, hitting it off—with a tall, imposing guy with great hair and great eyes and great features, and a body that was not only athletic and hard, but also muscular and broad-shouldered and so, so masculine, had not been something Livi Camden-Walsh was experienced at.

      And she most definitely wasn’t experienced at not only chatting and laughing with the stranger, but flirting with him, too...

      Yes, she’d been flirting with him.

      And she’d never flirted with anyone but Patrick in her life.

      But her Hawaiian alter ego had actually been good at it. Again, maybe because of the booze.

      They’d sat there until late. Until the hula dancing was done. Until the live music ended. Until there were no more than a few people at the bar. She and Callan had sat there drinking and talking about nothing that meant anything.

      Finally, Livi noticed that the moon was high, and decided it must be late and she should call it a night.

      No, not yet—how about a walk on the beach? he’d said.

      Any other time, any other man and she wouldn’t have

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