My One and Only by Kristan Higgins Read Free Book Online

had handled himself. As I’d sat in his office, shaking like a leaf, gnawing on my cuticles, Theo’s gentle voice had given me a lifeline— Sometimes our hearts just need time to accept what our heads already know. He was the one who showed me that divorce attorneys were shepherds, helping the dazed and heartbroken across the jagged landscape of their shattered hope. He hired me the instant I graduated law school—I’d never worked anywhere but here.
    “Well, enjoy yourself in Montana, Harper,” Theo sighed. “Great fly-fishing up there. Would you like to borrow my gear?”
    “That’s okay. I’ll be back Monday. In and out.”
    “Watch out for grizzly bears.” Theo winked and went off to schmooze Carol, the firm’s ill-tempered and all-powerful secretary.
    I answered a few emails, checked my calendar for next week, tidied my desk. Then I stared out at the garden my office windows overlooked. Edgartown was the poshest town on the island. Graced with large and tasteful homes, brick sidewalks and our stout white lighthouse, the area was imposing but charming, much like Theo in some ways. In the winter, it was deserted, as most of the homeowners had their primary residences elsewhere. In the summer, it was so crowded that it could take half an hour to drive a mile. Most days above sixty degrees, I rode my bike to and from work; it took me about forty-five minutes of mostly flat pedaling and was a lovely way to get some exercise.
    I sighed, unable to distract myself any longer. So. Soon I’d be thirty-four, an age that boiled with significance for me. I had no kids, no husband, no fiancé. Tomorrow I’d be seeing my ex-husband and, no doubt, ripping a few scabs off memories I’d buried long ago and watching my sister marry a man she barely knew. Super fun.
    But speaking of scabs and memories…
    Very slowly, I opened the top drawer of my desk, took out a little key from where it was taped to the back and unlocked the bottom drawer of the file cabinet to my left.
    Last year, on my thirty-third birthday, I’d hired our firm’s private investigator for personal reasons. Half a day later, Dirk had given me this envelope.
    Just looking at it made me feel a little sick. But I wasn’t a weenie, either, so I opened it, just a little, and glanced inside. Town, state, place of employment, place of residence. As if I needed to see the words. As if they weren’t already branded on my temporal lobe.
    I hesitated, then dropped the envelope back in the drawer. “I have other stuff going on,” I told it. “You’re not a priority. Sorry.” I closed the drawer, locked it, replaced the key.
    Then I gathered up my stuff, went into the waiting room, waved to Tommy and told him to keep his chin up—he’d get through this, they all did—and reminded Carol that cell service might well suck out there in Big Sky country and not to panic if she didn’t hear from me.
    “Have I ever panicked, not hearing from you? Have I, in fact, ever gone twenty minutes without hearing from you?” she said, scowling at me. “Take a damn vacation, Harper. Give us all a break.”
    “Aw. Does that mean you want some moose antlers as your souvenir?”
    “That would be nice.”
    I tapped the bobblehead figure of Dustin Pedroia on her desk. “Hope the Sox win tonight,” I said.
    “Did you see Pedey last night? Unbelievable,” she said, sighing orgasmically.
    “I know,” I said, having watched the rerun somewhere around 2:00 a.m. as I battled insomnia. “He’s so good now…just wait till he hits puberty.”
    Carol’s dreamy expression turned murderous. “Get out.”
    “Bye, then,” I smiled.
    But just before I left, I went back and got that envelope from the bottom drawer, stuck it in my bag and tried not to think of it.
    Out on the street, I took a deep breath. School was back in session, and most of the tourists were gone, though they’d be flooding in like the red tide on Friday. Glancing down the street at the Catholic church, I