One Last Weekend by Linda Lael Miller Page B

experience would be a total bust anyway, and she and Teague would both be on the next ferry back to Seattle. She probably wouldn’t even be there long enough to need a toothbrush.
    Teague made that pretty much of a sure thing when he added, “Come on, Sammy. Let’s get this over with.”
    Inwardly, Joanna seethed.
    Ted gave her a sympathetic look as she rose. Teague and Sammy were already on their way out, though the dog paused every few steps, looking back, clearly waiting for Joanna to follow.
    For Sammy’s sake rather than Teague’s, she did.
    Leaving the suite housing Ted’s office, they took the elevator down to the underground lot, where Teague’s sports car was parked alongside Joanna’s stylish but practical compact.
    Rather than subject Sammy to another debate, Joanna didn’t insist that the dog ride with her instead of Teague. The ferry terminal was only minutes away, and once they were aboard the large, state-operated boat, the ride to Firefly Island would take less than half an hour.
    Teague had the top down on his high-powered phallic symbol, and Sammy loved an open-air ride, whatever the weather. Although the morning had been pristinely sunny, one of those days that seem to mock Seattle’s reputation for unrelenting rain, the sky was darkening now, its gray tone reflected by the choppy waters of the bay.
    In the old days, Joanna thought, with a quiet sigh, she and Teague wouldn’t even have considered taking two cars to the cottage. If Caitlin was going along, she’d have had at least one friend with her, and they would have all crammed themselves into Teague’s big SUV. On the occasions when Sammy and Caitlin stayed home, in the expert care of the recently retired Mrs. Smills, their housekeeper, they would have stayed in the car for the short duration of the crossing, willing the boat to go faster.
    Back then, as soon as the front door of the cottage closed behind them, they’d have left a trail of clothes behind them, laughing as they raced for the bedroom.
    Joanna waited in the short line of cars just behind Teague and Sammy—not as many people heading for the island as there usually were on Friday afternoons, she thought—paid her fare when her turn came, and drove into the belly of the ferry.
    They practically had the whole boat to themselves.
    Joanna waved reassuringly to Sammy, who responded with a doggy grin, but Teague sat staring straight ahead as though they were strangers, he and Joanna, not two people who had raised a child together.
    She leaned back in the car seat and closed her eyes. Ted’s heart had been in the right place—he hoped she and Teague would reconsider, of course, and decide not to go through with the divorce. Maybe he figured they’d fall into each other’s arms, alone in a romantic island cottage, and rekindle the old flame that had once burned so brightly that it glowed within both of them.
    When had it gone out?
    The last time she and Teague had made love—weeks ago, now—they’d both been satisfied, but nothing more. Two bodies, colliding, responding reflexively, biologically—and then drawing apart. Afterward, Teague had quietly left their bedroom and gone upstairs to sleep in one of the guest rooms.
    Remembering, Joanna felt humiliated all over again.
    She went to the gym three times a week, but she was forty-one, after all, and soft all over, a little saggy in places. And even though she tried to watch what she ate, she was forever testing recipes for her cookbooks, and that involved a lot of tasting.
    Hence the extra five pounds.
    Was it the extra five pounds?
    A brisk rap on her driver’s side window startled her, and she turned to see Teague peering in at her.
    She had put the key in the ignition in order to operate the power windows, and she’d done it before she realized she could have simply opened the door.
    â€œI’m going upstairs for some coffee,”