The Bucket List, page 1
Also by Rachel Hanna
January Cove Series
Waiting For You
The One For Me
Loving Tessa
Falling For You
Finding Love
All I Need
Secrets And Soulmates
Choices Of The Heart
Sweet Love
Faith, Hope & Love
Spying On The Billionaire
Complete January Cove Boxed Set Books 1-10
Second Chance Christmas
South Carolina Sunsets
The Beach House
Sunsets & Second Chances
Fireflies & Family Ties
The Inn At Seagrove
The Wedding At Seagrove
A Seagrove Christmas
Lighthouse Cove
Beneath The Willow Tree
Mutts & Magnolias
Chasing Sunsets
Sweet Tea B&B
Sweet Tea Sunrise
Sweet Tea & Honey Bees
Sweet Tea & Wedding Rings
Sweet Tea & Christmas Trees
Sweet Tea & Baby Makes Three
Sweet Tea B&B
The Jubilee Series
Welcome To Jubilee
Whiskey Ridge
Starting Over
Taking Chances
Home Again
Always A Bridesmaid
The Billionaire's Retreat
Wisteria Island
Wisteria Island
Wisteria Winds
Standalone
Back To Us
Blue Ridge Christmas
The Book Club On Waverly Lane
The Bucket List
Watch for more at Rachel Hanna’s site.
THE BUCKET LIST
RACHEL HANNA
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
PROLOGUE
My hand grips my phone, as it does around this time each day, while I stare at the GPS app. Watching my technically adult daughter make the one hour drive from her workplace to her apartment always puts me on edge. It’s not that I don’t trust her. I do. I just don’t trust every single other idiotic individual on the road next to her.
I sit on my patio like this every evening, having my cup of decaf coffee, staring at her car moving. Well, it’s not really her car. It’s a little blue dot. And sometimes, when it sits for too long, I panic. I think all kinds of scary thoughts like what if she crashed and needs my help? It’s not like I own a pair of those “jaws of life”, but doesn’t everybody need their mom when they’re scared?
Oh gosh, what if she’s scared? What if she’s sitting there with her hazard lights on in the middle of that busy Atlanta interstate, cars whizzing by, and nobody is stopping to help her? What if she’s having an asthma attack? Wait, does she still carry that rescue inhaler I got her before she went off to college almost four years ago? Is it expired? Oh, geez, what kind of mother sends her kid off with an expired inhaler?
The little dot starts moving again, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. As soon as Annie makes it home, I’m calling the pharmacy to make sure she has a new inhaler.
Even though she moved out years ago to go to college, I still can’t shake the feeling that something bad is going to happen to her. After all, it’s not without precedence. Her father died right in front of me when she was seven years old, and I’ve never gotten over the feeling that I need to watch after her even more carefully.
I don’t like to think about the day Jesse died. He was the love of my life, and I still haven’t dated. Yeah, it’s been fifteen years, and I haven’t joined any of those dating apps or gone to a singles bar. Jesse set the bar too high for any other man to reach.
Why is it, when someone you love dies, they suddenly have no faults? I can’t think of one fault that man had, but I know he had some because we were in marriage counseling when he died. Those bad memories have been wiped out of my brain. I only remember positive things. I guess that’s a good thing, but it sure has made the last fifteen years lonely.
Just as I’m allowing myself to go down a mental rabbit hole, my phone rings, scaring the absolute crap out of me. I hope it’s not Annie because that would either mean she’s driving and using her phone (which is a major no-no), or she’s in trouble.
Instead, I see that it’s my best friend in the whole world, Monica. She’s always a light on a dark day. She’s been there for every single life event I’ve had since we were both ten years old, when I showed up at our elementary school as the new kid. I had unwieldy curly brown hair and an enormous gap between my front teeth that you could’ve stuck two quarters through, but she liked me anyway. I will never understand why.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Jilly!” She has always called me Jilly. She knows I hate it. She does not care one iota.
“Hey, Mon. What’s up?”
“Oh, just sitting here eating a big bowl of cereal and looking at the ocean.” Typical Monica. Eating cereal instead of a proper dinner. It probably has those little colored marshmallows in it.
Monica is what one would call “lucky”. She lives in a beautiful home sitting right on the ocean in Pawley’s Island, South Carolina. Her ex-husband, who she was married to for about sixteen months many moons ago, gave it to her in the divorce. Monica is lucky like that. Everyone likes her, and they always have. Even her ex-husband likes her. Of course, they’ve been divorced for over ten years now. The place is paid off and probably worth a fortune.
Monica is successful in her own right, too. She sells real estate when she wants to, and it’s always these multi-million dollar homes. When she gets a commission check, it’s more than I make in a year.
She lives alone and loves it. Monica never had kids of her own. Just didn’t want them. Thinks of Annie as her child, too. Instead, Monica has traveled the world and gone on so many adventures that I can’t even keep count. Bali, Thailand, some little village in Peru. She’s been to places I didn’t even know existed.
Now, I would never want to do the things she does. The thought of getting on an airplane alone and going across the world does not appeal to me in the slightest. But I’m glad she’s happy. She comes home and shows me pictures. Tells me stories. That is more than enough for me.
“Are you ever going to grow up and eat actual food?”
“Like what?”
“Broccoli? Spinach?”
Monica makes a gagging sound. “That sounds horrible. I did eat alligator once. Didn’t care for it.”
“Yuck.”
“Come on! You know I’m an adventurous eater.”
“The most adventurous I get is putting too much salt on my mashed potatoes.”
Monica laughs. “Oh, you wild woman.”
“So, how did your day go?”
She pauses for a long moment. “Not great, but let’s not talk about that. How’s Annie?”
I look down at the GPS app and notice she’s made it back to her apartment. “She made it home.”
“Are you still watching that GPS app every day?”
“Of course.”
“You realize that’s not normal, right? She’s twenty-two years old, Jilly. You have to let her fly.”
“She can fly, but I can watch her while she does it.”
I hear her chuckle under her breath. “You can’t protect everyone from everything.” This is something she tells me often, but I never really listen. If I’d been paying better attention to my late husband, he might still be with me today. We would’ve celebrated twenty-five years of marriage this year. Instead, I hid under the covers and cried on the fifteenth anniversary of his death.
“I can try.”
“Honey, you’ll drive yourself crazy living like this. You need to get out there, meet people, maybe meet a nice man. Fall in love. Get a dog.”
“I’m happy like I am.”
“No, you’re not. You deserve fun, Jilly. And love. Lots and lots of love.”
“Why are you talking like this?”
Monica sighs. “I guess I just miss my best friend. Any chance you can drive up tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? That’s kind of short notice, don’t you think?” Monica lives on Pawley’s Island, but I live about an hour and a half away inland. It’s a nice enough area, but I’d much rather be on the beach like she is. What a gift it must be to wake up every day and see the ocean. It’s my favorite place on earth.
It’s not like I can’t make the trip. After all, it’s my weekend off from the restaurant, and I have nothing else to do except laundry. Who wants to spend the weekend staring at their dirty underwear while it spins round and round?
“Come on. I’ve been feeling a little blue. I need you to come drink wine and judge people wearing horrible swimsuits with me.”
I laugh. When Monica and I are together, we’re like two hyper-critical fashion correspondents, although neither of us has a clue how to dress ourselves. I spend all my off time in yoga pants and t-shirts, although I haven’t done yoga a day in my life. Monica wears beac
“Okay, fine. But you’re buying me lunch at that taco place.”
Monica laughs. “Always with the taco place. You know, we have other places to eat here.”
“Why change to something else when I know I like the taco place?”
She sighs. “Oh, Jilly. You’re like an old lady in an almost fifty-year-old’s body.”
I get to Pawley’s Island a lot earlier than I planned, but it will give me a chance to surprise Monica. We haven’t seen each other face-to-face in over three months. The restaurant, which I manage now, is always so busy. It’s a country kitchen with things like biscuits and gravy, meatloaf, and fried catfish, and locals love it. I hate working there, but one has to make ends meet, I suppose.
I walk up the steep front steps of Monica’s beach house. It’s painted this beautiful aqua color that sounds tacky, but fits right in with the other houses on the street. It sits up on stilts, and I can see Monica’s little sports car parked underneath, right next to that ping-pong table she never uses, and the kayak she insisted on buying two years ago. I won’t get in the thing because I saw this story on the news once where a woman died when her kayak flipped, and she got trapped underneath it.
There’s also a car I don’t recognize in the driveway. She must’ve bought yet another vehicle she doesn’t need. It’s cute, but I like big vehicles. More protection on the road from crazy drivers.
I look through the glass door and don’t see her, so I knock. She doesn’t have a doorbell. Who doesn’t have a doorbell on a house worth over a million dollars? After waiting a few minutes, I get worried, so I dig into my purse and find the extra key she gave me years ago.
I turn the key and step into the house, which has beautiful white tile floors throughout. I like carpet myself, but that doesn’t exactly work when you live on the beach.
“Mon?” The house is quiet, and she’s not answering me. “You’re scaring me, Mon. Where are you?”
Just as I’m about to call the police - because I’ve been known to panic quickly - I hear her voice. It’s faint, but I hear it. I walk straight through the living room and see her sitting outside on the deck. She’s wearing her fluffy white robe, and there’s a woman standing next to her. I step closer, trying to be the super spy that I’m not.
There’s a tall silver pole, and then I realize it’s an IV pole like the ones at the hospital. There’s a bag attached with some liquid in it. Maybe one of those fancy Vitamin C drips rich people get done at home? She’s never mentioned it to me, though.
She looks tired with her head leaned back and her face toward the sky. Is she asleep? I couldn’t sleep with a needle in my arm.
I quietly push the door open a bit further to try to hear their conversation. It’s hard with waves rolling in just beyond her deck and walkway.
“How long have you been best friends?” the woman asks.
“Almost forty years now. Hard to believe.”
“Why haven’t you told her?” Told me what?
“I just haven’t known how. She doesn’t handle stress well.”
“Monica, you need to tell her today.”
“Well, I kind of have to. I don’t want her to be blindsided.”
My stomach clenches, so I step back and take a deep breath. There’s bad news coming. I hate getting bad news. I’d rather her just blurt it out than keep me in suspense. I won’t even watch suspenseful movies. I hate knowing something shocking is coming. Give me romantic comedy movies all day long.
“Okay, we’re all done for today. Remember to drink as much water as you can tolerate.” The woman starts removing the IV, so I run like a scared cat back through the front door and onto the porch. A few moments later, I see her walk around the side of the house and get into her car, pulling past mine down the short driveway. I knock on the door like I just got there.
Monica makes her way to the front door and forces a smile. She’s still wearing her robe.
“Jilly, you’re a good half hour early.”
“You know me!” I say, trying desperately not to cry as I wait for this news she needs to tell me.
“Come on in,” she says, sounding a little tired. Maybe the early morning sunshine took it out of her while she sat on the deck.
She leads me into the living room, and we sit down on her fluffy white sofa. Everything she owns is fluffy and white. At my house, I have a lot of colors that don’t necessarily go together. A red floral sofa handed down to me sixteen years ago. An oversized tan arm chair I found at a thrift store. Years of stuff cobbled together to make a home.
Monica sits at one end, and I sit at the other. We face each other, pulling our legs up underneath us. We’ve sat this way since we were kids. The ocean splays out behind Monica’s head in the gigantic windows that bring in so much light.
“Still in your robe, huh?” I say, trying to make light of it.
She looks down. “Oh, yeah. I got a late start this morning.”
“Mon, what’s really going on?” I can’t hold it in. I have no “chill”, as my daughter says.
“What do you mean?”
“Who was that woman who just left?”
Her face falls a bit. She looks pale this morning. Normally, Monica is tan, and her skin is full of life. She looks way younger than our age, but not today.
“What woman? Did you add alcohol to your decaf coffee this morning?” She makes fun of me for drinking decaf, but if I don’t I get panic attacks from the caffeine. I wouldn’t have been a good drug addict if caffeine affects me so strongly.
“I let myself in because I got here early. I heard you talking, and I saw the IV. Now, let’s have an actual conversation, okay?”
She stares at me in a way I haven’t seen before. Just looks at me like she’s run into a brick wall. For a moment I worry she’s having one of those seizures that don’t look like seizures. I saw a story about those on the news. Scary stuff.
“Jilly, I have cancer, and it’s not good, sweetie.”
“What? No, that’s not possible. You’re the healthiest person I know! You drink all that seagrass…”
“Wheatgrass,” she says, laughing softly.
“What kind is it?”
“The bad kind,” she says, chuckling.
“It’s not funny, Mon.”
“I’m okay with it, Jilly.”
“The doctor must be wrong…”
“I’ve gotten three opinions, and I’ve had every test known to man. I ignored some symptoms I shouldn’t have, and it came back to bite me.”
“So that was chemo you were doing?”
She shook her head. “No, that was a vitamin cocktail, and some nausea medicine.”
“You needed that because of the chemo?”
She paused a moment and then cleared her throat. “I declined chemo, Jilly.”
I stand up. “What? Why on earth would you do a thing like that?”
“Because I weighed the options. Have chemo and get a few more months of a miserable life, or go out the way I want to.”
“Wait. Go out? What does that mean?” I sit back down, afraid my legs won’t hold me.
“Honey, you know what that means. This is my last adventure.”
“No. This isn’t happening.”
She scoots closer and puts her hand on my arm. “I don’t have much longer, Jilly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I spent the first few weeks doing all kinds of adventures, trying to make the most of my time. Then I got too tired and weak. I had to come home, and I wanted to see you one more time.”
“One more time? Surely it’s not that… quick?”
She nods, her eyes filling with tears. “Hospice is coming next week, Jilly. They’re going to make me comfortable.”
“No, that can’t be right. Please start chemo, Monica. Try something! Anything!”
“None of it will work, and it will just make me miserable. I’ve had a glorious life. You know that. I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side. I just worry about you.”
“Me? Why?”
