Summer on Mirror Lake

by JoAnn Ross

  Or they had been. Until she’d walked into that boat shop and felt the first crack appear in the mortar. Okay, it was more than a crack. Because she’d known he was The One. Which wouldn’t make any difference, unless he felt the same way about her. Which he obviously didn’t. Before he’d blasted through that wall last night, sending stones flying, he’d been up-front about his plan to leave at the end of the summer. That he was not interested in a long-term relationship. She’d gotten that message loud and clear.

  Now she just had to decide if she wanted to settle for a summer romance. And not a sweet Lifetime movie romance where the couple strolled through wildflower meadows with birds chirping and little hearts circling their heads as the soundtrack from Beauty and the Beast played, but a down and dirty hot summer fling.

  She knew what her friends would advise her to do. Brianna Mannion had loved Seth Harper most of her life, only to watch him marry her best friend Zoe, after which she’d left Honeymoon Harbor for years. Then Zoe Harper had tragically been killed in Afghanistan and two years later, Brianna had returned home and made the brave choice to take a chance on a man who, at first, had appeared as if he’d never move past the loss of his first wife. And now Chelsea was going to be an attendant in their wedding.

  Desiree Marchand had also caved the day her former lover had shown up in town. Supporting the claims of many that there was something in the water of Honeymoon Harbor that made it impossible to resist love.

  Lily had already told her to go for the fling.

  And if last night was any example, the sex would be amazing.

  So, maybe...

  He was carrying a tray she kept on the top of the refrigerator for entertaining, with utensils placed on a quilted place mat. He’d poured the delicious-smelling soup into one of the oversized white mugs she’d bought in the gift shop section of Cops and Coffee, a plate of buttered bread slices and tea in her I’m a librarian. What’s your superpower? mug. If that weren’t enough, he’d put a fresh peach-hued rose from the backyard garden in the Waterford cut crystal bud vase Kylee and Mai had given their wedding attendants.

  The only other time she’d had a meal delivered to her in bed was when a hospital food services employee had brought her a watery salad, rock-hard roll and a lump of some gray mystery substance claiming to be meatloaf. And she’d had to have her appendix taken out to get that.

  “Okay, I’m both surprised and impressed by your plating.”

  She felt as if she should be wearing a froufrou bed jacket like Scarlett O’Hara had worn the morning after Rhett had swept her off her feet and carried her up that staircase. Once she was older, Chelsea had come to realize that iconic scene was actually incredibly rapey, but in her impressionable youth, she’d thought it to be the most romantic scene ever.

  “Even before Mom started taking decorator classes, she was big on presentation. We boys didn’t get the flower, like Brianna did, when we were sick. But we always got a bed tray. And a Hot Wheels car, Star Wars figure, or comic book she kept stashed away for the occasion.”

  “That’s very special.” Chelsea felt another of those uncharacteristic twinges of envy. “No wonder Brianna ended up a top-end concierge and now runs a bed-and-breakfast. It’s either in her genes, or she learned well.”

  “Probably a bit of both. She was born a nurturer.” He fluffed up her pillows—something else he’d learned from Sarah Mannion?—and set the tray on her thighs. “I couldn’t count the number of imaginary tea parties with her dolls and stuffed animals we boys had to sit through.”

  “That was nice.”

  “We took turns at the tea table. Because she was our little sister.” And didn’t that say it all? Chelsea thought. “After Santa brought her an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas, instead of pretend food we got miniature chocolate cakes,” he said. “With milk in tiny flowered china cups.”

  “When she and Seth have those children she’s been talking about, those are going to be very lucky kids.”

  “That would be true.”

  “You do realize that you paid your rudeness penance with that dinner last night.” And the orgasms.

  “That’s good to hear. But I’ve been told I need to work on my attitude.”

  “How’s that working for you?”

  “To quote Alan Jackson, I’m a work in progress. The bread is olive rosemary that Luca bought from the bakery this morning,” he said, deftly changing the subject. “Apparently Desiree Marchand supplies all his bread.”

  “She does. Also for Sensation Cajun, which makes sense since she’s engaged to the chef. They had Seth knock a hole in the wall between the buildings so they could share the same space.” The fragrance rising from the bread was as delectable as everything Desiree made.

  “I hope Earl Grey is okay. I unearthed the honey behind a box of Rice Krispies, and added it and a squeeze of lemon for your throat.”

  “I appreciate that.” Though it was starting to freak her out, just a little, at how nice he was being. She wanted to ask him what he’d done with the surly boat builder/caveman ravisher. “Well, thanks so much for dropping by. It was really sweet of you.”

  “You know how you feel about cute?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s how guys tend to think of being called sweet.”

  “I’m sorry. Would you prefer I return to rude?”

  He shook his head. Folded his arms. “I never would have figured you for a black-or-white-view woman.”

  “Touché.”

  She hit Play on the remote. “Again, thanks. It was very manly of you to play male nurse.”

  She saw the spark in his eyes and realized that her innocent words had suggested a gender twist on his naughty nurse suggestion.

  “Seriously. You really don’t have to stay,” she said, feeling her cheeks heat up. Hopefully, he’d think the color was from a fever.

  “I told you, Mom always made us watch these old flicks. What she didn’t know was that despite all our moaning and groaning about wanting cowboys or action movies, we kind of liked them. Even Aiden, although he’d probably rather eat sand than admit it. There’s a reason this one’s a classic. It’s a trifecta of Grant, Hepburn and the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made.”

  Damn. Which was why it was her favorite. It made her even more uneasy to have anything in common with him. Instead of leaving, he sat down in the overstuffed flowered chair by the bay window that looked out onto the backyard garden where he’d obviously found the rose.

  “I thought you had a boat to build.”

  “It can wait a couple hours.” He stretched out his long jean-clad legs, making himself right at home.

  Despite having seen the romantic comedy/spy thriller so many times she could probably quote all the dialogue, Chelsea was still transfixed by the fabulous French scenery, the suaveness of Cary Grant—did that man ever look less than perfect?—and the radiant beauty of Audrey Hepburn, who it was easy to tell had been Givenchy’s muse. And then there was that dialogue that managed to be both crisply snappy and sexy at the same time.

  Finally, one hour and thirteen minutes later, Hepburn’s sexy, mysterious ally with the multiple aliases had finally revealed his true name and offhandedly suggested putting it on a wedding certificate, which may be the worst proposal in any movie ever, but Hepburn hadn’t hesitated to accept.

  She’d finished the soup and bread, both of which were unsurprisingly delicious, and the tea with the lemon and honey he’d added had actually helped ease her sore throat. Also, sometime during the romantic caper, the cold medicine seemed to have worked on her sneezing and those coughs that had made her sound like a plague victim.

  “They don’t make movies like that anymore,” Chelsea said on a sigh. It did not escape her that both Elizabeth Bennet and Audrey’s Reggie had fallen for impossibly hard-to-read men. Men like the one currently sprawled in the chair she�
�d found at Treasures antique shop.

  “You’re not going to get any argument from me. Grant set a high bar for the rest of us.”

  And didn’t that have her wondering what Gabriel was like in Manhattan? All she’d seen him wearing were jeans, T-shirts and work boots or sneakers. But she imagined him standing in front of his skyscraper office, in a crisp shirt, silk tie and an Italian suit surveying his realm. Glancing over at him, she decided that he might just give Grant a run for his money.

  “How many suits do you own?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never counted. Why?”

  “No special reason. I was just wondering. Do you own a tux?”

  “I work too many hours a day to have the kind of social life that requires a tux.”

  She was thinking that she preferred that answer to the previous one, when he threw her another curveball.

  “You remind me of Hepburn.”

  Her short, sharp laugh set off a coughing bout that made her sound—and feel—as if she were about to hack up a lung. So much for the miracle cure pill.

  “In what universe?” she finally managed to ask once she got enough air back to talk. If Hepburn had ever coughed, Chelsea was certain that she’d done it discreetly, into a lace-trimmed white linen handkerchief. Embroidered with her initials in a flowery, feminine script.

  “This one.”

  “I don’t look anything like her.” Audrey was spectacularly one of a kind, with her sublimely perfect bone structure, wide, Bambi-brown eyes, a swan neck, a figure made to wear designer clothes and incredible grace.

  While Chelsea was all too aware of being, well, average. She wasn’t tall and willowy. Nor short, and lushly round. Her hair was an ordinary brown and her eyes were a color that couldn’t decide, on any given day, whether they were blue or green, and while her other features fit together pleasantly enough, even when it wasn’t covered in flour her face wouldn’t stop traffic.

  There’d been a time when she’d been much younger, probably the age Brianna had been when she’d been hosting those tea parties, back when her mother had enjoyed watching old movies, Chelsea had decided that when she grew up and got married, she was going to wear a dress just like the tea-length white gown Audrey Hepburn had worn in Funny Face. She’d forgotten that until last year while shopping at The Dancing Deer for her dress for Kylee and Mai’s wedding, Dottie and Dorothy had shown her a photo of a knockoff of that exact dress that they’d sold a bride at their previous store in Shelter Bay, on the Oregon Coast.

  “This would be the perfect dress for you someday,” bubbly Dottie had told her.

  “It does suit,” her sister Dorothy had agreed.

  At the time Chelsea had wondered if the two elderly twins possessed some psychic gift that allowed them to know that it had, once-upon-a-time ago, been the dress of her heart. What they hadn’t realized was that they’d never be ordering it for her, because in order to pledge your forever-lasting, until-death-do-you-part love to someone, it was necessary to also pledge your heart. And hers had never been available. Until, maybe, just possibly now.

  Wasn’t it ironic that the very man who was beginning to free her tattered and broken heart was the very same man who’d made himself very clear that if offered, not only did he not want it, he wouldn’t accept it?

  Fate, she’d learned early in life, could be a mean-spirited bitch.

  “The reason I first called you,” he said, breaking into her thoughts, “was that I had another thought about you bringing the kids to the house to see the library.”

  “Oh.” She felt her spirits sink, but put on the brave smile she pulled out whenever she felt an emotional hit coming. “That’s okay if you’ve changed your mind. I understand that Eagles Watch isn’t your house, and it would only be natural for you to be concerned—”

  “I’m not concerned about that. Why don’t I fund a personal library for the kids?”

  “You’re going to give the reading adventurers a library?” He couldn’t possibly mean that. The cold medicine must have gone to her head.

  “Not exactly. I was thinking more along the lines of a book club, like Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Where I’d provide the seed money, then the community would get involved to keep it going, so kids could receive their very own book every month. You’d need to select a group of key people, the most important being someone to coordinate the program, though, having gotten a handle on how you work, that would undoubtedly end up being you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m always serious when I’m talking about business and money. I can help you set up a nonprofit. Or better yet, Quinn, since he’s undoubtedly written up that type of paperwork while practicing law.”

  “That would be a huge undertaking,” she said, even as her mind whirled with glorious possibilities.

  “Like I said, you’d need people with the right skill sets to help you run it.”

  “You’re talking about more than the library advisory board.”

  “You may want to put one or two of those people on the team. That’d be up to you. But you’d need to keep them separate entities to avoid breaking federal nonprofit finance laws.”

  “I’m sorry.” She rubbed her temple, where a headache was threatening. “I can’t quite process all this.”

  “I’m not surprised. I had all last night to think about it, then sprang it on you when you’re feeling bad. Not to mention being under the influence of a cold medicine. Why don’t you think more about it, and if you’re interested, we can drill down to more detail once you’re feeling better.”

  “In other words, when I don’t look like a cast member from The Walking Dead wearing a Rudolph nose?” Could her bid for a compliment be any more transparent?

  “Since you brought it up...” He pushed himself out of the chair, came over to the side of the sleigh bed and gave her a long look. “You should see your face.”

  Even recognizing Grant’s line from the film, she instinctively lifted a hand to her cheek. “What about it?”

  “It’s lovely. But you have circles beneath your eyes.” He swiped a finger beneath each eye, one at a time, this touch unnervingly tender. “And your nose is definitely not a Rudolph one, but it is a bit pink.” He skimmed a fingertip down her nose, which, unlike Hepburn’s, tilted up a bit. “And you are pale.”

  Damn. Definitely the walking dead. “It’s the Pacific Northwest. We don’t tan here.” The old joke was that Pacific Northwesterners didn’t tan; they rusted. “And I prefer to think of myself as fair.”

  “My Fair Lady,” he murmured. “Another movie Mom would make us watch. If you’re still stuck in bed tomorrow, I’ll bring it by.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. That happens to be a very misogynistic retelling of Pygmalion.”

  “Granted, but Rex Harrison has to grovel to win Hepburn back. I thought your kind liked that in your fiction.”

  “He didn’t grovel nearly enough. Especially considering that George Bernard Shaw intended Eliza to leave Higgins at the end. And what do you mean by ‘my kind’?” Chelsea was surprised when even arching a brow hurt.

  “Romantics.”

  “I’m not a romantic. I’m very much a realist.”

  “Okay.” His gaze drifted meaningfully over to the stack of paperbacks on the bedside table and the bookshelves lining the small room, the well-worn spines of all those romance novels looking like a brightly colored kaleidoscope. It was obvious that she had not chosen her books by the crate.

  “They’re entertainment,” she pointed out, glad to feel the spark of annoyance steamrollering over her earlier heady feeling of attraction. “Not a guide to real life. Just because I enjoy them doesn’t mean I can’t tell fiction from my actual life. The same way you can read thrillers without feeling a need to go blasting away at bad guys with automatic weapons and snapping necks with your st
rong, bare alpha man hands. At least I hope that’s not one of your fantasies.”

  He laughed at that, a bold, rich sound that caused those awakened body parts to do a happy dance. Not a happy dance, she corrected. A mating dance. Like the ones on all those nature documentaries Larry Franklin from the hardware store was always checking out. Whenever the sixty-something widower returned them, she was forced to listen to a play-by-play of various courtships.

  “Point taken,” he agreed. “And I apologize for sounding sexist.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first,” she said. “As a reader, and a librarian, I’ve always found it interesting, albeit annoying, that women who love the romance genre help put those male writers on all the bestseller lists because we’re very eclectic readers. But men who eat up blood-and-guts thrillers like beer nuts would die before even picking up a romance novel.”

  “As it happens, I had the same conversation with my sister, back when she was in college.”

  “And how did that go?”

  “It was a long time ago, but I seem to remember her claiming that men were cowards, afraid to explore our emotions.”

  Chelsea was thinking that was pretty much on the money, when he surprised her yet again. “I didn’t disagree.”

  “At least you’re honest.”

  “Unlike Cary Grant’s undercover spy character with all those aliases in the movie, I never lie. In the first place, my mother had this saying about spiders and lies.”

  “‘What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.’”

  He nodded. “That’s it. Dad weighed in and pointed out that if you always tell the truth, you never have to remember what you might have told someone. And even more important, in my business, getting caught lying can end you up in federal prison.”

  “As I’ve seen on the news.”

  The depressing shift in topic hadn’t calmed her reawakened body. Which brought her unruly mind back to where his too-appealing laugh had caused it to drift.