by JoAnn Ross
Rings were exchanged, and as Caroline Harper pronounced both couples married, everyone in attendance stood up and applauded. Then as the couples walked up the aisle to Bastien and Desiree singing “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered,” the guests began dancing in the aisle behind them.
* * *
THE MOOD WAS festive as toasts were made; Seth and Brianna and Aiden and Jolene danced for the first time as married couples, then some guests joined them on the dance floor as others dug into the barbecue ribs, burgers and all the trimmings prepared by Jarle, a sous chef borrowed from Luca, and two line cooks hired from the college’s culinary arts school.
Chelsea, Gabe and the girls had just sat down at one of the round tables when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen, then told Chelsea, “I’d better take this.” Before she could argue that business could wait while he was at his brother’s and sister’s wedding, he was gone.
* * *
“I’M IN THE middle of something, Phil, so this better damn well be good.”
“If you want that senior slot, you’d better get back here ASAP,” Phil Gregg warned him. “Hendricks has been trying to poach your accounts and he’s definitely playing hardball politics, suggesting that having taken this break so soon after landing in the ER, you’re not up to the job. That maybe you’re too emotional over Carter, or maybe you’re burned out. You’ve got a lot of guys in your corner, but I’ve got to tell you, Gabe, I’m not sure we’re going to be enough to stop the coup by ourselves. You need to be on the scene before you lose everything you’ve worked for.”
Which was something Gabe had no intention of letting happen. Barry Hendricks was a trust fund baby, hired more for his social good-old-boy connections going back to the cradle. He’d been playing lacrosse and tennis at Groton while Gabe had been running cross-country track at Honeymoon Harbor High. He’d gone to Harvard while Gabe had received an excellent education at UW that had gotten him into Columbia, but a West Coast public school didn’t carry equal clout in East Coast boardrooms. But Gabe was smarter and tougher. And a better trader because people trusted him. Which couldn’t always be said for Hendricks.
“I’m on my way.” It took one call to arrange for a jet to be waiting at Sea-Tac to fly him back to Manhattan. Another for a car. Those details taken care of, he went in search of Chelsea. She wouldn’t be nearly so easy to manage.
* * *
HE FOUND HER on the dance floor with Hailey and Hannah. The two girls had gotten new dresses for the wedding. Hailey was wearing—what else?—pink, with one of those puckered-up tops. Smocked, he remembered Chelsea calling it during another fashion show the girls put on beneath the spotlight. Hannah was wearing a short turquoise dress with a white collar and cuffs. And looking frighteningly mature.
“Is Hannah wearing a bra?” he asked after he’d gotten Chelsea off the dance floor. The girls were now dancing with a boy who looked to be about Hannah’s age. “And who the hell is he?”
“Yes, to the bra. It was time. Girls are maturing earlier these days. As for the boy, he’s Ryan, a Harper cousin. His parents seem like very nice people.”
“Isn’t she too young to be dancing with boys?”
“It’s a wedding, Gabe. Kids dance at weddings. It’s not like he’s asking her to go to the movies.”
“To which you’d say no, right?”
“Seriously? This is what you want to talk about? Why don’t you fill me in on what that phone call was about?”
“I have to go.”
“Where?”
“Back to Manhattan.”
“Well, I know that. You’ve been very clear about your plans to return after the boat festival.”
“No, I mean I have to go back now.”
“Now?” She combed a hand through her hair. “I’m confused. Are you talking about after the reception? Or right now this minute?”
“I have a plane waiting for me at Sea-Tac. And a car on the way here to take me there.”
“I see.” She folded her arms as both her voice and eyes turned to frost. “I’m surprised you didn’t hire a helicopter to land on the center of the dance floor and whisk you away to the airport so you don’t have to suffer that inconvenient ride in a limo.”
“I deserve that,” Gabe said, feeling whatever Zen he’d manage to achieve in the past weeks going up in flames around them.
“Yeah,” Quinn’s deep voice behind him said. “You do.”
“Once again, you’re right. But it is what it is. If I don’t get back there ASAP, everything I’ve worked for all these years could go down the drain.”
“I’d suggest that’s an exaggeration,” Quinn said, his eyes and mouth hard. “But you’re obviously not ready to hear that.”
“Our situations are different,” Gabe argued. “You didn’t enjoy your work anymore and found your niche making great beer and running the pub. And as happy as I am for you, bro, that’s not me.”
He turned back toward Chelsea. “You can take the Range Rover back to the house. And feel free to use it while you’re staying there.”
“Gee, thanks bunches for the offer, but I like my car. As for the house, did you already buy it?”
“No, but that doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. The girls and I aren’t staying alone in a house owned by someone we don’t know.”
“We’ll pick up your stuff,” Quinn suggested. “Then I’ll take you to the farm. You can stay there while we figure out a plan.”
“I hate to impose.” She dragged an unsteady hand through her hair again. Gabe hadn’t just blown up his Zen. Chelsea and the girls were turning out to be collateral damage. Like the sex fog was too thick for you to have seen that coming?
“I have a situation to fix,” he said. “Then I’ll be back as soon as possible. Quinn’s idea is a good one. You can stay at the farm. We can still have the rest of the summer.”
She lifted her chin. If looks could kill, he’d be six feet under. “Surely you’re not serious.”
“It’s just a glitch.”
“And this is your sister’s and brother’s wedding reception. But your glitch apparently is more important. Remember the night I rowed across the lake? When I told you about my messed-up family and said that I envied you yours?”
Gabe saw it coming and decided there was nothing he could do but take the hit. “I do.”
“I still envy you for them. But here’s a newsflash—” she pointed a finger at his chest “—you don’t deserve them. Now, since there’s nothing else to say to each other, we’re done. And I’d like to go back to dancing with my soon-to-be adopted daughters.”
“Well,” Quinn said as they watched her march away. The smile she greeted the girls with was nothing like the steely look she’d given him. “You sure as hell screwed the pooch on that one.”
“I don’t have a choice. If I don’t get back to New York right away, I’m not only going to lose my chance to be the youngest trader at Harborstone to make senior partner, I could well be out of a job. Because once people find out I let some piece of shit rich guy undercut me, my reputation will be shot and all those places that recruited me when I got out of Columbia won’t want me.”
“First of all, may I point out that you, too, are a really rich guy. So, using that as an epithet isn’t exactly your best use of words. And second, it’s just as well that you forced Chelsea into a corner where she had no choice but to break off whatever it was you thought you had going. Because you know what she said about you not deserving your family?”
“She was angry.”
“She was right. And here’s another newsflash, baby bro—you don’t deserve her or those kids, either.” He shook his head. “I never realized you’d turned into such a dumbass. Now, I’m going to go have barbecue with the terrific woman you let get away. Then I’m going to dance with the three of them, and later take her to that house
you’re going to buy, which you don’t, in any real-life scenario, need except to turn a damn profit from.
“Then, once they’re packed, I’m taking them to the farm. Where they’ll be treated like they deserve.”
That said, Quinn walked away.
Gabe watched Chelsea talking to the girls. Hannah shot him a look, then turned toward him and although Chelsea obviously tried to stop her, she shook off the restraining hand and headed his way.
“You said you weren’t leaving until after Labor Day.”
“That was my plan. But something came up.”
“Chelsea already said that. Did someone die?”
“No. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a work thing.”
“You’re wrong. I would understand because I’ve heard all the excuses. Yours is one of the weakest though, it’s not even original because we’ve already had two families where the dad got a work transfer and they decided we weren’t worth taking along. So, yeah, I get it. I’m just mad that I was stupid enough to think you were different.”
Her eyes swam and her lips, which he noted had been tinted a pale pink, quivered. Then she squared her shoulders, which she hadn’t done since those early days, and resolutely blinked the tears away. Except for one that managed to escape, which she furiously swept away with the back of her hand.
“So go back to New York City to your fancy job in your fancy office and your fancy apartment in some fancy skyscraper and enjoy making all that money. Because we don’t need you.”
That said, she spun on a heel and went running back to Chelsea and her sister. Leaving Gabe just as he’d been for all these years since leaving home—alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHELSEA WAS JUST coming to see if the girls needed any help when she heard them talking.
“Why did Gabriel go away?” Hailey asked her sister, as they packed their things so they could move. Again.
“Because he got tired of us.”
“Was it because I was bad?”
“No.” Hannah went down on her knees and drew her sister into her arms. “Some people like kids okay, but don’t want to be around them all the time. He’s said all along he was going to leave once summer ended.”
“But summer isn’t ended yet.” Hailey’s bottom lip was quivering, a sign she was about to burst into tears. “We haven’t gotten to go for a ride in the faering. And he’s going to miss the boat festival.”
“He knows that. And I’m sure he’s feeling really bad about leaving. But he’s got important work to do.”
Hailey wiped the back of her hand between her nose and mouth. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
“I don’t know, sprout. But even if he does, we won’t be here. You like the farm.”
“I do like it. It’s fun. But I hate moving.” She threw her unicorn T-shirt into the small pink polka-dot suitcase Chelsea had bought her in Seattle. “And I hate Gabriel.”
She’d done this, Chelsea told herself with a sinking heart. She’d put these two girls at emotional risk just so she could have a damn summer fling. Why couldn’t she have seen this coming? Because, she admitted, she’d fallen in love with Gabriel, which had allowed her to believe, deep down, that he’d decide to stay. To help her create a family. A family, ironically, like the one he’d grown up in.
She could do this. She’d overcome loss before. She could do it again, if not for herself, for Hannah and Hailey. Her soon-to-be daughters. And they might not be as large a family as the Mannions, but two children would never be more loved.
And maybe, when she was a very old woman, the pain she was feeling today would have eased. She hoped.
* * *
AS ALWAYS, QUINN was right. Gabe had screwed the pooch and as he sat in the back of the black town car—which was a far cry from the limo Chelsea had probably had in mind—he thought about his parents and the story he’d heard about their rocky courtship.
His mother had been the first in her family to go to college, and her parents, whose family had been fishing in these waters for over a century, had wanted more for her than small-town life. Which was what they’d feared she’d settle for if her teenage romance with John Mannion was allowed to blossom. But they’d been too late to stop it, and, as the story went, the high school sweethearts often sneaked out to be together that last summer before Gabe’s dad had gone off to UW and his mom went east to college. But even then, his dad had worked extra jobs while at school, making money for the trips across the country so they could be together.
It was difficult at the best of times to keep a long-distance relationship going. His parents were young and made mistakes, more his than hers, his dad always insisted, which was when his mom would jump into the conversation and point out that if she’d only been honest and brave enough to speak her mind, they wouldn’t have lost those years apart.
During which time, they both would say, looking into each other’s eyes like the love-besotted teenagers they’d once been, neither had ever stopped thinking of the other.
Then fate had brought them back together and in a whirlwind twenty-four hours, she had decided not to return to Oxford, where she’d been accepted into a PhD program, and he’d revealed his plans to become a tree farmer rather than a banker, and proposed at the very farm where they lived now.
And so they’d married, with the blessing of her parents, who, it turned out, had only ever wanted her to be happy, had five children, his father had become mayor, his mother a teacher, then a principal, and every single day they lived a golden example of marriage that Gabe had always admired but considered a near impossible act to follow.
Brianna and Seth—another marriage uniting the Harpers and the Mannions—appeared to be following in their footsteps. As were Aiden and Jolene Wells, and who would’ve ever seen that coming? Honeymoon Harbor’s former bad boy was now the chief of police, and the bullied girl from the wrong side of the tracks, whose father had died while serving time in prison, had not only been nominated for an Emmy for makeup artistry but, with his angel investor financial assistance, was growing her cosmetics business into a regional West Coast chain, even while continuing to work on the occasional film. They were seemingly another perfect couple.
So, it wasn’t impossible. But in his world of the rich and often infamous, Gabe had had a front-row seat at enough failed marriages to know that the odds of a happily-ever-after storybook ending is a crapshoot.
But so was any relationship. Look at Chelsea and him. She was not the woman he’d been looking for. But he’d found her. That first day in the shop, when he’d known she’d be trouble, he hadn’t wanted her. But she had turned out to be the woman he not only wanted, with every fiber of his being, but needed.
Having watched the wreckage Carter had delivered to his four children, Gabe was determined that if he’d ever meet a like-minded woman he might marry, children would be off the bargaining table. But then two orphaned girls had come into his life. And his heart.
He’d always thought himself a risk taker. Going off to New York, where he knew no one, with plans to become someone. He’d taken a risk when he’d gone to work for Harborstone, which Dr. Doogie had accurately portrayed as a Little Pond, Big Fish scenario. Unlike a larger firm, where it was possible to blend into the woodwork, make some deals, have a life outside the office and not have to get up every morning geared for war, he’d chosen war. And the risk had paid off. Until now.
Gabe had no doubt he could wrest his power back and take Carter’s senior place on the board before the brown slushy New York City snow melted next spring.
But why would he want to?
He’d gone to Wall Street firmly believing that there’d be some crystal clear moment when an imaginary bell would ring, like in that Christmas movie his mom made them watch every Christmas Eve, announcing not that he’d earned angel wings, but that he had achieved absolute success. Such as getting a se
nior seat on the board. He’d also believed that once he’d reached that lofty place and had all the money he’d ever need, he’d be happy.
However, his conversations with Chelsea had him realizing that would never happen because the goal line would keep moving. And as hard as it was to admit, like all the other guys who hung out at those finance bars, he’d been chasing the high like an addict. Since returning home to Honeymoon Harbor, he’d had so many reminders, including from his own family, and even love-struck Jarle, that family, friends and love were what brought true and lasting happiness.
His mind wandered to the French Alps, where Dr. Doogie’s brother was taking the summer off to spend with his family, forgoing the money he could make from teaching wealthy skiers with enough time and money to move around the world with the snow to build a better, richer life.
Quinn had thrown his high-paying, prestigious attorney gig away and risked starting his brewery and reestablishing the preprohibition family pub. And now he was obviously as happy as a Puget Sound clam.
When was the last time he’d been happy? Gabe asked himself. Oh, yeah. Earlier when he’d watched his sister and brother dancing back up the aisle after exchanging those lifetime vows with their spouses. He had not a single doubt that their risk on love would turn out as richly rewarding as his parents’ had.
He’d been born into a family of risk takers, Yet, unlike the Mannions before him, he was afraid of taking the ultimate risk of putting his heart on the line. And in reality, it wouldn’t even be a risk. Because there was a warm, beautiful woman and two great kids in Honeymoon Harbor who’d already given him their hearts.
They loved him. And he felt shame for how he’d treated their gift.
They’d reached the ferry terminal just as the cars had begun to load. In another minute he’d be on board, headed to that Learjet waiting on a Sea-Tac tarmac to fly him back to the battlefield.
“I need you to turn around,” he told the driver, who looked up at him in the rearview mirror.