“I want to go swimming!” Emma declared.
“No, honey. The water can’t be more than forty degrees. It’s too cold.”
“Aw. How come they get to go?”
“I’ll take you swimming in the summer, cutie pie,” Chloe said, “once the water’s warm as a bathtub.” She bopped Emma on the nose.
“You can’t drink ocean water,” Emma said, scrunching her face. “It’s too salty.”
“Do you drink your bathwater?” Chloe asked.
Emma cast a sly glance at Laura. “When Mom’s not looking, I pretend to be a whale!”
Laura’s eyes tracked the swimmer. “They’re almost out to the buoys. They could get hit by a boat.”
Chloe shrugged. “Not many boats out there today. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
The swimmer turned and headed for shore, which was a relief. There were no lifeguards on duty during the off-season, and if the swimmer had gotten in trouble, she didn’t know what they’d have done.
He came out of the ocean about fifty yards away from them. He wasn’t wearing a wet suit. Upon exiting the water, he stumbled, and sat down hard on the sand.
“Mr. Jonafin!” Emma yelled, taking off toward him across the sand.
“Honey, that’s not—” But she stopped when the swimmer looked up at Emma, because it was him.
It was Jonathan.
* * *
Jonathan had done polar bear swims before. For the last five years, he’d done one in Boston Harbor on New Year’s Day. It had started as a dare from a coworker, but that coworker was long gone, and Jonathan still made the trek every year.
It was rejuvenating—a shock to the system. After that first swim, he’d actually researched it and discovered that exposure to extreme cold, in short bursts, boosts the production of norepinephrine in the brain, improving mood and alleviating pain.
He felt like he needed those benefits right now.
After Laura had retrieved the documents he needed—all the documents, and it had taken only twenty minutes of her time—he’d quickly discovered the thing that would get in the way of the deal: the stipulation in Dorothy’s will that Laura and her mother run the inn together for a full summer before it would be released from the trust and put in their names.
Jonathan had called Connor, and he’d been disappointed. He wouldn’t be able to get his hands on the inn until at least the fall. Jonathan was disappointed, too. The fall would be too late for Jonathan to redeem himself to Mike by reeling Carberry Hotels into the law firm. And although Connor had said he’d still put in a good word with his father, Jonathan didn’t believe it. Connor was almost as unreliable as Jonathan’s dad.
Worse than all of that, though, had been the look in Laura’s eyes when he’d told her she was wasting his time and she’d replied that she didn’t want him here.
He got it now, why so many people hated lawyers. He felt like an ambulance chaser, swooping in after the death of her grandmother to offer her a deal she didn’t even want.
Prove me wrong, Harvard. Show me that all lawyers aren’t the unethical, morally bankrupt people I think you are.
What was wrong with him? The most important deal of his life blows up and all he can think about is her?
Mike was right. He’d gotten distracted by a girl. Now that he knew the Lessoways couldn’t sign the contract until the fall, he’d get out of here. Just as soon as he met with Pastor Nate to discuss whether WCC would be open to selling the inn should Dorothy’s estate ultimately end up in the hands of the church.
He was, after all, a lawyer. If Laura and her mother managed to kill each other before the summer was up, it was his job to plan for contingencies.
The water was very cold, so cold that he’d gasped in sudden shock upon diving in. Then he’d felt numb to it, robotic as his arms sliced through the waves. But he’d misjudged either the distance to the buoys or the warp and weft of the waves, because it was taking him much longer to get back to shore than he’d anticipated, and he was starting to feel weak from the cold.
When he came out of the water, he felt dazed and fumbling. He went down in the sand before he even had a chance to take note of where he’d come out of the sea.
And then Emma was on top of him, her warm little arms hooked around his neck. “Mr. Jonafin, you’re freezy.”
“What were you thinking?” Laura cried, skidding to a halt beside him, slapping his arm—hard—her knees in the sand. “You can’t go out when the water temperature’s this low! You could have killed yourself!”
“I’m fine,” he said, teeth chattering. He still felt oddly confused, though, as though he were intoxicated, or this was all a dream.
“Your lips are blue. Where’s your towel? Where’re your clothes?”
“At the inn,” he said. Emma had slid off his lap and he wanted her back—she was like an electric blanket, a ball of heat.
Laura huffed in frustration. “Come on.” She levered herself under his arm, motioned for Chloe to do the same on the other side. “Up.”
He’d rather have stayed hunched up on the sand, but both women had their arms around his waist, so at least there was some warmth in that.
“Come on,” Laura said to Chloe. “Let’s get him back to the inn.”
Ahead of them, Emma was twirling around and singing “Frosty the Snowman.” “That song for me, Tiny?” His voice hitched because he was shivering so hard.
“Mr. Jonafin,” she said solemnly, “you should only swim in the bathtub.”
They reached the inn and managed to climb the stairs to his room. “You’ll take Emma?” Laura asked her friend.
Chloe nodded. “Of course.”
Laura pushed him into the bathroom so he could get warm in the shower.
“Do you have any sweats?” she called out to him through the door.
He called back, “Just my track pants and that fleece windbreaker.”
“I’ve got something in lost and found that should fit you.”
“Okay.”
When he came out of the bathroom, he saw that she’d left gray sweatpants and a plaid flannel shirt for him on top of his bureau.
He came downstairs a few minutes later.
Emma walked up to him when he got to the bottom of the staircase. “Me and Aunt Chloe maded you some soup.” She held a mug out to him.
He took it and sipped. Chicken noodle. Hot. So good. He took a big swallow, felt it warm him from the inside out. “Thanks, Tiny.”
“Do you like to be a whale?”
“Hmm?” he said.
“In the tub. You can spout.”
“Come on, Em,” Chloe said. “We’re going to go to Half Shell to help Mr. Brett.”
“Okay!” She bounced out the door after Chloe.Laura was sitting in a chair next to the window in the parlor, watching him warily. Nodding toward the flannel shirt, the yellow-and-black-plaid flannel shirt that he’d never in a million years wear under normal circumstances, she said, “Fancy.”
He sat on a chair nearby. He still felt cold. “I try.”
“I looked up the water temperature today, Harvard. Forty-eight degrees.”
He closed his eyes. He didn’t like being the unreliable one, the loose cannon. “That was reckless of me. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“What were you thinking?” she asked.
He looked out the window behind her. “I wanted to go in the water before I left. I don’t know the next time I’ll be back on Cape Cod.”
“You’re leaving?” There was something—and he could have been reading it wrong, he wasn’t sure—a little bit sad, a little bit wistful, in her eyes.
“Can’t very well stay here until September to get the contract signed.”
“I guess not,” she conceded. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow, probably. Or I might w
ait until Thursday after the hockey game with Brett and Nate.”
“That’s cool,” she said.
“I can head out earlier if you want me to.”
She shook her head. “No, no. There’s no rush.”
He wanted to believe her, but the words I don’t want you here, I don’t want you here were echoing in his head.
“Do you want more soup?” She pushed herself up from her chair. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
He got up and followed her. There was a pot of soup on the stove, an empty can beside it. “You mind canned?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m not picky.”
She turned the heat on—it was gas, not electric—and reheated what was left in the pot. The kitchen had a back door, and there was a cold draft coming in through the cracks. He shivered. “You don’t have to take care of me, you know.”
She looked at him for a long moment. She was wearing the Red Sox sweatshirt she’d been wearing the night they met. “I know.”
He suddenly had a memory of the Christmas he’d been twelve years old, when his father had been in the throes of a manic episode. His father had given him a Rubik’s Cube, then gleefully told Jonathan he could solve it in under ten seconds. He’d grabbed a hammer and smashed the Cube to bits.
He remembered how his father thought the house had been bugged and how he’d made Jonathan and his sister, Charlotte, help him go through it with a metal detector. He remembered his dad taking Charlotte by the shoulders and shaking her “to make sure she was really there.”
He remembered, hours later, his father pacing, making a triangle sign with his hands and chanting, over and over, “I am a dolphin. I can breathe, but I can’t breathe the water.” There was no Christmas dinner that year, just a box of macaroni and cheese that he and his sister had made for themselves while their mother was trying to talk their father back into the hospital after another unsuccessful attempt to come off his medication.
He remembered how he had, at twelve years old, made a decision to steel himself against other people, focusing his attention on excelling at school, relying purely on himself to create the future he wanted and leaving nothing to the whims of unpredictable people.
Looking at Laura now, as she puttered at the stove, Jonathan wondered if he was as delusional as his father had been, using his job as a shield against other people, thinking achievement would be the thing to protect him, to prevent him from getting hurt.
Because he was hurting now, and not in spite of his job but perhaps because of it. And before he’d been hurt by the woman standing in front of him, fetching him soup—well, he was pretty sure he’d hurt her first.
He watched her pour his soup into a mug. “I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said again.
She looked up at him, green eyes indecipherable. “You did,” she said softly. “Scare me.”
She was beautiful, so incredibly sweet and funny and beautiful. He couldn’t leave Cape Cod without knowing if she felt for him the way he felt for her.
He stepped closer. She was holding his mug of soup. He took it from her, set it on the aging Formica countertop behind her. Her breathing hitched at his nearness, and he felt hope balloon in his chest. “The way I spoke to you earlier—I’m sorry. I was upset. I took it out on you and I shouldn’t have. I said some things I didn’t mean.”
Her eyes widened and she looked away, made a helpless gesture with her hand. “We both said some things...”
Cupping her face with his hands, forcing her eyes to his, he told her, “Laura. Being here. It hasn’t been a waste of time.”
She took a shuddering breath, questions pooling in her eyes.
Slowly he took his hands off her face, wanting to kiss her but not wanting to trap her, wanting her to kiss him of her own free will. Slowly he leaned toward her. “I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said, his voice low.
There was nervousness burning in her eyes, there was fear, but there was an answer shining there, too: yes.
Gently, light as a whisper, Jonathan brushed his lips against hers. A burst of happiness shot through him so fast he felt like he could fly.
He’d never felt like this before. He’d felt attraction, sure, but this overwhelming desire to protect her, keep her smiling and safe? Never. He didn’t know what to make of it. He felt like his chest could burst with it. It was almost too much to bear.
“Laura,” he murmured, stroking her hair.
She looked into his eyes, bit her lip. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the will.”
“It’s okay,” he said, meaning it. “If you’d told me, I wouldn’t still be here, and right now there’s literally nowhere else I’d rather be.” His voice was husky. He cleared his throat. “I have some vacation time saved up. I could probably stay a little longer.”
She went completely still for a second. “Okay, Harvard,” she whispered. “Then stay.”
He leaned back to look at her. Her eyes were like liquid pools of light. “You want me here?”
She nodded, looking down, looking shy.
“Say it.” He tilted her chin up. “Please.”
He heard the desperation in his voice, and she must have heard it, too, because she gave him what he needed. “I want you here, Jonathan.”
He kissed her again, joy welling up in the deepest place inside him. She wanted him to stay. She had feelings for him, too.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, smoothing her dark, thick hair back from her eyes.
What he didn’t say was the word that was playing on an endless repeat loop in his head:
Mine.
Chapter Fourteen
Wednesday morning dawned bright and unseasonably warm. Laura found Jonathan in the kitchen, cooking scrambled eggs.
He grinned at her. “Good morning, Gorgeous.”
She beamed right back. After those sweet kisses in the kitchen yesterday evening, they’d both had some soup, then watched TV in the parlor while they waited for Chloe to bring Emma home. Laura had felt so happy sitting there next to him, his arm around her shoulders, like life was full of possibility in a way it hadn’t been for a long time. She felt that way now, too—happy, extra alive.
He handed her a plate of eggs, still grinning, then dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. “What do you want to do today? Is Emma up?”
“She’ll be down any second. And you’re the tourist. What do you want to do?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Whale watching, maybe? Or is it too early in the season for that?”
“It’s better in the summer. Plus, trying to keep Emma entertained for hours on a boat?” she said. “Not ideal.”
He spooned some eggs onto his plate. “I hear there’s a good children’s museum in Boston...”
“And spend four hours with her in the car? I wouldn’t inflict that on my worst enemy.”
“We could turn it into an overnight trip,” he said. “Two hours in the car today, two hours tomorrow. Go to the museum during the day and then I could take you to Fenway tonight. Hot dogs, popcorn, the whole shebang. Has Emma ever been to a game?”
A warning bell sounded in her head. “We don’t have the money to stay at—”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get you girls a hotel room.”
She bit her lip, feeling uneasy. “Jonathan...”
“Seriously. It would be fun. I’d like to show you where I live, take you around the neighborhood.”
Laura studied him carefully. His eagerness was making her anxious. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not? Maybe you’ll like it. Maybe you’ll want to come back.”
“I lived in Boston most of my life. I know what it’s like.”
He put his arm around her, gave her a playful squeeze. “But you don’t know what Boston’s like with me.”
It was too much. It was too soon. It was Conrad all over again. “We’re not going to Boston today.”
He sighed, dropped his arm. “Maybe over the weekend, then.”
“Maybe.” She heard the ambivalence in her voice, saw that he did, too.
He looked away. “Any museums closer to home that she likes?” His voice sounded strained.
She thought for a moment. “The Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster’s pretty cool. She likes the stuffed birds and the nature trails. And sometimes they bring in therapy dogs and let the kids play with them.”
He gave a crisp nod. “Sounds good. Let’s do that.”
They carried the plates into the dining room, where Emma was sitting with two of her stuffed animals, engrossed in a conversation with them.
“Hey, Tiny,” Jonathan said. “Do your stuffed toys like scrambled eggs?”
Emma held up the two fake cats. “Kitties love eggs, Mr. Jonafin!” she said in an unnaturally high voice.
“Excellent.” He set her plate down with a flourish. “Eat up, kitties. We’ve got a fun day ahead.”
“Where are we going?” Emma asked, still serving as the voice of her stuffed cats.
“The natural history museum, honey,” Laura said.
“To see the birdies?”
“And maybe the dogs.”
“Yay!”
Jonathan sat and ate a forkful of eggs. “Does your mother want to come along?”
Laura doubted it. “We can ask.”
They finished their breakfast and Laura went to find her mom. Eleanor didn’t want to accompany them to the museum, so Laura decided to call Chloe and invite her along. Maybe if they brought a chaperone with them, Jonathan would put the brakes on a little and stop talking about spiriting her away to Boston.
She took her phone outside and sat on the steps of the back porch, her toes digging into the cold morning sand. After Chloe explained that she had some work to do at the restaurant that day, Laura said, “He kissed me last night, Chlo.”
Chloe laughed. “So all it took to get you two crazy kids together was a near case of hypothermia, huh?”
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