“My sister is not my boss,” she snapped, deflating in the next moment. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Let’s sing.”
Gage couldn’t look anywhere but at her. Everyone else watched him. “You heard her,” he said, his voice dangerously quiet. “Let’s sing. Michael?”
“Do you have any matches?” he asked Sheryl. “A lighter?”
“Oh, sure.” She opened a drawer and produced what he wanted. She was organized, right down to the inventory in her kitchen, and Gage sure did like that. Michael lit the candles—thankfully, there were not forty of them—and by the glow of the fire, the men started to sing.
Sheryl joined her higher voice with theirs, but it was clear she was used to a more sophisticated type of birthday party. Not the laughing, ribbing, pushing kind Rudy and Teddy were doing.
Still, by the end of the song, Gage was smiling with his friends. “Thank you,” he said, admitting to himself that maybe celebrating his birthday with friends was better than what he’d planned.
“Blow ‘em out, Sergeant,” Rudy said. “Make your wish.”
“I know what he’s wishing,” Teddy said.
“Yeah, for you to can it.” Gage glared, took a big breath, and blew out the candles. Michael and Sheryl clapped, and then his brother said, “Okay, food. Let’s eat.”
Gage loaded up his plate and took it into the living room, Britta right at his heels. He fed her a piece of chicken from his plate and eyed Sheryl until she sat in the recliner on his right. Teddy sat next to him, and Gage asked, “Are you thinking of retiring?”
“I mean, maybe,” he said. “I don’t have a pretty island or a pretty woman to come home to.” He took a bite of his fried chicken, a moan following it. “Wow, this is fantastic.”
“It comes from a local place here on the island,” Gage said. “Sheryl told me about it, and I’ve been wanting to try it.” He looked at her, glad she was eating and not glaring his face off. He did have some explaining to do, but he hoped he could punctuate his sentences with kisses, so she wouldn’t be quite so angry.
He’d felt her lean into his touch down the hall several minutes ago. She liked him. He just didn’t know how to have a girlfriend, and he hoped it wouldn’t cost him the one he currently had.
By the time Gage got his Marine buddies and his brother out of Sheryl’s house, darkness was falling. He closed the door behind Michael and pressed his back into the wood. A long hiss came out of his mouth, and he tracked Sheryl as she moved in her kitchen on the other side of the cottage.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know they would do something like this.”
“Obviously,” she said.
“I didn’t even know Rudy was back in the country.” And he’d looked good. Rudy had been through a lot, and he deserved to be happy. “Let’s leave all this and go lay in the hammock.” He put his hand over hers, stopping her from picking up another plate. “Come on. I’ll clean it up later.”
“It’s already later,” she said, not meeting his eye.
“Sheryl.” Gage drew her into his arms, glad she succumbed and wrapped her arms around him.
“Okay,” she said. “I have been wanting to lay in the hammock.”
“With me?”
“With you.” She glanced up at him. “But I want you to talk for the first fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes straight?” Horror darted through Gage.
She giggled, the sound morphing into a full-blown laugh. Relief spread through Gage, and he led her out the back door to the tree at the corner of the house. He’d hung the hammock there, and he collapsed into it first, then cradled her against his chest. They fit perfectly together, and he sighed a long, happy sigh.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my birthday. I just wanted a quiet, romantic night with the two of us.”
“Mm.”
“When I didn’t see you in that office…I can’t even describe what I was thinking.”
“It was a scary ten minutes.”
“They must’ve taken you right before I got there,” he said. “What happened? Why did you go with them?”
“Why did I go with them?” she repeated, her voice pitching up. “Have you met your Marine friends, Gage? One of their arms weighs more than I do. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You left your phone.”
“Okay.” She pushed herself up. “This is the opposite of relaxing. I changed my mind. I don’t want to listen to tell me how wrong I was, and what I should’ve done different for the next fifteen minutes.”
She managed to get out of the hammock, even if she did make him swing wildly.
“I’m sorry,” he called after her, the last of the light of the day fading right before his eyes. The stars started to wink in the sky above him, and he just wanted Sheryl to come back.
She didn’t.
Gage waited as long as he could, and then he got up and followed her inside. She’d left the kitchen for him to clean, and he set about doing that. “Happy birthday to me,” he muttered.
“I would’ve told you happy birthday the moment I woke up,” she said, her voice angry and coming from behind him. “You robbed me of that opportunity.”
He turned toward her. “I didn’t want to make it a big deal. I knew you were busy.”
“You don’t get to decide what I do or don’t do,” she said. “I’m a grown woman, and I can manage my time the way I see fit.” Her fingers curled into fists. “I like you Gage. I want to get to know more about you, and kiss you in the hammock, and celebrate holidays and birthdays with you. But I can’t do that with someone who keeps pushing me away.”
“I’m not pushing you away.”
“You are,” she said. “Or you’re at least keeping the door part-way closed, your whole body weight behind it.” She sighed, the exhaustion entering her face again. “I don’t want to fight with you. If you don’t want to be with me, just say it.”
“I don’t want that at all,” he said. “I want to spend all my free time with you. All of it.” He watched Britta go over to Sheryl and sit on her feet, leaning her weight into the human. “I’m just really bad at this.”
“Define this.”
“Having a girlfriend. I’m good at following directions. Reading tactical plans. Watching people on the ferry and on a beach. But I’m not super great at this.” He gestured between the two of them. “I’m doing the best I can. Maybe it’s not good enough for you.”
His chest heaved as he breathed again. He didn’t want to leave things like this with her. He’d never felt too terribly inferior to her, but she definitely had more money that he did. She stuck to the ritziest parts of the island while he ate footlongs on the benches down in South Port. She ran a grounds crew of over sixty people, and she and her sister ran the entire Heartwood Inn empire.
She was way out of his league, and maybe he should end things right now.
But his heart didn’t want to. And for once, his brain and his heart were on the same page.
“It’s good enough for me,” she said, and Gage crossed the room to her and cradled her face in his hands.
Tonight had not been exactly what he wanted. Not even close to what he wanted. But he did lean down and get his birthday kiss.
Chapter Fifteen
Sheryl survived the surfing competition by the skin of her teeth. She didn’t see Gage much, and she actually thought they benefitted from the cooling off period. She was able to move past his omission about his birthday, and she was sitting in her office a day or two after the beaches had cleared when she got a text from Celeste.
O needs us. Her penthouse. Stat.
On my way, Gwen answered at the same time Sheryl was typing.
Coming up, she said.
Be there in a sec, Alissa said. Sheryl was already out the door, because if her sister needed her, she’d be there. That was one of the blessings of the five of them working the inn. They each had a vital role, but they could be there for one another.
She
met Gwen in the lobby, and she pushed the elevator button. “What do you think the problem is?” Gwen asked.
“Her boyfriend,” Sheryl said. “Olympia needs to get out of her own way.”
“Still hung up on Hunter?”
“She’s not hung up on him,” Sheryl said. “She was broken by him, and I don’t think she’s pieced herself back together quite yet.” The elevator dinged, but the door was so slow to open. “It’s a shame, because her boyfriend is hot.”
The doors opened and the man Sheryl had met at the bonfire stood there. Chet himself looked up, and Sheryl could only stare at him. “Ladies,” he said, and Gwen actually twittered as he stepped off the elevator.
Sheryl got on, grabbing Gwen’s hand and towing her onto the car too. “That’s him.”
“Who?” Gwen asked, a sense of wonder still in her voice.
“Olympia’s boyfriend. Was he carrying a bag?” She tried to look, but the doors slid closed, and the ride up to the penthouse began. When she and Gwen got to Olympia’s apartment, they found Celeste cleaning up ice cream containers and Olympia lying on the couch, nothing curled or pressed or straight, the way it usually was.
“Oh, it’s bad,” Gwen said, looking at Sheryl.
It was bad, and Sheryl didn’t know what to do about it. She wondered if this could be her in a week, or two weeks, or a month, or two months. Had she given her heart to Gage to squeeze the life from it whenever he felt like it?
She participated in the conversation, but she couldn’t help wondering if she was destined for the same fate as her older sister.
When she left Olympia’s suite, she found Gage leaning against the wall, looking at his phone. He glanced up when the door opened, and a smile brightened his face. He was devilishly good-looking, and Sheryl’s heart pumped out several extra beats. She wasn’t sure if she was excited to see him there or annoyed.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Waiting for you.”
She looked at her phone. “I didn’t get a text.”
“That’s because I didn’t text.” He embraced her, his lips skating down her neck. “Aren’t you proud of me?”
“I sure am,” Celeste said, entering the hall too.
Sheryl jumped away from Gage, though she liked where he’d been going.
Celeste definitely had everything pressed and in its proper place, her light blonde hair falling in curls over her shoulders. She looked at Sheryl with a sparkle in her eye and added, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your boyfriend?”
“Yes,” Sheryl said at the same time Gage said, “I’m Gage Sanders,” and extended his hand toward Celeste.
“Celeste,” she said.
“Second-oldest,” he said, glancing at Sheryl, who stood there like an accessory. “Right?”
“Right,” Celeste and Sheryl said at the same time. She hated being an extra in the conversation, and Gage hadn’t even given her a chance to introduce Celeste. Of course, neither had her sister. But Celeste had always been a little overbearing. She wanted just as much control as Olympia, but she wasn’t the oldest Heartwood sister, so she’d fought constantly for a power position.
“He’s my bodyguard,” Sheryl said, drawing both Celeste’s and Gage’s eyes to her. “I mean, that’s how we started.”
“Well, I’m late for a meeting,” Celeste said, smiling at Sheryl and Gage before walking to the incredibly slow elevator.
Gage watched her go, and Sheryl couldn’t seem to look away until her sister got on the elevator and left too.
“I’m your bodyguard?” he asked, and Sheryl knew she’d made a mistake.
“I mean, that is how we met.”
Gage exhaled and looked away. “Are you still working, or can we go to lunch?”
Sheryl’s insides felt encased in gelatin, and they wobbled. “I still have work to do.”
Something moved between them, and Gage nodded. “All right. Do you…?”
“You look like you could use a nap,” Sheryl said. “I’m fine. I don’t need you to take me home in the afternoons anymore.”
Gage just stared at her, his jaw clenched and those midnight eyes drinking her up. “All right,” he said, turning and heading for the elevator.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she knew she couldn’t stand there in the hall while the infuriatingly slow elevator came back up from the lobby. “See you later,” she said, ducking back into Olympia’s penthouse, where Alissa and Gwen still sat with their sister.
She pressed her back into door and breathed.
“Are you okay?” Gwent asked.
“Fine,” Sheryl said, straightening. “I just…needed to use the bathroom. Is that okay, O?”
“Go right ahead,” Olympia said. She looked better after a sisterly intervention, but Sheryl felt on the verge of a break-down, and she didn’t even know why.
Locked in the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror, trying to find the reason she’d told Celeste Gage was her bodyguard. He’d been so much more than that from the moment they’d met.
Her phone chimed, and she hastily pulled it from her pocket. Are you trying to put distance between us? Gage had asked.
Sheryl honestly didn’t know.
I’m going to South Port for lunch. Call me if you need me.
Sheryl put her phone on the vanity and looked into her eyes again. When she’d first met Gage, she did need him. Needed him to get her home without incident. Needed him to stay with her, so Ricky wouldn’t cause a problem. Needed him to feel safe.
But now?
Did she need him?
She hated that she didn’t know the answer. And she hated his next text too. Thanks for the work. If you know anyone else looking for a bodyguard, let me know.
Later that day, Sheryl lay in the hammock, watching the leaves above her move with the wind. She wasn’t sure what had happened that afternoon, but she knew such situations would probably keep occurring. One thought had been revolving in her mind: Maybe Gage just isn’t the one for you.
And maybe he wasn’t.
She didn’t call him that day, nor the next. He didn’t show up at the inn in the afternoons, and the silence between them felt thick and dense. Sheryl didn’t know how to break it, so she just let it go on and on.
That weekend, the farmer’s market found her wandering through the aisles, a recyclable shopping bag over her arm as she picked out the fruits and vegetables she wanted. The crowd had good energy, and she loved the vibrancy of colors in each booth, the clean, crisp scent of the air, the pure sunshine overhead.
She loved summertime in Carter’s Cove, and she couldn’t wait to get home and make a smoothie with all of her new fruits. She thought of Gage, and where he might be. Probably not the farmer’s market in downtown. Probably in South Port, where all the hipsters and artsy types hung out.
Funny, she didn’t consider him a hipster or artsy. Sure, he liked to bake, but he didn’t paint or weave or make jewelry. He rode a sleek, black motorcycle, for crying out loud. Sheryl did miss riding on the back of that motorcycle, but she couldn’t use that as one of the reasons she wanted to keep Gage in her life.
It had been four days since they’d last talked, in person or via text, and Sheryl realized in that moment that she hated not being able to talk to him. She wished he were there with her, at the farmer’s market, picking out apples for a tart he’d make for her later that day.
She pulled out her phone and called him, her pulse bobbing somewhere in the back of her throat.
“Hey, I’m on a job,” he said by way of hello.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “I didn’t know you worked the ferry on weekends.”
“I don’t. It’s a private gig.”
“Oh. I just—I’m at the farmer’s market, and I wondered if you wanted to join me. But I guess you can’t.”
“I can’t.”
“I’ll call you later?”
“Okay.” And with that, the call ended. Sheryl actually look
ed at her phone to make sure he hadn’t just gone silent. He hadn’t barked, but his brusque, abrupt nature had returned in full force.
He was on a job, she told herself as she turned to cross over to a new row of stalls. She’d come to the market alone, and she’d pushed him away. Now she just had to figure out how to bring him back in.
Maybe we could see each other tonight? She typed out the words and sent them to him, hoping whatever job he was working would allow texting. He’d taken a call from her, so she was hopeful.
Sure, his text came back, and everything inside Sheryl relaxed. Couples went through ups and downs, and maybe she’d just needed a minute to collect her breath. Find her center. Realize she did like Gage and want to continue getting to know him.
Fine, she really liked Gage, and she wanted to get on the same page with him, and then kiss him that evening.
Satisfied with her plans, she continued down the booths, buying what she thought looked good. Her phone rang, and she swiped on the call from Javier. “Is Melinda having that baby?”
“Yes,” he said. “She is. We just got to the hospital, and I can’t remember if I even closed the front door. Will you go by and check?”
“Of course,” Sheryl said. “Did you take everything you needed?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
Sheryl laughed, excited about the new baby too. “Javier, go be with Melinda. Call me if you need anything. I’m not working this weekend.” She had a skeletal crew at the inn, because everyone needed time off after the huge surfing competition. They’d all hit it hard next week as July started to become August and more debris came from the trees on the property.
“Okay,” Javier said. “I just wanted to let you know.”
“Thanks.” Sheryl hung up, still smiling. She sighed as she slipped her phone in her purse. A familiar voice reached her ears, and surprise lifted her eyebrows as she started searching for Gage.
He was here?
She found him easily, a few booths down from her, his arm linked through another blonde woman’s.
Horror and disbelief froze her to the spot. What was he doing? He called cheating on her a job?
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