The One Who Changed Everything (The Cherry Sisters)

by Darcy, Lilian

  “I’d rather hear your vision, even if it’s vague.”

  One smile, Tucker. How hard would that be?

  “So can I leave this in your office?” he asked when he was done with the tablet.

  “Let me.” She took it and was back a moment later to find the toe of his work boot prodding the partly rotted wooden edging of a garden bed out front, where the shrubs were either stringy and overgrown or half-dead. On an impulse, she asked him with too much need in her voice, “Are we kidding ourselves?”

  He began carefully, “You mean...?”

  “To think that this place can be brought back to life. There’s so much needs doing. Should we be selling it so that some big corporation can bulldoze the whole thing and start from scratch?”

  She hated even saying it. She cared so much about this place. More than she’d realized when she left California, she wanted Spruce Bay to be golden and fresh again, and she wanted to be a part of making that happen.

  She looked around—at the sparkling glimpses of the lake between the cabins and through the trees, at the separate restaurant building with its wooden deck poised almost over the water, at the aqua blue of the pool, locked away in its boring rectangle of child-safe fencing. The pool definitely needed work.

  Tucker was watching her. “Do you want to sell it?” he asked, gentle and blunt at the same time.

  “No, not at all.” She blinked back sudden tears. “I think that would devastate Mom and Dad and Mary Jane.”

  “What about Lee?”

  “Lee would feel she doesn’t have the right to insist on us keeping the place when she’s not involved in running it, but in her heart, yes, I think she’d hate to see it sold.”

  “And you?” He seemed to be studying her intently, but she couldn’t be sure, with his eyes hidden behind those sunglasses.

  “I’d hate it, too. I really love it here. I’d forgotten that. It’s where I learned how much beauty means to me. It’s where I first started dabbling in a restaurant kitchen, and realized how much I loved to bake and cook. It’s where I found out how to power my plans with my dreams.”

  He was silent, still studying her, and she didn’t know where to look, so just kept on with her mental inventory of the familiar sights around her. The playground area, the barbecues, the indoor-games room, and the boat dock and the little crescent of beach that she couldn’t actually see from here but could picture so clearly in her mind.

  “I think you can make it work,” he said after a long moment. “Not everyone could. Not everyone has anything like the—” He stopped and began again. “But yeah, I think you can have the vision you want for Spruce Bay. In fact, I know you can, Daisy Cherry.”

  She believed him.

  Believed in his assurance to a crazy extent, when she thought about it. They’d barely begun to talk budget and plans, and hadn’t started their tour. They were just standing here beside a flower bed that should have been stripped out, freshly edged, filled with new soil and replanted at least six years ago.

  “Talk to me,” he invited her softly. “If you could do anything at all, what would it be?”

  Before she could answer, he began to step across the slightly rutted and weedy gravel of the main driveway, in the direction of the pool. She followed him, measuring grand, dazzling possibilities in her head and not liking what she saw. If it was too grand and dazzling, it wouldn’t be Spruce Bay.

  “I don’t want luxury purely for the sake of it,” she said. “I don’t want to put this place beyond the reach of regular families and hardworking couples. It doesn’t need marble and granite underfoot, bathrooms with gold-plated fittings or landscaping that requires five full-time garden staff.”

  “No?”

  “It just needs to celebrate what it is. The pool and the playground both need to be more enticing.” She went in that direction, stepping off the driveway and crossing the unkempt grass because there was no path. “There need to be walkways to draw people to the pool and barbecues, and down to the lake.” She quickened her pace. “Everything is just there. Dumped with no thought by whoever planned it.”

  “That wasn’t your parents?”

  “No, the place was already fifteen years old when they bought it. But look. Walking tracks are just rutted into the grass. The pool fence looks like it should have a row of Dumpsters inside it. Nothing pulls you where you’d want to go.”

  She kept going, thinking out loud, calling back to him. “And the trees and shrubs are too overgrown. I wish the restaurant deck had access on this side so people could move more easily between it and the pool. A lot of people don’t even realize it has that beautiful deck over the water. I wish the pool was a better shape, not a plain old rectangle.”

  She turned again toward it, where there were just the four unimaginative rectangles of blue water, a gray concrete surround, green grass surrounding that, and then metal fence around the whole lot.

  “I guess back in the sixties when this was first built...before my parents bought it in the late seventies...people didn’t think so much about landscaping, but now...” A sweep of her hands filled in the rest, because he had to know what she meant. It was pretty obvious. “We need a new pool, and beyond that, I don’t know how much you can achieve just through garden beds and plantings, but if you can, that’s what we want. Some magic. Some imagination.”

  She turned to him, having run out of steam—well, temporarily—and found him standing several yards away with his hands pushed down into the pockets of his jeans, just nodding, quiet in contrast to her rush of words and movement.

  A moment ago, he might have been smiling. She caught the last bit of it, caught his firm mouth settling into stillness, the way she sometimes used to catch the last few moments of sunset in California before the start of the dinner rush.

  Those glowing glimpses of color used to seem like a secret treat, snatched from the middle of hours of hard work, and his smile seemed the same—a personal privilege for her alone, rarely bestowed and something to treasure.

  Although maybe the smile thing was just her imagination, because it definitely wasn’t there anymore.

  “We can do all that,” he said seriously, his enthusiasm tempered and professional in contrast to her own froth of creative energy and vision. “None of that is overambitious or out of step.”

  “Not even the new pool?”

  “You don’t necessarily need a new pool.”

  “But—”

  He grinned suddenly. “Don’t knock rectangles. Or squares. You can do some pretty clever things with shapes like that if you mix them up a little.”

  He let himself in through the child-safe gate and dropped to his knees at the pool edge, plunging his arm past the elbow into the water so he could reach the seam between the steps and the side, then running his hand over the smooth, brightly painted concrete and up under the lip of the rim.

  “What are you doing?” Daisy asked.

  “Checking if it seems structurally sound.”

  That water wasn’t warm! Halfway between the gate and the pool edge, Daisy winced on his behalf, but he seemed untroubled by the water temperature, and when he straightened again, he just ran his other hand down the wet limb to strip most of the water off.

  For what felt like far too long, she couldn’t look away. It was crazy. The edge of the polo shirt’s short sleeve was wet, emphasizing its tight fit against his strong biceps. The sheen of wetness slicked down the hair on his forearm and gave the remnants of his summer tan an extra glow.

  He had incredible arms.

  Beautiful arms.

  What on earth was she doing, thinking that Lee’s ex-fiancé had beautiful arms!

  “It’ll need to be emptied and refinished,” he said, forcing her focus back where it belonged. “You might want to clad it in tile. There are some great effects
you can achieve with current designs. But we’ll get a proper structural check done, obviously, before we start on the work.”

  “You do pools as well as landscaping?”

  “We work with another contractor on that, but it’ll be done as part of our overall plan. I’m thinking you might want to put in some solar heating for it, as well.” There were goose bumps on the wet arm now, but he was just grinning as he showed them to her.

  Wow, the second grin he’d given in the space of a few minutes! On top of that possible smile a little earlier, he was really lightening up! She was the one feeling too serious right now—seriously alarmed about the way her focus kept catching on the powerful maleness of his body...and liking it.

  “I’m sorry!” She grimaced about the goose bumps on his arm, but the words were a coded warning to herself, as well.

  Stop looking, Daisy. Haven’t you seen a well-built man before?

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s October, I was expecting it. It’s not the first time my job has required a bit of cold water.”

  “So you’re just talking about retiling and heating for the pool? Is that enough to bring it up to date?”

  “No, those are only details. Let me talk you through this.” He began to sketch out his ideas with gestures that took in the whole area. To see it from his viewpoint she had to stand beside him, closer than she really wanted. “Take out this fence and put in one that encloses the playground, as well,” he said. “That gets rids of your repeating rectangles.”

  Another flashback of Michael and those last difficult months at Niche hit her as Tucker spoke—the way Michael would always stand deliberately too close when they went through the dessert menu together, as if to remind her that they’d once been intimate.

  Tucker was so different. The opposite. There was a kind of force field in place. Not even the hint of an accidental touch from him. No warmth from his body drifting against her skin.

  “Add different levels, raised beds and plantings, seating areas that are like outdoor rooms,” he was saying, “so that parents can watch their kids playing and swimming from various vantage points. Create options for sitting in the shade or in the sun. And even though the barbecue area won’t be within the fenced enclosure, we’ll make it part of the same landscape, carrying through the idea of a variety of seating areas and outdoor rooms, and changing levels.”

  “It sounds gorgeous,” she said. “There’s really been nothing for adults anywhere near the playground and pool. Most parents look as if they’re doing a penance, minding their kids at the pool. For years it hasn’t had as much use as it should.”

  “What’s the room at the end of the building just there?”

  “Oh, you mean— That’s the laundry room.” He was pointing at it, the dullest space at the whole resort, with the possible exception of the sheds tucked away out of sight, where they stored equipment and tools.

  “Is there any way that could be moved?”

  “Move the room?”

  “Change it. Move the laundry facilities somewhere else and revamp that room, extend it, with sliding double-glazed doors on three sides. Slate or tiled flooring. Cedar benches. A hot tub. Make it a spa section that can be open air in the warm weather and enclosed when it’s cold.”

  “That’s beyond landscaping, isn’t it?”

  “You mean, I’m straying outside my brief?”

  “No, I’m just stunned, that’s all. This is more than I expected from you. Far more.”

  “You thought I’d be all about azaleas and birch trees?”

  “You haven’t yet mentioned a single plant.”

  “Put in a zillion plants without changing the layout and flow of this place, and you’ll have spent money for nothing. You have to start with the structure. With the bones.”

  She shivered, suddenly, as a stray piece of cloud crossed the sun.

  The bones.

  What was happening in her bones this morning? She felt aware and alive in a way that she couldn’t put down purely to the fall sunshine or the excitement of the new future for Spruce Bay. Her senses seemed more acute, her mind buzzing, and Tucker dominated all of it. It unsettled her too much. She had to somehow shake it off.

  “Shall we look at the lake frontage now?” she said quickly, needing to be on the move again. She hurried to open the pool gate without giving him time to reply.

  Chapter Six

  Start with the bones.

  The words he’d used echoed in Tucker’s own head as he followed Daisy along a pine needle-covered path that ran between the cabins and down to the water. He tried to think about the Spruce Bay landscaping contract, the reason he was here...

  Yes, she was right, it definitely needed some thinning out of the trees, but not too much, and not everywhere. You didn’t want to lose it all to sunny glare for the sake of opening the views...

  But it was no good. He had to fight for concentration, because he was feeling something down to the bones, and he wanted it to go away.

  Down to the bones.

  Bones knew nothing.

  But they ached like sore muscles when you had to fight as hard as Tucker was fighting right now.

  It’s a job, a project, a contract, he coached himself. Just because it’s Daisy Cherry, and she’s doing to my dumb bones the same thing she did to them ten years ago...

  He did not give in to transient emotions, no matter how powerful they seemed while he was feeling them. Heaven knew, his marriage certificate ought to be enough of a disincentive, on top of the legacy of his father’s affair all those years ago.

  The affair was long gone, of course, but the marriage was another matter. Tucker had married Emma for practical, legal reasons, and he’d been incredibly careful to make sure this didn’t change.

  Fortunately, Emma had been in complete agreement—despite what his mom had claimed yesterday—and now that their divorce was grinding its way through the system, he could look back on the whole thing and think that they’d both been lucky.

  Lucky that it had worked as intended, with no chemistry on either side. Lucky it hadn’t turned into the kind of mess he hated so much. Lucky that they were both decent people who could keep their eye on the prize.

  “One thing I want, and I hope you’ll agree to it,” he had said to Emma the night they’d made their plans. “No affairs while we’re together.”

  “No affairs?”

  “No relationships...flings...involvements, whatever you want to call them, with anyone else on the side.”

  “Do you really think I’m contemplating anything like that right now?” She’d tensed her thin shoulders and looked over at Max, her seven-year-old son, as he watched TV. He was ill, and it showed. He’d lost his hair to chemotherapy and he was small for his age.

  “Of course I don’t, but it’s something we need to talk about,” he’d urged her.

  “We’ve already agreed this is a marriage in name only, for Max’s sake.”

  “And I wanted to cover the other side of the equation.”

  “Consider it covered, Tucker. I have no intention of getting involved with anyone while Max is so ill. It would be confusing for him, when he knows you and I are going to be married. It would just be wrong!”

  “I’m glad you agree. I’m glad I don’t have to spell it all out.”

  “Tucker, you’re a decent, honorable man. You put family first. That’s one of the things that’s making this marriage possible in the first place.”

  Honorable. A neat little word in Emma’s very mixed-up half-English accent.

  It hadn’t been a word he’d ever thought to attach to himself, but once Emma had used it, he decided that it fit and he was comfortable inside its skin. If honor meant doing unto others as you wanted them to do to you, if it meant taking pride in honesty and fair de
alings, if it meant adhering to a code of decency that he couldn’t spell out but that might include rules such as, “Don’t get a woman pregnant when you’re married to someone else and then announce that you’re damn well dying, Dad!” then, yes, okay, he was honorable and that was good.

  He and Emma were both clear on exactly where they stood. Their marriage was going to be a quiet sort of thing, not actively hidden, but not widely announced, either. Known only to those who needed to know it. Just there, in the background, until Emma and Max didn’t need it anymore.

  Which was about now. The goal had been achieved. Now ten years old, Max had completed his treatment and was in full remission. Emma’s citizenship was secured, and whether Max’s cancer did or didn’t come back, the two of them could legally stay in the only place Max had ever known as home.

  It would have been terrible if mother and son had had to leave the country in the middle of Max’s illness, to set up a new home in England. Emma was a British citizen, but she hadn’t lived there since she was twelve, thanks to her father’s roving career. Her parents had retired to the Mediterranean coast in Turkey, so she would have had no family support. Tucker and Emma had filed for their divorce just over two months ago, which meant that it should be final, depending on the workings of the court, in around four weeks.

  Just to be totally clear, he did not follow passionate impulses, he reminded himself. He was practical and honorable, as Emma had always said, but unfortunately his body didn’t seem to have received the memo on either of those things today. It was telling him loud and clear that he and Daisy were meant to be together—for a night or a week or a year or a lifetime, his body was maddeningly nonspecific on that point.

  And about the only thing he was clear on was that he didn’t trust it and didn’t want to give in to it and most definitely didn’t want to let it show.

  Call him cautious, call him damaged, call him anything, he didn’t want to turn this flaming, unlooked-for attraction into a huge mistake. Just because a feeling was strong and overwhelming didn’t mean it was right to go where it pointed. He’d learned that young, when he’d watched his father’s denial of his own mortality turn into such a massive family betrayal.