The Cliffside Inn

by Jessie Newton

  She met Robin’s eye, and Robin swore she saw a brand-new version of Kelli Watkins being born from the ashes of her life, right there in the restaurant. “I will take your help with registering Parker for school. It’s on Diamond Island, and it’ll save me two ferry rides.”

  “Done,” Robin said, mentally adding it to her to-do list for the following day.

  Kelli looked at Alice. “I’ll take your laundry pods.”

  Alice smiled and nodded, and she added her hand to the stack in the middle of the table.

  Kelli swiveled her head to Eloise. “And I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me from your brownstone in Boston.”

  “Honestly, you can probably have it all,” Eloise said. She put her hand on the stack in the middle too, and they looked around at one another.

  “I wish I was there,” AJ said, and Alice gasped. She met Robin’s gaze with her own startled eyes, and that set everyone laughing again.

  Robin tipped up onto her toes, the desperation inside her at a breaking point. It had been since she’d woken that morning. Where was Duke? Why hadn’t he been with Bryan?

  The man who had recruited Duke to Alaska for the summer fishing season had disembarked from the plane ten minutes ago, and his family was already leaving the staging area.

  She wanted to see her husband right now.

  “There he is,” Mandie said, and Robin craned her neck to the left.

  Mandie moved that way, and Robin grabbed her youngest daughter’s hand. “Come on, Jamie.” She followed Mandie, and they edged around the crowd still waiting for their loved ones.

  Robin spotted Duke instantly, because the man called to her in a way no one else ever had. Tears sprang to her eyes, especially when both girls called, “Dad!” and started toward him. He laughed and scooped them both into a big bear hug while Robin wept several paces behind them.

  His eyes met hers over the tops of the girls’ heads, and an entire electrical storm began brewing between them. She lifted her hand to wipe her eyes and turned it into a wave.

  He started toward her, and she took in the broad, boxy shoulders. The dark hair salted with gray now. And the beard.

  Oh, dear, the beard.

  “That’s a sexy look,” she said, reaching up to trace her fingers along his jawline. The hair there was softer than she expected, and when he took her in his arms and kissed her, there was no scratching from it.

  She melted into him and kissed him back, trying to communicate to him how much she’d missed him and how happy she was to have him home.

  “Ew, stop making out,” Mandie said, and Duke pulled away.

  He gaped at Mandie, which caused Robin to burst out laughing. “See what I’ve been dealing with alone?” she asked between her giggles.

  “I always kiss your mother like this,” Duke said. “It’s not making out.”

  “It’s gross,” Mandie said, glancing around as if any of her friends would be there and see Robin and Duke kissing.

  Duke looked at Robin, his eyes wide and filled with shock. “She’s still your daughter,” Robin said. “She’s just…a teenager now.”

  Mandie rolled her eyes and walked away, but Robin just gazed up at Duke. “I don’t care what she thinks,” she said. “Kiss me again, baby. I’m so glad you’re home.” He did what she asked, and Robin didn’t care if she made out with her husband. She hadn’t seen him for four and a half months, and she just did not care.

  Chapter Ten

  “Eloise, will you come in with me?” Billie asked, and a healthy dose of surprise shot through Eloise.

  She forced herself not to look at Aaron as she said, “Sure thing.” She adjusted the strap of her purse and looked at Grace. “Do you have anything to try on?”

  “Nope.”

  “Just me and you, Bills.” Eloise smiled at the teenager, hoping she didn’t mess this up. She went into the dressing room with the girl and turned to lock the door behind her.

  Billie slipped her pants off as Eloise sat on the bench at the back of the booth. She picked up one of the pairs of shorts for the girl and handed them to her. “Do you like this type of fabric?” she asked.

  “Better than jeans,” Billie said. “No one’s wearing jeans this year.”

  “No?” Eloise looked down at her denim shorts. “Good to know.” She knew Billie hadn’t commented on her personal style. Besides, Eloise wasn’t thirteen and didn’t need to fit in with the cool kids at the junior high. She could wear her mom jeans all she wanted.

  Billie buttoned the navy blue shorts that barely covered her behind and turned to look at the sides and back. “My dad will never let me wear these.”

  “Will they let you wear them to school?” Eloise asked as delicately as she could. “What’s the dress code?”

  “No,” Billie said, putting her hands in the pockets. “They have to go down farther than this.” She faced Eloise. “What do you think?”

  Eloise thought she’d like to be thirteen again to have a slim, tight body like Billie’s. She smiled at the shorts and then at Billie. “They’re super cute.”

  Billie had wide, beautiful eyes that stayed open when she smiled, and her dirty blonde hair fell halfway down her back. She’d straightened it today, and with the little mascara she wore, Eloise knew she was going to turn a lot of heads and break a lot of hearts.

  She reminded Eloise of AJ in so many ways, though Billie didn’t like sports. Aaron had told her she had to find a group at school, and Billie had steadfastly refused band and orchestra, soccer and swimming, debate and chess.

  She’d finally settled on art and musical theater, though the last one had come about after an argument between her and Aaron. The two were like oil and water, though they were nearly the same person. Aaron loved Billie fiercely, though, and Billie loved her father too. Teenage years were simply hard, and Eloise anticipated the next several years would be trying for Aaron.

  For her, too, she hoped.

  Billie started to step out of the shorts, and Billie took them from her and handed her the next pair. “Those look like they might meet the dress code,” she said as Billie pulled them on.

  The light pink shorts covered Billie’s legs to mid-thigh, and she stood straight and tall, her arms down at her sides. “Yep,” she said. “They go past my fingertips.”

  “Is that the rule?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But it’s stupid. No one follows it, and they don’t even make people change.”

  “Oh, then the blue ones should be fine.”

  “It’ll be a miracle if I can get Dad to buy those,” Billie said. “Let alone leaving the house in them.”

  “You’re a pretty girl,” Eloise said. “He’s probably worried about what the boys will think.”

  Billie met Eloise’s eyes in the mirror. “I’m pretty?”

  “Beautiful,” Eloise said with a smile. “Gorgeous—have you seen your hair? And when you smile, there’s this light in your eyes.” She tucked her own hair behind her ears so she wouldn’t embarrass herself or Billie. “Trust me, you’re going to make some boys go crazy.”

  A flush immediately started to creep into Billie’s face.

  “What’s his name?” Eloise asked.

  “Who?”

  “The boy whose eye you’re hoping to catch.”

  Billie started unbuttoning the pink shorts, and Eloise folded the pair she’d already tried on. “Promise not to tell my dad?”

  “You think there’s anything on these islands your dad doesn’t know?” Eloise asked with a light laugh.

  “He doesn’t know all the kids at the junior high,” Billie said, handing back the shorts.

  Eloise gave her the last pair—a white pair with an overlay of lace. They had an elastic waistband, and Billie just pulled them on. They were too big, and they sat way down on her hips in a way Eloise didn’t like.

  “His name is Jake,” Billie said as she twisted and turned to look at the shorts in the mirror. “These aren’t right.”

  �
�They’re too big,” Eloise said. “I can get a smaller size.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Billie said. “I don’t like them very much.” She slipped out of them and put on her own pair of black shorts that went to the dress code level of mid-thigh. Eloise needed to start paying attention to the length of shorts other teens wore so she could see if Billie fit in or not.

  “So these two?” Eloise asked, picking up the blue and pink pairs as she stood.

  “If we can,” Billie said. “Let me see the prices.” She took the shorts and looked at the tags while Eloise stooped to get the white shorts from the floor. She folded them as Billie asked, “What’s thirty percent off of thirty-six?”

  “Almost eleven dollars,” Eloise said almost immediately.

  “How do you do that so fast?” Billie asked, shaking her head. “I’m not great at math.”

  “I’m sure you’re fine at math,” Eloise said, though she had no way of knowing. Aaron hadn’t told her about his children’s grades. “I just do ten percent, because that’s easy. Move the decimal and get three-sixty. Then multiply that by three.” She stopped talking, because it didn’t really matter how she’d done the mental math. “It’s actually ten-eighty off. So those will be just over twenty-five dollars.”

  “I’ll almost be out of money,” Billie said, as Aaron gave his girls a budget for their school clothes. Three hundred dollars each. Billie had been buying things at a faster rate than Grace, as Grace didn’t even really seem to care what she wore to school.

  In fact, Billie had been picking out all of her T-shirts and shorts that day.

  “What else do you need?” Eloise asked.

  “I want some of those sandals that look like beach shoes,” she said. “Everyone has them.” She opened the dressing room door, and Aaron looked up from his phone.

  “How’d it go?” He pocketed his phone and stood. “Find anything good?”

  “These,” Billie said, handing him the shorts, the pink pair on top. “Should be about forty dollars, with the discounts.”

  “You’ll have eighteen dollars left,” he said, taking the clothes. He lifted the pink shorts to look at the blue ones beneath. “Bills. You can’t wear these to school.” He looked up, his dark eyes sparking with several things at once. Slight irritation mixed with compassion.

  “I know,” Billie said. “But I can wear them to parties and the mall and stuff.”

  “Parties?” Aaron sounded like he’d just inhaled anything but air into his lungs. He coughed, and he looked at Eloise.

  She tried to give him an encouraging look. Surely he remembered going to parties as a teenager. Eloise keenly knew he’d gone. She wanted everyone to be happy, and she wanted to volunteer to pay for Billie’s shorts. Her shoes too, because she didn’t think eighteen dollars would cover them.

  “Maybe I could have the rest of Grace’s money,” Billie said, sidestepping the topic of going to parties. “She has seventy-two dollars left, and she’s done.”

  Grace looked up from her book at the mention of her name.

  “That’s not how it works, Billie,” Aaron said.

  “Why not?” Billie asked. “I still need shoes too. Eighteen dollars isn’t enough for shoes.”

  Aaron started toward the check-out counter. “How much are these shorts you can’t wear to school?”

  “Twenty-five,” Billie said, going with him. Eloise extended her hand to Grace, who closed her book and hopped off the chair. She slipped her hand into Eloise’s, and they followed too.

  She kept one ear on the argument in front of her, hating it. Contention made her so uncomfortable, and she just wanted everyone to be happy. They’d had such a good day so far, and she didn’t want to end it on a low note.

  Aaron turned to her, and Eloise could hardly believe she was here with him, doing this. It almost felt like a dream.

  “What do you think, Eloise?” he asked.

  Eloise’s pulse got another shot of adrenaline, and her throat turned dry. She looked at Billie, who wore such a look of hope. She knew she couldn’t always side with the girls just to get them to like her.

  “I don’t know,” she said, watching Billie’s face fall.

  Aaron looked at the shorts again. “What kind of shoes, Bills?”

  “I need sneakers,” she said, still silently pleading with Eloise. “And I want those sandals I’ve told you about.”

  Aaron frowned. “Can you get this stuff and both of those with ninety dollars?”

  Billie swung her gaze to her father. “You’ll give me Grace’s money?”

  “Both of these?” the clerk asked, and Eloise held her breath.

  “Yes,” Aaron said, pushing the shorts across the counter. He turned toward Billie. “I’ll give you Grace’s money. I can see the two of you have different needs.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She grabbed onto her father and hugged him, and he met Eloise’s eyes over the top of Billie’s head.

  Eloise smiled and touched her heart with her hand, and Aaron grinned back at her. She loved the silent conversations they could have, and she determined to have a real, out-loud conversation with him later that night, after the girls went to bed.

  It would take all of her courage, but as Eloise stood in the clothing store while Aaron handed the clerk his credit card, she fell down the last step of being all the way in love with him.

  Later that night, she helped him wash the dishes they’d dirtied by making dinner. Grace skipped down the hall to take a bath. Billie thanked Aaron for the clothes and shoes again and said she was going to go unpack it all and call Addie, her best friend.

  Prince had just gone outside, and Eloise felt very much like she would like this to be her reality. A husband. Kids. Even a dog. It was the American dream—and one she’d never thought she’d have, especially with a man like Aaron Sherman.

  She linked her arm through his, hoping to let him know she was interested in spending the night with him. He glanced at her, and she smiled.

  “What’s in that head of yours, Eloise?” he asked quietly.

  She’d never spent the night with him, and she wasn’t sure she would tonight either. She’d definitely like to make love to him tonight, even if she had to slip out the door and catch the last ferry back to Sanctuary Island.

  It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been intimate, but they’d only managed to find a time when the girls weren’t around a few times. Eloise wanted more, but she wasn’t great at communicating what that was to a man.

  “I’m thinking about us,” Eloise said. “What are you thinking?”

  “About us?”

  “Yes.” She put the last plate in the dish drainer.

  “I like where we are,” he said, leaning over to kiss her. The union was quick, and Eloise went back to the sudsy water.

  “I’m thinking a little further down the line,” she said carefully. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure they were still alone, though both Grace and Billie would be occupied for a while. She handed him the last glass and rinsed her hands in the warm water. “I’m thinking about marriage, Aaron.”

  He visibly flinched, and that didn’t settle Eloise’s nerves any.

  “Okay,” he said slowly.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked.

  “It’s crossed my mind,” he said, adjusting some dishes in the drainer to make room for the glass. He reached for the towel and dried his hands before facing her. “I just haven’t gone too far down that road.”

  “Why not?” She sincerely hoped it wasn’t something they could never achieve.

  “My first marriage wasn’t great,” he said, and she knew that. “I’m not eager to get into something like that again.”

  Eloise tried not to let the words sting, but they did. The pain of it radiated through her whole body. “I’m not Carol. It wouldn’t be the same at all.”

  “I know,” he said, but she didn’t think he did. He wrapped her in his arms and lowered his head to kiss her neck. Eloise pressed into the touch, lettin
g her hands drift down his strong arms to his waist. She slid her fingers along the top of his jeans, her message as clear as she could make it.

  She brought her mouth to his, and kissing him in the kitchen while his girls were still awake felt scandalous and exciting.

  She pulled away, because she wasn’t finished talking yet and they couldn’t go to bed together right now anyway.

  Her courage peaked, and she had to say what was on her mind now or she never would. “I’m in love with you, Aaron. I want to get married.” She opened her eyes and met his. They sparkled and flickered with desire, but there was some hesitation and something negative there too.

  “Could you think about it a little more? Please?” She pressed her cheek to his so she wouldn’t have to keep looking into those eyes and that commanding gaze.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “I can do that.”

  “Okay,” she said. “One more thing.” She drew in a breath, held it for a moment, and then released it. “Do you think it’s time for me to stay the night? Or too soon still?”

  He pulled away, the surprise in his expression now. “You want to stay the night?”

  Eloise practically burned for him, but his surprise shot down her hopes. “Too soon,” she said, stepping back. “Okay, let me see what the ferry schedule is.” She stepped out of his arms, wishing he’d tell her she didn’t need to do that, that of course she should stay with him, and he’d make love to her all night long.

  Instead, he stepped over to the sliding glass door and let Prince back inside. He went down the hall to check on Grace. When he came back into the kitchen, he came right over to her and took her phone from her hands.

  “The last ferry is at ten-fifty,” she said. “I need to leave here at ten-twenty-five.”

  “No.” He took her into his arms and kissed her. This touch had a brand-new feeling to it, and she matched him stroke for stroke as he deepened the kiss, almost fighting him for control of it.