by Donna Alward
“I once said exactly what was on my mind and it didn’t go so well. I’m not good at this whole honesty thing. It makes me feel vulnerable. Naked.”
“I know that,” she replied. “When you first wanted the job of fixing this place. The barbecue at Sarah’s. I get it, Tom. But this isn’t the Rusty Fern and you can’t be like that forever. At some point you have to trust that someone isn’t going to turn the truth against you. Can’t you trust me by now?”
“You don’t need me,” he said. His voice sounded oddly tight. “You’ve already made up your mind. You have your house and this new start in your life. What can I offer you that you don’t already have?”
She put her hand along his jaw. “Tom,” she murmured softly, “if you don’t know that by now…”
“Maybe I need to hear you say it,” he answered.
Abby had started to lose hope, but now Josh’s words came back to her. He’s waiting for you to choose him. She wasn’t sure if Tom really thought he had nothing to offer her or if he thought she wouldn’t want what he was offering. He was wrong on both counts.
She sat up and took his hands in hers. “I have this amazing house,” she said softly. “I have a bank account with more money than I ever imagined I’d have. I have a new car. I can choose any life I want.”
“I know that.”
“What if what I want is you?”
Abby looked at his rugged, handsome face and thought back to all the times she got a little too close to someone. Her usual game plan was to pack up and move on. But not anymore. Not when she thought about what she’d be giving up.
“Abby…”
There was emotion in the word. And if nothing else, if this never worked out, she would leave here knowing she’d bared her soul and been honest with him right down to the very last thing. She squeezed his fingers. “Erin loved you but she never offered to share your life. She was crazy, Tom. And maybe I shouldn’t bring up her name right now but if I don’t she’ll always be between us and I don’t want that. I want to share your life. I want you to share mine.”
“I’m a carpenter with a two-bedroom cottage,” he pointed out.
“And I couldn’t care less if you had two nickels in your pocket. Am I going to have to spell it out for you?” Her throat tightened as she gazed into his eyes. “Here it is, then. I love you. The only thing I want from you is your heart. That’s enough for me.”
Tears filled her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “You believed me when what was happening here was crazy. You made me laugh and made me angry and kissed me, making me forget all the reasons why I’ve been afraid to let someone get close. You saved me, not once, but twice. You showed me your compassion, your honor, your loyalty. I’d be crazy to want more from you.”
For a long second she thought he was going to reach for her. He held back but she could tell—at least she hoped—that it was costing him. Tom shook his head like he couldn’t quite believe her. “You think I did all those things, but you’re the one who fixed me, Abby. I knew it the moment that barn came down and I thought I’d really lost you.”
She frowned a little. “If that’s true, why did you back off? After the hospital, you barely said two words to me.”
“You thought that I didn’t care?” He put his hands on her arms and squeezed. “It wasn’t that at all. God, woman. Every day when I saw that FOR SALE sign, I knew that nothing had changed for you. I hate that damned sign.” He glowered down the mountain at the sign that was all but invisible from this vantage.
The little thread of doubt she despised reared its ugly head. She might as well come right out and ask the one burning question she’d wanted to ask since Sarah’s barbecue. “Do you still love her?”
Tom’s dark gaze delved into hers once more. “I’ve had some time to do some thinking. And the truth is, Abby, I was holding on to her memory for the wrong reasons. I thought I loved her. I did love her—once. But the last few months … they’ve been far more about guilt than grief. I realized that the day Josh and I talked.”
Relief slid through her. She hadn’t been sure she could ever measure up to Erin’s memory. If Tom had really, truly put Erin’s ghost to rest …
“Please tell me I’m not hanging out here alone,” she whispered. “That this isn’t all one-sided.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, his broad, strong hand resting against the tiny knot of a bun at the back of her head.
“You’re not alone,” he murmured, and he pressed his lips to hers.
The kiss was slow, deep, and beautifully long. Abby melted against him. There was no hesitation this time. This was the man she loved. The first man she’d loved and she wanted him to be the last.
Tom braced himself on a hand and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, holding on, fighting the gravity that wanted to pull her on to the flat part of the rock and away from the strong breadth of his chest. As the kiss tempered and their mouths parted, he pulled away the slightest bit. “You really mean it, don’t you?” he asked.
“Of course I mean it, you silly man.” She slid her fingers over his shoulder. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time. Long before I was ready for it.”
“Me, too,” he admitted. “I think since the night I brought you home from Jess’s and walked you to the door.”
“Go on,” she chided playfully, running her fingers down his arm. “You said that kiss was a mistake.”
He grinned, that teasing, dangerous flash that had captivated her from the beginning and had scared her to death with its potency. “I lied,” he said. Then his smile faded and his expression turned serious. “I love you, Abby, and God help me, it scares me to death.”
She offered the best reassurance she could at the moment—she leaned forward and kissed him again, deliberately and tenderly. This time when they broke apart their breathing was accelerated and there was a new light in his eyes.
“Stay with me tonight,” she invited. “Let’s go home, Tom. I want to be with you…” Her heart pounded with anticipation and nerves. “I want to really be with you. And then I want to wake up with you in the morning in my big four-poster bed and look at you across the table while I have my morning coffee.”
Right now Abby wanted Tom with an urgency that far outstripped any lingering hesitation. She reached out and toyed with the button at the top of his shirt. “Love me,” she said softly.
He didn’t answer, but helped her up off the rock. They held hands as they descended the mountain in the wash of a summer sunset. And yet they didn’t hurry, as if they were basking in every single moment of this night, making it last.
When they reached the front door, Tom swept her off her feet, making her stomach flip with excitement.
Then he closed the door with his foot, sheltering them away from the world.
CHAPTER 23
The first thing Tom noticed on his drive up the lane was that the FOR SALE sign was gone. It gave him a feeling of satisfaction seeing it off the front lawn. The house belonged to Abby. It always had, and he was glad she was keeping it. He’d put in the offer, but he had never quite figured out how he was going to live in it when her memory would be in every room.
She was in town this morning. He knew that because Jess had called yesterday asking her if she wanted to take a candle workshop. She’d be gone until at least noon, giving him lots of time to set up his surprise. He’d finally finished the entertainment unit and had stained it a rich walnut to match the other furniture in the library. It was her favorite room in the house. The room she’d first fallen in love with, the one she spent the most time in.
Rick followed behind in his own truck, here to help move it inside. Tom had hesitated when Rick had offered, but Rick had been adamant. “I’m fine if we use straps,” he insisted. “I can still use my arm.” Tom couldn’t argue. Rick had struggled enough dealing with his disability. Far be it from Tom to tell Rick he couldn’t do something, especially when the guy finally seemed to be getting his crap together.
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Tom used his key to get inside, and he and Rick shuffled furniture around until the inside corner of the room had sufficient space for the cabinet. Together they wrapped straps around the unit and then eased it through the front door, down the hall, and finessed it around the corner and into the library. It nearly didn’t fit through the doorway, but once it made it through they both let out their breath and put it in its place, angled in the corner, before standing back and looking at the piece, wiping sweat off their foreheads.
“It’s perfect,” Rick said, shaking his head. “I don’t know why you do contracting when you do such beautiful furniture work.”
Tom shrugged. “It’s like a treat. I’m afraid I wouldn’t love it as much if I had to do it as a job.”
Rick put his good hand in his pocket. “I think I understand that,” he said quietly. “Sometimes you need a place to put all the things you don’t want anyone else to see.”
Tom wondered if Rick was referring to himself, but the only thing he’d seen Rick indulge in was too much drink. Not so much lately, though. Maybe things were turning around for the ex-Marine.
“How’s the new job going?” he asked.
“Eh, it’s going,” Rick said with a shrug. “It gets me out. And I’m still off enough to help now that Mom’s doing treatment.”
Tom frowned. It was no secret that Roberta Sullivan wasn’t doing so well. “Yeah. So what do you think, should we bring in the rest?”
“There’s more?
Tom nodded. “It’s kind of empty, don’t you think? There’s a TV in the backseat of my truck, and a DVD player. Enough to get her started until she gets cable hooked up. She might want to shop for speakers and stuff, too.”
Rick pierced him with an assessing look. “You’re really hung up on this girl, aren’t you?”
Tom thought about waking with Abby the morning after the garden party. She’d looked so beautiful, soft and peaceful, as she slept on. He’d known in that moment that today was coming. Nothing had prepared him for the kind of love he’d felt holding her in his arms, making love to her in the folds of the soft duvet. It had knocked him off his feet with its awesomeness. With its rightness. There’d been no fear, no holding back. Just giving to each other in ways he hadn’t known existed.
“I’m in love with her,” Tom admitted.
“I’m glad,” Rick answered. “It’s time you moved on and let yourself be happy. Your cousin too, though I expect it might take him a little longer.”
Together they moved in the television and DVD player and hooked them up. Tom closed the doors on the unit, hiding the screen away. He’d made the doors especially because he knew there would be times that Abby would want to keep the library more formal and less like a living room.
When everything was in place, Rick left with a wave to go to work and Tom was left in the house alone.
It was nearly one o’clock when Abby returned home. Tom was out in the garden, pruning some deadwood from a couple of shrubs, when she came through the porch door. “Here you are! I saw the truck but no sign of you.”
He straightened and looked at her. She was so pretty today, in a white peasant shirt and jeans that came to just below her knees. She was wearing the funky sandals again, the beaded ones he remembered from the first day, but in so many ways she looked completely different from the woman he’d met only a few months ago.
The woman before him now was comfortable, relaxed, happy.
Happy. He wanted her to be happy, and nerves bubbled around in his gut. Today was more important than she realized …
“The FOR SALE sign’s gone.”
She nodded, coming out into the garden. “Not much point in having it still up, is there?”
He shook his head. “Did you have a good time at Jess’s?”
“Of course. I left my candles there, though, because they were still hot. When I go back she’s going to show me how to decorate my candleholders.” She held up a paper bag. “I was too full for dessert at the café, so Linda sent me home with a piece of her triple-layer chocolate cake. You want it?”
He really didn’t; he was already nervous, but he wasn’t ready yet for what was coming next, and the cake was a reasonable procrastination technique. “I skipped lunch, so that’d be great.”
They sat on the bench in the garden for a few minutes as he ate his cake with a plastic fork. He was nearly done when Abby put her hand on his arm.
“Tom? Is something wrong? You look worried.”
He looked at her and saw a crease between her eyebrows. “Nothing’s wrong.” He put the fork in the Styrofoam container and shut the lid. “I’ve just been waiting for you to get home, that’s all. I have a surprise for you.”
“You do?” The crease disappeared and her eyes lit up.
He wanted to be the cause of that look forever.
“I told you I did when you came back from Halifax, remember?” Her trip to Nova Scotia felt like years ago, instead of weeks. So much had happened since then.
“I’d forgotten all about that!”
“I didn’t. But you have to close your eyes and promise me you won’t peek.”
“I promise.” She stood up and promptly closed her eyes. He took her hand, but one look sideways showed she was trying to open one eye just a crack.
“No peeking!” he commanded, feeling the nerves, trying to ignore them and just enjoy the moment. “I mean it, Abby.”
Once they were inside he stepped behind her and covered her eyes with his hand. “I don’t trust you,” he whispered in her ear, taking in the scent of warm vanilla.
She giggled. “You’re a smart man, Tom Arseneault.”
He hoped so. He nudged her inside the library, turned her to face the cabinet, and slid his fingers away from her eyes.
“Happy housewarming,” he said softly.
Her mouth dropped open and her eyes shone as she saw the gleaming wood and antique hardware. “Oh, Tom. This is … it’s stunning! You made this?”
Relief and pride rushed through his veins. “I did. Is the stain okay? I tried to match it as closely as possible to the existing furniture.”
“It’s perfect! But you must have started this weeks ago!” She turned to him in astonishment. “How long have you been working on it?”
“Since before Memorial Day,” he admitted. “I have a workshop behind the cottage where I tinker.”
“Oh, this is much more than tinkering.” She went up to the cabinet and opened the doors and gasped again at the TV inside. “Tom, what have you done?”
“I figure now you can get cable and Internet in here. All that’s missing is the sofa you’ve been wanting.”
“You starting building this when … God, Tom. What if it hadn’t worked out?”
He shrugged. “I would have sold it. But it belongs here.”
She came over and hugged him, her floral-scented hair soft against his cheek. “Thank you so much. It’s just what this room needed.”
“You’re welcome.”
His heart began hammering in earnest now and his hand went to his pocket, touching the box nestled inside the cotton. “There’s more, Abby.”
“More?” Her eyebrows rose. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her eyes so blue. Maybe it was too early. Maybe he should wait …
But he didn’t want to wait. He didn’t want to give her the chance to get away, didn’t want to waste any time when he’d already learned that time could be far too short.
* * *
Abby looked up at Tom, wondering what more he could possibly surprise her with today. The entertainment center was a huge gift, and it meant even more because he’d made it with his own hands. She was startled to realize that every room in this house had a bit of Tom in it. He was everywhere she turned, and she couldn’t ever remember feeling this happy.
He’d become more than a friend. He’d become her lover, and it was thrilling. He’d been gentle and considerate, knowing she needed it. He’d been passionate and giving, and she’d needed
that, too. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the completeness she felt in Tom’s arms.
The last few days she’d felt like she had simply everything. So the idea of more was quite mind-boggling.
He squeezed her hands, making her look up into his face, so handsome, so serious, and something strange and exhilarating started to wind its way through her body.
“I love you, Abby,” he said. “God knows I didn’t want to. I was—I am—a bit afraid to. But I love you anyway. You came in and shook me out of my rut until I didn’t know which way was up. You scared me. You made me question everything, even my sanity sometimes.”
“I think we both questioned our sanity,” she said, an emotional laugh escaping her lips.
He brushed a piece of hair back from her face. “What do you think about a two-bedroom cottage on the ocean?”
A smile blossomed on her lips. “I think it is very cozy and romantic.”
He kissed her then, softly, tenderly, reaching in and touching her heart, like touching a match to a candlewick and lighting her from the inside out.
She smiled against his lips. “What about you? How do you feel about a five-bedroom historic mansion?”
He chuckled and she felt the vibration of it where his lips were touching the skin beside her mouth. “I hear the guy who did the repairs has a fairly skilled hand. It should hold up for a year or two.” She kissed him once more, cupping his face in her hands. Then she stepped back and took his hands in hers.
“Do you want to know why I was going to sell it?” It was a question that needed no answer so she continued. “I knew long ago that it is the sort of house that needs to be full of life. Parties and friends.” She twined her fingers with his. “Husbands and wives and children.” With a laugh she remembered that first candle-making session at Jess’s. “Do you know what someone said to me once when I wondered what I’d do with a house this size? They told me to marry you and fill it with babies.”
“Do you want babies?” he asked.