“Is that realistic, though? I mean—take me, for instance. I grew up in a house with two alcoholic parents. Stories that only showed the sunny side of life weren’t books I could relate to because nothing about my life was sunny.”
“My childhood wasn’t sunny either,” Merry said. “My dad left us when I was a toddler, and my mother battled addiction her whole life. Happy books were places I could go to forget all that. When life is already bad, why choose books that don’t take you away from it?”
Nick stopped at a wrought iron gate and put his hand on the small of Merry’s back to guide her through to the villa. They took the terra cotta steps to the front door, and Merry waited while he unlocked the door. She wondered how sensible it was to go into the villa of a man she had just met, but there was something familiar about him that put her at ease. There weren’t many people Merry opened up to, but in the short space of their walk she had already shared one of her most intimate family secrets. That had to count for something, didn’t it?
“Wow. This is gorgeous,” she said, stepping into the spacious villa and looking around.
“Wait until you see the view.” Nick led Merry across the hardwood floors, through the living area and past a plush leather sofa. French doors opened to a stone patio and private, caged pool. To the west lay the beach and the sparkling waters of the Gulf.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding. This view is amazing. I thought about renting a villa, but even the one-bedrooms are pretty big. I was afraid I’d be spooked staying by myself.” She chuckled and looked at her host with a wry smile. “Now that I see what I missed, I wish I had gone for it. I’ve got a room in the hotel, and it’s lovely, but this is—wow.”
“How about a glass of wine? We can sit at the patio table.”
“Sure,” Merry said, smiling. “That’d be great.”
She watched Nick walk away, noting again his broad shoulders and sun-kissed hair. And his eyes—they seemed to change color depending on whether he was laughing or serious, and she wondered if it was possible to gauge his mood simply from the color of his eyes.
Merry stared at the Gulf, the waters choppy from the threatening storm. She turned in a slow circle to take in the full patio view. Flowering trees and bushes provided some privacy, and to Merry the area looked like a secluded spot discovered by castaways on a tropical island paradise.
Moonflower’s wings fluttered with excitement. “A secret glen!”
Sunbloom nodded, awestruck. “This must be the magical place we heard about where the water is made of mermaids’ happy tears.”
Merry turned to watch Nick come through the sliding door carrying two glasses of wine. He smiled when their gazes met, and warmth infused her, waking the nervous butterflies in her belly.
Skyblossom pointed to a creature approaching from the forest. “Look,” she whispered to her sisters. “He has eyes that change color. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“Never,” Moonflower and Sunbloom said together.
Skyblossom’s heart beat faster. “He’s so beautiful. Do you think he’s dangerous?”
Merry turned off the voices in her head, replaced them with the thought “fresh start,” and murmured her thanks when Nick handed her the wineglass. She nodded with appreciation upon sipping the chardonnay. She wasn’t a wine connoisseur by any means, but it was certainly better than the cheap stuff she bought for herself at the grocery store on the two-for-one shelf.
“When Poppy brought the jerked chicken and rice, she made me promise not to nuke it. She said the microwave would dry out the chicken, so it’s in the oven. Should be hot enough to eat in about twenty minutes.”
“Sounds good,” Merry said, and sat down in one of the wicker chairs that Nick drew out from the table for her. “I’m curious,” she said after he sat beside her. “I write books for young kids. How is it you’re familiar with my work? I’m not exactly famous.”
Nick stared at Merry for a drawn out moment before shifting his gaze to the pool. It took him so long to answer that a tingle of apprehension ran its fingers down her spine. Her ex used to do that right before he told a whopper.
“I’m a sports columnist,” he said when he looked at her again. “I don’t think I ever completely introduced myself. Nick Brubaker. I—”
“Oh, my goodness, yes. I know who you are. Of course.” Merry’s trepidation bloomed into immediate relief. He didn’t lie, didn’t need to. He had perhaps hesitated because he was used to fangirls swooning. “I feel like an idiot. I should have recognized you from the picture that runs with your syndicated column and—”
“It’s an old photo.”
Merry laughed. “Maybe, but I’ve also seen you on ESPN. Now that you said your name, I recognize you. I’m surprised I didn’t before, though I knew you looked familiar.”
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a sports fan.”
“Well, I’m not, unless you’re writing or talking about the New England Patriots. Then I pay attention. I went to college in Boston, so I’m predisposed to root for the Pats.”
“I’ll be careful about dissing Tom Brady, then,” Nick said, grinning.
Merry sat back into the chair and sipped her wine, all of her earlier fears now erased. Nick Brubaker. How could she not have recognized him?
She relaxed, free to enjoy the conversation and accompanying meal without niggling concerns at the back of her mind. Aside from his occasional TV gigs, Nick was a writer, too, with a weekly syndicated column. That opened up a whole new avenue of topics for discussion, even though there was no commonality to what they wrote.
“You said earlier that you don’t think my books show kids reality, that you wouldn’t have enjoyed them when you were a boy. So what kind of books did you read?” she asked.
“Comic books,” he said, and shrugged when she gave him a look. “Seriously. The superheroes are all tragic in some way. They’re flawed, damaged, but they use that personal pain to help others, to fight evil. The thing is, even when they win, they don’t really. Batman might always vanquish the Joker, but he still goes home to the Bat Cave all alone.”
“He has Robin and Alfred.”
“Hardly the same thing. Point is, as a kid, I could relate to being flawed, different. When my old man got drunk and raised a fist, it wasn’t to some faerie glen that I imagined traveling to, Merry. It was the Bat Cave.”
“Okay, sure. I understand. There was power for you there.”
“I don’t know about that, but it was a place I could go because it symbolized eventual retribution for the person who deserved it.”
Merry’s heart squeezed, imagining the scared little boy he must have been. “And was there ever retribution, Nick?”
“No, not really. Not the way I wanted. What about you? You said your mother fought addiction.”
“She did. I coped by looking for silver linings. There always is one, you know. And I can see from the look on your face that you think I’m naïve, but I’m not. It’s only that—well, there is good to be found, even in the worst of circumstances.”
“I know plenty of people who would disagree with you.”
“Most prefer to focus on the negative. I’d rather look for the positive. My mom died last year—nothing positive in that, right? But people were kind, so very kind. Their kindness was the silver lining I needed. It didn’t stop the pain, but it gave me something to be grateful for during a time when such things were hard to find.”
“Don’t you ever get angry?” Nick pressed.
Merry nodded. “Of course. I’m human, after all. My ex-husband, Tom, was a pathological liar. He lied about everything, and I do mean everything—even things that were meaningless. He made stuff up all the time.” She took a sip of her wine and minimized her comments with a wave of her hand. “Anyway, the point is, even during the worst time of our marriage and during the divorce I focused on the good things.”
“Like what?” Nick asked, leaning forward, his eyes riveted on hers.
“Like how fo
rtunate I was to have the support of my sister and friends, the solid relationship I maintained with Tom’s family—they’re really good people—and the fact that I got out of the relationship before we had kids. And during that time is when I wrote some of my best Foundling Faeries stories. They were my escape. So, yes, I do believe there are silver linings.
“Right now there’s a guy online being a real meany-head and—hey, don’t laugh, that’s a real word,” she said, but he was laughing, and she laughed with him. “Listen, I visit a lot of elementary and middle schools, so I’m careful with my language. It’s easier to make it a habit than to try and avoid it circumstantially. Anyway, it’s this other author. He writes kidlit, too, but quite different from mine. Somehow we’ve ended up in this horrible social media battle. It’s malicious and nasty, and I don’t like it. And he’s—he’s mean.”
Nick’s laughter sobered, and he regarded her with quiet intensity. “Maybe he’s not trying to be mean,” he said. “Maybe he was playing to the crowd and things got out of hand. Maybe he thinks you have given some sort of approval to the banter.”
“No, I would never do that. Trust me, he’s a bully. He’s insulted me and my books, and he’s done it all online and anonymously, because he writes under a pen name.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
Merry smiled. “You don’t have to apologize. You’re not the one who insulted me.”
Nick opened his mouth and closed it again, turned his attention back to view. “Okay. So, you’re angry at the bully. I don’t blame you. He sounds like an asshole.”
“But that doesn’t mean I’m demanding Batman justice. I’ll admit, I’ve fantasized about him walking the plank or succumbing to scurvy,” she said, laughing. “But honestly, all I want is for him to stop being mean. There’s room for both of us in the kids’ market. It doesn’t have to be one or the other of us. We each fulfill a different need for some child out there—which is something I didn’t truly understand until tonight, thanks to you. It sounds naïve and simplistic, but I want harmony in my life and everyone else’s. I know it isn’t possible because life happens, but there’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best, is there? That’s what I wanted when I was a kid. It’s still what I want. I don’t always achieve it, but that’s my goal.”
“And what does happiness look like to Merry Sunjoy, creator and soul sister of Moonflower, Sunbloom, and Skyblossom?”
It looks like a man with chameleon eyes, sun-kissed hair, and a smile that makes my insides twirl, she thought, but said instead, “Right now it looks like another glass of wine and maybe a walk on the beach after dinner.”
Nick held her gaze a moment longer, and she watched his mercurial hazel eyes shift from gray to green to gold. “Okay, I’ll give you a pass for now. But sooner or later I’ll expect a real answer to that question.”
“Sooner or later,” she said, “I might be able to give you one.”
Chapter 4
One bottle of chardonnay turned into two, and by the time they finished the last of Poppy Montgomery’s jerked chicken and rice, Merry felt more relaxed than she had in ages. She declined dessert—chocolate cookies made by Keebler elves—but said yes to a walk on the beach.
The threatening rain from earlier had moved further up the coast, taking most of the clouds with it. The result was a beach awash in glowing moonlight. The humidity eased with the deepening of the night, and the breeze billowing off the water was enough to raise goosebumps on Merry’s skin. She wished herself dressed in a diaphanous gown or romantic evening dress but was stuck with her cutoffs and tee-shirt instead. Not that Nick seemed to mind. He had traded his khakis for cargo shorts, offered a lightweight jacket to Merry, and they now strolled in comfort along the shoreline.
“I love feeling the sand between my toes,” she said as they meandered along. “I’d like to live by the beach someday. Maybe even here on Mimosa Key.”
“I’ve thought about it, too. I’ve been coming here for a few years now whenever I start a new Pi—to work. It’s nice this time of year.”
“I thought the rainy season was over, but there’s a tropical storm expected to make land tomorrow evening,” Merry said.
“Is there?” Nick stopped and looked out over the water. “You’d never know it tonight.”
Beside him, Merry followed his gaze. The whitecaps played with the moon, and the choppy water reflected the glow like bits of glitter.
“It’s raining moonlight,” Nick said.
Merry smiled as she stared at the dark horizon. It did look like moondrops dancing across the water.
“I’ve never noticed that before,” she said, entranced. “I suppose sunshine does the same.”
“Sundrops,” Nick said, turning to face her.
Merry shivered into the borrowed jacket and breathed the salt-tinged air. The breeze teased her hair, and she let it fly free, eager to embrace the moment. Tomorrow she’d be gone, her working vacation interrupted by family needs.
Merry’s mother had managed to disrupt her daughter’s life even in death.
“You cold?” Nick asked. “We can go back.”
“No,” Merry said. “This is perfect. I—I was thinking about—I’m leaving tomorrow. There’s a family thing, and . . .” She trailed off and tilted her head to look up at Nick. “Thanks for tonight. This was really nice.”
Nick stared into Merry’s eyes, his dark and searching. Her heartbeat sped when he took her face in his hands, and delight shimmered through her when he murmured against her lips, “It doesn’t have to be over yet.”
“No! What’s wrong with you? It’s too soon! Are you crazy? You don’t know the soul inside this creature yet!” the Faeries shouted.
The word “no” hovered between Nick and Merry, daring her to end the moment. She sensed Nick’s hesitancy a second before he drew away to look into her eyes. When she said nothing, moved not a muscle forward or back, he leaned in again and took her mouth with his. Warmth flooded through her and brought a shiver rippling across her skin. Nick drew her closer and deepened the kiss. Merry pressed into his warmth and reveled in the sensation of his lips against hers. Her limbs melted even as her spirit became empowered by the connection.
She had been careful, had denied herself, for so long. It felt good to surrender to her female instincts, and she immersed herself in the power of it, gave herself permission to enjoy this moment and this man.
God knew what the next few days would hold, especially with the drama unfolding online with that jackass Rickets. She had so much turmoil swirling her way over the next few days. But none of that mattered—not here, not now, not in this moment. In Nick’s arms there was only savory warmth and the thundering of their hearts.
Tonight, he was her silver lining.
***
Nick knew he shouldn’t touch her face, knew it was a mistake to put his mouth on hers, and knew he was lost the moment he did.
Merry Sunjoy was nothing he had expected and everything he didn’t know he wanted. He’d been so certain he knew who she was, this complicated lady who wrote about sunshine and silver linings even though it was clear from what she said that her world wasn’t built of them. There was so much more for her to say, and he wanted to be the one she said it to.
But now she kissed him as if her life depended on it, and he wasn’t about to screw things up by talking. Her hands coiled in his hair while her own silken tresses fluttered around them like a gossamer cloud in the salty breeze, and he was lost.
All the way back to the villa he stopped every few steps to kiss her, because he couldn’t get enough. He’d once thought that Merry Sunjoy was the equivalent of breathing cotton candy. He’d been wrong. She smelled of warm vanilla and tasted like heaven, and the next time he asked her what happiness looked like, he wanted her to scream his name.
They stumbled through the door of the villa, drunk on kisses, on each other. Nick nibbled along the curve of Merry’s shoulder and breathed in the tantalizing scent of her. Hands
in his hair, she dragged his mouth back to hers as he lifted her against him. He wanted more from her than she’d ever be able to give him tonight, even if she was still in his bed come morning.
Her cell phone rang from inside her purse on the sofa.
“Oh, no,” she said, gasping for breath. “That’s my sister’s ring tone. I—I have to get that.” She said the words but did nothing to obey them. Instead, she wrapped herself around Nick and kissed him until he thought he’d scream with need.
Again, the phone blared—and again, and again.
“I better—I better get that,” Merry said, breathless.
Nick released her and stepped back, watched her rush to her phone, and steeled himself for bad news.
“Holly?” Merry said. She looked up at Nick, and her eyes widened. “Ben? What’s going on? Is Holly okay?” Her gaze remained steady on Nick’s, as if he was the one keeping her grounded, but her body sagged and her eyes welled with tears. “Oh, no. I’ll have to make some phone calls, see if I can change my flight to something earlier. Keep me posted, okay? I’ll text my new flight information, but don’t worry about picking me up at the airport. I’ll rent a car. I love you, too. Bye.” She dropped the cell phone onto the couch cushion and squeezed her eyes shut, but tears dripped out in spite of her obvious effort to stay them.
Nick drew Merry against him. He held her while she cried, didn’t look for explanations, but created a cocoon for her inside his arms. He wasn’t good with offering comfort and had learned a long time ago that the less he did, the more it seemed to help.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, her voice muffled against his shoulder. “My sister was in a car accident. Someone T-boned her. No broken bones, but she has a concussion. The hospital is keeping her overnight.” She drew back to look at him as more tears welled in her eyes. “That was her husband, Ben. I-I’m probably way overreacting here, but . . . our mother died in a car accident a year ago this Saturday, so it’s still too fresh, I guess.” More tears welled, and she wiped them away with her hands. “I have to get back to my hotel room and pack. I was heading home tomorrow anyway, but I’m going to try to get an earlier flight.” She sniffed again and stepped away from him, stiffened her back, and grabbed her purse. “I have to go.”
The Write Man Page 3