Falling for You

by Becky Wade

  Oh dear. Willow was in deep trouble, and she hadn’t even seen Corbin yet.

  She turned off her ignition and sat, taking in the details of Corbin’s barn. House. Barnhouse.

  This was a setback. Because she really, really loved his barnhouse.

  Charlotte had asked if they could hold this Operation Find Josephine meeting at Corbin’s house on Tuesday morning instead of at the inn in the afternoon because Charlotte and her two younger brothers were enjoying a few days off for fall break. Her family had plans to spend the rest of the day on Bainbridge Island.

  Willow had told Charlotte yes. But now that she’d arrived at Corbin’s, the dangers of interacting with him on his home turf were suddenly revealing themselves. She was a woman who loved homes, who craved everything that home meant. She hadn’t set foot outside her car, and already his home was seducing her the way cream seduced cats.

  At ten fifteen on this cool, early October morning, swirls of pearly mist clung to the base of the structure and its surrounding trees. It looked like a place conjured out of dreams—her dreams—and served to her on a mystical platter.

  The structure formed the letter L. An old-fashioned barn built in the classic shape formed one line of the L. The other line of the L was rectangular and two stories tall. Weathered, vertically-set wooden boards covered the exterior of both wings. Brown-red paint framed the windows. At least two charming porches tucked into the building at different points.

  It whispered to her, this house. It spoke of history, style, and spaces that waited for children.

  Get your mitts off Corbin’s house, Willow!

  Corbin’s Navigator sat next to a Mercedes sedan on the driveway. She hadn’t realized Corbin had two cars with him in Washington. She saw no sign of Jill’s car, likely because Jill had either already dropped Charlotte off or because Corbin had picked Charlotte up from her house this morning.

  Still, she didn’t want to risk arriving before Charlotte, so she waited until 10:20, five minutes past their scheduled start time, to make sure she’d be the last to arrive.

  As mist does, it vanished as she neared, unveiling the stone pathway leading to the door.

  Corbin answered her knock wearing tan carpenter’s pants and a white T-shirt beneath a navy zippered sweat shirt. He met her eyes and for a pulse she couldn’t find words. His chest looked especially broad in that sweat shirt. Which actually had nothing to do with his sweat shirt. The man had a broad chest. Was—wasn’t he supposed to say something first?

  He finally did. “Are you auditioning for the part of Little Red Riding Hood?”

  Willow knotted the belt of her strawberry red wool coat. “If I am, then you know what that makes you, right?”

  Corbin studied her, amusement creasing the skin beside his eyes. “The wolf.”

  “How appropriate.”

  “The wolf’s my favorite character in that story.”

  “The wolf dies in the end.”

  “But he got in some good meals along the way.”

  “Before he died.”

  He held back the door for her to enter.

  The threshold led into the barn section of the house, which stood empty.

  “Can I take your coat?” he asked.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Afraid I’ll steal it?”

  “No,” she said tautly. “Being near you makes me cold.”

  He laughed.

  She endeavored not to notice how blatantly handsome he was. Oh, how she wished that he’d returned to Dallas for rehab. Seeing him was like a dagger slicing against tender skin. Every time.

  His dogs ran forward to greet her, tails wagging. She bent and rubbed each of their heads in turn. “Hi, Max.” The boxers were brothers from the same litter. “Hi, Duke.” They’d been friendly, loyal, rambunctious two-year-olds when she and Corbin had dated. She traveled too much to have a dog of her own, but she’d adored Max and Duke, and they’d always returned the favor.

  “You’re a lot happier to see them than you were me,” Corbin observed.

  “True.” The dogs gave her panting, canine grins, then trotted at her heels as she followed Corbin. Portions of the barn’s tall interior walls, which boasted numerous windows, awaited drywall and paint. An old stone fireplace climbed the full height of the wall that connected the barn to the rest of the floor plan. Corbin led her past the fireplace into a hallway. They passed an office and a dining room.

  “Where’s Charlotte?” Willow asked.

  “She’s running late.”

  Her gait faltered.

  “You’re not going to run back to your car, are you, Little Red Riding Hood?”

  Should she? She came to a stop.

  “I promise not to bite.” Corbin continued around a doorway and out of sight. “Unless you want me to.”

  She didn’t move.

  Corbin stuck his head back into the hallway. “Are you scared of me?” he asked hopefully, as if the possibility flattered him.

  Her pride prevented her from admitting that yes, yes, she was. “No,” she said succinctly and continued into the kitchen. It smelled mildly like fresh paint and strongly like coffee. White walls. Gray concrete countertops. A backsplash of glistening white subway tile. Expensive appliances. Brand-new unpainted cabinetry.

  Four huge panels of glass, the middle two of which were doors, took up most of the exterior wall. They overlooked yet another patio shaded by a rustic wooden portico.

  The interior of Corbin’s kitchen lacked much. It lacked a breakfast table, chairs, and every type of decorative touch that Willow excelled at providing. This house, this room, was begging for her attention.

  Mitts off!

  Corbin indicated the vintage metal stools that waited at the kitchen’s island. Willow hooked the heel of one black boot over the stool’s rung, crossed her legs, and did her best to project casual ease. She’d gained plenty of experience at conveying moods thanks to modeling. She could only hope that experience would pay dividends.

  Max and Duke sat on their haunches, watching her with dark eyes.

  “Coffee?” Corbin asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He poured her coffee into a ceramic mug, then went to the refrigerator and extracted the exact brand of vanilla creamer she’d used when they were dating and still used faithfully to this day.

  Tenderness pricked her, a warm, deep nick. He’d remembered.

  “Have you had anything to eat?” He slid her coffee to her, then filled a glass with ice water and passed that over, too.

  “Not much,” she admitted. The prospect of seeing him had rendered her too jumpy to eat a full breakfast this morning.

  He glanced at her with an expression that gently chided her for not eating breakfast. He believed food was fuel. “KIND bar?” he asked, opening a cupboard.

  “Sure.”

  “You like the fruit and nut flavor, right?”

  “Right.” She accepted the bar and unwrapped it. “What year was this house built?”

  “The barn was built in 1885.”

  “This is exactly the sort of building Nora used to acquire for Merryweather Historical Village. You’re lucky she didn’t get to it first.”

  “Very lucky.” Though he didn’t look the least bit threatened at the idea of a property competition between him and Willow’s librarian sister.

  Her granola bar tasted salty and nutty and wonderful. “How did you find this house?”

  He refilled his own coffee mug. “I came to Shore Pine to look at property before my second shoulder surgery. I wanted to rent something near Wallace Rehabilitation Center for a couple of months. This was on the market at the time.”

  “The rental market?”

  “Yeah. Parts of the house had been badly renovated. Other parts hadn’t been renovated it all. But when I saw it, I liked it.” He shrugged. “So I called the owner and I asked if I could buy it from them.”

  “And the owner agreed.”

  “I offered a price that was ha
rd to refuse. I moved in before the surgery, and I’ve been working on the house as much as my shoulder has allowed me to since then.”

  She sipped his delicious coffee, wishing she’d discovered this house when it was on the market. She’d have snapped it up and spent many happy years filling it with housewares. Instead, this craveable house had gone to the dark side.

  From his position directly across the island from her, Corbin was communicating the brand of casual ease she’d been straining for. He crossed his arms. “Being alone with me breaks one of your ground rules, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which is why you hesitated back in the hallway.”

  “Ground rules are meant to be followed.”

  “I know that’s what you were thinking when you made up the rules. But all I could think then and now is how much I want to break them. All of them. So far I’ve only broken two, which is pretty disappointing. I’m off my game.”

  “You’re off your rocker. The rules stand.” She finished her KIND bar.

  His attention trailed down to her chin, then back to her eyes. “Charlotte’s not here, so—”

  “It would be best if someone would notify me in the future if Charlotte’s running late.”

  “I don’t have your phone number. Want to give it to me? So I can notify you?”

  “No.”

  “Like I was saying, Charlotte’s not here. So this seems like a good time to talk about what happened between you and me.”

  Her posture went rigid. “There’s no reason to talk about it.”

  “I think there is.”

  “Nope.”

  “Because it seems to me that you’re carrying a lot of . . . hostility.”

  “That’s because I am carrying a lot of hostility. I don’t want to discuss it further.” She hated even thinking about the final days of their relationship, when she’d been so embarrassingly exposed and anxious.

  “Your plan is to keep on giving me the cold shoulder every time we meet to discuss Josephine’s case?” he asked.

  “Every. Time.”

  He peered out the kitchen’s wall of glass, his gaze appearing to trace the contours of his property. The murky light flowing into the room tipped every point along his profile. Masculine nose. Soft lips. Hard chin.

  Corbin wasn’t the Mustangs’ quarterback anymore. A new player had taken over the role he’d held for so long. That circumstance had no doubt changed many things for Corbin, but it would never change the physical grace and command with which he carried himself. You could take the quarterback out of the game, but you could never take the game out of the quarterback.

  He turned his head and looked at her. She could sense the dangerous beast called chemistry that still lurked between them. It was stirring. Its head was rising up from slumber and the beast was blinking at her with glowing eyes.

  She braced, refusing to respond to his look in any way because she was afraid of what even a seemingly harmless response could lead to. She had no interest in being his friend . . . or . . . anything else.

  “Hello?” Charlotte’s voice carried from the front of the house.

  “Come on back,” Corbin called. “We’re in the kitchen.”

  Charlotte bustled in, looking harried. The dogs sprang to their feet to greet her. “Sorry I’m so late. Liam and Brady were wrestling, and Brady hit his ankle on a chair. He cried and cried and everyone thought it might be broken, and then my dad gave him a popsicle and now he’s fine.” She shook her head and climbed onto the stool next to Willow’s.

  “KIND bar?” Corbin asked her.

  “No, thank you.” She opened her notebook. “I’ve been excited to hear what you found out about the bones near the Pacific Dogwood Trail.”

  “Well, first of all, let me just say that the Shore Pine police officers are a great group,” Corbin said.

  “Who like football?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yes. That, and donuts. They were happy to hook me up with information.” He poured Charlotte a glass of milk and set it before her. “After the bones were discovered by hikers, they were taken to a pathology lab. Like Melinda said, the pathologist determined that they were historic. So they were sent to a college laboratory.”

  “Are they still there?” Charlotte asked.

  “No. They sat there for twenty-eight years. Then, when the lab was reorganized and renovated, the college sent the remains back to the county. In 2012, the county sent them to the lab at the University of North Texas Health Science Center.”

  Charlotte scratched her jaw. “So does that mean the bones have been . . . studied or whatever? For their DNA?”

  “Yes. They were entered into the nationwide database, but no matches have been found. They’re still unidentified.”

  “Are the bones really, really old? Like the pathology . . . or whatever guy said?” Charlotte asked.

  “No. He got it wrong.”

  “So it’s possible that they could have belonged to Josephine?”

  “It’s possible.”

  Charlotte’s eyes rounded. She slanted toward Willow. “Grandma went to the station and gave her DNA last week.”

  “Which means,” Willow said, “that we should find out soon if Melinda’s DNA matches the bones discovered near the hiking trail.”

  “We’re digging up the past,” Charlotte said.

  In more ways than one, Willow thought, her focus returning as if pulled unwillingly by a magnet . . . to Corbin.

  Shore Pine Gazette, April 12, 1987:

  One decade ago on this day, Josephine Blake disappeared from the streets of Shore Pine without a trace. Despite an extensive search by local authorities and the involvement of the American Coalition for the Discovery of Missing Persons, Josephine has never been found.

  Three years ago Josephine’s husband, Alan Blake, filed a petition to have Josephine declared “dead in absentia.” Mr. Blake has subsequently remarried, and he and his wife are the parents of one young son. “I still think about Josephine every day,” Mr. Blake said when contacted for a statement by this publication. “I pray that we’ll one day know what happened to her.”

  Chapter

  Seven

  The following Monday morning, the sound of Grandma’s complaining greeted Willow as she entered the Inn at Bradfordwood.

  Grandma’s complaining was the anti-coffee. It made Willow want to turn around and crawl back into bed.

  “You’ll get a sunburn,” Grandma was saying to Clint. “Not to mention that it’s inappropriate for a man to show so much of his arms.”

  “Good morning.” Willow hung her coat on the peg by the door.

  “Good morning,” Clint replied, looking deeply relieved to see her.

  Grandma, who was stirring batter, had clearly put Clint to work. He gripped a pastry blender and was cutting butter into a cinnamon crumble.

  “I stopped by to make my coffee cake.” Grandma sniffed. “With what you’re charging the guests per night—”

  “With what Mom’s charging,” Willow corrected mildly.

  “No matter who’s charging it, it’s highway robbery.”

  “Actually, the inn’s prices are comparable to the other B&Bs in the area—”

  “Anyway,” Grandma said. “With what the guests here are paying, they have every right to expect homemade baked goods instead of the store-bought ones you and Kathleen serve.”

  Willow gave Grandma a peck on the cheek and refrained from pointing out that while she might not bake the pastries, she did whip up the main breakfast dish each morning.

  “You’re in early,” Willow said to Clint as she set her mom’s Egg in Hash Brown Nests recipe on the counter.

  “The McKinnons in the Blakely Room left thirty minutes ago to catch a flight,” Clint said. “I thought I’d work on their room now, before I mulch soil in the flower beds.”

  “I was telling Clint that it’s unseemly to walk around with bare arms all the time,” Grandma said.

  “His vests are part
of his personal style.” Willow winked encouragement at Clint. “Right?” She donned an apron and went to the sink to wash her hands.

  “You could say so, yes.”

  Grandma poured her batter into a casserole dish. “Jesus gave us an excellent example of how men ought to dress.”

  “In robes?” Willow asked.

  “With decency. And self-respect. He certainly never went around half unclothed.”

  “What about at the Last Supper?” Willow set out the ingredients she’d need for her recipe. “When he washed the disciples’ feet?”

  “Clint is not washing the disciples’ feet today! Are you, Clint?”

  “Uh. Aren’t all the disciples dead by now?” he asked.

  “It’s just appalling how people dress these days,” Grandma continued. “Whatever happened to the virtue of modesty? Clint, please pass the cinnamon crumble topping.”

  He handed it over, and Grandma sprinkled it over her cake batter.

  Clint edged toward the hallway and escape.

  Grandma railed against the culture and the disastrous effects nonbelievers had had on the way Christians dressed while Willow worked. When Grandma finally left the inn to grace her women’s Bible study with her negativity, Willow had the egg nests in the oven.

  She sliced fruit, made coffee, and filled matching glass pitchers with ice water and orange juice. When the timer went off, she carefully lifted the egg nests onto the counter.

  Since arriving in Merryweather, Willow had made each of her mom’s fifteen breakfast recipes numerous times. The guests who’d come early in her stint as innkeeper had been subjected to her freshman attempts at baked French toast, egg sausage casserole, and the rest. The guests who’d come later had benefitted from all the baking practice she’d put in over the passing months.

  Still wearing the white apron she always wore when serving breakfast, she made her way into the dining room and set the egg nests onto the warming tray beside the china plates, goblets, and sterling silver cutlery that were already arrayed on the enormous sideboard. She made trips to and from the kitchen until she’d added the fruit, the coffee cake, and the coffee urn.