by Katy Regnery
“Great! Grab your things,” said her father. “Let’s go!”
“Just let me go to the bathroom,” she said breathlessly, heading into the little room and closing the door.
Shit, shit, shit. Ian would be waiting. Ian would be in the barn waiting for her, and she had no way to let him know that she couldn’t make it. He’d think she decided not to come. That she didn’t want to be with him.
I have to let him know. I have to let him know that I can’t—
Brittany. Brittany could tell him. But her friends were a ten-minute walk away at the Friday night campfire. If she insisted on going to Britt, it would take twenty minutes. They’d miss the cruise.
Oh, God. What should I do? What can I—
“And that dress? I mean, are you serious with that?”
“Tash! You’re the worst!”
Tasha’s and Vicky’s voices sailed through the vent from the cabin next door, and Hallie darted her eyes up to the metal grating, a desperate idea unfolding in her head.
She flushed the toilet and exited the bathroom, flashing a smile at her parents as she stepped out of the cabin. “I just need to tell my friend Vicky something, okay? One sec!”
Running over to the cabin next door, she knocked, waiting for one of the girls to answer. Finally, Vicky, wearing a nightgown and a blue clay face mask, appeared at the door.
“Hey, Hallie. What’s up?”
“Vicky, I—I need a favor. My parents just showed up and—”
Vicky looked over Hallie’s shoulder, smiling cheerfully at Hallie’s parents, who attended the same country club in Boston as the Lafontaines. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert.”
“Hello, Victoria,” said Mrs. Gilbert. “How are your parents?”
“Just fine,” she said with a smile.
“Tell them we say hello!” said Hallie’s dad.
“Will do!” She slid her eyes to Hallie. “Come in.”
Hallie stepped into the cabin, looking to her right to find Tasha lying on her bed, a current copy of Cosmo in her hands.
“Hey, Tasha.”
They weren’t in public now, as they’d been at the dining hall. Tasha didn’t mince words. “What do you want?”
Hallie blinked at the unfriendly note in Tasha’s voice, turning her glance back to Vicky, who looked at Hallie curiously. “You said you needed a favor?”
A chill went down Hallie’s spine.
Is this a mistake?
Hallie had promised Ian never to tell anyone about their relationship. But the thought of him waiting for her, thinking she’d stood him up on such an important night? She couldn’t bear that.
She gulped and blurted out the words: “I’m seeing Ian Haven.”
“What?”
“I’m seeing him. Dating him.”
Vicky’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”
Hallie nodded. “We’ve been together since June.”
Vicky straightened her expression. “I had no idea.”
“We’ve kept it a secret.”
“Apparently,” said Tasha, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and joining the other two girls in the doorway. She crossed her arms over her chest, standing behind Vicky like a sentry.
“We have a date—I mean, we’re supposed to get together tonight at the barn. But…” She gestured to her cabin. “My parents just surprised me. For my birthday. They’re taking me out to dinner so I can’t—”
“… meet Ian,” said Vicky, nodding as she put the pieces together.
“No,” said Hallie. “And I was wondering—hoping—”
“You need one of us to let him know you can’t make it.”
Hallie nodded. “Exactly. He’ll be waiting for me in the barn at nine. Maybe you could…I mean, could one of you…?”
“Of course,” said Vicky. If Hallie hadn’t been so distracted by everything, she might have noted the hardness around Vicky’s eyes, but she didn’t. She concentrated on Vicky’s smile instead. “I’ll do it myself.”
“You will?” Hallie sighed with relief. “Thank you!”
“No problem.”
She reached for Vicky’s hands. “Just—just tell him we can meet tomorrow instead. Same plan. Okay?”
“Will do,” said Vicky, sliding a glance to Tasha. “We’ll take care of it, right, Tash?”
“Right,” she said. “We’ll get him the message.”
“Thank you!” Hallie said again. “I owe you! Big time!”
“Have a great time with your mom and dad,” said Vicky, her smile widening just a touch. “It’s not every day a girl turns seventeen, huh?”
Hallie nodded, squeezing Vicky’s hands once more before turning and heading back out the door.
It would all be okay. As okay as it could be.
Hallie wasn’t a fool. She didn’t trust Vicky and Tasha to keep her secret—heck, the news that Hallie Gilbert and Ian Haven were a couple would likely be the talk of camp tomorrow—but at least Ian wouldn’t be waiting for her. At least he’d know why she wasn’t coming. They could deal with the inevitable gossip later.
It’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay.
She let the door to Pembroke slam closed, walked back over to her parents, and smiled. “Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 3
“Oh, my God!”
Ian’s neck snapped up, and he looked at Rory’s girlfriend, Brittany Manion, who was leaning against the kitchen counter, staring down at her phone in surprise.
His brother and almost-sister-in-law had returned home to Summerhaven last night and Brittany had made a traditional Irish breakfast for the brothers at Ian’s place this morning while a jetlagged Finian slept in.
“Everything okay, mo mhuirnin?” asked Rory, who sat at the table across from Ian, looking at his fiancée with concern.
When she glanced up from her phone, she stared hard at Ian before sliding her eyes to Rory.
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat, flicking another look at Ian. “Um. Just a text.”
“About…?”
There was no point keeping a secret that was bound to come to light sooner or later. She sighed. “Hallie’s here.”
“Already?” asked Rory.
“Wait. What?” cried Ian, as Brittany’s words surged through him like a preternatural force. Hallie’s here. Hallie’s here. Hallie’s here. “What do you mean ‘Hallie’s here’? The wedding’s not for a month!”
“I don’t have a lot of details,” said Brittany, taking a sip from her coffee mug, before looking back at her phone. “I just got a text from her. She sent it last night. She’s says she’s staying at the cottage for a while.”
“Shit,” muttered Ian, wincing as he recalled the condition of the cabin when he’d jogged by it yesterday. “At Colby Cottage?”
Brittany nodded. “Yep. She said it’s a long story, but she and Jenny are staying at Colby and—well, and she said she could use a friendly face if I was around.”
Ian pushed away from the kitchen table and stood up in pajamas and bare feet. “Let’s go.”
“Whoa, there,” said Rory, who was still seated with a full plate of eggs in front of him. He shoveled another spoonful into his mouth. “We’re eating breakfast.”
“Not to mention,” said Brittany, moving from the sink to stand behind Rory, across from Ian. “No offense, Ian, but I’m not sure your face qualifies as ‘friendly.’”
Ian clenched his teeth together, taking a deep breath through his nose and nodding. “Yeah, okay, fine. I’m not her favorite person. But that place is a piece of shit. You haven’t seen it.”
Brittany cocked her head to the side. “It can’t be that bad. She’s had someone working on it.”
“I saw it yesterday, and I promise you, no one has been working there,” said Ian. “It’s—it’s bad, Britt. She can’t—I mean, it’s practically falling over. She can’t live there. Not with a kid. Not at all!”
“Well, she is.”
“That’s insane,” insisted Ian, running a
hand through his shoulder-length hair. “It should have been condemned. Doesn’t she have somewhere else to go?”
“I didn’t tell you how bad it got for her in Boston. But her ex-husband went back to Brazil, leaving her to clean up his mess. And I mean mess.” Rory pushed his plate away and pulled Brittany down onto his lap as she continued. “He didn’t contest the divorce, thank God, but he left her hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt on joint credit accounts. She had to sell her apartment to pay them off. And then—well, she wasn’t left with many options. She could have rented a crappy place in Boston or moved in with her parents in Florida, but then she remembered that Colby was sitting empty up here so—”
“So why didn’t she?” demanded Ian.
“Why didn’t she what?”
“Go to Florida!” he growled.
“Because she’s a grown woman. She doesn’t want to live with her parents,” said Brittany.
“Why didn’t she rent a place in Boston?”
“For a lot of reasons. She’s a single parent now. Staying in Boston would have meant putting Jenny in childcare while she worked, and she didn’t want to do that. Not after everything she’s been through.” Brittany shrugged, her face concerned. “Jenny stopped—she stopped talking when her father left.”
“Fuck,” muttered Ian.
Brittany nodded, her eyes severe. “Hallie hasn’t exactly had the best luck with men.”
Her double meaning wasn’t lost on Ian; he was on the list of men who’d hurt Hallie Gilbert. He knew it, and it twisted like a knife in his heart.
That said, however, the place she’d chosen to live was a hovel. Ian flicked a glance at his brother. “Rory! You’ve seen that place. We need to help her.”
“I agree,” said Rory, staring thoughtfully at Ian, “but upsetting her isn’t going to help anyone.”
Ian could see the unasked questions in the mossy depths of Rory’s eyes: What happened between you two? And how come I still don’t know about it?
For the same reason then as now, thought Ian.
Because Hallie Gilbert was special. Because she was too special to talk about with Rory and Tierney. Because no matter what had happened between them, the love they’d shared was the best, most intense, most real feeling Ian had ever known and keeping it to himself protected it.
“I don’t want to upset her,” said Ian softly. “I just want to help her.”
“I tell you what,” said Brittany. “Why don’t you drive over there with us…but if she’s uncomfortable, you’ll go. Deal?”
Ian hated her terms, but they were fair enough, all things considered. “Deal. I’ll get changed.”
He left the kitchen, heading back to his room where he shut the door and leaned back against it, staring at the ceiling before closing his eyes.
Hallie.
Hallie’s back.
His hands fisted by his sides, and his heart thrummed behind his ribs. He’d felt it the moment Brittany had said the words—the instant rush of excitement, of wonder, that the girl he’d loved so desperately was here. So close. Only a mile away.
He wasn’t certain why he’d been so bullish with Brittany about joining them at Hallie’s place this morning. Maybe because making amends was such an important part of the AA steps, and this was a rare chance to do some small thing to set things to right. But he suspected his motives were deeper and more visceral than that. He wanted to see her. He needed to see her.
Pushing away from the door, he crossed his room and opened his bureau drawer, taking out a clean pair of boxers. He pushed down his pajama pants and pulled on the underwear, then grabbed a clean pair of jeans from the second drawer and slipped them on too.
Staring at his reflection in the mirror on the back of his closet door, he considered the changes in his body in the ten years since he’d last seen her. His chest was broad and muscular, though it wasn’t intricately cut like a body builder’s. He was just strong. Like a bear. Like a truck. Much bigger than he’d been as a teenager, with sinew showing the contours of his arms and a farmer’s tan speaking to a summer of hard work.
His eyes were the same, weren’t they? Though they’d seen some truly horrible days and muddled nights of dirt and desperation. His lips—the lips she’d kissed a hundred times—they still remembered how hers felt beneath his. Would she recognize him? Would she still hate him?
Reaching up, he touched the skin behind his ear with two fingers. I left a note for you.
Inhaling sharply, he grabbed his hair and twisted it into a bun, securing it with a black rubber band on the nape of his neck, then taking a clean T-shirt from the pile next to his jeans. It was black and had a four-leaf clover on the front. Half of the clover was red, white, and blue, and the other half was green, white, and orange. Irish-American. Just like me.
His beard was black and bushy, and he reached for the scissors in his desk drawer, snipping off some of the longer growth so it wasn’t as unruly. Scowling at himself, he wondered if he should go to the bathroom and shave the damn thing off all together, but he could only imagine what kind of ribbing that would get him from Rory, who’d asked no less than four hundred times for Ian to shave it.
Instead, he turned away from the mirror in a huff, slipping his mammoth feet into a pair of leather flip-flops that had seen better days, and concentrated on quieting the wild flutters in his stomach. After a minute or two, he gave up. The reality was that they weren’t going anywhere soon.
Hallie Gilbert was the only true love of Ian’s pitiful life.
The one and the only.
And after a decade apart, he was about to see her face again.
***
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” said Hallie, pouring Frosted Flakes in two plastic bowls and covering the cereal with whole milk.
Before leaving Boston, she’d packed a cooler with milk, yogurt, cheese, and butter, and two reusable grocery bags with cereal, bread, bottled water, and other essentials. Because they didn’t have a kitchen table yet and the entire cottage was covered in a decade’s worth of dust, she decided to serve breakfast in bed. Even in the daylight, this room was the least scary of the bunch, although the great room would be much improved with a thorough cleaning and the arrival of their furniture. For now, spiders (and their many webs) still held dominion.
Jenny had slept in a little, allowing Hallie to bring in the cooler and groceries, relieved that the refrigerator was both working, and spick-and-span inside.
A week ago, she’d asked the realtor to take the cottage off the market and requested that the electricity be turned back on. It had been beyond humiliating when she heard back from the realtor that the electric company had refused to turn on the power. Hallie’s credit score was so low, she’d need to send a money order with six months of utilities prepaid upfront. She’d overnighted the money so that Mr. Smith would have electricity for his tools, but it had stung—and driven home the circumstances of her new life.
She had about forty thousand dollars left in the bank, but she needed a job. Without it, she’d have no insurance and no income. But she’d already decided—until the new year, she was focusing on two things and two things only: one, Jenny. She needed to spend as much time with her daughter as possible, letting her know she was safe and loved and helping her adjust to their “new normal” in New Hampshire. And two, Colby Cottage. Every inch of the old place needed to be cleaned, drafty or broken windows needed to be replaced, and—when she was ready—she needed to deal with the disaster upstairs.
The immediate problem with this plan? When she called Carlson & Sons this morning, Mr. Carlson informed her that he was already booked for the next three weeks. And while she wasn’t willing to take a chance on anyone else, Hallie wasn’t exactly handy.
That said, necessity was the mother of invention. She was practical, smart, and capable. She had access to the internet via her phone. Until she could get on Mr. Carlson’s schedule, she would figure out what she could handle and get started. If memory served, there
was a nice little hardware store down in Moultonborough; she and Jenny could take a trip down there later today.
And when January rolled around, Hallie could find a nursing job locally and a good nursery school, day care, or childcare provider for Jenny. It would be okay. It’ll all be okay.
“Mommy? Where are we?” asked Jenny, blinking at her mother from the sleeping bag.
Hallie savored this sleepy version of her daughter, who still spoke to her. “We’re at the lake, baby! Want some breakfast? I have your favorite. Frosted Flakes!”
Rubbing her eyes, Jenny sat up and looked around, her lips tilting down until they were a perfect upside-down U. Tears flooded her eyes, and she inhaled raggedly, her little chest heaving against the tears she was so desperately trying to swallow back.
“Oh, Jen. Come here.”
Hallie opened her arms, but Jenny didn’t budge. She remained in her bed, still wearing the clothes she wore last night in the car, her face a mask of sheer misery. She shook her head back and forth, reached for her plush Luna doll, and hugged it to her chest.
Hallie pursed her lips, blinking back her own tears, and picked up the cereal bowl, offering it to her daughter wordlessly. Jenny smacked it away, causing some of the milk to spill onto her sleeping bag.
“Hey! Don’t!” yelled Hallie. She placed the bowl on the dirty wooden floor, frustration and sadness getting the better of her. “You’ve got to cut me a break, Jen!” Standing up from her own bed, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I know you hate me. I get it. But baby, I’m all you’ve got!”
Jenny looked up at her mother, her blue eyes sparkling with tears, then bolted from her bed, running barefoot to the door of the room and throwing it open. Startled, Hallie watched her run before chasing after her.
Luckily, she didn’t need to go far. She found Jenny standing in the center of the great room, looking out the dozen windows that faced the lake, which was only about thirty feet away, and at least fifteen of those feet were the great room and deck just beyond.
Jenny was frozen, still clutching Luna. Without looking at her mother, she asked softly, “The lake?”
“The lake,” said Hallie, trying not to get her hopes up but encouraged by the fact that Jenny was speaking to her, even if she probably didn’t mean to.