by Jen Gilroy
“Of course I do.”
The swing creaked, and water gurgled in the fountain as Mia’s words seeped in and made Nick think about things he didn’t want to think about. Like when his dad had left, and how overnight Nick had become the man of the family. Except, somewhere along the line love had been eclipsed by duty, and his mom had become yet another item on his to-do list.
The truth hit him like the truck had hit the lake all those years ago. Sudden, shocking and life changing.
“Your mom loves you.” Mia’s soft voice was like a cool glass of water on a hot day. “And you love her, so you’ll figure it out.”
“You think so?” Although he prided himself on always being in control, around Mia that control slipped to expose the essence of who he was and the man he kept hidden.
“Sure you will.” Her smile told him she believed he’d do the right thing.
“When I was in rehab after the accident, I spent a lot of time out here trying to figure out my life.” He’d asked questions nobody could answer, wanted reassurances nobody could give, and prayed for another chance to make things right.
“You turned your life around.” Mia squeezed his hand like she understood what it had taken for him to change. “Although it can’t have been easy driving that road by the lake in an emergency situation, you came through for all of us.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Yes, it was. You’re human, not a robot. Maybe you remembered the accident, but you didn’t let me down, or Charlie and Sean, either.”
“I almost didn’t make my eighteenth birthday. I wouldn’t have, except for luck and the skill of the doctor on call that night. I also don’t underestimate my mom’s stubborn refusal to believe anybody who dared suggest I might not pull through.”
Above all, it was his mom’s force of will that had helped Nick see he had to make something of his life because his buddies couldn’t.
“Your mom is one determined lady, and that’s why she’s so set on staying in Harbor House.” Mia gave his hand one last squeeze then moved away. “I should get back to Charlie. She needs me and—”
Nick caught her wrist. This was it. He might not get another chance. He had to tell her the truth. His mom’s illness had shown him you got one chance at life and couldn’t hit rewind.
“Charlie will be fine with Liz for a little while longer. They’ll call you if there’s a problem. For weeks we’ve pretended there isn’t anything more than friendship between us, but those kisses say something else.”
“We’re attracted to each other, sure.” Mia wriggled out of his grasp and got to her feet. “But it can’t go anywhere.” She shoved her left foot into the right sandal, realized her mistake, and took the shoe off again.
“Why not?” He’d been blind. It was the same as with his mom. He was part of the problem, so he had to be part of the solution. And the solution was obvious and perfect in its simplicity.
“We’re friends, good friends, and that’s enough. My entire life I haven’t stood on my own two feet. First, my dad told me what to do, and then Jay did. This last year is the first time I’ve been an independent woman. I like it. I don’t want a relationship.” Mia’s chest with those little breasts he ached to touch rose and fell.
“See, that’s what great.” Nick forced himself to look in her eyes and not at her chest. “I don’t want a relationship either. Wife, kids, and cut the grass on Saturday morning? That whole white picket fence scene isn’t for me.”
Everything that went with a family. The family he couldn’t have with Isobel or anyone else.
“I don’t want you to cut my grass. Ty does it because we’re family.” Mia’s mouth quirked into the half smile Nick liked, cute laced with sexy. “My house doesn’t have a white picket fence, either.”
“It was a figure of speech.”
Her smile broadened. “As for the wife thing, I’ve been there, done that, and got the T-shirt. Ditto the kids.” Her smile slipped. “Do you mean we can be friends but with.…” Her ears turned red, and she glanced around the empty patio.
“Why not? Thanks to that Facebook picture, the whole town already thinks we’re sleeping together, so it’s not like we’d give people anything more to talk about.” Nick stood and his heart got stuck in his throat. “I’m attracted to you, and you’re attracted to me. We like each other, and neither of us would go into anything with false expectations.”
“True.” She half-turned into him, and her breasts brushed his chest.
His body hardened as he pulled her close. “Feel what you do to me?” He rocked into her then moved away when she gave a breathy little moan.
“I should go.” She ran her hand across his chest like she couldn’t help herself.
“If you can leave Charlie, will you have dinner with me on Saturday night? We could drive around the lake to Fairlight Cove and see a play at the summer theater there.” They’d had dinner together lots of times, but this invitation was different.
Mia nibbled her lower lip, and the ache in Nick’s body ratcheted up another notch. “If the doctor says she can travel, Sean will take Charlie to New Hampshire on Saturday morning to see Lexie.” She touched his chest again before she stepped away. “If that happens, dinner and a play sound good.”
She picked up the almost-full olive container and, with a little wave, walked back into the hospital building, her hips swaying in the way that had always made him crazy.
Nick sat on the swing again and stared at the fountain. He’d gotten what he wanted. With Mia’s help, he’d get things under control with his mom, and he’d proven the memories of the accident no longer held the power over him they once had.
Most of all, he’d get his feelings for Mia out of his system once and for all. Even though she hadn’t said so, he’d read the truth in her eyes. She was ready to take things further between them.
So why did he suspect if they started something, no strings attached, it might make him want her even more? And maybe not give him that control he craved after all.
Gabrielle had forgotten what it was like to spend time with a man. To enjoy a man’s company and wake in the morning and look forward to seeing him. Even though she had plenty of reasons to not get used to having Ward in her life, she couldn’t stop the sense of expectation as if she was a young woman again.
“Take a look.” Ward crouched at the edge of her rose garden and handed her his camera.
She focused on the image on the screen. A bumblebee was perched on a pink rose petal to drink the nectar. “It’s beautiful. I could paint that.” Her fingers twitched, and she could almost feel the watercolor pencil and the sure and steady strokes she’d make across the creamy page.
“I hope you do.” Ward got to his feet and grimaced. “Inside, I still feel twenty-five, but then my knees creak and I realize I’m not.”
Gabrielle laughed. She’d laughed a lot since Ward had come into her life, honest laughter that came out when she least expected it. “Me too.” She let him take her arm to help her to her feet. “I may not be twenty-five, but I’m not eighty-five either, which my son doesn’t seem to understand.”
“Is Nick still pushing you to sell this house?” Ward led her to the terrace overlooking the lake, and the breeze ruffled the tendrils of gray hair at his temples.
“Not directly. Nick doesn’t push the way most people push.” Gabrielle leaned against the stone wall. “He still wants me to come around to his way of thinking, though.”
“You’re not?” Ward shoved up his shirt sleeves to expose tanned forearms.
“No.” Gabrielle tried to smile. “Nick thinks he’s doing what’s best for me. He’s right that Harbor House is too big for one person. I don’t want to spend another winter by myself in it, but I always thought he or the girls would have a family and want to live here.”
She’d been a fool and wished and hoped for something that hadn’t happened. Despite her bold assertion she wouldn’t sell, unless she found another plan fast, the house
that had been in her family for generations would have to pass to strangers. The house she’d clung to when Brian took off and mired her in scandal and debt. The only thing that had been hers, owned jointly with her parents, and that neither Brian nor his creditors could touch.
Ward lifted his camera and snapped a picture of a crow perched on the branch of a pine tree. “What about Cat and her daughter?”
“I don’t see Cat ever coming back here. She’s smart, and I’m proud of her for what she’s achieved, but she’s outgrown Firefly Lake. She’s looking for a permanent job, but for now she and Amy rent an apartment in Boston near the university where she does contract teaching. As for Georgia, she’s a rolling stone and nothing will anchor her. As long as she has a backpack and a yoga mat, she’s happy.”
Ward’s blue eyes twinkled. “Never say never.”
“You haven’t met Georgia, and you’ve only met Cat briefly. Both of them come to see me, sure, but they’re in and out of here so fast the dust doesn’t have time to settle. Even Vermont mud season doesn’t make them stick. I long to see more of Amy, too. Cat’s always been a single mom, but she’s so set on doing everything herself. I’ve never been able to help her much with Amy, although I’d love to.”
Gabrielle bit back a sigh. What kind of mother got most of her information about her daughters from Facebook? Along with being more a part of Amy’s life, she yearned for more grandbabies.
“I love my granddaughter.” Ward’s face softened into the look he always wore when he spoke of his daughter and her little girl. “When my wife passed, it was only Erica and me for a lot of years. Now she’s a mother and so happy and settled, I can rest easy. Her husband’s in the Navy, and it’s been a gift these past two years he’s been based near Seattle so I see them all the time.” He pulled Gabrielle into the crook of his shoulder. “Are you sure about Nick? He and Mia look close.”
“Not that kind of close. Neither of them can see what’s right in front of them. I’ve come to love Mia like another daughter and she’d be perfect for Nick, but will he see it? No.”
Despite her subtle attempts to ease them together, they were friends, nothing more. Maybe not even friends anymore after whatever had happened between them after the fashion show. She’d been so hopeful, especially after Nick charged after Mia that night and set the whole town talking.
“You might be surprised.” Ward rested his head on top of hers, as comfortable as if they’d known each other for years. “At the Moose and Squirrel last night, he almost decked one of the guys he plays pool with. The fellow said something about Mia that Nick didn’t like and, unless I miss my guess, Nick would have taken it outside if the bartender hadn’t stepped in. What about that Facebook photo of the two of them?”
Hope flared in Gabrielle’s heart then dimmed. “He wants her, that’s what the Facebook picture says. But love her and make a future with her? I doubt it.” First Brian and then Isobel had destroyed her son’s trust and faith in love.
“You can’t live Nick’s life for him, Gabby.” Ward brushed a strand of cropped hair away from her ear. “You’ve got your own life.” His voice deepened, and Gabrielle’s heart skipped a beat.
“Gabby?”
His fingers were still in her hair, the spiky strands she hated but which were better than no hair at all.
“You don’t want me to call you Gabby?”
“It’s fine.” Except, the pet name was one more thing to make her fall for him. Like she’d fallen for Brian when she was young and foolish and he’d been the high school football hero. The boy who’d convinced her he wanted to stay in this little town and grow old with her. Who’d assured her he’d be happy to work in the law office like his father and grandfather before him, alongside her uncle and cousin.
“You’ve been sick, haven’t you?” Ward rested his hand on her shoulder, and his gentle touch was warm through the gauzy fabric of her top.
She twisted away because his touch, like his words, was too intimate. “How did you find out?” She hadn’t planned to tell him, but she couldn’t deny it either. He’d be gone from her life in a few weeks, and if she didn’t have to tell him, she could pretend she was still the woman she’d been before her diagnosis.
“One of the waitresses at the Moose and Squirrel asked Nick how you were doing, and I put two and two together.” He pulled her close again and massaged her shoulders. Like magic, his fingers found and eased the knots in her tense muscles. “Besides, you’d be at the hospital with Mia and Charlie day and night if you could.”
Gabrielle blinked away the sudden moisture behind her eyes. “I’m fine.”
If she told herself often enough, it would be true. The cancer had been caught early. She was done with chemo and radiation, and her last checkup had been clear, nothing to worry about, the doctor said. At least for another three months when she had to go back, be tested again, and worry all over again.
“Of course you’re fine.” Ward’s voice was warm. “None of us knows how much time we’ve got, so you won’t waste it, will you?” He dipped his head toward her ear and she breathed in the scent of sunshine, earth from the garden and good health.
“I can’t.” She avoided his mouth.
“Why not?” He touched a finger to her lips.
“You live in Seattle for a start.” She waved a hand toward the lake. “It’s thousands of miles from here.”
“I live there because I don’t have a reason to live anywhere else. It’s close to Erica right now, but her husband could be posted anywhere on his next assignment. Since I travel to Asia for work, Seattle’s convenient for flights, but I’m not rooted there, not like you are here.”
Rooted. More tears pricked and threatened to spill over. Nick and the girls had broken free of those roots without a backward glance, but this little slice of Vermont with its lake, green hills, moose crossings, and salt-of-the earth folks wasn’t just a place, it was her place. Where she’d been born, where she’d spent her life, and where she wanted to die, preferably with several generations of her family around her.
“Gabby?” Ward cupped her chin. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
She sniffed and rubbed a hand across her eyes. “I’m a foolish old woman like Nick wants to turn me into.” She sniffed again, and Ward pulled her into the curve of his chest.
“You’re not foolish, and if you’re an old woman, then I’m an old man.” His laugh rumbled and, beneath the blue cotton of his shirt, his heart thumped in a steady rhythm. “Life isn’t over until it’s over. Meeting you has been a gift.”
Gabrielle tilted her head to his. “For me too,” she murmured, “but I can’t…”
His mouth caught hers in a gentle kiss. “Then I’ll wait until you can,” he said against her lips.
He kissed her again, not so gentle, and Gabrielle’s knees buckled as her toes curled. No expectations, she reminded herself, even as she kissed him back. No promises, either.
“Okay?” Ward’s blue eyes searched hers.
Before he dipped his head for another earth-shattering kiss, she whispered, so soft she wasn’t sure he’d hear. “Okay.”
Chapter Ten
When Mia was in high school and college, Saturday night was date night, but she hadn’t been on a real date with someone new in almost eighteen years. She was so out of practice she wasn’t sure if this was a date, either.
Fairlight Cove’s summer playhouse had once been a barn, and the conversion was so new the place still had a scent of sawdust and fresh paint. It also had a whiff of Firefly Lake from the reedy cove at the bottom of the sloping field out back.
She shifted on the wooden bench and stole a glance at Nick to her right. His dark hair blended into the darkness of the theater, and his muscled forearms rested on his lap. He wore faded jeans and a white shirt, and his long legs were stretched out in front of him. She was a single woman, and single, independent women went on dates all the time. Those women also had sex with men they liked. Men they wanted, and who wanted them.
The audience laughed, and Mia tried to focus on the stage to still her panic. She hadn’t had sex with anyone except her ex-husband. Scene after scene went past her in a blur, and when everyone around her clapped, Mia made herself clap, too. The sound echoed in the high rafters and in her head.
“Did you enjoy the play?” Nick leaned over to speak into her ear.
She jumped and then blinked as the overhead lights went on. “It was nice.”
“Nice?” He raised one dark eyebrow and grinned. “It was a murder mystery where the villain killed his so-called friends with poisoned martini olives. Nice isn’t the first word that comes to my mind.”
“I meant it had a good plot. I didn’t guess who did it until the end.” Probably because she hadn’t paid attention.
“I knew it was the town clerk all along.”
“The town clerk? I thought it was the caterer.”
“When he isn’t on the boards, the actor who played the caterer is the town clerk over in Kincaid.” Nick chuckled. “He’s always cast as the villain in local theater productions. Cat says it’s because he has evil eyes. He grew up in Firefly Lake, and every Halloween when we were kids, he dressed as a monster and scared her half to death.”
“I’m a city girl, remember?” Easy banter, keep it light and pretend everything was like it had always been between them. “I’m still not used to the kind of community here and how everyone seems to be connected to everyone else.”
“There’s a lot that goes along with that community.” Nick got to his feet and shepherded Mia through the crowd to the exit. His big frame sheltered her and made her feel safe and protected. “People know your business and think they have a right to talk about you because their grandmother’s second cousin was related to your great-aunt by marriage three times removed. They post pictures of you on Facebook.”
Mia’s face heated. A copy of that Facebook picture had appeared on Gabrielle’s kitchen table. She should have gotten rid of it but instead, Mia had taken it upstairs and tucked it into the bottom of her suitcase. Then ignored Gabrielle’s pointed looks.