by Liz Johnson
Justin crossed his arms over his chest, displeased with the picture she painted. Mostly with how pleasant it sounded and how he could immediately hear the music deep in his chest, the urgent tempo of the jig filling him with island pride.
But this couldn’t be the place they wanted, and he was pretty sure that Natalie was going to say as much any minute.
The sharp ring of a phone echoed in the wide-open space, and Marie jumped to find it in her purse. As soon as she looked at the screen, she said, “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.” She strode out of the barn with all the poise of a princess.
Only when she had fully disappeared did he realize Marie had left him alone with Natalie. Swinging back to face his former best friend, he tried to read her expression, to see if she’d managed to put out some of the wildfire that had been raging just moments before.
No such luck.
With a glance over his shoulder, he contemplated following Marie into the fresh air. Only she’d obviously stepped outside because she wanted some privacy.
Which left him face-to-face with a fireball.
Maybe they could stand here in silence.
Her snarl turned into a growl. “What on earth is wrong with you?”
Maybe not.
He pressed his thumb to his chest. “Me?”
“You see anyone else around here?”
“Whoa. Hold your horses, lady. I’m not the one snapping like a hungry dog.”
Her nostrils flared, and her pale eyebrows almost reached her hairline. He hadn’t thought the line of her mouth could get any tighter, but it nearly disappeared before she snapped again. “Lady? Dog? Which is it?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He held up both hands to ward off her attack, but there wasn’t a motion known to mankind that could stop her from slamming her hands against her hips and taking a menacing step in his direction. “That’s not what I said.”
“It is what you said.”
“Fine. But it’s not what I meant, and you know it.” He moved to shove his fingers through his hair, but they caught in his ponytail, and he ripped the rubber band free, shaking his hair loose over his collar.
“And what’s with your hair?” The corner of her narrowed eyes twitched as her glare intensified. But her voice hovered on the edge of a whisper. “You always hated it long.”
“Well …” He searched for an explanation that wouldn’t sound as juvenile as the truth about why he’d let it grow long. But he didn’t have one. “People change. I’m allowed to change.”
And he had. So had she.
Natalie’s slim slacks and lightweight jacket were far from the too-big overalls she’d worn in childhood. And the girl who had sworn she didn’t have time for makeup had become a woman who wore her lips pink and her eyes shaded by long black lashes. Maybe she wore blush on her cheeks too, but he couldn’t tell for sure, as her whole face was red.
She’d changed her mind about some things.
And he’d grown out his hair.
Big deal.
Her gaze swept over him, pausing at his chest, sending a flutter all the way down to his toes. That’s right. It wasn’t just his hair that had changed. Fifteen years of running a farm had broadened his shoulders and replaced his spindly limbs with muscles he was proud of.
And he wasn’t upset that she was noticing those muscles now.
“Maybe people do change. But you hated it when it got in your face.”
He flicked the rubber band under her nose before reaching behind his head, taming his unruly waves, and securing them back in place. Out of his face. Which he really did hate.
If he flexed his arms in the process and she happened to notice, well, that was just too bad.
Her jaw twitched when she clenched her teeth, the steam coming from her ears practically visible. “Fine. I don’t care what you do with your hair. I don’t care what you do at all.” She threw her shoulders back, her neck long and lean. The freckles there were as enticing as ever.
The urge to count every last one of them was a kick to his gut.
Forget her loathing for his hair. Mostly he hated that he’d noticed she’d turned into a woman. And he’d never found her more beautiful.
Which was saying something, given the surge of teenage hormones that had pretty much ruled his life during his last two years of school.
“That’s not what you said the last time we talked.”
Her jaw dropped. “At Grady’s?”
“We didn’t talk yesterday.”
She nodded, like he needed her to confirm his assessment of their interaction. Like he didn’t remember how she’d beat a hasty retreat the moment they’d locked eyes.
“The last time we talked. At the lighthouse.”
Natalie opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. But no sound came out. Like a fish searching for water, she puckered her lips and shook her head. A denial for sure.
“I know you remember.” Massaging his temples, he tried to release some of the thunder building up there. “We spent an hour talking about our plan.”
“Yes. We had a plan.” She sounded like he was holding a knife on her. “We were going to leave.”
“No. We were going to stay together. The plan was always to stick together.”
“Yes. Away.” Her arm shot out, finger pointing toward the ocean. “We were going to get off this island. Together. And you never showed up.”
He threw up his hands to stop her rant but only invited her to continue. “Me? I didn’t show up?”
“Yes, you! Don’t try to play dumb here. We said the day after graduation. Don’t act like you didn’t have the map highlighted and your guitar packed.”
He opened his mouth to deny her words, but she wasn’t wrong. Things had just … changed. “You knew I couldn’t go. I told you. We agreed. We’d stay here. Together. And then you just disappeared. You didn’t even stick around for the funeral!”
The outburst knocked him back on his heels, heat rushing to his face and sudden tears stinging his eyes.
They had to be about his dad. He’d cried over that loss.
But never once over the girl who had left.
Natalie deflated, her shoulders sagging and mouth drooping. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there.” Her words were mollifying, but her tone didn’t even hint at giving up the fight. “He was a good man.”
“I know—” He bit off his words. It wasn’t right to yell about his dad’s finer qualities, which had mostly been soft-spoken. Stopping just short of stabbing his fingers through his hair again, he scrubbed his face with a flat palm. “You said you were going to stay.”
She sighed, the air leaking out of her. “I couldn’t. Things were … complicated. You knew that.”
“Yes. But I couldn’t leave. You knew that. My mom couldn’t run this place on her own. And Doug and Brooke weren’t old enough to step up.”
“And you were?” Swinging her arm like she might backhand him, she cried, “You were seventeen years old!”
“I was old enough.”
“But you had dreams. We had dreams.”
“Well, you found a new dream, didn’t you?” He flung his hand around the empty barn that he still pictured with Marie’s wedding decorations.
By the flash in her eyes, he knew she’d understood. “I—” She clamped her mouth shut, glared at him, then at her shaking fists. “You have no right. You’re the one who changed the plan.”
“And you agreed to the new plan.”
“Your dad wasn’t the town drunk.”
“My dad”—he heaved a great breath just to gain the strength to finish the thought—“was dead.”
Her face twisted like he’d thrown boiling water on her, and she opened her mouth, clearly ready to lay into him.
A sudden movement in the doorway diverted her attention, and they both turned toward it to find Marie there, her eyebrows raised and arms crossed. Her presence was like a blanket over a flame, cutting off the oxygen and extinguishing the fire.
; At least the verbal part of it.
The anger and heat in his belly raged as volatile as ever.
With a glance between them, Marie said, “Did I interrupt something?”
“No.” Natalie jumped on the word faster than a frog on a fly. She might have a few more choice words for him, but she wasn’t about to say them in front of anyone else. That would constitute a scene. Maybe one worthy of gossip.
A lot of things about her had changed—like those too-shapely-for-her-own-good legs—but he’d wager the entire farm and his family’s legacy with it that her aversion to being the topic of public scrutiny hadn’t changed.
She’d move heaven and earth to stay out of the local gossip mill.
He shook his head. “We were just rehashing old times.”
If the look that crossed Marie’s face was any indication, she didn’t buy his line any more than he did. But when he caught Natalie’s eye, something akin to gratitude flickered there.
Good. At least she recognized that she owed him for something.
“That was Seth on the phone,” Marie said, obviously ignoring the strain between him and Natalie. “I need to get back to the inn.”
“Sure,” Natalie said, stepping past him.
“But first, the barn. What do you think, Natalie?”
She twisted a strand of her hair tight at her ear and pursed her lips, staring hard at Justin. “I think it stinks in here.”
It wasn’t entirely clear if she thought it was the barn that stunk or him. But he managed to refrain from sniffing the inside collar of his shirt, which he hadn’t changed after his morning chores. Maybe he was the one who smelled bad.
“Good. Fine. So you’ll find another place for your …” He couldn’t make himself say the word, so he flicked his hand around, searching for a replacement. “Thing.”
Regret flashed across Natalie’s face, followed quickly by something that looked like she’d bit down on her tongue. Hard.
Marie frowned. “I don’t know where else we can go.”
“Why not the community center?”
Although he’d directed his question to Marie, Natalie responded, her tone low and tired. “Because Stella Burke decided it had been double-booked. Even though we reserved it months ago.”
He shook his head, trying to work out the connection, but everything he remembered about Mrs. Burke and the O’Ryans was years old. Sure, there had been some bad blood, but that couldn’t still be a problem.
It just couldn’t. The whole town had moved on. He was sure.
Almost.
Maybe.
Rats.
If indeed Mrs. Burke had set out to make Natalie’s life miserable and ruin her wedding, there was only one thing to be done.
Rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger, he bowed his head and prayed for another idea. Any way to fix her problem without having to be personally involved.
None came.
“I can get rid of the smell.”
“You can?” Marie’s eyes lit up. “And we’ll work with you to do the repairs and repaint?”
He risked a glance at the woman who had been about to tear his head off not ten minutes before, but her expression was stone. He couldn’t tell if she wanted him to agree to it or was doing her own praying that he’d turn them down.
“Well, I can work with Seth on some of the major stuff—the roof and cleaning the barn out. But you’ll have to take care of whatever cosmetic changes you want.”
Oh, Lord, please don’t let her want it. Any of it.
Marie traipsing across his property a couple times a week wasn’t ideal, but it was livable.
Having Natalie show up whenever the thought popped into her head was liable to leave him so distracted he’d be trampled by hungry cows and covered in spilled milk.
Natalie stared into the expansive ceilings and crossed her arms over her chest. It was clear she wanted to have her wedding in his barn about as much as he wanted her here.
But when she finally opened her mouth, it was with a resigned sigh. “We’ll take it.”
Oh, man. This summer couldn’t get any worse.
5
Are you going to take me to see your childhood home today?”
Natalie jerked her attention from the rich, melt-in-your-mouth salmon quiche to Russell’s innocent expression across the table for two. “My what?”
“You know. Where you grew up. Your home.”
Home.
That was a loaded word if ever there was one.
The one-story pale green house she’d lived in for almost eighteen years wasn’t home. It was a residence. A place where she slept in a little twin bed and, as a child, hid in her closet when the yelling grew too loud. It was the place where she climbed out of the window, making a mad dash for the lighthouse on the Kane property.
It was the place where she prayed over and over again that her parents might become like Mama Cheese Sandwich and Papa Kane.
Maybe if they had, it would have become home.
It wasn’t.
“No. We don’t need to go there.”
Honestly she hoped that the house had been torn down. Thirty years ago the wind had howled through cracks around the windows, and the outside paneling bowed under the weight of the salty spray off the bay. And it had only gone downhill from there. Maybe a winter snow had finally caved in the leaking roof, leaving it wholly uninhabitable.
“Sure we do. I mean, that’s part of why we’re here. So I can learn more about where you came from, get to know more about your past.”
She didn’t recall agreeing to anything like that, and the very idea made her palms sweat. Wiping them on her cloth napkin, she tried for a smile. “Well, you’ve already met some of my old classmates like Caden. And I could take you into the national park. You’ll love it. It’s beautiful.”
He nodded. “That sounds great. Maybe tomorrow. Today I want to see North Rustico the way you saw it.”
No. No. No. No.
She wasn’t about to show him what it was really like growing up here.
He thought she was a composed professional from a regular middle-class family. And that’s what he was going to keep thinking. Until the last ring was on her finger. Until they were safely back at his loft in downtown Nashville. Until she was back at her job and he was so invested in a new record that he’d forgotten he ever asked to see her home.
Not that she wanted to lie to him. At all. That wasn’t the way to start a marriage. At least not from what she’d witnessed in other relationships.
But the truth might just end the marriage before it even started.
Picking her words carefully, she said, “Of course. It was small-town life.”
“Right. But it couldn’t have been just like the small town I grew up in, in east Tennessee.”
“No.” She dragged the word out, still hunting for the right phrase to appease his curiosity but shift his focus onto something else. Anything else. “PEI is surrounded by water, so we had beaches.”
Russell threw his head back with a laugh that drew the smiles of the neighboring table of Canadian visitors with the towheaded son.
Natalie wiped her hands on her white napkin until it was limp and damp. The quiche she’d enjoyed just a moment before turned to a solid lump in her stomach.
“We had a river and a few lakes. My childhood wasn’t completely devoid of water.” His eyes sparkled with the humor that had made her agree to that first date. “I think I can handle waiting a day or two before we go to the beach. Show me around the Crick first.”
“Sure. But …” Something. She had to come up with something. Now. “Wouldn’t you like to see …” She mentally ticked off all the other tourist traps in the area. The boardwalk. Kayaking. Lobster fishing.
None of those were enough to distract him.
Come on, Natalie.
She rolled her eyes at herself, wishing not for the first time that her mind was twice as fast. And then, before the thought had fully formed, she b
lurted out the only thing that might work. “Wouldn’t you like to see the site for our reception?”
As soon as it was out there, she longed to reel it in. Especially when the corner of his mouth lifted into a grin. “The barn you visited the other day?”
She nodded, all the while calling herself every name she’d heard through the years. Stupid. Idiot. Good-for-nothing.
She could have—should have—said the church. They needed to meet with Father Chuck before the ceremony anyway, and the weather was perfect for a walk to the picture-perfect white-steepled building where they’d say their vows before moving to the barn for dinner, dancing, and an evening of fun.
Instead she’d invited him to the scene of her near knock-down fight with Justin only days before. It made her stomach roll to think about how she’d spoken to him. She hadn’t intended to raise her voice or even hint at how much he’d hurt her. After all, she’d dealt with it. Years of counseling couldn’t be wrong. She’d moved on.
Except, face-to-face with him, she wasn’t quite so sure. Which had been abundantly clear when the very worst version of herself had flown out of her.
She’d get to relive every regrettable word the moment she stepped back into that barn, because she’d gone and invited her fiancé to visit it.
“Of course I want to see the barn. Marie said there’s some work to be done. Maybe we could take inventory of what needs to be done and decide if we’ll need to hire anyone.”
“Oh, I’m sure that Marie and”—Justin’s name nearly slipped out, but for no earthly reason she kept it inside—“the guy who owns the barn will handle that.”
He shrugged and tore into the spice muffin in front of him, then sighed like he’d found the best thing to ever come from the island. She swept a forkful to her mouth and immediately understood why. Caden had a way with local flavors. A way of making Natalie want to sink into them and forget everything else she’d ever known from this scrap of red land.
“I’m sure they will. But it doesn’t mean we can’t offer our input.”
She nodded, hoping that her flashing teeth would cover the internal battle she was fighting. She should have just told him she’d show him the old house. And then shown him someone else’s. Or found an empty lot and said that the house had met the same fate she’d hoped it would.