“And friendship.” He sat beside her.
She toed her sandals off and ran her feet through the grass. “Better than risking betrayal.”
“Did someone leave you at the altar or something?” He hadn’t meant it to come out like that. Or to come out at all. And the second her face flinched, he wanted to ball the words up and punch himself in the mouth with them.
“The altar? Ha. That’d be too respectable for Jesse. Try the bed of his pickup.”
The rocks’ ragged edges bore into Ethan’s palms the tighter he clutched them.
“My fault, though. Before Dad left, he used to tell me never to mix personal with business. Turns out we both failed on that one.”
“Wait. This dude worked at the flower shop?”
“Prize employee. Hustle the boss, and you get all the perks, including sharing your bed with a naive girlfriend.” She plucked a dandelion from the ground and coiled the stem around her finger, looking almost nauseated. Was she worried what he thought?
“Cass, the guy’s obviously a jerk. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all make mistakes.” Ethan’s list probably outstretched hers tenfold.
She flicked the weed into the grass. “I wish that were true.”
He set a hand on her arm. “Whatever it is, it’s in the past.”
“Doesn’t mean it can’t still haunt you.” She pushed up from the rocks, strode a few paces ahead, and stopped with her hands through her hair. “I got pregnant. Found out on prom day, of all things. And to top it off, he stood me up that night for some chick he’d had on the side the whole time.”
Fury heated Ethan’s veins. Ti wasn’t exaggerating about Cass having a reason to keep her guard up. After an experience like that, who could blame her for being scared to cross work boundaries again? Had she been worried he’d treat her like this Jesse creep had? He gripped the rocks harder, not trusting himself to move.
She turned, head lowered. “I rode the subway in my stupid prom dress all the way to the Bronx to tell him off.” She rubbed her hand. “Hooked him in the cheek so hard, my knuckles were bruised for two weeks. But it was worth it.”
Compassion tempered his strides toward her. At her side, he cupped her hand in his.
“They’re not the kind of scars you can see.” She withdrew and laced her arms across her stomach. “I miscarried a month later. And you know who went to the doctor’s office with me? A cab driver. Waited the entire time. Running the meter, of course.”
An ache like he’d never experienced clawed through him from the inside out.
Glassy eyes found his. “I didn’t wake up one day, deciding I was on my own, Ethan. I always have been. But that day, I finally realized I had to start living like it.”
Without hesitation, he closed her in his arms and rested his cheek over her head. “Not anymore.”
In the safety of Ethan’s arms, hidden from everything else, Cass almost could’ve believed him.
The sun beat through her hair and warmed the back of her neck. She ran a finger under her eyes, pulled away, and escaped toward her sandals. “The day’s going to get away from us if we don’t get started.”
With a tender expression, he nodded and followed beside her.
She twisted her shirt cuff, debating whether to say more. After pushing through endless hours to get work done, he’d proven himself faithful enough to trust, hadn’t he?
Her body tensed at the thought. So had Jesse, at first. And look where her trust had led her last time.
Dew glistened across the pristinely manicured lawn. He had to have stayed up almost till morning to get this field ready. She drew a deep breath. Even if she didn’t understand why, he was still here, and she couldn’t deny needing the support. “I haven’t told you and Ti yet, but an inspector’s coming in a month.”
His face scrunched into a guilty expression.
“What?”
He rubbed his neck. “Don’t be mad, but I saw the notice. It fell out of your book the other night.”
He was snooping? She suppressed her immediate reaction. Truth be told, she was relieved he knew. Now, maybe he’d understand why she had to stay so driven.
“Then, you know we don’t have time to mess around.” Her sideways glance caught a smile she was starting to love more than she should.
Across the bridge, he jutted his chin toward the canteen. “Two or three coats of lacquer, and I think it should be about finished.”
“Great.” She dragged her sandals through the gravel. “You know, I was thinking of asking Ti to paint a mural on the side facing the driveway, so it’s what people see when they first pull in. Do you think that’s a good idea?”
There was that grin again. “I think it’s perfect.”
Borrowing his confidence, she exhaled. Maybe this would all work out. Somehow.
He motioned to the boathouse on the backend of the property. “What’s that building?”
She wriggled her keys out of her pocket, hardly containing a smile. “Wanna see?”
“After that expression, now I’m gonna have to.”
Laughing, she led them across the lawn to the oversized shed-like building and unlocked the door. “I think this might’ve been my grandpa’s favorite part of the camp.”
A musty odor poured out from inside. Her face fell. She swatted cobwebs with both hands, struggling to untangle the strings and her thoughts.
Ethan moved her behind him and tore down the webs to clear a path.
She wandered over to a pile of mildew-covered life vests on the floor. “He never would’ve left it like this.”
Ethan lifted a paddle from the ground and rubbed the caked-on dirt off. “The last group of campers probably didn’t clean it out. Maybe he just didn’t get to it before . . .”
“No, you don’t understand. This building used to be like a sanctuary for him. A place to de-stress. He’d spend hours out here, cleaning the vests meticulously, building canoes.”
“Building?” His gaze swept over the boats. “You’re saying he actually carved these himself?”
She traced her fingers over the engravings in the one he’d made for her. To C. M. from Grandpa McAdams. “Some of them.”
He looked over the canoes again, eyes beaming like they’d struck gold. “That’s incredible. We gotta take these out.”
The guy loved the outdoors, didn’t he? Her stomach clenched at the thought. Jenni had a canoe on her SUV the other day. Was he thinking about memories with her?
Canoeing, bridge jumping, camping . . . She obviously loved mountain adventures as much as he did. Wasn’t hard to see why he’d proposed to her. Or why he’d kept telling Cass to let her hair down. The contrast between her and Jenni was so palpable it hurt.
She batted away the sting and shook her head. “We have—”
“Work to do. I know.” He hung the paddle on the wall. “Sometime, though. I’m pretty sure he made these canoes so you could have some fun. Just sayin’.”
As if his dimples weren’t disarming enough, those darn blue eyes could leave her in a puddle if she didn’t look away.
She turned toward the moldy vest, smile falling. Too much was going on for her to be fretting over some imaginary love triangle. Especially after finding this building in shambles. She could buy the possibility that Grandpa might’ve gotten too weak at the end to maintain the grounds, but not the boathouse.
Ethan came up beside her and wiped pine needles off another vest before hanging it up. “It shouldn’t take us long to clean this place up.”
“It’s not that.” She walked outside, pushed her hair away from her forehead, and inhaled.
“What is it?” Ethan said from behind her.
“This.” She flung her arms out to her sides. “This whole place. How rundown it’s gotten so quickly. All these crazy things happening since I got here—that roach infestation, slashed mattresses, those stupid raccoons on the roof. Is it really some punk kids playing a joke?”
He rubbed his shoulder. “You
think someone’s sabotaging the place?”
“I’m starting to wonder.” Would it be so far-fetched? He probably thought she was overreacting. Maybe she was. But even if upstate New York was safer than Queens, something didn’t add up. And with so much stacked against her getting the property ready for sale in time already, she couldn’t afford to add malicious intent to the list.
“Did you ever hear back from Deputy Harris about the cabins?”
She twisted her hair into a bun and tried not to scoff. “He said there wasn’t enough conclusive evidence. Basically gave me a pat on the head like I was some paranoid city girl.”
A tendon on Ethan’s neck pulled taut. Raking a hand through his hair, he stared at the pine needles under his boots. “Cass, I don’t know if my mom will see me, but I can try to talk to her if you want. See if she can put some pressure on Harris to take this seriously.”
He’d be willing to talk to his mom for her? “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking.” The corner of his mouth sloped to the left. “It’s okay to accept help, remember?”
He really loved pushing that pressure point. She blew out a breath and met his crippling blue eyes head-on. “Thank you.”
“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? A little more practice, and you’ll be a pro.”
She shouldered past him. “You’re maddening. You know that?”
He laughed while swatting a mosquito away. “One of my superpowers.”
Too bad one of hers wasn’t resisting his charm. She locked the door and almost bumped into him as she turned.
“I still think we should take the canoes for a spin.”
“And I still think we should get back to work.” She sidestepped around him.
He hopped in front of her. “At least let me get them ready. The canteen’s going to take a few coats of lacquer. I can air out the place and clean the vests in between rounds.”
Twiddling the keys, she looked back at the building. The boathouse needed to be cleaned. And to be honest, the thought of how many spiders were crawling in there kind of freaked her out. But this project was more special than the others. Could she trust him with it?
She finagled a key off the ring and handed it to him but held on. “This is important.”
“Understood.” He tossed the key in his palm.
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late.”
She pivoted away from his goofy grin and started up the hill before he got on a roll.
“Cass?” he called from behind her. “Since you won’t let me take you out in the canoes, let me make you dinner tonight instead.”
She turned.
“After a hard day’s work,” he added when she hesitated.
If he cooked dinner as well as he did breakfast, she’d be crazy to decline. Giving in, she nodded and spun around, but not before his dimples bookended a smile she’d have to spend the rest of the day trying to work out of her mind.
She hustled around the mess hall as if distancing herself from him would make a difference. Her cell rang right before she reached the deck. She shimmied it out of her pocket. Maybe it was Britt getting back to her about that mystery donor. One glance at the screen, and she sighed. “Hey, Ma.”
“Cass.” A shaky inhale turned into a cry.
“Ma? Are you all right?” Her stride slowed until she barely moved. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. A letter from the bank came in the mail yesterday. Something about a default. It’s too much jargon. I can’t make sense of it, but it’s bad, isn’t it? Are they trying to take my shop away?”
A notice of default? Cass patted around for the railing and any clue of what to say. Yeah, they were behind on payments, but they were trying. It wasn’t supposed to get this far. “Did you deposit that last check I sent you?”
Her pause sank into the pit of Cass’s stomach and weighed her whole body onto the nearest step. She’d seemed off the night before Cass left to come here, but she assumed it was from mixed emotions about being on her own for a while. “Ma?”
“Oh, baby, you know I wanted to. But things got so stressful with your leaving. I—”
“Don’t say it.” Cass refused to hear she’d started pills again. Not after how far she’d come with breaking the addiction. She promised she was clean.
Another ragged inhale shook through the line. “You don’t know what it’s like. Ever since you went off to college, this place has been falling apart. I can’t do it on my own.”
“On your own?” The phone trembled in her hand. Sunlight beat against her and doubled the heat fuming through her skin. Did she honestly think Cass hadn’t spent most of her life helping her? That she wasn’t here now, busting her butt for her?
“I’m sorry, Cass. We’ll work this out together, right? . . . Baby?”
“I can’t talk about this right now.” Not if she wanted to avoid saying something she’d regret. She hung up and forced herself to focus.
A notice of default only gave her three months to come up with the money before the bank assumed possession of the shop. If she made the right connections, she might be able to sell the camp in that timeframe. But if the inspection shut her down before then, what would it matter?
Ethan trailed up the hill from around the building, carrying a can of lacquer in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. Faithfully hard at work.
She hugged her arms to her sides, wishing they were his instead. He’d held her with such affection earlier, warm eyes begging her to trust him. Her lashes creased together. How could she trust when no one kept their promises?
Ti’s words rushed back over her. “He might just be your saving grace for this place.” Maybe he was. But what happened if grace wasn’t enough?
chapter fifteen
Awe
Ethan flipped on the oven light to check the lasagna for the twentieth time. He might as well have been standing in front of the canteen, watching the lacquer dry. Staring at it wasn’t going to make the last five minutes on the timer tick any faster.
He ducked into the fridge and fished through the crisper for a cucumber. Maybe the cool air would knock a few degrees off his body temperature.
What was with his nerves? It wasn’t like this was his first date. Or a date, period. He was just fixing her dinner. That didn’t count as making a move, right?
Okay, maybe it did. He shut the fridge and dropped his forehead against the freezer door. Cass had opened up so much in the past two days. He couldn’t risk her pulling away again. But holding back what he felt for her was about to kill him.
“Mmm. Something smells delish.”
Flinching at Ti’s voice, Ethan juggled the cucumber in both hands. Nice.
But instead of teasing him, she flitted over to the salad bowl and picked out a carrot. “I told Cass you were a keeper. Think you just sealed the deal.”
If only it were that easy. Ethan peeled the cucumber. “It’s just lasagna.”
She snagged a bottle of red wine off the counter without bothering to tame a grin. “Sure it is.” She strolled over to the table at the same time Cassidy breezed in from the hall.
A simple pair of jeans and a green shirt that looked softer than her curls shouldn’t be that radiant. Effortless beauty. The girl had it in spades and didn’t even know it.
Unable to take his eyes off her, he sliced somewhere in the general direction of the cutting board.
“Smells amazing in here.” She drifted closer.
He slid the cucumber slices into the bowl and searched for his voice. “Family recipe.”
She peeked in the oven. “Ahh. Your other superpower. Almost forgot about that one.” She smiled, but her laugh didn’t quite override the strain around her eyes.
Had something happened since he last saw her? With his back shielding Ti behind them, he mouthed, “Are you okay?”
Her gaze plummeted to the ground. “Yeah. It’s nothing.”
Her shoulders didn’t
tense like that over nothing. “You want to talk about it?”
“Not tonight.” She looked up at him. “Can we forget everything else for a few hours?”
If she kept looking at him with that sense of helplessness, he’d do anything she asked. “You got it.”
She ambled over to the table.
“You should rub a banana peel over those,” Ti said.
He peered behind him. “Huh?”
“Mosquito bites. Rub the inside of a banana peel against them. It’ll take the itching away.”
He removed his hand from the bites he didn’t notice he’d been scratching and glanced at Cass for some cue on how to respond.
Ti looked at them both. “What?”
Cass cracked up. “Ethan’s not used to your homeopathic gibberish yet.”
“Hey, just ‘cause it’s unconventional doesn’t mean it won’t work. And you, missy, should try a little red wine with dinner.” She dipped the bottle at her. “It’ll ease that tension right out of your muscles. I’m telling ya. You want to unwind? Here’s the trick.”
“If I could stomach it, I might.” Cass picked Jax up from the floor, nestled her nose against his, and put him back down.
“You don’t drink?” Ethan placed the salad on the table.
“Never acquired the taste.”
He hooked a thumb toward the oven. “There’s a little wine in the lasagna, but the alcohol cooks out and leaves a sweetness behind.”
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
Ti set the bottle down. “What else did you put in that lasagna, Chef Ramsey? There’s no meat, is there?”
Was she serious? He squeezed the base of his neck. “Uh . . .”
Ti scooted her chair away from the table, got up, and strode across the room.
“Where are you going?”
“To make restitution for you,” she called over her shoulder.
Cassidy’s gaze intersected with his. “Don’t ask.”
“Not sure I want to.” He grabbed potholders from the drawer, pulled the apparently offensive main dish from the oven, and positioned it on the table beside a vase of wild daisies Cass must’ve picked to replace the flowers Nick had brought her.
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