by Emma Douglas
“Looking good, Faith,” he said, stepping forward to kiss her cheek quickly. “Thanks for inviting us.”
“I believe you can thank Mina for that,” Faith said, grin widening. She stepped back to let him pass and he almost stumbled after the first step, coming to a halt as he caught sight of Mina standing almost in the middle of the entry hall. She didn’t sparkle like her sister, but he forgot about Faith in an instant. Mina wore skinny jeans in an inky blue and a top made of some sort of sheer lacy stuff that floated enticingly around her body. It was the deep, rich, nearly-red pink of the heart of a raspberry and she’d painted her mouth the exact same shade. Which meant he could see each curve of those gorgeous lips clear as day.
Would she taste of raspberries if he grabbed her and kissed the lipstick off her mouth?
He was vaguely aware of Stefan rumbling a hello to Faith from behind him. He didn’t care, all his attention fixed on Mina. She didn’t sparkle but she definitely shone. She might as well have been spotlit, everything else fading into a blur around her.
“Hello, Will.” Her eyes flicked up briefly, and he followed the direction of her gaze. About five feet above her head dangled a bunch of what he assumed was real mistletoe. Mistletoe? At Thanksgiving? Wasn’t that a Christmas thing? Then again, there had been all those decorations. A glance around the room told him the inside of the house was as Christmas-ready as the outside. Which brought him back to the mistletoe. And Mina.
Was she standing there on purpose? Under the mistletoe? Hell. He didn’t want to do the wrong thing.
“Hello, Mina,” he said, not knowing whether to stay where he was or move closer.
Stefan solved his dilemma for him by drawling, “You’re blocking the door, Will,” from behind. The words seemed to break the spell holding him and Mina there and she stepped back, moving out of what could reasonably be called the mistletoe zone.
“Hey, Stefan,” she said, looking over Will’s shoulder. “Happy Thanksgiving.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Stefan replied, moving up next to Will. He held up the covered tray he was carrying. “We brought some cookies.”
Mina’s brows rose briefly but she reached for the plate. “Thanks.”
“Pumpkin snickerdoodles,” Stefan said. “I was going to bring pie but I figured Lou had that part covered.”
“She does,” Mina agreed. “But cookies are good.”
“Very good,” Faith said, nodding. “You didn’t have to bring anything.”
Will shrugged. “Our mom would disagree with you on that point.” His grandda would have too. Only his standard offering would have been a bottle of great whiskey. That had been Stefan’s first idea too, but Will had nixed it. When it came to alcohol, given the Harper’s family history, safer to let them set the tone.
“Sounds like your mom and Lou would get along,” Faith said with a smile. “Come on inside.” She headed back into the house and, after a backward glance at Will, Mina followed her.
“Dude, too slow.” Stefan said in a pitying voice and followed the girls.
* * *
Mina managed to avoid talking to Will while everyone mingled before the meal. Between introductions—Faith and Caleb had managed to assemble nearly twenty guests—and helping Lou with preparations, she successfully managed to be wherever he wasn’t. Once or twice she caught his eye across the room but had made herself turn away before eye contact could turn into something more.
Truth was, she didn’t know how she felt. Why she’d stood under the damn mistletoe when she’d seen his car pull up. Granted, it was hard to avoid the mistletoe given the size of the bunch Caleb had acquired, but she could have just waited inside with everyone else while Faith got the door. Only that seemed kind of rude when she’d been the one who’d invited Will and Stefan.
Or was that just her coming up with a justification for wanting to see Will? She had no idea. About any of it. She rarely had moments where she wished she drank but right now, the thought of a shot of something to ease her nerves was appealing. Cranberry and soda just didn’t cut it. Which made it hard to even think about talking about it with Will. And he deserved the conversation at least. After all, she’d kissed him.
She’d liked kissing him. He’d liked kissing her too unless she’d completely read him wrong.
But liking kissing him came with a whole other bag of emotions that she didn’t even want to open let alone sort through. Which was why the kissing had been followed by the freaking out. So he definitely deserved an explanation.
Maybe it would all be better after lunch. Lou’s pie, if nothing else, usually improved any bad situation. So she could avoid Will until they were both in a carbohydrate-fueled daze perhaps.
But, as they sat down to eat, she realized that she hadn’t figured Faith’s sneakiness into the equation. Because she found herself seated almost directly across from Will. Not next to him … that would have been too blatant even for Faith. Nope, instead her sister had put Will squarely where Mina was going to have to look at him for the next two hours or so while they ate.
She leaned forward turning to look at where Faith sat at one end of the long table. Her sister picked up her glass of champagne and lifted it in a toast as she noticed Mina, sending her a smile that said she’d known exactly what she was doing.
Mina returned the toast with her own glass and plotted revenge. Maybe she could hide all the Christmas cookies where Faith couldn’t find them. Or get Ivy to reprogram the house’s sound system to only play disco.
Ivy, who was one of Faith’s oldest friends, was seated next to Mina and interrupted her train of thought by asking her about Stewie. She and her fiancé Matt were getting a Lab puppy for Christmas and Mina accepted the distraction of answering dog questions with relief. Though, even as she talked about teething and house training and puppy brains, she couldn’t completely ignore Will. Not unless she wanted to eat facing sideways. So she watched him while she ate and talked to Ivy and to one of Lou’s friends who sat on her other side.
Will watched her right back. Each time those green eyes caught hers, her pulse bumped a little. He made small talk with his neighbors too, laughing and smiling. But she knew exactly where his focus was. She could feel his attention even when she wasn’t looking, the weight of it warming her skin.
She was sure the food was excellent but she didn’t really taste any of it.
Not even the pie.
* * *
After everyone had finally left the table, leaving behind the rubble of a truly epic meal, Mina found Will in the living room, looking out of the long window toward the ocean.
She still didn’t quite know what she wanted to say to him but their silent conversation during dinner had at least made it clear enough that there was something to say.
The pleased smile that spread across his face when he saw her only confirmed it.
“I’m going to walk off some pie before it gets dark,” she said. “Would you like to join me?”
“Yes.”
She’d barely finished her sentence before his answer came. Which made nerves light up along her skin. She took a breath. “Okay. I need to change my shoes. And grab a jacket.” She studied him a moment. “Do you have a coat?” It wasn’t freezing outside, but it was definitely too cool for Will to just wear the checked cotton dress shirt he wore.
He nodded. “In Lulu.”
“Meet you outside then?” Mina said.
Will nodded. “Is Stewie coming with us?”
She shook her head. “Stewie is in the kitchen scavenging and working the puppy dog eyes. Lou will be feeding him leftovers, so no chance he’ll move.”
“Well, for a chance at more of Lou’s pie, I might stake out the kitchen as well,” Will said with a grin.
“That’s why we need to walk. Make room for second dessert.”
“Second dessert?”
“Also known as pie two point oh.”
“Even better.”
She ran up to her old room to get her coat
and put on the sensible boots she’d worn to walk over from the cottage earlier. Through the window she caught a glimpse of Will walking to his Mustang, stride easy, and felt her nerves twist again. He looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe women kissed him out of the blue all the time and he could take it or leave it.
She thought back to the warmth of his eyes watching her across the dining table.
Maybe not.
So maybe she needed to be brave and go down there and see what happened.
* * *
Will was waiting by Lulu when she slipped out the front door. He’d donned a battered navy coat, which made him seem more … Will somehow. She couldn’t deny he’d looked good in his dress shirt today but it had made her nervous. Her mental image of him fit better with the guy in the coat with the cool wind ruffling his hair.
“So, which way do you want to go?” she asked, joining him.
He shrugged. “This is your end of the island,” he said. “You choose.”
She considered. After being around so many people for a few hours, she had the faintest edge of a headache. Or maybe that was too much sugar. Either way, she wanted to chase it away with sea air.
“Well, we could walk down to the boathouse.” She stared down past the main house to the Harpers’ private jetty and the small boat shed there that held the smallest of Grey’s powerboats and the small two-person skiff that she and Faith and Zach had used after graduating from the tiny Hobie they’d learned to sail in. And a couple of jet skis, but it wasn’t really jet ski weather. Grey had owned a few boats. There was still a big yacht moored in the marina near the ferry dock in Cloud Bay, but they’d sold the rest. And of course, there was Adam’s sailboat. That was in dry dock. He’d only just finished working on it before he’d died. It was a beautiful thing, but she’d never had the heart to put it in the water.
“If you like boats, I could take you out.” She had no idea if Will sailed. For Adam, boats had been like oxygen. In his blood. She’d offered his yacht to his mom, but Lilah Clark had been set on moving to the mainland to be closer to Adam’s sister who lived in Boulder now and hadn’t wanted anything more to do with boats after playing second fiddle to her husband’s and son’s mutual passion for them all those years. Mina could understand, but she couldn’t understand wanting to give up the ocean that surrounded Lansing. How could you even tell the mood of the day without the song of wind and water telling you what to expect?
“Do you want to?” Will said, drawing her wandering thoughts back to him.
He didn’t exactly sound filled with joy at the prospect.
“Just an idea. I’m happy to walk if you want to walk. We can walk around to Shane’s place. Or at least in that direction.” That was the wilder end of the island. Her lighthouse sat on the headland that faced the open ocean. To the left of her, a series of bays wriggled their way around the island, creating curls of sheltered beaches that stretched all the way to Cloud Bay harbor. But the land that Shane and Billy had bought was to the right of the Harpers’, and while there were two tiny coves sheltered enough for paddling if you made the journey down the rocks to them—one for each of the houses—the coastline was rocky and wilder on that side. Just what the doctor ordered to blow the cobwebs away.
“Sure,” Will agreed, and they set off, walking in silence at first as they settled into a rhythm. It was cold out, but Mina started to warm up as she moved, sick of taking it easy all of a sudden. She loosened the zipper on her coat as they made it to the point where the garden surrounding the house turned into fields and coastline, and stepped onto the gravel path that ran along the edge of the beach.
“So do you think Stefan will be able to bribe Lou into giving him pie-making lessons?” Will asked.
“Lessons, maybe. Her exact recipe, probably not.” Mina shaded her eyes to look up at him. “Has he always liked to cook?” Stefan Fraser, tall, broad-shouldered, and bearded did not look like your typical chef.
“Well, at first it was self-defense but then he discovered he liked it.”
“Self-defense?”
“Our mom worked a lot at one point. Our grandda lived with us but his idea of cooking was heating up tinned chili or baked beans and maybe boiling an egg. Stefan never liked baked beans much, so he took over.”
After his dad died, she assumed this was. He hadn’t told her what had happened. Should she ask? Maybe not. She knew all too well the pain an unthinking question could bring up. And all about dead fathers. “Just as well. He turned out to be good at it.”
Will grinned. “Yes. We wouldn’t have starved, but teenage boys stink enough without feeding them extra beans. Mom would have been in danger of asphyxiation.”
She snorted. Having grown up with a brother and a house that was often stuffed with male musicians who weren’t shy about belching and farting around each other, she could appreciate the problem.
“I’m sure your mom appreciated the help. But he didn’t want to be a chef?”
“No, he went out and got some experience when we decided to open the bar while our first batch of whiskey is doing its thing. Made more sense than paying somebody else to do it—it’s not like the whiskey needs someone singing it lullabies at night—but no, it wasn’t what he wanted to do as a job.”
Which gave her an opening to ask about the distillery. But she wasn’t quite ready. Instead she quickened her pace for a few steps to cover up the fact she wasn’t sure what to talk about next.
Will, being taller, kept pace pretty easily. The path was steeper now and she had to go ahead of him, but when they came up to the top of the rise—her cursing the pie and the week or so of rest that meant she was feeling out of breath—he moved to stand beside her again where she’d stopped to admire the view. And catch her breath.
“So did the drawing work out?” Will asked. “Is that the right word?”
The drawing. That she’d done of him before she kissed him. “It was okay. I’m out of practice with figures.” She wasn’t about to admit she’d drawn him more than once since then.
“Well, if you want a model again, I’m happy to step in.” He tilted his head at her. “Unless you have other models in mind?”
She shook her head. Nope. No one else was making her fingers—and other parts of her—itch.
“Never had an artist ask to draw me before,” he said. “Or kiss me for that matter.”
She winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He paused. “Unless of course you’re not planning on doing it again. Is that why you asked me out here? So you could give me a polite ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ speech without an audience?”
chapter ten
Will held his breath waiting for Mina to answer. The wind lifted her dark hair, blowing it across her eyes before she pushed it out of the way.
“That’s … to be determined,” she said.
Well, that wasn’t a flat out yes.
He made himself breathe. “Anything I can do to help make up your mind?”
She slanted a glance at him and moved closer to the edge of the path, which was only two feet or so from the edge of the cliff they were walking along. He moved with her and peered down.
The island turned wild here. The water that churned against the rocks thirty feet below him was deep and, according to the locals, unforgiving. Today it was a cold dark blue where the rocks weren’t churning it into white spray. In the failing afternoon light, it looked treacherous. A shiver ran down his spine before he could stop it, and he stepped back from the edge automatically.
“You don’t like deep water, do you?” Mina asked.
“Nope,” he admitted. “Never have.”
“Which explains why you didn’t want to go out on the boat.”
“Guilty as charged.” He didn’t feel terribly guilty but he tried to look contrite. She was changing the subject, but he was willing to give her a little more time to think about it. Not that he wasn’t going to try and make sure that she’d decide
in his favor in the end.
“Yet you moved to an island where the major form of transportation between here and the mainland is a ferry?”
“Ferries are big,” he said. And he could sit inside and not think too hard about the endless depths of ocean beneath him. “Besides, the island was Stefan’s idea. He has theories.”
“Theories?” Mina’s head tilted at him.
“About the salt air and its effect on the…” he trailed off.
“The whiskey,” Mina said. Her voice went a little quiet on the word, but it wasn’t the same dull tone she’d used the last time they’d talked about Salt Devil. It made him want to smile at her, but he’d learned his lesson. Slowly. Slower than tectonic plates, perhaps. That was the only way this might work.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “That. And apparently my big brother is good at talking me into things.”
“Apparently,” Mina agreed. Then, “What are you scared of? With the ocean, I mean?” She sounded genuinely curious.
Boatbuilder’s wife, he reminded himself. Island kid. Probably breathed saltwater.
“Sharks. Big squidgy things with teeth and tentacles.” Oblivion. Falling into the cold dark and becoming part of it, lost forever, never seeing light again. Not getting to do what he wanted to do in the world. But that was hardly something he could say to Mina. She knew too much about oblivion and the abrupt ending of things.
She looked amused. “You know that cows kill more people than sharks each year, right?”
“Yeah, well, you won’t see me farming either,” he said. Farmers had to get up way too early. Plus, whiskey seemed safer than living, breathing animals. Granted, a whiskey barrel could crush him to death if it somehow got free of its shelving, but it wasn’t likely to actively try to kill him. He shrugged. “Give me a nice safe lake or a pool any day.”
Mina laughed. “Don’t lakes have monsters?”
“Never heard of Nessie eating anyone,” he said.
“Yes, but this is America. I think our lake monsters might be a little more wild.”