A Season of You

by Emma Douglas

  Mina looked around the crowded square. She really didn’t want to deal with hordes of people right now. Fresh air. That was what she needed. A breather before she lost her head completely and decked the next woman who ogled Will.

  She tugged at his hand. “Wanna go for a walk?”

  “Now?”

  “Do you have somewhere better to be?”

  “No, but I was thinking we could—”

  “Walk first. C’mon, just down around the marina. It’ll be nice.”

  Will looked unconvinced but didn’t protest. They slipped out through the crowd. The noise receded into the distance as they moved away from the town square, letting the more familiar noises of the waves slapping against the jetty and the creak of the boats as they rocked on the water take over. Up close, the lights decorating the masts and sheets and railings of each craft turned the normally black water into a rainbow dazzle of light.

  “Pretty,” Will said, as Mina paused to take in the sight.

  “The water or the boats?” she asked.

  “Both, I guess.”

  “Which boat do you like best?”

  “Mina, I don’t really know anything about boats,” he said.

  “You’re going to have to learn eventually if you’re staying on Lansing.”

  “Don’t see why. Plenty of people live near mountains and never go rock climbing.”

  “Maybe not, but they still know what mountains are called.”

  “That’s pretty easy, there’s only one kind of mountain, isn’t there?”

  She shook her head at him and headed farther down the marina. Stopped again near the mooring for Grey’s yacht. It was decked out in Christmas lights, just like the others. Once upon a time, she would have been responsible for those but it hadn’t crossed her mind this year. Faith must have done it without her. “What about this one?”

  Will studied the yacht a moment. “It’s very … boaty. Floats very well.”

  She nudged him. “Be serious.”

  “I am serious. Other than I’m guessing it’s a sailboat because it has that big-ass mast, I’m not much good to you. Nice lights though.” He gazed up at the rows of red, orange, and pink twinkle lights wrapped around the mast. Definitely Faith’s work. Mina wouldn’t have used pink.

  “Want to go aboard?” she asked.

  “Wait … what?” he asked. “Whose boat is this?”

  “It was my dad’s. So it kind of belongs to me and Faith and Zach. We’re neglecting her though. Ziggy—do you know Ziggy?”

  “Everyone knows Ziggy,” Will said. “He comes to Salt Devil now and then.”

  “Well, Ziggy takes her out sometimes when he’s on the island. Dad taught him to sail. Or he taught Dad. I’ve never really been sure which.”

  Will was looking at her oddly. Had she freaked him out showing him the yacht? She wasn’t even sure why she had. Maybe trying to prove to herself why he was a bad idea. She didn’t have much time to sail right now but she wasn’t going to give it up for the rest of her life. “So, do you want to see?”

  “It’s kind of dark. Why don’t you bring me down here another time? When it’s daylight.”

  “If it was daylight, I’d want to take her out.” It was a challenge.

  “If it was daylight, maybe I’d let you,” he said.

  “Really?” She hadn’t expected him to say that.

  He hitched a shoulder, peering down into the water. “Maybe. I guess it’s not good to stay scared forever.” He glanced up at her. “What do they say, feel the fear and do it anyway? Or something like that, I guess.”

  “Maybe,” she said. She’d never thought of herself as particularly fearful. She wasn’t balls-to-the-wall run-at-the-world like Faith and Zach could be, but she wasn’t a coward. Or she hadn’t been, rather. Because, standing here, watching Will in the moonlight, all the colors of the boat lights playing across his face, she realized just how much she wanted him. And that how much she wanted him was maybe the scariest thing she’d faced in a long time.

  She waited for him to say something else but he just stood, watching her.

  From over the water came the blare of the ferry’s warning horn. This time of year the last ferry arrived at nine.

  “Getting late,” Will said softly.

  “Yes.”

  “So I have an alternative proposition for you. I’ll come back and admire your dad’s boat in daylight if you come home with me tonight.”

  “To your place?”

  “Well, I wasn’t planning on taking you to Stefan’s apartment, that’s for sure.”

  His place was on the grounds of the distillery as far as she knew. She wasn’t quite sure how she knew but she did. Maybe Faith had told her at some point.

  The distillery. The supposed root of all her objections to the man standing in front of her. Seemed he wasn’t above issuing a challenge of his own.

  “How about it?” Will said. “Just this once. If you’re going to break my heart on Christmas Day, seems like you could spend one night with me in my bed. Leave me some memories.”

  God. She didn’t know what to say to that. So instead, she just nodded and let him lead her back toward the town and his car and whatever came next.

  * * *

  She called Faith to ask her to go over and take Stewie for the night as Will drove them back out of town. Her fingers, as she tapped the screen to end the call, were shaking. Just a little. But enough that she noticed. She folded her arms, tucking her hands in so she couldn’t see them trembling.

  It was dumb to feel nervous. It was just a place after all. Just an apartment and some other buildings. Will and Stefan had bought what had been farmland somewhere near the bar and set up their operation there. Or was the bar on the land as well? She’d never stopped to think about it. She knew where the bar was, of course. But the distillery wasn’t open to visitors and Adam had never been a whiskey drinker anyway, so she’d never needed to know exactly where it was.

  So she paid attention to the route Will took, heading about a quarter mile past Salt Devil and then turning right to head inland. He hadn’t driven far before he pulled into a driveway and stopped Lulu. “Got to open the gate,” he said before climbing out.

  “Low tech around here,” he said wryly when he got back in and started easing Lulu through the gate before stopping again to shut it behind them. Mina tried to see what lay beyond the puddles of light cast by Lulu’s headlights but all she saw was more gravel road. But it was only a short drive again before Will parked. The movement of the Mustang must have triggered a bank of security lights because it was suddenly very bright outside her window.

  “Home sweet home,” Will said. When she got out of the car, he was waiting by her door. “So, this is the main building. This is where we’ll have our cellar door and do tastings and that kind of thing when we’re up and running.” He pointed past the building. “Grain storage and the malting room over there. Then the stills. The rackhouse is up on the hill.”

  “Rackhouse?”

  “Where we store the whiskey once it’s barreled.”

  The land rose steeply from what she could make out. “Isn’t that a little inconvenient?”

  “It catches the breeze up there. Stefan wants it to get what he calls “all that good sea air.” Should make the whiskey unique. Plus having the rackhouse up there means most of the smell blows away.”

  “What smell?”

  “Part of the alcohol evaporates out of the barrel while the whiskey ages. Sometimes the smell can be pretty strong. So if you smell whiskey or anything else, don’t freak out. That will be it. We’re fairly lucky here. We’re a small operation and like I said, the sea winds disperse any fumes quickly, so it’s rarely a problem.”

  “O-kay.”

  “And that’s enough about whiskey,” Will said. He pointed down the hill. “That’s the bar down there. And the cottage where Stefan lives.”

  She squinted where he was pointing. The bar was actually a lot closer than she’d th
ought. She’d never noticed all this up on the hill behind it, but then she’d never had reason to look too closely. The cottage—which looked more like one of those weird tiny houses she’d seen on TV than anything she’d have called a cottage—was tucked away on the other side of the bar out back. She had seen that building before. She’d just never realized it was a house rather than a storage shed.

  “And that’s the ten-cent tour.” Will unlocked the door to the building he’d parked beside. They stepped inside and almost immediately headed up a set of wooden stairs. “Not much to see down there, yet,” Will said. “We’ll set that up last.” There was a door at the top of the stairs, painted a very boring shade of brown. He unlocked that, ushered her in, and took her coat and hat. She put her purse down on a table just inside the door and looked around curiously as Will flicked on lights. It wasn’t big. One largish room with a living/dining area taking up most of the space and a small kitchen tucked into one corner. Will probably ate at the bar most days. At the far end of the room there were two more doors, which she deduced led to a bedroom and a bathroom, but that seemed to be it.

  It smelled like Will though. And looked like him somehow too. The furniture was dark wood, the big squishy sofa and a matching recliner upholstered in a heathery green wool. The walls were white and dotted with pictures of mountains she thought were Scottish and photos of people she didn’t know other than a couple that had Stefan in them. There was a bookcase stuffed with books and a sort of basic level of lived-in messiness that reminded her of her own cottage.

  Comfortable, not showy.

  Not that she’d expected showy from Will.

  “Drink?” Will asked from the kitchen. “Coffee? Hot chocolate?”

  “Hot chocolate sounds great,” she said. While he made it, she took the opportunity to look a little more closely at the pictures. “Are these Scotland?”

  “Yes. I spent a summer working at a distillery up near Inverness when I was in college. Gorgeous place. I’m going to go back one day. Those are by one of the guys I worked with.”

  “He’s good,” she said. The paintings were atmospheric and realistic. “Was your grandfather from around there?”

  “No, further down south. A wee village near Oban, as he would have put it,” Will said, doing a remarkably good Scottish accent. “I went to see it one weekend. Not much there now. It was busier apparently in his day when there were a few of the smaller distilleries operating in the area. But it’s just a general store and a pub and not much else these days. Makes Cloud Bay seem positively huge in comparison,” he said with a smile as he brought a mug of hot chocolate over to her.

  She took it and let him guide her over to the sofa. Let him pull her in against his side, where she could feel him, warm and strong and comforting against her. He hit a remote and soft music started playing from speakers she couldn’t spot.

  God.

  What was wrong with her?

  It should have been the perfect evening. It was the perfect evening. For somebody else. Someone who could take everything that Will was so clearly offering her. But at she sat on his sofa sipping the hot chocolate he’d made her and listening to someone croon about missing somebody at Christmas, she knew she couldn’t.

  It wasn’t the distillery. It wasn’t the alcohol. Faith had been right about that much. But what was becoming clearer with every heartbeat was that she just couldn’t go through it. She couldn’t lose someone all over like she’d lost Adam. Like she’d lost Grey. Couldn’t have her heart burned to ash a third time.

  She wouldn’t survive it. So she had to do the sensible thing. The wise thing. She had to give him up before it got to the point where it was already too late.

  The sensible thing—the smart thing—would be to do it tonight, now. While she still could. But every time she tried to open her mouth and make the words come out, she just couldn’t. Not tonight. Not when he was so clearly flat out delighted that she was here with him.

  Just a little longer. She could do that. She could have him a little longer and still be able to let him go. She just had to remember what she had to do. Be careful. Use her head.

  She finished the hot chocolate. Put the mug down on the low table in front of Will’s overstuffed sofa. Maybe she had to use her head, but right now she didn’t want to think. No, she wanted to use her body instead, and let him make her forget everything for maybe the last time.

  “Will?”

  “Yes?”

  “Wanna show me the bedroom?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  They were laughing and tearing at each other’s clothes as they half-fell through the bedroom door. She was expecting Will to show her something wild and wicked, but when he had her naked, he picked her up and carried her over to the bed. Laid her down on the quilt in the moonlight and then proceeded to take everything very slowly. Slow and sure and sweet. So sweet and hot she thought she was going to drown in him. Turning every part of her to molten delight, like her veins were filled with honey. Golden and perfect.

  She couldn’t resist him like this. Could feel her heart cracking as he held her close and filled her up and set her alight. And, at the end, as she came apart in his arms, she couldn’t entirely remember what she’d been guarding against as she fell down into pleasure and then into the sleep that followed.

  chapter nineteen

  Will woke with the warmth of Mina curled against him. For a moment he couldn’t figure out what had woken him. But as he yawned, the smell of smoke filled his nose and he swore.

  “Mina, wake up.” He shook her.

  “What?”

  “I smell smoke. Get dressed. Quick.” He switched on a lamp, started searching for his clothes, trying to think. The fire couldn’t be in this building or the smoke alarms would be going. Ditto if it was any of the distillery buildings. They all had separate alarm systems and the main control panel was downstairs. Alarms going off there would also trigger alarms here. So that was a relief. A fire in the distillery or the rackhouse would be a nightmare. Alcohol exploded rather than burned. In fact, they might never know anything about it before it all just went up and took them with it. He shoved his feet into boots and crossed the room in two strides to pull the curtains open. His room looked down the hill toward the bar.

  “Fuck.”

  Mina joined him by the window. “The bar’s on fire,” she said, sounding puzzled. Then she seemed to snap fully awake. “Will, the bar’s on fire!”

  “I know.” He was already running for the door. Stefan. Stefan would be down there. Might be inside. He had no idea what time it was. “Call the fire department.”

  He didn’t wait to see if she did as instructed. Just ran downstairs and out into the night, charging down the path toward Salt Devil. As he got closer, the stink of burning wood and oil and plastic billowed up to him, the wind blowing it his way.

  Shit. Not good. But he couldn’t stop to think about the direction of the wind. Not when Stefan might be inside.

  “Will!” He heard Mina shout from behind him. “Will, wait. The fire department is already on its way.”

  Good. That was good. But it would still take time for them to reach this side of the island. The fire station was in Cloud Bay. The smoke stung his lungs as he reached the fence line between the distillery and the bar and vaulted over it, vaguely registering that part of the fence was on fire too. The path down from the distillery had a wooden railing. If that went up … could the fire travel back up the hill that way?

  Nothing to do about it if it did.

  “Will, wait,” Mina called again. “Stop.”

  He didn’t stop. Stefan was nowhere in sight in the back lot behind the bar. The windows in his cottage were dark, but the roof was burning. Where the fuck was he? Bar or cottage?

  The worst of the fire seemed to be coming from Salt Devil. Kitchen fire maybe. In which case, maybe Stefan would be trying to get to the fire hose around the side of the bar. See what he could do to stop it.

  “Stefan,” he ro
ared. “Are you here?”

  No answer. Fuck. He couldn’t hear sirens. And he wasn’t going to wait. He had to find his brother.

  “Will.” Mina’s hand closed around his arm. “Will, they’ll be here soon.”

  He shook her off. “Go around the front. Get out of range. This place is full of alcohol and cooking oil and all sorts of shit. Go around the front and wait for the firemen.”

  “What are you going to do?” Her eyes were huge in her face.

  “I’m going to find my brother.”

  “No. You can’t.” Her hand grabbed at him.

  “Mina, go.” He shoved her toward the alley. The fire didn’t seem bad on that side. “Go now.” She started to move. “Go!” he yelled again before heading in the other direction.

  Stefan wasn’t at the fire hose. Which didn’t leave many options. He was either inside, out front, or somewhere else entirely. Options two or three meant he was safe. Option one meant Will needed to go in and find him.

  It wasn’t exactly a choice. He turned on the hose enough to drench himself and then used the axe that hung beside it to smash the nearest window and climb inside.

  The smoke was choking, the heat nearly unbearable. He couldn’t see anything. The kitchen was billowing flames. Anyone in there was dead already.

  He couldn’t think about that. Wouldn’t think about it. Keeping hold of the axe, he made his way toward the front of the bar, pausing to cough and yell for Stefan, moving as slowly as he could, trying to see through the smoke, keeping low and trying to feel around him with his feet and hands in case Stefan was lying on the floor.

  He didn’t find him. And by the time he’d reached the front door, his head was reeling from the smoke and the heat and the deafening roar of the flames, which grew louder with every passing second.

  No way he could go back and look again. Not if he wanted to make it out alive. Make it out to Mina. He offered up a short prayer to whatever god might be listening and lifted the axe, intending to smash through the window beside the front door rather than try and work the deadlock. Only to stumble back as the door flew open and two firemen stood blinking at him. One of them reached for him and pulled him out through the door.