Forever and For Always

by Sophie Love

  Emily shook her head. “I’m giving you an out, Daniel. I’m giving you a free pass. I don’t want you to choose between us. I want you to choose her. You have to. There’s no other option.”

  Daniel gazed at her for a moment longer, hesitating as though trying to say something. Emily couldn’t look at him anymore. She turned her gaze to the surface of the table. The next time she looked up, Daniel was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Sunlight blinding her vision, Emily watched from her bedroom window as Daniel packed up his truck early the next morning. She couldn’t help but feel guilty about the angry words she’d fired at him in the bar. In reality, she didn’t want him to leave, she wanted to be selfish, to put her needs first. But there was a part of her—the very real and demanding damaged child inside of her—that wanted Daniel to do the right thing for this innocent girl. It wasn’t the girl’s fault, just as it had not been Emily’s. She would not wish the experience of losing a father on anyone, not even her worst enemy.

  Just then, a soft knock came on the door. Emily let the curtain fall shut on Daniel then went over and unlocked it. She found Serena standing there. Sounds of merriment floated up from the reunion party downstairs.

  “They’re checking out now,” Serena said. “Gus wanted to thank you personally.”

  Emily quickly wiped her tears away.

  “Coming,” she said, rearranging her expression into her game face.

  Out in the hall, the brightness and warmth of the B&B encompassed her. She could hear all the joyous conversations floating up the staircase. In spite of everything that was going on, Emily felt a tug of a smile at her lips, knowing she’d done a good job, that at the very least she’d succeeded at this.

  She followed Serena downstairs to where the reunion guests were congregating in the hall with their suitcases, waiting for cabs. Gus waved her over.

  “Emily, I wanted to thank you for saving our weekend. We wouldn’t have had anywhere near as good a time if it weren’t for you. I think we’ll book next year too, if that’s okay with you?”

  Emily faltered. Next year? It hit her then that perhaps there wouldn’t be a next year. Not just because the B&B was struggling to stay afloat, but because she wasn’t sure if she’d want to be here anymore, in this place, without Daniel.

  Serena must have noticed that Emily was distracted. She walked over and said, “We haven’t got our calendar ready for next year, but as soon as we do we’ll be in touch.”

  Gus nodded and seemed satisfied with the answer. “I look forward to it.”

  Georgia Walters came up to Emily. “I’ve passed your details onto my granddaughter. She’s getting married at the end of August and she has thirty guests that need somewhere to stay.”

  Emily quickly calculated in her head whether she’d be able to get the next ten rooms ready within six weeks and reasoned that if she could fix up the entire third floor in twenty-four hours, she could fix up ten more rooms in six weeks.

  “That’s great,” Emily said. She knew she should be relieved that she wouldn’t have to wait too long for her next source of income, but she felt flat and robotic. Numb.

  From across the corridor, she saw Serena give her a thumbs-up. Her young friend’s optimism and enthusiasm helped bolster Emily, though only a little.

  Just then, Emily heard the cabs coming up the drive and went to the door to show the guests out. Once there, she noticed that Daniel’s truck was gone and the carriage house was in darkness.

  Feeling dazed, she said goodbye to each of the guests by name. But despite their compliments, cheek kisses, and handshakes, she felt unable to truly connect with any of them. She felt like she had been hollowed out. She was empty, with nothing to give. All she could do was play the part of the happy hostess and hope that no one noticed.

  Of course, her routine didn’t wash with her dear friend.

  Serena came up beside her and waved off the guests with her. “What’s going on?” she asked out the corner of her mouth.

  “I can’t tell you right now,” Emily replied. “Because if I say it, I’ll cry.”

  They kept waving as the cabs disappeared out of sight. But no sooner had they gone than another car began to drive up the path. Emily frowned, unsure as to who it could be. She watched as an elderly woman got out of the car and waved.

  “Were you expecting another guest?” Serena asked.

  Emily shook her head.

  The woman walked slowly up toward them. “Hi. Emily?” she said, holding her hand out to shake. “I’m Anne Maroney.”

  Suddenly it clicked into place. The diamond lady! Emily had completely forgotten about the appointment she’d booked before the reunion party took over every second of available brain power she possessed.

  “Serena, would you mind making some coffee?”

  “No problem,” Serena said.

  Emily could tell she still desperately wanted to know what was going on but it was just going to have to wait. Just like all the tears Emily was desperate to shed, she was going to have put them to the side for a moment longer.

  “Would you mind having the meeting on the porch?” Emily said. “I’m afraid I’ve just had a function and the B&B was fully booked. It’s not looking its best.”

  “The grounds are quite splendid,” Anne said, “so I’ll be very happy to sit out here.”

  “Wonderful. Take a seat. I’ll go fetch the diamond.”

  Emily rushed upstairs into her bedroom and took the mahogany box out of her drawer. Then she went downstairs, bumping into Serena with the coffee in the hall.

  “Emily,” Serena said. “What’s going on?”

  Emily shook her head. “I can’t talk about it right now, okay? I just have to get through this meeting with the diamond buyer, then I’ll tell you everything.”

  Emily and Serena went outside and sat on the porch bench next to Anne. Emily placed the box on the table and Anne opened it up. She gasped when she saw the diamond.

  “Gosh, this is much larger than what you told me on the phone.”

  “Is it?” Emily said. “I just read what was on the certificate.”

  She placed the certificate on the table, careful not to expose the lighthouse on the other side; the last thing she could handle right now were questions about her dad.

  Anne peered at the certificate and then shook her head. “This certificate isn’t the correct one for this diamond.”

  Emily immediately tensed. She’d already spent the money from the diamond sale on the roofing. The certificate couldn’t be inaccurate!

  “It’s not a forgery or something, is it?” Emily said, biting her lip.

  “Not as far as I can tell,” Anne said, peering at it more closely. “It’s just for a different diamond.” She looked up at Emily. “The diamond you described sounded like it was for a wedding ring.”

  Emily wondered then if her father had accidentally stored the wrong certificate with the wrong diamond, had mixed up the certificates by accident. Or maybe he had stored the piece of paper only for the drawing on the back and it had been a coincidence that he’d stored it with a diamond at all. Thoughts swirled through Emily’s mind. At the forefront was the terrible realization that she might not be getting any money from the diamond after all.

  “So?” she said, chewing her lip. “Is it worth anything?”

  Anne’s eyes widened. “Worth anything? Emily, this is a thirty-thousand-dollar diamond!”

  Next to Emily, Serena became very still. Emily too felt like she’d been turned into a statue.

  “I’m sorry?” she stammered.

  Anne nodded. “It’s utterly flawless. A real gem. Whoever bought must have been a gemologist. Either that or they just had an eye for this sort of thing. Of course, it could have been fluke or an heirloom passed down through the generations. Do you know?”

  Emily shook her head, too astonished to speak. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. After all the bad luck she’d suffered through, to find out the d
iamond was worth such a huge sum of money was like a dream come true.

  “Well,” Anne added, “I’m honestly thrilled to even be here. That is, if you’ll still let me buy it from you?”

  “Of course I will!” Emily exclaimed, elated.

  As Anne pulled out her checkbook, Serena touched Emily’s hand.

  “Don’t you want to get a second appraisal done?” she said under her breath. “Now that you know how much it’s worth?”

  Emily shook her head. She trusted Anne fully. Plus, she was making three times the amount she was expecting and that was more important to her than getting the best deal.

  Anne handed her a check. $30,000. Emily was so thrilled.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, shaking Anne’s hand.

  “And thank you!” Anne replied.

  Anne left in her car with the diamond, and Emily breathed a sigh of relief to know she was finally, at long last, back in the black.

  “So can you please tell me what’s going on now?” Serena asked, finally catching up with her.

  Emily looked at her and said simply, “He’s gone. Daniel.”

  “What?” Serena cried. “What do you mean gone? Gone where?”

  “To Tennessee. To his daughter.” Emily swished off inside the B&B, leaving Serena floundering on the doorstep.

  “I don’t understand,” Serena said, following her inside. “He has a daughter?”

  “Yup,” Emily said, as she began tidying up the hallway after the guests.

  Serena gasped. “But how?”

  “I’m sure you don’t need a biology lesson from me,” Emily said, still busying her hands by organizing the hallway.

  Serena rushed up to Emily and grabbed her hands, stopping her from fussing. “Emily, stop for a second, will you?”

  Emily finally met her eyes.

  “What are you going to do?” Serena asked.

  Emily gritted her teeth with determination. “The only thing I can do,” she said. “Prepare my B&B for thirty wedding guests.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  SIX WEEKS LATER

  Emily could not remember a summer that had passed by so quickly and left her feeling so bitterly cold. Life without Daniel seemed dull and monotonous. Every morning she awoke to yet another glorious summer day—the sunshine so incongruous with her dark mood—then went over to the balcony and looked across the lawns to the carriage house. Every morning she was greeted with the same sight: the empty driveway, the carriage house in darkness. It was as if the summer was mocking her, its brightness making the shadows of the empty carriage house even starker and more foreboding.

  As the summer sifted away, Emily threw herself into work, trying to keep herself occupied and her mind distracted by anything other than Daniel. She’d had the last ten rooms of the B&B done up, ready for the thirty wedding guests staying at the end of August, and had hosted a delightful Canadian family gathering, Anne Maroney and her partner, the lady from the department store in Maine, and some Japanese tourists visiting for the summer. She’d held Sunday brunches for the locals, ball game tournaments for the kids on the lawns, and even some evening outdoor films.

  But every evening she went to bed with the same feeling of loneliness. It was a loneliness far worse even than the first nights she’d spent here in the dusty dilapidated house, mourning the loss of her New York life, her job, and the last seven years she’d spent with Ben. This time, Emily realized she’d lost something she loved more than all of those things, something that meant more to her than her job, apartment, and ex-boyfriend ever had. If it hadn’t been for the wedding party booking keeping her here, Emily was certain she’d have packed everything in and run away by now.

  Emily walked through the B&B admiring the beautiful decorations. She and Serena had spent many hours putting up the crisp white ribbons for the wedding party taking place tomorrow, and the house had transformed into a palace. On one wall, Serena had crafted a beautiful family tree out of wood. It had curling branches and the names of everyone in the wedding party’s families on each of the leaves.

  Emily tried not to think of the significance of the date—the last day of August—but she couldn’t help it. She’d been missing Daniel so desperately it was impossible not to count down the days. But if he came back to her like he promised, it would mean he’d abandoned his daughter, and in doing so had become a man that Emily could no longer love. It would be bittersweet.

  Just then the doorbell rang and Emily’s heart leaped into her throat. She reminded herself that Daniel wouldn’t ring the doorbell, he’d just waltz right into the house. She calmed her fluttering heartbeat and opened the door.

  In front of her was a stack of pearly white chairs.

  “Chair delivery,” a bored voice said from behind. “Where do you want them all?”

  Emily pulled the door wide open. “They’re going in the ballroom,” she said.

  “Ballroom?” the voice replied as the chairs began to rotate on their trolley. Finally the delivery man was revealed, a thin guy with a birdlike appearance.

  “Yes, this way.”

  Emily showed him to the ballroom, where the indoor part of the party was to take place.

  “Whoazer,” the delivery man said as he wheeled the stack into place on his trolley. “This is incredible!”

  On such a bright day, the Tiffany glass was refracting tiny rainbows all over the room. It looked magical. Emily couldn’t help but think, painfully, of the time when she and Daniel had been in this room, talking enthusiastically about the possibility of using it as a wedding venue. Now that dream had become a reality, but Daniel was not here to share it with her. She felt his absence too keenly, like a hole in her heart. And no matter how much she threw herself into work, that yearning never seemed to diminish.

  Emily helped put the chairs into their positions and saw the delivery guy out. Just then her phone started to ring and she saw that it was Karen calling her.

  “Emily,” Karen said a little breathlessly. “I’ve finally done it.”

  “Done what?” Emily asked.

  “I’ve got the meeting. For your sign.”

  “Oh!” Emily exclaimed. It had almost slipped her mind that Karen had agreed so many weeks ago to help sort out the ongoing dispute about her sign. Trevor had done such a thorough job at blocking the application process that Emily had just become accustomed to all the setbacks, to the dry voicemails Marcella would leave her explaining there’d been a change of plans due to a new formal complaint being submitted. And what with Daniel’s absence she hadn’t really noticed the absence of the sign also.

  “It’s tomorrow,” Karen continued.

  “Tomorrow!” Emily exclaimed. It was just her luck that the meeting would be scheduled for a Saturday, on the one day she already had a ton of work to do. “What time?”

  “Nine a.m.,” Karen said. “I know it’s short notice. Can you make it?”

  “Of course,” Emily replied, though she felt a little exasperated. At least it didn’t clash with the wedding party. She’d be able to do both. And anyway, she could do with having as many distractions tomorrow as possible.

  “Great,” Karen said, sounding more excited than Emily felt. “We’re going to get your sign back. I promise. I’ll see you then.”

  She hung up and Emily glanced at the receiver in her hand, feeling somewhat deflated and harried. She wondered whether Trevor had engineered it so the meeting would fall at such an awkward time, ensuring that she’d have the least amount of preparation time as possible. She didn’t put anything past him.

  Emily got back to the work in hand. She glanced through the long list of preparations. Everything had to be perfect for tomorrow. She knew that if it had been her wedding taking place, she’d want everything perfect.

  There were more deliveries coming tomorrow—the cake, the ice sculpture, and all the flowers—but for today, everything that needed to be done had. And that meant she had a night off to prepare for the upcoming meeting.

&nb
sp; Just then her cell phone rang. It was Amy. Emily answered it, relieved to have a friendly voice to speak to.

  “I have a secret,” Amy said the second Emily answered the phone.

  “Okay…” Emily said, a little suspicious.

  “I’ll let Jayne explain,” Amy said.

  More confused than ever, Emily frowned as she listened to the sound of the cell being passed over. Then Jayne’s voice came over the line.

  “Guess what!” Jayne exclaimed.

  “Can I have a clue?” Emily asked.

  “Um, okay, hold on.”

  Emily heard the sound of a car horn tooting, then Amy’s voice exclaiming, “Hey! Don’t do that! We’ll get pulled over!”

  Jayne came back on the line. “Have you guessed yet?”

  Emily rubbed her face with her hand. She was stressed and didn’t have the time or energy for Jayne at the moment. “I don’t know. You’re in a car.”

  “Yes!” Jayne exclaimed. “And why might we be in a car?”

  “Because you’re going on a road trip,” Emily said, still struggling to muster any kind of enthusiasm.

  “And where might we be on a road trip to?” Jayne asked.

  “I don’t know,” Emily said with a large sigh. “Philadelphia?”

  “Nope,” Jayne said. “Sunset Harbor!”

  She squealed the last bit so loudly Emily almost dropped the phone. Then there was a long pause while Emily collected her thoughts.

  “Oh.” She tried to say it brightly, but her mind was frantic. She couldn’t have Jayne and Amy over for the night! Not with the wedding and the meeting and everything that was going on with Daniel.

  “You don’t sound pleased,” Jayne said, sounding deflated.

  “It’s not that,” Emily said. “I love you girls, you know that. I’m just really swamped at the moment.”

  “Oh, come on,” Jayne said in her eye-rolling voice. “You’re rattling around in that big house all by yourself. You need some company.”

  It was true that Emily could do with some human company—Mogsy and Rain were delightful but they weren’t quite the same. She just wished they’d been able to get their act together and visit her some time in the last six weeks when she’d had time a-plenty and desperately needed some shoulders to cry on! It just felt so typical, Emily thought, for everything to happen at once.