by Katy Regnery
“Sixty years.” Brittany sighed as she flipped over the sandwich as Cheryl had taught her. “That’s so romantic. Anything I can help with?”
“Well…let’s see…I’ve got Mrs. T in the office doing check-in, Doug on top of housekeeping, Ian handling the luggage…”
“And who is offering warmth and hospitality?” asked Brittany, sliding the first sandwich onto a plate and placing the second in the sizzling-hot pan.
“You?” he guessed with a smile in his voice.
That was one of the things she liked most about Rory—the way that his voice conveyed so much emotion. One minute, it was low and serious—furious that Ben had hurt her or worried about Ian’s sobriety. Another minute, it was tinged with humor, gently laughing at her for not knowing how to make a frozen dinner or pointing out that if she didn’t wander through poison ivy, she wouldn’t have a rash around her ankles. And other moments, like now, it was filled with warmth. If a voice could smile, Rory Haven’s knew how, and it just about made her breathless to hear it.
“Yes. Me,” she confirmed. “And how about bouquets of wildflowers in every room? I can arrange them. I’m good at that.”
“I believe it. You’re amazing at everything.”
“Arranging wildflowers doesn’t make me amazing,” she said, smiling to herself as she flipped over his sandwich.
“If it adds something to the guest experience, but not to my workload, it definitely makes you amazing.”
Though she’d denied the compliment, inside, her heart swelled from his words.
When she’d arrived at Summerhaven four weeks ago, she’d been a shell of herself. Rejected, abandoned, and betrayed by the two men who were supposed to spend their lives loving her, she truly questioned whether she would ever find happiness. And perhaps most terrifying of all, with the loss of her fiancé, she hadn’t been able to visualize the future she wanted anymore. Instead of seeing a beautiful house in the Boston suburbs with Ben and their children, she saw…nothing.
Loneliness.
Sorrow.
Unending longing.
But then she’d arrived at Summerhaven and fallen into Rory Haven’s waiting arms. Strengthened by the blessing of new and unexpected friendships, day by day she’d grieved less and healed more. In fact, surrounded by Mrs. Toffle, Doug, Jamie, Cheryl, and the marvelous Havens, she found she wasn’t lonely at all anymore.
But strangest of all was the dawning realization that she was—right here, right now—the happiest she’d ever been in all her adult life. And while she treasured all the personalities that made up the fabric of Summerhaven, none so affected her heart as Rory. It didn’t hurt that he was achingly beautiful, with his dark hair and flashing green eyes, but it was so much more than his rugged good looks. He made her feel like she wasn’t worthless, like she had something to offer, like she was wanted and even needed. He made her feel like she belonged somewhere, which was the greatest balm of all to her healing heart.
And no, she didn’t know what her future looked like anymore, nor did she try to visualize it or force it into being by the sheer power of her longing for it. Every day held a new surprise or discovery—like the fact that two different kind of cheeses made a grilled cheese sandwich taste better or the fact that Rory was more cheerful on rainy days—and instead of living for the promise of tomorrow, she lived for the miracles of today…little blessings everywhere.
She slid the second sandwich onto a plate and turned off the burner, bringing both sandwiches to the table and sitting down across from Rory.
“Bon appétit.”
She watched his face as he lifted the grilled cheese to his mouth and took a bite, taking immense pleasure in the way his eyes fluttered closed in bliss. “Mmm. Britt. Oh, man, that’s good!”
Beaming with pride, she chuckled softly. “I told you.”
He took another wolfish bite. “You are welcome to come and make me a grilled cheese anytime, woman.”
Woman.
It was such a raw and sexy thing to call her. Primitive. Elemental.
Her pride had taken a terrible blow when she discovered that Ben had slept with Angie while they were still engaged. Comparing herself to dark, petite Angie had made her feel clumsy and unsexy; she blamed her curves (and love of pasta) for Ben’s wandering eye and wondered if she was woman enough to hold on to a man.
But Rory had a way of talking, a way of looking at her, that made her feel like the most desirable woman on creation. And though she knew her heart probably couldn’t bear a third rejection so soon, his attraction to her, coupled with his kindness, touched her deeply. She felt herself falling toward him, into him, for him. She couldn’t help it. Every time they were together, the air hissed and crackled between them like it was charged by a live wire, and it was getting harder to ignore it…especially because she liked it so damn much.
She didn’t believe that Rory was dating anyone, though she wasn’t with him all the time, of course. It was completely possible that he had a casual relationship with someone she just didn’t know about. Ignoring the way that thought fell like a rock to the pit of her stomach, she looked up from her sandwich.
“So…wildflowers and warm smiles. Anything else?”
He grabbed a napkin from the basket in the center of the table and swiped at his mouth. “Well…Doug’s off tomorrow night, and I was going to ask Ian to help me rope lights in the barn. I promised white twinkle lights for the dance they’re having on Saturday night. But if you wanted to help me—”
“Yes! I’m your girl!”
He’d been raising the last bite of sandwich to his lips, but he froze, staring at her with wide eyes. Finally he blinked, popping the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and chewing slowly.
Your girl? Geez, Brittany. Way to be subtle.
“I mean…I’m not your girl. That’s ridiculous. I just—I’m happy to help.”
“Huh,” he muttered, standing up to take his plate to the sink. “Sure you wouldn’t mind?”
“Nope. It’s a date!”
A date? A date, Brittany? She cringed. Desperate much?
He paused at the sink with his back to her, but unless her eyes deceived her, she saw the muscles of his back ripple and his shoulders snap back. He turned around, his eyes wide and searching. “Um, a date?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “No. Oh my God. No. Not a date. I wasn’t trying to…I didn’t mean we were—I only meant, tomorrow is the date that we will rope lights together in the barn.”
He raised his eyebrows with an inscrutable look. “Okay. So…you’re not my girl, and tomorrow’s not a date.”
“Exactly,” she reconfirmed, hating—with every beat of her heart—that she wasn’t his girl and that tomorrow wasn’t a date.
But after all, she reminded herself, just because her heart had seized on him lately in a reprisal of her teenage crush didn’t mean (1) that she was ready to date anyone and, much more important, (2) that he was at all interested in dating her anyway.
“Okay. How about I pick up my not-girl for our not-date at five tomorrow? I’ll drive us over to the barn.”
“Sure,” she said weakly, wishing she could just erase the last two minutes of her life. “That’s fine.”
***
Last night had been interesting, to say the least. The double whammy combination of “I’m your girl” and “It’s a date” had actually made Rory’s body shudder with longing. But then, he thought acidly, all was right again in his world when she clarified that she’d misspoken. Because why would beautiful, rich, incredibly amazing Brittany Manion be interested in small-time camp owner Rory Haven?
As he’d reminded himself a thousand times over the past month, she was a temporary fixture at Summerhaven. She was only here to get over her broken engagement, and once she was strong enough to return to her world, she’d leave.
He just wished that this realization was enough to keep him from falling for her, but sadly, it was not. And the day she left, he’d face a long road of
mending the remains of his own tattered heart.
It didn’t matter. Even knowing that he’d feel her loss everywhere once she left, it didn’t stop him from spending all the time with her that he could. It didn’t even stop him—rule-follower and realist that he generally was—from making the most of that time and hoping, in the deepest reaches of his heart where fantasies lived, that she wouldn’t leave. That somehow, someway, she’d stay with him. Forever.
It was a delicate situation. On one hand, he still considered her an injured woman and wouldn’t dream of “making a move” on her. But on the other, the idea of letting her go without a fight made his self-loathing rise like the tide during a full moon. So he lived in limbo, quietly yearning and falling a little harder for her every day.
He looked over at her, dressed in dark jeans and a white button-down shirt, standing on a ladder and using thumbtacks to secure a rope of white lights around a ceiling rafter. As she raised her arms to wind the string again, her shirt untucked from the waistband of her pants and rode up a little to reveal a strip of soft white skin. His heart raced and his fingers twitched, but he looked away quickly—she was catching him staring more and more lately, and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable.
“How was book club on Thursday?” he asked, trying to get a safe conversation going.
“Great. We talked about Leylah Attar’s The Paper Swan.”
“Good book?”
“Phenomenal,” she said. “It was so raw and passionate, and…” She sighed. “Yeah. It was something, all right.”
“Mrs. T loves it that you joined her group,” he said. “You fit in really well here, Britt.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he grimaced. Talk about desperate!
“I love being here,” she said. “Truly. I’m so grateful. I was—well, I was mess when I arrived, wasn’t I?”
He didn’t answer, just opened another accordion-style paper lantern, thinking, Yeah, you were, because you’d been hurt by your asshole fiancé. And then suddenly, without warning, without thinking, he heard himself asking her, “So…have you heard from Dr. Douche since you’ve been here?”
“Dr.—” She chortled, turning to look at him with wide eyes. “Oh, my God. You’re as terrible as Ian when you want to be! ‘Dr. Douche.’” She hooted with laughter before sobering up. “That’s not very nice, Rory.”
“Does he deserve nice?”
What was left of her smile faded quickly. “Not even a little bit.”
“You never told me what happened.”
“I never told you the sad tale of my pathetic love life?” She took a deep breath. “Hand me another rope.” He crossed to the table and picked up another strand of white lights, handing it to her while she gazed down at him. “Well, in a nutshell, my husband and I divorced because he didn’t want kids. But not long after, I found a picture of him on Facebook, married with a baby. That same night, I met Ben, and I thought it was fate. A pediatrician with two kids of his own? Oh, yeah. This guy was 100 percent, bona fide father material. Or so I thought.” She paused before continuing. “But I found out two things on the morning we broke up: one, that he’d had a vasectomy…and two, that he’d cheated on me with his ex-wife.”
“Britt,” he gasped, feeling her words like a sucker punch to the jaw. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Turns out he didn’t want any more kids…nor did he want to be with me.”
“What an asshole,” Rory growled, feeling pure hatred bubbling up from his gut like lava.
“You got it.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Exactly. The mother of his girls, to be specific.”
It took him a second, but as soon as he got her dark joke, he laughed, though his amusement was short-lived. “Damn, Britt. I am so sorry.”
“For what?” She shrugged, uncoiling the lights, her voice lighter when she spoke again. “Did he hurt me? Yes. But even I’m smart enough to see that we weren’t meant to be.”
“Sure…but at what cost?” He thought about that look on her face sometimes—the one that reminded him of an abused puppy. “You know that none of that is your fault, right?”
He grabbed the side of the ladder she was standing on, gazing up at her. She held the lights limply in her hands as her eyes brightened with tears, and he felt compelled to say more, to do more, to try to help her see herself the way he saw her.
“He was a damned fool to let you go, Britt.”
She gulped softly, nodding at him before mustering a brave smile. “That’s kind. Thanks, Rory.”
“Don’t do that,” he said sharply. “They’re not just words. I mean them.”
She sniffled, smiling a little wider. “Well, I meant what I said too. I dodged a bullet with Ben. Honestly, whatever hurt I feel is more because of his rejection than losing him. That’s the truth.”
It blew Rory’s mind that any man who had a chance with her could dream of risking her. That two such men still roamed the earth made Rory fear for the stupidity of his gender.
“It wasn’t about you, Britt.”
“I just got two duds, huh?” She looked skeptical. “You’re sweet, but since they have me in common, odds are that it is about me…at least, in part.”
Rory vehemently disagreed.
He was convinced that she’d just had bad luck, and that yes, her two choices had been “duds,” as she said. But the look on her face told him he wasn’t going to be able to convince her of it right here, right now, so he didn’t try.
Eager to change the subject and lighten the mood, however, he asked her, “Hey, do you mind if I put on some music? I made a playlist of hits from 1957 for the dance on Saturday.”
“Go for it,” she said. “Hey, are there more thumbtacks somewhere?”
He walked over to the folding table in the center of the barn and grabbed a handful for her, then took his iPhone out of his pocket and chose the playlist for the Carrolls’ Saturday evening dance, synching it to the barn’s Bluetooth speakers.
The Diamonds’ “Little Darlin’” started playing, the sounds of castanets and a cow bell instantly filling the room. Rory took a deep breath and smiled, remembering his parents dancing to 1950s music in their kitchen when he and his siblings were little.
“My parents loved fifties music,” said Rory. “They weren’t even born until the midsixties, but I guess my grandmother had it on all the time.”
“Your mother’s mother?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Patsy Kelley. She was from Killarney.”
“Your mom’s accent was strong,” said Brittany. “I remember it.”
“Still is,” said Rory, thinking of the last time he’d visit his parents over a weekend in March. “Her speech is improving.”
“I’m so sorry about her stroke.”
Rory climbed back up his own ladder and nailed a paper lantern over the strand of lights that Brittany had left hanging in her progress.
“Yeah, it sucks,” he said, a shiver rocking him as he remembered his race to the hospital at Dartmouth. “How’re your parents?”
“Fine. My mother lives in France with her boyfriend, and my dad is remarried in Seattle.”
“You don’t see them much?”
“I spent Christmas with my father and his wife, and I go visit my mother a couple of times a year…” Her voice drifted off, the unspoken words louder than the ones she’d shared: she was pretty alone in the world when it came to family. “Can I ask you a totally random question?”
“Anything,” he said as the Del Vikings’ started singing “Come Go with Me.”
“How come you…?” She took a deep breath and let it go quickly. “I mean—no. Forget it.”
Rory climbed down the ladder and grabbed another lantern. “After that windup? Nope. Unacceptable. Now you have to ask.”
She glanced at him, offering a shy smile. “Okay. I was just wondering…how come you never talked to me? I mean, when I was a camper here. Ian was friendly—maybe a little too friendly,” she a
mended with a small chuckle, “but you and Tierney acted like we were all invisible.”
Oh, man. If she only knew how he’d lusted after her, watching her, wondering about her, wishing he had the courage to defy his parents, break their rules, and make a move on her.
“My mother’s ultimate rule: ‘No fraternizin’ with the guests.’”
“Why?”
“Well, for two reasons. The first was that if one of us dated a guest and things went sideways, she and my dad could lose business. The second reason, which I think was much more important to her, was that she was always aware of her place. I know that sounds weird in America, but Ireland’s a lot more class conscious, and she wasn’t from a wealthy family. My grandmother was the cook at a”—he adopted a strong brogue, rolling his r like his mother—“gr-r-r-reat house. My mother was taught not ter mix wi’ her betters, an’ that’s what she taught us too.”
“Her…betters?”
He nodded. “People wealthier, more educated, of a higher social class…”
“God, you must have hated us,” muttered Brittany, her expression bordering on horrified, “having to drive us around and plan our activities, but not even able to have a conversation.”
“Nah,” said Rory. “I hated the rule, not the people. And certainly not you.”
She gave him a small smile. “What happened if you broke her rules?”
“You remember my mother, right?” Rory laughed as he nailed another lantern into place. “She’s an Irish mother. She’d die for us, sure, but when we were bad? Well, she wasn’t afraid to use the spoon.”
“The spoon?” asked Brittany with wide eyes.
“A wooden kitchen spoon…on our arses. An Irish mother’s favorite threat.”
“Did she ever actually—?”
“Are selkies sea-lovin’? Of course! I’d offer to show you the scars, but I’d have to drop my pants.”
“Scars?” gasped Brittany, flicking a look at his ass.
“No. Not really. No scars.” Rory laughed as he climbed down the ladder to collect another lantern. “Though, the spoon was real. I was on the receiving end more than once. Now, Ian?” He chuckled again. “Jaysus, Mary, an’ Joseph, yer man an’ that spoon had a pure close relationship.”