The One Who Stays

by Blake, Toni

  A sardonic laugh escaped her. “You can say that again.” Then she cut to the chase. “I thought I had life all figured out, but then I was diagnosed with leukemia.”

  Funny thing about that word. It had a way of draining all the energy from a room, or a conversation, or a moment—like this one. Her own heart felt heavier in her chest for dropping it on him that way, like a bomb. But he’d asked.

  He stayed quiet for a moment, just looking at her, and his voice came gentler than she’d heard it so far. “I’m real sorry to hear that, Meg.” Then he went on, a little more quickly. “But...you must have beat it, right? Because here you are. Taking down shutters—even if you did it pretty badly.” A slight grin. “And running an inn and drinking wine with me, and everything normal. Right?”

  “Right.” She could tell he wanted to be assured—people usually did and she understood that. “I’m fine now. But...it took a while. And things got worse before they got better.”

  He nodded, and she saw him steeling himself—just a slight thing, almost imperceptible, but she’d witnessed it before when telling the story. Usually to someone she knew better than Seth Darden. But maybe, in a way, telling it to a stranger was a little easier somehow, and again, he put her at ease. Or the wine did. Whatever.

  So much at ease, in fact, that she decided not to skip over the hardest part. Well, it had all been hard—but the rotten cherry on top had made it so much worse. It was really an easy enough part of the story to leave out, or gloss over, yet she heard herself saying it anyway. “The night before my first chemo treatment, my fiancé deserted me.”

  Across the table, her dinner companion’s jaw dropped. But he kept his eyes on her—and she tried to maintain the gaze, too, but couldn’t. It fell to her plate as she kept talking. “I came home to a note on the bedside table telling me he was sorry but he just couldn’t handle it. He’d packed his bags, moved out, and pretty much disappeared from my life all in a single afternoon when I was having a last outing with girlfriends before my treatment started.”

  She stopped then, swallowed as her throat thickened—damn, she still felt it. After all these years, she still felt the abandonment.

  “That’s... God, that’s awful.” Seth was shaking his head. “What a bastard.”

  She nodded. Drew’s bastardism had long been confirmed. “The plan had been for him to take me to chemo—you know, be there for me, help me through it. So to just make things all the more crummy, I had to call my mom and tell her what happened, and she had to pretty much drop her whole life to come be with me. And she didn’t mind doing it—she’d offered already—but the lack of warning, plus dealing with a heartbroken daughter with cancer...” Meg stopped, shook her head. It was all...heavy. Just talking about it, remembering it, was heavy.

  Well, that was enough heavy. She took a deep breath, let it back out. Tried to wear a pleasant expression as she went on. “The upshot is that I got through it. It took months of chemo and radiation, and it was rough, but I got through it and got better, and it’s never come back.”

  Now he was smiling again, reassured again. And she was reminded of how immeasurably grateful she was for that, for having it be only a distant part of her past, a bad thing she went through, but that life had gone on and cancer hadn’t defined her.

  “I still don’t know, though, darlin’...”

  She finished for him. “How I ended up here.”

  “Right.”

  “There can be a pretty long recovery period after chemo and radiation, so my grandma suggested I come stay with her for some R and R.”

  “Can’t think of a more peaceful place for that.”

  “It was perfect for that time in my life,” she agreed. “An easy place to let my body heal and my hair grow. I’d had to give up my job, and so I gave up the apartment, too, and just saw it as a time to recover and then start over. And as I regained strength, I started helping around the inn—it was a good sort of therapy for...getting back to the business of living. I could tell my grandmother enjoyed showing me how she ran the place, and I liked learning from her.” She stopped, remembering that time, remembering it in her heart, her bones. “When I think back on it, I cherish those months with her.”

  “And then what?” He sounded so truly interested in her life that it made it hard not to want to keep going. Except...

  “You might be sorry you asked.” She was both serious and teasing.

  He smiled. “I’m tough—I can take it.”

  She made herself smile then. That sad sort of bittersweet smile when you’re finding the good in the bad, when you’re realizing you can’t have it all and have to make tough choices. “She died. My grandma. Three weeks before I was setting off to Chicago to look for a new apartment and start back at my old firm. It was sudden—a heart attack. She was on a bike ride with a group of friends from the island when it happened. We didn’t get to say goodbye.”

  “God. Sorry,” he whispered.

  And oh dear Lord, what had she just done here? She didn’t even know this guy and she’d let things get terribly personal very quickly, and terribly maudlin. So it seemed wise to just barrel through the rest. “It was a hard loss. But in the end, after all the crying, someone had to take over the inn. It was my grandmother’s second love behind my grandpa, after all. And my sister was only eighteen at the time, and wouldn’t have wanted to do it anyway. And my parents weren’t up for that kind of lifestyle change—plus my mother was raised here and didn’t want to come back permanently. So that left me.”

  Seth tilted his head in the other direction. “So you...gave up your big city plans to stay here and run your grandma’s inn.”

  She nodded, then acknowledged the obvious. “It was a major change in direction, certainly. But when it came down to running the inn or selling it and letting go of the place entirely, I couldn’t do it. And so...an unwitting innkeeper was born.” She tossed off a light laugh, hoping she sounded okay with the decision—because she was.

  And the further truth she didn’t share—finally finding the wits to hold something back—was that it had been a choice, not an obligation. Because the moment she’d decided to stay, a rush of relief had raced through her body like wildfire. And she’d realized it simply felt easier. Life here. The peacefulness. The isolation. She wouldn’t have to risk running into Drew on a busy city street. She wouldn’t have to risk needing someone the way she’d needed him, and then possibly have them leave her. She’d never have to risk feeling that alone again—because Summer Island had already turned into a home to her; she’d already become part of the fabric of the community.

  “Any regrets?”

  She shook her head. “Never.”

  And to her surprise, Seth lowered his chin and narrowed his gaze on her, playfully challenging her. “Never?”

  She smiled at that, took another sip of wine. It continued to draw out honesty. “Well, let’s just say...if there are any drawbacks to living in such an isolated place, I long ago accepted them. And I really love running the inn. And I’m happy to keep the place the way Gran would have wanted.”

  “Ya know, it’s none of my business, Meg darlin’, but...did Gran ever say she wanted you to run the inn when she was gone? Did she ever make you feel like it was expected of you?”

  Meg shook her head. “No. She wouldn’t have wanted to put that burden on me or my family. Only...she died fairly young. Early sixties. So she never really...had a chance to tell us her wishes. We all thought she’d have a lot more years.”

  She drank more wine then—mainly to fill the space when she quit talking, and he didn’t say anything more right away. She’d accidentally told him so much so fast. And she somehow felt he’d taken in even more than she’d actually said. That he perhaps already knew life for her was a little bit hard here. And that it hadn’t held all she’d hoped.

  But you have a full life. A better life than so many p
eople. You have everything you need.

  That was when she noticed Seth staring at her. Even more intensely than usual. He didn’t let his gaze waver. It went so far as to make her a little nervous—enough that she drained the last sip from her glass and poured another. Part of her wanted to call him on it, say: What the hell are you looking at? It was so...direct. And again, intense. Yet another part of her...liked it. She wasn’t sure any man had ever seemed so dedicated to studying her before.

  And finally, when her heart was beating too hard and she didn’t feel she could stand it another second, she widened her eyes on him, and playfully said, “What?”

  He drew his gaze down, but only for a second before raising it back to her eyes, flashing the slightest of grins. “Just questions running through my mind is all.”

  “Are you going to ask them?”

  He made a slight face, as if weighing it. “Probably shouldn’t. They’re nosy and personal as hell. And I’m probably getting a little drunk on this warm wine of yours.”

  And since she was, too, and he’d made her day—and now her evening—far more interesting than she could have anticipated this morning, she said, “I’ve just told you some of the most personal stuff in my life. So ask your questions.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, leaning back in his chair, food seemingly forgotten now. “Guess I’m just wondering what such a beautiful woman is doing here alone. But then I gotta think—are you alone? Why were there two steaks? Why am I eating one of ’em and not some other guy?”

  Beautiful, he’d called her. Charmers gonna charm. But she didn’t mind.

  Had Zack ever called her beautiful? She wasn’t sure—and it seemed like a thing she’d remember. Moreover, it seemed like a thing he should have said.

  She pointed to the near empty wine bottle sitting between them and told Seth, “Okay, because of this, you get full disclosure. Even fuller than you just got.”

  “Sounds like it’s my lucky night,” he said with that slow Southern drawl—and she tried not to read too much into it or think too deeply about that, either. Possibly he was flirting with her, but her bigger concern at the moment was that full disclosure she’d just promised him. She’d already spilled so much. Maybe she’d never really been very good at holding information back or knowing how to keep things private. Her adult life, spent in the same place with the same handful of people who already knew everything about her, had held so little need for it—if she’d ever known how to play her cards close to her chest, it was a skill she’d obviously lost somewhere along the way.

  “I’m not always alone,” she explained. “I’m alone right now because the man I was going to have dinner with tonight left this morning, unexpectedly. The steaks were already thawed.”

  “Some kind of emergency?” he asked. She couldn’t read his expression—he, on the other hand, was clearly as skilled at holding things back as he was at taking down shutters.

  She shook her head. “No. He just...left. Because...sometimes he does. That’s the nature of our relationship.” Then she tried for a smile, as if to say that was just fine with her, but was pretty sure she didn’t pull it off.

  “So you’re not, like, married?”

  “Heavens no,” she confirmed quickly with a vigorous shake of her head. Zack would probably faint if someone thought they’d taken vows, after all.

  “And so, then you’re...” He was fishing, curious, trying to figure it out.

  And she’d promised him full disclosure. Even fuller than leukemia and desertion. So she said, “To be entirely honest, I’m not exactly sure what we are. Sometimes we’re a couple—sometimes not. It’s...ambiguous.”

  “And you wish it was...more spelled out.”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “And he won’t give you that.”

  Another nod.

  “Well, that’s a shame,” he said. “For you, I mean. Not so much for me.”

  He gazed across the table at her through sexy, half-closed eyes now, delivering a look she felt down below, squarely between her thighs. Part of her wanted to stare back, hold that gaze, let herself be entranced by it—but again, it was too intense. So she looked to her plate, picked up her corn on the cob, and took a bite. Eating corn on the cob was not sexy.

  Yet despite trying to desex the moment, she then heard herself ask, “And just how do you fit into the equation?”

  “Like I said, you’re a beautiful woman. And I’ll be around for a while. That’s all.” But his eyes on her said that wasn’t all. That wasn’t even close to all.

  And she didn’t want to be that woman who couldn’t take a compliment, but she saw herself as more of a pretty-on-her-good-days type and seldom beautiful—and charmers gonna charm, so she found herself saying, “Are you sure that’s not the wine talking?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure—you’ve been beautiful all day, darlin’,” he said without missing a beat.

  She smiled—it was hard not to like that, especially under the influence of some very potent alcohol—but it was probably time to shut this down. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. Darden?”

  “Yes ma’am, I do believe I’ve advanced to flirting,” he answered, that slow, confident grin still firmly in place.

  So she asked him pointedly, “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  Well then. She’d been right earlier about him being younger. “Afraid I’m way too old for you.”

  Yet he argued. “I doubt that, darlin’. How old do you think is too old?”

  “I’ll turn the big four-zero on my next birthday.”

  And to her surprise, he released a hardy burst of laughter, as if she’d told him a great joke. “Thirty-nine is far from old, and even if it wasn’t—haven’t you heard that age is just a number?”

  Okay, sure, it wasn’t as if they were light years apart—but maybe Meg felt older than the candles on her birthday cake indicated. Or maybe it was about knowing he was a charmer—likely a seducer. She didn’t like letting anyone think that sort of thing worked on her. Again, charm was fine as long as you didn’t buy into it too much.

  And of course, there was Zack. Even if...well, as she’d just told Seth, she didn’t know what they were—or, for that matter, what they would ever be. Her instinct was to behave as if she had a boyfriend, but the truth was, she actually didn’t.

  “Nonetheless, flattering though it is, I’m afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re looking for some kind of summer fling with an older woman.”

  “I actually hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he said coolly, “but sounds like a damn good idea.”

  And she saw it in her mind then, unbidden—their bodies moving together, naked, sweaty.

  Whoa. She pushed it down. It was too startling. Exciting maybe, but startling. And insane—an entirely crazy idea.

  She rewarded him with another small smile just for the repartee he was so skilled at. But then she brought things to an end. “We should say goodnight. Lot of work to do tomorrow, after all.”

  To which he let out a slight laugh and replied, “That we do, that we do.” Good—he got the message. “Can I help you clean up?”

  “Not necessary,” she said quickly. It really felt like time for him to go. That vision in her head was too recent and still had her body tingling.

  And he looked almost like he was tempted to argue, try to insist, but instead, after a long pause he simply said, “All right.” Still wearing that same comfortable little smile that so often graced his handsome face.

  As he swiped a napkin across his mouth, then set it atop his plate, she stood up. To move this along.

  And when he pushed to his feet as well, she told him, “See you in the morning. And be careful walking back in the dark.” Night had fully descended at some point when she’d been busy being flirted with on the last evening of her life when she’d have exp
ected it.

  “Moon’s shining bright—I’ll be fine,” he promised.

  She just nodded.

  “Thanks for dinner—best damn thing I’ve had to eat in a while and I appreciate it.”

  She found herself casting a soft smile. “It was...nice to have the company.” Ugh, shut up. “You’re welcome” would have been just fine.

  He started to go then, walking toward the edge of the patio, where a paved stone path led around to the front of the inn—but he stopped and looked back. “The stuff you told me, from when you were younger—I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

  A short nod from her. Keep it simple. “Thanks.”

  Then the corners of his mouth curved up, just a little. “And I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable. With the flirting,” he said. “If I did, I apologize.”

  “No worries,” she told him. “I’m sure it was just the wine and all will be forgotten tomorrow.”

  That was when he narrowed his gaze on her one last time to say, “Not a chance, darlin’,” just before he disappeared around the corner of the house.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TURNED OUT THE walk back around the island the next morning was downright nice. Nicer than yesterday anyway. Nicer because today there was less guesswork. Nicer because he’d already gotten what he’d come for—a paying job. And...a foothold at the Summerbrook Inn.

  He’d known that it had always been yellow. But he’d asked just to make sure. To test his memory.

  The morning air was cold and fresh with spring, and the lush foliage along the small road that circled the island felt new, like it had probably just burst to life in the last few days. His eyes fell on two herons standing in ankle-deep water at the shore’s edge, and a small faded red rowboat someone had tied to a weathered post twenty yards out.

  He hadn’t noticed his surroundings so much on the walk yesterday—because he’d been too busy coming up with a plan. He’d been busy dredging up old skills he’d tried for a while now to bury—and suddenly he was using them again, for better or worse.