by Gina Wilkins
She made no effort to hide her disappointment. “I hope I haven’t embarrassed you.”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “It’s just—”
“Still stinging from the divorce?” she suggested.
He decided to give her that. “Yeah, that’s it,” he said too eagerly. “It hasn’t been very long.”
She sighed. “I felt the same way after my marriage ended. They say the best thing to do is get right into the dating scene, but some people seem to need more time to heal.”
“Yeah. I’m still ... healing.”
He felt like a jerk for lying to her, but he simply couldn’t think of another way to let her know that he wasn’t interested.
Sharyn smiled graciously. “If you change your mind...”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
She didn’t stay long after that.
Dean gave a sigh of relief. Truth was, he didn’t want to be with any woman right now. But even as that thought crossed his mind, he knew he was lying to himself. The real problem was, the only woman he could want was the one woman he would never—could never—have.
Dean wasn’t in any hurry to turn in that evening. He wasn’t ready to face another night of lying awake, waiting for a visit that didn’t come.
Everyone else had already gone to bed, leaving him in the sitting room, watching old sitcom reruns on cable. Growing bored with the idealistic, Black-and-white worlds depicted there, he turned the TV off and wandered into the kitchen, thinking maybe a glass of milk would help him sleep.
Someone was sitting in the kitchen, silent and dressed all in white.
For a moment, his pulse jerked. “An—”
He stopped when he saw the honey-blond hair.
“Cara,” he said after a moment, trying to make his voice sound normal, trying to hide his disappointment. “What are you doing up at his hour?”
She whirled, one hand on her heart, the other clasping the front of her thick white robe. “Oh! You startled me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was in here. Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I couldn’t sleep and I thought I’d have a glass of milk.”
He smiled. “Great minds,” he murmured without bothering to finish the saying. “That’s what I was going to do.”
She gave him a shy smile. “I’ll pour two glasses.”
“Thanks.” He opened the pantry door. “How about a cookie to go with it? Milk seems kinda lonely without a cookie.”
She chuckled. “Maybe just one.”
He grabbed a handful of cream-filled chocolate cookies. She was too thin. A few extra calories wouldn’t hurt her.
Setting three cookies in front of her, he took a chair on the opposite side of the small kitchen table. Then he tried to think of something to say. It was the first time he and Cara had actually been alone.
“So, how’s Casey settling in?” he asked lamely, figuring talking about her daughter would make her feel comfortable.
Cara smiled. “Just fine. She’s fallen hard for your aunt, you know.”
“Everyone does. Aunt Mae’s one of a kind.”
“She’s been helping Casey with her lessons in the afternoons. I wasn’t really surprised to learn that she’s a retired schoolteacher.”
Dean knew his aunt had been concerned when she’d learned that Cara had been home-schooling Casey with correspondence materials, though she’d told him that Casey seemed to be on an average level for her age. It worried Mae that Casey was such an isolated child, with no companionship of children her own age. Dean tended to agree with his aunt.
“You, uh, haven’t thought about putting Casey into Destiny Elementary?” Dean asked, wondering if she would find the question intrusive. “I’ve been told it’s a good school.”
“I have thought about it,” Cara admitted. “I’m worried about her not having any playmates. It’s just that we’ve moved around so much during the past year, it seemed easier to try to teach her myself.”
“You have a home and a job here for as long as you need one,” Dean told her, touched by the wistfulness in Cara’s voice. “Assuming, of course, that we don’t all end up homeless if the inn goes bust,” he added rue-fully.
She smiled, her blue eyes luminous. “I don’t think that will happen,” she murmured. “Something tells me you make a success of whatever you take on.”
“I try.”
She finished her milk and two of the cookies, pushing the third toward him. “I’d better go to bed,” she said. “Maybe I’ll visit the school tomorrow.”
“I’m sure Aunt Mae would be delighted to accompany you, if you want her to.”
“That would be nice,” she agreed.
She paused in the doorway before leaving the kitchen. “Dean?”
He swallowed a mouthful of the leftover cookie. “Mmm?”
“Thank you. For everything.”
He smiled. “Good night, Cara.”
She nodded and left the room, leaving Dean to wonder what, or who, had put that hopeless, frightened look in her eyes. There was something about her that brought out his protective instincts.
It wasn’t a romantic feeling he was developing toward her, he decided, trying to analyze his reactions. More of a big-brotherly attachment, similar to the stronger bond he had with his younger sister.
All in all, he decided, fraternal feelings were much easier to deal with than romantic ones.
HAVING DOWNED the milk and cookies, Dean took a warm shower before bed. He was trying everything he knew, short of pills, to make himself sleepy.
He’d forgotten to take clean underwear into the bathroom with him so he wrapped a towel loosely around his hips and went into his bedroom, where he pulled a pair of soft white cotton briefs out of a bureau drawer. He dropped the towel and bent to step into them.
Something cool and tingly touched his right hip, just below his tan line.
“That really is a cute heart-shaped birthmark,” a soft, musical voice said from behind him. “One might almost call it a Valentine mark.”
Stumbling and swearing, Dean jerked his underwear into place and turned.
Apparently unfazed by finding him nude, Mary Anna Cameron gave him a melting smile, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Hi, Dean.”
He leaned heavily against the dresser, his heart still pounding from the start she’d given him—and from the sheer excitement of seeing her again.
He hadn’t realized until that moment just how badly he’d missed her. And how afraid he’d been that she wouldn’t return.
He really was in big trouble this time.
8
What is life without the radiance of love?
—Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
“HOW LONG has it been?” Anna asked, her smile fading as she searched his face.
He knew what she was asking. “It’s been two weeks since you were here last.”
“I see.”
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back.”
She moved a step closer. “Would you have cared if I hadn’t, Dean?”
He held her gaze with his, knowing he shouldn’t answer. And yet he heard himself saying, “Yeah. I’d have cared.”
Her smile was edged with sadness. She turned away, drifting around the room, touching one thing, then another. “I’ve been there. The waiting place. With Ian. I tried to come back before, but I couldn’t, for some reason. I’ve been here a while today.”
“Have you?” He wondered how long she’d been watching him. Had she been there when he’d showered?
“I saw you with that woman. The bleached-blonde who sold you our inn. She asked you out. Women in my day weren’t so forward.”
“No?” He found it hard to believe Mary Anna Cameron had ever been shy and inhibited.
She laughed softly. “Well, most weren’t,” she admitted . And then she glanced at him. “You turned her down.”
“I wasn’t interested.”
“Because you still love
your ex-wife?”
“No. That was an excuse.”
“Oh.” She moved to another corner of the room, characteristically restless. “You were alone in the kitchen with the new housekeeper.”
“You were there, too?” The thought of her watching him that way, unseen, unheard, bothered him.
She nodded. “I wasn’t spying on you,” she said as though she’d sensed his discomfort. “I’ve been trying to catch you alone so we could talk. You seemed too deeply involved in your conversation for me to disturb you then.”
“We were just making small talk over a late-night snack.” He wasn’t explaining himself to her—not exactly, he assured himself. After all, it was none of Anna’s business who he talked to. Or went out with. Even if the only woman who really interested him was Anna, herself.
“She seems ... very nice.”
“She is.”
Anna had moved closer again, almost within touching range. “Pretty, too. Are you—”
“She’s my employee, Anna,” Dean said. “That’s all.”
She sighed, a faint, delicate sound that whispered down his bare spine. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I am the one who urged you to hire her, after all.”
“Yes. But you were right about her. She needed help. And she’s a hard worker. If she stays, shell be a real asset to the inn.”
Anna brushed his cheek with her fingertips, that cool, charged touch that was as pleasurable as it was strange. “I shouldn’t question you about other women,” she said. “You seem very much alone, Dean. It isn’t right for you to be lonely.”
“I’m—” He had to stop to clear his throat. He hoped Anna didn’t notice how her touch affected him. The thin pair of briefs he was wearing provided little cover.
“I’m not lonely,” he assured her. “I have my aunt, and my sister. A few new friends. You,” he added huskily.
She seemed suddenly fascinated by his bare chest, her hands gliding lightly over his shoulders, down his abdomen to his rib cage. He shivered. It was like being stroked with chilled feathers, leaving him cool and hot at the same time.
“You’re so muscular,” she murmured. “So strong and tanned. Not soft and pale like...” Her voice faded.
Dean frowned. “Like your fiancé?”
Her cheeks took on that glow that resembled a blush. “Jeffrey had very fair skin,” she admitted.
“Did you love him?” The question left his mouth before he knew he was going to ask it.
Again, she sighed. “I was very fond of him.”
“That was enough for you?”
“It was all I wanted. I was always afraid of passionate love, the kind my mother felt for my father. It seemed so...so consuming. So obsessive. I didn’t want to give that much of myself to anyone else.”
It felt odd, hearing his own feelings put into someone else’a words. “I’ve felt the same way.”
“You didn’t love your wife?”
“I was fond of her,” he replied, turning her own words back to her.
She smiled sadly. “It wasn’t enough, was it?”
“No. It wasn’t enough.”
Her hands still resting on his chest, she looked up at him. “Do you think you’ll ever truly love anyone?”
“I don’t—”
She tilted her head curiously when he stopped. “You don’t what?”
He made a face. “I was going to say I don’t believe in that sort of love.”
She chuckled. “The way you didn’t believe in ghosts?”
“Yeah,” he said wryly. “I’m getting tired of eating my words.”
“My mother certainly believed in that sort of love. She told us she made a wish the night we were born, a very special, Valentine wish. She wished that neither Ian nor I would leave this earth until we’d found a love like she’d known with our father, and were loved that way in return.”
Anna’s eyes seemed to darken, with sadness or regret, perhaps. “Obviously, her wish went unfilled. It’s too late for that now. If only we can clear our names, then we’ll be free to go.”
“You seem so sure of that.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense to us.”
Intensely aware of her nearness, and of the throbbing response of his long-denied body, Dean spoke gruffly. “You’re making me reluctant to help you.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?”
Very slowly, he touched her face, stroked the marble-cool, unearthly surface of her cheek. “If clearing your name means I’ll never see you again, I find it hard to work up enthusiasm for the task.”
“That’s a very sweet thing to say,” she murmured, standing very still beneath his touch.
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s the truth. You ... haunt me, Anna. Even when I can’t see you.”
She covered his hand with hers, enveloping his warmth in her coolness, emphasizing the differences between them. “Don’t,” she whispered. “We can’t—”
“I know,” he muttered, his mouth hovering only inches above hers. “Damn it, I know. But—”
A moment later, she was across the room, her back turned to him. “Have you made any headway in your investigation?” she asked, her voice sounding slightly shaky.
He scrubbed a hand over his face to clear his mind. “No,” he answered after a moment. “Not yet. But I am still trying, Anna. As much as I can. I’ve been asking questions, looking up records, articles... I’m trying.”
“I believe you.”
“I’ll talk to the chief of police tomorrow. He’s one of Charles Peavy’s grandsons. And I still haven’t had a chance to talk to Charles’s daughter, Margaret, though I don’t expect her to be much help.”
She nodded briskly. “Sounds like a good plan. I wish—”
“What?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “I wish I could go with you.”
“So do I,” he assured her.
“I have to leave now.”
He started to reach out for her. He clenched his fist at his side, instead. “You’ll be back?”
“I’ll be back.”
He wished she sounded—and looked—more confident. He wished he knew why she looked so sad tonight. So...lost.
Before he could ask her, she was gone.
He lay awake for a long time that night. Hard. Hungry. Hurting.
Knowing he was a fool to even wish things were different.
“YOU’RE BEING very quiet,” Ian commented to his sister, breaking the gray silence surrounding them. “Is something bothering you?”
Oh, yes, something was bothering her. And now it was more than the familiar need to find out the truth about what had really happened to place her and her twin in exile in this colorless, joyless place.
Dean had wanted to kiss her. And worse, she’d wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it so badly, she’d ached. She’d even moved toward him, and then she’d realized what a foolish, senseless action that had been.
Dean was a living, breathing, healthy young man with his whole future ahead of him. Anna’s life was behind her. She’d never been more keenly aware of her loss.
Maybe she was wrong about Dean being the one to free her. Maybe meeting Dean was as much a punishment for whatever wrongs she’d committed in life as the long years she’d spent in this cold, gray limbo. Perhaps she’d become too complacent in her existence, resigned, if not happy. Ian’s companionship had been enough for her...
Until now. Until she’d met Dean. And realized that she had never fully experienced life when she’d lived it. She pictured Jeffrey, and winced. She’d been fond of him, had convinced herself she would be content with his gentle embraces, his deep affection. But now her growing feelings for Dean made her realize that what she’d had with Jeffrey would never have been enough to truly satisfy her.
Wasn’t that what Ian had tried repeatedly to tell her?
What cruel twist of fate had forced her to learn that lesson now? What had she done to deserve this? Why had she been allowed to
tumble into love for the first time with a man she could never have?
What if it was her destiny to drift out of his reach for the rest of his life, to watch helplessly as he lost interest in a woman whose own life had ended years before his had begun, and turned instead to a woman of flesh and blood? Someone like Cara, so pretty, so sweet, so vulnerable that Anna couldn’t blame Dean if he fell for her. Or the other blonde—pushy, but probably pleasant company for a lonely man.
What if Anna had to watch from oblivion as Dean fell in love with someone else, married and started a family of his own?
She could think of no worse punishment, not even an eternity of grayness.
Had she really been so bad? She’d been stubborn, yes, and had occasionally lost her temper. She’d snitched a candy stick from the general store when she was six, but she’d admitted the truth to her mother that very evening. And there’d been those two incidents with Jeffrey—nights when her curiosity and his passion had overcome discretion. She’d known it was wrong, but they had planned to marry.
Did she really deserve this? She pictured Dean’s face and the aching began again.
“Anna?” Ian repeated, sounding concerned now. “What can I do?”
She forced a smile. “Just be with me,” she said, finding solace in her twin’s love.
At least she had Ian. She imagined an eternity spent in this place alone, and a shudder ripped through her. Now, that would be unbearable, she assured herself. At least she’d been spared that.
“I APPRECIATE your taking the time to see me this afternoon, Mrs. Vandover,” Dean said the next afternoon over tea in Margaret Peavy Vandover’s elegantly decorated parlor.
“It’s a pleasure to see you, Mr. Gates. I understand you have some questions about the decor of the inn? I must tell you that I remember very little about the original furnishings. I was only a child when my father sold the inn.”
Dean bit the inside of his lip. Charles had sold the inn in 1950, and Margaret had had a child of her own by that time. The mayor had already admitted to Dean that he remembered seeing the rose gardens when his grandfather owned the place.
He didn’t bother to argue with her. “I was hoping you could remember a few details about the gardens,” he said instead. “They’ve been allowed to go wild, and it’s no longer possible to tell what was originally planted. Can you remember the names of any of the roses your grandmother planted there?”