by Lucy Kevin
That was why Michael needed to speak with Cameron again. They’d helped talk Emily into taking a risk when it came to taking Gus home. But now, Michael needed to make sure that the woman he loved wasn’t about to end up being hurt because of that risk.
Emily might seem tough to outsiders, but Michael knew that she had a few really soft spots. Give her someone else’s problem to deal with, and she would be both practical and caring. And if anyone upset one of her sisters, it was like poking a mother bear. Not to mention the fact that anyone who hurt one of the Walker sisters would also have to deal with Michael.
But there were things that hurt Emily. Deeply. He knew better than anyone just how much the loss of their mother had hurt her. He’d watched her struggle every time one of her sisters left the island, even as she encouraged them to go with a wide smile on her face.
“Michael,” Cameron said, stepping out of his office as a woman left with a macaw in a cage. “Tracey said you needed to have a quick word with me? Come on through.”
Cameron’s office was clean and orderly in spite of the mess many of the animals must create. It was a total contrast to the places Michael usually worked, where all the plans and systems in the world couldn’t stop the mess and debris from building up every time he turned around. How many times had Emily stopped him at the door to the kitchen, reminding him to take off his mud and dust covered work boots before he came in? Just like a girlfriend or wife would. Only she wasn’t either of those things to him.
Not yet, anyway.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.” Cameron glanced past Michael. “Is Emily with you today?”
Michael caught the hopeful note in the other man’s voice. “She’s busy with the garden tours and Gus.”
“How are they doing together?”
“Really great. Which is why I wanted to ask, did you get a chance to make any calls to find out if Gus has been reported missing?”
“I did and also sent out some emails. No one has reported a Spaniel missing.”
“What are the odds that someone is going to claim him? Because I’m pretty sure it would crush Emily if she had to give him back. You saw how much she held back from taking him in the first place, even though she loves dogs.”
Cameron shook his head. “Honestly, the chances are slim to none—which I should have made more clear to her yesterday when she brought him in. We get dogs coming in off the ferry, and they’re almost always abandoned. Strays no one wants anymore. People who care enough about their pets almost always chip them. Gus wasn’t chipped, so…”
“We don’t have to worry about it?”
“Exactly.”
“Good,” Michael said. It was more than good, actually. It meant that Emily wasn’t going to have one more thing that mattered to her taken away. “Thanks for your help, Cameron. I appreciate it. I’d better let you get to that tortoise. I think he’s getting tired of waiting.”
“At least they don’t run off in a hurry,” Cameron joked. And then he said, “Actually, if you have another minute, there is something I wanted to talk to you about.”
For a moment Michael wondered if Cameron was having problems with his building. What else would he want to talk to him about? But then it hit him—the vet’s office looked in perfectly fine shape, whereas Cameron had looked at Emily with clear interest yesterday.
“It’s about Emily.” The other man looked a little uncomfortable, but also hopeful, as he asked, “Do you happen to know if she’s single at the moment?” Before Michael could reply, he said, “I figured that if anyone knows whether Emily has something going on at the moment, it would be you. After all, you’re practically like a brother to her. And if there isn’t anyone else, then I was thinking that maybe you could put in a good word for me? Sound Emily out, let me know what she’s thinking, so I know whether she’s likely to say yes when I ask her out on a date.”
They might be old friends, but Michael could feel his fists clenching automatically at the thought of the vet going anywhere near Emily. And, clearly, he didn’t have much of a poker face, because in those few moments after Cameron finished speaking, the other man’s eyebrows went up and he actually took a step back from Michael.
“Unless...there is something between you and Emily?”
Cameron looked genuinely surprised by the thought that the two of them could be together. Was it so hard to picture?
“I didn’t mean to put my foot in it.” Cameron raised his hands. “I won’t say anything to her. I was only thinking that if there wasn’t anyone else…”
“There is someone else,” Michael said firmly. “Me.”
Which was why, instead of heading to his work site, he needed to go see Emily first.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Emily came downstairs to the sounds of barking and laughter and was glad that the house didn’t seem quite as empty as it had the day before. She could hear Gus romping around and Michael saying, “Have you been a good boy for Emily?”
She’d spent all night thinking about Michael’s kisses. Alternately reliving every sweet moment—and then trying to tell herself they shouldn’t ever kiss again.
She should have known he’d come over for breakfast the way he always did, but she’d hoped she might have more time to try to come up with a plan to deal with the kissing. And to figure out what she was going to say to him about it.
But the truth was that she wasn’t any more prepared to deal with her feelings for Michael this morning than she ever had been.
Both man and dog looked up as Emily walked in, and the synchronization of their adorable expressions was, thankfully, enough to make her laugh despite her nerves. Gus had a squeaky rubber toy hanging halfway out of his mouth. As for Michael? Well, he just looked so happy...which made her happy, too.
Gus ran forward, jumping up to try to lick her face, and she cuddled him. “Good morning to you, too.” She turned to Michael, “You’re good with him.”
“I like dogs. Always have.”
When they were kids, they would meet at their spot between the two houses, then decide where they were going to go and what they were going to do. A lot of the time they’d gone to the Walker house, or into town. But just as often they’d ended up at Michael’s place with his parents and their dog. It had been one of the reasons why Emily had always wanted one herself. She’d always been so fond of Jenson.
But when Michael had moved in with them, he’d had to give his dog to a friend from school because of Paige’s allergies. How hard that sacrifice must have been for Michael on top of losing his parents.
“I’m so sorry you had to give Jenson away,” she said in a gentle voice, knowing it must still hurt even though it had been years.
“I knew he went to a good home. And I still got to see him if I went to my friend’s house. Besides, I had a whole new family to help look after. Those sisters of yours certainly managed to keep me busy.”
She hadn’t meant to have such a serious conversation with him this morning—especially not in the wake of their kisses, which they hadn’t yet discussed. But she had to know, “Was it worth it?”
“To get a whole new family when I needed it most? To be able to stay on the island? To get to be a part of the Walker family?”
There was a lump in her throat as she nodded.
“There’s hardly a day when I don’t think about my mom and dad and wish they were still here, but we both know that wishing doesn’t change that kind of thing.”
“I do know,” Emily said, the old pain of her mother’s death flaring for an instant. No amount of wishing had changed things when she got sick. Things changed, people left.
And sometimes it just wasn’t possible to stop either from happening. All you could do was try to figure out how to keep moving forward.
“But if it had to happen,” Michael continued, “I can’t think of any family I would rather have been with. And I can’t think of anywhere I would rather have been than here with you.”
Emily took a seat on the couch. She knew they needed to have the conversation. Sooner rather than later. Before they could fall into each other’s arms and start kissing again.
“What’s going on, Michael?” She made herself keep going, even though each word was harder than the next. “Saying that you love me. Kissing me. Trying to persuade me that I love you. Why are you saying and doing all of this?”
Michael moved to sit beside her. Gus sat between them, and Emily was grateful for the small, furry bolster.
“I’m saying it because it’s true. I’m doing this because I love you. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve been the most special person in my life. Even when I was too small to know what loving someone meant, you were my closest friend. We always had such a strong connection to each other. And the moment I was old enough to really understand it, I knew that I loved you. It has always been you, Emily.”
“But we’ve—”
“Done everything together. I’ve been with you for everything with your family. You’ve been with me for everything with my family. And through it all I’ve known that there’s nowhere I would rather be than by your side.”
The scary part—the terrifying part—was just how badly Emily wanted his I love you to be true. She could imagine them together so easily. She knew that they would work well together, because they had already spent so long doing just that. She wanted this. She wanted Michael.
At the same time, she couldn’t stop worrying that it would change too many things, and potentially create too many problems. If they became romantic, and then things went wrong between them, everything would be destroyed.
“You’re my best friend. We have so much already. Why do you want to risk messing with that, Michael?”
“Our friendship is the most important one in the world to me,” Michael agreed. “But we shouldn’t stay friends just because staying friends is easier. We should be prepared to reach for everything we really want...and to risk whatever it takes for something that could be so much better. So much more.”
Emily’s head—and heart—were spinning around and around in circles as she said, “Reaching for something doesn’t guarantee we’d get it. You know as well as I do that wanting something to work out doesn’t mean that it will. Because if we were to go for something like this, and it didn’t work out, think about how much we’d lose.”
“Do you really think it wouldn’t work out between us? It’s not like we’re two strangers contemplating a relationship. We’ve been all but living together for years. I’m pretty sure I know everything about you already.”
“Really? Because this is a side of you I certainly didn’t know about.” Or, rather, that she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. Just as she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge her own feelings for him.
Why couldn’t he see the dangers like she could? Okay, so they’d shared a couple of kisses. Two wonderful, marvelous, amazing kisses that Emily could still remember every detail of, from the taste of Michael’s lips against hers to the incredible feeling of his warm, strong body as he pressed close…
But that wasn’t the point. The point was that even great kisses didn’t guarantee that things would be okay a year from now, or two years, or ten.
Because if Emily lost Michael, then it meant she would have lost everyone. Her mother. Her sisters. Her father. And then, finally, the man who had always been her best friend.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you so many times, but the time was never right to try to take things further,” Michael said. “I couldn’t do it while I was living here with your family, because that would have made things too awkward for everyone. And then, even after I moved out, I couldn’t do it while you still felt like you had to look after all your sisters. Not when we might have both felt like I was trying to take you away from them. But when I saw your sisters all finding people they love, that’s when I realized you can be with the person you love if you’re willing to go out and do something about it.”
Michael reached out to take her hands, and his touch was familiar and yet strangely unfamiliar all at once. She knew his hands were rough and callused from his work, but he’d never touched her quite so deliberately, quite so carefully, before. Not even when their kisses had sent sparks flying between them.
Sparks that hadn’t settled down one bit overnight.
“Michael, I—”
“Come dancing with me.”
She blinked at his non sequitur. “You want to go dancing with me?”
The way he smiled at her made a flurry of butterflies start to fly around in her belly. “I’ve gone dancing with all of your sisters when they couldn’t find another partner. Even Hanna took me to a club the moment she was old enough to get in. If you really are so certain that you’re just like any of your sisters to me, then do what your sisters have done. Come dancing with me. The worst that can happen is that you’ll have some friendly fun with me the way they did.”
But Emily wasn’t at all sure that that was the worst that could happen. As far as she was concerned, the worst—or at least the most complicated—was just how much she might want to kiss Michael again while out on the dance floor.
Even more than she wanted to kiss him right this second...
She tried to laugh it off. “I’m pretty sure that the worst that could happen involves me tripping and breaking my neck. Or breaking yours! I’m the sister who doesn’t dance, remember?”
“I’m still picking you up at eight. And Emily?” He waited until she was looking into his eyes to say, “I’m hoping for the best.”
“The best?” whispered from her lips before she could stop them.
He stroked her hands, and she shivered from the sweet sensuality of his touch as he leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “That maybe, just maybe, you’ll start to see that this isn’t a mistake.”
Before her overwhelmed brain could come up with a reply, he brushed his lips across her cheek and was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
That night, Gus followed Emily into the bedroom while she started to get ready for...
For what, she didn’t exactly know. It wasn’t a date. Just dancing. But she still didn’t know what to call it. Didn’t know what to call them. Not after his declaration at the wedding, and then his kisses, and then the way his hands had stroked across hers and his whispered breath across her cheek had sent her heart racing and made her entire body heat up.
As soon as he’d left that morning, she and Gus had headed to Morgan’s garden plot, where Gus chased birds and rabbits for several happy hours while she pulled weeds. The hard, sweaty work hadn’t quite kept her mind off of Michael’s kisses, or the fact that they would be going dancing together in a few hours, but it was definitely better than staying home in the empty house stewing.
It wasn’t a date, and yet she still couldn’t quite figure out what to wear. Emily started to look at the back of her closet, where most of her fancy stuff was stored. Not that she was dressing to impress Michael, obviously, but if she was going out dancing, then she should look good.
“I just need a dress.”
So why couldn’t she settle on one?
Just then, she realized that Gus was pawing at a blue dress, one that matched her eyes and flowed around her curves.
“Seriously? You give fashion advice now? You do realize that you’re a dog, right?”
He barked happily, but he didn’t leave the dress alone until she got it out. Gus was probably just reacting to her scent on it. That, or he’d seen her touching the dresses and was just trying to copy her. Still, Emily decided, as she tried the dress on, her dog did have good taste.
“I don’t suppose you want to pick out some shoes to go with that?” Emily said with a laugh, because the idea of Gus managing to pick out shoes for her as well was…
He ran over to the closet and picked up a pair in his mouth, the way some dogs had been trained to fetch their owner’s slippers. He put them down in front of Emily, looking up expectantly.
“Someone r
eally trained you well before they lost you, didn’t they?” She looked down at the shoes, heels Morgan had picked up for her that somehow managed to be sexy and comfortable.
“It’s going to be just fine tonight, you know,” she said to Gus as she adjusted her hair and matched her eye shadow to the shade of the dress. “I’m not worried about this dancing thing at all. I mean, apart from stomping all over Michael’s feet, that is.”
Gus gave her a look that seemed just a little too knowing for a dog. Emily did her best to ignore it.
“You’ll see. I’ll go out dancing with him, break his toes, and maybe by the end of it he’ll see that we’re just best friends. Then we’ll both be able to get on with our lives the same way we were before.”
Gus made a sound that was surprisingly close to a harrumph for a dog. But she wasn’t going to back down as she said, “The way I see it, there’s enough room for only one new man in my life right now. And you’re him.”
Just then, the doorbell rang. Emily looked at the clock. Had she really spent that long getting ready? It must be Michael, but why would he be ringing the doorbell? Normally, he just walked straight in.
As she slipped her feet into her heels, she steeled herself to remember that Gus was no fairy godmother picking out her dress and shoes, and Emily certainly wasn’t Cinderella about to dance with Prince Charming at the ball. But as soon as she let Michael in, Gus ran straight to him—and Emily barely resisted the urge to do the same.
Michael looked incredibly handsome in dark slacks and a blue shirt that showed off the physique he’d built up through hard work on construction sites.
“You look amazing,” Michael said as he took in her dress, and makeup, and shoes. “Are you ready to head out to the club?”
No, she thought with more than a little desperation. She wasn’t ready. Not when everything in her life that had once seemed so familiar, and comfortable, was now completely off-kilter.