Suddenly Last Summer

by Sarah Morgan

  “It’s Brioni. I bought it when I was presenting at a medical conference in Milan.” He didn’t add that moving to Snow Crystal permanently would be one sacrifice he wouldn’t be making anytime soon. “A good suit is an investment. I seem to remember you owning a decent suit once. Several, in fact. Of course, that was in the days before you let yourself go.”

  The exchange with his brothers was comfortable and familiar and kept him sane until the elevator finally stopped. He strode out before the doors were fully open, relieved to be out of the confined space, trapped with emotions he didn’t want to confront.

  Tyler was right on his heels. “I can’t stand hospitals. All those white coats and beeping machines and people using incomprehensible words.” His face was noticeably paler than usual. “It’s like being on an alien spaceship.”

  Sean wondered if being here reminded his brother of his accident.

  For him, hospitals were exciting places, centers for research, full of possibilities.

  He felt completely at home and his brothers seemed to know that because Jackson slapped him on the shoulder.

  “You know your way around this spaceship. Ready to kick some butt?”

  “Do aliens have butts?”

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “You sound like a bad movie.”

  “What sort of movie?” Jackson’s eyes were on her mouth. “You mean like a porn movie? Because if you want to do bad things to me, that’s fine.”

  Sean caught Tyler’s eye. His brother shrugged.

  “Like I said—true love. It will happen to you one day when you least expect it. And the next thing you know you’ll be walking around with your lips glued to some chick making embarrassing noises like our beloved brother here.”

  And not long after that the sacrifices would start. I became us and along with us came a giant dollop of compromise and suddenly your life didn’t look anything like the way you’d once wanted it to look. You stared into the mirror and asked yourself how the hell did I end up here?

  There was no way, no way, that was ever going to happen to him.

  “There’s an ice machine at the end of the corridor.” Sean glanced at the signs and found the direction he wanted. “You two should go sit in it while I talk to Gramps.”

  * * *

  ÉLISE SPENT THE evening cooking. Combining flavors and textures was a way of occupying her mind and soothing her anxiety. She told herself it was work, that she needed new recipes for the café, but in truth it was distraction. Distraction from thoughts of Walter and that horrible moment when he’d collapsed at her feet.

  It had been hours and she’d heard nothing. She’d texted Kayla twice and received no response. The next step would be to call the hospital and she was close to doing that.

  It was almost midnight. Why hadn’t Kayla called?

  Dark fell over the lake.

  An owl hooted.

  Unable to contemplate sleep, she cooked and wrote notes on the laptop she kept permanently on the countertop in the kitchen. Some of the recipes would make it into her repertoire and would be used in the restaurant or the café. Others would never be used again.

  She pulled a tray of savory mushroom pastries out of the oven and set them aside to cool, pleased with the result. Picking up a fork, she cut into one. The pastry was a pale golden-brown, crisp and buttery. It flaked in the mouth and melted on the tongue, blending perfectly with the creamy filling.

  “Something smells good.” Sean’s voice came from behind her and she turned sharply, her pulse rate doubling.

  He stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the lake.

  It was the first time he’d been to her lodge since she’d been living in it. The fact that he’d come in person could only mean bad news.

  “Something has happened to Walter? Is he—?” The fear was brutal. Her head spun and her vision felt distant and strange.

  She didn’t see him move, but the next moment strong hands clamped her shoulders and she was being guided into the chair.

  “Put your head down.” His voice was calm and sure. “You’re fine, sweetheart, you’ve just had a long day. Gramps is good. He’s doing well.”

  She leaned forward, waiting for the world to stop spinning. “Is that the truth? You’re not lying to me?”

  “I never lie. Some women would say it’s my biggest failing.” He crouched down next to her and closed a hand over hers. “Better?”

  “Yes.”

  She didn’t say that his honesty was one of the things she liked best about him.

  Lifting her head, she met his gaze. Her stomach tightened.

  It didn’t matter how much they tried to ignore it, the connection was always there.

  Merde. And now she was leaning on him like a pathetic creature. And she didn’t do that. She never did that.

  “You scared me. I thought—” She couldn’t even say what she’d thought. It was a relief to feel her heart thudding against her chest. For a moment she’d thought it had stopped. “Kayla didn’t answer my texts. I was worried.”

  “Probably too busy kissing my brother to check her phone.” He gave her hand another squeeze and stood up. “Do those two ever stop?”

  She flexed her fingers, thinking that she should have been the one to pull her hand away.

  “They’re apart for a lot of the week so I suppose they want to make the most of the time they’re together. Tell me about your grandfather. How was he when you left?”

  “Awake and talking. Scolding Grams for having stayed with him the whole time when she should have gone home to bed.”

  “Scolding? That sounds so much like him.” The relief was so great it was almost physical. “I will kill Kayla for not texting me.” She knew she should stand up but she didn’t trust her legs so she stayed sitting on the pretty blue wooden chair she’d bought for her kitchen. “I’m shaking! I am a mess.”

  “From what I’ve heard you’ve had a hell of a day, so shaking is allowed. Here. Have a drink.” Pulling a bottle of cognac from her shelf, he sloshed a generous measure into a glass and sniffed it with appreciation. “This is good stuff. If I’d known you were hiding this I would have been around sooner.”

  He handed her the glass and she took it, horrified to feel a hot ball of tears wedged in her throat.

  “Sorry—”

  “Are you apologizing for not sharing your cognac or for caring about my grandfather?”

  “I’m apologizing for overreacting.” And she was furious with herself for allowing her thoughts to wander into worst-case land. She sipped and felt the liquid burn her throat.

  Sean watched her. “I’m the one who should be apologizing for showing up at your door without warning. It didn’t occur to me that you might think I was the bearer of bad news. Women are usually pleased to see me.” He obviously intended it as a joke, but she knew it was probably the truth.

  “You have never come to my lodge before and I’ve been worrying and when I couldn’t reach Kayla I thought maybe—” her heart was still pounding “—I saw you there and I was so afraid—”

  “If you were that afraid why didn’t you call me?”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  “For God’s sake Élise, we’re not strangers. You ripped my clothes off. We had sex. If we can roll naked together, you can pick up the damn phone.”

  She felt the betraying color streak across her cheeks. “You ripped my clothes off, too, in case your memory is faulty.”

  But she’d started it.

  She’d made the first move on that hot summer night with the scent of the forest around them and her blood on fire for him.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I did. There was plenty of mutual ripping that night. And my memory is working just fine, thanks.” His smile was slow and sexy, his eyes a vivid intense blue. “How is yours?”

  “I can barely remember it now.”

  The corners of his mouth flickered. “Because it wasn’t a very memorable night, was it? Look,” he said, as he took
the glass from her, “I’m bad at relationships, I admit it. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend that night didn’t happen. Next time you’re worried about something, pick up the phone.”

  “I don’t have your number and I don’t want it.” Their relationship had never been about numbers and phone calls. It had been about hot sex, and it was hot sex she was thinking of now and she knew he was, too.

  “I’m not suggesting you call me while I’m operating to tell me you love me, but if you’d had my number you could have called me tonight instead of worrying.”

  “Do people do that? Call you while you’re operating?”

  “Sometimes.” He leaned against her kitchen counter. “Women usually want more than I can give.”

  “I don’t.”

  She knew she never would have called him. Calling was the first step on the path to a relationship and she’d never tread that path again, not even a little way. She’d done it before and it had been like walking over broken glass with bare feet. She still bore the scars and it was because of those scars her heart no longer had a say in any of the decisions in her life.

  When it came to men, her head was in charge.

  Sean held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “Give it to me or I’ll wrestle it away from you and then things could get ugly.” He kept his hand outstretched and, reluctantly, she dug it out of her pocket.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  He leaned forward and prised it from her fingers with the determination of a man who knew what he wanted and went for it. “I love the way you roll your r’s. It’s very sexy.” Cool and collected, he accessed her contacts and keyed in his number. “Next time you’re worried about something, call me.”

  “Fine. I’ll call you twenty times a day when you’re operating to tell you I love you, and if you don’t answer I’ll leave a message.”

  He laughed. “My team will enjoy each and every one of those calls.”

  “Maybe I will sell your number on eBay and make some money for Snow Crystal.”

  “What’s the going rate for overworked surgeons? I’m probably not worth much.” Handing the phone back, he turned his attention back to the pastries. “Are those for eating?”

  “No.”

  “You’re cruel and heartless. I knew it the moment I met you. You used me for a night of scorching sex and then discarded me.”

  Flirting with him was like dancing with fire.

  One wrong move and that heat would burn and leave permanent damage.

  Not once had she ever questioned her decision to spend the night with him, but there was no way she would do it again.

  “Tell me more about Walter.”

  “Feed me first. I haven’t eaten a proper meal since breakfast and that wasn’t a memorable experience.” He eyed the tray of pastries. “They look almost too pretty to eat, but not quite.”

  “They’re an experiment.”

  “I’m a doctor. I’m a believer in the importance of research in the pursuit of excellence and I’m happy to help you out. I’ll even submit a paper to the New England Journal of Medicine. Relief of anxiety symptoms after ingestion of Élise’s cooking. Don’t make me beg.”

  “You don’t need to beg.” She slid her phone back into her pocket, resisting the temptation to delete his number. Just because it was in there, didn’t mean she had to use it. “I’m still working on the menu for the café, even though there is no possibility of us opening on time.”

  “How much work is there to be done?”

  “Not much. That’s what makes it all the more frustrating. We were so nearly there. But it will open eventually and I’m devising a whole new menu. It will be a different dining experience.”

  A cool breeze blew in through the open door and she heard the call of a bird as it flew low over the lake. The stillness of the night added to the intimacy.

  She told herself that she could control the chemistry, that she could either act on it or ignore it. Either way she would make the decision with her head, as she always did.

  “This particular dining experience smells good. I predict I’ll be a frequent guest.”

  “You live a four-hour drive from Snow Crystal.”

  “Tonight I did it in three.”

  “So you’re going to be driving here for my food?” She reached for a plate but he had already helped himself to a pastry.

  He bit into it and moaned deep in his throat. Élise turned away quickly, thinking that all the sophisticated tailoring in the world didn’t disguise the raw physicality of the man.

  “If you’re still alive in five minutes, I’ll assume they pass the test,” she said lightly. “For the café the plan is to keep the menu simple and of course, we’ll source as much locally as we already do for the restaurant. Vermont is the most beautiful place. We want to support local agriculture and do everything we can to give our guests locally grown food. Green Mountain ham, local cheeses, fruit from our orchard and salad from our gardens. And our own maple syrup, of course, or Walter would kill me. It’s going to be about flavor and quality.”

  “And quantity, I hope. How many of these am I allowed to eat?” His hand hovered over another. “And before you decide I should tell you my last meal was over twelve hours ago and I spent most of the day in the operating room.”

  “You’ll eat the next one the way it is supposed to be served, on a plate with salad. In France we believe food is something to be savored, not crammed into the mouth while standing up.” It took her moments to combine various salad leaves and mix a dressing. She plated it up swiftly along with the warm pastry, added bread she’d made earlier in the day and handed it to him. “The bread is sea salt and rosemary. You can tell me what you think.”

  “I think I might marry you so that I can eat like this every day.”

  Her heart pumped a little harder.

  Marriage.

  The word alone had an almost visceral effect on her. Even after so many years it turned her cold and made her want to look over her shoulder.

  “Then you’d be disappointed. I cook for a living. When I am at home on my own I sometimes just make myself a perfect omelette.”

  “When I’m operating I don’t always have time to eat. I take fuel when I can.”

  She was conscious of the width and power of his shoulders, of his height in the small space and the shadow that darkened his lean jaw. His sex appeal was undeniable and suddenly Heron Lodge seemed smaller than ever. She was a physical person and she’d denied that part of herself for too long. Her stomach was tight with awareness, her nerve endings alive to the change in the atmosphere. Its chemistry spun a web around them, trapping them both. She wondered what he’d say if he knew she hadn’t slept with a man since him.

  “Let’s go outside on the deck.” She handed him the heaped plate. “It’s a warm evening and after spending a day in the restaurant and the hospital I need fresh air. You can tell me about Walter.”

  Sean pulled out a chair next to the little wooden table she’d placed right by the water. Her deck was bathed by light spilling from the open door of the lodge. “I gather you were with him when it happened.” He started to eat and she realized this was probably how life was for him. Snatching what time he could between the ferocious demands of his job.

  “It was horrible. One minute he was teasing me about those ‘terrible French pancakes’ as he calls them. The next he was on the floor. My hands were shaking so badly I could hardly make the phone call. I thought I’d killed him.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” He tore a chunk of bread. “There were no clues before that? No mentions of chest pains?”

  “He said nothing to me. Elizabeth said he’d mentioned indigestion a few times, but nothing that rang any alarm bells. He has been helping me with the deck. I feel so guilty about that.”

  “Don’t. This place is his passion and the physical demands of keeping it running are part of the reason he has stayed fit
for so long.”

  “I should have thought of a way of involving him that didn’t include him doing physical work.”

  “No one has ever been able to stop Gramps from doing physical work. In all the years I lived here I never saw him take a day off. He worked. We all worked.” Sean finished the bread. “This is good. Sea salt and rosemary gets my vote.”

  As he ate, he updated her about his grandfather.

  She envied his calm, and was reassured by it. “I am very worried for him. He’s eighty.” Which was why she dared to love him. He was the only man in possession of her heart, apart from Jackson, to whom she owed a debt she could never repay.

  “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t make a full recovery.”

  Except that life was full of events that weren’t reasonable and made no sense, she knew that.

  Élise rubbed her fingers across her forehead, refusing to let her mind linger on that thought. “Did your mother come home with you?”

  “Yes, I brought her back. But Grams won’t leave his side. Tyler’s there now and I’ll go back later.”

  The O’Neil family stuck together in difficult times. It was one of the many things she loved about them. That was why Sean had driven straight here after a day of operating. No one from this family would ever find themselves alone and struggling. No one would find themselves sitting in a dark Paris room with the door barricaded and no one to turn to.

  “You must be exhausted. You can’t go back to the hospital tonight.”

  “We can’t leave Grams there by herself and Tyler needs to get some rest. I’ll grab a few hours before I go back.” He lifted his broad shoulders in a dismissive shrug. “One of the advantages of medical training is that you learn to function on little sleep.”

  “Walter must have been very relieved to see you.”

  “He opened his eyes for long enough to tell me to get the hell back to Boston where I belonged.” He finished his food and pushed the plate away. “That was delicious. Best thing I’ve tasted in months.”

  “He said that?” Shocked, Élise stared at him. “He didn’t mean it.”