Strangers When We Meet

by Marisa Carroll

  “Does your heart tell you that?”

  Emma shook her head. “My head tells me that. But my heart tells me differently. My heart tells me if he lied to me about this, he could lie to me about other things. And from now on, every time something happens, I’ll wonder and doubt his word. Trust is essential in a marriage, I believe that very strongly.”

  “I said you had a level head on your shoulders. You get that from the Dorns. But you’re also my granddaughter, and the Braintrees make decisions with their hearts as often as their heads. If you don’t trust Daryl Tubb anymore, then I trust your intuition. He may very well be leading you down the garden path. If he is, he’ll have me and your grandfather to answer to. If he isn’t, well then, this will all come out right in the end. You take as long as you need to decide to marry him. And if Lori Tubb starts to pressure you to make up your mind, you just send her over here to me. I’ll soon set her straight.”

  “What’s the matter with me, Nana? I love Daryl—” She stopped talking at the sympathetic, knowing look on her grandmother’s face. “Don’t I?”

  Martha’s touch on her arm was gentle, and so was her tone. Gentle but firm and full of conviction. “Perhaps that’s the true question you should be asking yourself.”

  * * *

  “KEEGAN, stop raking more leaves into Randi’s pile. It’s your turn to help me,” Robin fussed. “Emma’s not raking fast enough.” The twins were dressed in denim coveralls and long-sleeved T-shirts, one green, one pink, with matching ribbons in their hair. Emma thought they were the cutest little girls she’d ever seen, and felt the familiar stir of longing to have a child of her own. Sometimes she wondered if that soul-deep desire hadn’t had something to do with how quickly she’d fallen in love, or thought she’d fallen in love, with Daryl.

  “Hey, I’m raking as fast as I can,” Emma said with a groan.

  “Girls just aren’t as good at this. They don’t have the upper-arm strength us guys have. You can look it up.” Clint Cooper’s twelve-year-old son, Keegan, spoke with all the superiority of his sex. He sent a huge rakefull of leaves skimming over the grass into the pile to illustrate his point. A tall, sturdy boy with his dad’s dark chestnut hair and green eyes, he was settling into life in Cooper’s Corner with little difficulty, and Emma knew from her grandmother that it was a relief to both Clint and Maureen that he was doing so well. The first time or two Emma had met him, in the spring before the B and B was opened, she’d had the suspicion he’d like to do some matchmaking between her and Clint. But then she’d met Daryl, and Keegan had abandoned the effort.

  “Them’s fightin’ words, pardner,” Emma said. “I take that as a personal challenge to my sex.”

  “This looks like the perfect activity for a beautiful autumn afternoon,” Blake Weston called from the deck. “Sunshine, blue sky, the Patriots playing the Ravens on the radio and healthy exercise.”

  “The exercise part is starting to get to me,” Emma said, a little breathless from trying to keep up with Keegan’s energetic raking—and, she had to admit, from the sight of Blake Weston standing tall and tanned against the achingly blue New England sky.

  “Stop talking and rake,” Robin interrupted. “I want to be able to jump into a great big pile of leaves.”

  “Mine’s still too small.” Randi regarded her pile with dismay. “I’ll hurt myself if I jump into this one. Hurry, Emma, we have to rake faster. Keegan’s helping Robin too much.”

  “I’m raking as fast as I can.” Emma laughed, giving her taskmaster’s pigtail a tug.

  “What if I help you ladies rake all the leaves into one big pile?” Blake offered.

  Emma leaned on her rake and looked at him. He was wearing a black pullover and snug, faded jeans that looked as if he’d had them for years. The midday sun picked out gold highlights in his dark brown hair.

  “A really big pile,” Randi and Robin chorused in unison, jumping up and down, pigtails flying.

  “I’m not doing this just for the kids, Weston. I want a pile big enough for me to jump into. So grab a rake and put your money where your mouth is,” she said, rushing her words a little. He looked good enough to eat, standing there, one hip resting on the deck railing. And she could think of all kinds of places she’d like him to put his mouth. She turned the direction of her thoughts hurriedly away from the visions she’d conjured in her mind. What had gotten into her? She never had that kind of lascivious thoughts about Daryl and the things they could do in the darkness and privacy of the night.

  He vaulted the deck railing in one smooth, easy motion. Emma watched with her heart in her throat, and Keegan gave an appreciative whistle. “Not bad,” he said, pumping his fist in the air. “Not bad.”

  Certainly not the moves she’d expect from a Wall Street financier, but then she remembered he had grown up on a farm and been a Marine.

  His wristwatch and running shoes were expensive, but his jeans had probably been new when he left the Marines, and he drove a pickup—not very practical for the city, but not as pricey as an SUV. He had money, but he spent it wisely. She liked that in a man, too. He didn’t look out of place raking leaves and playing with children in the back yard of a New England farmhouse. In fact, he looked just right. She could imagine Keegan and the twins as his—as hers. Once more her unguarded thoughts had led her into unacceptable realms, and she vowed not let it happen again. She attacked the carpet of oak leaves with renewed vigor.

  Robin handed Blake her rake and started tossing handfuls of leaves on the pile. “You’re bigger. You can do it better than me.” Her sister watched in silence for a couple of minutes and then set her rake against a tree trunk and began to do the same thing. Everyone worked in earnest, and in five minutes they had a truly impressive waist-high pyramid of brown and gold leaves.

  The twins dived in head first with whoops and hollers that echoed into the hills, and came up looking like denim-clad wood sprites with red maple and yellow oak clinging to their auburn hair.

  “You too, Emma.”

  Emma propped her rake against an Adirondack chair and let herself fall backward into the pile. She came up laughing and brushing leaves from her hair and the front of her dark purple sweater.

  “You look like you’re having as much fun as the twins,” Blake said, leaning on his rake.

  “Second childhood.” Emma felt color steal into her cheeks. She bet the women he was used to being around in Manhattan never jumped into a pile of oak leaves. Certainly not if they were like the polished and sleek woman she had seen with Daryl that night at the restaurant. Or, from what little Blake had said about her, the beauty who had broken his heart.

  “Let’s cover Emma all up,” Randi said in a stage whisper that carried halfway to the village.

  “Yeah.” Her sister in crime giggled. “Cover her aw up. So you can’t see anything at aw.”

  “Hey, you little monsters know you’re not supposed to do things like that to paying guests,” Keegan warned, but his green eyes sparkled with gleeful anticipation.

  Blake had much the same expression on his face, but the look in his eyes was darker, more determined and far more exciting. Emma felt her breath catch in her throat.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I have allergies. I’ll be sneezing for days.”

  “You’re just saying that,” Keegan accused her. “You don’t have allergies, do you?” Disappointment was writ large on the faces of all three young Coopers.

  “All right.” Emma laughed, scrambling to her knees as she looked around for the nearest escape route. “I don’t have allergies but I’m not giving up without a fight.” She pulled Randi close and tickled her belly. Laughing, the little girl wiggled away, scattering leaves in all directions.

  “Get her, Keegan. Help us, Mr. Weston,” she squealed. “She—”

  “She’s a wicked witch in disguise. Oh, help! Save us,” Robin
begged, laughing delightedly as she got caught up in the spirit of the game.

  Blake handed his rake to Keegan, but his eyes remained locked on Emma’s face. “I think the little girls are right. You are a witch in disguise.”

  His gaze was scorching, and she burned at its touch. Deliberately she made herself look away from the man to the boy. “What? You’re turning on me, too?” Keegan began to furiously add more leaves to the pile. A rakefull landed in Emma’s lap, and she brushed the leaves away.

  “I have to protect my little cousins,” he said piously, and dumped another armload of leaves onto her feet.

  “You just got through telling me you wanted a pile of leaves big enough for you to jump into,” Blake reminded her.

  “Jump into, not be buried in.” Emma covered her head with her arms and attempted to stand. The twins had seen their opportunity and were scooping handfuls of leaves in Emma’s direction.

  “Too late. Haven’t you ever heard that old saw about being careful what you wish for?” Blake moved so quickly she couldn’t get out of his way. He tackled her, wrapped both arms around her and pulled her down into the dry leaves that smelled of warm, damp earth and memories of summer sun.

  “Keegan! Randi!” Robin shrieked “Now we’ve got them both. Hurry! Hurry! Cover them up!”

  Leaves rained down over both of them. Blake rolled on top of Emma, shielding her from the onslaught. “Those little turncoats.” He laughed, his face inches from hers, his shoulders taking the brunt of the assault unleashed by their giggling attackers.

  Sunlight filtered through the leaves. Dust tickled her nose. But those things were only peripheral distractions. For Emma the world momentarily narrowed to exclude everything but the two of them. She was aware with every fiber of her being of the hard length of his body so close to hers, of his arms holding her safe.

  He smelled of earth and the spice of a rich cologne. His eyes were dark and unreadable in the gloom of their almost weightless prison. Her fingers itched to bury themselves in the silky hair at the nape of his neck, and she wanted to run her hands over the corded muscles of his arms and the rock solidness of his back. She wanted to feel his legs tangle with hers, his lips on hers.

  To be alone with him. That’s what she’d wanted since they’d first met. It didn’t matter where or how. She’d never even known you could construct a lovers’ cocoon from fallen leaves, but for the moment that’s what they had.

  She had Blake Weston to herself, and any thoughts other than that refused to take root in her brain.

  She stared at him. She didn’t close her eyes as his head came nearer, his lips mere inches from hers. “Now what?” he asked, and his voice was as warm and earthy as the scents and textures that surrounded them.

  “Kiss me.” She didn’t wait for him to do as she bid, but lifted her head, brushed her lips across his. He angled his mouth just slightly, enough for her to know that he wanted inside, and she wanted that, too. Opening her mouth to his, she tasted strength and desire. A heated rush swirled through her veins, pooling low inside and sending tiny arcs of sensation to every nerve ending she possessed. She wanted time to stand still so that their kiss could last forever.

  Blake lifted his head and broke the kiss. He reared out of the leaves, scattering them to the four winds, pulling her up with him. Keegan had been standing above them with another armful of leaves. He went head over heels backward, and the twins leaped on him like playful wolf puppies, laughing and pummeling him with their fists, giving Emma and Blake a moment of near solitude in a chaos of autumn splendor.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered. “That’s the last damned thing we should have done.”

  Emma didn’t know what to say next. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that incredibly enough, it was exactly the right thing to do, but she never got the chance. Clint was standing on the deck, arms braced on the railing. “Emma, Daryl Tubb is on the phone for you. He said he’ll be here in twenty minutes. He wants to take you to Williamstown for dinner.”

  Blake’s hands were still clasped lightly around her forearms. He stiffened, and his grip tightened almost painfully for a split second. Then he let her go.

  She wished he hadn’t.

  But then, she would have stood there staring at him all day if she had her choice.

  She didn’t want to have dinner with Daryl. She wanted to be alone in her room and think about what had just happened to her. Because something had happened. She just couldn’t tell what. “I...tell him I can’t be ready in twenty minutes, Clint. There are so many leaves—”

  Clint waved her objections aside. “You’re a guest, not the gardener. I’ll help Keegan finish the raking.”

  Blake stepped away, brushed leaves out of his hair and off the front of his sweater. “Go,” he said, not looking at her as he bent to pick up the rake he’d discarded earlier. “He’s waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE HOUSE WAS QUIET when Emma let herself in, shutting the heavy oak door behind her as softly as she could. She leaned against the wooden panel for a moment, drinking in the silence and the scents of wood smoke, furniture polish and potpourri from the bowl on a table beside the door. The dining room was deeply shadowed, the silver and glass of the breakfast settings shining fitfully in the reflected light from the gathering room beyond. A figure stirred in one of the wing chairs flanking the massive stone fireplace, which still held the glowing embers of the evening’s fire. It was Maureen, her auburn hair gleaming in the lamplight. She put down the yellow legal pad she’d held in her lap and stretched her arms over her head.

  “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “I’m sorry if I disturbed you, coming in so late.”

  “Don’t apologize, Emma. It isn’t late. I came in here to work because Clint’s watching an old western and the noise was distracting me. I guess the fire and the quiet were too much for me.”

  She didn’t look as if she’d been dozing. Her eyes were clear and alert, watchful. Emma had noticed that quality about the older woman before. It sometimes made her wonder what Maureen’s life had been like before she came to Cooper’s Corner. Clint had been an architect in New York. That was common knowledge in the village. But Maureen’s past was a blank page. Lori and Burt Tubb weren’t even sure if she was divorced or widowed. Philo and Phyllis Cooper, the owners of Cooper’s Corner General Store and Daryl’s parents’ biggest rivals in the town’s gossip race, either didn’t know or weren’t telling. They were, after all, distant cousins of Maureen’s and Clint’s. As a doctor’s wife, Emma’s grandmother had long ago learned to keep information to herself, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t above speculating on her friends’ and neighbors’ lives when she had Emma for an audience. “There’s a story in Maureen’s past,” she had said more than once. “Mark my words. And it’s not a happy one, I think.”

  “Am I the last guest in tonight?” Emma asked.

  “Yes. There’s only you and Mr. Weston, and the couple from New Jersey who are visiting their grandson at Williams College. They’ll be leaving tomorrow. It’s a slow time until the holidays and the skiing season get in gear. Or so I’ve been told by the other merchants in town.” Maureen moved past Emma and turned the dead bolt on the door. It slid into place with a heavy, satisfying click. “There, all safe and sound for the night. Would you like a cup of tea or hot chocolate before you turn in?” she asked.

  “Please, don’t bother.”

  “It’s no bother. It’s hospitality. Personalized service with a smile. It’s what we intend to build our reputation on here at Twin Oaks. Besides, it’s already made.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I’ll bring it right out, and if you don’t mind I’ll join you.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “While you’re waiting, there are some pictures on the coffee table you might like to see. They
’re of Bonnie Cooper and Jaron Darke’s wedding reception. You’ve met Bonnie, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have. She’s your plumber, isn’t she?”

  “And our shirttail cousin.”

  “Philo and Phyllis are her parents.”

  “You’re learning your Cooper’s Corner family trees very well.”

  Emma grinned. “My grandparents keep me well informed of what goes on in town.”

  She picked up the photo album, grateful for the reprieve from having to climb the stairs to her empty room. The room she was still refusing to share with Daryl. Emma had been mulling over the idea of leaving Twin Oaks to stay with her grandparents for the rest of the week. But now that Maureen had mentioned a slowdown in business, she was reluctant to be the cause of lost revenue.

  Daryl had been as charming as usual at dinner. He’d kept his hands to himself, but she could tell his patience was wearing thin. He was tired of explaining himself, tired of apologizing. He didn’t understand why she could not forgive and forget, and since she couldn’t explain it herself, the evening had been filled with awkward silences and stilted conversation about nothing in particular.

  Until Daryl had told her he wouldn’t be able to spend time with her on Monday. He had two prospects to show the old McGillicuddy farm.

  “The deal I’ve been working on for the past few months is going to fall through,” he’d said. “It’s been shaky for weeks. I told you that’s why I was having dinner with Heather that night in the city—”

  A chill shivered its way down her spine, lifting the short hairs at the nape of her neck. He had called her Heather. Not Ms. Whatever Her Name Was. Not my client’s fiancée. Heather. As though they’d known each other all their lives.

  When he’d seen the look on her face, he dropped the subject and began to talk of something else.

  A few minutes later he’d driven her to Twin Oaks, angry and frustrated once more, and they’d parted in silence.

  Maureen came into the room with a steaming silver pot on a tray and cinnamon-sugar toast cut in wedges on a flowered china plate. “You look as if you could use a little nourishment.”