A Place for Us (Blue Harbor Book 1)

by Olivia Miles

  A Place for Us

  a Blue Harbor novel

  OLIVIA MILES

  Rosewood Press

  ALSO BY OLIVIA MILES

  Meet Me at Sunset

  This Christmas

  Oyster Bay Series

  Feels Like Home

  Along Came You

  Maybe This Time

  This Thing Called Love

  Those Summer Nights

  Still the One (Bayside Brides)

  One Fine Day (Bayside Brides)

  Had to Be You (Bayside Brides)

  Misty Point Series

  One Week to the Wedding

  The Winter Wedding Plan

  Sweeter in the City Series

  Sweeter in the Summer

  Sweeter Than Sunshine

  No Sweeter Love

  One Sweet Christmas

  Briar Creek Series

  Mistletoe on Main Street

  A Match Made on Main Street

  Hope Springs on Main Street

  Love Blooms on Main Street

  Christmas Comes to Main Street

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ‘Twas the Week Before Christmas

  Recipe for Romance

  Copyright © 2020 by Megan Leavell

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-7346208-1-8

  A Place for Us

  contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  1

  The call came on Monday afternoon when Britt Conway should have been just returning to her obsessively organized desk overlooking the Chicago River, a salad from her favorite lunch spot across the street from her office building in hand for when she had time to eat it, which she rarely did, because she usually got so caught up with her never-ending task list.

  Instead, she was conveniently just getting out of her less than reliable shower, cranky from the lack of hot water that was an ongoing issue in the vintage apartment building that had seemed so charming upon first inspection, her unemployment status now treading dangerously into the four-week mark. Panic level? Escalating, and curbed only slightly by the promise of a job interview on Wednesday.

  She checked the screen, hoping it was the recruiter who had promised to be in touch this week, and knew at once that it was bad news, because she had an intuition for these sorts of things. Her guard was always up, her mind wandering to worst-case scenarios, because she’d never quite let herself relax, no matter how much meditation she did or long, not-so-steamy showers she took, or miles she ran.

  She’d run four hundred miles away from her hometown fourteen years ago, after all, and yet here she was, palms sweating, heart racing, staring at her sister’s name on the screen, afraid to answer.

  “What happened?” she asked, and when Amelia didn’t laugh off Britt’s worry the way she might have done other times, she felt her stomach roil.

  “It’s Dad,” Amelia said, and then Britt really did feel it. Full force. A wave of emotions that she couldn’t even register because they were rolling over her all at once, making it difficult to breathe. Fear was top of the list, of course. But guilt…so much guilt.

  “He’s fine,” Amelia added quickly, and Britt felt a breath escape that she hadn’t even realized she had been holding. “But he was standing on the ladder. You know, the top step that you aren’t even supposed to stand on? The one that comes with a big warning sign telling you not to step on that step?”

  Britt knew. She had a clear memory of her mother warning her father not to go so high each year when he tacked Christmas lights to their roofline. “He never heeded that advice,” she said ruefully.

  “Nope! And he fell, of course. Broke his left forearm and his left shin. He’s lucky he didn’t break his neck!”

  “Don’t even say such things,” Britt warned, but she was smiling just the same. In relief. Two broken bones. He would live. And hopefully learn a lesson, too. “What was he doing standing on a ladder like that? At his age!”

  “He’s only sixty,” Amelia reminded her. She sighed, and Britt could hear the noises from a hospital in the background. “Still. He’d not as young as he once was, but try telling him that! He was reaching for some extra bushels. The ones that he stores up in the loft of the west barn?”

  The loft in the west barn had been used as storage space for as long as Conway Orchard had been around. Had it been a traditional barn, there may have been hay to cushion the fall, but their family was in the business of fruit and wine, not horses and livestock.

  “And down he went!” Amelia continued. Britt could picture her tossing her hands in her air. No doubt poor Dennis Conway had already been lectured at length by his second oldest daughter. Britt almost felt sorry for the guy—if she wasn’t so mad at the worry he’d caused her. “Now the doctors are saying he’s off work until the arm cast comes off in a month, and of course Steve has a vacation planned that can’t be cancelled...”

  Britt had the uneasy feeling that they hadn’t quite reached the point of the call.

  “And I’m busy at the café, and Maddie’s busy helping me, of course. And I can’t be short-staffed, not with the summer season! And Cora has her shop to run. And, well, he’s asking for you.”

  Britt closed her eyes. In all these years, her father had never asked for her. He’d let her go, because he knew that was what she had needed to do. And now she was in no position to turn down his request. She clutched the phone tighter in her hand and braced herself. “What is he asking?”

  “You need to come home, Britt,” Amelia said.

  Home. Britt heaved a sigh. She supposed deep down she knew that she couldn’t dodge it forever.

  *

  For many people, Blue Harbor was a destination point, a summer vacation spot, the place where they returned year after year to stroll the Main Street shops or pick cherries or swim in the cool waters of Lake Huron. For those people, the small, northern Michigan town conjured up images of ice cream cones, and ferry rides to the ever quaint Evening Island, and street fests and long, lazy, sun-filled days.

  For Britt Conway, it stirred up no such memories. For her, thinking of her hometown put a knot in her stomach, and right now, as she crossed the town line and the crisp red barn that was the hallmark of her family’s orchard came into view in the distance, she felt downright queasy.

  It might have been the bagel she’d eaten for breakfast, she told herself. Or the ice cream she’d consumed for dinner last night, after the pizza, of course, because really, how was she supposed to even think about cooking for herself when she had to pack, and plan, and…dread.

  And the tears that burned her eyes and blurred her vision: allergies. It was all this fresh air and nature. She turned up the air-conditioning. That should do it.

  Except that it didn’t. And the closer she came to the neat rows of fruit trees that went on for acres and acres, as far as the ey
e could see, the more she struggled to blink away her pain.

  Conway Orchard had been in her family for three generations. Her grandfather had started it as a local produce supplier, planting the cherry trees that were common in the region along with apples and pears. When her father and his brother took over the daily operations, they bought the neighboring farm and expanded their crop to include berries and grapes that could thrive in a colder climate, which they soon turned into wine that was bottled and sold along with cider and the pies that her mother sold fresh every Sunday at their market.

  Britt could still taste those pies if she closed her eyes, but like this town, she’d tried to push those memories aside. Some things were better forgotten because they just hurt too much to think about.

  With a sigh, she pulled her car to a stop in the gravel parking lot and checked her reflection in the rearview mirror. Really, she was stalling. Delaying the inevitable surge of emotions that just kept coming and had been since she’d left Chicago this morning.

  Still, she reminded herself. She had nothing better to do at the moment. She may as well be useful. And three weeks helping out on the orchard might keep her busy enough to stop worrying about what came next in her future, because if there was one thing that made Britt more uneasy than being in Blue Harbor, it was uncertainty.

  It was a warm day for June, and she knew that her father would be pleased about that. Nothing made the man grumble more than the fickleness of the weather. It was one of the things that had made her twitch growing up here; the lack of predictability. The lack of control. Life was so much easier when you could see the problem and face it head on. But her father liked the challenge, he said, and she supposed that she’d gotten some of that from him, despite their other differences.

  Now, as she walked across the gravel path that separated the numerous buildings on the property, her heart started to pick up speed despite the dread that had made her sluggish since she’d received her sister Amelia’s call. She hadn’t seen her father or sisters in years, even though she called often, and promised to visit, even if she always found an excuse not to.

  She bypassed the building closest to the street, which served as a tasting room and market, and went straight for the largest of the three barns in the back, where the business offices were housed.

  Inside, it smelled of fruit, sweet and aromatic, bringing her back to happier times, times spent taste testing her father’s newest blends, and coming up with names for their shiny labels. There was a year for each of his children’s births, and Uncle Steve’s three daughters too, her namesake being the oldest. The vintage.

  Her father wouldn’t be at work, she knew this much, but she wanted to take a look around, familiarize herself on what he’d been up to before she went home.

  Really, she knew that she was just procrastinating until it could no longer be avoided.

  She knocked on the open door to her father’s office, grinning when her Uncle Steve looked up from a stack of papers and pulled his reading glasses from his face. “Britt? Is that you? Well, aren’t you a sight!”

  Her eyes teared up as he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. A few years older than her father, he’d stepped out of retirement to come back to the farm for the week, she knew.

  Now she saw that he was grey in the temple, and a little thin in the face. She tried to calculate how long it had been since she’d seen him and realized with a wave of guilt that it had been five years, and brief, in and out for her cousin’s wedding, which hadn’t lasted much longer than it took to drive back over the state line.

  “How are Gabby, Brooke, and Jenna?” She hadn’t kept in good touch with her cousins, even though they’d been as close as sisters once. But then, she hadn’t done a very good job at keeping in touch with her sisters either.

  Work kept her busy. Until it didn’t. And now…Well, now she was where she was needed, until she figured out her next step.

  “Oh, they’re fine. Brooke is still away, but Gabby and Jenna will no doubt want to fill you in on all their news themselves. You girls can talk all night long, as I seem to recall.” His eyes twinkled at the memory, and Britt felt something in her soften.

  She could remember countless sleepovers, some in bedrooms, some in living rooms, some in tents in the backyard, with all the girls huddled under blankets, looking up into the clear night sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights that could sometimes be seen to the lucky ones who waited. The younger girls always fell asleep first, frustrated with themselves the next morning, even if there hadn’t been anything to see. But Britt always held out, hoping to see something elusive and special. Knowing just how precious every moment was.

  “It’s good to have you back,” Steve said, squeezing her shoulder. “Even if I wish the circumstances were different.”

  For a moment, she thought he was referring to her losing her job, but no one in Blue Harbor knew about that, and she intended to keep it that way. Work was a good excuse to get in and get out.

  “That was one heck of a fall,” Britt commented now, pulling back. “It was good of you to step in until I got here.” Yes, it was Friday, she had pushed things off a few days, claiming a work project had to be wrapped up, when really, she had to sit through that rather unpromising job interview, and then…Well, then she really did need all of Thursday to pack and mentally prepare for this return visit. She hadn’t been back properly since…

  Her heart squeezed tight. She trained her eyes on her uncle. Work. She would work as hard as she could for next three weeks until her father was out of his arm cast and on crutches.

  “That’s what family is for,” Uncle Steve said, and Britt pushed back the wave of guilt that reared strong and steady. “It was good of you to come all the way up here to help. I’d stick around myself if your aunt hadn’t already booked that cruise for tomorrow.” He shook his head. “Terrible timing.”

  “Nonsense. You deserve that trip. And I had some time off…” More like all the time in the world, she thought.

  “Well, you won’t be alone,” Steve said briskly. “Your father had the sense to hire a manager last year when I stepped aside from the business.”

  Britt frowned. “He never mentioned that.” Shame bit at her when she considered how their phone calls usually went, and how infrequently they spoke at all. When they did, they often chatted about her job or her sisters. He was vague about the family business, and she suspected that he didn’t want to hear her advice. She may be a management consultant, but she was still his little girl, and her father was… Stubborn, she thought, her lips pursing again when she thought of the top step of that ladder.

  “No? Never?” Steve scratched the corner of his chin. “I assumed he would have mentioned that to you.”

  Was it just her, or did something seem to pass through Steve’s eyes? Something like…panic?

  “No,” Britt said, shaking her head. “I assumed that he was running it all on his own.” There were eight full-time employees who oversaw everything from the market to the pruning to the daily tours, to the pressing and bottling of the ciders and wines. With a boss who treated them like family, there was little turnover, and she’d assumed that he had all the support he needed.

  “Well, he should be able to fill you in and, um, help you out.” Steve struggled to meet her eye as he turned and shuffled a few papers on the desk.

  There was a knock on the door behind her and Steve’s eyes opened in surprise. “And there he is now. Britt, you remember Robbie.”

  She stared at her uncle, her mouth, she was sure, resembling something eerily close to the fish she and her cousins used to catch on her family’s dock. Remember Robbie? How could she ever forget Robbie? Her first love. Her first heartbreak.

  Her only love. And her last heartbreak, she told herself firmly.

  Only Robbie was long gone, out in Boston.

  Surely, her uncle was mistaken.

  Still, her mouth went dry as she turned around and locked eyes with him. Da
rk eyes. Wavy hair. Hard body. Robbie Bradford.

  He may not have been the reason she’d left Blue Harbor, but he was certainly one of the reasons she’d stayed away.

  And if she’d known that he was here, on her property, working for her family’s business, she most certainly never would have come back.

  *

  This day just kept getting worse. It had started when he forgot Keira’s stuffed bear for show and tell, even though that was probably technically her responsibility. It was a teaching moment, he knew, but the tears of disappointment than shone in her eyes had torn at his heartstrings, and he’d done what he knew he shouldn’t have and turned the car around, went back for Mr. Bear, and then had no choice but to physically walk his daughter into the school building, rather than drop her off as he usually did, to join the others in lines on the playground.

  He’d tried to keep it brief, tried to quickly sign her in as tardy (again) and say good-bye, not allowing his eyes to drift anywhere near the nurse’s office door. But like all good intentions, it didn’t work out in his favor. While Keira scampered off with her bear in hand, he just missed the opportunity of a quick getaway when Carly Patterson (or “Nurse Carly” as she liked to be called) appeared in her doorway, her blue eyes a little too bright for his liking, her smile a bit too suggestive.

  Had he seen the signs for the festival, she’d asked coyly, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one in Blue Harbor was unaware of the summer festival. It was an annual tradition at the end of each June, and even if it wasn’t, the signs for it were all over town.

  Still, he’d grunted some form of a response, enough to assure her that he would, in fact, be there, enough to make her eyes light up as she disappeared back into her office, wiggling her fingers in good-bye.

  He’d kept his head bent as he’d strode back to the front door, past Lauren Mackenzie at the front desk, another classmate from his youth, who was staring at him a little too keenly.