Hush, Puppy

by Roxanne St Claire

  He eyed her. “You feel guilty for not mentioning this to me?”

  “Among other things. My guilt is like baggage I can’t unload. And I thought if I apologize to Travis, I’ll feel…lighter.”

  Travis again. “Is that the only reason you want to see him?”

  She looked at him, holding his gaze for a long time. “I think it’s the only reason, but…”

  His gut tightened. But.

  “My sister-in-law thinks it could be more.”

  He gave her another questioning look. “Isaiah’s sister?”

  “Raven. She encouraged me to come here and talk to him. She’s always thought…” Her voice trailed off, and he didn’t pursue what Raven thought. He could probably figure it out all by himself. She’s always thought they belong together, or some such thing.

  He took a sip of wine and wound up his next question. “Is that why you talked to me? To find him?”

  “No,” she said quickly, turning to him. “Not the first time in the square. I had no idea who you were. And yes, it was why I went into Santorini’s, but again, no idea you owned the place. And to be honest, trying to find Travis did make me chat with your grandmother, because she said her name, and I figured she was the owner. But getting to know you? As a way to get to him? Please, no.”

  “Then why not tell me sooner?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I guess, deep inside, I knew this…” She gestured from him to her and back again. “Might come to a screeching halt. When you kissed me the other night, I knew I had to tell you. And I knew it could cost me…”

  If she didn’t have feelings for the guy, why would she worry that it could affect their own budding relationship?

  He didn’t ask, probably because he didn’t really want to know.

  Instead, he picked up his wineglass and drank, then turned to her, digging deep for logic and thoughts instead of the squishy thing called emotions that were muddled up inside of him. “So tell me about all this guilt you feel.”

  “Yes, Dr. Freud.” She chuckled softly, reached for her own wine, and sipped again. “I’ve always been a bit of a pleaser by nature, anxious to make my parents and brother and teachers happy and suffering a bit when I didn’t. It really came to a head after Isaiah and I got married. And especially when he went on his second tour…his last one. Then I wallowed in guilt.”

  “Why would you feel guilty about his deployment? You can’t take the blame for that.”

  “Oh, but…” She ran a hand through her hair, then lifted her feet to rest them on the brick wall around the fire pit, as if readying herself for a good, long story. “Isaiah and I got married young,” she said. “Way too young. Both twenty-one, literally weeks out of college, where we met on our first night at an FSU dorm get-acquainted thing. He was in ROTC, and I was in elementary ed, and after that night, we never separated, never dated anyone else, never had a best friend in the dorm or a sorority or anything. It was Isaiah and Summer, like one.”

  He nodded, drinking his wine, filing away this information. So she was generally a one-man woman. He liked that, and it fit his own style.

  “Anyway, our parents weren’t thrilled with us getting married so young, but they came around and they’ve been great. We didn’t want to wait until after he did his whole Army service, so we got married a month after graduation. He got stationed at Fort Benning in Georgia for training and was deployed in less than a year.”

  He imagined her as a very young married woman, traipsing around Army bases, worrying about a husband at war. Alone. But not for too long, he surmised, since she’d had a baby at twenty-three. “So, Destiny came along quickly?”

  She sighed. “Very. We spent the weekend before he shipped out in Destin, Florida.” She waited a beat, lifting her brow. “She defied the odds, or at least the birth control, so we named her after the place of her conception and how it all felt at the time…Destiny.”

  That made him smile. “It’s a perfect name for her.”

  “Isn’t it?” she agreed. “Isaiah wasn’t there when she was born, but made it back when she was six months old. He was still at Benning, but I’d spent my pregnancy and her first six months with my parents in Orlando. Adjusting to life back in Georgia with him home was…” She sighed sadly. “Hard,” she finished.

  “How so?”

  “Honestly, we were at each other’s throats constantly, in over our heads with a baby—and, oh my God, she was not an easy baby. Anyway, Isaiah signed up for another tour and I think it was because he wanted to get away, though he never admitted that. So from the minute he left, I felt guilty. Guilty because I was relieved. Guilty because our family wasn’t picture perfect. Guilty because I thought he chose combat duty over Destiny and me. And when he was killed…”

  She closed her eyes, and John couldn’t stop himself from putting a hand on her arm. “It had to be the worst thing ever.”

  Silent, she sat still, then put her hand over his, pressing it harder against her skin. “I was…breathless. I knew he faced danger, and I knew all along he might not come back, but when it happened…when I became a widow and single mother and knew I’d never see him again and Destiny had no father? I couldn’t help thinking it was somehow my fault. If I’d been a better wife, he wouldn’t have chosen to re-up…” Her voice cracked, and he squeezed her arm, lost when she turned and looked at him with tears brimming.

  “When he died, I was absolutely broken. Terrified. Lost. And…” She offered him a rueful smile. “Along came Travis Shipley to bring another bag of guilt for me to lug around.”

  He lifted his hand and tried to cover his reaction, which was some dark and unfamiliar mix of jealousy and sympathy, and completely unwelcome. He had zero right to be jealous, that was for damn sure. And sympathy? There wasn’t enough for what she’d been through.

  “He emailed me with condolences about a month after Isaiah died. He sent a picture that was taken after Isaiah beat him in a ping-pong tournament. And I wrote back, of course.”

  So far, it all sounded pretty innocent. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, the only sound the crackle of the fire and the faintest breeze in the trees.

  She dug both hands into her hair and pulled it back off her face with a soft groan. “When we started talking, we were both pretty wrecked. He had a lot of guilt, too, about Isaiah’s death.”

  “Why?”

  “He wasn’t far from Isaiah, maybe ten feet away, cleaning out an area where insurgents had been, when the IED exploded. Travis frequently said how easily it could have been him. ‘There but for a few inches,’ he’d say. ‘It could have been me as easily as him.’” Her voice faded as she got lost in a memory that John was pretty sure he didn’t want to share.

  “Anyway,” she continued. “Travis got a tech assignment that gave him hours and hours of free time and access to a computer with an internet connection, so we were able to talk and Skype with surprising ease. He seemed like the only person who knew what I was going through. We both loved Isaiah, both missed him, and both felt weirdly responsible for his death.”

  Which they weren’t, but John stayed silent while she took a breath and another sip of wine before she continued.

  “After about a year of these calls and Skypes,” she continued, “Travis told me how he felt. Like I said, the feelings weren’t reciprocated. I cared for him, but not…” She shook her head. “No, not love.”

  Was she trying to talk herself out of it?

  “But that very same week, I got a package from the Army with some personal belongings from Isaiah’s locker that had been stuck in some…I don’t know, warehouse. Some clothes and things, and in the package was a letter he’d written the day before he died. He loved to write physical letters,” she said. “Email was easy, but I’d sent him yellow legal pads and envelopes and stamps, and he used them to write what he called ‘good old-fashioned letters.’ So in his stuff was one he was in the middle of writing, and he spent a good page and a half talking about Travis, how much their friend
ship meant to him, and what a great musician he was. Call me crazy, but I almost felt like it was Isaiah talking from the grave, telling me…he knew about this…this friendship and didn’t appreciate where it could go.”

  So it could go…there. He filed that, too.

  “And to make it all just crazy and so much worse, this was right around the time I realized that Destiny had a stutter that didn’t look like it would go away.”

  “Oof.” He choked softly. “Talk about a flood of guilt.”

  She smiled at him, her eyes warm. “Thank you for understanding that. I was drowning in that stuff.”

  “So you ghosted him.”

  “Not immediately, but soon after.”

  He thought about all that for a long time, his unfocused gaze on the dancing flames and burning embers. After a few minutes, he turned to her and asked the question that burned hotter than the fire.

  “Summer, do you think the real reason you came here, whether you realize it or not, was to pick up where you left off? To see if there was any there there?”

  To her credit, she didn’t answer right away, and with each passing second, his gut tightened as he waited. Because if she was here to start up a romance with another guy, he wasn’t interested in pursuing even a fling.

  “No,” she finally said. “I am determined not to be a victim of guilt. I came to unload some of mine, offer a genuine apology, and give him that letter from Isaiah because I think it would mean a lot to him and help with his guilt. But I didn’t want to just call or email or whatever. I feel I owe it to him to do this in person because I truly hate the way I disappeared on him.”

  “Why didn’t you break it off in a more…”

  “Classier way?” she supplied when he couldn’t come up with the right word. “’Cause Travis is the most persuasive man alive. I tried a few times to slow things down or not be available, but he always had a way of convincing me that we were meant to be together. So I cut him off. He didn’t know my street address and had absolutely no way of finding me, and that’s how I wanted it.”

  Great. She was here to find the most persuasive man alive who already announced he was in love with her.

  John pushed up to stoke the fire, using a stick to jab at the logs with a little bit more force than necessary. When the flames flared, he looked over them, the golden light capturing all the mixed emotions on Summer’s beautiful face.

  “What made you think he was here?” he asked.

  “I knew his parents lived in Bitter Bark and that he was planning to move here after he got out of the Army and work for them. He didn’t want to, because he really wanted to pursue a country music career, but he said he’d come back to Bitter Bark for a few years, sock away some money, then go do his thing in music. So I came here and figured if I couldn’t find him, I could find his parents, and I…”

  “Found me instead.”

  “Well, that was just a happy by-product,” she said.

  He felt his shoulders tense a little. “Why didn’t you tell me this the very first day, Summer? At Waterford, even?”

  “Because it’s personal and private and I hardly knew you. I thought I could just figure out where he was on my own, you know? Talk to people and poke around. You made it all so nice so fast, with a place to live and the camp for Destiny. And honestly, John, I haven’t been here that long. I did tell you before anything…progressed.”

  He nodded slowly, conceding that. “So, you want me to get his number from George?” he asked. “Find out where he is?”

  She blinked and stared at him. “Are you that good? Because that would go beyond nice and really slip right into gallant.”

  “Nothing gallant about it. You’re looking for the guy, and I have his parents’ phone number. You can talk to him tomorrow.”

  “I’d rather wait,” she whispered.

  “For what? That’s why you came here.”

  This time, she took his hand and held it tight. “Yes, it was the reason. But as soon as I found out he wasn’t here, I realized that I was incredibly relieved. I really haven’t thought about him since…” She bit her lip and held his gaze. “Since I met you.”

  He finally dropped back against the seat with a thud.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh what?” he asked.

  “You’re thinking.”

  “Aidan says it’s my downfall, you know. You and your guilt, me and my common sense. But…”

  “But what?”

  Turning to her, he touched her cheek and brushed back a silky lock of hair. “I think that I should be very careful with a woman who is as tender as you and as susceptible to guilt.”

  “Oh, I see. And I’d love to believe that’s you being nice, but I know a flat-out rejection when I stare it in the face.”

  “I’m not rejecting you,” he insisted.

  She choked softly. “Punishing me?”

  “Punishing you?” He shook his head, frustration growing enough to make him stand again. “Who the hell am I to do that? No, I’m not punishing you for your past or stepping away because something you did is somehow unattractive to me. Don’t think that, not for one minute.”

  Her shoulders dropped as if he had actually put weight on them. “Then what happened between those kisses on the stairs and right this minute? Other than now you know my past?”

  He stared at her for a long time before answering, reaching to pull her up to him as he studied her intently. “Truth?”

  “There’s nothing else tonight.”

  “It’s me, not you.” He put his hands on her shoulders to make his point. “I would love nothing more than a…Summer fling. But…” He shrugged. “That’s really never been my style. I saw you and Des when I drove up to the house tonight, and I wasn’t thinking about getting you in bed tonight. Okay, I wasn’t thinking just about getting you in bed. I was imagining…things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to guess, Summer. I’m already falling hard for you and that sweet kid. Forget Travis.”

  “I have a feeling you’d like to forget Travis.”

  She’d be right. “Take him out of the mix. You’re going to pull out of here in a matter of weeks, maybe three, maybe a few more. And all the things I started to imagine would go…” He looked away, his gaze on the fire. “Up in smoke.”

  “Do you want me to leave now?” she asked on a soft whisper. “Before that happens?”

  “God, no.” He reached for her hands, taking one in each of his and pulling her a little closer. “But I don’t want you to have one more person to feel guilty about, and that’s what I’d be.”

  She searched his face, thinking, silent. “So back to time and space and…no guilt for me, no feelings for you.”

  “For the time being, that’s probably best. But please don’t leave.”

  She tipped her head. “You think you’re going to wake up and that apartment will be empty and my number will be disconnected?”

  It wouldn’t be the first time for her and he instantly hated even thinking that. “No, I don’t. We both know Destiny is having the time of her life, and I need you at Santorini’s. That incognito investor could walk in any minute, and Cassie told me you were amazing on the job.”

  Her smile was sad and slow to lift her lips. “Is that the only reason?”

  No. He just wanted her close. For now, that was all, and it was enough. He lifted her knuckles to his lips. “Just stay. I couldn’t stand it if you left and took all the…sunshine.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead, took his glass and the bottle, and headed toward the door. “I’ll leave the slider unlocked. For Mav.”

  “You didn’t have to add ‘for Mav,’” she said softly. “I won’t sneak in there and climb into your bed.”

  Yeah. He’d just made damn sure of that.

  Wow. For a smart guy, he sure could be an idiot sometimes.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Summer sailed back to the hostess stand after seating a sweet couple from Chi
cago who couldn’t stop talking about how much the restaurant was like their favorite one in Greece, where they frequently traveled.

  For a brief moment, everything on this Friday morning rush seemed blissfully under control. At least, everything at Santorini’s was. After a week of working and living in close proximity to a man she found attractive, fascinating, and unbelievably good to her daughter, not everything on the inside felt quite so under control.

  But she pushed those thoughts aside when the door opened, and an older man walked in alone, paused just inside the door, and looked around very, very slowly.

  “Good morning,” she said brightly, pulling out a menu. “Welcome to Santorini’s Deli. Would you like a table for one, or are you waiting for someone?”

  He took a few steps closer, his gaze pinned on the top of the hostess stand, his eyes narrowed as he seemed to take in every detail of her chart and notepad.

  “There’s no wait,” she said quickly, assuming he must be looking for a list. “Just the best Greek food you’ll get outside of Athens.” She added her most charming smile, because Grumpy refused to crack one for her.

  “Full menu or just breakfast?” he asked.

  “Oh, you can have anything you want. Bash, our grill master, is always willing to stretch the menu a bit. Would you rather look at something for lunch?”

  “Give me both menus,” he said. “And your most slammed waitress.”

  She frowned at the request. “Our servers are all running at about the same pace,” she said. “And if you want to be sure you’re not rushed, you just let her know.”

  “Maybe someone who hasn’t been around forever. And seat me near the kitchen, please.”

  For a moment, her jaw loosened, and a little frisson of excitement danced up Summer’s spine.

  This was him! The secret shopper! She beamed her best smile at him, so pleased that she’d figured it out already.

  “You can sit wherever you like, sir, just let me take you there. And you can choose any server in the restaurant, and I promise the same fantastic attention to your every need.”