by Olivia Miles
“I only have one so don’t say I didn’t share,” he said, grinning. “Sonny here is the best of the herd from the Birchwood Stables.”
“And he’s a sweetheart,” she said, giving her horse a pat.
“And here you weren’t so sure about that,” Leo said with a laugh. “Glad you decided to give him a chance?”
She caught his eye. Swallowed hard. “I think I am.”
“Not all guys are bad,” he said, giving her a cheeky grin.
She met his eye, felt a heat creep up her cheeks. “Never said they were,” she managed, glancing away.
“You must spend a lot of time describing perfect men in your books,” he remarked.
She shook her head. “That’s fiction.” And it was becoming increasingly difficult to write about a character that she had never met and may never hope to meet.
Still, Leo was right. Good guys were out there. And she was starting to think that he might be one of them. She watched as he dismounted with ease and closed the gate before helping her down, his hand warm and steady in hers. They lingered there like that, even once she was on steady ground, her legs a little shaky beneath her.
She licked her lower lip and pulled her hair away, wishing she could have held it for just a second longer.
It was cooler here, in the woods. She’d always loved this part of the island, away from the water, sure, but the way there were so many paths through the forest, so many houses tucked away, some were big and others small.
Leo’s house was not at all what she expected. But then, she wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She just knew that nothing about him, from his existence to this…friendship that they were forming was something she could have planned for.
“So…if you have a horse, I assume that you’re not going anywhere anytime soon?”
“Don’t plan on it,” Leo said. He pulled a bushel of hay from the stack and tossed it to the horses. “Nothing to go back to.”
Gemma peered at him. There had to be more to this story. What about his mother? His parents? And the ex.
No one just ran away to Evening Island without a purpose. It was too remote. Too cold in the winter. But it was beautiful. And not just beautiful. It was special.
“Shame you’ll be selling the cottage,” he said, as if reading her thoughts.
Her chest tightened as it did every time she thought about not returning to the island, because she wouldn’t, she knew, once the house was gone.
“So caretaking…” she began, hoping to get off the subject of her own house’s fate.
“That just pays the bills,” he said, leaning against the fence. “My real plan is to turn this property into a proper stable. Get more horses. Give guided tours through the woods, all around the island. There’s enough demand to support another business.”
“You’d be good at that,” she said, smiling at him.
“Like I said, I needed a change.” He shrugged.
A change from what exactly? She nodded, imagining what it would be like to give up her routine and move to Evening Island where life was simpler, quieter, and slower paced. She’d thought that Ellie was selling herself short by residing here all these years, but putting it this way, a change sounded good.
Maybe, she thought, eyeing Leo, even tempting.
“Well,” she said, clearing her throat as she took a step back, “I should probably get back to the house. Work and all. The books don’t write themselves, and I’ve got a long way to go on this one.”
“What has you so blocked?” he asked.
She pulled in a breath, not sure if she wanted to explain the reason behind her struggle, both personally and professionally. But keeping it inside, trying to deny the part of her that was at war with her own self, wasn’t working out. She had spent too many hours staring at a cursor on a screen, trying to push aside her own feelings, and failing.
“I guess you could say that it’s hard to write about love when you don’t have it in your own life.”
He was watching her steadily, his expression giving nothing away. “This has something to do with that ex you mentioned, I assume.”
She nodded. “It’s been difficult to be someone different on the page than I am in real life.”
He shrugged. “So why not put more of yourself into the story?”
She stared at him. “Because I write romance.” They do not expect the hero to call off the happy ending six months before the last page.
“And what you know best right now is heartache,” Leo said matter-of-factly.
“Is it that obvious?” She winced.
“It’s a universal theme, as common as love itself, even if it seems like the loneliest feeling in the world.” He gave her a little grin, one that went straight to her heart and warmed it. “But I think if you put a little more of yourself into it, instead of trying to make it completely unrelated to what you’re going through now, you might find that people connect.”
She nodded slowly. He had a point. And a good one.
“Anyway, I’m not a writer, but I know a thing or two about moving on. I hope today helped,” he said, giving her a lopsided grin. His gaze was steady on her, and for a moment, she fell under its spell, pulled into this world away from everything and everyone else.
“It did help,” she said when she’d found her voice, and not just because she had finally really gotten out of the house or that Leo had given her the best advice she could have received about her book.
It helped make her think that maybe, just maybe, Hope was right, and that she could find love with someone else after all.
Chapter Seventeen
Hope
It had been nearly two weeks since Hope had decided to come to the island, and with each passing day, she felt more detached from her life back in Chicago. Truth be told, she wasn’t exactly sure how she felt about that.
Today, though, she didn’t need to think about it. It was Friday, and she had a meeting—an actual meeting!—at Darcy’s house out in Forest Bluff. It was one of the prettiest parts of the island, on the West Shore, far from town, with a row of houses tucked behind a towering, thick hedge.
The house she was visiting had been in the Ritter family for generations. It had been built at the turn of the twentieth century, back when it became fashionable for people to build summer “cottages” on the island. Eventually, these turned into year-round residences when the owners retired, as Sunset Cottage had for her own grandparents. Now, the Ritter house was owned by Darcy, who was in her seventies by now and hadn’t changed anything since she’d first taken over the estate.
Hope knew Darcy, of course, though she’d never been inside the house before. Darcy’s children were older than her by at least ten years, and they hadn’t played together on the Morgans’ annual summer visits.
Still, Hope knew the neighborhood well. It was at the north end of the forest, off a path that she and her sisters used to like to ride their bikes. They loved spying through hedge openings onto well-manicured lawns, large homes, and a sweeping view of Lake Huron.
“I never thought I’d reach the point of selling this place,” Darcy said sadly after she’d welcomed Hope inside.
Hope pushed back the thought that her own Gran would have said the same thing if she knew that Gemma was wanting to list it, too.
“It’s a beautiful property,” Hope said. And it was. It had potential. It just needed a little help. And she was here to offer that.
Hope still marveled at that. Her, hired to help another woman beautify her home!
“I thought my grandkids would want to visit,” she explained when Hope stepped through the front door, still reveling in the odd sense of freedom she felt not to be maneuvering the awkward stroller or having to bribe the twins to behave while she had a few precious moments of adult conversation. The girls were with Ellie, who had kindly taken them to the studio for a few hours to give them a painting lesson. Hope didn’t even want to think how that would go, and she hoped that Ellie had locked up
all of her best work beforehand. “But they all want to go to Florida instead.”
Darcy tossed up her hands with a sigh and shook her head as she led Hope through the house.
“I have quite a bit of experience with historic renovations,” Hope explained as she inspected a bathroom, which was dark and dated. She was certain that the plumbing would all be needed to be brought up to code. “My own house is more than a hundred years old. We spent over a year renovating it.” It was so exciting then, to plan the details, to prepare for their future, to feel like she and Evan were a real team. They were building their dream house, the foundation of their life together.
The life she had walked away from.
Heaviness settled over her chest. It was a feeling she couldn’t quite identify, but one she’d experienced daily since coming here—one she was probably too busy to notice back at home. Yearning, she supposed, for that feeling of hope she’d once had, when everything still felt possible, not set in stone, or planned out for her.
Darcy led her up the stairs, which were covered in an unfortunate black runner that made the house feel so much darker than it needed to be. Yes, Hope preferred a light and airy style, but here on the island, that was almost a requirement.
“We could exchange this for something in the blue family?” she ventured, motioning to the carpet. “Navy if you want to keep things practical?”
“I don’t have much reason for practicality around here these days,” Darcy snorted. She stopped at the landing and opened the door to a sun-filled bedroom that faced the front lawn. The tree branches skimmed the window, and Hope looked out, imaging how beautiful the view must be in the fall. “This was my son Mitchell’s room,” Darcy explained.
It was done up in greens and browns, dated but tidy. Hope vaguely remembered Mitchell from her early summers here on the island. He must be in his mid-forties by now.
It didn’t seem possible. Not any more possible than the fact that the last time she’d been to the island, she’d been twenty-two years old and now she was thirty-four. So much had changed. But looking around, she saw just how much remained the same.
Including her.
“You have two children, correct?” Darcy asked.
Hope smiled, as she always did when she pictured her girls. “Twins. They just turned four.”
“Girls, right?” Darcy asked, and Hope nodded. “Good. They stick around a little longer, though not by much.”
Hope frowned, considering her own family. When was the last time she had visited her childhood home? Christmas three years ago, she calculated, at the insistence of her parents, who had tried to reinforce their stifling traditions onto her family until she and Evan had argued about it. The following year, much to her mother’s disappointment, she had put her foot down, said they’d be staying at home for the holidays. “But this is your home!” her father had barked down the phone line, and it had taken every muster of strength Hope possessed to say that she was referring to her house, the one she owned and lived in with Evan and her children.
The one that was not much different than her parents’ house in the end, even if that was her own doing.
And maybe, her undoing, too.
“When they’re gone, they’re gone,” Darcy said, pursing her lips.
Hope blinked, feeling affronted by that realization. Right now, every day felt long and tiring, but the years were passing quickly, and Evan had a point when he said that next year they’d already be preparing for kindergarten. This was the time she could never get back, that she would long for someday, only ten years from now, maybe less, when the girls preferred friends to her company, when they didn’t want to hold hands or snuggle on the sofa with a book. When they would roll their eyes at what she said, not giggle when she quickly turned a bad situation upside down.
In that moment, standing in the room of this little boy who was now, no doubt, a grown man with children of his own, she felt a horrible, overwhelming sense of fear. Even though she had only seen her children an hour ago, and even though she had been downright giddy to speed-walk away from Ellie’s art studio after Rose had upturned a cup of water and Victoria had started to paint on her own skin, she now longed to run straight back there, to gather the girls in her arms, to feel their soft skin and smell their strawberry-scented hair, and not even care if they got paint all over her white linen dress pants. She was never away from them, only when they were at school for a few hours each week, and soon, she would be away from them more and more, against her will, until they were gone. Gone forever. Like the boy in this room.
Her eyes prickled and she blinked quickly to make sure that no tears fell.
“Where are your children now?” she asked, hoping to buy time until she had composed herself, even though she wanted nothing more than to finish this meeting and leave. To go back to her life. To do what she was supposed to be doing. Taking care of her children. How could she have ever questioned it?
“Oh, all over. Mitchell is in California. My youngest is in Atlanta. My daughter is close. Chicago. You’re there now, right?”
Hope nodded. “I live there.”
And right now, she should go back there. Take the girls and leave.
But Darcy was still talking. “My children call this house the money pit.”
“I would say that it could be worth a fortune,” Hope said. “The land alone must be worth something?”
Darcy led her into another bedroom in shades of apricot and yellow. The daughter’s room, no doubt, with a row of dolls on the double bed. Hope walked to the rear window, where the backyard led onto a large grass lot that extended all the way to the lake. A pool interrupted its path, and Hope could picture some colorful floats bobbing in the water. Some striped umbrellas over the iron tables that were perched at the end.
There wasn’t beach access like they had at Sunset Cottage, but the view stretched as far as the eye could see. It would be stiff competition if this house went on the market, too.
As if reading her thoughts, Darcy said, “It will kill me to leave this island.”
“Then why go?” Hope asked. “You’ve been a long-standing member of the community.”
Darcy just clucked her tongue. “My husband has been gone for ten years now. My kids have their own lives. All that’s left for me here are memories. I’ll go to Chicago to be close to my daughter.”
Darcy shook her head, her expression pensive as she looked around the room. “It all goes by so fast.”
Hope’s mouth was dry as she finished the tour and promised to call in a few days with some initial ideas. She waited until she was at the end of the long, neatly manicured boulevard before quickening her pace, moving as fast as her heels would allow on the dirt roads.
She couldn’t get to Ellie’s studio fast enough. She had to see her children. She had a horrible, sickening feeling that something had happened to them in her absence. That she had done them wrong by leaving them, even for only a couple of hours.
She felt wild as she hurried across the docks, her heel nearly catching in one of the wood holes and toppling her forward. She swung open the door, her heart feeling like it was beating out of her chest, as her eyes scanned the room for the girls. It was quiet. Too quiet.
“Hello?” she called.
From somewhere in the distance, she heard a muffled sound. Her sister’s voice. “Out here! We’re on the dock!”
She hadn’t even realized there was another door to the studio until she saw it, half-hidden by a large, unfinished painting. She went outside, the relief that she was about to be reunited with her girls already making her shoulders relax, until she saw them.
They were standing on the dock. A bucket was at their feet. Rose was holding up a giant fish—in her bare hands—and Victoria was splashing about with two more in the bucket.
Ellie looked on gaily, while chatting with old Edward, who grinned broadly and said, “Teaching these girls how to fish! Good to see you, Hope! My, all grown!”
Hope took in
the sight. She couldn’t even prioritize her manners and make small talk with Edward, who had once been a handyman for the Taylors.
“I thought they were learning how to paint,” she said faintly.
“Oh that.” Ellie tossed a hand in the air. “Too much mess.”
Hope’s eyes popped. And this wasn’t?
She stepped forward, reached for her girls and then thought the better of it. They smelled. They actually smelled like…fish. And Rose, she now saw, had things that she could only hope were not fish guts in her hair.
Hope felt the backs of her eyes prickle again, but this time it was not from feelings of regret or guilt. This time it was from exhaustion. Pure exhaustion at the thought of what it would now take to handle this situation.
She had the urge to turn around. To flee. To let Ellie help clean up the mess that she had made.
She wanted to go back to Darcy’s peaceful home. She wanted to sit in silence and sip iced tea and talk about tile samples and paint swatches.
She did not want to touch her fish-slime-covered children.
Or deal with the fallout of taking them away from their fun.
“Looks like we’ll be walking home.” She hated the thought of ruining the stroller, even if it would take forever to walk home. Ellie had left it parked in front of the store, clearly having no need for it.
“What? A little fish smell never hurt anyone!” Edward began to laugh, a laugh that verged on a cackle, and Hope began to have the impression that she was the brunt of some joke.
Her jaw set as she stared at her sister, who was all too happily laughing along with Edward. Still, when Ellie caught her expression, something in her eyes flashed.
“They had fun, Hope,” Ellie urged.
“Are you implying that they don’t have fun with me?” Hope demanded.
Ellie opened her mouth to say something and then seemed to think better of it. Hope didn’t wait around to continue the conversation. She had to pry a fish from her daughter’s hands, then suffer through the inevitable tantrum that followed, then walk nearly a mile back to the cottage and then hook up the garden hose, if Ellie hadn’t broken it.
