“Wow. You’re right. This is stunning.” Ian walked to the water’s edge and gazed out across the water at the lights of Haven Point and Shelter Springs gleaming in the distance along the lakeshore.
She imagined Eliza and Aidan must come here often. A small cushioned bench had been thoughtfully provided, angled just so across the water to take in that view of the lights and the mountains. It would make a lovely place to sit on a summer afternoon and read.
She sat down, tucking her dress around her. She shivered a little, wishing she’d brought along the wrap that went with the dress. The air was cooler here in the trees, especially with the breeze blowing off the lake.
“You’re cold,” Ian said. “I’m sorry. I can take you back to the party.”
“I don’t want to go back,” she admitted softly. “This is nice.”
“It is, isn’t it? The least I can do is warm you a little.”
He sat beside her and pulled her against him, her back nestled against his chest. Everything inside her seemed to sigh as his arms came around and held her close.
This. She never wanted to move from this spot.
They sat for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night and the muted music while all the emotions she had been fighting since Ian came to town with his children seemed to bubble close to the surface.
She thought she felt his mouth brush the top of her head but told herself she must be imagining things.
“I wish we could stay here all night in exactly this spot,” he said gruffly.
“I was thinking the same thing but I’m afraid my dog and her puppies would wonder what happened to me.”
“When will their new owners be coming for them?”
She didn’t want to think about the other impending loss in her world. How would she find the strength to endure it?
“I was going to deliver them all to their new homes Monday but I’ve decided to wait until the weekend. After...after you and the children leave.”
She wanted to wait a month so she could at least have puppy cuddles to comfort her but knew everyone taking a puppy was anxious for their new arrival.
She dreaded the coming week, on so many levels.
“I was thinking it might be easier on Amelia and Thomas if I took the puppies to their new homes after you’re all on your way home. They will still have to say goodbye to the puppies but not one at a time.”
His arms tightened around her. “I’m going to have to check their suitcases carefully. I think Thomas would pack all three of the puppies in there, given half a chance.”
She smiled a little, though her throat felt raw and achy with emotions.
“I’ll miss them,” she said. “The puppies and...and Thomas and Amelia. So much.”
That was it. Her emotions bubbled over and she drew in a sharp breath, trying to close the floodgates before the tears could start.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured near her ear. “So sorry.”
She turned her head slightly, just enough that his mouth could slide to hers.
Ah. She had been waiting all night to kiss him again. His mouth was deliciously warm and tasted like champagne and strawberries.
The kiss was gentle, slow, with an aching tenderness that made more tears spill over.
She wanted to dash them away before he saw them but he must have caught the glimmer in the moonlight.
He drew away, concern in his eyes. “Are you crying?”
“A little. I’m sorry. Don’t mind them. I just... I wish you didn’t have to go so soon.”
He pulled out a handkerchief and in an echo of the sweet gesture she had seen Josh do to Gemma during the wedding ceremony, Ian gently dabbed at her eyes. “I’m going to make a mess of your makeup, I’m afraid.”
She was lost. Completely, hopelessly, utterly lost. “I don’t care about my makeup,” she murmured. “I care about you.”
There. The words were out and she couldn’t call them back.
“Do you?” he asked, his voice and his expression strangely intense. There was a vulnerability there she wouldn’t have expected.
How could he possibly doubt her feelings when they seemed so very obvious to her and she suspected everyone else who had been at the wedding?
“Oh, Ian. You must know I do.” Through the emotion choking her, she gave a raw laugh. “I might as well be honest. I’m in love with you.”
“You’re...what?”
“I didn’t want to be. I tried everything I could think of to protect my heart, but you basically made it impossible for me to do anything else but fall in love with you.”
He said nothing, just continued to gaze at her with shock and something else in his expression, something she couldn’t identify.
“You don’t have to say anything. I’ve been through this before and can assure you I’ll survive.”
It was a lie. She had never been through anything like this before. All those times she thought she was in love before seemed so completely ridiculous and small in comparison to this, like the difference between a puddle of water and the vast ocean that would soon separate them.
“What if I don’t want you to get over it?” he asked, his voice rough. “It seems only fair that you suffer a little, too, considering that I’m in misery. I fell for you hard. Maybe not the first time we met but certainly by the second, and I’ve been trying to talk myself out of it since then. Without success, I should add.”
She gazed at him, her throat tight and her heart pounding. He couldn’t mean what she thought she heard him say. Could he?
“You didn’t.”
His laugh was low, rough, and he reached to wipe another tear she hadn’t realized had trickled out.
“Tell that to my poor salmon. I’ve been too distracted to finish my project. I’m afraid I’ll be going home with incomplete research.”
“Oh, no. Does that mean you’ll have to come back?”
“I imagine so. Again and again, as long as it takes until I can convince you to spend the rest of your life with me.”
Okay. This really couldn’t be happening. She stood up, needing to feel the ground under her feet to make sure she wasn’t lost in some champagne-induced hallucination.
“Sorry. What did you say?”
He sighed and rose, as well, taking her hands in his. “I’m jumping ahead of things. That’s not where I meant to start.”
“Where...where did you mean to start?”
“By telling you I love you. When we came here for the summer, I never expected to fall in love. I’ve told myself love wasn’t in the cards for me anymore. I made such a mess of my marriage and now I have the children to think about. They’re my priority. But they fell for you first and I was close behind.”
She kissed him then, unable to help herself. He gave a rough-sounding laugh and pulled her close, his mouth firm and hard on hers. They kissed for a long time, there beside the lake, while an owl screeched overhead and lake creatures splashed offshore.
“I should probably make it clear I’m a poor bargain,” Ian said after long, delicious moments. “I get distracted by the oddest things and I can be a little obsessed with my research.”
“I like that about you,” she confessed. “I can be the same way when I’m struggling with a design.”
“Then there’s the whole peerage thing. I never wanted to be the Earl of Amherst, as I told you. But I do believe I can endure it, especially if I have you by my side.”
This couldn’t be happening. Ten minutes ago, she had been devastated at the thought of living without him and his children. Now he was talking about a future together.
A future that included a title. In England!
She eased away a little as a thousand questions crowded through her head. “What about my shop?”
He sighed. “That’s the place where I really should
have started, I suppose.”
He took her hands again, that vulnerability back in his eyes. “Unlike Gemma, I can’t leave everything behind and move here with you, much as I would love that. My family needs me.”
“I know,” she said softly.
“I understand that you have a life here. A life you love, with friends and your business. I don’t know how to ask you to give that up.”
Ask, she wanted to beg. Please ask.
“I was wondering, would you ever consider hiring someone for the day-to-day work and running things yourself from a distance? You could come back as often as you like and could certainly design gowns from Dorset.”
“You want me to move to England with you. Leave my friends. My...my home.”
“Not straightaway, certainly. But eventually, perhaps, if you decide you want to consider a future with me.”
There was nothing to consider. Not really. She loved Ian and his children with all her heart. Any future without them would be gray, empty, lifeless.
The man she loved with all her heart was offering her everything. The family she had dreamed about, a chance to pursue her dreams of becoming a designer, a life filled with joy and laughter and love.
She said nothing, considering just how to answer him. At her continuing silence, he eased away a little.
“It’s too much to ask of you. You would have to surrender everything you have built here. Everything familiar and comfortable. I understand if it’s more than you’re willing to compromise.”
She took his hands in hers, facing him with all the love in her heart.
“Leaving Haven Point would be a huge sacrifice for me,” she agreed. “I would miss my friends most of all.”
She would feel a little lost without a regular dose of the Haven Point Helping Hands.
“I know. I’m sorry. You could come back whenever you wanted, though. We could even make it an annual or semiannual thing. Gemma will be here, after all.”
She wanted to cry again at his concern. No man had ever worried so much about her happiness and she didn’t quite know how to respond.
“It would be a sacrifice to leave my home behind,” she went on. “But the payoff—a life with you and Thomas and Amelia—would be joy beyond my wildest dreams.”
The air seemed to leave him in a rush and then he lowered his mouth again and kissed her with fierce emotion.
She laughed a little, kissing him back with everything in her heart.
All of her life when she had been dreaming of a handsome prince, she had really been waiting for Ian. A distracted, slightly rumpled, too-serious biology professor who also happened to be Viscount Summersby, the future Earl of Amherst.
And the man she loved with all her heart.
EPILOGUE
One year later
“ARE YOU READY for this?”
Samantha looked over at Lord Henry, who had become so very dear to her over the past year—dear enough that she decided to break convention and had asked him to walk her down the aisle to marry his son.
He might be a bit gruff but his heart was as soft and gooey as the saltwater taffy he loved, especially when it came to his children and his grandchildren. She considered herself incredibly fortunate that over the past year he and his wife had opened their hearts to her.
“I’m so ready,” she said.
He tucked his arm through hers. “You look stunning, my dear.”
She had to agree. A woman shouldn’t need to be modest on her wedding day. The dress she had created for herself, the one she had been dreaming about wearing since she was old enough to make doll dresses out of hair ties and discarded fabric, was the hardest dress she had ever made.
She had struggled with it for months and had almost postponed the wedding until she was able to get it just right.
She wanted to think it was a masterpiece. There were no ruffles, no lace, no long, flowing train. This dress was elegant, simple, understated. Not attention-grabbing but unmistakably beautiful. It was perfect for the woman she had become.
She wasn’t sure if she would offer this in the new catalog she was developing under her new fashion label or if she would keep this particular design all to herself, her own unique, one-of-a-kind dress for this unforgettable day when her dreams came true.
Her heart pounded as she walked down the aisle of the little church in Haven Point where she had attended every week with her mother.
She looked toward the pew where they had always sat together and felt a little pang that Linda wasn’t there today.
Over the past year, she had achieved some measure of understanding over the thorny relationship she’d had with her mother.
Her mother had been a difficult, critical woman, unhappy with her life and circumstances. She had taken out her own discontent on those closest to her, particularly her daughter.
Samantha couldn’t forgive her for some of those wounds that had been etched deep into her heart. But Linda was gone now and Sam had decided dwelling on the pain would only allow it to continue to fester.
Today she would remember the good times with her mother. Learning to sew at her first portable machine, laughing at a show they enjoyed together, talking about a book they had both read.
She might not have actual family here but the chapel was filled with those she loved. Her family in spirit. Katrina was there with Bowie and their children, including the new little one, a girl Kat had named Isabella.
Elsewhere in the chapel, everywhere she looked, she saw people who had supported her and embraced her on her journey toward becoming a woman of strength. Barbara Serrano. Charlene Bailey. Wynona, Julia Caine, Megan Hamilton Bailey. McKenzie, Devin, Lindy-Grace, Eppie and Hazel. And scores more.
She loved them all and was deeply grateful to have these people in her life.
Finally, her gaze went inexorably to the altar where Ian stood, looking every inch her handsome prince. His dark wavy hair was slightly messed in front but his collar for once was straight.
Thomas stood to one side and Amelia on the other, both of them beaming at her.
Her heart seemed too full to contain all the love inside it. She was the most fortunate of women and couldn’t wait to become their stepmother.
Yes, she had made sacrifices. After much personal angst, she had finally sold Fremont Fashions to her worthy assistant, Rachel Muñoz, who had promptly rebranded it. She had stopped in the day before and been thrilled at the changes.
After selling the store, she had moved to England with Betsey, taking a small flat in a row of cottages that had once housed textile workers employed by Ian’s ancestors.
When they married, she would move in with Ian and the children to the dower house on his father’s sprawling estate. The dower house alone was a gorgeous seventeenth century structure about three times the size of her house in Haven Point, with a beautiful view overlooking the river Amherst.
In a few months’ time, she would be opening the showroom for her bridal designs and she already had orders to fill the next year.
She was excited about all the changes in her life, but she was most ready for this one. To marry the man she loved. She looked at Ian waiting for her, his gaze locked with hers and filled with vast emotion, a deep love that had filled all the empty spots in her heart.
She gripped Lord Henry’s arm and glided down the aisle past all the people who had shaped her into the woman she had become, toward Ian and the future they would build together.
* * *
A Haven Point Beginning
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WAS A mistake of epic proportions.
Gemma Summerhill gripped the steering wheel of the hybrid SUV she had purchased six weeks ago,
when she first came to the States. She was going only about five miles per hour but that still seemed entirely too fast as she steered through treacherous conditions with giant snowflakes slapping against the car with astonishing force.
She shouldn’t be here. She should be safe and dry in her charming rented cottage beside Lake Haven, sitting by the fire with a cup of tea at one elbow and a good novel on her lap.
Whose crazy idea was it to go into the mountains today, with a storm coming on?
Hers. She sighed. She should have checked the weather report more carefully and shouldn’t have relied on one app that had promised a beautiful fall day.
In her defense, the October day had been lovely when she set off that morning for an easy hike, all warm sunshine, clear skies, comfortable temperatures. Oh, how quickly conditions could change. Now the Idaho mountain road was slick, precarious, and the rain that had hit with ferocious strength about twenty minutes earlier had shifted just as quickly to snow.
Gemma peered through the windshield. With the sun quickly setting and those wildly churning snowflakes coming at her, she felt as if she were driving at warp speed through a galaxy far, far away.
A song came on the radio, a country ballad about a woman who made one bad choice after another. Gemma wanted to roll her eyes. That could well be her anthem right about now.
She had so been looking forward to exploring the backcountry. She had been in Haven Point for six weeks and had mostly hiked around the lake. This had been her one time to see more of the countryside.
It had been spectacular, Gemma had to admit. The aspens were a beautiful golden color and the other trees provided contrasting colors in reds and oranges. As she had hiked the route McKenzie Kilpatrick had told her about, an easy trail to a beautiful alpine lake, she had felt good. Her leg had bothered her, as it always did when she pushed it too much, but the gorgeous setting had helped distract her from it.
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