The Giving Heart

by Toni Blake

  But Dahlia appeared undaunted. “Yes, a lover.” She looked back and forth between the two women. “Is that not how we phrase things these days? Should I say I’m hooking up with someone? Or hittin’ that?”

  She grinned, and a giant gulping laugh erupted from Lila’s throat. Who then replied, “I think ‘taken a lover’ sounds ever so much more sophisticated.”

  “Yes,” Suzanne agreed, still stunned. And hoping she didn’t look horrified. Why did she feel a little horrified? She wanted her friend to be happy, after all, and Dahlia seemed happy. And Dahlia probably didn’t get as easily attached to men as Suzanne did. “So...who? I mean, more.” Incredulousness had her fumbling and bumbling to communicate the same way she commonly did when she got nervous with Beck.

  “His name is Pierre Desjardins,” Dahlia began. “He came to the island in the fall, from the Provence region of France. He’s staying at the Bayberry B&B until Christmas, when he’ll connect with his daughter and grandchildren in Toronto. He’s debonair, suave, and rather handsome for a man of seventy.”

  Suzanne was still trying to wrap her head around this. “But...how...how did this...you know...”

  Dahlia laughed. “Oh, the usual way, I suppose. Mr. Desjardins—which is how I addressed him for quite some time—became a frequent diner at the café. We would chat, and somehow that became flirting. Around Halloween he confessed he’d been eating in the diner every day in hopes of gathering the courage to express his feelings for me. I invited him to my place for dinner, one thing led to another, and now I call him Pierre and he spends the night with me a few evenings each week.”

  “Wow,” Lila said, looking more fascinated than horrified, which Suzanne tried to emulate.

  “Is it...serious?” she asked.

  Dahlia swept a dismissive hand down through the air. “Oh—no. Not at all. It’s a fling. A winter’s diversion. A pleasant way to pass a snowy evening.”

  Lila tilted her head, appearing inquisitive. “And it’s not serious for him, either?”

  At this, Dahlia paused, peered off in the distance at something neither of the others could see, and answered softly, “I can’t really say. He seems...a sentimental sort. He’d planned to leave two weeks ago, in fact, but stayed on—postponed meeting with his family.”

  “That sounds kind of serious,” Suzanne pointed out.

  Yet Dahlia merely shrugged in her calm, simple manner. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But either way, it’s about to run its course, and life will go on as it did before.”

  She sounded equally acceptant and cheerful, prodding Suzanne to ask, “If he wanted something more, would you? Something...lasting?”

  Dahlia answered with a trill of laughter that filled the air with absolute frivolity. “No, my dear, I would not.”

  It stung Suzanne in a way, a way she couldn’t define. “Why?”

  Her friend smiled, the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkling, the rich character in her face striking Suzanne as beautiful and reminding her age really was just a number. “I’ve had three husbands, ladies, and that’s more than enough for anyone.”

  She winked, and Suzanne soaked that in, as well. She hadn’t known.

  “What happened to them all?” Lila asked, making Suzanne appreciate not having to be the one to pose this question, too.

  And in response, Dahlia appeared wistful, again staring off into that distant nothingness likely connected with memory and emotion. “I was...too much for them,” she finally said, though the words held more pride than regret. “Some men can’t handle an independent, freethinking woman. And some women—by which I mean me—aren’t content to live with one man, day in and day out for a lifetime. Each of them eventually drove me batty. They’d all tell you I broke their hearts, but I suspect they’re happier without me, too.” She ended on a merry sort of shrug, adding, “And the middle one left me with my last name. Delaney was my favorite name, and he was my favorite husband, so I went back to it later.”

  Suzanne felt as if she’d been sucked down by an icy tidal wave rolling in from Lake Michigan right there in the Knitting Nook, struck almost painfully by what a full, rich, varied, wild life Dahlia had led. And never even felt the need to talk about.

  She’d lived so much. And was still living.

  And Meg was living, too—with Seth. She’d made changes in her life, acted boldly, determined what she wanted and gone for it.

  What am I doing?

  “It’s hard for me to imagine that,” Lila mused thoughtfully. “Having three complete marriages, three relationships that fully...deep and developed. And...recovering enough after the loss to go on to another, and another.”

  Suzanne glanced over at Meg’s sister—who had practically taken the words right out of her mouth. Or at least out of her heart. It comforted her to know she wasn’t the only one on the planet who had a hard time bouncing from relationship to relationship like they were flavors of ice cream.

  “Life is complicated,” Dahlia said. “I’m making it all sound much simpler than it was. But the upshot is... I had to spend some time forgiving each of my husbands for not being what I needed. And I had to forgive myself for being too independent to be fulfilled by one man. I know I hurt them and I truly regret that. But life goes on and I’ve always resolved to keep living mine, in whatever way feels best to me at any given time. Ultimately, I do better on my own than with a lifelong companion.”

  “And you...don’t feel any attachment to Mr. Desjardins?” Lila asked curiously. “From, you know, the intimacy.”

  Dahlia appeared to think it over. “Some women get attached through sex, some don’t. I’ve learned not to.”

  “I would hate not to,” Suzanne heard herself say without planning, and with more passion than she wanted to feel on the subject. But it was true. “Because...it’s this ultimate union. The closest two people can get to one another. I want to feel something profound from it.”

  She hoped, even as the words left her, that Dahlia wouldn’t take it as a judgment—and her friend’s wise smile said she didn’t. “Sex can be different things to different people.”

  “Hence the problem with it,” Lila mused aloud. “To one person it’s fun, to the other it’s serious business.”

  Suzanne blew out a sigh. “Which, not to be a broken record, is why I just don’t go there. Because I’ll be the one who thinks it’s serious. And when you’re in the serious camp, it sucks when the other person is just having fun.”

  Through all this, however, Dahlia continued looking as easy, breezy, and carefree as she had from the start of the conversation. Contented. Like a cat in a windowsill. Or a woman stretched out on a lounge chair on a perfect sunny summer day. “None of us sets out to hurt anyone,” she offered thoughtfully. “It just happens sometimes.”

  But Suzanne smirked. “Oh, I don’t know,” she countered, “I’ve known a few men who seemed completely comfortable doling out hurt.”

  And Lila added, “And I’ve known men who...well, whether or not they set out to hurt me, they wanted to...have power over me, just because they thought they could.” A glance to Meg’s sister told Suzanne the words had been hard to say and that they held a story. But maybe not a story for right now. Right now felt heavy enough already—and she wasn’t even certain why.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Dahlia replied. “Some men are beasts. Some people—regardless of gender—are beasts. I don’t mean to give hall passes to everyone. But most of us are doing the best we can and sometimes the things we want simply conflict. So it seems to me that it can be worth taking a chance. That you might come out with more than you lose.”

  The words caused Suzanne’s heart to deflate, making her sink a little deeper into her chair—the loom and yarn in her lap long since abandoned. Damn Dahlia and her wisdom. Something about it—something about this whole conversation—had dug deep into her soul, and now, now, she understood why sh
e’d felt so unhappy about Dahlia’s affair.

  Because if even Dahlia—in her sixties with her silver hair—had a lover, shouldn’t Suzanne be out there living life the same way? Living, loving, romancing, riding the waves of it all rather than letting them pull her under? Meg had Seth now, after all, too. Both her best friends had love lives. And Dahlia’s had come as...well, as an utter surprise. She should have been delighted for her older friend. But instead the news had left her feeling somehow infantile, backward, left behind.

  And like...like she wanted something fun and exciting, too.

  Sooner than spring.

  Maybe sooner than Christmas.

  Which couldn’t have been more shocking to her.

  “Why do you look so very fraught, Suzanne?” Dahlia asked then. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to press you toward Beck. Just because I have a lover doesn’t mean you have to take one, too.”

  Suzanne blew out a breath. “But that’s just it. Maybe I...want one.” She bit her lip. “Maybe. I’m not sure. It’s just that...” She looked back and forth between the other two women. “Okay, I’m just going to say this. And I’m sorry Meg isn’t here to hear it, too. I think maybe I’m changing my mind and I want something with Beck, after all.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  LILA’S JAW DROPPED. But she worked to clamp her mouth shut and look normal as Dahlia cheerfully announced, “I knew it! I knew it all along!”

  Suzanne had sounded so very not into him when they’d had lunch. It had never occurred to Lila that sleeping with him might be stepping on Suzanne’s toes. It had been a terrible idea for many other reasons, but this one she’d thought was free and clear. Oh boy.

  Everything in her world blurred a little as she tried to wrap her mind around this while Dahlia asked Suzanne what she planned to do about the situation and Suzanne said she wasn’t sure but that she thought maybe she was finally ready to take action. “And believe it or not, I recently even admitted to him that maybe I would go out with him. But in a way he had no reason to take very seriously given how flighty I’ve been. Maybe it’s time I give him something to take seriously. Sooner rather than later.”

  And possibly the worst part for Lila was the fact that she felt...jealous. And sad. To lose him to the woman he really wanted.

  Which makes no freaking sense at all. Have you gone completely off the deep end?

  Maybe she had. Maybe this was the thing that tipped the scales so far that she no longer knew up from down or right from wrong.

  Because she’d sent him away.

  Because she knew she couldn’t be with him and never should have in the first place.

  Because he was the tree-slaying enemy.

  So jealousy was...well, the absolute worst reaction she could have. Because she shouldn’t care. She shouldn’t want him. She should loathe him. She should be wishing Suzanne Godspeed with him right now—not feeling the same way she had in the tenth grade when she’d found out her best friend, Erika, had made out with the boy she liked on the basketball bus ride home from an away game.

  Though, technically, Suzanne is the one who should be feeling that way. Only she didn’t know what had happened between Lila and Beck. God, please don’t tell her, Lila willed him. Not that she’d done anything wrong. Or had she? The waters just kept getting more and more murky.

  And all that aside, there remained the awful, gnawing pain. Of jealousy. And wanting something you couldn’t have. She’d been trying so hard not to feel that. Loom, loom, loom—every time she’d felt it, she’d picked up a loom because it required her to pay at least a modicum of attention to creating the e-wrap stitches and occasionally stopping to count rows. The way things were going, she might have to learn some more complex stitches or start using multiple colors in order to require a deeper focus.

  “But what about Meg?” Suzanne was saying now. “Given the situation with the land behind the inn, I’m not sure she’ll be as happy about this as she would have a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh, honey, Meg will understand,” Dahlia said with her usual sweep of a hand, brushing away the concern as she seemed to do with so many things.

  But will she? Lila wasn’t sure. I certainly didn’t think she would when it was me connecting with him.

  “What do you think, Lila?” Suzanne asked as if on cue.

  Lila had said nothing since Suzanne’s grand announcement, and now she could only narrow her brow and say, “Well, it’s a complicated situation.”

  “I know, right?” Suzanne said. “If, say, Seth had been doing something to hurt my business or home before he’d met Meg, I’m not sure I’d be crazy about her getting romantic with him.” She let out a sigh. Yet then held her hands up in front of her to say, “But wait. I’m really putting the cart ahead of the horse here, worrying about something before it’s even happened. I guess it makes more sense to just...see where things go with Beck, and deal with the situation from there. True?”

  “Sure,” Lila said quickly, trying not to look suspicious. And still suffering a sensation that bordered between numb and tortured.

  “But enough about me,” Suzanne said to Lila. “Did you get anywhere with Beck?”

  “Wh-wh-what?”

  “Yesterday,” Suzanne clarified with a smile. “When he brought you that Christmas tree. I tried to talk to him about the woods and Meg myself, but got nowhere. And I tried to tell him taking you a tree wasn’t going to fix anything, but he seemed set on it. I figured if nothing else, it would give you a chance to state your case some more—and that maybe it would go better when you weren’t standing in front of a bulldozer.”

  “Stop. Back up,” Dahlia halted her knitting needles to say. Then tilted her head as she glanced over at Lila. “He brought you a tree?”

  Lila nodded. And tried to think how to respond. Since most of the truth was unmentionable. She kept it simple. “Yes. And I felt kind of sick, and he got me a bottle of water and next thing I know, he’s decorating a Christmas tree in the parlor. But it certainly didn’t make me feel any better about the development. And nothing I said seemed to matter to him, either. We’re definitely at an impasse.”

  “I called Tom Bixby on the town council,” Dahlia announced. “Tom was sympathetic—he didn’t vote to approve the project or the zoning change. He said it was all hotly debated, but that ultimately the council approved it in a four to three vote. All while the rest of us had our heads in the sand, I suppose.” She sighed, looked sad. “You learn not to expect the unexpected here—and I guess it made us complacent, assuming it was safe to just go with the flow and think everything would always stay the same.”

  That was why Lila had come here. Because it was a place where things usually stayed predictably the same. And because she’d wanted to bury her head in the sand for a while. Best laid plans.

  * * *

  IF YOU LOOKED UP, it was a beautiful day. Bright white cottony clouds, lit by the sun, drifted leisurely across a deep azure sky. It was only when Beck drew his gaze down to all the snow thickly blanketing the ground that he felt winter surrounding and consuming him. Better get used to it, though. Dahlia Delaney had once told him the first winter on the island was the hardest, and after that they went more swiftly, one blending into another and another—so he’d take her word for it and hope it was true.

  Standing on his front porch, he glanced in the general direction of the Bluffside development, thinking of the bulldozer stuck there on the hillside, and admitted to himself that the land likely wouldn’t be cleared until spring now. Construction could take place in the cold if it wasn’t snowing—he’d already witnessed other winter maintenance work starting on the island in the last couple of months—but a steep snow-covered incline wasn’t the safest place for dozing. Even in dry weather, an incline presented challenges. So he’d need to take steps to get the dozer cleared of snow and covered with some tarps to protect it from snow and ic
e damage.

  Stepping back inside, he made a few business calls—including one about tarps. He thought about calling the Summerbrook Inn, trying to again make peace with Lila—but that hadn’t gone so well the last time he’d tried. Or had it?

  Sex was definitely good—sex with Lila specifically, outstanding.

  But getting thrown out into the cold—literally: less than good. Referred to as the enemy: also less than good.

  Which was all a damn crying shame—because if she wasn’t so stubborn, he thought they might really click. More than just sexually. But also very much sexually. When the sex had unexpectedly occurred, he’d thought maybe some of the stubbornness was dying away. Actually, he’d thought that when she’d relented and let him put up the tree, and then even made him lunch and helped him hang ornaments. He’d really believed the situation was changing—even if the sex part had come as a surprise, albeit a very hot and welcome one.

  If he was honest with himself, every moment he’d spent with her had stayed on his mind, permeated his thoughts, ever since. He grown painfully aware of his desire for her as he’d decorated the tree. I want to kiss her so damn bad. And when their hands had touched on the ornament, he’d realized: She wants that, too. She doesn’t want to want it—but she does anyway.

  The rest had been...easy. Like their bodies just fit together. They touched and kissed the same way. No one ever acknowledged that, but he’d always found that some people just kissed differently than others—and the same was true with sex. Maybe it was about age, about getting a little older, being well into adulthood—as time went on, you just knew what you liked, did what came naturally. And sometimes that matched with the other person, but sometimes, when it was a new connection, there were hiccups, awkwardness, adjustment. With Lila, though—none of that. It had been the perfect mating dance. They might not be able to get along otherwise, but in bed, that quickly, they’d been in sublime harmony.