by Jackie Braun
“Some of it I know from my grandmother, but I did a little more research recently, hoping to find information on the structure. Want to hear it?”
“By all means,” he said, suckered in by the excitement shimmering in her dark eyes.
“The original owner was Thomas Trent Windamere, who made his fortune in Great Lakes shipping. He had three daughters, whom he named Felicity, Charity and Honor. His wife died in childbirth with the last one. Windamere doted on his girls. They were his life. And so when Charity became ill with a lung ailment, he had this house built on Peril Pointe hoping the fresh air would ease her condition.”
“And did it?” Dane asked, intrigued despite himself.
“I don’t know. The information I found at the historical society didn’t say. I guess I’d like to think she lived a long and happy life.”
He shook his head, amazed that she had gone to such lengths to flesh out the home’s history.
“Are you always so passionate?” He regretted his choice of words immediately when Ree’s face blanched of color.
“I’m…I’m not…” she stammered.
Her reaction surprised him, but he supposed given what had transpired between them, she would be sensitive to even the most innocuous reminder.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult. I just meant that you’re thorough and thoughtful. It’s like with the proposal you brought with you when you pitched your property to Saybrook’s. You think things out very carefully.”
“Not everything,” she said, staring straight ahead. And Dane thought he knew exactly to what she was referring.
After a few moments of silence, Ree took a deep breath and decided to change the subject, “You have a lovely view. Have you lived here long?”
“I grew up here,” Dane said. “My folks moved to Florida a while back, and I bought the house from them. I didn’t want strangers buying it and living here, or worse, weekenders trashing the place.”
His face grew red as he apparently realized that Ree’s home would soon be filled with strangers—paying guests, but strangers nonetheless.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
She waved a hand in his direction. “It’s okay. I know what you mean, but the Victorian is different. I think she’ll like being a grand lady again, rooms filled with people who will appreciate her beauty.”
“She?”
“Everyone knows Victorians are females.”
“And Volkswagen Beetles are males.”
“Exactly.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. “I suppose you’ve named the house, too.”
“No. My grandmother did that. Bella. It’s Italian for—”
“Beautiful,” he murmured and his gaze lingered on her lips.
The afternoon sun was beating down. She blamed it for the warmth spreading through her limbs.
“Well, I should let you get back to your work,” Ree said, nodding toward the dock where his toolbox was open.
“Actually, I was thinking about taking a break. I’ve got some iced tea. Made it when I got home. It should be good and chilled by now.”
“Is that an invitation?”
“Yes.”
Ree waited on the porch, tucked into one of the big Adirondack chairs, her feet propped on the matching ottoman. She felt some of the tension of the past several weeks slipping away as she gazed out at the lake. Dragonflies buzzed overhead, zipping erratically in their search for prey. Far on the horizon, she could just make out the white sail of a boat.
Dane returned a moment later with two tall glasses of iced tea.
“It’s not sweetened,” he told her, as he handed her one.
“Doesn’t need to be. I’m an easy woman to please.”
One eyebrow cocked up, but he said nothing as he settled into the chair next to hers.
“So, you grew up here with your sisters. That must have been fun.”
“Not at the time,” he replied on a grunt. “But looking back now, I can say it was. I had a good childhood. Good parents—strict, but loving.”
“My grandparents filled that role for me.” She drank her tea, recalling the many lazy afternoons she had spent with them in just this way, sipping a cool beverage and talking about any subject that came to mind. “A lot of people are eager to leave the place where they grew up. I never was.”
“Audra was hell-bent for leather to get out,” Dane told her. “Luke Banning, too. They left at the same time. Together, actually, but that’s another story and not nearly as interesting as a lot of folks around here used to make it sound.”
“Gossip rarely is.”
Her family had been the subject of it more than once. In fact, part of the reason Ree’s grandfather had retired early was to take his pregnant and unwed teenage daughter out of the city and away to a remote location where no one knew she’d given in to the charms of an older, married man. Then, after Angela’s suicide, the elder Bellinis had had to contend with whispers in their new community.
“Doesn’t keep people from spreading it.”
“No,” she agreed. “Or from embellishing everything. I’d heard of Luke Banning from the newspapers, of course, long before I realized he grew up around these parts. He’s highly respected for his business instincts when it comes to real estate. Did you know him when you were kids?”
“Best friends,” Dane said.
Something about the way one side of his mouth curved up into a half grin told Ree the men had plenty of good stories to tell, not that either one of them appeared to be indiscreet.
“Audra became an actress, right?”
He nodded. “She never made it big—a couple of sitcom episodes, that sort of thing. But no real starring roles unless you count the melodrama that was her personal life.” He spoke the words without malice. In fact, he seemed proud when he added, “She really managed to turn things around after a few false starts.”
By “false starts” Ree assumed he was referring to his sister’s string of well-publicized bad relationships. Even out on remote dig sites, Ree had heard about them, in part because of an intern’s penchant for reading celebrity magazines. With her own marriage in the toilet, Ree was in no position to cast stones, not that she’d ever been terribly judgmental about other folks. How could she be given her family history? Besides, Audra was so obviously smitten now.
“She seems very happy. And I’d say she is lucky. She and Seth are very much in love.”
“Sickeningly so,” Dane agreed. “She claimed she felt a connection to him right from the beginning.”
He frowned then, and Ree wondered if he was recalling the instantaneous attraction that had flared between the pair of them that first night despite a raging storm, a power outage and his assorted injuries. Of course, that was sex, hormones. It wasn’t love.
She quickly redirected the conversation. “But you and Ali stayed on Trillium. Ever thought about leaving?”
“Nah. It’s home,” he said with a shake of his head, his gaze scanning the horizon where the sky meshed seamlessly with the big lake. “I don’t just mean this house. I like the island, the people, the slower pace of life around here.” He sipped his tea. “Well, slower pace now that most of the fudgies have gone home for the season.”
He used the affectionate nickname for the downstaters who came to vacation, often buying fudge at the many shops found sprinkled amid the resort communities of northern Michigan.
Ree chuckled. “I had a job at a fudge shop one summer.”
“Get out.”
“No, really. On Mackinac Island the summer before I went away to college.”
“What? Trillium Island not good enough for you?” he teased. “We have fudge shops.”
“Too close to home. I was going to be heading to Michigan State the following fall and I’d never been away from Petoskey for more than a weekend at a time. I decided I needed to test my wings a bit first.”
“How’d you do?”
“I was too homesick for words,” she admitted on a laugh. “And I gaine
d seven pounds snacking on fudge. Mint was my favorite.”
He pulled a face. “Pralines and cream, maybe peanut butter, but you’d never catch me eating anything with mint in it. Too…mouthwashy.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing. Have you at least tried it?”
“No need. I know what I like and what I don’t.” He studied her thoughtfully for a moment, before saying, “Why don’t you get back to your story? You were telling me how homesick you were.”
“Yes. Very. But I gutted it out and then put on a brave face when my grandparents dropped me off in East Lansing in August. Nonna, of course, cried. My grandfather was much more stoic, although he kept complaining about seasonal allergies and blowing his nose.”
She smiled briefly, the memory so sweet and clear that she could almost feel Nonna’s tight embrace and smell the Old Spice aftershave her grandfather had favored. A decade later, they were both gone and she was selling the home they’d poured their retirement savings into.
“It must have been hard for them to watch you go,” Dane said.
“It was. Especially since I think they knew I would never really come back. I had internships at downstate newspapers between my sophomore and junior years and again the following summer.”
“And then you got married,” he said flatly.
Ree cleared her throat. “Yes, I met Paul during my senior year at State. He was just finishing up his doctorate. Our wedding was a few months after I earned my bachelor’s degree.”
She remembered it all clearly now. They’d met in the campus library, where they’d shared a table. Paul had been so utterly absorbed in his studies that Ree had been seated for nearly an hour before he glanced up and finally noticed her. He’d smiled. She’d smiled back. And, when the library closed that evening, he asked her out. During their courtship, she had found his single-mindedness funny if sometimes frustrating. She’d convinced herself that his ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all else was a trait to be admired. What other qualities had drawn her to someone so different from herself, she no longer could remember.
“Is your husband from around here?”
“No. He’s from Ohio originally, but he lived in about a dozen states before moving to Michigan to attend MSU. His dad was in the military.”
“Nomadic,” Dane murmured.
“Yes and he still is.”
“His work?”
Ree nodded. “It takes him a lot of places, sometimes for months at a stretch.”
Her tone must have turned rueful, because Dane said, “You had to have known that going in, though.”
“I did,” she agreed. “Well, sort of. Paul had a teaching assistant job at the university when we married and there was the offer of something more permanent, but he wanted to do a couple of years in the field. He promised that after that he’d look for a professorship.”
Promises made. Promises broken. Two years had turned into four, four into six and counting. The offers had come. Ree had stopped keeping track after half a dozen. Paul had rejected each one. And, oh, the arguments that had ensued. Ree passionately pleading her case. Paul calmly discounting each point she made when he finally engaged in conversation.
“He must enjoy his work.”
“It’s his life.”
Dane glanced at her sharply, but said nothing for a long moment. When he did speak, it was just one shattering comment.
“You should be his life.”
Ree rubbed at the condensation collecting on the outside of her glass. She didn’t know why, but she had the sudden urge to cry.
“Well, this is it.”
Ree said the words aloud as she pulled into the lot at Saybrook’s the first week in October. She shifted the Volkswagen into Park, killed the ignition, and then sat for a moment, staring out at the rain that drizzled from a pewter sky. They were closing on the sale of the house today.
Oddly, the prospect of facing Dane again had her nerves jangling more than the fact that she was about to hand over ownership of her home. The last time they’d seen one another, she’d sworn something had shifted between them. It scared her almost as much as the attraction.
She gathered up her briefcase, got out of the car and, since she didn’t have an umbrella, made her way to the resort’s entrance as quickly as was prudent in high heels on wet asphalt. The Conlans and Luke already were assembled in Saybrook’s conference room with a couple sober-looking, suited men she assumed were lawyers.
“Ree, come in,” Ali said after glancing up and spotting her in the doorway. “Can I get you a cup of coffee or some hot tea?” She motioned toward the rain-splattered window. “Nasty out today, huh?”
“Yes. Tea would be great, please.”
As she unbuttoned her coat, she spied Dane. He was dressed in a suit as well, his hair tidy and cheeks freshly shaved. Neatly put together or hopelessly disheveled, the man always looked mouthwatering. It wasn’t fair.
Ree ran one hand down the wavy length of her hair. She hadn’t bothered trying to straighten it today. The weather being what it was, she’d known it would be a wasted effort. Now she regretted that she hadn’t at least pulled it back into some sort of professional-looking ’do. For just a moment, she swore she heard Nonna clucking her tongue.
Dane stepped forward to help her out of her overcoat, under which she wore the same suit she’d had on the day she came to Saybrook’s to plead her case. He was standing so close, she could smell the clean scent of his aftershave. She inhaled deeply and wanted to sigh.
“Hello, Ree.”
“Hi.” The one syllable came out embarrassingly breathy. She cleared her throat and redeemed herself with a more normal-sounding, “How are you?”
“Good. What about you? It’s a big day.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” And she meant it. She had accepted that the sale was necessary and inevitable. Even so, she was happy to change the subject. “I have something for you…and the others, too, of course.”
She pulled a small white box out of her briefcase and handed it to him. Dane was laughing even before he opened it. “I can’t believe you brought me fudge.”
“I saw the shop when I got off the ferry and couldn’t resist, considering the conversation we had.”
“Pralines and cream,” he said, nicking a small chunk off the end with his fingers and then plopping it in his mouth. A single dimple winked low in his cheek when he smiled.
“You said it was your favorite.” Then Ree produced another small white box.
“What’s in that one?” Dane asked.
“Mint.” She couldn’t help herself. She grinned. “Because you don’t know what you’ve been missing.”
He wrinkled his nose. “I’m not a fan of mint.”
“So you said the other day, but that’s only because you haven’t tried it in fudge.”
He sighed heavily. “I’ll sample it, but don’t expect me to be a convert,” he warned.
“You need to keep an open mind, Dane. Why limit your choices? You know, sometimes it pays to take risks.”
“Risks,” he repeated, his voice just above a whisper.
For a fleeting moment, heat flared so intensely in his eyes that Ree was forced to glance away. That’s when her gaze collided with Audra’s, and she realized that Dane’s sister had heard the entire conversation. Make that sisters. Luke and the lawyers were thankfully embroiled in a conversation of their own, but Dane’s siblings had caught Ree’s and Dane’s every word. While it had hardly been titillating repartee, the look the twins exchanged made it seem otherwise. Ree felt her face begin to heat.
“Well, I guess we should get started,” she said hastily.
Half an hour later, every last paper from the stack had been signed or initialed and the deed was done. Or, more accurately, the deed had exchanged hands.
They had agreed that Saybrook’s would take immediate possession of the structure, and so all the utilities and telephone service would be transferred to the resort’s account by th
e end of the business day. Ree now had it in writing that she would reside on the Peril Pointe property, overseeing the renovation as an independent contractor and receiving free board for the duration of her employment.
She stared at the cashier’s check in her hands and counted the zeroes. She couldn’t believe the sum she would soon deposit into her bank account—the same account that a mere hour ago had been in serious jeopardy of being overdrawn. She wouldn’t have to worry about that now or for the foreseeable future if she lived frugally and invested wisely.
For the first time since returning to northern Michigan, she felt herself breathe easier. She might no longer own the Victorian or the waterfront acreage she’d tramped over as a child, but her future was hardly as gloomy as it had appeared a couple years ago when her marriage had been failing right along with Nonna’s health.
“Ree?” Dane spoke her name quietly.
She glanced up to find the others were standing. The meeting was over.
“Sorry.” She got to her feet as well.
Hands were shaken, polite words exchanged. Throughout it all, Ree’s ears buzzed and her throat ached as emotions tumbled hard and fast, one on top of the other. She tried to process them: relief, gratitude and some guilt, excitement, an odd sense of anticipation and a more understandable sadness. And she knew, if she didn’t get out of there quickly, she would do something foolish and embarrassing like cry or laugh—perhaps both at the same time.
Even so, after she pulled on her coat and headed toward the exit, she hesitated in the doorway. The lawyers were gone, so it was just Luke, Ali and Audra now. And Dane, of course. Dane, whose kiss had once made Ree forget everything but what it was to feel alive and desired.
Turning back to face them, she said, “I want to thank you, again, for buying Peril Pointe. I know it’s in good hands. My grandmother would be pleased. I wish she could have met you all. She would respect the way you do business, putting quality above the bottom line. And she would like you personally because you’re good people, good-hearted.”
“That’s a lovely thing to say,” Ali replied.
“Yes, thank you,” Luke murmured. He’d been raised by his grandmother as well, Ree recalled from a magazine article. She saw understanding in his kind expression.
