Gone was the fun, vibrant Brooklynn he’d picked up a half an hour ago.
“Hey.” He reached over and took her hand in his, every skin cell vibrating with the touch. “You’re not wasting time.”
“Yeah, I kind of am.”
“What does that mean?” Dave asked as he pulled into the parking lot on the restaurant end of the lodge. There were definitely people here for brunch, but the woman he’d talked to last night said it was not sold out.
He put the SUV in park and twisted to look at Brooklynn. She was so beautiful, it almost hurt to look at her. His fingers twitched, because he wanted to touch her, and he reminded himself how thankful he was to have this date with her at all.
He’d been out with her before. Kissed her even. But the activities of his youth seemed so far away, and they hadn’t meant hardly anything to him. Regrettably. But right now, this morning, being here with her meant something to him.
“I guess it means I haven’t really been living since Ryker died.” She studied her hands, that gorgeous hair falling between them.
Dave reached over and tucked it behind her ear, drawing her attention to him. Her eyes held unshed tears, and he smiled at her. “I’m so sorry about him.”
She nodded and sniffed. “Yeah, me too.”
Dave stifled his sigh and looked out the windshield instead. She wasn’t ready for this. No wonder she’d refused to go out with him every time he’d asked for the last year. “Should I take you home?”
“What?” She wiped her eyes and looked at him. “No, I don’t want to go home.”
“No?” Dave met her eye, hope filling him, making him feel lighter in his seat. “I understand if you’d rather not be here. Really.”
“I don’t want to be alone,” she whispered, and Dave wasn’t sure if that meant she liked him or was using him, but he decided on the spot that he didn’t care.
He took her hand and squeezed. “You’re not alone.”
“Thank you,” she said, straightening. “Now.” She shook her hair over her shoulders, dislodging her hand from his. As he watched, she threw off the drape of depression and darkness that had covered her. “I’ve heard they have smoked salmon at this brunch, and I’m dying for some of that.”
Dave chuckled as he flipped the hood up on his jacket. “Well, let’s go get some of that.” He reached for the door and added, “Stay there. I’ve got an umbrella in the back.” He got out of the SUV, retrieved the umbrella from the back as the wind tried to blow him right off the mountain, and jogged around to her side.
He opened the umbrella and then opened the door so she could duck under it. She did, pressing right into his body and stealing his breath.
This time, he didn’t freeze and go into a staring episode, but managed to get them under the roof of the restaurant and out of the rain.
“Sometimes I seriously question my life choices,” she said, glancing over her shoulder.
“Yeah, no kidding,” he said. “Like, why do we live here?”
“Hey, at least you got out of town for a while.” She pressed one palm against his chest, the perfect flirtatious gesture that would have him grinning for weeks. “I’ve been living in this rain my whole life.”
He chuckled as he opened the door. “Yeah, it’s better weather in Southern California, that’s for sure.”
“Is that where you’ve been?” she asked, going in ahead of him.
“One of the places,” he said.
“Oh, so you’re a world traveler,” she teased, that rare smile making an appearance. Dave felt himself teetering on the edge of a cliff, and one more touch, one more tease, one more smile would push him over and he’d be falling.
Falling in love.
“Not quite,” he said with a laugh. He stepped up to the hostess podium and gave the woman there his name. “Just a US traveler. I work for the United States Coast Guard.”
“Oh, believe me, I’m aware.”
Dave detected something in her voice and turned to face her. “You are?”
“This way,” the hostess said, and he reached for Brooklynn’s hand so they could walk to their table together.
She let him, and Dave hoped everyone in the restaurant could see them holding hands, because it meant for this one moment, this short walk to a booth in front of the windows, that she was his.
He wanted a lot more moments than this one, but if this was all he got, Dave decided he could be happy.
They sat down, and the hostess said, “Your waitress will be Bonnie, but plates are at the end of the cold bar and the hot bar. Enjoy,” before walking away.
Dave shrugged out of his wet leather jacket while Brooklynn slid into the booth. Would it be too forward to sit right beside her?
Probably.
And besides, he didn’t want to sit beside her. He wanted to look at her while they talked. So he sat across from her, shoving his jacket against the wall.
“I have—” she started, but the waitress appeared with a big sigh, taking his attention.
“Would you two like anything to drink?” she asked.
He noted the nervous look in Brooklynn’s eyes before he turned to the waitress. “I’ll have Mountain Dew and orange juice.”
Bonnie’s eyebrows went up. “And for you?”
“Coffee and cream, please,” she said.
Bonnie left, and Dave faced Brooklynn again. “Coffee and cream?”
“I have a confession,” she said. “Two of them, actually.” She leaned back in the booth. “One’s serious, and one’s not. Which would you like first?”
Dave wasn’t sure what kind of game she was playing, but her eyes glinted with mischief, and he really liked it. “Let’s go with non-serious first. I mean, we haven’t even gotten the smoked salmon yet.”
She leaned forward, those dark green eyes practically sparkling like stars. “I am really bad at making coffee.”
Chapter Six
Dave burst out laughing, that joy-filled sound infusing Brooklynn’s soul. She laughed too, something she felt like she hadn’t done in a while. Surely she had, she just felt like she hadn’t.
But with Dave, the perpetual darkness that plagued her seemed to be gone. Just poof. Not there anymore.
“So you order it when you go out. Hey, you do what you need to do,” he said, sliding to the end of the bench. “Should we go get some food?”
“Yes, food.” She joined him and headed for the cold bar first. There were shrimp and cocktail sauce, the smoked salmon she was after, and deviled eggs. All of her favorite things, though she skipped the smoked salmon for now. Dave hadn’t been being literal when he said they couldn’t talk about serious things until the smoked salmon, but she was going to save the second confession for a few more minutes.
If she said it at all.
Her mind whirred as she made her selections and returned to the booth. Dave followed a minute later, a sigh coming out of his mouth.
“Can I confess something too?” he asked, opening a napkin on the table beside him.
“Of course.” But her heart vibrated in her chest, sending weird pulses through her veins.
“I’ve had a huge crush on you for years,” he said, that charming smile making an appearance. The dimple in his left cheek was still there, and how he hadn’t been snatched up was a complete mystery.
“That’s not a confession,” she said, spreading her napkin across her lap. “You’ve asked me out nine times in the past year. You think I didn’t know you liked me?”
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. “It was one year.” He put a bite of biscuit and gravy in his mouth and watched her.
Realizations hit her, and Brooklynn felt like a whispering breeze could knock her over. “How long?”
He swallowed and reached for the orange juice the waitress had brought while they’d been getting their food. “I was going to ask you out the day I got back to Hawthorne Harbor.”
“But I was with Ryker.”
“Right.”
�
��And then I got married.”
“Mm hm.” He focused on his food then, either unable or unwilling to look at her. Guilt tripped through her, and she didn’t even know why. It wasn’t her fault she’d been in a relationship with Ryker when Dave had returned to town. They’d been engaged for ten months before getting married, and Dave had been in town for all of that too.
“You came to the wedding.”
“I did,” he said. “We’re friends, Brooklynn. We’ve been friends for a long time. I mean, I know I left town, but we weren’t really together.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Were we?”
“No,” she said, her voice almost trapped in the back of her throat. “We went to a few dances together.”
“Kissed a couple of times,” he said, and heat shot through her body at the memories still there, shelved in the back of her mind.
“Yeah.” She cleared her throat.
He continued to eat, and Brooklynn wasn’t sure what else to say. She finished her shrimp before he said, “I believe there were two confessions.”
“I don’t even have smoked salmon yet,” she said.
Dave slid out of the booth without another word and returned a few seconds later with the desired delicacy.
She tried to glare at him, but a smile played with her lips, making it impossible to convey her mock annoyance with him.
He ducked his head, an adorable move to conceal his own smile. She still caught sight of it anyway. “I’m just…I’m wondering if this is a one-time thing or not,” he said. “So I want to hear the confession, because then maybe I’ll know.”
Brooklynn didn’t even know if this date was a one-time thing or not. Part of her wanted it to be. The other part thought it might die if she didn’t see Dave every single day for the rest of her life.
“Okay,” she said, drawing in a deep breath. “It starts with my horrible fear of the ocean.”
Dave pulled his soda closer and unwrapped a straw, silent.
Brooklynn touched the smoked salmon, but she didn’t have an appetite for it anymore. “The ocean killed Ryker.” Around them, people chatted and laughed, having a great time. She felt removed from the world again, and she hated that.
She blinked, and Dave’s face appeared before her in full-color. She wanted to live in full color. All the time. Every day. Every night.
With him?
He’s a start, she thought, and she tried to focus on those dark eyes that seemed to see everything she was going to say anyway.
“And you work on the ocean,” she said. “And I’ve rejected you for a year, because I can’t stand the thought of falling in love with you and then losing you the way I lost Ryker.”
There. She’d said it.
Now, if only Dave would say something back.
“That’s a tough one,” he finally said, dumping the rest of his orange juice in his soda glass now that it was half empty.
“Yeah,” she said, feeling like she’d put a damper on their fun brunch date. Dave recovered quickly and moved the conversation to something else. She let him, because it was easier to talk about their families than their feelings, and Brooklynn needed easy.
Once they’d finished and he’d driven her back to her house, he walked with her all the way to her front door.
“I had a great time,” he said, folding her into the strong safety of his arms. She loved the way he held her so close without being demanding that she stay.
“Me too,” she said, backing up a step. “Did you get the answer to your question?”
He cocked his head and watched her. “I haven’t decided yet.” He touched his temple in a soft military salute, and added, “See you later, Brooklynn.”
Oh, he wasn’t playing fair when he said her name like that. All soft and melty and full of emotion.
“Bye,” she murmured to his retreating back, and she managed to get inside the house without making a fool of herself. No, she’d done that plenty at the restaurant.
“So, how’d it go?”
The sound of Julie’s voice startled Brooklynn enough to elicit a yelp from her. She pressed her palm over her pulse and said, “You’re still here.”
“Duh,” Julie said from the couch. “You just had your first date since Ryker’s death, with the hottest man in town. I wasn’t going to miss how it went.”
“He’s not the hottest man in town,” Brooklynn said, coming around to sit beside her best friend.
Julie cocked her head and lifted only her right eyebrow as if to say, Really? Are you blind?
Brooklynn couldn’t help it. She started giggling, because fine. Dave was the hottest man in town, and she’d had an amazing time with him, confessions and all.
“Hey, Mama.” Brooklynn leaned down to give her mother a kiss on the forehead. She’d gotten all of her height from her dad, who was nowhere to be found in the kitchen. “Where is everyone?”
“Late,” she said with a shake of her head. “Laci had to stay after work for a few minutes. Erika is out with someone and didn’t want to leave. She might not come at all.” She rinsed the pot she’d been washing and put it on a towel beside the sink.
“Mike’s working tonight, and Scooter’s picking up Tilly.”
Which left Brooklynn, the oldest of the Magleby children in this small branch of the huge family tree. “Who’s Erika dating?”
“John Marstrup,” her mother said. “And apparently she really likes him.”
“She’s been out with him before,” Brooklynn said in a dry tone. “She didn’t like him then.” She’d need to text her sister later. Erika had been through some hard stuff in the past few years, and she sometimes looked for validation in the wrong places.
Brooklynn understood. Coming from the most notable family in town wasn’t easy. People looked at her for a certain standard, and the pressure to do good, always be perfect, was intense.
A moment later, her youngest brother entered the house, his daughter’s shriek announcing their arrival. “Gramma! Did you see there are turkeys out by the road?” The six-year-old came into the kitchen at a run. “Turkeys!” She made a sound that was probably supposed to be a gobble, and Brooklynn laughed.
See, she laughed.
“Hey, Scoot,” she said, accepting a side-hug from her brother, who’d entered the kitchen at a much slower pace.
“I know, baby,” her mom said to Tilly. “I texted your daddy and told him about them. Grandpa’s been out there, trying to get us one.”
Tilly looked mildly horrified for a moment, and then her whole face lit up. “To eat?”
“That’s right, hon. Now go into the pantry and get your gramma some cups. The pink ones.”
Tilly skipped off to get the job done, and their mother asked, “How’s Heather?”
Her brother’s ex-wife and Tilly’s mom. “Fine,” Scooter said as he sat at the bar with Brooklynn. “She’s taking the medication. She did great this past weekend with Tilly.”
“She’s been there since Friday, right?” Brooklynn asked.
“Yeah,” Scooter said, wiping his hands through his hair. “It was harder on me than I thought it would be.” He looked at her with his hazel eyes, deep and dark and full of worry. “But Tilly said things were fine, and the social worker that was there had good things to report.”
Their mother patted his hand. “Good. It’s good for her to be with her mom too.”
“I know that,” Scooter said, danger in the edges of every syllable. “I’m going to go find Dad.”
“Oh, he’s out in the fields,” their mother said. “Take a vest with you so he doesn’t shoot you.”
Brooklynn chuckled as her brother left the kitchen, and she thought now might be a good time to bring up Dave. No one else was here, and she wouldn’t mind if Laci knew at this point in the relationship.
Relationship.
She couldn’t believe she could possibly have another one of those and survive.
“Mom,” she said, something in her voice drawing her mother from the butter sh
e was stirring into the rice.
“What is it?” she asked, abandoning the task altogether.
“I went out with someone,” Brooklynn said, trying the words out in her mouth as she said them.
Her mom—always the theatrical one—gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. Her wide eyes stared back at Brooklynn. “You did? When? Who?”
Her mother may not be the Magleby, but she did love a good, juicy piece of gossip. Before Brooklynn could answer her, the front door opened again.
“Mama,” Laci called. “Come help me for a minute. Aunt Mabel needs—”
“I don’t need help.” Aunt Mabel’s voice filled the foyer just outside the kitchen. “I can walk up stairs, girl.”
Brooklynn got up anyway, her exchanged glance with her mother begging her not to say anything. “Hey, Aunt Mabel.” She embraced her aunt, taking in a long, deep breath of the honey and lavender scent of her skin. “You’ve been using my soap.”
“Oh, I love that stuff,” Aunt Mabel said, but if Brooklynn hadn’t known her, she’d have thought the older woman hated it, what with the way she scoffed and waved her wrinkled hand. “I’ll tell you want I don’t love.” She teetered over to the kitchen table. “This rain. It’s killing my arthritis.”
“I’ll get you some tea, Mabel,” her mother said, pulling down a mug and setting the kettle on the stove. “So Brooklynn was just telling me some big news.”
“Mom,” Brooklynn said, but the words had already been spoken. Laci and Aunt Mabel watched her now, and a squirmy feeling moved through her stomach. “It’s nothing, really.”
“She went out with someone,” her mom practically yelled as she filled the tea kettle with water. “She was just about to tell me who.”
Brooklynn looked at Laci helplessly, but Laci only reached up and took out the elastic keeping her hair in a ponytail. The blonde tresses came down, and she raked her fingers through her hair. “I bet I know who it is.”
“I do know who it is,” Aunt Mabel said, her eyes closed as if she were meditating and had discovered who Brooklynn had gone to brunch with a few days ago.
The Captain's Second Chance Page 4
