Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3)

by Christi Barth

  “Good morning, girls,” Dawn said as she came out from the back office. Today’s sweater had tiny orange and yellow leaves appliquéd on the oversized pockets. “What did I miss?”

  Ella slapped out a tiny drumroll that set the plates dancing. “Piper and Ward are going to try dating again.”

  “Are they?” Her placid tone and expressionless face sprinkled with end-of-summer freckles gave away no hint of what she thought of the big disclosure. Which was absolutely no help whatsoever. And Casey’s stepmother was like a big sister to all of them. Her opinion mattered.

  Piper hurried out from behind the counter. “Do you think we shouldn’t?”

  “I think it is none of my business.”

  “What would we even do on a date? Where would we start? I know everything about him. He knows everything about me. We already see each other every day. How would this work?”

  Scooping Mitzi up into her arms, Dawn said, “You know, those are the same questions I’m asking myself about Joel. We’re finally supposed to have our first official date this weekend. I’m excited and petrified.”

  “Yes. That.” Piper stabbed her finger in the air back and forth between herself and Dawn. “Exactly that.”

  Another drumroll. Once all eyes turned to her, Ella suggested, “Why don’t you go on a double date?”

  It earned a nod of agreement from Casey. “Safety in numbers.”

  “That’s a horrible idea,” Piper blurted.

  Dawn’s dark blond eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Horrible might be a bit of an overreaction. Not to mention a bit insulting.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Except that she kind of had. Dawn and Joel had their own relationship tangle to work out. He’d kept his crush on her a secret for years, only just disclosing it. Meanwhile, they’d been best friends. How awkward would it be to make that transition? Piper scrambled for a way out of going on her second first date with Ward with two people more than a decade older than them. Without bringing up age. Or weirdness.

  The screen door slapped shut loudly behind Zane and Ward. Great. Nothing was settled, least of all Piper’s nerves or her mind. Which probably led to her saying in the snarkiest possible tone, “You’re late.”

  “Didn’t know there was a time clock attached to the coffeepot.”

  “Piper just means that there was a clear and present danger that I might eat all the donuts before you got here.” Casey ran to Zane, launched herself up into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Hey, hot stuff.”

  “Guess I’ll just have to lick the sugar off your lips, then.” He gave her a great, big, smacking kiss.

  Ward, as usual, aimed straight for the coffee carafes. Rats. Piper knew that worrying about the right thing to do would utterly ruin the next twenty-four hours. She’d get no work done. She’d overthink and second-guess herself in a giant circle.

  Waiting was pointless. Mainly because, deep down, no matter how much it defied logic and reason, there had never been a moment when she truly contemplated saying anything but yes to this man. So Piper marched over to join him.

  “I’m tired of thinking about you,” she announced.

  His shoulders stiffened. “Great way to start my day—thanks.”

  Oh, no. Soooo not what was supposed to come out of her mouth. Piper tried again. “I mean, I’m tired of thinking about your proposal.”

  “Getting a little ahead of yourself, cupcake. There was no proposal.” Ward grabbed her left hand and tweaked her fourth finger. “See? No diamond ring.”

  God, she was screwing this all up. Was this a harbinger of how poorly dating him would go? “I’m tired of thinking about your proposition.”

  “So don’t. Think about global warming. What you’re going to have for dinner tonight. Your brain has options.”

  Except that it didn’t. She’d been single-mindedly fixated on Ward for more than ten years. If it was a breakable habit, Piper would’ve done that ages ago. “I’ll do it. I’ll take you up on your offer of land for my port line.”

  That, finally, got Ward to turn and face her. The intensity in his eyes almost sent Piper stumbling back a step. “With the condition in place?”

  “Yes.” She wanted to be businesslike. She wanted not to think about how soon he’d kiss her again. But Piper couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from curving into a smile. “I agree to date you for one month. When do you want to begin?”

  Ella shouldered her way between them. “About that. Ward, we’ve had a brilliant idea. We think you two should double-date with Joel and Dawn this weekend.”

  “I don’t remember asking for a vote.”

  Zane cleared his throat. Loudly. And flanked Ward on his other side. “Ah, actually, that’s a great suggestion. Ward was just talking to me about ideas for your first date. His idea will be more fun if there’s four of you.”

  “It will?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Okay. Piper would take a buffer. Because there were two things she would not, could not do on this date: strip off all her clothes and hope he took it from there, and/or ask him why she hadn’t been enough for him the first time around. And Piper was almost certain only the presence of other people would be able to prevent her from doing one or both of those things.

  Chapter Six

  Ward still hated the word that Zane threw around like peanut shells in a bar, but he needed to woo Piper, damn it. Gently lure her back to him. Impress her with how good they were together. Kiss the pants right off of her. Prove that he understood her moods. Supported her choices. Cared about her happiness, dreams and desires. He got it.

  So why the hell had he agreed to take her to a bowling alley on their first date in ten years? It was loud. Average. Smelly. And you didn’t have to be a movie hero to know that wearing anti-fungal-sprayed shoes was about as far from romantic as you could get. Especially for Piper. Piper, who always wore impossibly skinny heels that forced any guy with a pulse to stare at them.

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do tonight?” he asked her in a low tone. Not too low. Had to be heard over the crack of the balls against the pins. Or, for the less fortunate, the dull thud as the ball dropped into the gutter. “We can go.”

  She carefully rolled up the cuffs of her jeans until they cleared the top of the rainbow-striped shoes. “What’s the matter? Are you worried I’m going to rack up more strikes than you?”

  “Not even a little.” Ward keyed in STRIKEMASTER as his name on the scoreboard. Thought about typing in THROWS LIKE A GIRL just to tease Piper, but he knew better than to rile up his teammate.

  “I like that you didn’t go the predictable route. People fall back on a movie for a first date all the time. But they’re a horrible way to get to know someone. You can’t talk during a movie.”

  “Movies aren’t about talking, cupcake. They’re about action.”

  “Lots of women wouldn’t agree to an action movie on their first...” Comprehension dawned in her eyes at the same moment that a wash of pink connected the freckles on Piper’s cheeks. “You’re not talking about the genre of the movie, are you?”

  “Nope.” It was like trying to explain cars to cavemen. How did she not get it?

  “All these years, I’ve been oblivious. Men really expected I’d let them grope me in a dark theater before I even learned if they had siblings or a job?”

  Like any of that mattered when you were cozied up next to a pretty woman. But for the sake of defending his gender, he’d keep going. “Only children kiss just as well as those from big-enough-to-be-our-own-baseball-team families. And you wouldn’t let someone take you out if they weren’t employed.”

  “Are you calling me an employment snob?”

  Hell, yes. And an education snob. And about six other kinds too. But those were all kn
ee-jerk reactions, instilled from the cradle by her parents. Once she started talking to someone, the first impression judging vanished.

  Piper was great at meeting people at their level. At respecting people whatever their job or background or worth. Sometimes it took her a minute to work past her parents’ ingrained prejudices, but then she was all on board. Her warmth and genuine appreciation for people made her a fantastic tasting room manager.

  “I’m calling you practical.”

  She tossed back her red cloud of hair. “I can support myself. I don’t run credit checks on prospective boyfriends, you know.”

  Great. She was getting pissy. Getting all worked up to lecture him. It was their routine, ever since he’d come back to town and they’d forged a shaky truce. Ward said something that rubbed her the wrong way because she took almost everything he said the wrong way, and then it was game on. Well, not tonight. They’d gone almost a full week without snapping at each other over nothing. Ward wouldn’t let her slip back into the bad habit. Not ten minutes into their first night of a month solid of dating.

  So he’d make the supreme sacrifice of spelling it all out for her. Using twice as many words as he liked—which would still be probably half as many as Piper preferred. “It’s about similarities. You have a job. You want him to have a job. Gives you things in common, things to talk about over dinner or rant about over wine. You want him to have the same priorities and sense of responsibility and drive that you do. And if you add that all up? It equals to you not ever giving so much as fake digits to a guy without a career. Not out of snobbery. Out of a desire to make the relationship work.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then another. It dragged on long enough for Ward to be able to put a name to the longest guitar riff ever. Well, he narrowed it down to a band. A hair band. Close enough.

  Finally, Piper said, “You see a lot more than you ever say.”

  “Maybe.” In the next dragged-out silence, Ward swiftly typed in the rest of their names. He’d be more comfortable once they started throwing the ball down the lane. Any kind of action was preferable in his book to just sitting. Especially when Piper was pinning him with that laser stare that saw who-knows-what.

  “The Ward Cantrell I knew back in high school wouldn’t have noticed all of that.”

  “That kid’s long gone.” That was exactly what he was trying to get through to Piper over the course of the next month. That the idiot, cheating, scum-sucking douche-bag of his youth who hurt her was history. That he’d cleaned up his act. That he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. That he’d never take her for granted again.

  “The Ward I knew a week ago wouldn’t have taken the time to explain all of that to me.”

  “He would have.” He traced the tip of his finger against the soft rim of her ear, then down the peacock feather earring. “If he’d thought that you’d listen.”

  “Point taken. And Ward?” She reached up to skim her fingers along his. “I’m listening now.”

  Tension—the hot kind, not the annoyed kind—steamed in the air between them. If they weren’t in a bowling alley, he’d kiss her. Just pull her onto his lap and go for it.

  “If you kids are trying to plan some sort of winning strategy, don’t bother.” Joel spread his feet wide and tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “This game is as good as over already.”

  “Knock it off, Joel.” Dawn sliced her finger across her throat to cut him off. “Winning is only half the fun. The other half is watching you decimate them, frame by frame.”

  Ward respected the smack talk. Sometimes it was more fun than the game itself. “Is there something we should know? Is your cover for your secret black ops that you’re a champion bowler? Not that I see you blending into any hot spots wearing that shirt.” It was mostly black. But the collar points were a hideous mustard yellow. The color mustard turned after it dried around the rim for five days.

  “Have some respect,” Joel chided. “This was my grandfather’s shirt. He stopped wearing it the night he won the American Legion Championship, and passed it down to my father. Swore he’d filled it full of luck.”

  “Had he?”

  “Nah. Dad couldn’t play at all. He claimed it was a bum knee, but we all knew that a six-year-old girl could throw a ball down the alley straighter than him. He only held on to it for one painful season before handing it down to me.”

  Ward did respect family traditions. Envied them, seeing as how he had none of his own. “Okay, okay. Family heirloom means you get a pass on the shirt.”

  “You don’t.” Joel sneered back at him. “If your father had ever worn that shirt of yours, everyone on Seneca Lake would still be talking about it.”

  Ward smoothed a hand down the colorful rows of liquor bottles marching across his chest. He usually only brought it out for the informal poker tournaments they cobbled together during blizzards. It was loud and obnoxious. But what the hell else did you wear to a bowling alley? Not like he could’ve rocked one of his three ties to impress his date. “It is a family heirloom. The family you choose and make yourself. The kind that counts more.”

  Quietly, Piper put a hand on his arm and asked, “Did Skip give that to you?”

  “Yeah.” Skip Worthington. The man who’d fathered him more in six years than his own blood had done over the course of an entire life. “It was a going-away present the last day I worked at his distillery. A good joke.”

  “Either a joke or a punishment,” Dawn corrected as she backed up against Joel. He tucked her into an embrace like they’d done it a hundred times. Like this wasn’t actually their first date.

  Was this a competition? See whose first date could be less awkward? Did this mean he should’ve already kissed Piper? God, this whole double-first-date idea sucked. The novelty of watching Joel and Dawn navigate it all so smoothly split his focus from Piper. And did kick in more than a little of his competitive spirit. Not good.

  Absently, Ward ran a hand down the front of his shirt. “He said he wanted to be sure I didn’t forget what all the other bottles looked like. On account of my living and breathing bourbon that first year I started Lakeside.”

  “You never talk about him.”

  Ward almost shrugged off the comment. But then he remembered that the whole point of the month was to have Piper get to know him, the current version. To wipe out the memory of the punk-ass kid who broke her heart. To show her that he’d grown up in all the ways that mattered.

  Still, he needed a little help unsticking the plug that bottled up all his feelings and memories. He busied himself pouring the first round of beer from the plastic pitcher. “What do you want to know?”

  “Um, everything?” Her voice lifted up at the end in a half laugh, half question. “I know you started working at his distillery—”

  Ward cut her off. “It was a palace. A palace to bourbon.”

  “Okay, you got a job at the palace as soon as you got to college. Kept working there through graduation and beyond, until your dad died and you came back to New York. That’s all I know. What do you want me to know?”

  Talk about a loaded question. “Skip hired college kids all the day long. We were good menial labor for hauling bags of grain and lifting barrels. He was a big-time fan of the football team. Was on it himself before he ripped his Achilles in half senior year. I won’t bore you with the details, but I know ‘em. Heard the story dozens of times over the years. Anyway, he took a shine to me since I was on the team.”

  “Living vicariously through you?”

  “Not for long. Not once...well, you know,” he said, ducking his head. Ward was no etiquette master. But he damn sure knew it was bad form to bring up the night he’d broken Piper’s heart and subsequently screwed up his entire life.

  “Once you healed up, he gave you your job back?” Dawn asked quietly. She took the fille
d cups from in front of him and handed them around.

  He appreciated that she’d pulled him across that conversational pothole. “Never took it away in the first place. Skip was there, in the stands, when it happened. He showed up at my hospital room. Told me not to worry about a thing, and to report to his office the next week. Parked me behind a desk and started teaching me, well, everything.” After covering the surgical and PT costs that the college wouldn’t. After giving Ward a two-month advance on his salary so he could still buy snacks and notebooks and whatever else he needed.

  “What a wonderful man.”

  Yeah. Although Skip wouldn’t want to hear it. He brushed off thanks like they were fleas. “Skip taught me his business. He taught me how to bargain with suppliers. How to spot if employees are taking off with your stock. How to stay brand-conscious but move with the times.” That was what Ward learned while shadowing the older man. The other lessons, on how to be a good man, how to give back to the community, how to respect a woman—those he learned over long Sunday dinners with the Worthington family.

  Piper’s summer sky-blue eyes locked on to his. “Why didn’t you stay? It sounds like he was grooming you to take over.”

  Ward bent in half, both to get away from her too-probing eyes and to unlace his boots. “That was my dream. I don’t know for sure if he would’ve asked me. Like to think so. But then Dad died, and I had to come home and deal with the farm. Couldn’t sell it, not in the condition he left it and with the debts hanging over it. Only thing I could do to get out from under it all was make it work somehow. That’s why I started Lakeside.”

  “Do you miss Skip?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then how come you never go back?”

  This was feeling less like a date and more like a police interrogation. “How about you earn the next slew of questions? Nothing more until you hit a strike, or we’ll be warming the bench all night.”

  “Fair enough.” Piper stood, gave a shimmy to get her green sweater, as thin as cobwebs, to fall into place. Ward could’ve watched her shimmy like that all night. “I’m ready to make Joel eat his words.”