by JoAnn Ross
Not that any of that had stopped her from dreaming of Seth. Mature Audience Only dreams (she hadn’t had the experience to imagine the R-rated yet) that had her feeling guilty when she woke up, and making it hard to face either one of them the next day.
After graduation, Zoe had joined the Army, something she’d been talking about all through school, but Brianna hadn’t really believed she’d go through with. And, from what she could tell, her visit to the Port Angeles recruiting center had surprised even Seth. She’d always wanted to be a nurse, but loggers didn’t make that much money, and even with her part-time job waiting tables at the diner, her family hadn’t had the money for nursing school. Beginning with a descendent who’d first arrived on the peninsula from Seattle to serve at Port Townsend’s Fort Worden in the early 1900s—theoretically to thwart any invasion from the sea—every succeeding generation of Robinsons had had at least one military family member. Which was why Zoe, an only child without any brothers to carry on the tradition, had decided that letting the Army pay for college only made sense.
She and Seth had continued to date while she’d gone to school at UW, returning home on the weekends and for holidays. Although everyone in Honeymoon Harbor knew they were destined to spend their lives together, Seth had officially proposed on New Year’s Eve of Zoe’s final year, and after her graduation, once she’d been commissioned as a second lieutenant, they’d married in a simple ceremony at held in the Moments in Time meadow at Lake Crescent Lodge in Olympic National Park.
Because Seth was a civilian, rather than wear her dress uniform, Zoe had chosen to be married in a simple white silk shantung sheath, while Brianna, who’d returned home from her job at the Winfield Palace Hotel in Atlanta to serve as one of Zoe’s two attendants, had worn a sleeveless dress with a flared skirt in a soft, dusty pink that mirrored the mountains’ icy glaciers at sunrise. The other bridesmaid, Kylee Campbell, had gone with a matching style in a kelly green that echoed the new bright new needles on the fir trees surrounding the town.
After a weekend honeymoon at the lodge where President Franklin Roosevelt had once slept, Seth had stayed behind on the peninsula while Zoe headed off to San Antonio for more training. Afterward she’d gotten her choice assignment to serve at Joint Base Lewis-McCord’s Madigan Army Medical Center north of Olympia. So they’d moved into a rental near the base and considered themselves even more fortunate when she’d gotten to stay there for all four years of her active duty.
Although Brianna was busy moving from town to town, hotel to hotel, Zoe had kept her up to date with phone calls and texts. After finishing her active duty, the couple had returned to Honeymoon Harbor, where they moved into a house Seth got busy renovating. Zoe had been so excited about the house, texting pictures of the progress and links to Pinterest pages of ideas she had for making the small cottage perfect. She still owed the Army four years of Individual Ready Reserves, which apparently hadn’t seemed any big deal because it only involved mustering once a year, which she could even do online.
Tragically, just as her IRR time was coming to an end, she’d been deployed to Afghanistan, only to be killed in a suicide bombing at the hospital while on duty.
In the midst of transitioning from the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua on Maui to the soon-to-be opened Midas, Brianna had flown home across the Pacific for her BFF’s burial in the veterans’ section of the Harborview Cemetery, where generations of Robinsons were buried. At the time, Seth had appeared numb. Now, looking more closely at his face on her iPad’s screen, his face appeared haggard, his dark eyes haunted.
Brianna sighed at the painful memory, swiped at a tear, checked her watch and saw that she still had another ten minutes before the pizza delivery. While Vegas might be a 24/7 city, when it came to takeout, weekend nights were especially heavy. So rather than have to interrupt her movie when the delivery guy finally arrived, she took another sip of wine and impulsively clicked on the link to the town’s real estate listings.
When she saw the Victorian on the bluff overlooking the harbor at the top of the For Sale column, Brianna’s heart, which had been hurting for her lifelong friend and former crush, took a leap.
Despite the unfortunate color choice someone had chosen for the exterior, it was her house! Growing up Catholic, with a high school principal for a mother, Brianna had tended to be a rule follower. One exception had been all those times she’d sneak into the abandoned three-story house with her brothers and Seth. Her brothers had claimed the house was haunted. Brianna hadn’t believed in ghosts, but even if it did have a resident wandering spirit or two, she wouldn’t have cared. The creaky old Victorian spoke to her in some elemental way. Much as that first amazing taste of a Ding Dong had done.
Even in those days, as she’d wandered through the dusty, cobweb-strewn rooms, she’d pictured it as it must have once been. And could be again. All it had needed, she’d believed, was some love and tender care. The house named Herons Landing by its original timber baron owner for the many Great Blue Herons that would roost in nests in the property’s towering Douglas fir trees, was, quite literally, Brianna’s dream home. But, like her youthful dreams of Seth Harper, it would remain someone else’s reality.
The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of her spicy buffalo chicken pizza with Greek yogurt dressing. She logged out of the computer, paid for the meal and settled down to watch the opening of the Dragonfly Inn Gilmore Girls episode, which had inspired her to get into the hotel business. By the time all the first guests had arrived, Brianna had managed to put her encounter with the rude, gambling doctor behind her.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t going to prove that easy.
Copyright © 2018 by JoAnn Ross
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ISBN-13: 978-1-488-03408-4
THE LONG WAY BACK
First published as THE RETURN OF CAINE O’HALLORAN by Harlequin Temptation in 1994.
This edition published in 2018
Copyright © 1994 by JOANN ROSS.
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