by Hope Ramsay
Why did she suddenly feel cornered? And why did she let these women make her feel that way?
“Reverend St. Pierre is free to have breakfast wherever he wants.” She met Patsy’s accusatory stare.
“Oh, darlin’, don’t be so defensive. I wasn’t casting aspersions on your cooking. I’m just curious as to whether anyone knows why he’s been spotted at the coffee shop every morning since Palm Sunday,” Patsy said.
“Why do you care? He can eat where he wants to,” Sandra said.
“But why would he want to?” Karen asked in a querulous voice. “Ashley’s biscuits are better than Brooklyn’s scones any day.”
“Micah usually eats oatmeal,” Ashley supplied, then regretted sharing that information.
“Well, he’s not eating oatmeal now,” Patsy said. “I wish I knew why.”
“Because, dear friends, Brooklyn Huddleston owns Bread, Butter, and Beans,” Donna said with a twinkle in her eye and a slightly smug grin.
Everyone looked in Donna’s direction, while a strange sensation worked its way through Ashley. What the heck? Was Micah interested in Brooklyn? And here she’d been wondering for days and days whether it had been something she’d said or done that had driven him away. Good grief, how could she have missed this?
“Oh my goodness,” Patsy said. “He’s courting Brooklyn?”
“Well, she’s about his age, and she’s available. And they smile a lot at each other. I was over there just yesterday. He was flirting with her.”
“Oh, no. We can’t have that. She’s a Methodist,” Patsy said. “Ashley, we need to put a stop to this right now.”
Chapter Eighteen
Dylan called on Wednesday morning during the inn’s breakfast service and left a message on Ella’s voice mail. “I’ve made a reservation for tonight’s sunset champagne cruise on Synchronicity Too,” he’d said. “I’ll pick you up precisely at five o’clock, and please dress appropriately.”
What the hell did that mean? And she was kind of disappointed that he’d called when she’d been at work. Because she wouldn’t have minded talking to him.
Which was the problem right there. A girl could fall in love with Dylan Killough, and what a disaster that would be, because he’d made it pretty clear that whatever was going on between them was nothing more than a summer fling.
And she didn’t blame him for thinking that way. She’d told him that was all she wanted. But then again, sleeping with Dylan had been mind-altering. More important, there had been that moment at Granny’s when he’d leaned in and told her that she’d missed a spot on that casserole dish.
Yeah. That had been sexy as hell. No, not merely sexy. It had been endearing. It had been the sort of thing that wormed its way into a woman’s heart.
So yeah. She liked him. More than was wise. More than she could ever admit.
And he didn’t understand. He thought they could sneak around, have a fun time, and it would all be okay in the end. But that wasn’t possible. There would be heartbreak if she let herself fall all the way. And that would ruin everything for Mom and Jim.
She couldn’t do it.
She needed to discourage him. She needed to discourage herself. And that little tag at the end of his message was a good place to start. Did he think she dressed inappropriately?
Her mind flashed hot on the memory of his long fingers deftly working the buttons of the dress she’d worn on Easter Sunday. It hadn’t been an overtly sexy dress, but he certainly hadn’t had a lot of trouble getting her out of it.
She opened her closet door and considered a wardrobe filled with dresses exactly like the one she’d worn on Easter. Maybe she needed something more like a chastity belt.
Or maybe he was sending a signal that he was ready for more fun times between the sheets.
What did appropriately mean, exactly? She stared at her paltry collection of dresses and decided she had nothing “appropriate” to wear tonight. What she needed was something that would discourage him. Like a high-necked, long-sleeved, ugly thing that maybe a grandmother—not Granny, of course—might wear to a funeral.
A shopping trip was required, but she had no car, no time, and, really, no clue. So she flopped down on the bed and called Granny. “Dylan and I are going on the champagne sunset cruise tonight.”
“What?” Granny sounded concerned.
“Yeah. We’re checking it out as a party venue.”
“Oh. That’s a novel idea. You know Brenda and Jim’s first date was on Synchronicity Too.”
“So I heard.”
“But that boat isn’t nearly big enough.”
“That’s good, right? We can pare down the list.”
“I guess. I think Brenda might like the idea.”
“I hope so, because I’ve run out of ideas. But, Granny, I have a problem.”
“Oh dear.” Granny sounded even more concerned.
“It’s not that big of a problem, Granny.”
“Oh, good. What is it, sugar?”
“Dylan left a message on my voice mail. He told me to dress appropriately for this thing tonight. Any idea what that means?”
“Uh…no. Not really. I haven’t ever been on the sunset cruise. I’m afraid I’m too old for that sort of thing.”
“You are not. But anyway, I just looked at my closet and you know I’ve got nothing that Doctor D is going to think is appropriate.”
“Sugar, you should not spend one minute of your time trying to please that man. Just be yourself. Wear what you wore to Easter dinner. That was a very pretty dress on you.”
“I can’t wear that one. It’s…at the cleaners.” She prayed that Granny didn’t have a BS detector.
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Well…” Granny’s voice had a funny ring to it when she finally spoke again. “If you’re asking me where you should go for a wardrobe update, I’d suggest Daffy Down Dilly. Kerri will fix you up with the perfect outfit for a champagne cruise.”
“Thanks. That’s exactly what I needed.”
“Sugar?”
“What, Granny?”
“Be careful, okay?”
Ella paused. Had she said too much? Had her grandmother figured out that she had a crush on Doctor D? Oh, good grief. She should never have consulted with her. She reached for the first, lame thing that came to her mind. “Of course I will be. I bet they have life jackets on the cruise. Don’t you worry. I’ll be fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Love you.” She disconnected the line before Granny said another word.
Thirty minutes later, she walked into Daffy Down Dilly and found the collection of sundresses in the corner. Unfortunately, most of these dresses were not funereal. They were adorable and completely inappropriate because they showed way too much shoulder and cleavage.
She pawed through the rack, jettisoning one cute dress after another, until she finally found a boring navy dress with white polka dots, a crew neck, and short sleeves that probably wouldn’t have worked for a funeral. But Ella could see some DAR-type wearing it to a baptism.
Ella left the store an hour later with the conservative garment and a pair of boring navy ballet flats. She couldn’t wear her Doc Martens with this dress. That would just be weird. With her boho dresses, the Docs made a statement.
So she felt completely out of her element when she stepped through the doors to meet Dylan. She hated the way she looked in this dress, and she hoped he hated it too. But she was still insanely happy to see him, at the same time she dreaded the moment of first contact.
Would it be awkward? Or hotter than she could bear? It could go either way. She was hoping the dress, which was uncomfortable as hell, would throw cold water on the whole affair.
Dylan was looking down at his phone, checking messages as she approached the car in the circular drive. That was a bit of a disappointment, really. She’d kind of wanted him to be anticipating her arrival.
When he finally did look at her, his gaze was cool and u
nreadable. But what should she have expected? She’d told him to cool it. He was following instructions.
And he didn’t seem to be having any trouble with his emotions either. In fact, he seemed like his normal self, wearing his usual uniform: navy jacket, white button-down, and a bow tie. He was living large today; his noose was made of yellow and blue silk.
He continued to coolly assess her as she slipped into the passenger’s seat. “You should probably bring a sweater,” he said.
That was the absolute last thing she’d expected him to say. A little part of her wanted him to ask her why she was wearing this dress from hell. An even larger part of her wanted him to grab her by the shoulders and kiss her senseless. Which would have been stupid because she’d asked him not to do anything like that.
“I don’t have a sweater,” she said truthfully.
“A jacket?”
“I’m fine,” she said, tearing her gaze away from him and reaching for the seat belt. The top of the dress cut her armpits as she moved, as if the sleeve openings were just a tad too small. Thank goodness she would never have to fiddle in this straitjacket.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
She settled back for the ride to the marina, watching his long fingers on the steering wheel, having flashback memories that really needed to be excised. She forced herself to look away, and the silence in the car became charged and uncomfortable.
Synchronicity Too was berthed at the end of the marina’s long pier because of its sheer size. So the walk down the pier seemed interminable, especially since they weren’t talking or touching.
She ought to be grateful that Dylan had taken her seriously and not shown up ready to play games or engage in verbal banter. But now, suddenly, she realized that she liked the games. Sparring with him was fun.
They stepped up a gangplank to reach the yacht, which was huge—at least a hundred feet long, with several masts and a dozen portholes marching down its sides. The sun gleamed off the boat’s brass work and the high shine of the wooden decks.
“Oh my goodness, it’s beautiful. And romantic. Dylan, why didn’t you think of this from the start?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s not perfect for a party. What if the weather’s crappy? The party would have to be postponed. And we still have to convince Dad and Brenda to cut back the guest list. We can only invite a max of forty. I checked with Jude about that.”
Boy, he was in a sour mood. “Stop trying to rain on the parade,” she said, her voice brittle.
She turned away from him and took three steps up the ramp, but the damn skirt was narrow, and the shoes were a tiny bit too big. She slipped on the aluminum decking and might have taken a serious tumble if Dylan hadn’t been Johnny-on-the-Spot, catching her before she face-planted. The slide of his warm palms against her upper arms made her insides reach critical mass.
When his hands lingered, she almost melted down. She needed to get away from him. Even in a sour mood, he was disrupting her thought patterns.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling away. If only she could walk in this dress. She gave the skirt a little tug because it had ridden up, but that didn’t make walking any easier.
The moment she stepped onto the boat, a member of the yacht’s crew, all of whom wore pristine white uniforms, handed her a flute of champagne and directed her aft.
She took a gulp of wine and then remembered the disastrous night at Cibo Dell’anima, when she’d had too much to drink and kissed Dylan in public. She needed to limit herself to this one glass. “Sip, don’t gulp” was the message of the day.
She moved toward the back of the boat, trying to outpace Dylan. “This is really beautiful,” she said, trying to fill the awkward silence. “I didn’t think they made boats with all this wood anymore.”
“They don’t. Synchronicity Too was originally built in 1930. The decking is all mahogany.”
She glanced up at him. “You seem to know a lot about it.”
“It’s been the talk of the yacht club since Jude bought it last year and completely refitted it.”
His mention of the yacht club irritated her, but maybe that was a good thing. She needed to be irritated; otherwise she might lose her mind and jump his bones…again.
She took another generous sip of champagne. “So I gather you spend a lot of time at the yacht club, huh?” Talking about his membership in the club seemed like a good way to remind her that they were not made for each other.
His gaze slid away. “I learned how to sail as a kid. And I guess it’s one of my hobbies. I have a small laser sailboat I take out when I get a chance.”
Of course he’d learned to sail as a kid. It was like a big red warning sign that they came from different places. She’d grown up in land-locked Muncie, miles away from Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. He grown up on a sea island, surrounded by bay and ocean.
“Well, I didn’t learn to sail as a kid,” she said, leaning back to inspect the mast. “We’ve got lots of wind in Muncie, but no sailing.”
He chuckled. “Mom wanted me to learn. I was not quite ten when she signed me up for sailing camp. I remember her watching me from the dock.”
This was the first time he’d ever talked about his mother. It seemed like a confidence or something. Not the sort of thing someone who was looking for a tumble would share.
“Was she always giving you pointers from the sidelines?” she asked.
“No.”
His one-word answer seemed like an emotional retreat. Which was a good thing, right?
But it annoyed her. So she turned to face him and pressed the point. “Tell me about your mom.”
* * *
Oh great. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about his mother. How the hell had he even fallen into this conversational black hole? He hated talking about his mother, and today especially, he had no heart for it.
So he ignored her question, took a sip of his champagne, and tried not to let today’s news about Coreen Martel ruin this moment.
Ella had worn a dress that reminded him of Lauren. And that was annoying too. He didn’t want Lauren.
He wanted Ella. In fact, he wanted to convince her to come home with him after this cruise was finished because she might be the antidote to the poison running through his veins right at the moment.
Earlier today, Grant Ackerman, one of the volunteers with the Magnolia Harbor fire department, had called the office to let them know that Coreen Martel had been found dead in her bathroom, evidently the victim of a fall. She’d died utterly alone.
He’d lost patients before. And Coreen was suffering from end-stage heart failure, so her days had been numbered, but the manner of her death had left him feeling a deep melancholy he couldn’t shake.
He glanced at Ella. It might be nice if she would hug him, but he couldn’t ask for a hug. Not here on the boat with a crowd surrounding them.
“I take it from your silence that your mother is a forbidden topic,” she said, pulling him back into the conversation.
“Uh, no. It’s just that…”
“You never talk about her. Is that because you’re trying not to compare her to my mother? I’m sure your mother was a paragon.”
He actually managed a smile. What was it about Ella? She amused him sometimes. “I’m sure she was, but I was only ten when she died. I don’t remember her that well. And you know, she was sick for a long time before she passed away.”
“It was cancer, right?”
He nodded. “She’d lost her hair that summer when I started sailing camp.”
“I’m so sorry. I…”
“It’s okay. She loved sailing even more than Dad does. But I guess…” His voice faded out.
“She wanted you to learn to love sailing before she died. She wanted to live long enough to see you sailing by yourself.” What the hell. Could Ella could read his thoughts or something?
“I guess. I didn’t really understand at the time. All I knew was that I was younger than all the other kids at
camp. And I felt like a loser.”
“You? Really?”
He leaned back onto the boat’s railing. “You know what they do on the first day of sailing camp?”
“Do I look like a sailor?”
“They make you capsize your boat. And then you have to get it upright and bail it out. Over and over again.”
“I guess that makes sense. But it doesn’t sound like much fun.”
He nodded. “The thing is, I was a year younger than everyone else because Mom had guilted the sailing school into making an exception for me. And since she was terminally ill and a member of the board, they broke the rules. So all the other kids got to practice capsizing their boats with seven-foot-long dinghies, but they gave me this tiny four-foot sailboat because I wasn’t big enough to capsize the bigger ones. I got teased. I hated it.”
“Did you get the boat upright?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then don’t complain. I mean, they were just helping you succeed. When I was six, I had a tiny violin. I couldn’t play a full-sized fiddle, so…”
He shook his head. “Brenda started you at six?”
“Yes, and your mother started you sailing at ten.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And you still enjoy sailing. You’re a member of the club, right?”
He nodded. “I like fly-fishing more,” he said. “But it is true that there are times when…” His voice trailed off as his throat got tight. He didn’t like talking about Mom, especially in emotional times like the present. How had he even started this conversation?
No, wait, he hadn’t really started it. Ella had.
“When what?” she coaxed.
He dragged in a breath of air filled with the scent of the bay. Funny how he rarely shared any of this. Lauren had never even asked about his mother. She’d accepted that Mom had died when he was young, and therefore Mom was a part of his past. Lauren had never much cared about his past because she’d been too busy planning his future. But the past mattered, didn’t it?
It mattered a lot.
He closed his eyes and actively remembered that summer before Mom died. She’d sit out on the yacht club deck wearing a knitted hat over her bald head, even in the heat of the summer. She’d wave at him every time he looked in her direction, as if watching him sail in that puny little dinghy had made her day.
