It's Always Been You (Seasons of Hope Book 4)

by Jessica R. Patch

  Sierra raised an eyebrow. “Yes, well, let’s clean the slate so your sketches are spot on.” Sometimes Ezra could be beyond self-absorbed. Unfortunately, she had no right to remind him.

  “That came out wrong.”

  “Did it?” She tapped her foot on the dock, cocked her head.

  Today, his eyes appeared more green, like the forest. A swirl of emotion swept through them. “Let’s just paint and pretend we don’t have a past that hurts. Okay?”

  Could they? She’d forgiven Ezra, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still feel the bite of that night. The right thing to do was extend a little grace and maybe in Ezra’s way that’s what he was doing. “Okay.”

  His shoulders relaxed, and he came around behind her. “So why did you decide to take the job?”

  “You’re in a pinch, and a little part of me thinks maybe some of your city friends might come to a small-town B&B to get away. We have so many cool things here for tourists to do to unwind.”

  “So you are going to pursue it?”

  Her stomach roiled. “I didn’t say that. I dreamed a little on the way over. But they’re just daydreams.” She dipped the paint in the yellow and smeared it along the top of the canvas. Sunrise? Sunset? Who knew. She wasn’t the artist.

  “Good night, Sierra, did you glean nothing from me?” He chuckled and covered her hand with his. “Smooth strokes.”

  She needed to fan herself. Smooth out the waves of heat in her chest as he guided her brush across the canvas. “I’m rusty.”

  “You’re pitiful.” He brought her brush to the paint again and continued to lead her hand. “Why are you afraid?”

  Once, it’d been as simple as breathing to talk to Ezra, to share her fears and dreams. Without the tension, she felt the old comfort resurface. “What if it’s not the right move? What if I mess it up or take on more than I can chew?”

  “What if you do? What if you don’t? You’ve got to take a chance.” He dipped her brush into the black. She resisted. “I’m not making a bumble bee, Ezra. I’m making a sunset or a sunrise.”

  He pressed his mouth against her ear, sending a tickle down her ribs. “Take a chance, Sierra. Sometimes the unlikeliest of colors adds depth. Brings to life a stilted painting. Trust me,” he said. His lips lingered in her hair, against her ear.

  She’d given him her trust once. Trust not to break her heart. He’d shattered it, but she let him guide her with the paint. Purple. Blue. Orange. Dotting, stroking—long, short. Sierra could have been blindfolded; he’d taken over with a master’s confidence.

  Nothing but evening sunshine, a few faint sounds from kids swimming in cold lake water, and their breath mingling as he leaned over her, his cheek brushing her temple as they made magic.

  “I thought this was my picture.”

  His thumb caressed hers. “Sometimes we need help to see the whole picture.”

  “Or you’re just tyrannical.”

  Laughing, he paused with the brush on the canvas. “Possibly. This coming from one of the most controlling and OCD people I know. Do you still iron jeans?”

  “Shut up, Ezra.” She giggled. “…and maybe.”

  “You probably iron linen napkins and tablecloths, too.” He dipped into the blue and mixed it with white. Her hand was on fire at his touch, familiar yet brand new. No longer the hands of a novice boy but a skilled man.

  “I do not.” She tipped her face up, her mouth almost meeting his. “I…I steam them.”

  “Hmmm.” He held her gaze a moment before letting his sight fall to her lips. “Perfection.”

  Her lips? Her throat turned dry. “What’s that?” she croaked.

  “You. Always about perfection. A place for everything and nothing out of place.” Smirking, he slipped his hand from hers, along with the paintbrush, and before she could jerk away, he’d dotted her nose with the end of it, breaking the heavy current flowing between them.

  “No, you didn’t!” She swiped at her nose. Blue paint on her fingertips. “Ezra Lane Alcott!”

  “Sierra Adelaide Bradley!” He dipped the paintbrush into the purple and flicked his wrist, spraying her brown tank with paint. She shrieked, shocked and stunned. “What if this won’t come out?”

  “I don’t know.” Amusement colored his face, and he spattered her with green. Right across her cheeks and nose. “I’m shaking things up. Sometimes it’s necessary.”

  She was a mess. Grabbing his used brush she returned the favor with the black. He darted behind the canvas and slung another paint bomb. She laughed and dodged behind a lawn chair. Ezra chased her around it, splattering her with yellow, white, and orange.

  “Stop! Truce! Truce!”

  When he dropped his brush, she slung hers as hard as she could, spraying his face.

  “I trusted you, woman.”

  She laughed until he caught her by the waist and wrangled her paintbrush away. She’d missed the way his arms possessed her, the feel of skin and muscle, but not so much she couldn’t feel comfortable leaning into him.

  She feigned outrage. “I’m a disaster.”

  “You laughed, though, didn’t you?” He traced his index finger around the edges of her eyes, her lips, sending a hurricane of sensations through her. “You don’t have nearly enough laugh lines.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Besides, I like a little color on the canvas.”

  With a dried out throat, she sputtered, “I’m going to have to soak these clothes in a vat of water.”

  He eyed the lake. “Well,” he said, his breath fluttering across her face, “the least I can do is wash your clothes for you.”

  Dread hit her stomach. “Ezra, don’t. That water is going to be freezing. Don’t even—”

  Too late. He’d already launched them off the dock, his arms still locked around her.

  The icy water sucked the breath from her as they plunged underneath the surface. They rose to the top, and she yelped and shoved a mass of wet, tangly hair from her face.

  “I can’t believe you did that!”

  “Just like old times.” He threw his head back and laughed then swam to the edge of the dock, lifting himself out of the water. He reached for her hand. She splashed him then took it and let him haul her from the frigid lake water. Paint still marked her clothing.

  “Old times. I thought we were working off of a clean slate. No nostalgia.” She shivered, but it wouldn’t take long before the summer heat dried them off and warmed their bones.

  Ezra studied her, and she realized her shirt clung to her. She hurried and pulled it from her skin, the sucking noise averting his gaze. She wrung the bottom of her tank and sighed.

  “I must have forgotten.”

  Nostalgia. They couldn’t escape it but how much more could she take?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ezra stood on the dock, a war going on inside. Romance was off the table even if he felt the sparks. He couldn’t let himself be consumed by Sierra. He was leaving for France in a few weeks, and she was dreaming of buying the Monteith house. Even if she didn’t, it was clear her heart lay in Mistletoe.

  Not with him.

  Maybe they could find a way to be friends. If his heart could take it.

  “You want to finish the painting?” he asked and grinned, remembering the first time he’d tossed her into the lake. She’d faked drowning. Scared him to death and he’d dived in after her only to surface to her laughter. Sierra Bradley. A little bit sneaky.

  “I think I’m all painted out.” She eased onto an Adirondack chair. “I want to dry off.” She propped her feet on the wooden ottoman and closed her eyes.

  “Are you relaxing or plotting my demise?” he asked as he took the chair next to her. He’d rather paint her. Like this. Rumpled, wrinkled, wet, and smiling. A perfect mess. Something he’d rarely seen.

  “I’ll never tell.” She kicked off her drenched sandals. “What are you going to do with this place when you go to France in the fall?”

  His heart plummeted. He should sell
it. But he didn’t have it in him. “I don’t know. Maybe Jemma will use it for summers.”

  “I love it here. It’s silent, secluded. Perfect place for a wedding. It’s where I wanted—” She sat straight up. “I should go.”

  Didn’t look like they could get past their history together. “It’s bound to come up, Sierra. You and me and our plans, our life together back then.” Inseparable. If he wasn’t with her, thinking of her, or dreaming of her, he was painting her. “Maybe we could just look back on them with fondness, like friends. Try to be okay with the nostalgia.” No matter how much it pained them.

  Lying back against the chair, she nodded. “We started out as friends…so…maybe.” She blew a long breath. “How did Jemma meet Ansel?”

  Subject change. Nice. “An art show I took her to. His mother is a major player in the art world. Thus his name. He’s a decent guy. A little into himself, but then so is Jemma.”

  “Yes, I have no idea what it’s like to be around someone who’s a tad self-absorbed.” She shot him a wooden look.

  “I’m still a work in progress.” He grinned and relaxed. They talked for over an hour about Jemma, family, church, and France. The conversation was easy. Interesting—like getting to know each other again. They’d changed over the years, but not completely.

  A car eased into the drive and they popped up, craning their necks to see.

  Genevieve.

  She had a sack of groceries in each arm. “I’m thinking steaks smothered in a wild mushroom sauce.” She caught Sierra on the chair and smiled. “Hello, Sierra. Lovely to see you again.” Gen made her way down the pier. Ezra jumped up and grabbed the sacks.

  “You, too.” Sierra cast a look between them. “I need to get home.”

  “I have plenty if you want to stay. Although, I’m going to feel incredibly intimidated cooking. I hear you’re amazing in the kitchen.” She wiped her hands on her black dress pants and tilted her head. “Stay. Really.”

  “I have way too much to do, and I won’t intrude on your dinner.” She looked at Ezra, facial features strained. Oh. Oh. She had the wrong idea. “I’ll email you menu ideas for the gallery opening.” Sierra made for the woods.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said to Gen and tore after Sierra. He didn’t owe her an explanation. But he wanted her to understand that there wasn’t anything between him and Gen.

  Why did he want her to know? His steps slowed, her silhouette weaving through the trees ahead. Why did it matter?

  He was a fool.

  He didn’t want a clean slate to put them at ease with each other. He wanted a clean slate to give him access to her.

  Because it didn’t matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he was still in love with Sierra Bradley. It was her and only her from the first moment he spotted her bowing the violin at the edge of the water.

  “Sierra, wait! Slow down!”

  She whirled around. “Why are you following me?”

  He caught up to her and paused. “There’s nothing between me and Genevieve.”

  “No?” A crack in her voice undid him.

  “No,” he softly urged. He framed her face, forcing her to see the truth in his eyes. “We’re business partners. Friends. And nothing more.”

  “Has it always been that way?”

  He’d never been able to lie to her. Never wanted to. “No.”

  She pulled away from his touch. “That’s what I thought.”

  He could hash this out with her, but then what? She wasn’t going to go to France. He wasn’t staying here. This wasn’t his life anymore. A few months with her wouldn’t be enough. It would make leaving excruciating. But the tension was equally excruciating.

  “Come back.”

  “No.” She kicked a twig and looked up with new resolve. “I can’t ever come back.”

  He understood. No more jumping in the lake. Nothing that stirred old feelings because that era had ended long ago. No being friends and doting on the past with fondness.

  A lifetime, it seemed, erased with no additional blank canvas to paint something new upon.

  He worked down the emotion lodging in his esophagus.

  The one thing he hadn’t done before he left her that long ago summer night, he wanted to do now.

  “Okay…I won’t ask again.” Because every time she rejected him it cut deeper, straight to the bone.

  He tilted her trembling chin with his fingertips then inched toward her lips. She didn’t back up. Didn’t stop him, which sent his head into a dizzy spell.

  He cupped the side of her face and pressed a kiss to her sweet, lovely mouth, lingering long enough to feel a slow burn. Long enough to let the softness of her lips steal his breath. Long enough to know he’d never be able to love anyone so completely, so intensely. And long enough to ache knowing there could never be any more than what they had right this second.

  She tensed, then relaxed and touched his chest, feather soft.

  He drew away from the stinging pain.

  She touched her lips. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she whispered.

  “Probably not.”

  “You hurt me. When you left then didn’t come back. I thought you would.” She blinked the moisture away.

  “You hurt me. When you said no. I couldn’t come back.”

  “You said I didn’t love you. How could you think that, Ezra?” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “All you had to do was wait until I finished culinary school. Like we planned. You working in Chicago. Me taking over The Bistro. Our family and friends watching us get married. My dad walking—”

  “Your dad wasn’t walking you anywhere near me.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He shook his head and grunted. “I asked for his blessing. I wanted to get engaged over the summer. He said he’d never give it. A starving artist’s life was no way for his daughter to live. I told him I was going to marry you anyway. That you’d go with me. I believed that. So, I asked you to elope.” In the end, Jim Bradley had known his daughter better than Ezra.

  Sierra’s mouth hung open, and she simply gawked at him. “He said that?”

  “He was right. In a sense. It wasn’t always financially easy. But you could have taken a chance. Leapt into uncertainty with me. Trusted me to take care of you. I would have. I would have done anything for you.”

  A tear slipped down her cheek. “Except wait. Except come back.”

  “There was nothing to come back to, Sierra. You made your decision. It wasn’t me.”

  “And you met Genevieve. In July.”

  So that’s why she raced from the gallery the other day. She thought Gen was the reason he’d stayed. That he loved her so little he could fall for someone else in six weeks?

  “You’re wrong. Again.” He raked his hand through his hair. “Doesn’t matter now though, does it?”

  Her lip quivered and she tucked it inside her mouth. “Do you still want me to do the catering gig?”

  “I do.” Words they should have said a lifetime ago. Even if he had come back, Sierra would never have gone against her father. She wouldn’t even stand up and tell him she wanted to close The Bistro so she could open a B&B.

  “I guess we just weren’t meant to be.”

  One more slice to add to his gaping wounds. “Whatever you need to believe to get through the next few weeks.”

  Her phone rang and she grabbed it like a life line. “Hey Dad…I’m not selling my house! I’ve been asked that all day long.” Her face turned white then crimson. “I did no such thing…I don’t know how it got there…You know I’d have talked to you and Mom before I moved…I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be grouchy…I’m on my way.” She hung up. “And the pranks keep coming. Someone put a used For Sale sign from J. Shelton’s Realtors in my yard.” She massaged her temple. “Mom came by and saw it.”

  “You know you’re a grown woman. If you did want to sell your house, you don’t need their permission.”

  H
er lips thinned and she shifted from one foot to the other. “I gotta go.”

  “I know.” In more ways than one.

  ***

  Two days later, Sierra stood in Cynthia’s Cakes praying she could keep her temper bridled as Jemma hem-hawed around about cake flavors. Since she was the chef, she’d been put in charge of helping Jemma with anything food related. She was starting to regret the whole thing. What a nightmare! Ezra looked like he might smack Jemma and Ansel with the sketch pad at any second.

  After their conversation in the woods, Sierra hadn’t had time to process it all. Mom and Dad had been waiting on her doorstep, happy to inform her of their feelings on the matter of selling her home—which she wasn’t even going to do! According to them, it was the perfect size in the perfect place. Financially, it made sense to stay where she was, which led to the success of The Bistro and how proud Nana would be of her.

  Is that why Dad refused to let Ezra marry her? Was he afraid she’d give up her inheritance? What other reason could it have been? She and Mom had talked about it before. She’d never discussed it with Dad though. If he hadn’t approved of Ezra, she wouldn’t have been allowed to date him. Maybe he never thought it would go that far—until Ezra asked for his blessing.

  No wonder Ezra pushed elopement. No wonder he blew out of town faster than an F-5 tornado. He’d been shot down twice in a night.

  “Jemma, you have to make a decision.” Sierra stood, hands on her hips as Jemma and Ansel huddled in a corner staring at the four cake samples. Ezra put his sketch pad away and rubbed his brow.

  “I like the traditional white wedding cake, but the red velvet was to die for.” Jemma turned to Cynthia for advice, but the woman wearing wire-rimmed glasses, simply smiled. Talk about patience. If it were Sierra’s wedding—which with every turn it was clear it was not—she would have chosen the white wedding cake with the butter cream frosting. Traditional. Light.

  Like Ezra’s kiss the other night in the woods. She hadn’t expected it. Didn’t pull away. She’d always considered herself a woman of restraint, but in that moment Ezra had been the one to exercise self-control, stopping the kiss before it went to another level. He never should have initiated it. All it had accomplished was opening up old wounds.