Suddenly Single (A Lake Haven Novel Book 4)

by Julia London

  “It didna fall off,” he reminded her. “And it’s a lure.”

  “Whatever,” she said airily.

  He walked with her to the door of the inn and held it open for her. Jenny maneuvered in with her two bags of groceries, then turned around to thank him—but Outlander had already closed the door. She heard his car a moment later move off the drive.

  Dammit. She liked that silent Scotsman. But she was pretty sure the feeling was not mutual.

  Six

  Life is so lovely it’s hard to know where to start.

  That was quite possibly the barmiest thing Edan had ever heard.

  But surprisingly erudite.

  He was determined to go back to Scotland. He intended to fix this rift between him and Audra. It was fixable, he was certain of it. But did he really want to join his father and brother in the family deep-sea fishing business? Days on end of nothing but endless sea and waves that could roil the sturdiest of constitutions? Was that really the right place to start? But what else might he do? All he’d ever done was that and help Aunt Clara run her inn.

  With his fishing pole and his pruners, his tackle and his dogs, Edan walked up the hill to the old family graveyard. He went in through the rusty gate and stood a moment, soaking in the sun and quiet, the view of the lake and beyond. It was as lovely a final resting place as existed in the world, he supposed, and Aunt Clara had wanted to be buried here.

  As Wilbur and Boz began to sniff around the markers, Edan brushed some leaves from Clara’s headstone. Here lies Clara Catherine Monroe, Beloved Daughter, Sister, Aunt...

  She had definitely been beloved. She’d been ten years younger than Edan’s mother, and she’d always felt more like a cousin or sister than aunt to him. He’d loved her like a sister, certainly. He’d trusted her explicitly, had found her easy to talk to. And she’d always given him good advice.

  He’d started coming up here to her grave when Audra left him.

  He squatted down and pulled a few weeds that had sprung up at the base of the headstone. “No rain for a week,” he said aloud. “It’s been beastly hot.” He didn’t know why he always started with the weather. It wasn’t as if Aunt Clara had ever been particularly interested in weather and she certainly wasn’t now.

  He settled back on his heels and said, “I’ve a guest. The inn is closed, aye, but I discovered her after Rosalyn and Hugh’s wedding Sunday evening. She appeared on the doorstep like a bloody orphan and I couldna turn her away.” He pulled another weed. “She’s a barmy lass,” he said. “It’s always an American off on some daft adventure, is it no’? Remember the bloke with the glasses? The one who stayed in his room for a week?” Edan shook his head—he still wasn’t convinced that strange young man hadn’t been plotting something awful in his room that week. “The lass had nowhere else to go.”

  He sighed, and picked another weed.

  “You’d no’ believe how she talks, Clara. She havers on without as much as a breath. I canna begin to recall all she’s said, and I’ll be damned if I know what to make of it.” He looked curiously at the headstone. “Did Audra talk so much? I canna remember precisely. Did you?” It seemed so odd to him that characteristics of people he loved that were once so vivid turn to monochrome with time.

  He turned his head and squinted as he looked out over the lake. “She’s pretty,” he blurted. “The lass, I mean. I like her hair. Pretty blue eyes, too.” He ran a hand over his crown. “And a proper bonny smile. But she’s bloody barmy,” he said again with a shake of his head.

  Boz wandered over and stuck his muzzle under Edan’s hand, wanting to be petted. Edan absently stroked the dog’s ears, then finally stood up. He gazed down at Aunt Clara’s headstone. If she were here, she’d tell him to get on with it. To stop moping, to look forward. She’d tell him that Audra ended it between them, and there was no point in wishing it weren’t so. That he had a lot of life ahead of him, far too much life to waste time crying about a breakup.

  Life is so lovely it’s hard to know where to start.

  He did not want to debate with Clara’s ghost. “I’m going fishing,” he announced, and picked up his things, and walked out the old iron gate and down to the lake.

  On the edge of the lake, Edan chopped down the blasted bramble bush and managed to retrieve his lure. He’d come so close to losing it that he opted for a different lure for afternoon fishing. That lure didn’t work on Old Bugger, but he did manage to catch two small trout. Fresh fish would be nice on the grill tonight. He’d clean up, do some paperwork, and then fire the grill. Tomorrow, Rosalyn and Hugh would return, the inn would reopen, and by the weekend, the inn would receive the last bookings. In two weeks, it would be shuttered. Put on the market. Rosalyn and Hugh were moving to the city. Sandra, who had been Clara’s partner for twenty years, was going to live with her sister in Buffalo. Ned was retiring to East Beach.

  Edan whistled for his dogs and trudged home with his two fish. The inn, a massive Victorian mansion built in the style of the American monied upper class before the stock market crash, had been brought into the twenty-first century with a few additions. He had private living quarters, a terrace with a barbecue grill, and a renovated kitchen. It was his personal kitchen, rarely used, but gleaming with promise.

  Edan cleaned the fish, fed his dogs, and showered. He went over some paperwork that needed his immediate attention. By the time he’d finished, it was early evening. On the terrace, he fired the grill, brought out his fish, and helped himself to whisky as the fillets slow cooked.

  It was a nice evening, cool and still. Edan was sitting on one of the padded chairs, his head back, his eyes closed. He was tired—he’d been running for weeks with the work of following his plan to close down the inn and put it up for sale. The work had caught up to him. He put aside his whisky, sank deeper into that chair.

  But something felt off. He opened his eyes—and jumped to his feet.

  “Sorry! I didn’t want to disturb you. You looked like you were sleeping. Were you sleeping?”

  It was her again. What was she doing here? How had she managed to wander back into his private grounds? And why was she holding lettuce and a cucumber?

  “You’re probably wondering what I am doing,” she said, as if reading his mind.

  Edan stared at her.

  “I rang the little bell, but no one came.”

  “Aye. For as we’ve previously established, the inn is closed.”

  “See? That’s the problem. I hate to bother you, but I didn’t know what else

  to do. I need a bowl. And a knife,” she said, and held out her lettuce and cucumber. “And there is no one to ask at the front desk.”

  Edan looked at her produce.

  The lass looked at the grill. “Something smells delicious.”

  The fish, for God’s sake. Edan lunged toward the grill. He quickly turned the filets as she crowded in next to him to have a look. “Did you catch those today? They smell so good! What kind of seasoning did you use?”

  He closed the grill and glared down at her.

  She was wearing a long skirt and a loose, boxy sweater that swung around her hips. She’d braided her hair and the tail of it hung over her shoulder. She looked fresh. Full of spirit. She smiled at him with those brilliant blue eyes and held up her lettuce and cucumber again. “I could make enough for two, you know.”

  Edan folded his arms. “Are you seriously offering a head of lettuce in exchange for fish I labored to catch?”

  “Hear me out. It’s me and this lettuce, and you’ve surely figured out by now that I like my three squares. I’m not likely to take no for an answer.”

  “You brought two bags of food from East Beach only a few hours ago,” he reminded her.

  “Well, yeah, but not dinner,” she said, as if between the two of them, he was the one who was absurd.

  He pondered her. A private dinner with a guest was not a good idea, exactly, but really where was the harm? He wouldn’t mind the company. Or at least he hope
d he wouldn’t mind the company after it was all said and done. “How are you at washing up?” he asked.

  “Hmm.” She titled her head to one side. “Do you want the politically correct answer, or the truth?”

  Edan couldn’t suppress a small smile. “The truth.”

  “So-so,” she admitted. “But I give it 110 percent. Does that count?”

  “No’ really,” he said. “But I suppose it will have to do if I want your lettuce, aye?”

  She gasped with delight. “Thank you so much,” she said, clasping her cucumber to her breast. “You won’t believe this, but I’m—”

  “Starving,” he finished for her with another wee smile, and gestured toward the kitchen.

  She followed him inside, stopped in the middle of the room and looked around her. “Wow,” she said. “Just wow. So this is what a mansion’s kitchen looks like.”

  “It’s what my kitchen looks like. This is the private residence.”

  “I thought it would be more primitive. You know, very Victorian with a lot of giant cast-iron kettles hanging everywhere.” She looked at him sidelong. “And when I say primitive, of course by that I mean charming.”

  “Of course,” he said dubiously.

  “This is gorgeous!” she said again, turning a slow circle as she looked around. “I like a family style kitchen.”

  He’d had little to do with the styling of it. Audra had put a farm table in the middle of the room with six chairs around it. There was a nice sized fireplace at one end that was original to the house. And there was a very large pantry, which had once contained all the dishes for a very large household. It seemed strange to Edan now, given that he really had no need for a kitchen this size, and if he did, then there was a perfectly serviceable one in the main part of the inn.

  “If I had a kitchen like this, I’d be a better cook,” Jenny declared. “I love the sink.”

  He glanced at the farm sink. “I put that in. The plumbing, too. And the stove,” he added idly. He’d done more work than he gave himself credit for. He dipped down to one of the lower cabinets and retrieved a bowl, then set it next to a cutting board.

  “So you’re a handyman and a fisherman,” Jenny said cheerfully. She joined him at the kitchen island and set her produce on the cutting board. Edan reached around her to fetch a knife from the butcher’s block. His arm brushed against the silky sleeve of her sweater. She was so close that he caught the sweet scent of her hair, too, and it reminded him of flowers in a spring garden. Frankly, it reminded him of females in general, with soft skin and slender limbs, and…

  What in bloody hell am I thinking?

  A ripple of consternation slipped through him. He was going home to try and make it work with Audra at the end of the month. He put the knife on the cutting board. “Here you are, then. I’ll have a look at the trout.”

  Outside, Edan finished off the whisky he’d been drinking when she showed up. The warmth of the liquor settled him—he quit thinking about fragrant hair and shapely legs, and brought the fish inside on a plank.

  Jenny had found the aprons hanging on a hook and had donned one, and was busily chopping up her cucumber at the kitchen island. But the sight of her was slightly jarring—he was not accustomed to seeing anyone else in his kitchen besides Audra—and for a moment, it was almost like seeing her ghost. That was precisely where Audra would stand to prepare food, her blonde hair falling over her brow. Humming. Audra was always humming.

  He remembered that now with a twinge of sorrow. Something had been lost between them, a very long time ago.

  Jenny leaned over the kitchen island to get a look at the trout. “Well now, that looks delicious. I don’t suppose you have any wine to go with it?”

  “All civilized men have wine to go with fish. What sort of wine would you like, lass?”

  She stopped chopping and gave him a pointed look. “Jenny,” she said, and smiled sweetly. “My name is Jenny. I know you know that, but I am reminding you in case it slipped your mind now that we’re hanging out.”

  “Now that we’re…? We’re no’ hanging out,” Edan said instantly, quite sure he’d never uttered those words in his life, and quite sure this was not that.

  “Yes we are,” she said with great assurance. “A man doesn’t offer to take a woman to town and then invite her in for dinner if they aren’t hanging out.”

  He gaped at her. “How have you managed to finagle your way into a ride and invite yourself in for dinner and somehow convince yourself it was the other way around?”

  “Well, whatever you want to call it, we keep ending up together—”

  “We donna end up together. You keep appearing,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the terrace.

  “Yes, and you keep calling me lass. Not that I’m opposed to that,” she said. “I actually like the way it sounds. Lass. I get a shivery feeling when you say it. It’s kind of a turn-on.”

  Edan raised his brows. What the hell was she talking about now?

  “Hey,” she said, gesturing with her knife, “don’t you think it’s interesting, all the little things that are a turn-on to people? Like your accent, or the way you call me lass. Hands are a turn-on, too,” she said, and held up her hand.

  Edan looked at his.

  “See?” she said, wiggling her fingers at him. “Hands.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you. Jenny. Don’t forget it.” She winked.

  “I think there is verra little chance I shall ever forget it,” he said in all sincerity.

  Jenny laughed, and her eyes had a mischievous little shine to them. He put the trout down. “All right, then. What sort of wine would you like, Jenny?” he asked, articulating her name.

  Her lips curved into a pert grin. “White, please, Edan. Is it all right if I call you Edan? I know I have and I didn’t ask you before, but you said most people call you Mr. Mackenzie, which, let’s be honest, does not feel right, especially since, you know, we have this thing going.” She gestured between them with a knife. “We’re like, two peas in a pod.”

  “We’re no’,” he countered.

  “But we are! We both embarked on a new adventure at the age of twenty-nine. We’re both at Lake Haven. We’re both sort of drifting.”

  “Drifting?”

  “And there is no way you’re an Ed.” She popped a bit of cucumber into her mouth. “So I’ll just call you Edan,” she said, and resumed her chopping.

  Edan had been boxed into speechlessness. She was so wildly illogical that it was oddly and inexplicably charming. He didn’t care what she called him, really, and if he were honest, he’d admit to himself that he liked the way she said his name. It sounded flat and smooth and a wee bit off the mark when she said it.

  What is happening? Since when had he given so much thought to what people called him? Or how his name sounded?

  Edan retreated to the wine cellar, his thoughts swirling around what she’d said. She was right—he hadn’t said her name. Up until this point, it hadn’t seemed necessary. But he’d had ample opportunity to say it—for example, Jenny, go home. Frankly, what floated unappealingly in his belly was that in saying her name he felt absurdly disloyal to Audra.

  Well, that was sheer lunacy for you. There was no reason he should feel remotely disloyal to a woman who had announced she didn’t love him and had left him. But he did a wee bit, because he thought he and Audra could work things out, and in some dusty corner of his soul, saying Jenny’s name was different somehow. It was a new whisper in his heart.

  Whatever ridiculous thoughts were rumbling about in him, Edan couldn’t sort it out now, especially not with the prospect of dinner before him.

  He selected a bottle and returned to the kitchen.

  Jenny had finished tossing the lettuce and cucumber salad, which she announced with a cheerful, “Ta-da! Do you have any olive oil?”

  Edan fetched her the oil, poured the wine, then grabbed plates, silverware, and napkins. They sat at the old farm table acr
oss from each other. Generally, Wilbur and Boz were at his feet, but tonight, of course, they were at hers.

  Jenny made a swooning noise as she tasted the fish. “I’m in heaven. It’s delicious. What did you do to it?”

  “Caught it.”

  She giggled. “I swear, I never had trout this good in California.” She sipped her wine. “Actually, I may have never had trout in California. Have you ever been to Catalina? I had the best fish there. You would never guess what kind—guess.”

  “I donna know.”

  “Guess!”

  “Shark.”

  “Eel!” she all but shrieked. “Did you know you can eat eel? Like, who would want to? Who was the first person to see an eel and think, yeah, I’ll have some of that?” She shivered.

  She continued to chatter through the meal, filling him in on all the strange things she’d ever eaten or seen. Edan didn’t have to say much. He’d never been good at small talk, and thankfully, Jenny seemed perfectly content to do all the talking.

  But he was smiling.

  Jenny moved from strange bites to tales of the camping she’d done before she was, as she had said, suddenly single. Camping on the beach sounded bloody awful. The Catskills sounded lovely. The truth was that Edan hadn’t seen much of the States—he’d been so caught up in the inn since arriving a few years ago that there had never seemed time.

  Jenny was clearly enchanted with East Beach and Lake Haven. “Such a beautiful place,” she said for the second time that day. “I’ve never seen so many trees. So many different shades of green.

  “Aye.”

  Jenny put down her fork. “That’s all? Aye? But it’s so pretty.”

  Edan shrugged. “I’m from Scotland.”

  “Oh, so once you’ve seen Scotland, nothing else compares?” she teased him.

  “Something like that, aye. Have you ever been?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I’ll show you.” He picked up their plates and took them to the kitchen island, then returned to the table with his laptop. He sat on the same side of the table with Jenny. “My brother is an amateur photographer,” he said as he clicked on to his brother’s Facebook page. He hadn’t visited that page in a couple of weeks—Bran didn’t post consistently. But Bran had posted a new crop of photos in the last few days. Photos of the gold and green hills around Balhaire, the small village where Edan had been raised, and the old castle fortress on the hill. Sunsets that glistened red and gold and yellow on the water. The blue and purple mists of the morning.