by Julia London
“And it’s entirely possible you’re reading far too much into it because you’ve been starved for good sex.”
“Truth,” Jenny admitted. Devin was awful. “And I’m not just saying that, Brooke. You and Vanessa and Bethany are always right about me. I’m impulsive, I need a job. I know I have to go home eventually. But I feel...” She paused. It was difficult for her to put into words, but she felt so at peace here. Like she was supposed to be at this inn. Her soul was sheltering here.
She also sensed that there was so much more lurking beneath the surface of Edan’s amazing green eyes.
“Uh-oh,” Brooke said. “You’re not thinking—”
“No, no,” Jenny said quickly. “I’m definitely not staying here. Even I know how insane that would be. Maybe a week, that’s all. Which says I should leave well enough alone with him, right? Why start something I can’t finish?”
“Who is talking right now?” Brooke asked. “This doesn’t sound like Jenny, the queen of embrace your feelings and happiness. The guru of get in touch with your inner self. The yogi of love and peace—”
“Okay, all right, I get it,” Jenny said.
“Look, no one is going to argue that you really need to get your shit together,” Brooke said in a way that made Jenny suspect that she and Vanessa and Bethany had discussed it. “But you’re there. So do whatever it takes. Explore it if you need to. But do something, Jen. What did your dad say, anyway?”
“I haven’t actually talked to him,” Jenny admitted. “I emailed him to tell him where I was and explain that Devin and I had broken up. He wrote back and told me not to spend all his money, then added a bunch of emojis that made no sense.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Brooke clucked her tongue. “So maybe do what dear old Dad says—don’t spend all his money and take care. But promise me that you’ll get your head on straight?”
Jenny didn’t think her head was on crooked to begin with. “Sure,” she said.
“I’ll call you in a few days. Oh, by the way, be forewarned. Vanessa thinks she’s lined up a possible job for you.”
“What?”
“It’s not much, but she knows someone in Santa Monica, and they’re opening a coffee shop on the Promenade and looking for staff.”
A coffee shop? Not exactly the career path Jenny was seeking. She could hear Vanessa in her head. Just to get your feet wet. You have to get your feet wet. “Great,” she said. “Thanks for the warning.”
When she and Brooke ended the call, she stared at the wall for a few moments. Vanessa was a beast of competency. If she found Jenny a job it was probably a decent one. She ought to take it and be grateful for it. Maybe she would. And then again...
She sat up and looked out the window. It was overcast. Maybe she’d take a hike into the hills and think about it. At least think about something other than how well Edan kissed.
When she was dressed, she made her way to the dining room. The door to the kitchen was open, and she could hear the banging of pots and pans. “Hello?”
A woman in thick-soled shoes with unnaturally bright hair piled atop her head emerged, carrying a tray full of salt and pepper sets. Jenny liked the look of her—she had a tattoo curling up her wrist. She stopped when she saw Jenny, clearly surprised. “Good morning,” she said.
“Hi,” Jenny returned.
The woman’s gaze traveled down Jenny’s body, taking in her tank top and jacket, her cargo shorts and her boots, the two long tails of hair that hung down her chest. She put down her tray of salt and pepper sets. “May I help you, then?”
“Is the restaurant open?”
“Well—” She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced over her shoulder. “I guess it could be, aye.”
“I’m a guest,” Jenny said. “And I’d love some breakfast.”
“You’re a guest... here?”
“Room 215. Is it okay if I sit down?”
“Aye, yeah, of course,” the woman said. “I didna think we had any guests until the weekend.” She took a step back, retrieving a menu from a stand and placed that in front of Jenny. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
The woman pivoted about and went back into the kitchen. Jenny could hear her speaking loudly to someone else. That was followed by more banging of dishes and pots and doors. She reappeared a few minutes later with the coffee and an order pad. Jenny ordered eggs and ham, and the woman disappeared once more into the kitchen.
Jenny had drunk half her coffee when the woman returned with a plate of eggs, ham, and a caddy of dry toast. She set it all down on the table, wiped her hands on the towel she’d used to carry it out and said, “Plate is hot, mind.”
“Thank you.” Jenny picked up her fork and took a bite of eggs. She glanced up; the woman hadn’t left.
“Do you mind if I ask—did you just check in?” the woman asked. “The inn’s closing and we’ve only a pair of bookings left. I didna see one for today.”
“I arrived Sunday night,” Jenny said. “Long story, but I didn’t know the inn was closed, and I showed up too late to go anywhere else. So Edan let me stay.”
The woman blinked. “Edan?”
“Mr. Mackenzie.”
“Oh aye, I know who he is. I’m Rosalyn, by the way.”
“Oh!” Jenny said through a mouth full of egg. “You’re the wedding! I’m Jenny.”
“He told you about my wedding?”
“Sort of. I noticed he was wearing a kilt. I’d heard that in Scotland, men only wore kilts to formal occasions. So while he was making me a sandwich, I asked.”
“He made you a sandwich!” It was not a question; it was a statement of utter disbelief.
It seemed like everyone around Lake Haven thought Edan incapable of making a sandwich. “Right in there, in the kitchen,” Jenny said, pointing.
Rosalyn gaped at Jenny, her expressive brown eyes practically spinning with her thoughts. “I’ve never seen Edan make a sandwich for anyone. No’ even himself. But I’m happy to hear he made it home in one piece. I worried—he’d had a wee bit to drink, aye? Freddie Montoya brung him home.”
“Really?” Jenny said, thinking back to that night. “He seemed perfectly fine to me. He didn’t really say much.”
“Ach, well, he never says much,” Rosalyn said. “Good on him, then,” she said with an adamant nod of her head. “I worry about my old chum. No’ that there’s anything wrong with him, mind you, but he seems to be a wee bit too much in his own head, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Jenny agreed. “I noticed it last night at dinner.”
Rosalyn stepped closer. “Beg your pardon—last night?”
“Yeah, we had dinner in the back. He was slightly more talkative than the night he made me a sandwich.” She paused, thinking back to the way he’d looked at her, curious and confused and wary all at once. “A little more, anyway.”
Rosalyn’s eyes rounded like two pennies. “You must be joking. He invited you to dinner in the private quarters?”
“Oh, not like that,” Jenny said with a laugh. “It was more like I invited myself and he took pity on me. The restaurant was closed, so I went around back to see if he had a bowl I could use. And there he was, grilling fish he’d caught.” She smiled. “Fish was delicious.”
Rosalyn stared off a moment. Then she looked at her watch. “Oh, bother, I’ve got to get on with it.” She glanced up at Jenny. “Donna mind me being so nosy. I’ve known Edan for an age and like to keep an eye on him. Do you mean to go for a walk, then? It looks like rain. There are some extra brollies in the reception area.”
Jenny was going to guess that a brolly was an umbrella, but she smiled and thanked her all the same, and Rosalyn went back into the kitchen.
She didn’t need an umbrella. She’d checked her weather app—the rain wouldn’t arrive until late this afternoon.
That would give her plenty of time to think things through.
Eight
&nb
sp; It didn’t rain. It poured.
Jenny and the two dogs had walked a little over two miles deep into the hills behind the Cassian Inn when the skies opened up and hosed her.
She should have grabbed a brolly.
She pulled the hood from her jacket up over her head and turned around to start back, assuming the terriers would be joining her. But the dogs had deserted her—she could see the dots of them running down the hill toward a red brick building.
Jenny trudged along behind them, picking her way down what was now a very muddy path. By the time she reached the red brick building she was thoroughly soaked. There was a parking lot and a sign that said, Lake Haven Senior Home.
She hurried inside to a vestibule entrance and tried to shake the water off of her. It was useless. She draped her jacket over the umbrella bin and squeezed water from her hair as she dripped onto the welcome mat. Through a frosted glass door she could see shadowy forms of people moving around. One was moving closer.
A rush of cool air startled her when an elderly woman with kind eyes had opened the glass door. “Did you swim across the lake?” she asked jovially.
“Feels like it,” Jenny said.
“Come in, dry off. Have some tea,” the woman said.
“Thanks, but I’ll just wait here for the rain to pass, if you don’t mind. I have to find the two little dogs that were with me. They ran down here and I’m sure they are hiding around here somewhere.”
“You must mean Mr. Mackenzie’s dogs,” she said. “He’s put them in his car while he visits.”
Jenny blinked. “Edan Mackenzie is here?”
“He is! He won’t be long, I suspect. Poor man—Mr. Finlay doesn’t know who he is any longer.”
Who was Mr. Finlay? Jenny looked past the woman into the room behind her. There were several old people sitting about, some in wheelchairs, some at a table. A pair of caretakers in scrubs. And there, seated next to the window beside an old man was Edan. A very pretty and shapely caretaker was standing beside him, smiling with big doe eyes as she talked.
“Come in,” the woman urged Jenny.
Jenny hesitantly stepped across the threshold, her eyes warily on Edan. It was still hard to believe that she’d boldly kissed him last night. She’d kissed him the way the young female caretaker probably wanted to kiss him this very minute. Oh yeah, Jenny could see it written all over her: The lean-in. The soft smile. The rapt attention to the few words he might utter.
Edan happened to glance in her direction. His gaze locked on hers and narrowed unhappily. He said something to the elderly man and stood up, put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and then started toward Jenny.
She looked around for a place to hide.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded when he reached her.
“Drying off,” she said, gesturing to herself. “I got caught in the rain. Turns out, my weather app is useless. It said it wouldn’t start raining until this afternoon, so naturally the skies would—”
“I’ll take you back to the inn, aye?” He put his hand on her elbow.
Jenny batted it away. “That’s okay, I can walk back when it stops raining. I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Edan took her by the elbow again and wheeled her around to face the door. “How is that you keep appearing everywhere that I am?” he muttered.
“It’s not hard—you pretty much exist in a two mile radius, have you noticed?”
“Let’s go,” he said low.
“Wait,” Jenny protested. “You’re not going to just go without saying goodbye, are you?”
“I said my goodbyes.”
“Not to the gentleman, to the girl. She looks really sad, Edan—you should go back and say something to her. It’s none of my business, but maybe ask her for a drink, because she is totally into you. She’s practically drooling—”
“Wheesht,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? That sounded like a sneeze. Is it a word? Never mind. Look at her,” Jenny said, peering over her shoulder as he hustled her toward the entrance. “She looks as forlorn as the last puppy in the litter. At least thank her for taking care of your uncle.”
He pushed the glass door open and said, “He is no’ my uncle.” He dropped his hand from the door, turned about and called across the room to the elderly woman, “Thank you, Mrs. Simmons. I’ll come again next week.”
“We’ll all look forward to it!” Mrs. Simmons said.
Apparently satisfied, Edan tried to move Jenny out the door, then, but she resisted. “Say goodbye to the girl.”
“What is the matter with you?” he demanded.
“I’ve been that girl. I’m not suggesting you marry her, I’m suggesting you say goodbye.”
She could see Edan gritting his teeth. But he slowly turned and said, “Thank you, Phoebe.”
“Of course!” Phoebe said with a thousand-watt brightness. “If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, just call me. You have my number, right?”
“Aye,” he said, and practically pushed Jenny through the glass doors before him.
She scarcely had time to grab her jacket before he was steering her out the door and to his car.
“I’m wet!” she cried when he opened the passenger door.
“Get in, get in,” he said.
She slipped into the passenger seat, and the two dogs instantly surged forward, their feet on the console between the seats, their tongues working in tandem on Jenny’s ear until she pushed them off. They left behind smeared paw prints on the leather. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, and wiped the console with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Never mind it,” Edan said as he started the car.
“Why are you being so weird? Is it Phoebe?”
“No,” he said, and looked the other way.
“Who were you visiting?”
“Mr. Finlay.”
When Edan did not add any helpful details, Jenny said, “Not your uncle.”
“Mr. Finlay was the maintenance man at the inn for many years. He has no one. No family.”
It was awfully kind of Edan to visit him. Jenny knew how people drifted away when someone was ill. Her father had lost all his friends as the junk around him had piled up.
And then, out of nowhere, comes a girlfriend. Jesus.
“Who’s going to look in on him when you go back to Scotland?” she asked curiously.
His jaw tightened and he gave her a pointed look that could be interpreted to mean she should stop talking before he got really mad.
“Because you’re going back soon, right?” she asked, hoping that he’d had some miraculous change of heart overnight and would say no.
“When did you say you were checking out?”
“Still thinking about it.” She didn’t have a good answer for him. Because she was looking at his mouth, remembering last night and feeling tiny electric pulses zinging through her. “So listen, Edan, about last night—”
“No need,” he said quickly.
“I should not have done that.”
“You’ve already apologized. Donna say more.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “But the thing is, while I am sorry for kissing you, I kind of liked it. Actually, I liked it a lot. You should know you’re a good kisser.”
Edan groaned softly and glanced out the window.
“I’m not even sure why I’m telling you this,” she said with a small laugh of mortification. “But sometimes, it seems like the things that need to be said are not said, and the things that shouldn’t be said are. All that to say, I feel like you should know that I had a great time last night.”
“I am confused,” he said. “Did you no’ just suggest I take a woman out for a drink?”
“I can see where that might be confusing,” she agreed. “I didn’t suggest it because I actually wanted you to, but because I felt sorry for her. She obviously has it bad for you. And when I noticed it, I thought, maybe I should say what’s been on my mind. It’s kind of a weird compulsio
n I have.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said. They had reached the inn, and Edan pulled into the little courtyard. He put the car in park and turned his head to her. He awkwardly put his hand on her knee. “Jenny. Lass. I enjoyed our dinner, too, aye? But I must be verra clear—I’ll no’ encourage Phoebe or anyone else, because I am leaving at the end of the month to repair a relationship with my fiancée, aye? I love her.”
He didn’t have to say that.
“There is no possibility of anything between us,” he added, and removed his hand.
Jenny hadn’t said there was and she tried not to be offended by the words no possibility. “Okay,” she said breezily. “But did you like the kiss?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Did you hear what I said, then?”
“Loud and clear. Did you like it?”
His eyes dipped to her mouth and lingered. And then he opened the door.
As he got out of the car and let the dogs out, Jenny shouted at him, “I think this clearly indicates that you did!”
Edan shut the door and dashed to the entry with the dogs close behind.
Jenny sighed. She never did these things right. She got out, too, and ran to the entry. She paused just inside to gather her wits and remove her jacket when she heard Edan say, “It’s good to have you back. I’m glad to see you before I go, aye?”
Jenny jerked around to see three well-heeled gentlemen standing beside a mountain of luggage. They’d also turned around to have a look at her, just as Jenny realized her wet tank revealed more of her than she liked—her nipples were jutting through the fabric. All the male eyes in this room were on them.
The darkly handsome man standing in the middle of the threesome smirked and muttered in Italian, “Lei un mendicante?”
Jenny gasped. “I most certainly am not a beggar! I was very obviously caught in the rain! Have you looked outside? It’s pouring.”
