“What are we?” Esther asked. “We’re paying for drinks and the attention of our favorite bartender.”
“They aren’t going to let up until you give them what they want,” Tom said. “Trust me.”
She suspected he’d been badgered into submission enough to know, so she sighed heavily and said, “You can ask me whatever you want, but I’m staying behind the bar.”
“Fine,” Ciara said, pointing at her with a wineglass in hand. “How’d Emma Volant end up on the boat with you?”
“She happened to walk by when I was getting ready to test the sails, and I mentioned I could use a hand.”
“Did you phrase it like that?” Esther asked with a grimace.
“Basically.”
“Did you at least show her a good time, or did you make her swab the deck?”
“I showed her the puffins,” Brogan offered, “and how to use the tiller.”
Ciara rolled her eyes, but Will smiled kindly. “It’s a start.”
“I’m not sure it was,” Brogan said, “or maybe it was a start and an end in the same day. We made a round trip. We said goodbye, and I haven’t seen her since.”
“But you’re going to, right?” Diane asked.
Brogan shook her head. “I don’t have any plans to.”
“You didn’t have plans for your first outing,” Esther said hopefully, “but you made the most of it. I bet a private sail on a pretty day makes for a lovely date.”
“It wasn’t a date,” she said, frustration creeping into her voice now. “She’s nice, and she’s new here. We happened to be in the same place at a time when I was about to do something enjoyable, and I invited her to come along because that’s the neighborly thing to do. If any of you had walked by, I’d have invited you to come along with me. That wouldn’t mean I was accepting any responsibility for keeping you happy, or persuading you to put down roots. I’m not going to do those things with her, either.”
“Why?” Ciara practically whined.
Brogan’s jaw twitched as the real answer almost jumped from her lips, but she couldn’t tell them she wasn’t good enough for a woman like Emma. Instead she said, “She’s not my type.”
“What’s not your type?” Tom pushed. “She’s a woman, and a lesbian.”
Diane swatted his arm. “Even I know it takes more than that, you old dog.”
“She’s also rich,” Tom offered.
“And talented,” Ciara said.
“And pretty,” Will added.
“And sweet,” Esther piled on.
“And rich,” Tom repeated, earning himself another swat.
Charlie laughed. “Maybe she’s not her type because of all of those things. Maybe it’s not Emma who’s not ready to put down roots.”
“Don’t be silly. Brogan’s already got her roots so deep in this village you couldn’t pull them out with a lorry,” Ciara said.
“But none of the women she’s ever dated do.”
They all turned to her.
“Is that it?” Ciara finally asked. “Are you really only interested in weekend romps?”
Her face flamed, both at the question and at the answer she wouldn’t give.
“Oh my,” Diane said. “I find that hard to believe, Brogan. All this time I thought you were waiting for the right woman to come along.”
“I thought she hadn’t applied herself,” Esther confided, “the same way she keeps doing odd jobs instead of settling into a real one.”
Brogan grimaced. Now they weren’t just affirming her insecurities about Emma; they’d branched out to other parts of her life as well.
“Maybe she doesn’t want a real job,” Will said kindly. “Not everybody does. I suppose the same goes for relationships.”
“Relationships are not the same as jobs,” Diane said, and shot a serious look at her husband when he snorted.
“Maybe not,” Will admitted, “but whatever the reason, she says she’s not interested. And the last thing you want is to bully her into a halfhearted attempt at a short-term sort of thing that leaves Emma heartbroken.”
Esther shook her head sadly. “No, that’d be the worst of all options, and probably the quickest way to run her off.”
“True,” Ciara said, “and to be honest, it was probably a long shot anyway. For all the inexplicable powers Brogan has over so many women, none of them have ever up and moved here.”
Brogan’s chest constricted at the blunt statement of the obvious. She knew her sister wasn’t trying to be rude. None of them were. She should have been happy they were all letting her off the hook, regardless of the reason, but she wished their reasons weren’t so sharply on point with her own. Somehow having other people confirm what she’d always suspected about herself made those realities feel all the more inescapable. Then again, maybe that was what she needed. At least with everyone else realizing she shouldn’t even hope for anything more than friendship with Emma, her heart would start to listen to her brain.
Chapter Seven
“So, what’s new and exciting in your life, Reggie?” Emma asked, as they planted cuttings of lavender in the cool soil while the sun soaked through the sweatshirts on their backs.
“I have a new cousin,” Reggie said. “Aunt Nora and Uncle Marcus’s, not Uncle Edmond and Aunt Joanne’s. She’s still huge.”
Emma chuckled softly at how Aunt Joanne would probably appreciate the description, but it wasn’t her place to correct Reggie’s bluntness. There was actually something liberating about being around someone with no filter, after all the time she’d spent around people who always had a hidden agenda. She wished she could be a little more like her instead of always hemming and hawing or second-guessing.
“The baby is a girl,” Reggie continued. “I think Aunt Nora really wanted a girl after twin boys.”
“Probably,” Emma said, “but now she’s got to buy all new clothes.”
“Nobody in our family gets all new clothes,” Reggie said, without a hint of anger or resentment.
“Not even the oldest?”
Reggie shrugged. “Maybe my cousin Callum did when he was a baby, but now he gets some of my uncle Charlie’s old stuff.”
Emma cocked her head to the side, trying to conceptualize a family large enough to pass clothes between generations. It had never even occurred to her families like that still existed.
“But they live in Ireland, so I think they get some new stuff, too.”
“Your uncle Charlie?”
“No, my cousins Callum and Little Liam. He’s not little anymore. He’s older than me, but we call him Little Liam because my granddad is Big Liam. But they don’t live in the same place, so you don’t really have to call them different things most of the time. I call my granddad ‘Daideó,’ ’cause he’s Irish.”
“Makes sense,” Emma said, surprised that it did. It also explained Brogan’s earlier comments about being Irish while having been born and raised in Amberwick.
“So anyway, I have a new cousin, and my mum is helping out a lot with the twins, and grandmother is helping out with the baby, so I get to play outside more.”
“That works out in your favor.”
Reggie nodded as she patted some dirt lightly around their last sprig of lavender. “But I can’t play with Brogan as much because she’s helping out at the post office.”
“That reminds me, I need to get up there and get some more clotted cream before she closes.”
“You better hurry.” Reggie hopped up. “They are closing at five this week.”
Emma glanced at her watch to see it was already four thirty, and also noticed her hands and knees were both coated in dirt. She could probably brush them off and be passable, but she wouldn’t quite be presentable. Or she could wait until tomorrow. She’d lived her entire American life without clotted cream. Going one day without wouldn’t kill her. Unless, of course, it wasn’t just about the cream. The shopping hadn’t entered her mind until Reggie’d mentioned Brogan.
She shook he
r head and rose to standing. She was merely overthinking again as she was prone to do. She wanted scones for dinner, she ate them with clotted cream, she’d run out of cream, and she needed to go to the store to get some more. A simple, logical chain of events would send her to the post office, and none of those events had anything to do with the fact that she hadn’t seen Brogan since they’d gone sailing last week. As to washing her hands and running a quick comb through her hair, that was basic good hygiene. Her jeans and oversized T-shirt didn’t exactly constitute dress-to-impress attire because she wasn’t in any place to impress anyone, nor did she care about doing so, but then again, maybe her nice navy blue coat would spruce up the outfit a bit, while still being appropriate for the breeze that was picking up. And her sneakers had gotten wet in the garden, so it was only reasonable to trade them for her nicer boots.
By the time she walked to the post office, she’d cleaned up considerably, only in ways that made complete sense, but she’d also killed more time than she’d meant to. She reached the storefront as Brogan stepped out onto the sidewalk and turned the lock on the door.
“Oh, I’m too late,” Emma said, her heart sinking as the cream suddenly felt more important than it had during the minutes she’d spent worrying about her attire.
Brogan smiled. “What did you need?”
“It’s not important. You’ve locked up.”
Brogan patted her pocket. “I’ve got the key right here.”
“No, it can wait. You’ve turned off the register and everything. I was only after some clotted cream tonight.”
Brogan eyed her suspiciously. “Are you living entirely on scones?”
Emma shifted from one foot to the other. “I like them, and I didn’t get them for the first thirty-three years of my life.”
“So you’re making up for lost time?”
“Let’s go with that,” Emma said.
Instead of condemning her, Brogan laughed heartily. “As long as you’re happy and you aren’t doing it because you don’t like any of the other food from our grocery stores.”
Emma scrunched up her face. “I haven’t exactly visited any of the grocery stores, other than this one.”
“You’ve been here over a month. How can you live on the canned sauces and frozen pizza we sell to tourists?”
“And scones,” Emma added. “Ladies bring me scones, like, once a week.”
Brogan nodded sympathetically, and somehow her lack of judgement made Emma feel even more foolish. “I’ve been meaning to do a bigger shopping trip, but I don’t know the bus system yet.”
“There’s one from here to Newpeth,” Brogan said. “It runs at the half hour if it’s on time.”
“See, I could do that,” Emma said, with forced cheerfulness. “I could take the bus to Newpeth, buy bags full of healthy foods, and then lug them all home on the bus again.”
“Or you could ride with me,” Brogan offered.
“What?”
“I wanted to pick up some things for Nora. She had the baby, so she’s not up for a big shopping trip. Why not come along?”
Emma was closer to saying yes than she normally would have been. She did need to go, and taking Brogan up on her offer would be easier than learning how to use the bus, fitting her shopping into the bus schedule, and dragging all the groceries home with her. Still, she couldn’t always depend on other people to cart her around, and Brogan had already done more than her fair share of babysitting. Plus, she wasn’t at all certain Brogan wasn’t just being nice about the whole preplanned shopping trip. “I don’t want to impose. I really do need to be independent. Maybe I’ll call a cab.”
Brogan frowned slightly but didn’t push. “Okay, well, there’s only one of those in town.”
“Great. I’ll give them a call as soon as I find the number.”
“I’ve got it.” Brogan fished in her pocket and pulled out a wallet, then removed a black business card with red typeface advertising a coastal cab service. “You might want to dial them now, though, if you want to go tonight. Sometimes they get booked up.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “Thank you.”
“No problem. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon,” Brogan said. Then with a little wave she crossed the street.
Emma’s chest tightened as she watched her go, and the feeling unsettled her. To push it away, she pulled her phone from her coat pocket and dialed the number on the card. She might as well take the leap now, because if she went back home, she’d probably end up eating dry scones for dinner again.
She heard the phone ring in her hand, and then echo across the street. She had enough time to find the sound strange, but not long enough to process what it meant until a familiar voice answered, both close to her ear and only slightly farther away.
“Hello, you’ve reached Coastal Cab Shares and McKay Puffin tours. This is Brogan. How may I help you?”
She lowered the phone from her ear and glanced across the way where Brogan leaned against a car, smiling cheekily.
“You gave me your own number?”
“You asked for a cab,” Brogan said with laughter in her voice. Then she hung up the phone and walked back across the street. “Just so happens my brother-in-law Marcus owns the cab company, and he’s married to Nora, who had the baby, and—”
“You’re helping him out.” Emma gave Brogan a playful shove. “Is there anything you don’t do?”
Brogan’s cheeks grew flush with color that almost matched her hair, and Emma realized the comment could be taken as a double entendre. Her mind filled with myriad images of other things Brogan might be able to do, and too many of them came back to the conversation she’d overheard her having with Julia in the post office. The warmth spreading through her own cheeks suggested Brogan wasn’t the only one blushing anymore.
She recovered as quickly as possible. “I mean, I suppose we’re going to the store together.”
Brogan nodded. “Unless you decide to drive yourself, I guess we are.”
“Even if I could, I don’t have a car.”
“Luckily for us, I do.” Brogan pointed to a blue Peugeot across the street. “Does now work for you?”
Emma wanted to say “no” out of instinct to avoid anything unplanned, but she also wanted to say “yes,” and since logic also fell on the side of “yes,” she nodded.
“Let’s go,” Brogan said in her usual amiable way, and off she went, leaving Emma to follow along.
“Why don’t you have a car?” Brogan asked, as Emma fell into step beside her. “I mean, not to be rude or anything, but it seems like you could afford one, and you didn’t seem keen on taking the bus, so it’s not like you’re a public transit aficionado.”
“Not really,” Emma agreed as she reached the car, and Brogan hit the unlock button on her key fob. The lights flashed, the locks clicked, and Emma pulled open her door handle to find herself staring at the steering wheel. Confused, she blinked a few times, then with a duh-style realization processed the fact that in England the driver sat opposite of where she was used to.
Emma felt a flash of frustration and embarrassment, but when she glanced up at Brogan biting her lip in an attempt to hide a smile, she couldn’t help but laugh. “There. That’s why I don’t have a car. I would sit on the wrong side, and then I would drive on the wrong side, and then, well, someone would probably die.”
“You’d learn,” Brogan said, trading her places. “You’re a smart, competent woman. I have complete faith in your ability to transfer your driving skills to the left side of the road.”
“Thanks,” Emma said, wanting to believe it could really be simple, but as soon as Brogan took a left turn into the left lane, she winced and instinctively reached for the dashboard.
Thankfully Brogan didn’t take offense or even seem to notice the way she continued to flinch every time a car pulled out on the winding country roads ahead of them, and Emma had to admit, by the time they pulled into the parking lot of Aldi ten minutes later, her heart rate had all but
returned to normal.
“You made it,” Brogan said as she hopped out and grabbed a few reusable shopping bags from the boot of the car. “I think you’ve earned a treat. What will you choose?”
“Something fresh.” Her excitement rose, as the first thing she saw when entering the store was a long row of fruits and vegetables. “Look, zucchini.”
“Where?” Brogan asked, scanning the bins closest to them.
“There.” Emma picked one up to show her.
“What did you call it?”
“Zucchini,” Emma said, then faltered. “What do you call it?”
“Courgette.”
“That makes them sound super fancy.”
Brogan laughed. “But zucchini is much more fun to say. Zucchini. Zucc-hini. Say it again.”
“Zucchini.” Both Brogan’s joy and the fact that she’d never given any thought to how fun “zucchini” was to say made her laugh along. She couldn’t remember the last time that sound had escaped her own body, and over something so simple, something that could have easily been another frustration. “I wonder how many things in here I’d use the wrong word for.”
“Not wrong, different. You’re a writer. It’s good to know different words for things. Besides, we get your TV shows and movies over here, so we can figure out most American words.”
“I’m sad to say we don’t get many of yours. It would’ve taken me a long time to figure out what you meant if you’d said ‘courgette.’ Maybe I should have studied British foods online before I came to the store.”
“No,” Brogan said quickly. “You should study them in the store, or in a kitchen, or at a table. Come on. I’ll give you a quick tour.”
And with that she went off down the vegetable aisle. “The foods here probably aren’t much different, but they might be called different things. Like this is rocket.”
Emma examined a bunch of greens she held up and said, “Arugula.”
Brogan grinned. “Again, you win with the fun word.”
“I don’t know. Rockets are nothing to sniff at.”
“Fair dues.” Brogan moved along to grab a large purple bulb from another bin. “Aubergine.”
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