by Olivia Miles
Still, he chuckled to himself as he sat down in an armchair near the fireplace. She was an interesting character. And he could use one of those about now.
***
Bridget pulled Emma up to the Kiss N’ Cry, eager to get back to the inn, and not because of Jack. No, it was better that she didn’t see him again. Better that she let last night’s dinner fade into her memory like the kiss had. She’d just been hospitable. Nothing more. He was a guest, and she had food. Tonight she was having dinner with Mimi, so there would be no repeats. Definitely not.
“Did you remember your library books?” she asked as Emma unhooked her seat belt.
“They’re in my locker,” Emma said, shaking her head.
Bridget tried to listen to herself objectively. Was she a nag? Probably. But, really, what choice did she have?
“Have a great day at school, honey. When I pick you up, we’re going over to visit Mimi.”
Emma wrinkled her nose. “Is Pudgie going to be there?”
Bridget sighed. It had been Abby’s brilliant idea to get their grandmother a cat when she moved into Serenity Hills—the one pet that was permitted. Unfortunately, the good intention had backfired, and everyone aside from Mimi had a problem with the obese feline.
“It’s not Pudgie’s fault he doesn’t behave,” Bridget told Emma. “It’s Mimi’s fault for spoiling him so much.” My goodness, if anyone overheard, they would think Pudgie was a boy, not an animal. She grinned at her daughter, “Tell you what, I’ll let you push Mimi’s wheelchair when we go into the cafeteria.”
Emma’s eyes danced at this suggestion. Cheap thrills, Bridget thought, shaking her head as she watched Emma run onto the playground of the very school she’d attended a staggering number of years ago.
Not much had changed since then. The jungle gym and slide and swings had been upgraded, but the rest was the same, right down to the principal and the school librarian, who was a stickler about late books.
But a lot had changed, Bridget thought, as she circled onto Main Street and headed back to the inn. Back then she’d still lived in the big, Victorian house with her sisters and parents and grandmother. There had been Sunday dinners and festive holidays and summers that felt like they lasted forever. Later, in high school, there had been Ryan. Cool, handsome, and just charming enough to keep her hanging on, even when he’d stand her up for dates, and later, drag his feet on the topic of marriage. Once they’d finally gotten married, he’d dragged his feet about a house, and kids, spending all his energy on his restaurant instead.
Even though they’d only divorced eight years ago, it felt like a lifetime ago. Like she’d been a different person. Like she’d been a fool.
Well, never again. She wasn’t going to be a fool again.
But she’d also never leave Oyster Bay. She loved it here. Loved its history and its memories. Even the tough ones.
And maybe, maybe she’d get married again. If she was lucky enough to know that, this time, it would last.
She managed to hit every green light and made it home in record time. But Abby’s car wasn’t the only one in the lot she’d carved out to the side of the house. Margo’s silver SUV was right beside it, and fortunately no one else, meaning her newest guests were yet to arrive.
She pulled into her reserved spot closest to the house and, because she couldn’t resist, smoothed her hair when she stepped out of the car.
Honestly!
She hurried up the front steps and into the foyer-turned-lobby of the large home. Glancing into the dining room, she was deflated to see that it was empty, and that Jack had probably returned to his room, where he would stay for a good portion of the day.
Relaxing her shoulders, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen, where Abby and Margo were standing at the island, deep in conversation.
“What did I miss?” she said as she set her handbag down on a stool.
“More like what did I miss!” Abby wagged her finger in Bridget’s direction. “So you’re serving dinner to guests now?”
Bridget felt her cheeks flush. Guilty as charged. “It was a one-time thing. I only have one guest and the man was hungry.”
“Uh-huh. And I’m a blonde.” Abby gestured to her auburn hair. “Sounds like a date to me.”
“It wasn’t a date.” Wait, had Jack implied otherwise? Her heart sped up for a moment before she pushed the thought firmly back into place. She walked over to the counter to begin cleaning up the breakfast dishes, only to notice that someone had already cleaned them. Abby? More like Margo.
“Well, he couldn’t stop praising your lasagna,” Abby said. Before Bridget could perk up at this, she continued, “Of course, he was raving about the omelet I made him. Says it was just as good as anything he can find in New York.”
Bridget picked up a rag and began scrubbing the counters. She knew a twinge of jealousy when it struck. She still felt it at times when she went to her ex-husband’s restaurant and saw him with whatever young, skinny thing he happened to be dating that week. Even though she knew his love life was a revolving door, it still hurt to feel like she’d been replaced.
“So you talked to him then?”
“Only briefly,” Abby said. “Long enough to learn where he was from and how long he’s here. I told him some things to do in town. “
“That’s all?” Why did she care? And why did she ask? Now her sisters would never let her forget this. She glanced in their direction to see smug smiles on their faces. Yep, sure enough.
“He seemed far more interested in asking about the history of the inn than paying me any attention, if that’s what you’re after,” Abby replied.
“That’s not what I’m after,” Bridget said irritably, but that wasn’t true and Abby knew it. It was…exciting to have a handsome, single man upstairs, as a guest in her home. Even more exciting that he’d given her a romantic moment that had been missing from her life for long before she was even divorced. Ryan had never been one for impromptu gestures or flowers or flattery. His mind was always on something else, primarily his restaurant. So really, it was forgivable that she was still caught up in the fantasy of it all. And really, that’s all it was. A fantasy. Because the reality was that a week from Friday, Jack would be on his way back to New York and she’d be alone in this house again.
Well, not entirely. She had Emma. Thank God for her.
“What brings you by?” she asked Margo.
Her middle sister beamed, and something in the look in her eyes gave Bridget the answer. Her stomach felt funny, and she suddenly wished she hadn’t asked, or that she could feel happier in this moment than she did.
“Well, I was waiting to have you both together, and seeing as I do…” Margo held out her left hand and wiggled her fingers to reveal a beautiful diamond ring. “Eddie proposed last night!”
Bridget blinked, knowing she should react differently. She should squeal with delight, run over and fling her arms around Margo’s shoulders, tell her this was the best news she’d ever heard. But, she couldn’t. Instead, all she could think was that Margo had never known divorce the way Bridget knew divorce. Margo and her husband had split, amicably, and then Margo had soon thereafter reconciled with her high school sweetheart, whereas Bridget had struggled as a single mother on a fixed income without a single date (unless you called last night’s lasagna dinner a date, which it wasn’t) for eight years and counting.
Call her selfish, and maybe she was, but instead of feeling happy for Margo, all she felt was sorry for herself.
The ache in her chest was still pulling hard when she tore her gaze from the sparkling diamond to Margo’s face, and all at once, that pity was replaced with shame. Margo’s smile hadn’t been this bright in more years than Bridget could count. She’d found her happy ending, and Bridget was always a sap when it came to those.
“I’m so happy for you!” she said, feeling it, right to the heart, as she went over and hugged her sister.
“He proposed on a Monday night?” A
bby was saying in a tone that implied she had opinions on this.
“He was going to wait until the Flower Fest this weekend, but well…” Margo shrugged. “We had a nice dinner, and one thing led to another.”
“I think Monday is a perfect night for an engagement.” Bridget gave Abby a scolding look. “It’s less expected that way. More romantic.”
“When do you think you’ll get married?” Abby wanted to know.
“Soon,” Margo replied. “Three weeks. Well, two weeks from Saturday.”
“Three weeks!” Bridget couldn’t hide her shock. Margo hadn’t even been single yet, and now she was getting married again? She’d never known what it felt like to eat dinner alone, with only the television to keep you company, or to go to a New Year’s Eve party without a date, and certainly no one to kiss you at the stroke of midnight.
“It’s my second marriage, and I already did the big church wedding thing,” Margo explained. “I want to get married the way I always wanted to. Here, in the backyard of this house. We already lost so much time…We didn’t want to waste any more.”
Now all those self-pitying thoughts officially screeched to a halt. “You want to get married here? In three weeks?”
Margo was nodding, but she was biting her lower lip, her eyes seeming to search Bridget’s for approval. “It wouldn’t have to be anything fancy. Just forty or fifty people or so.”
Oh my God. Bridget felt the room begin to spin.
“A tent. Maybe two.”
“I can cater!” Abby offered.
Margo seemed fine with this, and Bridget was too overwhelmed to reply. She tried to think of her upcoming reservation list, but she couldn’t seem to think straight.
“We wouldn’t need to stay at the inn. No out of town guests,” Margo said. “So you wouldn’t need to worry about a packed house. But I always wanted a backyard wedding.”
They all did. It had been something they’d talked about since they were children, each putting their own spin on it. Instead, Bridget had eloped with Ryan, Margo had moved down south and had a big, church wedding of her mother in-law’s dreams, and Abby…Well, Abby was happy keeping things casual.
“It will be gorgeous!” Abby was staring at Bridget now. “Won’t it?”
Bridget forced herself out of her internal dialogue. “What? Yes. Yes, it will be beautiful.”
“So it won’t be a problem.” Margo looked at her beseechingly, but Bridget couldn’t speak.
A wedding here, in less than three weeks? How could that possibly be a problem?
But this was her sister. This was family.
And besides, if she was ever so lucky to be in Margo’s position, she knew she’d want nothing but the same.
Not that she had time to think about dating or marriage. Life was complicated enough as it was, without having to worry about romance, too.
Chapter Seven
By the time Bridget picked Emma up from school and drove over to Serenity Hills, the worry must have been showing in her face. Emma had been quiet all during the car ride, but when they walked into the lobby of the nursing home, she took Bridget’s hand and looked up, her eyes so earnest, it nearly broke Bridget’s heart.
“Everything okay, Mommy?”
God bless her. Just hearing those words from that little face would make everything right every time, no matter what was troubling her.
“I’m just thinking,” she said. That was an understatement. More like fretting. “Aunt Margo is going to meet us here, and she has some exciting news to share.”
“Is she going to have a baby?” Emma asked, and Bridget laughed.
“No, honey.” At least, she didn’t think so… But no, Margo would have told her. They told each other everything, after all, and that was something to be grateful for. Not long ago, when Margo was living in South Carolina, they went for years without seeing each other and months without a phone call. Their lives had grown separate, and Bridget had gotten used to feeling alone, and having no one to lean on, especially when Mimi took a turn for the worse, but my, how quickly it became natural to turn to Margo now that she was back in town, and permanently, too.
Well, there was a perk to Margo getting married, she thought, brightening. With Margo marrying the newly appointed police chief, she surely wouldn’t be leaving Oyster Bay again.
But she probably wouldn’t be as available to Bridget as she had been recently, either. After all, Margo may not be having a baby now, but soon…
“You’re frowning again, Mommy,” Emma informed her.
“Am I?” Bridget forced a smile as she banished the long list of things she was telling herself she had to do. She’d checked in her newest guests, a young couple who were thrilled with Room One, a pretty room she’d done up in slate blue with white bedding, and Abby was insisting on handling breakfast tomorrow—Bridget was too distracted by Margo’s announcement to argue with her. Still, just in case Abby was a no show or started an oven fire, she’d placed an order with Angie’s for two boxes of pastries. Margo claimed that the wedding would all but plan itself, but Bridget knew otherwise. Margo would want the day to be special, and she deserved it to be, too. It was the first family wedding they’d ever had at the house, after all.
She looked down at Emma. And hopefully not the last, she thought.
She smiled again, more genuinely this time. “That better?”
“Much.” Emma grinned.
After checking in at the front desk, they wandered down the hall to room 132, where Mimi had resided for just over a year now. In that time, Bridget and her sisters had done what they could to make it more comfortable for her, filling her room with all her favorite things from home, and inviting her out for dinner, or to the house for dinner, whenever she was up for it. But Mimi often declined these suggestions, given that the invitations didn’t extend to Pudgie.
Bridget sighed. Why couldn’t Mimi understand that it was bad for business when Pudgie marked the rugs and hissed at the guests? Honestly, she’d never seen anything like it. That cat was not an ordinary cat, that cat was—
“Lost!” Mimi’s wail was audible through the partially closed door to her room.
Bridget looked down at Emma with wide eyes, then, tentatively, knocked twice on the door before pushing it open.
There, sitting in her wheelchair with her wedding quilt on her legs, was Mimi, looking more distraught than she had the time that the cafeteria ran out of her favorite dessert before she had a chance to grab a plate.
Beside her was Margo, who must have arrived earlier than planned, looking at Bridget in alarm.
“What’s going on?” Bridget asked warily, suddenly wishing she could just turn around and go home. There was always something, it seemed, and oh, wouldn’t it be nice to just take her latest J.R. Anderson novel down to the beach and escape for an hour or two?
“Pudgie’s gone!” Mimi shrieked.
“Oh no!” Emma said, and immediately started to cry.
“Oh now.” Bridget put an arm around her daughter. “He can’t have gone far!” The building was large, but Pudgie rarely strayed far, usually just exploring the hallway before Mimi called for him to come back.
“He’s only been gone for an hour,” Margo added.
“See? He’s probably exploring the building.” Bridget gave Emma a little smile to show that everything would be all right.
“This room is awfully small,” Emma said, after she’d thought about things for a moment.
“It’s a jail cell!” Mimi declared, pinching her mouth. “No wonder my sweet boy wanted to escape! He should have brought me with him!”
And they were back to this. Whenever Mimi became agitated, Bridget and her sisters did what they could to change the subject.
“Why don’t you go look for Pudgie, Emma?” Bridget suggested. “But stay in the building.”
She chewed her lip as she watched Emma’s blond ponytail swing behind her on her way down the hall. Was it possible that Pudgie had gotten outside? It see
med unlikely, and surely someone would have noticed?
“Have you asked around, Mimi?” Margo urged.
“We need the police,” Mimi announced. “Someone call the police!”
Bridget and Margo exchanged a glance. “Why don’t I call the front desk?” Bridget picked up the phone on Mimi’s bedside table.
“Oh, I already did. They said he’ll come back, but…” Mimi began to cry, and despite her personal feelings about Pudgie, Bridget felt her heart ache. She walked over and crouched down next to the wheelchair. “We’ll find Pudgie, Mimi. He’s here somewhere, and he can’t have gone far. Let’s go for a walk.”
“No,” Mimi said, sniffing hard. “I have to stay here in case he comes back.”
“But don’t you want to come to dinner? The dining room is serving your favorite tonight. Chicken pot pie.”
“I can’t think about food right now!” Mimi was shaking her head. “All I can think about is Pudgie.”
Oh dear. No doubt Pudgie would be back at any moment. Still, Mimi had never reacted to Pudgie’s wanderings. Bridget couldn’t help but feel concerned.
“Do you want me to go look for him or stay here with you?”
“No sense in us all sitting around,” Mimi said. “You two go look. I’ll wait.”
“We’ll bring you back some food,” Bridget said sadly, hugging her grandmother good-bye. All the good offerings were gone by five, and the dining room opened at four thirty sharp.
She waited until they were in the hallway and out of earshot before turning to Margo. “What do you think?”
“Honestly? I’m worried. It isn’t like that cat to be gone for more than a few minutes. If anything happens—”
Bridget held up a hand. She couldn’t think about that now. Mimi had been through enough in the past year. “That cat means everything to Mimi right now. We will find it,” she said firmly, even though she started to have a sinking feeling herself.
“Nothing can happen to that cat,” she said firmly. It was one more worry she just couldn’t take on right now. If Pudgie wanted to run away, he’d have to wait until the day after Margo’s wedding, when Bridget would have time to find him.
