by Bella Riley
“I really appreciate the invitation to dinner, but—”
“Please.”
The one word had the rest of her sentence falling away.
God, she was such a sucker for a beautifully masculine face. For the heat she could feel coming at her from across the counter. And especially for the need she saw in his eyes, a need that held hints of desire, but was far more about the mysterious darkness she’d read in Sean practically from the first moment she’d met him.
Tonight. She could give him tonight. Besides, she’d been to dinner at his parents’ house plenty of times before. It was no big deal.
“Okay.”
He didn’t smile, but she swore relief moved across his face. And as he left her with the agreement that they’d meet downstairs at five forty-five p.m., Rebecca knew one thing with absolute certainty: she was a fool.
Quite possibly the world’s biggest fool.
Chapter Thirteen
You look beautiful.”
Rebecca’s heart, which was already beating too fast, jumped so hard behind her breastbone she was afraid Sean would see the front of her dress thumping to its beat.
She knew it wasn’t a date, and had eaten plenty of meals with his parents, but that didn’t mean she was any less nervous. The whole time she’d been trying on one outfit after another upstairs, she’d known she was being ridiculous. It didn’t matter what she looked like tonight. But still, she ended up settling on a long-sleeved knitted dress and tights, and even put the blow dryer and her makeup bag through their paces.
Not sure she should trust her voice not to give away how nervous she was, she simply smiled her thanks. That silence lasted through the drive to his parents’ house, and was only broken when they got to the front door.
Sean turned to her. “Thank you for being here with me tonight. Doing this alone would have been—” He shook his head. “Hard. Really hard.”
Did he have any idea how much it meant to her that he appreciated her coming tonight, even before they set foot inside?
“You’re welcome,” she said softly, wanting to reach out to take his hand and give it a squeeze. If he were any of her other friends, she would have. Only, she wasn’t sure what they were, if friends was the right word for what was beginning to happen between them. “Just kick me under the table when you’re ready to go, okay?”
She was rewarded with one of his rare smiles, one full of surprise and something else that wasn’t quite as easy to define.
She shouldn’t care if he liked her. She shouldn’t hope that she could make him smile again.
But she did.
He was finally making a move to ring the doorbell when the door opened.
“Sean, what are you doing standing out here in the cold?” His mother registered Rebecca’s presence a moment later as she stepped into the light. “Rebecca?” Elizabeth shot a confused glance at her son before quickly saying, “Come in you two.”
Sean’s father was far more welcoming. “Rebecca, what a nice surprise. I’m so glad you could join us tonight.”
Rebecca managed a smile for Bill and let him take her coat. She could feel Sean’s eyes on her, could practically hear him worrying that he’d brought her into the lion’s den.
But these weren’t her parents. They were his. And he clearly had problems with them, big enough that he’d needed to bring her here as a buffer.
Knowing exactly what it was like to need someone at her side to help her out, she shot him a brilliant smile along with the silent message not to worry about her. He looked like he wanted to pull her outside again to say something more to her, but then he was looking around the kitchen.
“Is something on fire in here?”
Rebecca sniffed the air. There was a distinct odor of smoke, but everything in the house looked okay.
“No,” his mother said in a clipped voice.
“Your mother burned the first pie she made.”
Elizabeth shot Bill a furious glance before saying, “I didn’t hear the timer. It was a simple accident.”
“I wasn’t implying anything else,” Bill said. But his curt tone said that he had.
“Well,” Sean’s mother said with a clearly forced smile that was all teeth with no real joy attached to it, “the second one I made looks much better.”
Rebecca had never seen Elizabeth and Bill act like this with each other. Sniping and going out of their way not to touch as they moved around the kitchen getting her and Sean drinks. Things were so obviously strained between them that it was all Rebecca could do not to hold her face in a permanent wince.
A few minutes later, they sat down to a delicious-looking meal. The only problem was, her stomach wasn’t exactly relaxed. It wasn’t even Bill and Elizabeth who were making her nervous.
It was sitting so close to Sean that was twisting her insides up in knots.
She hoped that if she ate slowly no one would notice that she wasn’t exactly mowing through her food.
Elizabeth turned to Sean. “How is your business doing, honey?”
“I sold it.”
His mother’s fork clattered on her plate and his father cleared his throat in surprise. “You did? When?”
“Just before I arrived in town.”
“Why would you sell your business? You were so good at venture capital.”
Bill didn’t give his son a chance to answer before saying, “Maybe he was ready to move on, Elizabeth.”
Rebecca swore she saw moisture flood the other woman’s eyes.
Oh my god, what was going on here? Were Elizabeth and Bill having problems? She knew Stu’s disappearance was difficult for them, but she’d assumed that it would draw them closer together.
Looked like she’d been wrong about that, too.
“I have a few other ideas I’m toying with,” Sean said. “Rebecca has been teaching me the ropes at the inn.”
Recovered now, Elizabeth said, “It’s so nice of you to help out your brother with his inn while he’s away.”
Almost choking on her food, Rebecca couldn’t stop herself from turning to look at Sean, a silent Do they know? passing between them.
He shook his head and she raised an eyebrow. Come on, that’s ridiculous. Why not?
They stared at each other across the table for a long moment before he put down his fork. “When Stu decided to buy the inn, I made an investment in it, as well. I own half of it, actually.”
“You own half of the inn?”
Sean nodded. “I do.”
Elizabeth’s face creased into a humongous smile. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a very long time, honey. I hope this means you’re going to be staying here with all of us from now on.”
Oh. Now Rebecca got why Sean hadn’t told them. He didn’t want to be pressured to stay in Emerald Lake.
“We’ll see,” was all he said.
Elizabeth’s smile fell and she opened her mouth to say something more, but before she could, Bill interjected, “I agree that’s great news, son. As for whatever you do next, we’re behind you every step of the way.”
The thing was, for maybe the first time ever, Rebecca actually was on Elizabeth’s side.
Even though she knew better, even though she knew the odds were almost nil against it happening, she wanted Sean to stay.
And the way things were going with her foolish heart, odds were his mother’s heart wasn’t the only one that would be broken when he left.
Bill cleared his throat, looking a little nervous. “Actually, Sean, if you’ve got any free time, now that we’ve had what looks to be our last snowstorm of the year and the ice is melting fast, I was thinking about climbing the high peak in a few days.”
Rebecca didn’t see how it was possible for Sean to have anything against his father. Bill was a very, very sweet man. And yet Sean didn’t exactly jump at the clear offer to spend time together.
“I’ll have to see how my schedule looks.”
Oh, the disappointment on his father’s face wa
s hard to witness.
Reluctantly giving up on his reticent son, Bill said, “How’s the festival coming along, Rebecca?”
Rebecca should have known the question was coming. After all, she’d been talking incessantly about her Tapping of the Maples Festival to anyone who would listen for a while.
“It was coming along fine, but—”
She wasn’t at all sure how she should put things. Even though Mr. Radin had totally overstepped his boundaries, even though she thought he was a big fat jerk, she would never say anything nasty about him.
In lieu of pointing fingers, she opened her mouth to say something about park regulations cropping up, when Sean smoothly said, “We’re currently dealing with some Adirondack Park regulations.”
Rebecca lost sight of everything but the we at the beginning of the sentence. How many times had Sean told her to drop the festival altogether? She knew he wasn’t happy about what Mr. Radin had done, but she thought he’d be happy with the result. No festival. No pull on her time and focus.
But Sean had just said we. As if they were a team.
“Is there some sort of problem?” Bill sounded concerned.
“Stu said everything was going well,” Elizabeth added. “Before he left, in any case.”
Ah, there was so much to Elizabeth’s statements. First, that she’d never actually directly asked Rebecca any questions about the festival, had always gone through Stu. And, of course, there was a world of blame in those three words—before he left. Clearly the implication was that Rebecca not only was a master at driving away Elizabeth’s sons, but she couldn’t manage to keep her festival on track without Stu to guide her.
Rebecca’s stomach cramped around the few bites of the delicious pork loin she’d eaten.
Yet again, it would have really come in handy to know how to lie, or to brush things under the rug. But she didn’t have the first clue about how to do either of those things.
“I have to cancel the festival.”
“Why?”
“It’s a bit complicated.” Sean’s eyes were on her, dark and clearly concerned as she said, “It looks like there might be some problems with Adirondack Park rules and the preservation council.”
“But you’ve worked so hard on it.” Bill shook his head. “Is it anything I can help you with?”
“Can I get back to you on that?”
“Of course, Rebecca.”
She thought some sort of silent message passed between father and son, then, but she was too mortified by having to admit her own failure with the festival to do much more than stare pointedly at her plate.
She was just about to ask if she could help clear the dishes when Elizabeth suddenly said, “I still don’t understand what happened with Stu.”
Everyone at the table went perfectly still. Rebecca wasn’t actually sure any of them were breathing anymore. Especially her.
Funny how she kept thinking things were as bad as they were going to get.
And then they got worse.
“Someone doesn’t just pack up and leave like that. Was there a fight? Did something happen that you haven’t told any of us?”
With each word out of Elizabeth’s mouth, Rebecca’s face grew hotter and hotter. How could she possibly continue keeping Stu’s secret under direct scrutiny?
God, she hated keeping something so important from his family. From his own mother. Especially when she knew how worried her mother would be if she disappeared one day, leaving nothing behind but a note.
“What happened between them is between them,” Sean told his mother. “It’s none of our business.”
Rebecca didn’t even come close to masking her surprise. Not only had Sean stood up for her, but he’d said more in that one sentence than he had to his parents all night long up to that point.
“He’s my son,” Elizabeth protested. “He’s your brother. Don’t you even care what’s happening to him?”
Sean pushed his chair back. “I didn’t ask Rebecca to join us for dinner tonight so that you could harass her and make veiled accusations. My mistake.”
Rebecca was caught between Sean and his mother. She looked at Bill for help, but, clearly, he was just as stuck as she was.
No, she thought a split second later. The situation was far worse for him. This was his wife, his son, who couldn’t get along. Who couldn’t see eye to eye. Who could barely hold a civil conversation.
“Thanks for dinner,” he said stiffly. “Are you ready to leave, Rebecca?”
She realized she had to make a choice. To stay with the Murphys. Or to go with Sean. The Murphys lived permanently in town and disappointing them would have long-term ramifications. Whereas Sean was planning to stay for only a little while.
Which was why it made no sense that she allowed him to pull her chair all the way back.
It made no sense to choose Sean.
But she couldn’t have made any other choice. Not when he’d come to mean something to her in the past days they’d spent together. The little sweet things he did so unconsciously. The way he looked at her, with more heat than she’d ever known before. Plus, he’d defended her in front of his mother, had stepped in front of an out-of-control truck for her.
“Sean.”
Bill’s voice had both Sean and Rebecca stopping their progression out of the kitchen.
“Please stay for dessert. Your mother went to all the trouble of baking a second cherry pie after the first burned.”
Leaving would be easier. So much easier than staying. But at the same time, Rebecca knew deep in her heart that although Sean desperately wanted to leave his parents’ house, if he left like this it would only make things worse between them.
She put her hand on Sean’s arm. “I do love cherry pie.” She forced herself to hold his gaze, even though she suspected that was the last thing he’d wanted her to say.
Again, everyone was holding their breath. Rebecca was half expecting one of them to turn blue and pass out at this point.
Finally, he said, “Can the inn survive without you for a little longer?”
She didn’t just want to squeeze his hand this time. She wanted to pull him down for a kiss. Because he was a good son.
And family meant everything to her.
“Absolutely.” She turned to Elizabeth with a smile. “Do you have vanilla ice cream to go with that pie?”
The relief in the other woman’s eyes nearly brought tears to Rebecca’s own. “I wouldn’t serve warm cherry pie without it.”
The next twenty minutes were entirely made of small talk about the town, the weather, pro baseball prospects. Finally, they were able to leave without making a scene and they said their good-byes.
As they walked out to the car, Sean deadpanned, “I thought that went well.”
His sarcastic comment was completely unexpected. And just what she needed to unravel the tension that had coiled up all of her muscles in his parents’ house.
And for the first time all night—in days, possibly even weeks—Rebecca truly laughed, hard enough that tears came.
So many times she’d been on the verge of tears over the past weeks, but she hadn’t let them fall. Until now.
All because Sean had made her laugh.
“Did you see that?”
Elizabeth was standing at the kitchen sink trying to wash dishes but her hands were shaking so hard a plate knocked into the porcelain and almost broke.
Bill saw the steam rising up and hurried over from the table that he was clearing to pull the faucet down and shut. “Jesus, you’re going to burn yourself!”
But Elizabeth felt numb. Too numb to notice a little hot water.
“There’s something going on between them.” She turned away from the window where she was staring at the black night over the lake and looked at her husband. “Didn’t you see it?”
“See what?”
There was annoyance in her husband’s voice. He never used to talk to her like that. Even though she’d likely deserved it
many, many times before now.
Only, couldn’t he see how scared she was now? Couldn’t he see how much she needed his support, more than she ever had before?
She knew she was irritable. She knew that she could be bossy. But she also knew that she’d never love anyone the way she loved Bill.
She used to think it was true for him, too. But now… well, she wasn’t so sure anymore about that.
For twenty years she’d worked to convince herself that she wasn’t afraid anymore of her horrible mistake coming to light. But then Stu disappeared and Sean reappeared and suddenly it felt like twenty years had been pulled away.
Leaving her just as scared as she once had been.
But she didn’t want to think about her and Bill right now, couldn’t possibly focus on the two of them, not when she’d witnessed something she’d never thought would come to pass in a million years.
Sean.
Rebecca.
Falling for each other.
Sure, like everyone else, Elizabeth thought the young woman was nice and did a good job running the inn. But Stu was gone. And as a mother, Elizabeth believed her younger son likely never would have run if not for Rebecca.
“Didn’t you see the way Sean looked at Rebecca at dinner?”
Her voice was shaking now just as much as her hands were. Her skin felt tight and tingly from the hot water and steam that she had left them in for too long already.
“He likes her. Everyone likes her.”
She couldn’t hold back a snarl. “Are you blind? He could hardly take his eyes off her. And she blushed every single time he spoke to her.”
“Fine. So maybe they like each other as more than just friends. What business is it of yours?”
She whirled around from the sink, water and suds flying all over the kitchen floor. “She already drove away one of my sons. I’m not going to let her drive away another. I’m not going to let her ruin their lives one by one.”
“Whatever Stu’s reasons for leaving, that sweet girl couldn’t have driven him away.”
“Stop saying how sweet she is!” She was yelling now, long past the point of being rational.
