by Audra North
“I’m sorry,” I said again, because I wasn’t sure what else to say that could do his feelings justice.
He shook his head and kissed me. When we parted, he was smiling, though I noticed it didn’t reach his eyes. “So it’s your first day off. Before you have to go work that wedding, that is. Do you want to, you know, hang out until then?”
So we weren’t going to talk any more about it. Just as well. It was a good reminder of what I’d told him last night—that I wasn’t looking for anything serious. Getting all mushy about his loneliness…better to just pretend it never came up.
Acting like something didn’t happen isn’t the way to strengthen or fix a relationship.
Mom’s words went shooting through my mind, and my last thought just before Ryan’s lips settled over mine was This isn’t serious. This is just the right place, at the right time.
I ignored just how right it felt and kissed him back.
* * *
Ryan
“So…I guess I’ll see you around?”
I had just pulled up in front of the resort after a morning of what Emery had called “The most cutthroat mini golf tournament in Deerfield history.”
She’d won.
She smiled at me and leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “Yeah, I’ll see you.”
She grabbed the door handle, but before she could open the door and jump out of the truck, I blurted it out.
“I’d like to keep seeing you.”
She froze. A weird look skittered over her face, and I cursed myself for being a dumbass. She’d said last night that she wasn’t looking for anything serious, hadn’t she?
Dumbass.
I rushed to clarify. “I mean, just for the summer. I know we’re both heading to Toronto in September, but we’ll be in different departments and really busy and everything. So I’m not trying to be your boyfriend or anything. I’m not trying to sound like an asshole, but I’m coming off something kind of heavy, and—”
“Okay.” She was smiling now, nodding.
“Okay?” I was thrown off for a second. Given the way she’d talked at the Cave, and how surprised she’d looked just now, I’d expected her to say no.
But she just laughed. “Yeah. That’s what I want, too. We can keep things light and easy. No obligations. No expectations.”
I shrugged off the odd feeling I got at her words. I’d said temporary, right? Just for the summer. And she hadn’t resisted. This was a good thing.
“Great. So…I’ll call you?”
“Yeah. Sounds good.” She leaned in and kissed me again before getting out of the truck to head into the staff dorms. I watched her walk away, but at the entrance, she turned and waved.
In that moment, I felt like I owned the world. I grinned and waved back.
And then she was gone.
Chapter 8
Emery
“Hey, Emery. C’mere.” Jared waved me with one hand over to the concierge’s desk as I passed through the lobby. He was holding up a piece of paper in his other hand, grinning like a fool, and I laughed in response.
Amy was working the front desk and gave me a bright smile as I approached. “Hey, Emery! How was that wedding the other day? I saw the reception room before the guests arrived and it was beautiful.”
I thought about how the room had seemed to glow with all the decorations, and the way everyone had been talking and laughing together as I’d waited the tables. I had overheard so many conversations every time I had poured coffee, or removed plates, but the ones that stood out in my mind were the memories that many of the guests had shared with one another of the bride and groom and of their own weddings. People were hugging and holding hands and dancing for what seemed like an eternity.
And I’d been bowled over by the warmth and connection in that room. Watching that had made me think of Ryan and how close to him I’d felt during the few hours we’d spent together.
When I’d gotten out of his truck on Saturday morning, I’d forgotten to get his number. And he hadn’t come by to my room, either. Did that mean he was blowing me off?
The possibility hurt more than it should have.
I forced a smile and nodded at Amy. “It was really fun. I was on my feet for a few hours, and I dropped a plate in the kitchen, but I had a great time. The bride and groom were fantastic, too.”
“Is that code for ‘good tippers’?” Jared chuckled when Amy rolled her eyes.
But before I could come up with a good retort, he handed me the piece of paper he’d been holding up earlier. “Here. Some guy dropped this off for you.”
My pulse sped up, and I practically snatched the note out of his hand.
“A little over-excited, are we?” Jared was smirking at me, but Amy reached across the reception desk and playfully smacked him on the back of his head.
“Hey! Here I am, being the consummate professional, and you’re getting physical with me?”
For some reason, the two of them exchanged a weird look, but I ignored it. Jared was right. I was over-excited. I unfolded the note and barely suppressed a shout of relief. It was from Ryan. The note was just one sentence—Call me—with his number written below, but the euphoria I felt was…well, it was pretty damned ridiculous, really.
Except I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“Uh, Amy?” I interrupted what was now a hushed conversation between Amy and Jared, and Amy immediately straightened, looking a bit pink but otherwise like her usual perky self.
“What can I do for you?”
I giggled. Amy was so bubbly and adorable. She reminded me of the quintessential cheerleader—the kind that never existed in real life, but only in movies and magazines. And it was impossible not to like her.
“Is it okay if I use the desk phone?”
She shook her head, and even her refusal looked peppy. “Actually, employees aren’t allowed to use the one at the desk.”
Bummer. I’d left my phone back in my room. Not the end of the world, but I wanted to talk to Ryan while I still had that extra-happy feeling from getting his note. But before I could say thanks and try to blaze through the rest of my work so I could get to my room and call Ryan, Amy pointed behind her, to Mr. Brake’s office. “But you can use the phone in there. Donald is in the back, talking to some vendors right now.”
I didn’t even bother asking whether that was actually okay with Mr. Brake, just ran through the door behind the concierge station and into the office. I picked up the receiver and put it to my ear, but I didn’t hear a dial tone.
“You have to dial ‘9’ to get an outside line.” Amy’s voice floated in through the other door that connected the reception desk to the office.
I jammed my finger down on the button, and a loud beep sounded in my ear. Damn. Apparently I needed to calm down a little. Why was I so hyped up over this guy, anyway? It’s not like he was anything more than a casual hookup, right?
Right.
But something about it still bugged me. Like when I’d told him last week that we’d just been in the right place at the right time. For all that I’d insisted that was the case, describing it that way actually felt…wrong.
I shook it off. Now was not the time to be thinking about that. I’d been wanting to hear from him all weekend, and now I had his number. I read it off the note and punched it into the keypad, then held my breath as the line connected and started to ring.
One ring…
Please pick up. I really want to see him again tonight.
Two rings…
Wait. What am I going to say? Shit. Should I hang up and figure it out first?
Three rings…
Doesn’t matter. He’s not going to answer, anyway. May as well—
“Hello?”
Oh my God.
“Ryan!” I was so surprised that he’d actually answered that it came out louder than I’d intended.
“Emery?” He didn’t sound deafened, at least.
“Yep, that’s me. Emery.”
; Oh, for God’s sake. Have you gone mental? Try to act like a normal person!
His low, easy laugh came through the phone. “Thanks for calling me.”
I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of his voice. I already had some incredibly pleasurable memories attached to that rich timbre, and listening to it with my eyes closed had me visualizing him, naked and beneath me, in a heartbeat.
“Thanks for leaving your number. I wasn’t sure…” I trailed off and my eyes snapped open at the uncertainty in my voice. What was that about? I never worried about relationships. I never questioned or wondered. Either I liked someone or I didn’t. Either I wanted someone or I didn’t. Either I trusted someone…
Or I didn’t.
Black or white. I rarely gave any thought to my friends or boyfriends.
Except I’d been giving a lot of thought to Ryan, who was, well, neither.
“So, uh…would you want to, uh…do you want to go out with me tonight? If you’re free, that is.”
At least that was something I didn’t have to think about. I wanted to see him. I wanted to kiss him. I felt confident in that, even if I wasn’t sure what to do with the rest of my feelings toward him.
And so I smiled into the phone and told him, “Yes. I want that very much.”
* * *
Ryan
“So, you’re just going to hop on a bus and go to Calgary? Alone?”
We were lying in my bed after some intense, sweaty sex, and I had my fingers laced through Emery’s, our hands resting together on my chest. She’d just finished telling me about how she planned to use her next day off to go to Calgary to meet on of the guys who had turned up in her online search results for Theodore Chambers.
I had to admit, I was kind of freaked out by how nonchalant she was about it. I’d never known anyone who was so independent. And even though it intimidated me, I admired her for it, too.
I felt her laugh, even though she didn’t make a sound.
“Yeah, I’m going to take a bus to Calgary. That’s what buses are for, right? Getting from one place to another?”
I grunted. “Smartass. You know what I meant.”
She rolled to one side, propping herself up on one elbow, but she kept her other hand in mine. Her expression when looked down at me, where I was still lying back on the bed, was serious.
“I know what you meant. But I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. Going to Calgary for a day and paying a visit to a virtual stranger is no big deal.”
Hmm. On the one hand, I believed her. Given what she’d told me about how she’d grabbed a ride with three kids from her school, all the way out here to search for some guy she’d never met, I didn’t doubt that she could do it.
But something in her tone, the way she’d said for a long time, made me wonder whether she enjoyed being so independent. Whether she’d ever had the luxury of leaning on someone else, even if she didn’t really need to.
I pulled her down so that she was half-lying atop me and stroked my free hand through her hair. “Can I at least drive you there?”
“No, but you can offer. But I’ll still say no.”
“I don’t have anything else planned this week. It wouldn’t be any—”
“I’ll be fine. I promise.” Her tone was patient, but final.
Damn, she was stubborn. But I wasn’t going to push her further. I’d gotten the message: Emery Phillips was a lone wolf.
But she was here with me now, and that’s what mattered.
“All right.” I wound a silky lock of her hair around my finger. “In that case, will you at least let me drive you to the bus station when you go?”
She stiffened, almost imperceptibly, but it was there and gone in an instant, and then she relaxed and nodded. “Yes, that would be nice.”
“And can I pick you up when you come back?”
She pushed herself off my chest and looked at me, eyes twinkling. “Are you just trying to get sex from me two night in a row?”
“Am I that obvious?” I teased her back, but the truth was that I was worried about her. Despite her toughness, she felt oddly vulnerable to me, and I wanted to make sure she would be okay.
“I guess that would be okay,” she said, and then leaned down to drop a quick kiss on my lips. “But I’m not going until Friday. We can have plenty of sex between now and then.”
“We might have to stop and eat from time to time, too, you know.”
“Fine. Plenty of sex and food.”
I laughed. “Okay. It’s a deal. Now… “ I sat up and pushed her back down, moving ove her to brush my lips against hers. “What do you say we work up an appetite?”
Chapter 9
Emery
“How was the Edmonton trip, Inspector Gadget?” Ryan was sitting across from me at “our” restaurant, grinning at me in a way that made me want to pull him forward and fuck his mouth with my tongue. He loved it when I kissed him hot and dirty.
Hell. He loved it when I did a lot of things, but it was the fact that I knew what all of them were that made me pause for a second with the realization that I’d never known anyone this well. It had only been three weeks since that night we’d run into each other at the Cave, but this was already our tenth date.
No, not date, I corrected myself. Casual hanging out.
Except for all the kissing. And the sex. And the cuddling in front of the TV when we’d watched a movie last week and, well, a lot of things. I kept telling myself that I should pull back, because the more time I spent with him, the harder it was to convince myself that this was just a convenient, temporary fling.
You’re getting too close. Pull back.
But I didn’t want to pull back. Not just because I liked the way he held my hand and brushed his thumb over my knuckles, and not just because he made me laugh and made my body feel so good. I’d finally worked up the nerve to tell him, last week, the real reason behind why I was looking for Theodore Chambers, and he’d been understanding and supportive and—
I trusted him.
And that scared me.
It meant that this wasn’t just about the right place at the right time. It meant that now he had the power to hurt me, and…what if he did? I’d learned growing up that forgiveness just meant that you left yourself open to be hurt again. That the person who hurt you would have a chance to do it over and over until there was nothing left, anyway.
Love isn’t just about trusting someone. It’s about forgiving mistakes, too.
I thought about my mom’s words. About the way I’d been feeling since I got here—that something wasn’t right. At first, I’d thought it was just the thing with the house, but what if…?
What if it was Ryan?
I’d met him the first night I’d arrived here and nothing had been the same since.
Without forgiveness, what does trust even mean?
“Hey, you okay?”
Ryan’s gentle prompt brought me out of I thoughts and she nodded. “I’m fine, just a little tired, I guess. No luck in Edmonton, either.”
I had now been to both Calgary and Edmonton during my days off, looking for two different men who might have been the right Theodore Chambers.
Neither of them had been.
Ryan had tried to get me to take him along, but I’d refused, and he hadn’t pushed. Even though I’d wanted him to come, which was probably why it was better that he hadn’t. I didn’t want to get too dependent when I was already feeling like things were turned upside down.
Luckily, both the guys I’d been looking for had been friendly enough when I’d knocked on their doors and explained why I was there. But the one in Calgary had been even older than Ted would have been if he were still alive, while the one in Edmonton was only nineteen and still living at home with his parents—both of his parents.
Not Ted’s son, then.
I gave Ryan a run-down of what had happened, and he just rubbed my knuckles as I talked, not saying anything until the waiter brought two steaming plates
of pasta. Usually, this place’s fettuccine Alfredo was my favorite, but I was feeling so dejected that I couldn’t muster up an appetite for it.
When he saw that I wasn’t eating, Ryan put down his own fork and grabbed my hand again.
“Hey. What wrong?”
“I don’t know what to do anymore.” I hated the way my voice wavered, like I was on the verge of crying and didn’t even realize it. Or maybe I did. I hated feeling so out of control. Like I was letting myself down
He scrunched up his nose and furrowed his brows, and the expression so reminded me of Ted that I couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s funny?”
“You just—you reminded me of the guy who gave my dad that loan on the house, Ted. I mean, he had that same serious look sometimes.”
“Yeah?” Ryan smiled. “Was he as handsome as I am, too?”
I laughed. “No way.” I sighed and looked down at our entwined fingers. “But it’s funny. I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately, with this whole search, and I realized at first that I was really mad at him for letting my dad take out that loan. But the more I thought about it, the more I saw that maybe I was wrong. My dad’s, uh, condition isn’t obvious to most people. My mom has worked really hard to keep things looking normal. And Ted was a really nice guy. He always went out of his way to help people. I think that’s actually why he gave my dad the loan. Knowing now how things are, I’m willing to bet that my dad told Ted a sob story about why he needed the money, and Ted felt bad and gave him the loan on great terms.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That was something that had added to my general feeling of things being off, somehow. I’d been so convinced that Ted was the villain in this story that I’d forgotten how great he’d been when he was alive. In fact, the more I thought about it, the harder it was for me to blame anyone. Even my dad.
I waved my hand in the air. “Anyway. Ted was a good guy. This one time, when I was nine, I ran away from home because my mom wouldn’t let me have cake for dinner. I must have done a great job of hiding, because my parents couldn’t find me anywhere. Everyone else convinced my parents that I was fine and probably fell asleep in someone’s hayloft, but Ted searched with them until nearly midnight.”
