The Fireside Inn

by Lily Everett

  Serena Lightfoot was unlike any woman he’d ever known—unabashedly romantic, but in a quirky, offbeat way that made him smile rather than roll his eyes at the sentiment.

  “More poetry, hmm? It’s going to have to be quite something to compete with that one about how falling in love is like owning a dog.”

  Her eyes lit up, sparkling in the firelight. “I knew you’d like that poem! See, you always think I’m crazy at first, but I’ve got the goods. Admit it.”

  “Freely and unreservedly.” Leo stretched his arms along the back of the sofa and crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “I honestly never knew that expressions of sentiment—love—could be so…”

  “What?”

  He struggled to find the word he wanted. “Humorous. Playful?”

  “Joyful,” Serena suggested, voice low and happy.

  Leo nodded, and Serena clasped the book in her hands to her chest in a paroxysm of unselfconscious pleasure. “You totally get it. I love that you get it!”

  You get me, she didn’t say. But Leo heard it all the same, and a pang shot through his chest like an arrow.

  Uncomfortably aware that he hadn’t been nearly as open with Serena as she’d been with him, Leo felt a deep-seated need to redress that imbalance in some small way. “In my house, growing up, ‘love’ was not a word one heard. Or spoke. I suppose I learned to think of it as a weakness.”

  “Your parents never told you they loved you?” Serena was aghast, eyes wide and dark.

  Deeply uncomfortable, Leo stared into the glowing embers of the fire and shrugged. “Please. There’s no need for the Oxfam eyes and trembling lips. I was hardly abused. In fact, I was given every advantage, everything I could possibly ask for.”

  “Exactly,” Serena pointed out, pulling one leg up onto the sofa so she could face him directly. “Your parents gave you every thing you wanted—but not what you truly needed.”

  Leo pulled his well-worn mask of sardonic amusement over his face. “I assure you, what you call ‘love’ is not necessary for survival.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  The intensity in Serena’s voice forced Leo to meet her laser-focused gaze. Still dazzled from staring into the fire for so long, Leo blinked away the dark stars exploding around Serena’s head. She almost seemed to glow in the dimly lit room, a lantern to light his way.

  Leo shook off the fanciful thought. “I don’t even know what that means. How can you say that? How can you even believe in love, after everything that’s happened to you?”

  “First of all, because I’ve felt it.”

  Leo felt his upper lip curl into a snarl at the thought of Serena having real feelings of love for any of the men who’d used and discarded her, but she shook her head.

  “There are lots of different kinds of love,” she reminded him. “I love my parents, and they love me back—almost too much, sometimes! But I’d take my mother’s nosiness into every aspect of my life and my father’s constant offers to pay for plane tickets home over the alternative. At least I grew up knowing I was loved. Oh, I hope I never meet your parents. I’d want to slap them silly for not telling you, every single day, how amazing and special and loveable you are.”

  Leo stared at the passion lighting Serena’s elfin features. “I’ve only seen you like this when talking about your library and how important it is to the community. And your books.”

  A hot pink blush stained her cheeks, but Serena didn’t back down. If anything, she became more impassioned. “And that’s another thing! I know love is real because all those writers and poets can’t be wrong. When I read about two people falling love, the truth of that resonates inside me—even if I haven’t experienced that kind of romantic love personally. I know it exists. You have to know it, too. Haven’t you been listening to the things we’ve read this week?”

  Serena brandished the book she’d been holding, and it fell open. She scanned a couple of lines quickly, her breath fast and light. “I mean, come on. Look at this.”

  Hooking her finger into the spine to hold the place, she turned the spread pages to face Leo. His gaze snapped from the incomprehensible jumble of black letters floating around the page to Serena’s pleading expression. His heart jumped into his throat and expanded, choking him.

  It was his worst nightmare, come to life. He couldn’t move, couldn’t make a sound. The silence stretched horribly.

  “I’m serious,” Serena insisted, shoving the book closer to him. “Read this line! Right here. How can you read this and not believe in love?”

  ***

  Serena waited impatiently for Leo’s silvery gray eyes to dart across the immortal e.e. cummings poem, already savoring the sound of his deep cultured tones smoothly telling her he carried her heart within his heart.

  After knowing Leo for only a handful of days, it was ridiculous how much she longed to hear him say those words to her, even if he were only speaking the words of a long-dead poet, not making a declaration of his own. Everything inside Serena rebelled at the way Leo was dismissing the entire concept of love. She had to hear him take it back.

  But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything. After a single, agonized glance, he didn’t even look at the book in her hands. Frustrated, Serena shook the book until the pages rustled. “Hello? Anyone in there?”

  When he finally spoke, his voice was as rusty as the inside of an antique watering can. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

  I want to know I’m not alone with all these feelings and desires, Serena wanted to cry. I want to know you’re falling, too.

  Gathering her composure, she gently laid the open book in Leo’s lap. “I want to hear you read that poem. Not even the whole thing, just the last stanza—and then tell me you don’t have a clue what the poet is talking about.”

  If Leo could do that, if he could honestly look her in the eye and deny the existence of love when it stared him in the face, Serena might stand a chance at being cured of this doomed infatuation.

  Leo flexed one strong, long-fingered hand before resting it on the open page. She heard the dry harsh rasp of his breath, even over the crackle and whoosh of the flames in the hearth. Bending over the book, Leo stared down at the poem for an endless moment, lips moving silently. Serena waited, pulse fluttering, for Leo to start reading.

  Suspended in breathless anticipation, Serena wasn’t prepared for the shock of Leo standing up from the couch in a rush of contained power. The book slid from his lap to the floor with a bang that made Serena wince for the state of the cover, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Leo to check it.

  He strode stiff-legged to the mantel and gripped it with white-knuckled hands. Every line of Leo’s body thrummed with tension like a plucked violin string as he leaned forward to stare into the roaring fire. “I can’t do what you want,” he rasped, low and halting.

  Disappointment lanced through her. “What? You can’t tell me love exists because you still don’t believe in it? Even after all the things we’ve read together, all the time we’ve spent together…”

  Even after making me fall for you?

  “No.” Leo straightened and faced her with the posture of a man facing down a firing squad. “I mean, I can’t read the poem aloud.”

  Still battling her own disappointment, Serena arched a mocking brow. “If you have such bad stage fright you can’t read aloud to me in an empty room, how are you going to get up in front of a church full of people and do a wedding reading?”

  “For God’s sake,” Leo burst out, stroking a hand through his hair and clenching until the muscles stood out in his forearm. “I don’t have a problem with stage fright. I have a problem with reading. As in, I never learnt.”

  Despite herself, Serena’s jaw dropped open. “What, at all? But you went to fancy British schools!”

  “Fancy schools that owed a lot to my father’s generous donations.” Leo shrugged tightly, directing his stare to the side.

  Unable to believe what she was hearing, Serena shook her
head as she stumbled up from the couch. Her watery knees threatened not to hold her up under the tidal wave of realization crashing over her head.

  Not again, was all she could think, but it was happening again.

  “You lied to me,” she said through numb lips, staring at the marble-cold profile of the man she’d come so close to giving her heart to.

  “Because I was embarrassed,” Leo said, still not even bothering to look at her. He shrugged, sending shadows dancing along the walls. “It’s not the kind of thing a man likes to admit to. Being so thick, the best teachers in England couldn’t knock reading into his skull.”

  “I don’t understand. How did you memorize so many quotes?”

  A pained expression tightened the corners of Leo’s downturned eyes. “Ever notice I mostly quote from plays? I found recordings, watched videos, that kind of thing. For the rest…”

  He paused, and a chill pooled in Serena’s belly. She shook her head. “You couldn’t have gotten through the English curriculum at your fancy English prep school without help.”

  A muscle ticked in Leo’s jaw. “I did have help. I hid my problems from the masters, but some of the other pupils…”

  Serena’s heart froze. She knew the truth without needing to hear him say it. “You got girls to help you. Sweet, nerdy girls like me.”

  “I’m not proud of it,” he growled. “But I couldn’t go to the teachers, because they would have informed my parents. My father—”

  But Serena could barely hear a word he said over the sound of betrayal wailing in her ears. “You’re just like all the rest of them. Like every other man I’ve ever known.”

  He finally swiveled his head to pierce her with the silvery brilliance of his eyes. “No. That’s not true,” Leo said, taking an urgent step toward her.

  Throwing up a hand between them, Serena halted his progress. She couldn’t bear it if he touched her, that smooth, practiced, lying touch that had made her feel so beautiful and desired, when the whole time… “You said you wanted me. But all along, what you really wanted was—”

  She broke off, heart hammering and mouth dry, unable to believe that after all her caution, all the lessons she’d learned at such a painful cost, she had managed to fall into the same old trap.

  Humiliation scorched up her neck and face, and abruptly, Serena needed to get out of the warm, cozy little room and away from the Fireside Inn. She needed the fresh, cold air against her cheeks as the ferry sped her back to Sanctuary Island. She needed to be alone.

  Alone was safe. From now on, she’d remember that.

  “Wait, Serena. I can explain. When I left school, I left all that behind me. But this wedding reading thing brought it all up again, like breaking open a wound that never really healed, and I couldn’t stand to let Miles down. I couldn’t stand to tell him the truth.”

  “You didn’t want your friends to find out you can’t read. So you used me.”

  “I didn’t use you, love. I needed your help and I asked for it. I even offered to compensate you for it with a generous donation for that library which is so dear to you.”

  “I see,” Serena said stiffly, wrapping her arms around herself. She felt chilled despite the roaring fireplace. “So what now? You’ll pick out one of my selections, memorize it for the wedding, and then be off to New York again to take up with a new socialite?”

  “Well…” He ran a hand through his hair, tousling it wildly. “Yes, I suppose that was the plan, though you make it sound awfully seedy. Please know that I truly appreciate the help you’ve given me, and the time we shared.”

  It shouldn’t have changed anything. She’d known from the start that Leo Strathairn wasn’t the kind of man she could keep, the kind of man who would stay by her side and experience the joys and sorrows of life with her. But now, on the heels of finding out he’d been lying—or at least omitting the truth—since she met him, Serena reached her limit.

  Grabbing her coat and hat from the rack by the inn door, Serena wound her scarf around her neck without meeting Leo’s gaze. “I have to go.”

  And then he was right next to her, his tightly muscled body crowding her against the door for a hot, thrilling moment before Serena could stomp down on her body’s stupid, instinctive reaction. She shoved past him and out into the cold, ignoring the strain in his voice as he called her name again.

  Running flat out in the direction of the marina, the pounding of her boots against the pavement echoed through the emptiness Leo’s words left behind. Every gasp of frozen air was a knife in her lungs, but she hardly felt the pain.

  All she felt was grief at the death of a dream she’d only dared to hold for such a short time. For the disappearance of the person she’d believed Leo to be. For the bright, happy, loving future she’d never get to taste.

  That future was never yours to begin with, she reminded herself savagely as the lights of the harbor twinkled into view. Love, passion, an honest relationship—those things aren’t for you. How many times do you have to be slapped down before you stop trying to reach for them?

  Panting, thighs shaking and feet aching, Serena skidded down the dock toward the waiting ferry. All but throwing money at the surprised ferry operator’s face, she hauled herself up the gangplank and headed for the spiral stairs to the top deck.

  “It’ll be freezing up there,” the grizzled old man warned. “You’ll catch your death of darned foolishness.”

  Serena tuned him out and climbed the stairs. She needed to feel the wind on her cheeks—and at this temperature, it was a good bet she’d be the only passenger on the exposed deck. A quick glance around the empty bench seats showed she was right. Tossing herself down on a bench that faced out toward the open water—toward home—Serena finally let herself catch her breath.

  Staring up at the matte velvet sky as snowflakes began to swirl down and dust the empty seats around her, Serena made herself a solemn promise.

  This was the last time. Never again.

  Chapter 7

  “You look like hell.” Miles slid into the straight-backed chair across from Leo, his appraising stare never leaving the younger man’s face.

  Leo suppressed a grimace. He could well imagine the story his face was telling his perceptive, eagle-eyed friend. “Bad night.”

  “You Brits have such a way with understatement.” The wry grin that touched Miles’s mouth didn’t hide the concern in his deep blue eyes. “What’s up? How can I help?”

  A lump of emotion knotted itself around Leo’s vocal cords. The unconditional, unquestioning support he got from Miles and his other friends from the club was a wholly new experience for Leo. Just as when Miles had insisted on taking his new speedboat over to Winter Harbor when Leo called earlier, Leo wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to the friendly consideration.

  Unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth he said, “It’s not a huge problem. At least, I don’t think it is.”

  Surely if he told Miles the truth, Miles wouldn’t shun him. Miles wouldn’t jump up from the card table and run out of the Fireside Inn’s sitting room as fast as his legs could carry him. Right?

  “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. I’m in problem solving mode,” Miles said easily, hooking an elbow over the hard wooden chair back as comfortably as if it were one of the luxurious sofas in the Billionaire Club lounge. “Greta and her mother tend to spin each other up under the best of circumstances. Planning a wedding together? Not the best of circumstances. Thanks for giving me an excuse to get out of there for a breather.”

  Leo winced. He hated to add to the man’s wedding-related troubles, but he had to come clean. He couldn’t count on Serena’s help to find the perfect reading any longer. Nerves coiled around Leo’s midsection, squeezing like a boa constrictor. But he had to tell Miles, no matter how humiliating it was.

  Even if he lost his friend, Leo simply couldn’t let him down by pretending a miracle would occur between now and the wedding, mere days away. Serena had given him plenty to c
hoose from, sure. But the thought of reciting one of the poems she loved most pierced his heart. Miles would simply have to choose his own reading, and if he still wanted Leo to deliver it, Leo would figure out how to memorize it, even if it meant having his poor, long-suffering valet read the damned thing aloud to him over and over until he had it.

  This didn’t have to be an insurmountable difficulty. So why couldn’t he open his mouth?

  Cold sweat prickled at his hairline and along his palms. For a moment, he wished he could curse Serena’s name for consigning him to this hell—but he couldn’t. He had only himself to blame for this situation. If he’d been honest with his friends—with her—from the start, he wouldn’t be in this ridiculous, mortifying mess. Still, even though he knew it was impossible, he wished Serena were here with him. He’d never felt stronger or more of a man than when he was in her arms.

  Not going to happen, he reminded himself ruthlessly. You were never in her league, and now she knows it. What would a bright, clever woman like Serena want with a dullard like you?

  After all, the instant she found out how stupid Leo was, she’d been on her way out the door. Exactly as he’d feared. He could only pray one of his oldest friends would react differently—but Leo honestly didn’t hold out much hope.

  Wiping his hands against his trouser legs, Leo sat forward in the booth. He forced himself to meet Mile’s worried gaze. “I have something to tell you. Something I’m not proud of.”

  The crinkle in Miles’s brow hurt Leo’s heart. “I’m listening.”

  Just do it, he thought desperately. Quick and ruthless, like ripping off a sticking plaster. Unwilling to watch for the moment when Miles’s friendly concern would morph into derision, anger, or worse, pity, Leo directed his gaze and his words to the green felt-covered tabletop between them. “You see, Miles. When you asked me to do the wedding reading, I agreed. But there’s a problem.”