The Fireside Inn

by Lily Everett

  Days and days since the last time she’d heard from or seen Leo Strathairn, “sunny” wasn’t exactly how Serena would describe her feelings. But since local tradition held that it was bad luck to wear black to a wedding, she couldn’t dress to match her mood.

  Vowing to pretend to be happy, if only to keep from screwing up the wedding photos, Serena hurried across Shoreline Drive toward the quaint old yacht club overlooking the waves. A wooden boardwalk crossed the salt marsh and the sand, the island equivalent of a paved walkway from the road to the front steps of the building. Following a little family down the narrow walkway, all Serena could see was the back of the tall father carrying his toddler on his shoulders.

  When the other guests stepped into the club and Serena finally glimpsed the way the room had been decorated for the wedding, she gasped. She’d been inside the club plenty of times—everyone on the island had used it as a meeting space at one time or another, even though the local yacht club was long disbanded. But it had never looked like this before.

  The entire place was a fantasy of pale gold and ivory satin, sprays of exotic orchids and dangling strands of clear crystal beads turning the familiar room into a winter dreamscape. Serena’s stubbornly romantic heart thrilled to the sight of it.

  Rows of gilded straight-backed chairs had been set up on either side of a wide, gold-carpeted aisle strewn with white rose petals and tea lights in hurricane lamps. A driftwood-posted arbor stood at the end of the aisle, draped with filmy white and shimmering gold fabric that turned translucent in the glow of the late afternoon sun through the sparkling picture windows. The back wall of the yacht club was entirely glass, so that the backdrop for the exchanging of vows would be nothing less than the majestic Atlantic Ocean.

  Picking her way to a chair in the back row, Serena had no idea if she was on the bride’s side or the groom’s. She didn’t suppose it mattered. Feeling paper crinkling on the seat, she retrieved the wedding program and smoothed it with trembling fingers.

  There was no sane, rational reason why which poem Leo had chosen to honor his friend’s marriage should matter so much to her. It had nothing to do with Serena, not anymore. Still, her hands were shaking as she opened the program and skimmed until she found Leo’s name.

  All it said was “Reading by Leo Strathairn.” Letting out a deflated breath, Serena sank back in her seat. Of course—the programs had probably been printed before he’d had a chance to choose.

  The seats around her began to fill up with happy, chattering wedding guests in festive dresses in seasonal reds, deep evergreens, and lush purples. The men were all wearing the Virginia tuxedo: khakis and blue blazers. Serena knew she should be keeping an eye on what was clearly the groom’s side, across the aisle. She should be scanning the crowd of New York socialites in navy and maroon silks and satins, the men in dark suits and ties—but it was all she could do to sit still in her chair without fidgeting while waiting for the wedding to begin.

  A string quartet took up their instruments to the left of the arbor, and the first strains of Pachelbel’s Canon in D floated over the air, the guests stilled into hushed anticipation. Reverend Davies, regally tall in her celebratory robes, took her place under the arbor as Miles Harrington, imposing and stern in his immaculate tuxedo, led his five groomsmen out from a side room to stand at the end of the aisle.

  It was a handsome band of groomsmen, and Serena was aware of the ripple of delight that spread through the female guests, both single and married. The three Harrington brothers, each gorgeous in his own way, but with those intense blue eyes in common. And the three bachelor friends: Cooper, Zane…and Leo.

  Smack in the center of the line of groomsmen, Leo stood proud and straight-shouldered, as comfortable in his perfectly tailored black dinner jacket and patent-leather shoes as most men would be in jeans and sneakers.

  To the rest of the guests who looked at him up there, with his chestnut brown hair artfully tousled and a slight smile curling his lips, Leo would appear entirely calm and at ease. But Serena could see tension in the tilt of his head, the line between his eyes. He was nervous.

  The bridesmaids walked down the aisle, three pretty women all radiant in deep blue silk, along with the bride’s two brothers, who were standing up on her side. Serena recognized them from Hackley’s Hardware on Main Street.

  Licking her lips as the music swelled, Serena rose to her feet along with the rest of the guests as they prepared for the bride’s entrance. A collective sigh went up when Greta Hackley entered the room, linked arm in arm with her mother.

  Every head swiveled to watch them make the slow, stately journey down the aisle; every gaze darted to the bride swaying slender and beautiful in a gown of glowing ivory satin with long lace sleeves.

  Everyone turned to watch—except Serena. After one quick glance at the bride, she always like to peek back at the groom, to catch the expression of stunned delight on his face at his first sight of the woman who would be his wife. Miles didn’t disappoint her. Joy radiated from the man’s pores, a sublime, certain happiness that wiped away any possibility of doubt in the power and truth of love.

  Of course, that thought tempted her gaze to wander down the line of groomsmen to Leo. She thought she’d be safe, that he’d be staring at Greta along with everyone else—but when she turned to look at Leo, he was looking right back at her.

  Their eyes connected with a sizzling snap of electricity that jolted through Serena’s body like a lightning strike.

  The moment lasted for barely a handful of heartbeats, but it felt like an hour. When Greta and her mother reached the end of the aisle and the guests retook their seats, Serena collapsed into her chair as if she were a puppet whose strings were cut. The wedding started, the familiar words achingly romantic, but it was all a blur to Serena.

  All she could see were Leo’s silvery gray eyes, burning into her across the distance that separated them. Even after she broke eye contact to pay attention to the ceremony, Serena still felt the heat and weight of his gaze.

  And when the time came for his reading and he smoothed down his lapels before crossing to stand at the front of the arbor, Serena’s heartbeat thundered louder than the surf outside the window.

  Leo met her stare once more, dark and burning with purpose, and the moment he began to speak, he changed her life forever.

  ***

  The week before the wedding had passed in a whirl of words, images, and imagination for Leo. He spent every waking—and some sleeping—moments plugged into the top-of-the-line headphones he’d had overnight-delivered to the inn.

  He listened to every single audiobook Serena had left for him, but the one he came back to again and again was the homemade CD she’d burned and labeled in her neat copperplate script.

  As unique and original as Serena herself, the selections she’d chosen to highlight by carefully recording herself reading them aloud sifted through Leo’s mind like snow falling on a lake. He loved the quote from a science fiction cult classic about how love is what keeps a spaceship in the air, almost as much as the e.e. cummings poem that Serena had tried to get him to read that terrible night. But it was while listening to a piece by a poet he’d never heard of, Rory Croft, that Leo realized what he had to do.

  That poem crystallized a wordless thought that had been living in Leo’s mind since almost the first moment he met Serena Lightfoot. Just as for the poet, Serena had changed Leo and brought happiness to his life, merely by being who she was. The mere fact of her existence made Leo want to be a better man.

  And she deserved to know it.

  Now, staring out across the sea of expectant wedding guests, Leo focused all his attention on Serena. He would speak each word he’d worked and slaved over for the endless days and nights they’d been apart, straight from his heart to hers.

  “This is a poem I wrote,” Leo said, tilting his chin up proudly and willing Serena to understand that she was the reason for all of this. “In honor of Miles and Greta’s special day. Be k
ind—it’s my first attempt at writing my own stuff. Don’t worry, it’s short. I call it ‘Reading.’”

  He cleared his throat as shock passed a blank pall over Serena’s face. Ready or not, he had to begin. “Reading is the root of all love. When I met you, I read the loveliness of your soul in your lovely face. When you touched me, I read the generosity of your spirit in your generous touch. When I kissed you, I read the cleverness of your mind on your clever lips. When you spoke, I read the warmth of your passion in the warmth of your words.”

  Color flooded Serena’s cheeks, and her lashes swept down, hiding her eyes from him. Leo’s heart clenched, but he forced himself forward, the words beating in his chest like the wings of a trapped bird.

  “You taught me to read the secret language of your heart,” Leo said softly, spirits rising as Serena lifted her gaze to him once more. “And now, because of you, I can read the world of possibilities inscribed upon my own heart.”

  Her lips parted. Leo wanted to go to her, more than anything, to sweep her into his arms and whisper the final line of the poem directly into the delicate shell of her ear. But today wasn’t about him. He anchored his feet to the floor and told Serena in front of God and everyone, “I learned to love when I learned to read…you.”

  The rest of the ceremony was an exercise in patience. Leo could only thank his parents and the boring society functions they’d dragged him to since he was a child; without that early training in feigning polite interest, there was no way he could have stood through thirty more minutes of vows, music, and wedding blessings—all while knowing that Serena was separated from him only by a dozen rows of chairs and sixty-odd wedding guests.

  Schooling his features to show nothing but the genuine happiness he felt for his friend, Miles, and his sweet-faced, open-hearted bride, Leo gritted his teeth and smiled until his cheeks ached.

  After the first kiss, the final triumphant music started playing the bridal party back down the aisle. From his position in the middle of the groom’s side, Leo was third to walk, and because of the uneven number of men and women, he had no one to squire down the aisle. They’d planned that he and Zane would pair up and walk behind the bride’s brothers. Instead, after a whisper in Zane’s ear, Leo waited until Zane and the Hackley boys met in the middle and the wedding guests all started getting to their feet. Taking advantage of the jubilant chaos at the end of the ceremony, and the distraction caused by the Hackley brothers’ well-timed hijinks as the two pranksters hammed it up for the crowd, Leo winked at a shell-shocked Cooper and slipped past him.

  Circling around to the back row of chairs, searching the crowd for Serena’s bright dress and vibrant blonde curls, Leo cursed under his breath while the rest of the guests broke into cheers as the new husband and wife paraded down the aisle.

  The last seat in the last row was empty. Serena was gone.

  Chapter 9

  A charmingly hand-lettered signpost stood in the sand at the foot of the porch stairs leading down from the yacht club, one driftwood arm pointing up toward the ceremony, the other pointing left, toward the reception. Heart in his throat, Leo jogged in the direction of the large glass-topped, clear-sided structure that had been erected on the flat sand farther back from the waterline.

  He wanted to believe she’d be waiting for him on the dance floor, but it was deserted.

  Desperately scanning the horizon, Leo’s gaze landed on the getaway vehicle. Miles’s beautiful, sleek, custom-built helicopter perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean, waiting for the bride and groom to climb aboard and fly away to the honeymoon Cooper had planned for them.

  A hand landed on Leo’s shoulder and he whirled, hoping it was Serena—but it was the groom himself, instead.

  Dredging up a grin, Leo clasped Miles’s hand in a strong grip and shook it. “Congratulations, my friend! It was a gorgeous ceremony.”

  “And now for the party! Greta always imagined getting married on the beach. And even though it’s a little too cold out for a true beach wedding, I couldn’t disappoint my bride.”

  “This place looks amazing—and I see you even managed to order up a spectacular sunset for us to enjoy during cocktail hour. Not even God Himself would dare to disappoint you.”

  “Can’t take credit.” Miles shrugged. “Zane and the wedding planner, Felicity, did all the heavy lifting with the planning. Including timing things perfectly and coming up with a way to keep us all warm while still giving us this amazing view.”

  Leo stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling strangely awkward. “Anyway. Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of your wedding. It meant a lot to me.”

  Miles radiated love and joy as he glanced over to where his new wife was hugging her mother and shedding a tear or two. “Thank you for what you said. I knew you’d choose the perfect reading—but I never dreamed you’d be the one who wrote it.”

  A glow of pride warmed Leo’s chest. “I’m glad you liked it. I wasn’t sure—it’s not the kind of thing anyone in my family has ever gone in for.”

  “You aren’t your family.” Miles’s keen gaze, as always, saw more than Leo liked. Tongue in cheek, Miles clapped him on the back. “Anyway, the poem was great. You must have been inspired.”

  With a rueful laugh, Leo palmed the nape of his neck. “I was, yeah.”

  Miles arched a brow. “So. Can I take that to mean that you concede? I won the bet, as far as you’re concerned?”

  The terms of the bet came back to Leo in a rush.

  I’m betting each of you will find the course of your life forever altered by your trip to Sanctuary Island. In fact, I’m willing to bet each of you will find love there.

  “Well?” Miles blinked expectantly. “Did I call it, or did I call it?”

  “The course of my life, forever altered,” Leo murmured, his gaze sliding out to sea. The wide, open horizon, hinting at opportunities and possibilities the world had never held for him before. And all because of Serena. “You could say that.”

  “And what about the rest of the bet?” Miles pushed. “Did you find love?”

  The crack in Leo’s heart fissured and threatened to split apart completely, but he managed to smile. “I did, but then I lost it again.”

  Miles’s blue eyes flickered, his stare darting over Leo’s left shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  With a sense of inevitability, Leo turned slowly and found Serena standing behind him with an uncertain smile on her glossy red mouth.

  ***

  The groom winked at her before melting away into the night, presumably to collect his bride and get ready for their first dance as husband and wife.

  Serena couldn’t say for sure. She only had eyes for the groomsman.

  Swallowing around the lump of emotion clogging her throat, Serena said, “Did I hear that right? You and Miles had a bet?”

  Leo’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure what you heard, but it’s not what you may be thinking—it wasn’t some sordid wager about getting a woman into bed or anything like that.”

  Serena laughed, the sound a little choked. “I know, don’t worry. I heard…enough. I think. I have a few questions.”

  Stepping closer, Leo stared down at her. “Ask me anything, love, and I swear I’ll tell you the truth.”

  Every part of Serena yearned toward him, her chest brushing his with every short, shallow breath. “That poem—you really wrote it.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a question,” Leo teased gently, his eyes roaming her face as if memorizing every line. “But yes. You told me you could see me as a poet. And when I listened to the wonderful words of the poems you recorded for me…suddenly, I began to see it, too.”

  “It was beautiful,” she whispered, her heart so full she thought it might burst. “I loved every line of it. I’m so proud of you, Leo.”

  “Do you know, I’m proud of me, too.” He smiled, a warm, confident grin without a trace of the brittle sarcasm he used as a shield. “But I never would have even attem
pted it without your encouragement. You were the mirror through which I glimpsed the man I want to be.”

  “See,” Serena croaked, tears burning behind her eyes, “that’s what I mean, that right there. Poet.”

  Instead of blushing or waving it away, Leo lifted one red-brown brow in a sultry arch. “What were your other questions?”

  Nerves prickled along her palms, lifting every hair on her arms. Chickening out, she blurted, “Do you know what table we’re sitting at?”

  Some of the light dimmed from the bright stars of Leo’s eyes. “The wedding party is at the two tables in front. Don’t worry, though—if no suitable donors are at our table, I’ll make sure to do the rounds with you, introduce you to some possible library sponsors.”

  Miserable with anxiety and kicking herself for her cowardice, Serena muttered, “Thanks. But I’m not so worried about that, since you didn’t bother to listen to me when I said I didn’t want your donation. The check arrived yesterday, so thank you for that. And I’m pretty sure the Harringtons want to sponsor the library. One of the brothers came by to see me a few days ago. Dylan, the one who married Penny Little.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Leo said, with genuine warmth. “I suppose I should be glad you decided to attend the wedding at all, after that.”

  “I wanted to.” Serena dropped her gaze.

  With a courtly bow, Leo offered her his arm and a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Shall we go in to dinner?”

  Serena wrapped her hand around the crook of his elbow, her fingers squeezing at the hot, solid strength of his muscles flexing under the suit coat. The moment she touched him, her courage came flooding back, and when he moved to guide them through the tables to find their seats, she dug in her heels and stopped him.

  Leo turned back, an inquisitive expression on his face, and Serena said, “To hell with questions.”

  Stretching up on her tiptoes and curling her free hand around the back of his neck, Serena kissed him.