Next Comes Love

by Helen Brenna

  “You’re about as wrong about that as anyone could be.” Lynn set Jason back down, but held his hand. “You’ve got a job and a place to live. Jason could start back at school. What’s the hurry?”

  “We came here, running away from something, Lynn. This isn’t our home.”

  “It could be. If you want.”

  She wanted a sweet, quiet, safe place to call home, but no matter what had happened to change her over the last several months, she was still Erica Corelli. An Italian cook—not a chef—from Chicago.

  She thought of her apartment back home, her old job, her old friends. She wasn’t sure she fit anywhere any longer. “Everyone on this island has been so good to me and Jason. You and Arlo, especially. I have no way to thank you for what you’ve done.”

  “A hug would be nice.”

  For a moment, they looked into each other’s eyes and the ebb and flow of their relationship these past months came together in this moment. They were more than friends, and they both knew it. Lynn opened her arms wide.

  Erica fell into her like a child. “Goodbye, Lynn.”

  Lynn’s eyes turned red. “You’ve become like a daughter to me. And, you.” She looked down at Jason. “Like a grandson.” She lifted him high in her arms. “You are the best little boy in the whole world, and I love you with all of my heart.”

  As he squeezed his arms around her neck with tears streaming down his cheeks, Arlo came in from the alleyway. This is exactly what Erica had wanted to avoid. “Oh, hell.” They had to get out of here before someone called Garrett.

  “Life is messy, isn’t it?” Lynn said.

  They finished saying goodbye to Arlo only to find Bob and Dan waiting their turn. Even the Setterbergs had come to wish them farewell. By the time Hannah, Missy, Sarah and Brian joined the group, Erica was a mess and Jason’s eyes were swollen and red.

  “You should stay,” Hannah said.

  “Yeah,” Sarah and Brian echoed.

  Missy tilted her head. “You leaving isn’t in the cards.”

  From the windows near the lake came the sound of the ferry’s horn announcing its imminent arrival at the pier.

  “We have to go.” With one last look at everyone, she took Jason’s hand and headed out the back door into the alley. Every step felt weighted with all the memories loaded into what now felt like such a short time.

  “Don’t forget us,” someone called out.

  “Call,” Lynn said. “Or e-mail. Or both.”

  “Better yet,” Arlo added, “come back and visit.”

  They stepped outside, into the now bright morning sun and the ferry tooted again. In a few minutes it would dock. As they headed toward Main, Jason hung his head, looking at least as forlorn as he had back at Charlie’s restaurant in Chicago, all those months ago.

  “Look at the bright side,” she said. “You’ll get to go back to your old school in Chicago and play with your friends. We’ll figure out a place to live that’s close to your old neighborhood.”

  The moment they reached the sidewalk and the new windows in front of Duffy’s, he pulled his hand from hers. “I don’t want to go back to Chicago. I like it better here.”

  “Jason, we’re going home.”

  “No!” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not going.”

  “Wha—” Erica stared at him. Her first reaction was to argue with him, but then she realized what it had taken for him to stand up for himself after everything he’d been through. Once the dust settled, Jason was going to be okay.

  The ferry horn tooted its arrival at the pier. “We have to go,” she said, calmly, patiently. “This isn’t our home.”

  “You can’t make me.” He was pouting now, but she couldn’t find it in herself to be mad at him. Searching for the right words, she glanced up.

  Garrett was coming slowly toward them, his face, pale and drawn, looked as if it had been made from Lake Superior stone. He was furious. He stopped a few feet in front of her. “Just like that, huh?” he said. “You don’t even have the decency to discuss this with me. As if I don’t have a say. As if I—” He stopped, looked away.

  “I’m trying to do you a favor.” She turned. “Don’t you get that?”

  “No.” He grabbed her arm. “I don’t want you to go. I don’t want Jason to go, either.”

  “That’s not what you said yesterday. Yesterday—”

  “I’m an idiot. Nothing I said before matters! Nothing.” He knelt in front of Jason. “I need to talk to Erica for a few minutes alone. Is that okay?”

  Jason nodded, walked over to Duffy’s front entrance and peered through the windows. Lynn unlocked the front door and let him inside.

  “The ferry’s leaving,” Erica said. “We don’t have time.”

  “You’ve got five minutes,” Lynn whispered, and left them alone on the street.

  Garrett turned back to her. “I don’t blame you for being angry at me. I was an ass. Give me another chance.”

  “To break my heart? Another chance to make me feel—”

  “I was wrong. Everything I said was wrong.” He stepped toward her, but she backed away. “Erica—”

  “No.” She shook her head. Tears glistened in her eyes. “Don’t.”

  “I lo—”

  “Don’t!” She shoved him away.

  “I love you! Erica, look at me!” He grabbed her arms. “Look at me, dammit!”

  She glanced into his eyes.

  “It’s too late,” he whispered. “I love you. There’s nothing you can do or say to change that.”

  “What about peace and quiet? What about that calm, fairy-tale life you want so badly?” She was trying to make him mad. It would make her leaving so much easier.

  “I don’t want quiet. I need messy and passionate and crazy. I want you. In my life.”

  “You’re saying that to get me to stay.”

  “No.” He took her hand and wrapped his fingers through hers.

  “It’s because of what happened with Billy—”

  “No. I knew it before.” He reached out and ran his fingertips along her cheek. “You and I…we’re the same. It’s good between us. We’re good. Sometimes so good it scares the hell out of me.” His arms went around her neck and pulled her close. “Stay,” he whispered. “Please.”

  “My life. Jason’s life. We left everything back in Chicago.”

  “You’re telling yourself you need to go back because you’re scared. Even more than me. Erica, you belong here. You fit. You were meant to be here. With me. With these people who’ve become—whether you want to admit it or not—your friends. Everything that matters—now—in your life is here on Mirabelle.” He tilted her face toward his. “Give us a chance. Maybe we can make our very own fairy tale come true.”

  The ferry horn sounded a warning. It would be leaving within minutes.

  Jason stuck his head out Duffy’s front door. “Are we staying?” he asked, his eyes bright. “Can I go play with Brian?”

  Erica glanced up and saw the entire Mirabelle farewell committee with the addition of Doc standing inside the bar, waiting expectantly. She’d left Illinois without a backward glance and hadn’t missed it much. Her old boss had no doubt hired someone to replace her at the restaurant. Her apartment? Except for her kitchen supplies, she’d barely thought of it. And Marie was gone.

  Mirabelle, on the other hand, she knew with certainty she would miss. This place had changed her, deep inside, and she didn’t want to go back.

  “Are you sure?” she asked Garrett. “You really want me to stay?”

  “You leave,” he said, resignation filling his voice, “and I’ll be right behind you. Moving back. I’m in your life to stay. Whether you want me there or not.”

  Her throat closed. He looked so fierce, so strong, so beautiful. All she wanted to do was let go, wrap her arms around him and love him for the rest of her life. Love him. This strong, compassionate, giving and protective man. She loved Garrett.

  She’d slipped quietly
, but completely down a path from which there was no return. The truth settled in her heart like a warm blanket over cold legs, a feeling so right, so perfect, so real and so consuming that she couldn’t remember ever not having felt this way. There was no more running from it. She no longer wanted to run from it.

  “Jason and me, we’re a package deal.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Garrett whispered. “He’s as much a part of me as you are.”

  “I love you.” She rested her hand on his chest.

  “I know,” he whispered, his eyes darkening with emotion and so much more. “I’m sure you’ll find some way to prove it to me later.”

  “Erica?” Jason said.

  “Yes, Jason!” She laughed. “You can go play with Brian.” She wrapped her arm around Garrett’s waist, rested her cheek against his chest, and whispered, “I get to play with Garrett.”

  He tilted her chin up and kissed her.

  “Does that mean we’re staying?” Jason asked.

  “Yeah, kiddo.” She jumped into Garrett’s arms, the strongest, yet safest and most loving arms she’d ever felt. This tattered princess had finally found her knight, a bit tarnished and worn, but all hers. Apparently fairy tales did come true every once in a while.

  “We’re home!” she said to the sound of hoots and hollers and claps from the islanders, her friends, standing inside Duffy’s Pub. “To stay.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4152-1

  NEXT COMES LOVE

  Copyright © 2009 by Helen Brenna.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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  *An Island to Remember