by Blake, Toni
“Thank you,” he said, just as gently. “I’m glad.”
She lifted one brow. “But if you suddenly start trying to get me to sign over the inn to you, I’ll know something fishy’s going on.”
He laughed. Then connected their gazes in the shadowy light. “I hope you believe me, Meg. I hope you know I wouldn’t tell you all this if you couldn’t. But again, I understand if you decide you don’t.”
“I’ll... I’ll be thinking about it all.”
“Of course, darlin’,” he said, and then he leaned over and kissed her forehead. And she reached to turn out the lamp next to the bed, bathing the room in darkness save for a small square of moonlight admitted through the open window.
As he rolled over to go to sleep in Meg’s bed, he basked in the comfort of it—of getting to fall asleep in this house with this woman, of her trust even if only tentative. And he wished he felt as sure of himself as he wanted to, as trustworthy as he kept telling her he was. He’d felt so damn sincere asking for her faith, as if it was real—when he still kept secrets from her.
* * *
WAKING UP THE next morning was strange. Maybe a part of Meg wished Seth hadn’t told her the truth about himself last night—but she was a practical enough woman to know that it was really closer to wishing the truth had just been different, more innocent, less jarring. Maybe having mysteries surrounding him had been better than this.
On the other hand, surely knowing was truly better. Now the questions were answered. Now all she had to do was decide whether those answers were okay with her. He was a confessed con man. A man who cheats, lies, steals. Though one who promised her he doesn’t anymore. Of course he would say that. But...why tell her any of this if he hadn’t changed his ways? It was a lot to puzzle through.
And she was lying naked next to him in bed.
In retrospect, maybe suggesting he go back to his cabin last night would have been wise. But she hadn’t—because for the most part, for smarter or dumber, she had believed him. And she felt safe with him—still. Perhaps that was naive—the effects of passion and sex and touches that had felt more natural than weird. But there it was: A sense that all was well here. Even if the morning felt a little awkward anyway. Because she wasn’t used to waking up naked with anyone besides Zack. The very thought of which made her heart hurt a little.
Without looking to see if Seth was awake yet or not, she scampered as silently as possible to grab a robe from a hook on her bathroom door across the room. She slid her arms into the sleeves and swiftly tied the terrycloth sash, then turned to see the handsome man in her bed smiling at her.
“Mornin’, darlin’.”
She let out a small gasp. Then composed herself. “I didn’t know you were awake. Good morning. How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby.”
She had, too, actually. But chose to attribute it to spring air and weary bones after some tiring days.
“I’d better get at it early if I’m gonna have everything done before your guests show up.”
She nodded—though she’d nearly forgotten. The guests were due. She had an inn to run. Life went on despite unexpected sex and the unexpected news that her new lover was an ex-con man. “Are you hungry for breakfast if I make some?”
He flashed his signature sexy grin. “Wouldn’t turn it down if you’re so inclined.”
“I am.” She guessed she’d worked up an appetite last night. “Bacon and eggs? Or pancakes?”
“Both sound pretty damn delicious.”
“I make a mean pancake,” she informed him.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to miss out on that, darlin’. Pancakes it is.”
And so apparently things were going to go on like normal here. Which was good. Easy. What would make them both comfortable. And she saw no reason to belabor his confession—either she believed him and should let it lie, or she didn’t and should make him go. So far, the former seemed to be winning out.
So without further ado, she started to head downstairs to get the griddle heated and batter mixed. Though she stopped at the door to glance back. “One question—about the things you told me last night.”
She regretted the somber expression that replaced his grin when he said, “What’s that, Meg?”
But asked anyway. “You didn’t tell me what made you leave your dad the way you did.”
“Wasn’t happy,” he told her simply. “Didn’t like my life. Never had. And decided to try and change that before it was too late.”
It was a good answer. Though of course now a tiny part of her had to question: Is he scamming me, charming me, telling me what I want to hear? Charmers gonna charm and last night’s admission gave that a whole new meaning. But again—she had to choose whether to believe him, and for the moment anyway, she didn’t have evidence not to. So she just said, “Thank you. For telling me.”
Then proceeded down the wide staircase toward the kitchen, feeling that her life had taken a noticeable twist in the night. Just like when leukemia had struck, just like when Seth’s mother had died—while less traumatic, this was one of those moments that caused a shift, a difference in the way the very air around her felt, a difference in everything. No matter what happened now, nothing in her world would ever be quite the same again.
* * *
“DELICIOUS AS PROMISED,” Seth told her half an hour later across the table. The scent of lilacs had been replaced with the aroma of buttermilk pancakes made from her grandma’s recipe. And despite everything, it felt nice to eat with him, nice to share a good breakfast in her newly made-over kitchen. She only hoped she wasn’t being foolish to trust, hoped it wasn’t sex and closeness blinding her.
“Glad you like them.”
“I like more than just the pancakes, darlin’,” he told her, then pointed the fork in his hand in her general direction. “I’m likin’ the view, too.”
The saucier, flirting side of Seth was back—and she glanced down to see her robe gaping open in front.
He was fully clothed, and she’d thought perhaps she should get dressed herself—but it had just seemed easy to cook in her robe, and easy to eat in it while the pancakes were hot.
“Only problem,” he said, “is that knowing you got nothing on under that is making me hungry for more than just pancakes.”
As she rose from the table, pulling the terrycloth together in front and tightening the tie, she smiled inwardly. She hadn’t been with many guys, and this was reminding her that a new connection with a man was filled with bits of sexy magic that nothing else in the world could really provide. The newness made every flirtation or seduction more exciting and grand. “Too bad,” she said, “that we both have so much work to do.” She glanced over her shoulder at him as she moved to the sink with her plate. “I’m going to clean this up, get dressed, and get busy.”
She was rinsing the plate under the faucet when two hands came from behind, sliding warm around her waist. It was like that first day, the day he’d eased up behind her and taken the shutter from her grasp—but oh so different. Smooth and stealthy no matter how you sliced it, though. Smooth and...mmm, sexy as hell, pressing against her in a way that left no doubt as to his desire.
Then she felt him reaching to untie the sash she’d just pulled tight. Felt his hands sliding hot across her skin. Felt her own hands abandoning the plate with a clatter, unplanned.
Moments later he was laying her back across the kitchen table he’d just repainted for her, giving it a use it had never had before. And with that easy surrender came the knowledge that she did trust him, that she wasn’t going to think this over and change her mind. She trusted Seth Darden. In her home. And with her heart.
* * *
SETH FELT LIKE a man revived as he went through guestrooms looking for walls or baseboards that needed touch-up paint or repairs. Telling Meg the truth about his past had been hard, likely foolish, an
d damn unsettling. But once he’d realized that she wasn’t going to throw him out of her life, it had also felt...like a freedom of sorts.
He’d tried to change his life—and his dad’s—before last fall. He’d suggested that they go straight, do fair labor—they both had the necessary skills and Seth enjoyed putting his to work as he’d had the opportunity to do at Meg’s. But his dad had been all about easy money. Beating the system. He took no joy in an honest job—it was why he’d turned to a life of conning and scamming. The only real satisfaction he’d ever taken from much of anything in Seth’s estimation had been in getting something for nothing, feeling like he was somehow smarter than the rest of the poor schmucks who made their money through work and toil.
And so when it was clear that his dad would never change, he’d told him he wanted to at least change his own life, settle down someplace, start his own business, go down a new path. But good old dad...he was good at paying lip service to something only to then get in the way of it. He was needy—and wouldn’t let Seth go. Every time Seth had tried, his dad was suddenly sick, or lonely, or just sadly declared he didn’t want to lead a life without Seth in it. It’s always been me and you, son—we’re a team. Why would you want to leave your old man? You’re all I’ve got, son. And he loved his dad, even with all his faults. Because his dad loved him—even if in some twisted ways.
When he’d left his father behind that surreal December day—having come to realize a clean break that felt like an escape was the only way to really separate their lives—that had felt like freedom, too. Freedom came in a lot of different guises, turned out.
Most of the rooms were in pretty good shape, though the baseboards in the mint room, as Meg called it, needed some touching up, as had one in the rose room.
Now he was in the blue room, where nudging a baseboard in one corner behind a bedside table with the toe of his work boot made him realize it was loose—so loose that when he slipped the tip of a screwdriver behind it, a section fell off completely, having been held there only by a few finishing nails too small for the nail holes.
The missing baseboard revealed a jagged opening at the foot of the headboard, a couple inches high and nearly a foot across. A great place for mice...or maybe something else.
Perhaps it wasn’t wise to stick his hand in a hole that could be home to spiders or vermin or God knew what else—and yet he didn’t hesitate, holding his breath with anticipation as he reached inside. Because something about the spot felt strangely...right.
When his hand touched a dusty hardcover book, it was like being able to breathe again.
Like getting new life.
The book. He’d found the book.
He hadn’t just imagined hiding it here all those years ago. He’d really hidden it. And no one had ever found it.
Until now. His heart beat faster in his chest.
He pulled it out, brushed a thick swath of dust off the cover. The Wizard of Oz. A gift from his grandparents after he’d discovered the movie as a kid, watching it with them one rainy night over a bowl of buttered popcorn and cherry Coke. So magical and scary. And at an age before he’d been too cool to admit being totally drawn into it.
He’d brought the book on their summer vacation here. He wasn’t much of a reader, but his mom and grandmother had been trying to get him interested in books, and Grammy had suggested he might like to read it in bed at night or sitting in the garden.
He never had. Instead he’d carefully, painstakingly damaged it. He’d opened it to Chapter 1, past the first few pages that came before that, and he’d used the tip of the pocketknife his dad had given him that year for Christmas. He could still hear his mother and grandpa talking about that.
He’s a little boy—what does he need a knife for?
Oh, relax, honey—Ron meant no harm. Fellas just like to have pocketknives is all. Same way gals like to carry around fingernail files.
Instead of reading the book at night, Seth had used the knife to carve out a small thin slot in the margin—all the way through to almost the back of the book. A hiding place.
It was among the earliest forms of deception his dad had taught him—See, you can cut a hole into a book and hide something there. Can’t be nothin’ big, but there’s plenty o’ valuable things in this world that are little.
Of course, now Seth would see if the other part of the memory—the thing that had drawn him here—would hold up as true. He realized he was holding his breath again as he opened the cover, then flipped past those first few pages.
And then he saw it. Inside the hidden slot that started at Chapter 1 rested the diamond ring he’d taken from Meg’s grandma when he was ten years old.
Part 3
“If I run, I may fall down and break myself.”
“But could you not be mended?” asked the girl.
“Oh yes, but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know.”
—L. Frank Baum,
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE KITCHEN STILL smelled like lilacs. And Meg knew that for the rest of her life the scent would make her think of Seth Darden. And making lilac water with him. And having sex with him. She inhaled deeply, breathing it in. Trying to decide if that was a good thing or a bad one.
No, stop it—it’s a good thing. No matter what happens now, it was an amazing night.
She was in no way sure what would happen. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to happen. Of course, at the moment she was all caught up in the afterglow, almost feeling clingy in a way she didn’t want to act on. Because she’d read enough books to know most women were programmed so that sex bonded them to a man. And that it wasn’t wise to have sex with a guy you didn’t want to feel attached to.
Fine time to remember that.
But you’re a big girl—it’ll be okay.
Even if it was just a one-time thing. Well, two times if you counted the post-breakfast connection on the table. But whether this is the end of it or if it happens again—whenever he moves on, it’ll be okay. Although the very thought made her bite her lip as she stepped into the nook and peeked out the window on a bright, blue-sky day. Because if it happened again, she’d become more attached.
But quit analyzing it so much. You’re both adults who acted on a mutual attraction. And you’re not committed to anyone, and this is exactly the sort of opportunity it’s fun to have when not committed.
Just then, her text notification sounded. Please don’t let it be Zack. A rare and surprising response from her—perhaps a first.
The message had come from Suzanne. The alyssum is here, so I’m holding a tray of white aside for you. Meg wanted to add some to the pots on the patio as companions to other flowers, but Suzanne had sold out of it and had ordered more from a supplier on the mainland.
Meg texted back. I’ll come get it in a few. Then added another. Are you busy? If I made sandwiches, could you take a lunch break?
If you’re making, I’m eating. Come on down, the weather’s fine.
Be there in fifteen.
As Meg made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the kitchen—once again awash in lilac scent now that the pancakes were gone—two thoughts flitted through her mind. That it was nice to have a friend you knew well enough to make a sandwich for without having to ask what sounds good. And that getting out of the house was the opposite of being clingy—so take that, whatever attachment chemical sex lets loose in the body.
After adding some snack chips and sodas to the picnic basket, she walked to the foot of the stairs and casually yelled upward, “Seth? I’m heading down to the flower shop for a while. But help yourself to whatever you like for lunch.”
“Oh. Okay,” came his voice in reply.
Did he sound a bit caught off guard, like he’d assumed they’d eat together? It almost made her feel guilty. Yet she pushed it aside. S
uch politeness was a habit. And one she usually liked in herself—but she had a lot of thinking to do about Seth. And everything he’d told her about himself last night. And Zack. And everything he’d never chosen to tell her.
That realization stayed with her as she stepped out into a warm Summer Island day and started up Harbor Street.
Seth’s past was...frightening. It made him seem like trouble, like exactly the kind of guy Zack had assumed he was. It created so many questions. Was he truly reformed? Could someone with a past like his really ever be completely reformed? Completely trustworthy?
And yet he’d told her. She’d asked and he’d told her. Confessed horrible things. She’d known he was holding back, and now he’d trusted her enough to make her understand why. And Zack...never had. Trusted her enough. To tell her about his past, his childhood. For all she knew, he’d been a con artist, too—or worse.
So even while Seth’s truth was scary—he’d shared it.
As she retreated from the bright sunlight into Petal Pushers, Suzanne called through a back screen door. “I’m at the picnic table.”
Meg passed through the shop’s interior and back outside to find her friend seated at the old wooden table that had adorned the concrete patio between the shop and the greenhouses for years, currently a lime green. “I’m feeling lavender this year. What do you think?”
Every summer Meg and Aunt Julia had painted the table a new color, and Suzanne had been happy to go along with the tradition. Meg smiled. “I like it. Painting party later this week maybe? Before my guests show up?”
Suzanne nodded. “I’ll get the paint and it’s a date. Friday night.” Then she dug into the basket Meg had just lowered to the table. “Oooh, PB and J. It never gets old, does it?”
“I felt like something old-school and simple today.” She’d confided in Suzanne on previous peanut butter and jelly occasions that it always reminded her of her grandma, who’d fed them to her from her childhood right on up until she was recovering from leukemia. Through her adulthood, she’d often turned to such staple items as a source of comfort.
