Sweet Haven

by Shirlee McCoy

  “I heard that Willow was engaged,” he said.

  “You heard right. I’m still in denial, because Ken is one of the most obnoxious men I’ve ever met, and I’ve met a lot of them.”

  “According to Gavin, you dated one of them,” he responded, and she met his eyes, the long fall of her hair sliding over her shoulder and resting against the sweet curve of her breasts.

  “Gavin has a big mouth,” she replied, stalking to the porch railing and staring out into the yard. “But I can’t say he’s wrong. Adam wasn’t exactly a winner.”

  “He was the short guy who liked to wear bow ties and spout useless facts, right?”

  She laughed. “I thought the bow tie was cute and the useless facts fascinating.”

  “Until?”

  “Until he decided that there were more exciting things than this town and the people who lived here. And me.”

  “How long did you two date?” he asked, and she turned to face him.

  “Why are you asking, Sinclair?”

  “Because I’m curious.”

  “About a decade-old relationship that didn’t work out?”

  “About you.” He took a step closer, inhaled the clean air, the subtle scent of winter that still clung to it. Chocolate. Berries. Adeline. All of it mixed together in some heady aroma that he couldn’t resist.

  His hands found their way to her waist, slid around so that his palms rested against the curve of her lower spine.

  “I think we had this conversation earlier,” she said, but she didn’t move away.

  If she had, he’d have backed off. If she’d said one word that indicated she wasn’t just as curious as he was, just as interested, he’d have gone back inside.

  “We started the conversation earlier, but we didn’t finish it,” he replied, brushing a lock of hair from the side of her neck and leaning down to press his lips to the spot his fingers had caressed. Warm smooth skin and a hint of chocolate, and every thought in his head flew away.

  “God, Adeline,” he murmured. “You are gorgeous.”

  “My sisters are gorgeous, I’m—”

  He stopped the words with a kiss that should have been light and simple. Just a brush of the lips to seal in the words he didn’t want to hear.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Nothing would ever be enough when it came to Adeline.

  He dragged her in, her soft curves as addictive as her lips, and when she moaned, he was lost. Lips against lips, body against body, just thin fabric between them. Her hands on his arms and then his waist.

  “Adeline!?” Janelle called.

  Sinclair broke away, his breath heaving as he looked into Adeline’s eyes.

  She looked as dazed as he felt.

  “Damn,” he muttered, and she laughed shakily.

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  “Adeline?! Sinclair?!?” Janelle walked out the back door. “There you both are! Dan is about to make an announcement, but he wants the whole family there when he does.”

  “Granddad isn’t here,” Adeline pointed out, and Janelle frowned.

  “Please don’t ruin this for your sister by mentioning that,” she snapped. “This is her moment, and I want it to be as perfect as it can be.”

  “Another engagement, huh?” Adeline said, her body seeming to shrink in on itself as she followed her mother into the house.

  “Yes. Dan has been planning it for a month. I even helped him choose the ring.” She sounded . . . giddy. Not a word that Sinclair would normally use to describe Janelle, but that’s exactly what she seemed to be.

  “Something simple, I hope. You know that—”

  Janelle cut her off. “Adeline, your sister has very sophisticated taste. Simple doesn’t suit her. Now, hurry up! I’ve got my camera ready to record the moment.”

  “Of course you do,” Adeline muttered as her mother hurried into the dining room.

  “Don’t be bitter, Adeline,” he said, taking her hand and pressing a quick kiss to her palm. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “I’m not bitter, I’m . . . irritated. Mom doesn’t care who any of us marry. As long as we marry.”

  “I think you’re wrong about that.” Janelle was a lot of things, but she wasn’t stupid. Maybe she was caught up in the moment. Maybe she wasn’t seeing the forest for the trees. Eventually, though, if a guy wasn’t good to her daughter, she wasn’t going to put up with him. “I think she wants the three of you to be happy, and I think that she equates marriage and family to that.”

  “I think . . .” She frowned. “You’re right, but I still find this whole farce annoying.”

  She stomped away.

  Or tried to.

  Her heel caught on a fancy oriental throw rug, and she tripped.

  He grabbed her before she could fall into a sideboard filled with antique glass.

  “Careful,” he murmured, his hands refusing to release her waist. “You take out that glass display, and your mother will have a lot more to complain about than your diet soda addiction.”

  “Addiction? Is that the word she used?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should take up smoking or . . . illegal drugs. That would give her something real to complain about. Or I could become an alcoholic and wander around town plastered all the time.”

  “Like my grandfather used to do,” he said, the words harsher than he’d intended.

  “Oh God! No! I wasn’t—”

  “I know. Sorry. Being back here . . .” He shook his head, irritated with himself for being overly sensitive. “Turns me into the kid I was before I left.”

  She cocked her head to the side, studying him for several heartbeats. “You were a great kid, Sinclair. Everyone in town thought so. You were the only one who wasn’t sure of it.”

  Then she turned on her heel and marched into the dining room.

  He followed, her words filling his head, mixing with the ones Jax had spoken. Everyone in town was proud of you.

  Maybe.

  If he thought about it enough, remembered the people who’d cheered him on, helped him out, offered him jobs so that he could buy the things he and his brother needed, Sinclair had to admit that people in town had cared.

  He’d been the one with the chip on his shoulder.

  He’d been the one who’d felt out of place.

  He wasn’t sure how he felt now.

  Maybe like he was finally figuring out where he belonged.

  Chapter Twelve

  Addie couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss.

  Not during Dan’s proposal. Not as she dutifully oohed and aahed over the huge diamond and sapphire ring he slid onto Brenna’s finger. Not as they all made a toast to Dan and Brenna’s happiness.

  A toast that Sinclair had made with a glass of apple juice.

  She’d filed that piece of information away for another time, and then . . . she’d thought about the kiss.

  Because she just couldn’t stop reliving the way his lips had felt, the warmth of his hands, the way her toes had curled inside the stilettos.

  She and Sinclair discussed a lot of things during the long drive to the hospital, but neither had mentioned the kiss.

  Now Addie was sitting in Byron’s hospital room, nursing a lukewarm cup of coffee and trying really hard not to think about the one thing she couldn’t stop thinking about.

  It would have been a lot easier to do if Sinclair hadn’t been sitting right beside her, his thigh pressed against hers as they listened to Byron complain about the hospital, the food, the nurses.

  “I mean, really, doll,” Byron said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “Shouldn’t they let an old man rest?”

  “You’re not an old man, Granddad,” she replied, and he scowled, poking at the button on the bed rail and raising his head a little more.

  “I am old, and I’m getting older every day that I have to lie in this damn bed.” He’d lost a little weight since he’d been admitted to the hospital, and his eyes had lost s
ome of their spark. The salt-and-pepper hair he’d had for as long as Addie could remember seemed grayer, his skin colorless.

  “You’ll be home on Monday. In a nice quiet room with—”

  “That kid hovering over me, right?” He poked her arm like he always did when he wanted to make sure he had her attention.

  “Chase won’t hover if you don’t want him to.”

  “I sure as hell don’t! I may be old, but I can take care of myself. Am I right, Sinclair?” he demanded.

  Sinclair nodded. “It’s obvious that you can.”

  “I knew I liked you, kid, and I’d like you even better if you’d go to the Riverfront Mall and buy me a couple of cigars.”

  “You can’t smoke in the hospital,” Addie protested.

  “There’s a designated area right outside. I’ll just wheel myself over there and have myself a nice smoke, maybe a little whiskey.”

  Sinclair laughed.

  Adeline wasn’t amused.

  Knowing Byron, he’d been plotting ways to get cigars and whiskey for hours. Maybe even days.

  “Who else did you hit up for cigars?”

  “A couple of the nurses. I offered a hundred dollars, but no one took me up on the offer. Now, Jack . . . he was more than willing to bring me a couple. You know how Jack is. Right, doll?” He poked her again. “Got me a stash of booze too.”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding,” she said, but she knew he wasn’t. Jack Withcott and Byron had been friends for decades. They’d grown up together, worked on the town council together. They argued, debated, and spent plenty of summer evenings sitting on Jack’s porch with a glass of whiskey and a couple of cigars.

  “Why would I kid about something like that?” Byron grinned.

  “Where’d you stash the stuff?” she demanded, getting down on her hands and knees to look under the bed. She thought she saw something up near the head of the bed, and she shimmied under, tugging her dress back into place as it rode up her thigh.

  She snagged a small box, dragged it out, and opened it. Sure enough, there were a dozen nice quality cigars inside it. “I can’t believe Jack did this.”

  “Believe it, kid.” Byron leaned back, his hands behind his head, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “The booze is in the closet.”

  “Granddad! Seriously, you can’t drink and smoke while you’re recovering.”

  “Never said I did either of those things. I just left the possibility open.” He eyed Sinclair, smiled a smile that could only mean trouble. “So, you came to visit because you wanted to see how I was doing, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Had nothing to do with the fact that you got to spend an hour and a half in a car with my beautiful granddaughter?”

  “Granddad!” she protested, but things had already spiraled way out of her control. Byron was like a dog with a bone . . . or Tiny with a shoe. Once he got hold of something, there was no letting go.

  “What? It’s a valid question.” He shifted his attention to Sinclair again. “You going to answer?”

  “It definitely had something to do with that,” Sinclair responded bluntly.

  Which, of course, was going to win him about a thousand brownie points with Byron.

  “Hmm.” Byron nodded. “Good answer. You go get me some coffee, Adeline. I want to talk to Sinclair.”

  “About what?” she asked, because there was no way ever that she was leaving the two of them alone together.

  “A project that I’m interested in him doing.”

  “What kind of project?” she demanded.

  He smirked. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “Granddad, seriously, I came all the way out here to visit with you. I’m not running for coffee so that you can spend fifteen minutes picking Sinclair’s brains about his intentions.”

  “I said a project, Adeline. Not a miracle. Only the good Lord can do those.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re jaded. We all know it. That scumbag Adam did a number on you, and there’s nothing any man can ever do that will convince you that other men won’t do the same. Talking to Sinclair about his intentions would be a waste of time for both of us because you are obviously determined to stay single and—”

  “I’ll get the coffee.” She thrust the cigars into Sinclair’s hands and ran from the room.

  God! Her family!

  They were all nuts.

  Or maybe she was the crazy one, because the entire time Byron had been talking, she’d been thinking about how immature she’d been when she’d dated Adam, about how she hadn’t really known what she wanted. If she had, she would have been looking for someone who was honest about the way he felt, who didn’t just jump on board with her dreams because he wanted to be with her.

  She would have been looking for someone who saw who she really was. Not who he wanted her to be.

  Someone like . . .

  Nope!

  She wasn’t going there.

  She was not going to think about all the wonderful qualities Sinclair had. She wasn’t going to imagine that maybe he was what she should have been looking for when she’d been too young to understand what forever really meant.

  She ran down the corridor, found a vending machine, and shoved quarters in it. Her hands were shaking and her heart was racing, and she didn’t know why. Or maybe she did.

  She’d spent a lot of time thinking she’d stay single.

  She’d put up walls and barriers, refused invitations, stayed busy with activities that didn’t include dates. Somehow, some way, the walls had come down, and she was seeing possibilities again.

  She didn’t want that, because she didn’t want to be hurt again. She also didn’t want to look like Willow had at dinner—tired and worn out and unsure. She didn’t want to accept a ring like she thought Brenna might have, because the family was looking on and she’d been in the relationship so long she didn’t know how to be out of it.

  What Adeline wanted was the kind of love Mary Sue had had. She wanted a man who’d love her with the kind of longevity that Nehemiah had exhibited, through good and bad and thick and thin and everything in between.

  She wanted the happily-ever-after, the forever and ever.

  She wanted it, but she didn’t really believe she could ever have it.

  She grabbed the cup, sloshing coffee over her hand as she hurried back to the room. Sinclair and Byron were deep in conversation, a piece of paper on the small table beside the bed, both of them bent over it.

  Something about the picture they made hit her in the heart. Maybe it was Byron’s bony shoulders beneath faded blue flannel pajamas, or the way he was smiling as if he and Sinclair were already good friends. Or . . . it could have been Sinclair, studying the paper as if it were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Whatever the case, seeing them together made her think of family the way it used to be, before her father had died and her mother had gotten busy and her sisters had run.

  She was tired.

  That was the problem.

  Otherwise she’d have just walked across the room, looked at the paper, asked what they were doing.

  Instead, she set Byron’s coffee on the table, walked to the window, and pulled back thick drapes. There wasn’t much to see—just the parking garage and the lights of the city, the gleaming columns of a church spire. She could have walked there from the hospital, sat in one of the pews, just . . . listened for a few minutes. To her heartbeat, to her thoughts, to the way her soul stirred when she finally had a chance to just be.

  Maybe that’s what she’d do. Take a walk downtown. Do a little shopping. Brenna’s birthday was a month away. Maybe she could find her something exotic and fun. A nice outfit or a pair of shoes.

  Or, she could just give her the ones she had on her feet.

  The ones that made walking nearly impossible.

  She glanced down, eyeing the glossy red leather. Brenna would know they were a regifted item, se
eing as how Brenna had been the one to give them to Addie.

  So maybe Addie would just hand them to her after the wedding, tell her they’d look much better on her. They did wear the same size shoe.

  Everything else? Not so much. Brenna had always been tall and reed-thin. Adeline . . . well, she wasn’t tall, and she’d had curves. She had curves. She would always have curves.

  “Everything okay, doll?” Byron said, and she turned, pasting on a smile and doing everything she could to look cheerful and happy.

  “Just admiring the view.”

  “Of the parking garage?” Byron snorted, then patted the bed. “Come sit next to me. I want you to see this.”

  “What?” She limped to the bed, her feet screaming that giving the shoes back to Brenna was absolutely the right idea.

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe those stairs in that apartment are going to be too much for me. You know”—he glanced away, his gaze skittering across the room before he met her eyes again—“even after I finish rehab.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine, Granddad.” Thinking about him giving up the apartment he’d lived in since Alice’s death made her throat tight and her head hurt.

  Sure, he was getting up there in years, but Byron was not old.

  “Kid,” he said, lifting her hand the way he always did when he had something serious to say, “we both know I won’t be fine. A guy my age breaks his femur and lives to tell about it, and he’d be stupid not to start thinking about things like moving to a place that’s a little more accommodating of his age.”

  “What place?” Was he thinking of moving away from Benevolence? She didn’t know if she could pretend to support him if he was. She didn’t know if she could act like she was happy.

  “The Bradford place.”

  It took about three seconds for the words to sink in.

  When they did, she jumped off the bed, paced back to the window, tried to figure out a way to say what needed to be said without stepping on Byron’s toes. “Granddad, there is no way on God’s green earth you can move into that place.”

  She tried to keep her voice calm.

  God, how she tried!

  But . . . the Bradford place?

  It had been empty for two decades and had been neglected for way longer than that. Vines had grown through broken windows, the old wrought-iron fence that had once surrounded the property had fallen over. She was pretty certain the roof was about to cave in, and Storm Snyder insisted rats were breeding in the overgrown yard. He lived in the house next door and claimed he’d had to put out enough rat poison to kill the entire world population of rodents, but the rats were still there.