She had the fleeting impression as she followed him inside of a roomy, comfortable place with a vaguely neglected air to it. He slept here but she had the feeling he spent as little time as possible within these walls.
Conan stopped in the kitchen and plopped down on a rug by the door but Will led her to a large family room with two adjoining deep sofas facing a giant plasma television on one wall.
“Are you still cold?” he asked. “I can start a fire. That should take the chill out of the air.”
“You don’t have to.”
“It will only take a moment.”
Without waiting for an answer, he moved to the hearth and started laying out kindling. She didn’t mind, sensing he needed the time and space, just as she did, to regain a little equilibrium.
She shrugged out of her jacket and settled into one of the plump sofas, nerves careening through her.
It had been a long time for her and she hoped she wasn’t unforgivably rusty. She would have been completely terrified if she didn’t have the feeling he hadn’t been with anyone since his wife’s death.
“I imagine you have a spectacular view when it’s daylight.”
He gave her a rueful smile as he set a match to the kindling. “I guess. I’ve been looking at it every day of my life. I tend to forget how breathtaking it is. Maybe traveling a little—seeing other sights for a change—will help me appreciate what I’ve taken for granted all my life.”
Somehow she didn’t think the reminder of his imminent departure was accidental. She tried to pretend it didn’t matter, even as sorrow pinched at her.
“Do you know where Eben’s sending you first?”
“Outside of Boston. I’ll be there for a few weeks then I guess I’m off to Italy. Quite a change for a guy who’s never left the coast.”
The tinder was burning brightly now so he added a heavier log. The flames quickly caught hold of it. Already, the room seemed warmer, though she wasn’t sure if that was from the fire or from the nerves shimmering through her.
Will stood for a moment, watching the fire. When he seemed confident the log would burn, he turned back to her, his features impassive.
“Is something wrong?” she finally said, when the silence between them dragged on.
His sigh sounded deep, heartfelt. “You scare the hell out of me.”
She tensed. “Do you want me to leave?”
“About as much as I want to take a table saw to my right arm,” he admitted. “In other words, absolutely not.”
Despite her nerves, she couldn’t contain the laughter bubbling through her as he moved toward her and sat on the sofa beside her. He reached for her hand, but didn’t seem in a rush to kiss her again.
This was lovely, she thought, sitting here gazing into the flickering firelight with a soft rain sliding against the window and his fingers tracing patterns on hers.
“I don’t know if this is any consolation,” she said after a moment, “but you’re not the only one who’s nervous. It’s, uh, been a long time for me. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t hear my knees knocking from there.”
He gave her a careful look. “Do you want to leave?”
She mustered a shaky smile. “About as much as I want to watch you take a table saw to your right arm. In other words, absolutely not.”
“Good,” he murmured.
Finally he kissed her and at the delicious heat, the familiar taste and scent of him, her nerves disappeared. She was suddenly filled with the sweet assurance that this was right. She loved Will Garrett, had loved him since she was a stupid, naive girl.
She wanted this, wanted him, and even if this was all they would ever share, she wouldn’t allow any regrets.
He kissed her until she was trembling, aching for more. She held him close, pouring all the emotions she couldn’t verbalize into her kiss.
By the time he worked the buttons of her blouse, her head was whirling. When he pushed aside the lacy cups of her bra to touch her, she almost shattered apart right there as a torrent of sensations poured through her.
Oh, it had been far too long since she had remembered what it was to be touched with such heat and tenderness. She had forgotten this slow churn of her blood, the restless ache that seemed to fill every cell.
She arched against him, reveling in his hard strength against her curves, in his rough hands against her sensitive skin.
He groaned, low in his throat, and lowered his head to take her in his mouth. She clutched him close, her hands buried in his hair, as he teased and tasted.
His breathing was ragged when he lifted his clever, clever lips from her breast and found her mouth again while he shrugged out of his own shirt.
She couldn’t help shivering as his hard strength covered her again.
“Are you still cold?” he murmured.
“Not even close,” she answered, framing his face in her hands and kissing him fiercely. He responded with a groan and any tentativeness disappeared in a wild rush of heat.
In moments, they were both naked. Silhouetted in the dancing firelight, he was gorgeous, hard and muscled, ruggedly male.
“Okay, now I’m nervous again,” she admitted.
“We can stop right now if you want,” he said gruffly. “It might just kill me to let you out of my arms, but we don’t have to go any further.”
“No. I don’t want to stop. Just kiss me again.”
He willingly obeyed and for several long moments, only their mouths connected, then at last he pulled her close, trailing kisses from her mouth to the sensitive skin of her neck.
“Okay now?” he murmured, his body warm and hard against her.
“Oh, much, much better than okay,” she breathed, her mouth tangling with his again as he pressed her back against the soft cushions of the sofa.
It was everything she might have dreamed—tender and passionate, sexy and sweet. When he filled her, she cried out, stunned at the emotions pouring through her, and she had to choke back the words of love she knew he wasn’t ready to hear.
His mouth was hard and urgent on hers as he began to slowly move inside her and she lifted her hips to meet him.
Oh, she had missed this. She hadn’t fully appreciated how much until right this moment.
How was she ever going to be able to go back to her solitary life?
She pushed the grim thought away, unwilling to let anything destroy the beauty of this moment.
He moved more deeply inside her and she gasped his name, feeling as breathless and shaky as the time she and Will had sneaked out to go cliff diving.
He withdrew then pushed inside her again and the contrast between the tenderness of his kiss and the wild urgency of his body sent her spinning and soaring over the edge.
With a groan, he joined her, his hands gripping hers tightly.
As they floated together back to earth, he shifted and pulled her on top of him, tugging a knit throw from the back of the sofa to cover them.
She nestled into his heat and his strength, a delicious lassitude soaking into her muscles, more content than she could ever remember being in her life.
* * *
SHE MUST HAVE slept for a few moments, tucked into the safe shelter of his arms. When she blinked her eyes open, the grandfather clock in the hallway was tolling midnight.
Like Cinderella, she knew the spell was ending and she would have to slip away home.
She shifted her gaze to Will and found him watching her. Was he regretting what they had shared? To her frustration, she could read nothing in his veiled expression.
She sat up, reaching for her blouse as she went. “I need to go back to Brambleberry House. Sage and Anna are going to be sending a search party out after me.”
He sat up and she had to force herself to look away from tha
t broad, enticing expanse of muscles.
“Oh, somehow I doubt that. I have a feeling they know exactly where you are.”
“You’re probably right,” she answered ruefully. “A little on the spooky side, those two.”
He raised an eyebrow as he slid into his jeans. “A little?”
She smiled. “Okay. A lot. I should still go, much as I don’t want to.”
He was quiet for a long moment, watching out of those veiled features as she worked the buttons of her shirt.
“Julia, I can’t promise you anything,” he finally said.
She met his gaze, doing her best to keep the devastation at bay. “You said that earlier, and I understand, Will. I do. I don’t expect anything.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m just so damn screwed up right now. I wish things could be otherwise. I’m just...”
She returned to him and cut his words off with a kiss, hoping he didn’t taste the desperation in her kiss. This would be the one and only time for them, she knew.
He didn’t have to say the words for her to accept the reality that nothing had changed. He was still leaving in a few days, and she would be left here alone with her pain.
“Will, it’s okay,” she lied. “My eyes were wide open when I walked into your house. No illusions here, I promise.”
“I’m so sorry.” His voice was tight with genuine regret and she shook her head.
“I’m not. Not for an instant.”
She drew in a breath, gathering the last vestiges of courage left inside her for what somehow she suddenly knew she had to say.
“While we’re tossing our cards out on the table, I think I should tell you why I’m here.”
His expression turned wary. “Why?”
She sighed. “You haven’t figured it out? I’m in love with you, Will.”
The words hovered between them, raw and naked, and she had to smile a little at the sudden panic in his eyes.
“I know. It was a big shock for me, too. I’m not telling you that as some kind of underhanded tactic to convince you to stay. I know that nothing I say will change your mind and, believe me, I don’t expect my feelings to change your decision in any way. I just felt that you should know. I wouldn’t be here with you right now if I didn’t love you—it’s just not the kind of thing I do.”
“I think some part of me guessed as much,” he admitted.
“You’ve been in my heart for sixteen years, Will. Through my parents’ divorce, through my own difficult teen years, through the breakup of my marriage, some part of me remembered that summer with you as a wonderful, magical time. Maybe the best summer of my life. You were my first love and I’ve never forgotten you.”
“Julia...”
She shook her head, willing herself not to cry. Not now, not yet. “You don’t have to say it. I know, we were different people then. And to be honest, the place you held in my heart was precious but only a tiny, dusty little spot, a corner I peeked into once in awhile with a smile and fond memories but then quickly forgot again.”
She forced a smile. “And then I came back to Cannon Beach and here you were. As I came to know you all over again, I revisited those memories and realized that the boy I fell in love with back then had become a good, honorable man. A man who takes great pride in a job well done, who talks to dogs, who cares deeply about his neighbors and is kind to children...even when they make him bleed inside.”
She touched his cheek, wishing with all her heart that he was ready to accept the precious, healing gift she so wanted to offer him.
Even as she touched him, though, she didn’t miss his slight, barely perceptible flinch.
“Don’t. Don’t love me, Julia.” His voice was ragged, anguished. “I’ll only hurt you.”
“I know you will.” She managed a wobbly smile, even though she could swear she heard the sound of her heart cracking apart. “But I’ll survive it.”
She kissed him again, a soft, sincere benediction, then stepped away to shrug into her jacket. “I have to go.”
He didn’t argue, just pulled on his own shirt and boots. “I’ll walk you back.”
“I have Conan. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll walk you back,” he said firmly.
She nodded, realizing that arguing with him would only be a waste of strength and energy, two commodities she had a feeling she would be needing in the days ahead.
In truth, she didn’t mind. These were probably her last few moments with him and she wanted to savor every second.
Conan was again waiting expectantly by the back door. He cocked his head, his expression quizzical. She had no idea what he could read in their expressions but he whined a little.
More than anything, she wanted to bury her face in his fur and sob but she managed to keep her composure as Will handed her an umbrella and picked up a flashlight hanging on a hook by the door.
The slow, steady rain perfectly matched her mood. She shivered a little and zipped up her jacket, then headed toward Brambleberry House.
Will didn’t share the umbrella—instead, he simply pulled the hood of his Gore-Tex jacket up, which given the dark and the rain effectively obscured his features.
They walked in silence and even Conan seemed subdued, almost sad. Instead of his usual ebullient energy, he plodded along beside her with his head hanging down.
As for Will, he seemed as distant and unreachable as the Cape Meares lighthouse.
She shouldn’t have told him her feelings, she thought. He already carried enough burdens. He didn’t need that one, too.
He finally spoke when they approached the gates of Brambleberry House, but they weren’t words she wanted to hear.
“Julia, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Please don’t be sorry we made love. I’m not.”
“I should be. Sorry about that, I mean. But I’m not. It was...right. That’s not what I meant. Mostly, I guess I’m sorry things can’t be different, that we have all these years and pain between us.”
She touched his cheek. “The years and the pain shaped us, Will. They’re part of who we are now.”
He turned his head and kissed her fingers, then pulled her into his arms once more. His kiss was tender, gentle, with an underlying note of finality to it. When he drew away, her throat ached with unshed tears.
“You’re not leaving until after the wedding, are you?”
He nodded. “Sage would kill me if I missed her big day. My flight leaves the next morning.”
“Well, I’ll see you then, anyway. Goodbye, Will.”
She had a million things she wanted to say but this wasn’t the time. None of them would make a difference anyway.
Instead, she managed one last shaky smile and tugged Conan up the stairs and into the entry, forcing herself not to look back as she heard his muffled footsteps on the sidewalk.
Anna’s apartment door opened the moment Julia closed the front door behind her, and Sage and Anna both peeked their heads out into the entryway. They had changed into pajamas and she could smell the aroma of popcorn from inside the apartment.
Conan hurried inside as soon as she unclipped his leash, probably looking for any stray kernels that might have been dropped. She would have smiled if she thought she could manage it.
“So?” Sage demanded. “What happened? You were gone forever. Did you talk Will into staying?”
As much as she had come to love both the other women in just the few short months she had been in Cannon Beach, she couldn’t bear their curiosity right now, not when her emotions had been scraped to the bone.
“No,” she said, her voice low. “His mind is made up.”
Sage made a sound of disgust but Anna gave her a searching, entirely perceptive look. She was suddenly aware that her hair was probably a me
ss and she no doubt had whisker burns on her skin.
“It’s not your fault, Julia,” she said after a moment. “I’m sure you tried your best.”
She fought an almost hysterical urge to laugh. To hide it, she yanked off her jacket and hung it back in the closet. “He has his reasons. He didn’t take the job with Eben on a whim, I can promise you that.”
“That still doesn’t make it right!” Sage exclaimed.
“As people who...who care about him, we owe it to Will to respect his decision, even if we don’t agree with it or think it’s necessarily the best one for him.”
Sage looked as if she wanted to argue but Anna silenced her with a long, steady look.
“He won’t change his mind?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think so,” Julia said.
To her surprise, though Sage was usually the demonstrative one, this time Anna was the one who pulled her into her arms for a hug. “Thanks for trying. I know it was hard for you.”
You have no idea, she thought, even as Sage hugged her as well. For just a moment, Julia thought she smelled freesia and it was almost as if Abigail herself was there offering understanding and comfort.
“Don’t badger him about it, okay?” she said. “It was a hard decision for him to make but I think taking the job is something he...he needs to do right now.”
“Are you okay?” Anna murmured.
For one terrible moment, the sympathy in her friend’s voice almost made her weep but she blinked away the tears. “Fine. Just fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Anna didn’t look convinced but to her immense relief, she didn’t push. “You look exhausted. You’d better get some rest.”
She nodded with a grateful look. “It’s been a long day,” she agreed. “Good night.”
She quickly turned and hurried up the stairs, praying she could make it inside before breaking down.
After she closed the door behind her, she checked on the twins and found them sleeping peacefully, then returned to the darkened living room. Against her will, she moved to the windows overlooking his house and saw lights on again in his workshop.
The thought of him in his solitary workshop by himself, putting the finishing touches on Maddie’s spectacular dollhouse was the last straw. Tears slid down her cheeks to match the rain trickling down the window and she stood for a long time in the dark, aching and alone.
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