Return to Rose Cottage

by Sherryl Woods

  “I thought so, but it’s getting complicated.”

  “That always happens right before the fall.”

  “The fall?”

  “You know, when you tumble head over heels in love.”

  Josh laughed. “Ah, that fall. We’re actually way past that point.”

  “Really?”

  “I think I was half in love with her the night she creamed my car.” Even as he spoke half in jest, he realized it was true. He did love her.

  “When did you fall the rest of the way in love?”

  “When she plowed into my boat the next day. She looked so damn vulnerable.”

  Mike regarded him with surprise. “Ashley? She’s the family barracuda.”

  Josh knew the description was probably apt ninety-nine percent of the time. He’d fallen for Ashley during the one percent when it wasn’t. The rest was just a challenge that promised to keep things interesting.

  Much as she loved them for coming to Virginia to be supportive, Ashley wished her family would go away. She couldn’t think with them underfoot. And the commotion they stirred up with Maggie and Melanie and their husbands dropping by for get-togethers at least once a day kept her from focusing on what she needed to do with the rest of her life.

  She was relieved on Sunday night when her parents and Jo announced that they were heading back to Boston first thing in the morning.

  “Maggie’s going to drive us to the airport,” Jo told her.

  They sat in the backyard swing enjoying the surprisingly balmy fall night. There wouldn’t be many more of them, she was sure.

  “Thank you,” Ashley said, giving her baby sister a hug. “I know you’re responsible for convincing Mom and Dad it’s time to go.”

  Jo chuckled. “You really do owe me. Dad wants to stay and keep an eye on Josh. He thinks there’s something fishy about him, no pun intended.”

  “Why would he think something like that?” Ashley asked.

  “He says he can’t figure out when the man works. He’s sure that’s not a good sign.”

  Ashley was not about to admit that the same thought had crossed her mind, mostly because it didn’t speak well of her that she’d shown so little interest in the background of a man with whom everyone could see she was becoming involved.

  “Tell Dad not to worry. If things get serious between Josh and me, I’ll have him submit a complete résumé for Dad’s perusal.”

  Jo laughed. “You think you’re joking. Dad will insist on it.”

  “It’s been good to have you here, baby sister. I’ve missed you.”

  “You’ve only been away for a little over a week, and we’ve talked almost every day. That’s more contact than we have in Boston. You’ve hardly had time to miss any of us.”

  “I know,” Ashley admitted. “But I like knowing you’re close by.”

  “You’ll be home soon,” Jo reminded her.

  “Maybe,” Ashley said, admitting aloud for the first time the possibility that she might not go back to Boston.

  Jo stared at her in shock. “Are you saying you might leave Boston for good?”

  “Anything’s possible,” she said.

  “Over this? That’s ridiculous. You can’t let the likes of Wyatt Blake or that awful Tiny Slocum drive you away from your home and family.”

  “But thanks to them, my reputation’s a shambles. It might be smarter to start over somewhere else.”

  “Such as?”

  “Washington, maybe. Richmond. I don’t know.”

  Jo’s gaze narrowed. “Here?” she asked. “Because of Josh?”

  Ashley refused to be drawn into that discussion again. “I don’t know,” she repeated emphatically. “I’ll keep you posted.” She gave her sister a penetrating look. “Meantime, since we have some time to ourselves for a change, why don’t you explain why you’ve been so jumpy every time we’ve left the house?”

  Jo turned surprisingly pale. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course you do. It’s not the first time I’ve noticed it, either. You were the same way when we came down here to visit Melanie.”

  “You’re imagining things,” Jo insisted.

  “Did I imagine that you flatly refused to go out for ice cream last night when I know for a fact that you’re an ice-cream junkie?”

  “I was stuffed from dinner.”

  Ashley wasn’t buying it, but she could tell that she wasn’t going to get any answers from her sister. Jo’s tight-lipped expression suggested that the conversation was about to erupt into a full-fledged fight if Ashley kept pushing her.

  “Okay, I’ll back off,” she said. “For now. But, sweetie, whatever it is, you’d better deal with it. Melanie and Maggie live here now, so coming to Rose Cottage from time to time is inevitable. I don’t want you to tense up every time it happens.”

  “I’ll deal with it,” Jo said, her expression grim. She stood up abruptly. “I’m going to bed. We have to get an early start in the morning.”

  “Don’t be mad at me for worrying about you,” Ashley pleaded.

  “How could I be? It’s what you do,” Jo said, forcing a halfhearted smile.

  “Okay, then, good night,” Ashley said, giving her a hug, even though Jo didn’t return it. “I love you.”

  Jo sighed. “You, too.”

  Ashley stared after Jo when she headed upstairs. There was something going on here that none of them knew about. She’d always thought she knew each of her sisters inside out, but it was obvious that Jo was holding back about something. She found that more troubling than if it had been either Maggie or Melanie. They were strong. They had lots of inner resources. Jo was the quiet, sensitive one who took everything to heart. It was apparent to Ashley that something or someone in this town had hurt her baby sister. If she ever figured out what or who that was, there was going to be hell to pay.

  Ashley had been so eager to see her family off that she’d barely noticed until they were gone that it was pouring rain. That put a real—and quite literal—damper on her plans to get back into the quiet rhythm of her days with Josh.

  Disappointed, she made herself a cup of tea and sat down at the kitchen table. After three days of chaos, she ought to be grateful that she could finally focus on the future. Instead, she felt an inexplicable letdown. She couldn’t seem to summon the energy to find one of the legal pads she’d slipped into a drawer where it would be away from her sisters’ watchful gazes.

  Where was her drive? Where was the sense of urgency she should be feeling? When had she changed so dramatically that all this quiet and solitude no longer made her feel as if she might jump out of her skin? She’d actually started to enjoy the peaceful mornings she spent on the bay with Josh. He didn’t press her to talk. Nor did he need to fill every second with the sound of his own voice. He wasn’t rushing her to figure things out. She was the one doing that, and she couldn’t seem to get started. His quiet, undemanding company was a relief after getting poked and prodded by her family. She’d been looking forward to that today. In fact, she’d been counting on seeing him far more than was probably wise.

  When the phone rang a few minutes later and the sound of his voice made her heart skip a bit, she was even more disconcerted.

  “Where are you?” he demanded.

  “At home, which you should know since you called here. Where are you?”

  “In the boat about to head your way.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s pouring outside.”

  “So? Do you think you’re going to melt?”

  No, but she would look awful. She had no illusions that soaking-wet hair would do a thing for her. “Maybe the fish need a day off,” she said.

  And given the little thrill of excitement she’d felt hearing his voice, maybe she needed a day away from Josh to figure out this unexpected attraction that was developing. She couldn’t spend her life with some unambitious guy who spent his life fishing to no apparent purpose. This was an interlude. It had to be. Anything else w
as impossible.

  “Okay, then,” he said in the easygoing way she found so comforting. “I’ll go back in, dry off and pick you up in ten minutes. We’ll go into Irvington for breakfast. I know a place that has strong coffee and homemade cinnamon rolls.”

  Ashley groaned. He’d found her weakness, one she almost never indulged. “Make it fifteen,” she said. “I need to hop into the shower and pull myself together.”

  “I’ll give you twenty minutes, then,” he teased. “I can’t possibly take you out if you’re not put together properly.”

  By the time they reached the coffee shop in nearby Irvington, the sun was fighting its way through the thick gray clouds and the rain was tapering off.

  “Want to eat first or explore the shops?” Josh asked.

  She studied him with surprise. “A man who likes to shop? I didn’t know such a creature existed.”

  “I couldn’t care less about shopping. I just want to see what sort of things make your eyes light up.”

  Her pulse stuttered at the intensity in his gaze. She could not fall for this man, not right here on the streets of a town hundreds of miles from her home.

  “We can start with the cinnamon roll,” she said lightly. “After that we’ll see how much more of my personality I’m willing to reveal by shopping with you.”

  When they sat down in the surprisingly crowded coffee shop with its spotless decor and air that was filled with the scent of freshly baked dough and cinnamon, Ashley realized that this felt more like an official date than anything they’d done before. She had coffee dates all the time back home, quick, on-the-run encounters that demanded little more than small talk and served up absolutely no expectations for the way they would end. They gave her the illusion of having a personal life without any of the complications.

  Gazing across the table, though, she met Josh’s eyes and knew at once that this one was different. It was going to get complicated, simply because her feelings for him had gotten deeper without her even realizing it.

  When she finally glanced at Josh, he was watching her as he idly stirred sugar into his coffee. “What?” she asked.

  “You seem different this morning.”

  “Different how?”

  “More restless than usual.”

  “Really? I was thinking earlier about how much I’ve learned to relax, thanks to you.”

  He grinned. “You’re definitely better than you were, but you seem edgy today. Did something happen with your family?”

  “No, not really.”

  “They got off okay?”

  She nodded. “Maggie called from the airport and said their flight was right on time.”

  “Are they pressuring you to come back to Boston?”

  “To be honest, we didn’t get into it that much,” she admitted. “Every time they brought it up, I cut them off and explained that I have to decide what’s right on my own.”

  “But I imagine they still expressed an opinion or two,” he said.

  “They’re my folks. Of course they want me back home, but they also want me to be happy.”

  “And for you that means having a successful career,” he guessed. “Wherever that might be.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know anything besides law, so I have to go where I can practice.”

  “Lots of people change careers, if it comes to that,” he reminded her.

  To her surprise, she said emphatically, “Not me. I want to practice law.”

  Josh chuckled. “There you go.”

  “What?” she asked blankly.

  “I told you the answers would come to you when you least expect it and when you stop worrying everything to death. You sounded very sure of yourself just then.”

  Ashley stared at him, then began to grin. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Now all you have to decide is where you want to live.”

  “It may not be that simple,” she said, trying to be realistic. “A lot of other firms probably feel the way my old one did. They’ll want me but for all the wrong reasons.”

  “You’re obviously an excellent lawyer, if you were able to win an acquittal for a man who turned out to be guilty. You may regret the outcome, but it doesn’t change the fact that you did your job very, very well. That’s bound to be attractive to a lot of firms.”

  “That’s my point. I don’t want a job that’s tied to that.”

  Josh reached for her hand. “Despite the time we’ve spent together, I can’t claim to know you well,” he said. “But I think I know enough to say that you care passionately about things. You did what you thought was right at the time in that courtroom. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, but you have to let the mistakes go or figure out how to rectify them. You can’t let them destroy you. That would be a waste.”

  “I suppose.” She wasn’t quite ready to get her hopes up that offers would suddenly start rolling in the minute she let it be known that she was available. At one time that would have been true, but not now.

  “Of course, I don’t know why I’m trying to encourage you to go back,” Josh said, his expression rueful. “It would still suit me just fine if you decided you wanted to open up a private practice right here.”

  Though she would never in a million years consider such a thing seriously, right here, right now, with his hand on hers and his gaze filled with desire, the idea held a certain appeal.

  “Maybe we should just be grateful for the time we have,” she said slowly. Yet another answer was coming to her this morning, one that had been in the making since the moment they’d met. She held his gaze. “And maybe we should make better use of it.”

  The heat in his eyes increased by several degrees. “Shopping’s out?”

  “It is unless it’s the best way you can think of to spend the day.”

  “Oh, no. I’ve got all the clutter around my house I need.” He gave her a long, intense look. “Want me to show you?”

  She grinned, her heart suddenly light, her pulse humming with anticipation. Whatever complications arose because of this decision, she would find a way to live with them. This was about more than having a fling to forget. It was about reaching for something it was no longer possible to resist, something too special to ignore.

  “Not as clever as inviting me to look at your etchings, but yes, Josh. The answer is definitely yes.”

  11

  As they neared his house, Josh tried frantically to recall just how many of his belongings were strewn all over the cottage. Fortunately, he was fairly tidy by nature. He was pretty sure he’d even washed the bowl he’d used for cereal that morning.

  Still, he wanted Ashley’s first impression of his family’s home to be a good one. He’d noticed that the in side of Rose Cottage was immaculate. He imagined that it was much the way it had been before her grandmother’s death. He hadn’t seen one single personal item that was likely to belong to Ashley. Perhaps that was because she viewed her stay as being so temporary that she’d brought very little with her.

  From the outside, Idylwild, which had been in his family for several generations, was very much like Rose Cottage, at least as Rose Cottage had been back when Cornelia Lindsey had been seeing to its upkeep. He’d noticed lately that though the inside had been painted and the gardens finally manicured after years of neglect, there were still quite a few exterior repairs needed. His own family had been much more conscientious about keeping Idylwild in excellent condition. They’d replaced the old wooden clapboards with vinyl siding, added dark green metal shutters in place of the peeling wooden ones. The only holdover had been the quaint Victorian-trim screen door, which they’d refused to ex change for a more practical storm door.

  Inside was a hodgepodge of wicker furniture, oak antiques covered with several layers of paint that had changed with the whims of various occupants and modern appliances in the kitchen. The art on the walls reflected the Madison family’s eclectic taste, from ridiculous paintings on driftwood to old watercolors from another era. Oddly enough, it all came
together to achieve something cozy and lived-in.

  Lately there were a lot more masculine touches, since it had been all but deeded over to him once his parents had moved to Arizona for the drier, warmer air.

  Josh stood aside as Ashley entered, and tried to see the small, cluttered living room through her eyes. He had a feeling she preferred cleaner, more modern decor, probably something streamlined and sophisticated.

  To his surprise, she immediately smiled and headed straight for a table of old photographs.

  “Is there one of you here?” she asked, her curiosity evident.

  “Several, more than likely,” he admitted, not sure how eager he was for her to see him as the bespectacled nerd he’d been years ago. Fortunately the table had a lot of photos, many of them of his cousins, most of whom had been far more athletic and handsome than he’d been at sixteen. Given the dramatic changes he’d made physically, he suspected he’d be hard for her to spot.

  “Come over here and show me,” she said after several minutes of studying and discarding picture after picture.

  He grinned at her evident frustration. “No way. You have to try to pick me out of the crowd. Of course, if you can’t, I’m not sure whether I’ll be insulted or grateful. Meantime, I’ll get us some tea, or would you prefer wine?”

  “Tea’s good.”

  He left as her brow furrowed in concentration and she picked up each picture and studied it once more.

  “Josh, are you sure there’s one of you here?” she called out to him eventually.

  “Absolutely.” He poured the hot water over the tea bags and let them steep, then took the freshly brewed pot and two cups into the living room. “Any luck?”

  She was holding a small wood-framed picture and studying it intently. “This one, I think. If I’m right about this one, then there are several more of you, as well.”

  He walked over. “Let’s see.” He grinned when he looked at the image of his younger cousin. “Sorry. You lose. That’s my cousin Jim.”

  “But he has your eyes and your mouth,” she said. She set the picture back, then met his gaze. “Have I mentioned how much I like your mouth?”