Marilyn blinked somberly. “I don’t know.”
Was it too forward what he had said? She wasn’t sure. But also, it didn’t bother her, not really. It was fast, but in every way, it felt true and much bigger than anything else she’d ever experienced.
Robert stepped back again. There was hope behind his gaze. It was silly to hope for anything, especially given her parents’ arrangement with James and his family. There was so much Robert couldn’t understand.
But when they reached the horses once more, Robert committed it: the heinous act that swept Marilyn off her feet and stopped her heart and made the world stop turning on its axis for just a moment. He kissed her with wild and unencumbered passion. And in the space of that kiss, Marilyn felt she could see their future stretched out before them, as bright and sure as the sunshine above.
Chapter Twelve
“There he is. Mark Van Tress. I guess I’ll be seeing much, much more of you over the next few years, huh?” Wes Sheridan greeted the older man at Kelli’s parents' place the following afternoon. He placed a beer in his hand as Trevor entered the house from the back porch, where smoke billowed up from the grill.
“We heard a little rumor you took a liking to the old Cliffside Property,” Trevor affirmed.
Mark’s smile was youthful, despite his seventy-five years. He removed the top from his beer and lifted it, gesturing toward Kelli, who remained in the corner, her thoughts racing. She hadn’t known her father had invited the Van Tresses for his barbecue that evening; in fact, she’d wanted to take the opportunity of the dinner party to sit aside with her parents and dig a bit deeper into their memories regarding the old Cliffside Overlook. If it potentially wasn’t theirs to sell, then why had they made a big fuss over it all these years? And why then, if those blueprints actually belonged to the Cliffside Overlook, had they been in her parents’ attic all this time?
“She’s been a tremendous help,” Mark said as he beamed at Kelli. “I’ve met countless real estate agents on Xander and I’s quest to find our luxury hotel properties. Your daughter here is perhaps the best I’ve ever worked with.”
Trevor beamed at Kelli. “We think she’s pretty amazing ourselves even though we may be just a tad biased.”
“That’s putting it lightly.” This was Lola, who rushed in from the kitchen, rubbing her wet hands over a towel. She flashed a smile and then said, “That article got a huge number of readers. My editor was very pleased. He wants me to put together a book over the next few years about important historical sights on Martha’s Vineyard, if you can believe it, inspired by this article.”
“Oh! You should do exclusively old ghost stories.”
Charlotte stepped in from the kitchen with this suggestion as Rachel hustled up beside her and screeched, “No! Not ghost stories, Mom.”
“Why? You scared?” Charlotte asked, giving her daughter a sideways glance.
Rachel wrinkled her nose. “Ghost stories are lame.” She said it half-heartedly, as though she couldn’t fully believe it.
“That’s not what she thought last week when we told them around the campfire,” her cousin, Gail, said as she jumped in from the porch. “You told Abby she had to stop.”
Rachel glowered at Gail and mouthed, “Gee, thanks.”
Kelli chuckled inwardly, despite all her swirling fears. Lexi followed in from the porch after Gail, her hand filled with chips. Kelli beckoned for her, and Lexi begrudgingly handed her mother several chips. Each slice was a perfect balance of oil and salt on Kelli’s tongue.
“You know, you can really go out and get your own chips, Mom,” Lexi teased.
“Oh, you hush,” Kelli returned. She wiped her hands lightly on the top of her pants and then said, “How did it go at the boutique today?”
“I had a huge sale today, actually,” Lexi announced. “That old vintage coat— the cream one from Paris in the 1960s...”
“You sold it?” Kelli was amazed. The coat had hung with its incredible six hundred dollar price tag for the previous nine months. She hadn’t imagined anyone would purchase it at that price, especially not in the height of summer.
“I don’t know what came over this woman, but she nearly crumpled when she spotted it on the rack,” Lexi explained with excitement. “I played it cool, of course, even though on the inside I really wanted to scream, buy that coat!”
“Wow. Six hundred dollars in a single sale. That’s a rare thing.” Kelli whistled as her stomach settled the slightest bit. Her second thought was that she couldn’t wait to tell Mike, as he always belittled the concept of the boutique and thought it was a money-waster. Then, she remembered she no longer had to tell him anything.
Xander hadn’t yet arrived by the time Kerry demanded everyone sit around the large table out near the water. The menu was barbecue chicken and fresh fruit and peppers, blackened in spots by the grill. Mark left a space beside him at the table and said to Trevor, “Xander should be here shortly. He had a few phone calls to make regarding other properties.”
“Sounds like you and your son are trying to take over the world,” Kerry shot out. This was the tone of voice Kelli found most difficult to read when Kerry used it; here, Kelli was pretty sure Kerry insinuated that the men were rather greedy, that they shouldn’t have taken up so much space on earth. Still, these sorts of men were the real estate company’s bread and butter— and Kerry knew that.
“We have a good time scavenging around the earth, finding these properties,” Mark agreed without skipping a beat. Yet again, Kerry’s subtle tone had slipped through the conversation without detection.
“And Kelli, I heard that you and Xander met at The Hesson House just last night,” Kerry said then. Her eyes bore into Kelli’s as she announced this across the table. “Was this to go over the contract? It’s a beautiful but strange location for such a thing. We must go there together soon. It’s been the talk of the island.”
It felt as though several stones fell into the base of Kelli’s stomach. She swallowed the lump in her throat as Mark lifted an eyebrow in confusion. Why had she thought she and Xander could go just anywhere on their date? Martha’s Vineyard was a teeny little place; everyone knew everyone else. Probably, she and Xander had been at The Hesson House for no more than five minutes before Kerry had received fifteen text messages and seven phone calls.
“You and Xander met yesterday?” Mark asked. “He didn’t mention it.”
Kelli gave her mother an annoyed smile, which Kerry matched in return. Maybe Kerry didn’t approve of the match? Maybe she thought Kelli now played with fire, as she attempted to “date” a man who very well could take this property off their hands, once and for all? It was to be an enormous sale, the likes of which would stabilize the real estate company in the coming years. Kerry was a diligent businesswoman. Still, she didn’t know what it was like out there for single women. It wasn’t easy, that was for sure. And what was Kelli supposed to do in the face of this gorgeous man? Ignore his advances?
“Ah. Speak of the devil,” Mark said.
Kelli nearly leaped from her skin as she turned to watch Xander stride across the yard. Only just last night, he had dropped her off in front of her house, turned off the engine, and actually walked her to the door. Kelli shoved away thoughts of Mike, then. He had never been the sort of guy to walk a woman to the door. Even after only a few months of marriage, he’d hardly bothered to help her bring the groceries from the car to the kitchen.
“Hello everyone,” Xander greeted with a wide grin. He paused at the head of the table, his mouth slightly crooked. “I apologize for being late.”
“It’s no problem. Don’t worry yourself.” Kerry told him brightly. She jumped to her feet with much more youth and vitality than her seventy-two years should have allowed, then promptly gestured toward a chair far from where Kelli now sat, as though she’d set it there on purpose to keep the two of them away from one another.
Kelli felt like a teenager. She remembered long-ago days when her mother ha
d watched her like a hawk. There had never been enough honesty between them back then for the sort of conversations Kelli herself had had with her daughter about teenage drinking and safe sex. During that time, parents had known only to speak the language of fear. Kelli couldn’t blame her mother for that, of course. It was just the way things had been back then.
“This is delicious, Mrs. Montgomery,” Xander complimented a few minutes later. His voice boomed over the others’ as his eyes found Kerry’s over the table. He had a fork lifted; it glistened with barbecue sauce. “I have to admit, I’ve never been as well-fed as I have been since Dad and I arrived on the island.”
“It’s just our way, Mr. Van Tress,” Kerry said. She layered on the syrup, knowing full-well this was how you treated a client mid-way toward a sale. You had to treat them like no one else mattered in the world. “We’re so happy to welcome you and hope you plan to spend a good deal of time on our beautiful island.”
“The winter months scare me,” Mark interjected.
“Oh, Mark, didn’t you spend a few weeks with us during a winter back in the seventies?” Wes tried as he furrowed his brow.
“And that is precisely why I’m frightened,” Mark replied, chuckling. “I remember the wind howling so loudly every night that I couldn’t fall asleep. When I awoke, two feet of snow had piled itself up against the door. You and I spent the whole day and night drinking whiskey and heating up cans of soup.”
“Dad, wow,” Lola remarked with wide eyes. “That’s quite an image.”
“Your mother was right along with us,” Wes said with a mischievous grin.
“That’s right. She outdrank me, for certain,” Mark wagged his knife through the air. “That Anna was a spitfire.”
Kelli made the mistake, then of glancing Xander’s way. The table had grown quiet in the wake of mention of Anna, one of their ghosts. Xander bowed his head slightly but kept his eyes upon hers. There was acceptance behind his irises, acceptance of the many messes of the Montgomery and Sheridan family and knowledge that he, too, brought his own share of previous trauma. Kelli broke eye contact a moment later, flashing her eyes back toward Lexi so that she could drum up a conversation about the boutique and the plans for the new design in the shop window.
As the night wore on, Kerry made multiple efforts to keep Xander and Kelli apart. Kelli could have laughed aloud at some of the obstacles she created— even demanding that she show Xander all the little flowers she’d begun to grow on the south edge of the house and asking Wes and Trevor to take Xander on a walk along the water while she and Kelli and Lola cleaned dishes in the kitchen. As Kelli scrubbed a particularly heinous sauce stain from a plate, Lola watched the men out the window and whistled.
“He really is a handsome man, isn’t he?”
Kerry arched an eyebrow. “I don’t know about that.”
“I know, Aunt Kerry. You only have eyes for Uncle Trevor,” Lola teased. “But the rest of us aren’t married yet.”
“Ah, but what about your handsome sailor?” Kerry demanded.
Lola chuckled. “Tommy and I are doing very, very well, Aunt K. Very well. Admittedly, it’s difficult to get him to come home from his sailing expeditions, especially during the summertime. But I spend more time at the Sheridan house when he’s gone, which suits me just fine. I have a new grandbaby, you know.”
Kerry traced her gaze across Lola’s face, down her shoulders. “You? A grandmother? It seems outside the realms of science.” She then turned her gaze toward Kelli and asked, “When do you think you’ll become a grandmother, then? Sam’s getting up there in years.”
“Sam’s twenty-one,” Kelli pointed out. “And he can do exactly as he pleases for as long as he wants.” She hoped her mother saw what she really meant: that, in fact, she planned to do exactly as she wanted to, for as long as she wanted to. If she could manage it, that is. “Besides. All the kids have had a hard time since, well, since their father left.”
This shut everyone up for a long time. There was just the sizzle of the radio speakers and the rush of the faucet water. Night had begun to move over them. Shadows moved across the yard and curved beneath the house. Very soon, Lexi appeared to say that she needed to get back, as she wanted to be at the boutique around seven the following morning to do inventory.
“She’s turning into a little businesswoman!” Kerry cried as she wrapped her arms around her granddaughter and beamed.
“She really is,” Kelli affirmed.
Xander appeared in the doorway and gave her a firm nod. He recognized the distance between them and seemed to comprehend that he couldn’t get closer to her, not under the watchful eyes of Kerry Montgomery.
Everyone called out their goodnights as Kelli and Lexi headed out. Kelli’s legs felt loose and unreliable beneath her. When she collapsed in the front seat of her car, her phone buzzed with a text message from Xander.
XANDER: I’d love to take you sailing.
XANDER: Just us.
XANDER: But only if you’re up for it.
XANDER: P.S. (and here lies words in a business context) I am looking forward to signing the papers and officially purchasing that gorgeous property. Let me know when we can set up an official meeting. But I hope I can take you out on the water first.
“What are you smiling about?” Lexi clicked her seatbelt together and blinked at her mother incredulously.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Right. I totally believe you.” Lexi rolled her eyes playfully.
“What’s gotten into you?” Kelli asked.
“Oh. Nothing,” Lexi mimicked.
Kelli started the engine. For a long time as she drove home, she thought only of the softness of Xander’s hand on her lower back and of the certainty behind his eyes as he gazed at her across the table. He already seemed to fit into the rest of her family, as though he had been a missing puzzle piece all this time.
Still, her mother was correct. If something shifted between them prior to making the official sale, then the sale would be lost. But her mother and Xander didn’t know the potential that Mike had yanked to the surface— that, in fact, the hotel wasn’t theirs to sell. Kelli’s stomach quaked with anxiety. It would be a long, sleepless night.
Chapter Thirteen
The July sunlight was an impossibly delicious sight. It stirred with the wind and draped itself lovingly over Kelli’s skin. She arched her back and lifted her chin toward the horizon line as she maintained her balance— legs bird-like and spread apart as the sailboat quaked beneath her and the waves flirted against the base.
“Are you ever going to open your eyes?” Xander laughed from several feet away.
Kelli felt as though she awoke from a dream. Her eyelashes fluttered open, and she found him, sun-drenched and tanned, one of the ropes flung through his confident hands.
Kelli wore nothing except a black bikini. She’d stood in front of her floor-to-ceiling mirror that morning in only that, inspecting every inch of her forty-six-year-old body. Ultimately, she had decided to say, “What the heck?” and packed it away for this very occasion. If Xander didn’t appreciate the subtle stretch marks from her having carried three babies; if he didn’t appreciate the way time had worked its way across her form, yet still left it intact, incredibly capable— then perhaps he wasn’t worth her time, anyway.
“You look absolutely beautiful, Kelli Montgomery,” Xander complimented as his hair flew wildly in the wind.
And in fact, she felt beautiful. It was a rare thing that a man could draw out this feeling within her. It felt like a flower, unfurling itself in her stomach. She stepped toward him and positioned her hands on his shoulders, where the muscles cascaded beautifully from the top and down his back.
“You’re like a sculpture,” she beamed.
“I suppose I’m just as cold and stoic as a sculpture, too.”
“No, not at all.” Kelli paused and furrowed her brow. They still hadn’t kissed. Was this the moment? But then, a larger wave rollicked against the si
de of the boat and pushed them to and fro. Kelli had to drop a foot back behind her and follow the tilt of the boat to keep herself from falling.
“Your mother is really something,” Xander stated a few minutes later. The sails above rippled and filled with the wind, and their speed escalated.
Kelli perched at the edge of the boat and busied herself with the top of a bottle of champagne, which she had brought for the special afternoon, like some sort of teenager with an urgent desire to celebrate.
“She knows everything and everyone,” Kelli admitted. “She’s always terrified me.”
“She cares for everyone in that family to a degree, doesn’t she?” Xander asked.
“She picked up a lot of slack after Aunt Anna died,” Kelli explained. Finally, she tugged off the champagne cork; bubbles shot to the surface and then receded before tumbling out. Xander whistled, clearly impressed, as she dropped the bottle over her lips and drank straight. Her head fizzed.
“And then last year, when Wes got really sick and nearly burned down the house, my mother was instrumental in bringing back the Sheridan girls,” Kelli continued. “She grumbled about it a lot before she finally called Susan. She said she wasn’t sure the girls deserved to have their family back since they had abandoned the island all those years ago. But ultimately, these were just words. Not what she actually felt. She genuinely believes in second chances. She genuinely believes in keeping families together. Well, until my husband, I suppose.” She took another sip from the champagne bottle as Xander studied her.
After a long pause, he said, “I appreciate you being so open with me.”
Kelli dropped her chin. “I don’t know if I really am being so open.”
Xander shrugged. “Feels like I’ve been out with so many women at this point. Women who only talk about commonplace things. Women who say things about the weather.”
“I can talk all day about the weather,” Kelli teased. “What do you want to know about it? Today it’s sunny, maybe eight-three degrees. Wind out of the east.”
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