by Olivia Miles
Beside her, she heard Doug groan, and with a heavy sigh, he leaned back in his chair, turning his head. Because Gabby was now curious, she glanced over at the other table, where Carol was now making less than subtle expressions at the women at table twelve. She heard Doug curse under his breath as he righted himself in his seat, reaching for the breadbasket, his jaw tight.
One last look at Carol revealed a disappointed sigh before she pushed back her chair and hurried over to them.
“Gabby,” she gushed. “I just wanted to thank you so much for putting together that exquisite arrangement. I think it was your best work yet.” She gave her son a less than subtle look. “Don’t you agree, Doug?”
After a beat, he nodded. “It was very pretty.”
“And so are you tonight, Gabby!” Carol wasted no time in taking that bait, and Gabby had to bite her lip to keep from laughing as Doug visibly squirmed in the chair beside her. “Look at you two. Why, it seems like just yesterday you were going head to head on the debate team. And now you’re all grown up.”
“Not much has changed though,” Gabby said with a little smile. She slid her gaze to Doug who was yanking at his tie.
Carol, however, was undeterred. She gave Gabby a little pat on the shoulder and said, “Guess we’ll see about that.” She widened her eyes on Doug before she scooted back to her table.
“Oh, I see what’s going on,” Gabby said with a laugh. “Your mother is trying to play matchmaker.”
“That obvious, huh?” Doug gave her a little grin. It was a nice grin, Gabby thought. Not that she would let that sway her opinion of the man. He was still arrogant, opinionated. Infuriating.
“And you’d rather talk to me than any of these lovely single ladies?” She took another sip of her wine. She knew better than to feel flattered.
“I’d rather sit between two people that won’t pepper me with small talk all night,” Doug said.
Justin had joined them by now. He looked even more out of place than Doug, if such a thing were possible. The woman to his other side was trying to chat him up, and Justin pulled at his tie nervously.
Gabby looked over her shoulder to see if Carol had noticed this, but fortunately, she was laughing at something her husband said, no longer interested in what was playing out at table twelve.
Curious, Gabby turned back to Doug. For once, she was going to watch him squirm. “So, you’re telling me that even if the perfect woman for you was sitting right here at this table tonight, you would rather sit quietly eating your dinner than get to know her?”
He looked at her for a long moment, his eyes steady on hers, giving her a chance to take in his full lips and square jaw.
It tensed before he spoke. “There’s no such thing as a perfect match.”
She should have known, but old habits died hard, as the saying went. “Maybe you just haven’t met her yet.”
He shook his head. “You mean to tell me that in a world as big as ours, there is one perfect person out there for each of us?”
Gabby had once believed this. She still wanted to, even if she was beginning to lose hope. But now, sitting here as the band played in the distance, and the crystal clinked, and the flowers were in full, fragrant bloom, and the bride was so radiantly happy, she dared to believe it all over again.
“I’d like to think so,” she said.
He was still staring at her, and now he raised an eyebrow as a little smirk curved one corner of his mouth. “What if my perfect match is living in a small village in…Russia? What if I never have a chance to go to Russia? How would I ever find her?”
Gabby narrowed her eyes. He really was incorrigible. Still, he was tapping into her worst fears, too. She hadn’t met her perfect match in all her years of Blue Harbor. There was no guarantee that she ever would.
Her gaze drifted to the bride and groom, who were now posing for the photographer near the cake, an exquisite three-tiered confection in white and lavender.
“Well, I for one think that they make a very cute couple.” The bride had summered here growing up and could think of no better place to have her wedding. Gabby couldn’t agree more.
“Cute fades,” she heard Doug say.
Her eyes widened. Was he seriously doing this? Now? At a wedding?
“What are you? The angel of doom?”
His smile was wry. “Divorce attorney.”
She fluttered her lids. Well. There it was. A man who saw more marriages end than begin. A man who was cynical and jaded. A man who didn’t believe in romance. Or, it would seem, love.
She ate her dinner in silence, telling herself that Doug was probably happy for the lack of small talk, maybe even as much as she was. Really, the last thing she needed was to spend another minute in his company, being baited by his endless counterpoints, questioning everything she had dared to believe in.
“Well, I should go,” she said with a sigh once she’d finished the main course.
Doug looked alarmed for a second, and if she didn’t know better, perhaps disappointed. “You’re not staying for cake?”
“Sorry, plans.” With her bath salts and her romance novel, even if he had started to sour her taste for romance.
She swept her eyes around the tent, to the dance floor that had already started to gather a small crowd as the music picked up, and felt a longing that was far too close to loneliness pull at her heart. She loved to dance, but the only dance partners she could ever rely on were her sisters.
“Enjoy your plans,” Doug said, and she felt her smile slip, because much as she was looking forward to soaking her feet in a hot bathtub and escaping into the pages of her novel, she had a very bad feeling that for her, the only place romance existed was in fiction.
Chapter Four
Gabby’s favorite spot in town—though she could never reveal this to her cousin Amelia who owned the Firefly Café—was Buttercream Bakery, the newest food option in Blue Harbor and sole contributor to her tightening waistband. She wasn’t complaining, though. The double chocolate brownies were worth every extra lap around the duck pond, and it wasn’t like she had a hot date to worry about. Or any date at all.
“You’re sighing,” her cousin Maddie observed, as she plated a thick and chewy brownie and passed it over the counter. “Let me guess? Your love life?”
“Easy for you to say.” Gabby handed over the cash, knowing she would put the change in the tip jar. All the Conway girls supported each other this way. They’d grown up working at their family orchard and winery and they’d slowly discovered the joy of owning their businesses. It had just taken Maddie a little longer to find her confidence and go out on her own, but when she did, she’d made a whopping success of it. And found love in the process, with her contractor.
She thought back on her conversation with Doug at the wedding Saturday night, infuriating as it had been. In a world this big, was there any guarantee in finding the person who was meant for you? It was just so easy for some people.
Gabby sighed, then flushed. “Guilty as charged.”
“You know what I’ll say…” Maddie just raised an eyebrow.
Gabby shook her head. She knew what Maddie would say. It was what Brooke said. And Amelia. And Jenna. And her cousin Britt. And, well, everyone. She was too picky.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with holding out for the right guy,” she said.
“Maybe the right guy is right in front of you, and you aren’t even aware of it because you’re too busy checking your boxes and deciding that he’s coming up short on a few things.”
“I don’t have a checklist!”
Maddie couldn’t fight off a smile.
“Well, maybe a mental one,” Gabby finally admitted. “But what’s wrong with having some criteria?”
“A lot of things, judging by the way it’s working out for you,” Maddie said pertly. She turned to take a tray of fresh cookies from her assistant and began adding them to a basket with a pair of tongs. “Face it, Gabby, not all men are like the heroes in
your books.”
“No,” Gabby agreed, thinking of Doug again. Clearly, they were not. “But it’s nice to think they could be.”
Maddie just shook her head and moved on to the next person in line. It was crowded today, but then, it was always busy, especially now during tourist season. Gabby scanned the tables, happy to find a spot in the corner where she could enjoy her brownie and her book before she went back to the shop and began working on the florals for the next bride’s happily ever after, because contrary to what her family members were telling her, other people were finding soulmates, and her order forms were proof of that.
She slid into the chair and pulled out her book, breaking off pieces of the fudgy brownie as her eyes scanned the page, quickly pulling her into a world so much different than her own, where a man named—
She paused, startled by the sense that someone was watching her, and looked up to see none other than Doug Monroe looking down at her. There was a definite sheen to his eyes, one she had frankly seen too many times and hadn’t missed in the slightest.
“Good book?” Yep. His mouth twitched.
She closed it firmly and lifted her chin. “Excellent.”
“So I see.” His gaze glimmered. “I didn’t mean to startle you. You looked so immersed.”
She pinched her lips harder. “I was, and if you don’t mind, I think I’ll get back to it.”
“Actually, I was hoping you might be willing to share your table,” he said, looking only slightly apologetic.
Gabby glanced around the room, disappointed to see that every table was completely occupied, including the ones set up on the outside deck, and that she was, technically, hogging the last free chair in the bakery with her handbag.
“Oh.” She felt flustered as she set down her book. “Um, sure.”
Doug wasted no time in dropping into the seat as she hooked her handbag over the back of her chair. She blinked rapidly at her brownie, wishing she hadn’t bought it, or at least had the sense to get it in a white paper bag. Instead, it sat on the pretty painted plate, virtually untouched, meaning that unless she crammed it into her mouth and drew further potential cause for judgment from the man who was now unloading files onto her table, she was stuck sitting here for at least ten minutes. Yes, ten minutes until she could politely make up an excuse and be on her way. So much for a relaxing break in the day.
She stifled a sigh and wearily picked up her book again, miffed to see that she had forgotten to mark the page in her haste.
“Here you go,” Maddie said, coming to the table with a steaming mug that was again, much to Gabby’s disappointment, ceramic and not paper. And now Doug was settling in nicely, hooking an ankle over the opposite knee, smiling up at Maddie as if she had just delivered him a winning lottery ticket rather than a simple cup of coffee.
So he respected some people’s career paths, just not hers. Not that she couldn’t say the same about his life choices. Divorce attorney. Pfft.
She must have scowled because she caught Maddie giving her a strange look through her smile.
Oh, no. No. Maddie was getting notions, and Gabby was having none of it. Doug had been bad enough back in high school, and by the looks of things, not much had changed. Well, other than his looks, of course, but that was far from her priority. After all, as many had been quick to point out, Jackson Bradford had high marks in the looks department, but that didn’t make him an eligible romantic suitor. Deep-set eyes and a strangely alluring albeit infuriating grin couldn’t qualify Doug Monroe for that category either.
But Maddie didn’t seem to know or care about any of this. And now she was chatting happily with Doug, welcoming him back to town, saying how pleased she was that he was here to stay, giving only slightly subtle glances to Gabby as she did so.
Gabby rolled her eyes when her cousin finally went back to the counter.
“I think she’s hoping more will come of us sharing a table than just coffee and a brownie,” Doug said, breaking the tension.
Gabby couldn’t help but smile. At least it was out there, rather than simmering between them.
“Welcome back to Blue Harbor,” she said, somewhat sarcastically. “But yeah, everyone in my family is always trying to set me up, especially before my uncle’s wedding at the end of next month.”
“Singles table again?” His brow lifted.
She hated to admit it, but there was little sense in stating otherwise. “I’ll be with my sisters. Well, one sister. Brooke is married. Well, back together with her husband, I mean.”
Oh, it was a long and convoluted story, and though the gossip had flown through town all spring faster than the birds returning from the southern states, Gabby now wished she hadn’t said anything.
“They almost got a divorce?”
Was a six-year estrangement almost a divorce? Gabby wasn’t the judge of that. She broke off a piece of brownie and stuffed it in her mouth. Nine minutes more. Then she would leave.
“Disappointed you didn’t get the business?” she asked, thinking of the very few people in town who had split up over the years. There were Maddie’s boyfriend’s parents, years ago, and a few others, but not enough to keep food in the fridge for a divorce attorney, unless Doug decided to market to other towns.
She frowned at that, wondering just how it worked. “And how is business?”
“Oh, I’m just getting settled.” Doug took a sip of his coffee, leaning back in his chair, but she sensed a faint pull between his brows. Trouble, no doubt. “But I’m always happy for referrals, so if you hear of anything…”
She laughed out loud. “In my shop?”
“Well, you said that people send flowers for all sorts of reasons. I just thought, if there were any sympathy requests…”
Now Gabby nailed him with a look. A hard one. One that said he was ridiculous and had crossed a line. He lifted his palms. “Joking, joking.”
Only she wasn’t so sure that he was.
She picked up her book again, rifling through the pages until she found the scene that she’d just finished, where the hero decides to book a trans-Atlantic flight to get back to his beloved before she marries the wrong man.
Yes, there was nothing worse than ending up with the wrong man. A wrong man was worse than no man at all. And if she had to sit at a singles table for the foreseeable future while she waited for the right man, then so be it.
Only right now, she wasn’t single at her table. She was sharing it. And Doug was once again turning out to be a difficult tablemate.
The table shook as he dropped a thick file on it, nearly spilling his coffee. She met his eye across the table, hoping he sensed her irritation, but he just stared right back, forcing her to notice the way his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, making him seem almost…friendly.
“Do you mind?” he finally asked, breaking the silence, and it was only then she noticed that he was waiting for her to move her brownie so that he could consume the entire table—her table—with his paperwork.
“Not at all,” she said, wondering if he’d picked up on her tone. “I need to grab a napkin anyway.”
She dropped her book onto her chair as loudly as she could, which unfortunately wasn’t very effective considering its size, and strode to the counter, knowing that if she didn’t get a break from this man, she might do something really stupid…stupid like throw out her brownie or give it to him, just so she could leave. And right now, that brownie was turning out to be the only good thing in her day.
“Everything okay?” Maddie asked, looking far too amused for Gabby’s liking.
Gabby paused, considered asking for a paper bag for her brownie, and then decided against it. It would be letting him win, wouldn’t it? It was what he wanted. For her to give up her table, let him have it all to himself. Well, no. Two could play at this game.
“Oh, other than the fact that Doug Monroe has decided to put his paperwork all over my table?”
Maddie stifled a laugh. “Well, technically that’s m
y table, and I thought it was sweet of you to let him share it. He could have just taken his coffee to go. Instead, he chose to sit with you.”
Gabby frowned at that. Nothing about this situation implied that there had been a choice in it.
“Did you miss the part where I said he was crowding the table with his stuff?”
Maddie lifted her chin and took stock of the situation across the room. “Looks like a nearly even split to me. And remember our conversation just last week? The one where we talked about compromise? Do you think I like having to watch half of Cole’s shows each Friday night?”
Gabby hadn’t considered something as simple as this.
“I don’t enjoy it any more than he likes all the cooking contests I watch,” Maddie said with a shrug. “But I do like the company, and that’s what it’s really all about, right? Otherwise… Well, if you want life completely on your terms, then you’re better off alone.”
Better off alone? Gabby couldn’t even believe her cousin would say such a thing, and to her of all people, who decorated weddings and devoured all things romance more than Saint Valentine himself.
She plucked two napkins from the stack and said nothing more as she went back to the table.
“I brought you a napkin,” she said, sliding it over his stack of contracts. She didn’t want to see the names on the files, didn’t need to see whose dreams had shattered.
“How thoughtful!” His grin was coy.
“I consider myself a thoughtful person,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s why I’m so well suited for my job. Sometimes it’s the little details that make the most difference.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Doug said.
She looked at him in surprise. “Really?”
He nodded firmly. “It’s the little details that are the most overlooked, in my experience. Most couples are so busy focusing on the big picture that they aren’t noticing the small things that will end up becoming big deals in the end, like she didn’t know that he was a teeth grinder, or he didn’t know that she always has to shower before breakfast.”
