Harlequin Romance April 2021 Box Set

by Rebecca Winters

She touched a strap with her fingertip and stretched more. A spreading panic was making her fingers clumsy. Flashbacks were swarming into her head... Joel swaying to the music, hazy-eyed...the warm pressure of his hands moving her from side to side...that excruciating exchange...leaving...business meetings in Miami...rum shots in the bar...telling Joel about the café in Salton...the dull thud of her words...the momentary brightness in his smile as he’d touched his glass to hers...

  ‘You’ll be a great success, Emilie...’

  Her fingers closed around straps and she pulled, shuffling backwards. She couldn’t stop the memories unspooling...the cool breeze and the roar of the power boat...the dark water shifting and the inky sky. His silence and scuffing shoes...the path and the lights... Her mute tongue...her breaking heart. Breaking and breaking, silently. His eyes...dark and shuttered...at the door...that moment...that heavy, heavy moment... His lips grazing her cheek...the Swedish words he’d murmured...his shoulders stiffly moving...his pale khaki shirt...retreating...

  She’d watched him go, too choked to breathe, telling herself that it was for the best. But if it was for the best, why did everything feel wrong? For once, she’d listened to her head, decided that stepping back was the only way to protect her heart, but now her head was spinning, waltzing her heart around, faster and faster, and she wasn’t sure of anything any more. Except that it wasn’t right to have let things end like that. A sob struggled up her throat. After everything they’d shared, it just wasn’t right.

  She pushed her feet into her sandals, hopping over the floor to hook the strap around her heel, then she grabbed her cardigan and flew out the door, stabbing her arms into the sleeves as she ran along the path through the trees. It was early, surely early enough to still catch him. It had to be, because... One minute he’d been asking her to dance, that warm, fond look in his eyes, and the next minute, he’d told her he was leaving the next day.

  In between those two things, she’d delivered her little speech about the café and about how she couldn’t see herself having time for him in the coming week and, while she’d been speaking, the sweet light had seemed to drain from his eyes. He’d been shocked, of course, but there’d been something else too, something he’d been trying to hide. She’d seen it, noticed it, but it had been so hard getting her own words out—heartbreaking words—that she’d had to push past it, blinkering herself. But now all she could see was his torn face and all she could feel was panic jabbing in her veins. Had she got everything wrong...made a terrible mistake?

  She broke through the trees, running hard through the soft glow of morning, racing up the wide path towards the house, legs burning, heart pounding. She paused for breath, then took the pale steps two at a time, stumbling through the open door. Everything was silent. She ran to the kitchen, skidding to a halt in the doorway. It was pristine. Was he still sleeping?

  Please, let him be sleeping.

  She spun on her heel, racing through the hall, up the stairs and... The door of his room was ajar. She touched her chest, inching forward until the handle was right there. She closed her eyes, listening, heart pounding, then she pushed the door open and her heart stopped altogether.

  The bed hadn’t been slept in.

  Joel! She stared at the undented quilt and the smooth pillows, tears burning in her throat. She stepped closer, staring, blinking... They’d made love in that bed, showered together in the luxurious wet room, but now the emptiness was overwhelming. No! Not emptiness. It was something deeper, darker and more desolate. Was it in the room, or was it inside herself? She turned, wiping her eyes, scanning the room, looking for...what? The wardrobe doors were hanging open, flung wide. The hangers were jutting every which way as if he’d ripped the clothes right off them.

  He ripped his clothes off the hangers...

  Her throat closed. She sank on to the ottoman, felt a sob shaking in her belly. If he’d been packing for a business meeting, he would have been more measured. He would have closed the wardrobe doors. She bit her lips together, felt tears sliding down her cheeks. There weren’t any meetings in Miami. He’d made it up. Why? He’d got back to his room last night, thrown his things into his case and left because... Because of her? Because she’d told him it was over? She stared at the hangers, felt her lungs collapsing. Oh, God! Good with evidence, but so, so poor with intuition! She’d hurt him...made it impossible for him to stay...which meant he cared, had feelings for her...the kind of feelings she hadn’t allowed herself to believe in. Why hadn’t he said anything?

  Oh, no! She dropped her head into her hands. That was what he’d been going to say on the beach! That made sense, way more sense than his sudden announcement about leaving. It tallied with the warm delight she’d seen on his face when he saw her walking towards him. It tallied with the gentle way he’d tried to get her to dance with him and with what he’d said about missing her like crazy. It tallied with everything—with everything she knew about him and with everything she’d felt when she’d been with him—with the way he’d made love to her, with the way he’d looked after her when they’d been sailing and snorkelling, even with the careful way he’d carried the cake box.

  Melinda had tried to tell her. ‘It’s plain to see. You only have to look in his eyes...’

  But she’d closed her eyes, because she’d thought she was falling into her old ways, weaving fantasies out of thin threads, instead of being strong and independent. She’d convinced herself that what she’d seen in Joel’s gaze couldn’t possibly have been real. She’d told herself that taking himself off without her, that never spending the night, had been his way of reminding her that what they’d been sharing was a fling and nothing more. Why had it been easier for her to believe that he couldn’t have real feelings for her than to believe that he could?

  Melinda’s words fell into her ears, drumming like rain. ‘You need to believe that you’re enough...by yourself... You don’t always need a passport.’

  She got to her feet, swaying for a moment, then pacing. She’d made baby Ben’s cake because she’d wanted to show Melinda and Erris how much she appreciated their friendship, but could she deny that there hadn’t been something of the passport about it too? Always that feeling inside that she had to earn love, that she wasn’t worthy of it in her own right. A sad ache filled her chest. It was the way she’d always felt. From that indefinable moment in childhood when she’d become self-aware, she’d felt aware of her isolation. She’d always felt like an atoll in the sea of her own family.

  She broke step, drawing in a slow breath. Maybe her sisters had never meant to exclude her and perhaps her parents had tried to make a fist of things when they’d discovered they were having a late baby, but the fact remained, she’d felt what she’d felt and she’d been carrying those hurts around for ever. They’d shaped her. She’d spent her life trying to be noticed, working hard to make sure it happened, but always feeling so insecure about it, as if the ledge could crumble at any minute. Clinging to that ledge, and to people, needing validation all the time...

  She gathered her hair, twisting it round and round, swallowing hard. It was a choice though, wasn’t it, dragging those chains around? She didn’t have to do it any more. They were too heavy, and they’d cost her too much. She was twenty-nine years old, desperate to have a family of her own, but she had to grow up, be a grown-up. She had to start believing that she was enough...really believe it.

  She went to the wardrobe, ran her fingers over the hangers. On the beach with Joel the day they’d played the trust game, she’d told him that she trusted people too easily, but that she was going to change and he’d said, ‘Don’t...’

  She closed her eyes, felt tears welling behind her lids again. Don’t change... That was what he’d been going to say. She could see it now, so clearly. He’d come straight out with it, tried to cover it up with the woolly wall bee hoax, but it had sprung from his mouth so spontaneously that it had to have come from the he
art. He hadn’t known her then at all, not really, and yet somehow he must have known instinctively that he didn’t want her to be anything other than what she was, which was...enough!

  She rubbed at her eyes and her nose, staring into the wardrobe. The hangers were straight now, lined up, one inch apart. She hadn’t noticed herself doing it. She closed the doors and turned, staring at the unmade bed. If Joel had left, he’d have taken the power boat because he had luggage.

  She sniffed, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands. The thing was, she hadn’t heard a boat leaving. Her heart thumped a single loud beat. She licked her lips. She’d been tossing and turning all night, barely sleeping, and the jetty wasn’t far from her cottage. Her heart thumped twice. Surely, she’d have heard the boat... Her legs started moving and then she was hurrying through the door, clattering down the stairs. She’d have heard the boat starting up...definitely...she would have.

  Definitely!

  She shot through the door, jumping down the steps, running down the path. Down, down, legs spinning, cardigan billowing, then it was the steps to the jetty and the short path through the trees with grit flying, nearly stumbling, slewing to a halt with a sob in her mouth.

  The powerboat was there, rocking gently against the mooring, but there was no sign of Joel. She dragged air into her lungs, swallowing hard, moving forward, step after step until she was alongside. She scanned the cabin, the cream leather seats, the chrome and the polished walnut wheel and...a huge leather holdall on the deck, not quite zipped up, a leather tag dangling. It was etched with his initials. Tears filled her throat, started spilling down her cheeks. He was still on the island! Still here! There was still a chance! A chance!

  She looked at the dash again, then slipped off her sandals and boarded the boat. For the hundredth time she wiped her eyes, then she pulled the keys out of the ignition, balling them into her fist. She sucked in a long shuddery breath, then jumped back on to the jetty and picked up her sandals. He wasn’t going anywhere now. Now, it was just a matter of finding him.

  * * *

  Joel raked his fingers through the sand, watching the tumbling waves. The breeze was cool this morning, stiffer, but it felt nice. The smooth boulder behind him felt nice too. Cold. Cooling his blood, calming him down. To think he’d got as far as throwing his bag into the boat! Dumskalle! The thump of the bag on the deck had broken his fever, brought him to his senses. Leaving wasn’t an option when everything he wanted was here and he was going to fight for it, couldn’t not fight for it. But waking Emilie at four-thirty in the morning to tell her that he was in love with her had seemed a bit inconsiderate, so instead, he’d walked round and round the island, watching the sky growing lighter.

  Emilie! He’d wanted to tell her what was in his heart the moment he’d got back from Salt Island, but she’d seemed so preoccupied with the cake that it hadn’t felt like the right time for a romantic declaration. The beach at dusk, with the brazier glowing and reggae music playing had seemed perfect, but then she’d hit him with her whole cooling-off speech. Kristus! He’d never felt pain like it, tearing right through him. He’d felt blind with it, delirious. How he’d managed to smile, toasting the success of her café, he’d never know.

  He couldn’t remember driving the boat back or walking her to the cottage. It was all a blur except...for that moment at her door. It was where he’d kissed her for the first time and, standing there again, her eyes on his, he’d wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless, but she’d set new rules and he wasn’t the kind of man to cross a boundary like that. So he’d kissed her cheek, told her he loved her—jag älskar dig—and left.

  Why had he said it in Swedish, knowing she wouldn’t understand? His belly quivered. Because for a split second he’d felt scared that his love wasn’t real enough or deep enough. Emilie had invested all those years in Tom and had lost everything. Loving Emilie came with a weight of responsibility. A responsibility to keep loving her, to take that love on a journey, with stops, like marriage, and a family. She deserved nothing less. In that desperate moment at her door, he’d realised that if he was going to try to change her mind, he needed to be damn sure of his feelings and he’d known last night, aching and miserable, that he’d been in no place to judge. But now he was.

  He rubbed his palms on his chinos and got to his feet, felt warmth flowing through his veins. From the moment Emilie had dived on to the sand to help him with the runaway sail he’d felt his heart stirring. That exact moment when she’d caught his eye was the moment he’d fallen in love. He knew it now, but he hadn’t quite seen it at the time. What he’d seen, what had taken him over, was a puzzle.

  He’d thought of it as the puzzle of Astrid, a quest to understand how his long-term relationship could have died with barely a whimper, but really, the puzzle had always been about himself. He’d needed to find out who he was, needed to know that he could trust himself, and his feelings about the past, about his family and about Emilie. He’d had to lift a few rocks, peel back a few corners, but from the moment he’d straightened it all out in his mind, from the moment he’d understood the reasons for everything, his love for Emilie had flown free. And it was still there, shining away, but did she love him back?

  He bent to pick up a cowrie shell. Last night, she’d pushed him away, but he’d felt her love flowing so many times, seen it in her eyes, felt it in her kiss and in her touch, that he had to believe in it. She’d been hurt so badly. If she’d been trying to protect herself, then it was understandable. They’d jumped in with both feet, going with the flow, but Emilie wasn’t any more casual about relationships than he was. Maybe all she needed to hear was that he was ready to start talking about strings. If she needed time, reassurance, he could wait because he was sure. If pain was the body’s way of telling you that something was wrong, then the pain he’d felt at the thought of losing Emilie was enough to show him that his feelings were true.

  He checked his watch and started walking. By the time he got to Emilie’s cottage, it would be six-thirty. She’d probably be up, drinking coffee on the veranda. Hopefully, she’d listen, let him tell her that he was in love with her. Was it too soon to tell her that he wanted a future for them, full of happiness and babies?

  He felt a smile coming. At the party, watching her cradling Ben in her arms with that fond look on her face, he’d felt his heart blooming like it had that first night in the kitchen when she’d got the text about Ben’s arrival. Her eyes had been glistening with happiness and he’d felt such a strange shock of emotion that he’d thought he was suffering with exhaustion. But it hadn’t been fatigue. He knew that now.

  It had been an awakening, a sudden unexpected recognition that he wanted a family of his own, a bunch of noisy kids, well, hopefully not too noisy! But he would never make them enter speed-cubing competitions...or any other competitions unless they wanted to. He’d simply let them be whatever they wanted to be, supporting them, encouraging them, but never trying to mould them into being anything other than what they were, because that was what love meant, accepting people for what they were.

  He sighed, felt sadness aching in his chest. If only his father had been able to accept him like that. If Lars had respected his quiet nature instead of trying to make him into something he wasn’t, then they might have had a better relationship. Emilie, kind-hearted as always, had said that maybe Lars had been trying to bring him out of his shell. He fingered the cowrie, felt a guilty shiver running along his spine. He’d only ever shown his father a cool, smooth surface. He’d kept everything inside, trying to make himself amenable, because Lars was loud and intimidating, but what if he’d actually told Lars how much he hated the competitions? At least it would have given Lars the chance to understand. He drew an uncomfortable breath. At the distillery Emilie had thrown him a curved ball. She’d said that maybe Lars found him intimidating. He stopped, shifting the heaviness around in his chest. So many shards and splinters seemed
to be rearranging themselves into new configurations. Could it be that the disappointment he’d been reading in his father’s eyes for all these years had nothing to do with the family business at all? Could it be that Lars was simply disappointed that they had never really got to know one another?

  He weighed the shell in his hand, then backstepped into a lunge, pitching it up and out across the water. Impossible to know what was in Lars’s head unless...he asked. A momentary unease stirred in his belly, but it was only the ghost of old resentments. He drew in a long breath. He could try talking to Lars. It might come to nothing but whatever the outcome, he’d handle it because he wasn’t that shy, intimidated boy any more.

  He felt a warm glow chasing away the heaviness. Emilie would approve of him reaching out to his father. She was all heart. One of life’s creators—a warm, beautiful soul—who needed to understand that she didn’t always need to be creating something for people to love her. He’d help her to see that she was perfect just the way she was, if she’d let him...

  ‘Joel!’

  Emilie? He spun round, felt his heart exploding. She was running flat out along the water’s edge towards him, hair streaming behind her, pale cardigan flapping, wet splashes darkly peppering her pink pyjama shorts. For a beat, he couldn’t breathe. She was coming for him, sprinting...in her pyjamas! It had to mean she loved him. It had to.

  Hjärtat! Sweetheart!

  For an infuriating moment his legs wouldn’t work, then they started to move and he was running, heart racing and racing, legs going faster and faster, closing the distance between them until it was five metres, four, three, two, one, and she was launching herself into his arms, crying, kissing his face and his lips, over and over again and he was kissing her right back, breathing in her flowery, spun sugar smell, tasting the salt on her lips and the heat in her mouth, taking it all, taking everything until his head was spinning. He tangled his hands into the dark softness of her hair, pulling her closer, but it wasn’t close enough, or warm enough, or deep enough. He cupped her face, kissing her eyelids and her cheeks, kissing away the tracks of her tears.