CHAPTER TWELVE
EMILY STOOD BY the entrance of the Ocean Club pool, shivering.
If someone had told her a month ago she’d be dancing at a beach barbecue and learning to swim, she would have called them deluded.
But here she was, with a bathing suit tight and uncomfortable under her clothes.
When she’d first noticed it in the bag of clothes Skylar had delivered, she’d ignored it, thinking she’d have no possible use for it. As a result, she hadn’t taken a close look until five minutes before she was ready to leave the cottage.
She’d always assumed one piece bathing suits were less revealing than bikinis, but not this one. Or maybe it was just that her shape wasn’t designed for it. And instead of sober black, the color that denoted seriousness in all things, it was red.
Red for danger, Emily thought, which pretty much described her situation right now. Not just because of the water, but because of the man. Still, Ryan had made it clear he didn’t want to take their relationship further, so she didn’t need to worry about how she looked in the damn swimsuit. She could focus on the water itself.
Fighting the urge to change her mind, she undressed in the changing room, pushed her clothes into a locker and wrapped herself in a towel.
Ryan was alone in the pool, cutting through the water with powerful strokes that suggested an above-average athletic ability.
Remembering what he’d told her about his shoulder, she wondered if he’d used the pool as part of his recovery from his injuries.
When he reached the edge, he pulled himself out of the water in a lithe, fluid movement. His muscles bunched, and water streamed off those broad shoulders, droplets clinging to the dark hair that shadowed his chest. He was all sleek planes and streamlined power. Dazed by the vision of raw male strength, Emily blinked, reflecting on the unsettling discovery that apparently the mere sight of a man’s half-naked body could turn a thinking woman stupid. Everything around them faded, and she could see nothing except the glitter of his eyes as he scanned her from head to foot.
Mouth dry, she tightened her grip on the towel.
Her physical awareness was so acute she wondered how on earth she was supposed to concentrate on swimming with him in the pool.
Even without her fear issues, she’d drown.
“Hi.” He barely glanced at her before turning to pick up a towel from the bench near the water. In that moment she saw the vicious scars that curved over his shoulder and down his back. It looked as if he’d been mauled by a tiger.
Those scars told her everything he hadn’t and filled in details he’d omitted in his sparse recounting of the incident that had killed his friend and left him severely injured.
She wanted to ask him about it, but he’d already made it clear the subject was off-limits, so she stayed silent while he wiped his face and looped the towel around his neck. Leaning forward, he picked up a long float shaped like a fat piece of spaghetti and bent it in half.
“We’re going to put this around your middle until you’re confident.”
She was pretty sure that was going to be never, but she kept that thought to herself.
“All right.”
He strolled across to her. “You’re planning on swimming in a towel?”
If it had been an option, then she would have taken it. He might be unselfconscious about his body, but she wasn’t. She wished now she’d just walked out of the changing room in the suit, instead of drawing attention to herself. Better still, she wished she’d picked out a suit herself. Surf and Swim in the harbor would probably have stocked at least ten swimsuits more suitable than this one. Something actually designed for swimming. This one looked as if she was trying to seduce him.
Knowing that the longer she left it, the worse it would be, she let the towel fall.
Face burning, she met his gaze. “You’re thinking I should have worn a more serious swimsuit, but I don’t really have the shape for any sort of suit, and Skylar bought me this one—” Her voice tailed off, and her cheeks grew redder by the second. “Do you want me in the water?” Oh, God, why had she phrased it that way? Now it sounded as if she were propositioning him.
“That would help.” His voice was roughened and raw, and he flung the towel back on the bench and slid back into the water himself.
Dying of embarrassment, Emily sat on the side and dangled her legs in the water. Staring down into the blue depths, embarrassment gave way to another emotion. A hollow pit of fear sat where her stomach was supposed to be.
Through the spangled surface of the pool she could see the bottom, but sliding into water seemed like the most unnatural thing in the world.
She probably would have sat there forever had Ryan not moved in front of her.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
No. “Yes.”
“In that case, put your hands on my shoulders.” His firm command cut through her building panic.
“You want me to slide in?”
“Yes. You’re going to be fine.”
“Lizzy had her first lesson with Rachel this morning. She can’t stop talking about it.”
“Emily.” His voice softened a little. “Put your hands on my shoulders. I won’t let you fall, and I won’t let you go under the water.”
Unable to postpone the moment any longer, she steeled herself and put her hands on his shoulders. Her palms made contact with hard, unyielding muscle.
“I don’t want to hurt your shoulder.”
“You’re not hurting me.”
“You’re gritting your teeth.”
“That’s not—” He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Never mind. Just do this. Every moment you hesitate makes this harder.”
Taking a deep breath, she slid into the water. It was deliciously cool against her heated skin, and that might have been a relief if it hadn’t been for the fact that the movement of sliding in brought her body in close contact with his.
Her thigh brushed against the hardness of his, and she heard him curse softly.
“Sorry—” Anxiety made her clumsy, and she gripped his shoulders with her hands, then realized she might be hurting him and forced herself to relax her grip.
“You’re doing fine.” He put the float around her, demonstrating how it would support her weight, showing her how to move her limbs.
“For now, get used to being in the water. You won’t go under the surface because you have the float and you have me. We’ll stay in the shallow end.”
For a man whose defining characteristic was restless impatience, he was a remarkably patient teacher.
An hour later she swam the width of the pool with just the float, and he complimented her on her style.
Her confidence rose. “Can I try it without the float?”
“I think you’ve done enough for one day.”
“I think it would help my confidence to try.”
“It won’t help your confidence if you go under and never want to get back in the water again.”
“You could stay close by. Grab me if I look as if I’m going under.”
If other people could swim without a float, then so could she.
Determined to do this, she put her float on the edge of the pool.
She pushed forward, and instantly her body felt heavy and strange. Without the float she no longer felt buoyant. Starting to sink, panic fluttered inside her, and then she felt his hand on her stomach, lifting her, giving her that extra support.
“You’re doing fine.” His voice was calm. “It feels different without the float, but the movements are the same. Keep kicking. Keep using your arms. You won’t go under, I promise. I won’t let you.”
And suddenly instead of thinking about drowning, she was thinking about that hand on her stomach. About how it would feel if he moved it a little lower. It made her feel safe from drowning but unsafe in every other way.
She didn’t dare look at him, so she focused on the side of the pool instead, kicked and used her arms, and suddenly she was swimming, really swimming, not elegantly but staying afloat without help. She kept kicking and moving her arms, spurred on by his encouragement, until finally she reached the side and grabbed it.
“Good job.” Ryan was right next to her, and at last, now that the possibility of drowning seemed to have passed, she allowed herself to look at him.
His dark hair was slick, and droplets of water clung to the powerful muscles of his shoulders.
He was the sexiest man she’d laid eyes on.
And he wasn’t interested in her.
She gave a bright smile. “Thank you. That was brilliant.”
He didn’t smile back. Instead, he eyed the changing room door, as if judging how fast he could get out of here. “You did well. Do you always work that hard at things?”
“If it’s something important.”
His gaze slid back to hers. “I think that’s enough for one day. I need to get back to work.”
“Of course. Thank you for taking the time to teach me. I can do it by myself from now on.”
He frowned. “You can’t do that.”
“I’ll stay in the shallow end, but I need to practice.”
“Tell me when you’re going to practice. I’ll make sure I’m here.”
“You’re busy. You don’t want to—”
“Damn it, Emily! The purpose of this exercise is to increase your confidence around water, and that’s not going to happen if you’re on your own, so just say yes.”
“Yes. Tomorrow,” she murmured. “Same time. But you don’t seem very happy about it.”
“I’m happy.”
“Ryan, you’re speaking through your teeth, and you can’t wait to get out of this pool.”
“Because you’re standing next to me in a swimsuit that looks like something from a porn movie.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding. “You said—I thought—”
“What did you think?”
“That you weren’t interested. That this was all too complicated for you. That—” she hesitated “—that I’m not your type. I don’t know enough about sex. I—I’m not exciting enough.”
There was a long pause.
The only sound was the soft lap of water against the side of the pool and her own breathing.
“If you were any more exciting I’d need medical attention.”
Her stomach dropped, but this time the feeling had nothing to do with fear.
The air was punctuated by a tension as unfamiliar and alien to her as the swimming.
“I thought— Then why—”
“Because you don’t want what I’m offering.”
“How can you possibly know what I want when you haven’t asked me?”
His gaze held hers, and in that single moment the world consisted of the two of them and nothing else.
How could a single look be so arousing?
How could he do this to her?
“Emily—” He cradled the side of her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb as he looked down at her as if he was making a decision about something.
She was terrified he was going to change his mind. Walk away as he had the night before.
Instead, he lowered his head with a slow inevitability that made her wonder if anyone had ever died of anticipation.
His mouth brushed over hers with unhurried, skilled deliberation, the gentleness at odds with the leashed strength of his body. His eyes looked darker than usual, almost drowsy, clouded with emotions she found impossible to read.
And then the kiss altered. Instead of a lazy, exploratory brush of his mouth, it became hungry and urgent, and she felt the strength in his hands as he cupped her bottom and pulled her hard against him, the movement bold and blatantly sexual. She felt the hard, thick ridge of his erection through the thin fabric of her suit and the slick stroke of his tongue against hers as he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply.
Her hands gripped the brutal swell of his biceps and then slid upward over his wide shoulders and into the thickness of his hair.
He held her hard against him and kissed her with skill and purpose, the cool of the water contrasting with the heat of his mouth and the burning fire that blazed inside her. She was weightless in the water, slippery as a sea creature, and they kissed like demons, locked together and frantic.
He made a sound deep in his throat and then buried his mouth in her neck, and she tipped her head back, eyes closed, shaken and aroused as sensation ripped through her.
He backed her against the side of the pool and trapped her there. “I want you,” he growled the words against her mouth. “Can you feel how much I want you?”
Yes, she could feel it. The hard, intimate pressure of his body against hers. The rough demands of his hands and mouth.
She drove her fingers into his hair, her mouth colliding with his in a kiss that stripped away reservations and inhibitions. “I want you, too.” She felt his hand slide upward and cup the weight of her breast. Then his thumb made a slow slide over her nipple, teasing it into an aching peak until she squirmed against him, engulfed in exquisite sensation and delicious anticipation.
Her mind shut down. All of her senses were focused on him, on his hands, his mouth, on the dangerous heat that burned through her body.
She hadn’t known it was possible to want someone this much.
They were doing everything except having sex, and just when she was hoping he’d cross that line sometime very soon, there was the sound of a door in the distance, and he released her.
“We’ve got company.” His voice was husky and uneven, and he kept his hand on her waist until he was sure she was steady on her feet.
Emily looked at him dizzily, thinking that it was a good thing her feet could touch the floor of the pool; otherwise she definitely would have drowned.
Gradually it dawned on her that they were in a semi-public place.
One of them needed to say something, and she decided that since he’d taken the lead on everything else, she’d do that part. “If I’d known swimming was this much fun, I would have done it years ago.”
He made a sound that was half laugh, half groan and brought his mouth back to hers. “Leave Lizzy with Agnes tonight. We can watch the sunset from my bed.”
She eased away, feeling the pull of regret. “I can’t.”
“Why not? She’d be safe.”
Lizzy would be, but what about her? Up until the past few weeks, she’d never thought of herself as particularly sexual. What if they got as far as bed and she disappointed him? This was a small island. She could be committing herself to a summer of awkward encounters.
Her nerve fled. “I’ll get changed and we’ll forget it ever happened.”
“Sure. That should work, as long as no one looks at the surveillance footage.”
She glanced up and saw a camera focused on the pool. “There are cameras?”
“Yeah, we just starred in our own private movie.”
Emily gave an embarrassed laugh. “Well, hopefully no one will ever have reason to examine the footage.” She didn’t trust her arms to be able to haul herself out of the pool the way he did, so to avoid a potentially ungainly accident, she chose to use the steps. She could feel him watching her every step of the way from the pool to the changing room.
“Emily—”
She turned her head. “Yes?”
“If you change your mind, you know where I live.”
*
AFTER THAT SWIMMING LESSON, everything changed.
Or maybe the change had been happening gradually, and he hadn’t noticed it.
Either way, Emily went from hiding away in Castaway Cottage to being a visible part of the Puffin Island community.
She and Lizzy visited Agnes every morning to walk Cocoa, only now whenever Ryan called on his grandmother, he noticed small gifts on the kitchen table. Gifts that revealed exactly how Emily was spending her time with her niece. A bowl heaped with blueberries picked fresh from the bush. A plate of home-baked cookies and a picture of a boat bobbing on the waves painted by Lizzy.
“I think that girl is enjoying doing things she’s never done before,” was all that Agnes would say when he questioned her about the gifts that kept appearing.
“Lizzy?”
“I meant Emily, but that statement is probably true of both of them.”
Judging from the interesting shape of the cookies, Emily was as experienced a cook as she was a swimmer, but he wasn’t about to diminish her attempts to entertain the child and become part of the local island community at the same time.
A week after the first swimming lesson, he walked in to find Agnes wearing a necklace of glittery pink beads.
Recognizing Lizzy’s signature color, Ryan refrained from reaching for his sunglasses. “Nice necklace.”
“Lizzy made this with Emily. The child has an eye for anything that sparkles. I guess she inherited that from her mother.”
“Does she talk about her mother?”
“A little, to Emily. They’ve made a scrapbook together, with pictures and news stories.” His grandmother gave a faint smile. “Positive ones.”
Aware of the rumors that had surrounded Lana Fox’s colorful love life, Ryan wondered how long Emily had toiled to find material suitable for young eyes. He could imagine her, those green eyes serious as she’d searched for images to keep Lana’s memory alive for her daughter.
“I came to see if any of your group need a ride to your book club meeting tonight, apart from Hilda.”
“Emily is picking Hilda up. She offered to take me, too, but I didn’t want to stop giving you a reason to call by.”
“I don’t need a reason to call by.” Ryan frowned. “Emily is making the trip specially?”
“She’s a kind girl. She and Lizzy have baked a blueberry pie for our meeting. But, no, she isn’t making the trip just for that. Once she’s dropped Hilda off, she’s going around to Lisa’s to talk business. She’s put together a plan to save Summer Scoop.” Agnes said it as if it were a sure thing, and Ryan felt a flicker of unease.
“She’s not a magician.”
“No, she’s something better.” Agnes glanced at him over the top of her glasses. “She’s a management consultant. We’ve never had one of those on the island before.”
Ryan refrained from pointing out there wasn’t much of a demand for management consultants on Puffin Island.
Much as he admired Emily’s generosity in offering to help, he was more circumspect about her chances of being able to do anything that would substantially boost the profits of a business that had been struggling from the outset.
“I hope she comes up with a plan.”
“She will.” His grandmother sounded sure. “Emily is a smart young woman, and she is determined to help make the business work. Lisa has a smile on her face for the first time in months. It broke my heart when I heard she’d bought the place, a widow with two young children. Summer Scoop has been struggling to survive since Doris Payne first opened it forty years ago. The whole community has been trying to find ways to help the girl, but there’s only so much ice cream a person can consume without their arteries exploding. If Emily can find a way to sell more of it to the summer crowd, then we’ll all be in her debt. How is the swimming going? That’s assuming ‘swimming’ is all you’re doing in that hour and a half you spend together every night.” She picked up her purse and her keys and took his arm as they walked to the car.
Ryan kept his expression blank. “It’s all we’re doing.”
“Shame.” His grandmother gave him a look. “She’s perfect for you.”
“You’ve been talking to Kirsti.”
“Rachel. And I have eyes. Don’t make that mistake of thinking age means I don’t see.”
“You wear glasses.”
“Which make my vision near perfect. That girl is longing for a family and a home.”
“Maybe those glasses of yours need changing because she’s been running from both those things most of her life.”
“Sometimes you run from the things you want most, because those are the things that scare you.” His grandmother looked at him pointedly, but Ryan chose not to engage in that particular conversation.
He wasn’t scared. He just didn’t want that.
After that first session in the pool, he’d made a point of not touching her, choosing instead to stay close enough to help if she found herself in trouble, but far enough away to ensure they focused on her swimming and not the sexual heat that underpinned every encounter.
Having made the decision to conquer her fear of water, she refused to let anything stand in her way. Not her own nerves or even an incident when she’d slid on the side of the pool and plunged into the deep end. She’d come up spluttering, wild-eyed, but had rejected his offer of assistance and instead choked and splashed her way to the side of the pool without help.
He suspected she’d lowered the water level by swallowing half of the pool, but he respected her determination to do it by herself.
He dropped his grandmother at her book group, but instead of driving back to the Ocean Club, he parked outside Summer Scoop.
The store was closed, and Lisa answered the door with a glass of wine in her hand. “Ryan!” She opened the door to let him in. “Emily is here. We’re having a Save Summer Scoop meeting.”
He looked at the wine. “That involves wine?”
“It definitely does. Emily brought it. It’s delicious. Come and join us.”
He followed Lisa into the small kitchen, noticing the toys piled hastily into a box in the corner. Emily had papers spread all over the kitchen table and her laptop open.
This was an Emily he hadn’t seen before.
She was dressed in skinny jeans and a turquoise T-shirt that hugged her curves. Distracted by those curves, Ryan lost orientation and banged into the door frame. Pain exploded through his shoulder, and he decided life had been more comfortable when she’d worn black, voluminous tops.
He thought back to a disturbingly frank conversation they’d had the day before when she’d told him how hard it was to find clothes when you were big breasted. She’d explained that cute underwear was hopeless and that bras needed serious engineering to have any hope of offering support, and that when she exercised she had to wear two support bras. She’d explained that shirts that buttoned down the front were no good because they always gaped and that she couldn’t wear long necklaces because they dangled off her breasts.
By the time she’d finished talking, he’d been relieved he wasn’t a woman.
As he waited for the pain in his shoulder to die down, she lifted her head from the laptop and flashed him a smile.
“Hi, Ryan.” She was keying numbers into a spreadsheet, her fingers swift. An untouched glass of wine sat by her elbow.
“So—” dragging his gaze from her hair, he eyed the papers spread across the table “—you’re finding ways to attract tourists and put me out of business?”
“Competition is healthy, Ryan.” Emily hit Save. “It will be good for you.”
He was fairly sure that what would be good for him was a few hours with her naked in an oversize bed, but he kept that thought to himself. “I had no idea you had such a ruthless streak.”
Lisa handed him a glass of wine. “She’s amazing. We’ve been looking at ways to reduce costs. Emily thinks I should talk to Doug Mitchell about the rent on this place.”
Ryan thought about Doug, who never gave anyone anything for free if he could charge for it. “Doug isn’t known for his financial generosity or his gentle heart. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“He’s a businessman.” Emily printed out a document. “He’s charging almost twice what he should, and if Summer Scoop closes, he won’t be getting any rent at all.”
“Unless he finds another dreamer like me.” Lisa topped up her own wineglass.
“You’re going to speak to him tomorrow.” Emily rescued the pages from the printer, clipped them together and slipped them into a file. “Show him these numbers.”
“Can I do it on the phone with a script?”
“It’s harder to say no to someone face-to-face. We can rehearse it, if it would make you feel better.”
Lisa looked gloomily at Ryan. “I had no idea she could be this scary.”
He didn’t answer. There was plenty about Emily he found scary, the biggest thing being just how much he wanted to drag her back to his place. “If it persuades Doug to reduce the rent, it will be worth it.”
“If he does, then there might be some hope for me. Look at all these ideas.” Perking up, Lisa picked up a sheaf of papers. “Scoop of the Day. Every day we pick a different flavor and promote it. Happy Hour—half price ice cream between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. every day. Name an ice cream—every time you buy an ice cream, you enter into a competition to have an ice cream named after you.”
Ryan wondered if anyone would buy an ice cream called “Hot and Desperate.”
To distract himself, he glanced over Emily’s shoulder at the spreadsheet, and immediately her scent wrapped itself around him. “How will discounting increase profits?”
“Because we’re going to drive more traffic toward the store.” Emily pushed a piece of paper toward him. “We’re going to ask the town council for permission to put a sign up next to the place where the ferry docks. Also to put some pretty tables and chairs outside, so that people can sit for a while and watch the boats.”
Ryan refrained from pointing out that they could sit and watch the boats from the deck of the Ocean Club. “And when the fog rolls in and folks are trapped indoors?”
“They can be trapped indoors here.” Visibly excited, Lisa started sketching out ideas using the twins’ art materials. “We’re going to paint the place and put tables and chairs inside. We’re going to have things for the kids to do, like coloring and jewelry making.”
“Won’t that have a significant cost implication?”
“It shouldn’t.” Emily made a note to herself. “Skylar knows plenty of suppliers.”
“I thought her work was high end.”
“It is now, but before she started designing jewelry for the rich and famous, she used to do the occasional children’s party. She’s very creative.”
Lisa snapped the top off a blue pen. “And Emily’s biggest idea? A stand on the waterfront just beyond the harbor and near the beach.”
Emily pushed a sketch toward him. “If they won’t come to the ice cream, then we’ll take the ice cream to them. What do you think?”
It was so obvious Ryan wondered why no one had thought of it before. “You’ll need a food truck license.”
The anxiety was back on Lisa’s face. “Will that be hard? Would they refuse me?”
“I don’t see why, when everyone is so keen to see Summer Scoop work. And they gave a license to Chas when he wanted to serve gourmet burgers. Seems to me that gourmet ice cream right next door would make perfect sense. He might even be prepared to lease you the stand next to his. He owns both of them.” Ryan caught Emily’s eye. “Let me speak to a few people. Assuming there is no problem with the license and Chas is willing to help, who would run it? You don’t have the budget to employ anyone, do you?”
Emily finished her wine. “Lisa could run it at lunchtimes and weekends when the island is at its busiest. I’ve been going through the numbers, and her quietest time here in the store is lunchtime—I guess because people are either already on the beach or they’re in one of the restaurants or cafés. If we get the go-ahead with the license, we’re going to try it for a month. See what happens.”
“Leave it with me.” Ryan put the papers back on the table, and Lisa passed the wine across to him.
“Drink. You’ve earned it. You’re now officially part of the rescue team. I’m especially grateful since I know we’re in competition.”
“I can stand a little competition.”
“In that case, next time you hold a lobster picnic on the beach, Lisa is going to provide the ice cream.” Emily pushed the laptop toward him. “Take a look at these numbers, and tell me if you can see anything I’ve missed.”
He couldn’t see anything except those smoky green eyes and that soft mouth, but he forced himself to look at the screen. “Seems to me you’ve pretty much covered everything.” Up until now he’d only ever seen her out of her depth, literally and figuratively. It was interesting seeing her comfortable and confident. “Where’s Lizzy tonight?”
“Snuggled in the twins’ bedroom.” Lisa topped up all the glasses. “Hard to know which of them is more excited. Lizzy looks so much like them, they could be triplets.”
“She’s staying the night?”
“No, I’ll scoop her up when we’re ready to go home.” Emily shut down the spreadsheet and closed the laptop. “Which I guess is now.”
“You could leave her here and pick her up in the morning.” Lisa said it casually, but Emily shook her head.
“We’re taking this a step at a time.”
“You mean you’re taking it a step at a time.”
She smiled. “You’re right, that’s what I mean. Letting Lizzy sleep over is a step I haven’t reached yet.”
“Think what you’d be able to do with a whole night off.” Lisa grinned at her. “Adult company. Sleeping in.”
“I have to go.” Trying not to think of what he’d do with Emily if he had her in his bed for a night, Ryan stood up. “I need to work late to make sure you’re not going to put me out of business.”
Lisa laughed and walked him to the door.
*
“IT’S A CRIME that a man with a body like that should be allowed to wear clothes.” Lisa sat back down at the table. “That’s the worst thing about being a widow. No sex. Actually, it’s not the worst thing. The worst thing are the rules you don’t even know exist.”
Emily slid her laptop back into her bag. Having Ryan there had seriously disturbed her concentration. “Rules?”
“I call them Rules for Widows. Society has unwritten rules about when it’s decent to start seeing other men. The problem is that none of those rules take into account the quality of the relationship.”
“You were unhappy?”
Lisa stood up and walked to the bottom of the stairs, checking there was no sound from the bedroom. Then she closed the kitchen door carefully so there was no chance they could be overheard. “Miserable. My husband had three affairs that I know about, one when I was pregnant with the twins. There were plenty of times when I could have killed the bastard myself, so it makes no sense that I got lumbered with all this guilt when he died. Why should I feel guilty? I want to smack it out of myself.”
“Oh, Lisa—”
“Hey, life doesn’t always send us what we want, as we both know.”
A month ago Emily would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now she didn’t even know what she wanted. The feeling of panic that had been her constant companion when she’d first arrived had receded to manageable levels. She and Lizzy had found an easy rhythm that was unexpected. But most unexpected of all was how much she enjoyed her swimming lessons with Ryan. Not just being with him, but the actual swimming. It gave her a feeling of strength to have overcome a fear that had been part of her life for so long.
“Why did you choose Puffin Island?”
“Because it had happy memories for me.” A dreamy look crossed Lisa’s face. “My parents brought me every summer. Dad was a marine biologist, and he worked at the university, so we used to come for the whole vacation. We hired a cottage near South Beach and did all the usual beach-based things. Poking around in tide pools, kayaking—I loved it. I spent a couple of summers at Camp Puffin, but the happiest one was when I turned seventeen.”
“You met someone?”
“Took me five minutes to fall in love.” She reached for her wine. “Do you remember that exciting feeling of discovering your own sexuality as a teenager?”
For Emily, it hadn’t happened as a teenager, it had happened a few weeks before when she’d first met Ryan. And the discovery process was ongoing. She was beginning to think she didn’t know herself at all. “What happened?”
“I met him a week before we were due to go back to Boston. Something clicked between us. I’d never met anyone I could talk to the way I could talk to him. We spent every moment together.” Lisa gave a humorless laugh. “I often wonder if that’s been the root of my problems. That one perfect week ruined me for anything afterward.”
“You didn’t stay in touch?”
“I tried. I sent him emails, but they bounced so I guess he gave me an email that didn’t work.” Lisa shrugged. “I thought about him all the time, but then I met Mike. I’ve often wondered if it was my fault he had all those affairs. Because I was too closed off. My heart hurt, and I didn’t want it to hurt again. Does that make any sense?”
Emily thought about the way she’d protected herself after her sister had died. “Perfect sense.”
“Maybe Mike knew there was a tiny part of me I kept from him.”
“Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Did you think about leaving him?”
“All the time, but I didn’t want my babies to grow up without a father, and he was a good dad. If he’d been a terrible father I could have left for their sakes, but leaving for my own sake felt like the ultimate in selfishness.”
“Is it selfish to want a good life for yourself?”
“He was with one of his lovers when he died.” Lisa blurted the words out. “They had to cut both of them out of the car. I’m worried that one day the kids will look up the press coverage and find out the truth.”
“Oh, Lisa—” Emily reached across and took her hand.
“I just want to protect my babies.” Lisa’s eyes filled, and she groped for a tissue. “I want to stop anything bad happening to them. Isn’t that ridiculous?”
Emily’s mouth was dry as sand. “Why is it ridiculous?”
“Because you can’t control everything. It took me a long time to see that and realize there wasn’t anything I could have done. I couldn’t stop their father having an affair. I couldn’t stop him dying with his latest girlfriend in the car. I couldn’t stop the press finding out. All I could do was teach them to cope with whatever life threw at them. That’s the best lesson of all, isn’t it? I wanted to make sure they grew up strong and able to look after themselves. I didn’t want to fill their heads with my baggage because, life being what it is, I knew they’d probably pick up plenty of their own.”
“Don’t talk to me about baggage.” Emily sat back in her chair. “I suspect Lizzy and I could fill a cargo plane with no space left over.”
“But you have skills. You’re supporting yourself and Lizzy. I brought the twins here because I thought hard work and a dream would be enough. I wanted to get away from the sympathy and the pitying looks and live in a place where people didn’t know my rat bastard cheating husband had died in a car with his skinny lover.” She sniffed. “I wanted to show the twins I was strong, but all I’ve done is show them I have bad judgment. I’ve failed.”
“What you’ve shown them is that you’re not afraid to go after what you want. And if it doesn’t work out, then you’ll find a way to pick yourself up, and that’s a good lesson for any child because life is about falling and then getting up again. But it’s going to work out. You’re not going to fall. Not this time.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.” Now that she knew the full story, she was even more determined to do what she could, even if she had to eat all the ice cream herself. “Providing Doug drops the rent and we can reduce some of your other costs, you’ll make enough to keep going. But we’re aiming for better than that. The boy you met that summer—you haven’t seen him since you’ve been back on the island?”
Lisa shook her head. “No. And he isn’t a boy now. Late twenties, I guess.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall and dark. A bit like Ryan. He likes you, by the way.”
“Ryan?” Emily didn’t think “like” described what was going on between them. “He was Brittany’s best man. He’s keeping an eye on me because she threatened to kill him if he doesn’t.”
Lisa laughed. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Are you interested?”
Emily thought about the slow kisses and the wild heat.
She was interested. And scared. The greater the emotion, the greater the capacity for hurt, and she knew this relationship could go nowhere.
“I have Lizzy. That’s more than enough to adjust to for now. And children are the perfect contraception.”
“True. On the other hand I might be able to help with that. Would you trust me with Lizzy?”
“I have trusted you with Lizzy. She’s sleeping upstairs with your kids.”
“I mean overnight. I swear if a photographer knocks on the door, I’ll kill him with my bare hands. Even if I didn’t already hate them after everything they printed about Mike’s accident, I wouldn’t let anything happen to Lizzy. I already love her.”
“I trust you, Lisa. It isn’t you, it’s me. I have a problem with letting go.” Over a glass of wine, she’d told Lisa the truth about Lizzy’s identity, but she hadn’t shared the story about Katy. “I want to be there the whole time to protect her.”
“Are you really worried the photographers will come here?”
“Every day that passes makes it less likely. Ryan thinks the trail will have gone cold. That they’ve lost interest.”
“So leave her with me,” Lisa urged. “Go on a date. Have a night of wild sex. Believe me, if that is ever an option for me, I’ll be dropping the twins with you!”
A wild night of sex.
Was she the only person in the world for whom sex had never been wild?
Feeling inadequate, Emily shook her head. “That isn’t going to happen.”