WHILE TAKING APART the nursery might have been one of the hardest things Seth had ever done, short of getting through Zoe’s death and funeral, watching Kylee’s and Mai’s faces as they saw the nursery for the daughter they’d brought home three days after her birth was definitely worth the pain. Kylee carried the newborn around, showing her all the wonderful things, telling her that they were just for her, and going over to the bookshelf, she literally teared up when she saw Goodnight Moon, which apparently her mother had read every night to her. The happiness literally radiating from both women caused an unexpected tug in his own heart.
It should have been Zoe showing their child the quilt and the dresser their grandparents had made, but life hadn’t turned out that way. All around him, people he’d grown up with, had gone to school with, were coupling up, settling down and reproducing. All except for Brianna, though even she was nesting in her own way, bringing Herons Landing back to life.
Meanwhile, his already limited social life had become a blightscape.
But he had done this. He’d made a connection with the new mothers and would now be involved in their daughter’s life. That was something, right? He hoped if Zoe was somewhere watching, she’d approve.
“You did good,” Brianna, who was standing beside him in the doorway, murmured, as if sensing his need for validation. “It couldn’t have been easy.”
“I thought it would be hell,” he admitted. “And you’re right, it wasn’t at all easy. But watching them now, seeing them so happy, I realize that it was exactly the right thing to do. Thanks for putting the idea in my head. I should’ve thought of it while the three of us were working on the layout of the cottage and made room for the nursery.”
She reached out and took his hand, linking their fingers together. Not as lovers, he reassured himself. But as friends. The same way they had when they’d jumped off the pier together into the bay when he’d been eleven and one of them—he’d forgotten which—had gotten the insane idea to join the crazy-ass Polar Bear Club, which, for some reason he still hadn’t figured out, thought it would be a good idea to celebrate the first day of the year by freezing their balls off.
At the time, having recently become aware of his own, as he’d hit the icy water, he’d worried that he might have shriveled them beyond recovery. And wouldn’t that have killed off any of his chances for sex with anyone but Mr. Hand, which even at his age he’d figured out wasn’t anywhere near as good as having sex with a girl.
“You’re a good man, Seth Harper,” she said.
“You’re prejudiced.”
“You bet I am.” Her smile was quick and easy. As if he’d only imagined that earthshaking kiss. Maybe it hadn’t affected her nearly as much as it had him.
After all, she probably had lots of guys after her. Guys in Brooks Brothers suits, or Armani, or whatever the hell overpriced designer was in fashion these days, slicked-back Wall Street hairstyles and money to burn. It only made sense that while she might have come home to Honeymoon Harbor, she couldn’t have been working all the time. She’d undoubtedly spent some of those years kissing more than a few of those one-percenters who stayed at five-star hotels.
“I have another favor to ask,” she said.
“Okay.” It was crazy. He wasn’t going to allow himself to get romantically involved with her, because she might as well be wearing a shirt that read Here There Be Dragons, but except for a marriage proposal, this woman could ask him for anything, including a kidney, and he wouldn’t hesitate to give it to her.
“I found some furniture for the apartment on Craigslist, but it’s scattered over the peninsula, and, just one more time, I need some big strong men with serious vehicles to pick it up for me and bring it back to the house. My dad’s taking care of Port Townsend, Sequim and Port Angeles. I was wondering if you could handle Port Ludlow and Port Gamble.”
“No problem. Does this mean you’re moving in?”
“You’ve got the third floor all ready and now that Kylee and Mai have brought little Clara home, I’d like to be closer to them since they asked me to be her godmother.”
“There’s a coincidence. Because I’m going to be the godfather.”
“Huh. Kylee had failed to mention that. You don’t think—”
“That they made that choice to push us together?” Seth shook his head. “I doubt it. They’re both only children. Kylee lost her mom, her douche of a dad is out of the picture, and Mai’s family’s all back in Hawaii, which means that although they’re close, they’re not going to all be able to get together that often.
“Plus, you don’t spend all that time with people building their home without getting to know them. And they were easy to get close to, so I figure they just needed a guy and since my mom’s officiating at their wedding and whatever type of baptism they’re coming up with at the same time, asking me was the logical, and maybe only, choice they had.”
“You’re underestimating yourself. Personally, I believe they chose you because you’ll be an excellent male influence. But whatever the reason, it’s nice that we’ll be sort of sharing Clara.”
“We probably would anyway without any official designation,” he said. “The four of us are connected in a lot of ways. Not only through the house—”
“Especially your giving them a dream nursery.”
Zoe’s dream, he thought, then forced his mind to shut down those voices that some days badgered him from the moment his eyes opened until he finally fell asleep. And even during too many nights they were like foghorns, tolling forbiddingly in the darkness.
“I’m just glad they like it.”
“How could they not?”
“Hopefully, they won’t feel superstitious since she died before we could have a baby.” If it creeped them out, he’d remove it right away and take it all to Goodwill. Because someone’s baby should be able to enjoy it.
“Kylee was also best friends with Zoe,” Brianna reminded him. “I suspect that it will make it even more special to her. Because she’ll realize all the love that went into it. Love that Zoe would’ve felt for Clara.”
“She would have adored her.” He tried not to think that their child would have grown up with Clara.
“It’s almost as if she’s here with us,” Brianna said quietly.
“Yeah.” He watched Mai showing baby Clara the orcas mobile that he’d searched all over for, finally finding a woman in North Carolina on Etsy who was willing to make him one. He’d planned it as a surprise.
It was only as she went over to join the new mothers and baby that he realized that, little by little, Brianna Mannion was unbreaking his heart.
* * *
THE BED WAS going to be perfect. It was a sleigh bed style, made of iron rather than wood. The gracefully curved bars, along with the pewter finish that she’d worried she should have gone to see in person first, were unscratched and gleaming, making it look lighter and more modern. It had chosen to be a bit more of a problem trying to get it up the curving stairs, even after Seth had dismantled it to fit it in the truck.
“Did you have to get a king-size?” he asked as he and his dad, who’d returned to town and had been making templates for the bits of missing plaster molding he was going to have to replace, struggled to get the mattress up to the third floor.
“It was the only bed I found that I liked,” she said. “And admittedly, it’s larger than I need—” she could lie in the center with her arms and legs stretched out like she was making snow angels and still not touch the corners “—but the room is large enough to handle it. And after I move into the carriage house, it’ll be a bonus feature.”
“There’s always the possibility that you can add a second ghost to the house’s lore after this damn mattress knocks me down the stairs, cracks my head open and crushes me,” he muttered, maneuvering it around another corner.
“Quit acting like a girly man,” Ben said. “I’m not going to drop it on you. I may not be as young as I used to be, but I’m still strong as an ox.”
“And stubborn as one, too,” Seth muttered beneath his breath.
“I heard that. Just in case you were counting on me getting deaf in my old age.”
Listening to them as they’d cussed and grumbled their way, first with all the iron railings, then the box spring pieces, and now the mattress, which wasn’t turning out to be all that bendable, Brianna could tell that despite their differences, there was true familial love there. She also suspected that, at least in Ben’s case, bitching and complaining was his way of showing it.
Once they had everything laid out on the basketball-court-size floor, Seth went back down the stairs and returned with a seriously big red toolbox, and father and son got down to work putting the frame together.
With the only power to the house being a cord plugged into a temporary electrical post outside, there was no air-conditioning operating yet. And making things worse was that the day had dawned a bright one, hinting at the upcoming summer.
Although she’d opened the windows to allow the salt air in, the third floor room grew much warmer than the outdoors.
Or, it could simply have been her reaction to him grabbing hold of the back of his T-shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it onto the floor. There was an old saying that Pacific Northwesterners didn’t tan, they rusted. In this case, it was wrong. Because Seth Harper’s chest was a deep and tawny gold, much like the color that bathed the deep Olympic forest at twilight. And if she’d found his chest intriguing when she’d first seen him get out of the truck at the park, viewing it in its full, naked glory nearly made her drool.
And then, wow, Kylee hadn’t been kidding when talking about those squats. When he went to work, screwing the end piece into the side, her eyes were drawn straight to his butt. And fit, defined, amazing thighs.
Just looking at him caused such a sheer burst of lust that either a bolt of lightning had struck through one of the open windows or she’d just experienced a decades-early hot flash.
“I think I’m going to go down to the ice chest and get a bottle of water,” she said. Preferably to pour over her head. “Would anyone else like one?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” said Ben, who was holding the side rail steady, while his son worked the bolt into the slot.
“That’d be great,” Seth agreed. When he glanced up at her over his shoulder, the gold flash in his brown eyes revealed that he’d caught her watching the flex of his back muscles while he’d been screwing in that bolt. “It has gotten warm in here.”
He ran the back of his arm over his sweaty forehead, giving her an even better view of a physique that hadn’t been created in any gym, but by hard, physical work. And the creative hand of God on one of his more generous days.
“I’ll be right back.”
She was not running away, Brianna assured herself as she practically raced down the curving stairs to the small ice chest sitting in the back seat of her car. She was merely taking a time out. To cool down. And try to clear her mind of that too-tempting fantasy of rolling around her king-size mattress with Seth Harper.