Eight
It didn’t rain. It poured.
Jenny and the two dogs had walked a little over two miles deep into the hills behind the Cassian Inn when the skies opened up and hosed her.
She should have grabbed a brolly.
She pulled the hood from her jacket up over her head and turned around to start back, assuming the terriers would be joining her. But the dogs had deserted her—she could see the dots of them running down the hill toward a red brick building.
Jenny trudged along behind them, picking her way down what was now a very muddy path. By the time she reached the red brick building she was thoroughly soaked. There was a parking lot and a sign that said, Lake Haven Senior Home.
She hurried inside to a vestibule entrance and tried to shake the water off of her. It was useless. She draped her jacket over the umbrella bin and squeezed water from her hair as she dripped onto the welcome mat. Through a frosted glass door she could see shadowy forms of people moving around. One was moving closer.
A rush of cool air startled her when an elderly woman with kind eyes had opened the glass door. “Did you swim across the lake?” she asked jovially.
“Feels like it,” Jenny said.
“Come in, dry off. Have some tea,” the woman said.
“Thanks, but I’ll just wait here for the rain to pass, if you don’t mind. I have to find the two little dogs that were with me. They ran down here and I’m sure they are hiding around here somewhere.”
“You must mean Mr. Mackenzie’s dogs,” she said. “He’s put them in his car while he visits.”
Jenny blinked. “Edan Mackenzie is here?”
“He is! He won’t be long, I suspect. Poor man—Mr. Finlay doesn’t know who he is any longer.”
Who was Mr. Finlay? Jenny looked past the woman into the room behind her. There were several old people sitting about, some in wheelchairs, some at a table. A pair of caretakers in scrubs. And there, seated next to the window beside an old man was Edan. A very pretty and shapely caretaker was standing beside him, smiling with big doe eyes as she talked.
“Come in,” the woman urged Jenny.
Jenny hesitantly stepped across the threshold, her eyes warily on Edan. It was still hard to believe that she’d boldly kissed him last night. She’d kissed him the way the young female caretaker probably wanted to kiss him this very minute. Oh yeah, Jenny could see it written all over her: The lean-in. The soft smile. The rapt attention to the few words he might utter.
Edan happened to glance in her direction. His gaze locked on hers and narrowed unhappily. He said something to the elderly man and stood up, put his hand on the man’s shoulder, and then started toward Jenny.
She looked around for a place to hide.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded when he reached her.
“Drying off,” she said, gesturing to herself. “I got caught in the rain. Turns out, my weather app is useless. It said it wouldn’t start raining until this afternoon, so naturally the skies would—”
“I’ll take you back to the inn, aye?” He put his hand on her elbow.
Jenny batted it away. “That’s okay, I can walk back when it stops raining. I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Edan took her by the elbow again and wheeled her around to face the door. “How is that you keep appearing everywhere that I am?” he muttered.
“It’s not hard—you pretty much exist in a two mile radius, have you noticed?”
“Let’s go,” he said low.
“Wait,” Jenny protested. “You’re not going to just go without saying goodbye, are you?”
“I said my goodbyes.”
“Not to the gentleman, to the girl. She looks really sad, Edan—you should go back and say something to her. It’s none of my business, but maybe ask her for a drink, because she is totally into you. She’s practically drooling—”
“Wheesht,” he muttered.
“Excuse me? That sounded like a sneeze. Is it a word? Never mind. Look at her,” Jenny said, peering over her shoulder as he hustled her toward the entrance. “She looks as forlorn as the last puppy in the litter. At least thank her for taking care of your uncle.”
He pushed the glass door open and said, “He is no’ my uncle.” He dropped his hand from the door, turned about and called across the room to the elderly woman, “Thank you, Mrs. Simmons. I’ll come again next week.”
“We’ll all look forward to it!” Mrs. Simmons said.
Apparently satisfied, Edan tried to move Jenny out the door, then, but she resisted. “Say goodbye to the girl.”
“What is the matter with you?” he demanded.
“I’ve been that girl. I’m not suggesting you marry her, I’m suggesting you say goodbye.”
She could see Edan gritting his teeth. But he slowly turned and said, “Thank you, Phoebe.”
“Of course!” Phoebe said with a thousand-watt brightness. “If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all, just call me. You have my number, right?”
“Aye,” he said, and practically pushed Jenny through the glass doors before him.
She scarcely had time to grab her jacket before he was steering her out the door and to his car.
“I’m wet!” she cried when he opened the passenger door.
“Get in, get in,” he said.
She slipped into the passenger seat, and the two dogs instantly surged forward, their feet on the console between the seats, their tongues working in tandem on Jenny’s ear until she pushed them off. They left behind smeared paw prints on the leather. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, and wiped the console with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Never mind it,” Edan said as he started the car.
“Why are you being so weird? Is it Phoebe?”
“No,” he said, and looked the other way.
“Who were you visiting?”
“Mr. Finlay.”
When Edan did not add any helpful details, Jenny said, “Not your uncle.”
“Mr. Finlay was the maintenance man at the inn for many years. He has no one. No family.”
It was awfully kind of Edan to visit him. Jenny knew how people drifted away when someone was ill. Her father had lost all his friends as the junk around him had piled up.
And then, out of nowhere, comes a girlfriend. Jesus.
“Who’s going to look in on him when you go back to Scotland?” she asked curiously.
His jaw tightened and he gave her a pointed look that could be interpreted to mean she should stop talking before he got really mad.
“Because you’re going back soon, right?” she asked, hoping that he’d had some miraculous change of heart overnight and would say no.
“When did you say you were checking out?”
“Still thinking about it.” She didn’t have a good answer for him. Because she was looking at his mouth, remembering last night and feeling tiny electric pulses zinging through her. “So listen, Edan, about last night—”
“No need,” he said quickly.
“I should not have done that.”
“You’ve already apologized. Donna say more.”
“Okay,” she agreed. “But the thing is, while I am sorry for kissing you, I kind of liked it. Actually, I liked it a lot. You should know you’re a good kisser.”
Edan groaned softly and glanced out the window.
“I’m not even sure why I’m telling you this,” she said with a small laugh of mortification. “But sometimes, it seems like the things that need to be said are not said, and the things that shouldn’t be said are. All that to say, I feel like you should know that I had a great time last night.”
“I am confused,” he said. “Did you no’ just suggest I take a woman out for a drink?”
“I can see where that might be confusing,” she agreed. “I didn’t suggest it because I actually wanted you to, but because I felt sorry for her. She obviously has it bad for you. And when I noticed it, I thought, maybe I should say what’s been on my mind. It’s kind of a weird compulsion I have.”
“I’ve noticed,” he said. They had reached the inn, and Edan pulled into the little courtyard. He put the car in park and turned his head to her. He awkwardly put his hand on her knee. “Jenny. Lass. I enjoyed our dinner, too, aye? But I must be verra clear—I’ll no’ encourage Phoebe or anyone else, because I am leaving at the end of the month to repair a relationship with my fiancée, aye? I love her.”
He didn’t have to say that.
“There is no possibility of anything between us,” he added, and removed his hand.
Jenny hadn’t said there was and she tried not to be offended by the words no possibility. “Okay,” she said breezily. “But did you like the kiss?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “Did you hear what I said, then?”
“Loud and clear. Did you like it?”
His eyes dipped to her mouth and lingered. And then he opened the door.
As he got out of the car and let the dogs out, Jenny shouted at him, “I think this clearly indicates that you did!”
Edan shut the door and dashed to the entry with the dogs close behind.
Jenny sighed. She never did these things right. She got out, too, and ran to the entry. She paused just inside to gather her wits and remove her jacket when she heard Edan say, “It’s good to have you back. I’m glad to see you before I go, aye?”
Jenny jerked around to see three well-heeled gentlemen standing beside a mountain of luggage. They’d also turned around to have a look at her, just as Jenny realized her wet tank revealed more of her than she liked—her nipples were jutting through the fabric. All the male eyes in this room were on them.
The darkly handsome man standing in the middle of the threesome smirked and muttered in Italian, “Lei un mendicante?”
Jenny gasped. “I most certainly am not a beggar! I was very obviously caught in the rain! Have you looked outside? It’s pouring.”
The three men exchanged a startled look. Edan arched a surprised brow, too, peering closely at her.
“Parli Italiano?” the man asked.
“Of course I speak Italian,” Jenny groused. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“No,” Edan said, inexplicably cheerful as he moved behind the reception desk.
The gentleman who had called her a beggar stepped forward—cautiously, she noted—and extended his hand. He spoke again in Italian, “I am Lorenzo. Lorenzo Bartolotti. Who might I have the very great pleasure of meeting?”
It was no pleasure, it was embarrassing. And it didn’t help to see Edan actually smiling behind the three of them, clearly enjoying her discomfort. “Jenny Turner.” She ignored his hand and folded her arms tightly across her body instead. “I’m going to my room now.” She gave them all a withering look before marching off down the hall with the clothes clinging to her and her boots squeaking loudly and her thoughts racing around Edan and the fact she didn’t have this perfect little inn to herself any longer.