SETH FOUND BRIANNA in the kitchen as she was most Sunday mornings—unfortunately not naked beneath a blue-and-white-gingham apron with a ruffle around the bottom—but slicing white button mushrooms with a lethal-looking knife at a speed that would put his nail gun to shame.
“I hope you’re up for another hash breakfast,” she greeted him with a smile that soothed the still ragged edges from his conversation with his dad. At the same time, the way she’d put her hair up into that messy high bun revealed a long smooth neck he wanted to lick. And that was just for starters.
“Sounds good.” Lifting her up on that counter and burying himself deep inside her sounded even better.
“It’s a Pacific Northwest take on corned beef hash, with Dungeness crab in place of the corned beef. I picked the crab up fresh at Kira’s Fish House this morning.”
One of the aspects of her business she was highlighting on her website and brochures was how all the food served at Herons Landing was both locally inspired and locally sourced. In these days of more and more foodies finding their way to the peninsula, he figured that would prove a strong draw.
When she turned and bent over to get a box of eggs from the oversize fridge, a jolt of lust had him groaning, which caused her to glance back over her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” From the concern in her blue eyes as they swept over him, he guessed she might be wondering why he’d been so late arriving this morning. “On my way here, Dad was coming out of Cops and Coffee. He waved me down and wanted to talk.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Mostly, I guess. You know he’s been taking time off the job.”
“Because he’s cutting back to part-time, right, now that this place is coming along so well?” She began dicing the red potatoes for the hash. “I also figured he’s probably finishing up the last of those plaster molds at his workshop.”
“Both those are true.” Seth weighed breaking a confidence, but it wasn’t like his dad had instructed him to keep it under his hat. And Bri wasn’t just anyone. She was the woman he was having sex with.
No. It was more than that. His dad was right about one thing. They were in a relationship. Where they were going, he still wasn’t sure, but they’d shared the most intimate parts of themselves. He knew, if their situations were reversed, not that he could ever see John and Sarah Mannion having marriage problems, she’d share with him.
“But another reason is that he’s been seeing a therapist in Seattle.”
“Seriously?” It was a good thing she’d already put the eggs down on the counter, because as she spun back toward him, she probably would’ve dropped them.
“Really. Apparently he’s been seeing her twice a week.”
“Wow. I never in a million years would have imagined that.”
“Join the club.”
“He must truly love your mom to do something that must be incredibly difficult for him... Did you say her?”
“Yeah. It’s a woman. A young woman, but he assures me she’s got a lot of fancy degrees and licenses, and she seems to be getting through to him.”
“Oh, Seth! That’s so wonderful.” Her face lit up like the morning sun. Those lips he’d been thinking about tasting since he came back from the pier curved in a dazzling smile that brightened her eyes, like the diamond lights that danced on the surface of Mirror Lake on a summer day.
“He’s taking Mom on a date.”
“Oh.” She sighed. He thought he saw the glisten of a tear in one eye. “That’s so sweet. Here in town?”
“No. Port Townsend. He figured they’d have more privacy that way.”
“Good idea.” Brianna nodded her approval. “The therapist must really have him working hard on this.”
“Seems so.” He decided she didn’t need to know about the role playing. Seth sure as hell wouldn’t want anyone knowing he was doing anything like that. “He’s also working on some military stuff that he hasn’t been able to shake.”
“I’d forgotten he was in the military. That was before you were born, right?”
“Yeah. Get this... He was a SEAL.”
She’d turned her knife skills to chopping some herbs. “I can see that.”
“You can?”
“Absolutely,” she confirmed. “If they’re anything like in the movies I’ve seen or the romances I’ve read, they tend to be strong, silent types. And he’d never ring out.” Which was a candidate’s way of signaling that all the pain, misery, coldness and fatigue the training class was put through had become too much.
“You watched that documentary on BUD/S training?”
“I streamed it on Netflix. The books got me curious. He’s one amazing man, your father.”
“Don’t tell him I told you this—”
“Cross my heart.” Which she did with her fingers.
“He was a hero. During the Beirut barracks bombing.”
“Oh. My. God.” She took hold of the counter as if to steady herself, obviously stunned and envisioning the same videos that had flashed through his mind. He’d been too young to remember the stories growing up, but every few years, on the anniversary, one of the cable news programs or PBS would run a segment. “I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like for him. So, that was before he met your mom?”
“Yeah.”
“I know I’m repeating myself, but wow. That explains a lot. He’d have to have lingering PTSD. And all the other terrorist things that have happened since then must have triggered old feelings.”
“Ever think of becoming a therapist?” he asked.
Her smile lacked its usual brightness. It was a little sad, and her expressive eyes revealed how deep her sympathy went. “I told you, my job was about more than getting show tickets or restaurant reservations. People were either celebrating something important that I needed to ensure became a memory, or they were stressed out and needed calming, or they had personal problems they thought maybe they could escape by coming to a city that’s a twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week carnival. Which, of course, didn’t work. So there were times I had to deal with the aftermath of self-medication.”
Her smile softened. “Then there were others who still had personal reasons for coming.” She told him about the elderly lady who carried her husband’s ashes back every year. Not having visited his wife’s grave once, Seth felt guilty about that one. But then again, the Zoe he’d married was no more in the ground than the widow’s husband had been in that urn.
“Well.” She blew out a ragged breath. “This conversation has certainly turned depressing.”
“I have an idea.” He went around the counter and brushed away two tears that were trailing down her cheek. The other hand brushed along the outline of her lips that he’d gone too long—hours—without tasting. “When does that hash need to go into the oven?”
She covered his hand on her cheek with her own softer, smaller, smoother one. “It can wait.” Then went up on her toes to meet his mouth.
* * *
“I HAVE SOMETHING to ask you,” Brianna said after they’d dressed and were back downstairs in the kitchen.
“Okay. Did I mention this is the best yet?” he asked after plowing halfway through the crab hash she’d topped with a spicy sauce.
“You did. Thank you. And amazingly, I won that praise without including a single slice of bacon.”
“I already had bacon today.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Dad got bacon maple Long Johns.”
“A heart attack waiting to happen.”
“Probably. But worth it. Though they were nothing like this. Your guests are going to lick their plates. And the fact that it has fresh Dungeness makes it even more of a treat for all those folks who aren’t lucky enough to live on Pacific waters.”
“Thank you.” She got up from across the table, bent down and kissed him. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say. But what I was going to ask you has to do with the farm.”
“Your parents’ farm?”
“Yes.” She seemed hesitant, which was unusual for her. From the time she’d arrived in town, she’d seemed totally confident. “Next week is planting time.”
“Which means the festival.”
It wasn’t that big a deal as festivals went, because it involved work, but a lot of townspeople came out to plant the trees and eat great food donated from local vendors like Luca’s Kitchen, Mannion’s, Dinah’s Diner and Taco the Town. And this year, Cops and Coffee and Ovenly would be joining them. The cool thing for families was that the trees could be tagged with the names of the people who’d planted them. Then, seven or ten years later, they could come out and cut their own personal Christmas trees. Granted, not that many had the patience to do that, but Bri had told him that families celebrated the births of each of their children that way. Others bought living trees that they’d replant in their own yards.
“Yes. I was thinking that just maybe, you’d be willing to go with me.”
“Even though everyone will see us together?”
“We’ve been working on the house for weeks,” she pointed out as she sat back down in her own chair and put her napkin back on her lap in a way that revealed her surprising discomfort with the topic. Which left him thinking that in a way, by keeping their affair, or relationship, or whatever the hell it was a secret, he’d been behaving as if he was somehow ashamed of it. Or at least ignoring it the way his dad had with his mom. “It’s not as if it would be that much of a surprise,” she said. “Unless you felt moved to do something like kiss me.”
“I always feel moved to kiss you.”
It was his turn to get up from the table. From now on, he decided, they were going to sit next to each other. Or better yet, she could sit on his lap and he’d feed her. He bent and let his lips cling to hers for a long, delicious time that had him thinking he could probably warm up the rest of the hash later. After he’d had her again.
“And, FYI, everyone already knows about us,” he said.
“They do not.”
“According to Dad they do.” And the park ranger, whom he decided wasn’t relevant to this conversation. “There’s no reason for us to try to keep it a secret anymore, Bri. It was probably an impossible idea in the first place.”
“True,” she agreed with a sigh. “But I’ve enjoyed having what I thought was our private time together. Time to get reacquainted, but in a new way.”
A more intimate way, she didn’t say. But he knew she was thinking it. And not just a sexual intimacy, but a personal one. She’d even told him about Doctor Dick, who’d been the inciting incident that had triggered her return home. Part of him had wanted to fly to Des Moines and punch the doctor in his smug, billionaire face. Another, stronger part thought he ought to thank the dick for his part in Brianna Mannion being back in his life.
“I always liked the tree planting,” he said. Though back then he’d hung out more with her brothers, and they’d always seemed to end up more wet and muddy than everyone else due to pitching wet, packed balls of soil and mulch at each other. “And I can’t think of any better way to spend the day than planting your family’s trees with you. On one condition.”
She narrowed her eyes, hearing the sexual tease in his roughened tone. “What’s that?”
“That we wash the mud off each other in that shower upstairs.”
Her smile was both promise and temptation as she reached up, caught his face in her hands and drew his mouth back to hers. “Deal.”
* * *
AFTER ANOTHER ROUND of steamy sex that Seth figured would’ve set up earthquake alarms all over the peninsula, they were lying in bed, all warm in each other’s arms, when his phone rang.
“Hey, Dad,” he said, feeling far more cheerful than he had in a very long time. It turned out that Quinn and Jarle had been right that frequent and hot sex had been just the ticket to lift that dark cloud from his head.
But not with anyone. It was Brianna who’d changed his life. And as he lay there in the wide bed, with the quilt, top sheet and all those froufrou pillows women seemed to like knocked onto the hand-scraped wooden floor, he admitted to himself something that had been teasing in the background of his mind, but he hadn’t dared put into words.
Just like the ranger had with her Kenny somehow, when he hadn’t been looking, he’d fallen in love with Brianna Mannion.
“What’s up?” he said, dragging his mind back to his father.
“It’s your mom.”
“Oh?” He exchanged a smile with Bri, who’d left the bed and was fastening a skimpy lace bra the color of a midnight sky. As much as he was enjoying all the fancy lingerie she’d picked up at the Dancing Deer, he would have found her just as sexy in that plain cotton she’d been wearing their first time. “Need some more dating advice?”
“No. She’s in the hospital.”
“The hospital? Why? What happened?”
He was out of bed like a shot, searching around for his own scattered clothing. Briana fell to her knees and crawled beneath the bed to retrieve the boxer briefs she’d sent flying.
“She had a heart attack while painting some damn deer in a meadow.”
“Fuck.” He yanked on the briefs and began hopping foot to foot, pulling on his jeans. “I’ll be right there.” This time the look he exchanged with Brianna, who was already fully dressed, was grim. And, he suspected, as terrified as he felt. “Do you need me to pick you up?”
“No. I just reached the ER.” With that Ben cut off the phone.
“She’ll be all right,” Brianna assured him after they’d found their shoes, raced out to his truck and went roaring down the long driveway that Amanda, who’d had bulldozers working for the past week in front, had begun lining with tall, shaggy fir trees.
“You don’t know that,” Seth said through clenched teeth as he turned onto the road leading down the bluff into town. It was only because he didn’t want to kill any innocent people on the way that kept him from flooring the gas.
“And you don’t know she won’t be,” she pointed out with a calm that he figured had worked well with angry people for whom she couldn’t get tickets for some stupid, overpriced Las Vegas show.
“Don’t fucking patronize me.”
“I wasn’t,” she defended herself with a flair of heat that, even as terrified as he was, Seth realized came from her own fear.
It was all either of them were to say until they’d reached the hospital. “You go in,” she said as they pulled up into the yellow zone in front of the ER. “I’ll go park the truck to keep it from getting towed, then come find you.”
He wanted to thank her. Not just for that, but for being there for him. For being her. But not wanting to take the time to find the words, he burst out of the truck and raced to the door.