Sea Glass Island (11 page)

“Okay, yes, I was annoyed that he knew what was on Boone’s mind and hadn’t warned any of us,” Samantha said.

“It wasn’t his place,” Cora Jane said firmly. “And if you were being fair, you’d know that. Are you just looking for an excuse to keep him at arm’s length?”

“Oh, she wants him a lot closer than that,” Gabi said, her voice threaded with laughter.

“Gabriella!” Samantha protested.

Cora Jane chuckled, satisfied with the revelation. “Okay, then. I’m happy to be wrong about that. Call the man and make peace. One couple fighting is all this family can handle right now.”

“I’ll call him in the morning,” Samantha said. “Or see him at that brunch you’re planning. I imagine you’ll figure out some way to be sure we’re seated together.”

Cora Jane gave her an impatient look. “Allowing bad feelings to simmer overnight is never a good thing. Haven’t I told all you girls that good marriages mean going to bed with a kiss, not a frown?”

Samantha shook her head. “I can’t help believing that an occasional night of someone being banished to sleep on the couch can get a point across.”

Cora Jane shook her head. “Okay, let’s look at it another way. When is it easier to apologize, the second you know you’ve done something wrong or after you’ve allowed the misdeed to grow and grow in the other person’s mind and in your own?”

Samantha scowled at her. “You’re talking about me waiting to tell you I was sorry when I broke the antique silver mirror that had belonged to your grandmother, aren’t you?”

“How many days did you suffer before you finally told the truth and apologized? Was that any fun? Was it any easier after waiting all that time?”

“No,” Samantha said grudgingly. “And I didn’t sleep a wink for two nights. Maybe, though, that was the punishment I deserved.”

“So this is about punishing Ethan for being loyal to his friend rather than to you?” Cora Jane asked.

She could tell from Samantha’s resigned expression that she’d nailed her feelings on the very first try.

“Something like that,” Samantha conceded with unmistakable reluctance.

Gabi had been listening intently, and now a grin broke across her face. “Here comes the lecture on maturity, right, Grandmother?”

“Save it,” Samantha pleaded. “I get it. I will call Ethan. I hope you won’t mind, though, if I take a little delight in waking him out of a sound sleep.”

“Something tells me he’s going to be every bit as wide awake as you are,” Cora Jane said. “Nobody sleeps well when things between them and a person they care about are unresolved.” She stood up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to give Jerry a call. I all but abandoned him at that dinner party. He’s owed an apology, too.”

Samantha turned to Gabi. “What about you? Anyone you need to mend fences with tonight?”

“Nope. Wade and I are good. In fact, he’s in Daniella’s room right now, rocking her to sleep.”

“Well, for once, just tell the man to stay put and spend the night here,” Cora Jane said. “Sending him out the door at midnight isn’t fooling anyone.”

That said, she walked out of the bedroom, leaving Samantha and Gabi staring after her. Nothing pleased her more than surprising her granddaughters and leaving them with a little something to think about. She’d done a good night’s work just now, hopefully given them a push to get their lives back on an even keel. She could hardly wait to tell Jerry all about it.

* * *

Ethan had been stewing ever since Samantha had hung up on him. He would have gone barging in over there to set the record straight, but he figured with Boone trying to work things out with Emily, there was enough drama going on.

He’d taken a shower, crawled into bed and was staring at the ceiling when his phone rang. He glanced at caller ID and saw that it was Samantha.

“Hello,” he said, his tone chilly.

“You’re furious,” she said at once.

“Not furious,” he contradicted. “I am a little confused about how this thing between Boone and Emily got to be about you and me.”

“Because I made it about us,” she admitted. “And I shouldn’t have. I’m sure Boone talked to you in confidence.”

“He did.”

“And I would have thought less of you if you’d betrayed his trust,” she admitted.

“Sort of a catch-22 for me, wouldn’t you say?”

She laughed. “Pretty much. I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Or did Cora Jane insist you apologize?”

“She might have mentioned she thought I was in the wrong and owed you an apology. Still, I really am sorry.”

Ethan relented. “Me, too. How are things over there?”

“Boone’s here. Emily went downstairs to talk to him. So far there’s been no yelling. No doors have slammed. And Boone’s car is still outside.”

“Then it’s possible they’re working things out?” he said, relieved.

“You afraid you weren’t going to get to dress up in your tuxedo?”

“Believe me, that was not even on my list of worries,” he said. “If Boone weren’t counting on me, I’d have happily skipped that part.”

“I’ll bet you’re going to look sexy as anything in a tux,” she said in a low, sultry voice. “Maybe a little James Bond with a hint of George Clooney thrown in.”

“It’d take more than a fancy suit to put me in their league,” he said. “You’re just trying to get back on my good side by tossing all these compliments my way.”

“Nope. That’s how I see you. Very sexy. Very sophisticated.”

“I’m a small-town doctor,” he reminded her. “I might look like I’d fit in, but I’d never be truly comfortable in a city like New York.”

“Fair warning?” she asked.

Ethan hadn’t thought of it that way when he’d said it, but she was right. “As a matter of fact, yes. Just so there are no misunderstandings between us the way there were between Boone and Emily.”

“So, unlike Boone, you flat-out won’t compromise at all?” she asked.

Ethan heard the challenge in her voice. “Uh-oh. We’re back to us again. Sweetheart, you and I have issues that have nothing to do with locale.”

“You sure about that? Didn’t you once tell me that one of the things standing in our way was that you live here and I live in New York?”

Ethan sighed. “I suppose I did. Distance is hard on a relationship, no question about it. But it is not the real issue. The real issue for you and me is that you believe in love and I don’t.”

“Then why’d you push so hard for Boone and Emily to work things out?”

“Because they
are
in love. Even I can see it’s the real deal. Me? I’m not cut out for it.”

“Too selfish? Too cynical? Low self-esteem?” she prodded.

Ethan saw exactly what she was doing. She was trying to push his buttons by suggesting negative traits he didn’t want to envision that he possessed. Still, he couldn’t deny there was some truth in all of those things.

“Could be,” he said candidly.

Her gasp suggested she was shocked that he’d acknowledged it. “Ethan, you don’t mean that! I’ve been around you enough to see how kind and generous you are, how caring. You may want to be cynical, but I saw the expression on your face when you talked about how in love your parents are. And we’ve beat that low-self-esteem horse to death already.”

“What’s your point?”

“I think you want to be antilove because you’re scared,” she told him. “Burned once, twice shy. Isn’t that the expression? You were badly burned. It’s little wonder you might not want to take another chance on putting yourself out there, on making yourself vulnerable. Love can rip your heart out. There’s no denying that. Why risk it? Isn’t that really your philosophy? Isn’t that what keeps you sitting on the sidelines?”

What she was suggesting sounded an awful lot like saying he was a coward. That grated. And yet he could hardly tell her she was wrong when she’d hit so close to the mark. He never again wanted to feel the way he’d felt when Lisa had walked out on him. It wasn’t the rejection per se. He liked to think he was tough enough to get past a woman leaving him.
It was Lisa’s view of him as damaged goods that he simply couldn’t get out of his head.

Of course, there was a case to be made that they hadn’t really been in love, not the kind of love that Samantha obviously believed in. That deep and abiding love didn’t bail at the first sign of trouble...or at the loss of a limb.

“Do you have the qualifications to try to pinpoint what makes me tick?” he asked irritably.

“I pay close attention to human nature. It helps with acting,” she responded, clearly not offended by his remark. “Am I wrong?”

“Not entirely,” he conceded.

“Can I ask you something else? Will you answer honestly?”

“If I can,” he said.

“Am I anything at all like your ex-fiancée?”

“Heavens no!” he said fervently. Oh, he’d wanted her to be shallow and vain, but mostly so he could dismiss the undeniable attraction between them. Instead, he’d seen time and again that she had substance, that she cared about her family, even when they got on her last nerve. That’s what made resisting her so blasted difficult.

She laughed at his emphatic response. “Well, thank goodness for that. How’d you fall for a woman like that, anyway?”

He had to think about it. His impression of Lisa now was seriously jaded by all that had happened. What had he seen in her at the beginning?

“She was beautiful and smart,” he said eventually. “She made me laugh. I was a pretty serious guy back then. I was working hard, first in med school, then through my internship and residency. She made me lighten up.”

“Those sound like good things,” Samantha suggested.

“Seemed that way to me, too,” he said. “But there wasn’t a lot to laugh about when I got back from Afghanistan. And it made me realize that the things she’d loved about me were, ironically, the way I looked in a tux and the future she’d envisioned as the wife of a well-respected, big-city trauma surgeon.”

“And then you decided to open a clinic in Sand Castle Bay,” Samantha concluded.

“Sure. I think that was one of the deal-breakers for her, but not the only one.”

“What else?”

“Last time she saw me, I was not exactly looking like a model for Armani. I’d let my hair and beard grow, because I couldn’t be bothered. I could barely walk down the hall, much less hit the dance floor at the country club. And I was treating everyone as if I were a bear with a thorn stuck in its paw, lashing out at the most innocent remarks.”

“All understandable,” Samantha insisted. “Couldn’t she see that?”

“She tolerated my lousy mood surprisingly well, even coaxed me into laughing a time or two. But she clearly couldn’t envision a future with a man who couldn’t keep up with her or take her to the places she wanted to go.”

“And yet you kept going,” Samantha said. “You didn’t let any of it defeat you. Do you know how remarkable that makes you?”

“Not remarkable. In an ironic twist, I have her to thank for my recovery. When she took off, it made me more determined than ever not to let my life be over because I’d lost my lower leg.”

“Then don’t let it be over,” Samantha said. “Unless you open your heart, you’ll be living a half-life, Ethan. Take a chance. If not with me, with someone.”

Ethan sighed as she once again disconnected the call. He wanted to do as she asked, wanted to take that kind of emotional risk. More and more, though, he realized that if he dared to do that, then it would have to be with her. And none of the issues he’d just mentioned to her were going away. Nor would they be easily resolved.

Maybe that’s why love was best left to the very young, he thought with a touch of well-honed cynicism. The older people were, the more their lives had been shaped exactly as they wanted them to be. Compromise came less easily.

And yet he couldn’t help thinking that maybe the reward would be worth it.

11

A
fter speaking to Ethan, Samantha stood at the top of the steps listening to see if she could still hear Boone and Emily. She wanted to go out on the porch and think about her conversation with Ethan, but she didn’t want to interrupt the couple if they were working things out.

There wasn’t a sound from the living room, though. She tiptoed down until she could peek into the room. She saw her sister wrapped securely in Boone’s arms, her head on his shoulder. Both of them were asleep, or so it seemed.

She tried to ease her way past them, but Boone’s eyes immediately snapped open.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Everything okay?”

“Getting there, I think,” he said. “You going out?”

“Just to the porch,” she said. “I’m not ready for bed yet. Close your eyes. I’ll just grab the afghan from the back of the sofa and sleep outside tonight. I won’t be wandering back through.”

Boone frowned. “No need to do that.”

She grinned. “You never know. Emily could wake up and things could take a turn toward interesting.”

Boone chuckled. “Not likely. She’s still working on forgiving me. Interesting’s a ways down the road.”

“Well, good luck with that,” Samantha told him, and left them alone. At least this time, they were working at communicating, rather than going to their separate corners to let wounds fester and destroy them. Maybe maturity would save them yet.

On the porch, Samantha settled on the chaise longue, the afghan wrapped securely around her, and let her mind wander. She couldn’t seem to help dissecting her call with Ethan. Would he ever get past the way Lisa had hurt him and allow himself to love someone again? Committing fully to a relationship was scary enough under the best of circumstances. She was cautious enough, and she’d never been seriously burned. Maybe when someone loved deeply and lost, they never got over it. In the case of Ethan—a man with so much to offer—going through life alone would be a real tragedy.

She was considering that and whether she had the fortitude to wait him out while he wrestled with old demons, when a car pulled into the driveway. To her shock, her father got out and headed toward the house.

“Dad!”

He stopped in his tracks and stared into the shadows. “Sammi? Is that you?”

“It is. What on earth are you doing turning up here this late?”

“Command performance,” he said succinctly. “Your grandmother informed me that I was behaving badly by not being here for every wedding-related event. She said if I missed her brunch for Emily and Boone tomorrow, I might as well not bother showing up at all. She said I didn’t have to be here to pay the bills. She’d send ’em over to Raleigh and add a ten percent surcharge to cover her consulting work. I got the impression she was ready to step in and walk Emily down the aisle in my place, as well.”

Samantha chuckled. “Blackmail, huh?”

He nodded, his expression sheepish. “I’m probably lucky she wasn’t planning to add thirty percent.” He sat down in a rocker beside her. “What are you doing out here at this hour? It’s going on midnight.”

“Things to ponder,” she admitted.

“Such as?”

She hesitated, uncertain how much insight her father could really have to offer. He’d never been around before to give advice. That had been her mom’s domain. Still, he was here now and she could use a friendly ear...and a male perspective.

“Have you ever wondered what you’d have done if the whole biomedical research thing hadn’t worked out?” she asked.

She could see his blank expression in the moonlight and knew that she was asking for something beyond his frame of reference.

“Never mind,” she said, resigned to muddling through on her own. “I guess you never had any doubts about what you wanted, did you? You were driven, dedicated and determined from the get-go.”

“Sure I was,” he replied, then startled her by adding, “But what I truly wanted was to be the finest pediatric oncologist in the country.”

Samantha regarded him with shock. “Are you serious? I never knew that. What happened?”

“Are you sure you want to hear all this? It’s old news.”

“I definitely want to know.” Not only might it help her now, but it would give her a rare insight into this man who’d been an enigma to his family for so long.

“The minute I went through my pediatric rotation in med school, I realized I’d never be able to look into those sweet little faces and know that I couldn’t save them. It would have torn me apart. I was lucky that I recognized that about myself in time to choose a new direction.” He shrugged. “So I dedicated myself to the research side of medicine. No tricky emotions to face. No losses. I have some regrets about that even now, but it was the healthier decision.”

“Why didn’t any of us know this?”

“The decision was made long before you came along.”

“And Mom supported you? She didn’t think any less of you for giving up?”

He smiled. “She told me once that she admired me for admitting I was on the wrong path. See, that’s the thing about unconditional love. You always want what’s best for the other person, even if you have to shift your own needs to accommodate it.”

She tried to reconcile that with her grandmother’s emphasis on compromise. Surely he’d grown up with the same reminders about its importance.

“What about compromise?” she asked.

He laughed. “Ah, that’s the thing. If you truly love the other person, you won’t let him make all the sacrifices. And, yes, I know you girls think your mother did make all the sacrifices, but it’s not entirely true. We worked through every decision together. We were in Raleigh, rather than New York or another Northeast city, because she felt more at home down here and insisted we be close to your grandmother. She wasn’t that close to her own family, and she liked the ties to mine that being just a couple of hours away from here gave us.”

“I never knew that. Of course, I knew she didn’t talk too much about her parents, but I had no idea you’d ever thought about living in New York or some other big East Coast city.”

“There was no reason you should have known. That’s another decision that was made before we even discussed having children. We were both content with it.”

“You didn’t feel as if she’d tied your hands, kept you away from making huge breakthroughs that might have come if you’d been working with researchers at Sloan-Kettering or Johns Hopkins or Harvard?”

“Teamwork?” He gave her a wry look. “I’m sure you’ve noticed I’m not so good at dealing with people.”

“But you run a major biomedical research company.”

He laughed. “Other people run it. I’m smart enough to let them. My name may be on the big office, but mostly I stick with what I do best—research.”

“But Mom was such a people person,” she remembered. “You must have driven her crazy.”

“At times,” he agreed readily. “Especially when I’d miss a party because I was caught up in something at work. How your mother managed to look beyond all those times I let her down and love me anyway is a mystery. I’m thankful every day of my life that she did, though. Not many women would have put up with me, no question about it. I keep hoping that I’ll figure out how to get it right with you girls after all this time, too.”

“You’ve made a great start,” Samantha acknowledged. “Stepping up to pay for Emily’s wedding, at least pretending to be interested in the details.”

He gave her a wry look. “Never knew I could fake anything the way I have listening to her and your grandmother go on and on about flowers and food, though.”

“It’s been an admirable performance, all right. And the way you stood by Gabi when you found out she was pregnant,” she added. “You were a great dad then.”

He gave her a long, sad look. “Haven’t done so well by you, though, have I?”

“I haven’t hit any major roadblocks, thank goodness.”

“Not even with your career?” he asked carefully. “Isn’t that why you were asking me about whether I’d ever had doubts about mine?”

She regarded him with surprise. “Who knew you were so insightful? I never expected you to get that.”

“My goal is to keep surprising all of you,” he said, a rare teasing note in his voice. “So, is everything going the way you want it to? I have a clipping service, you know. They send me any items about you that appear in the New York papers. Seems as if there haven’t been too many recently.”

“You hired a clipping service?” she asked, stunned.

“Your mom kept up with any reviews or mentions, but after she died, it seemed like the best way to see for myself what you were up to. I probably haven’t said it nearly often enough, but I’m proud of you, Samantha.”

He’d nearly left her speechless. “Thank you,” she murmured, fighting tears.

“So, how are things?”

“Not so great, as a matter of fact. I just can’t figure out if it’s time to throw in the towel.”

“The time to quit anything is when you no longer feel the same passion for it,” he said. “There are people who work because they know they need the money, and there are people whose very soul depends on doing the kind of work they’ve chosen.”

“That’s how I felt about acting,” Samantha said.

“Past tense,” he noted.

She drew in a deep breath, then nodded. “Past tense. I want more. I just don’t know exactly what.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he said with confidence. “You know how I know that? Because of the way you made the decision to go to New York. Everyone thinks that Gabi and Emily are the orderly, focused, ambitious ones in the family, but you set the example.”

“I did?”

“You bet. When your mother and I challenged how you were going to make it in such a risky profession, especially since you were determined to choose it in lieu of college, you organized facts and figures. You came to us with a plan, a timetable, financial prospects. You left us without a single doubt that you’d be okay if we’d just back you for one year.”

Samantha had forgotten how sure she’d been of herself back then. She’d known she was talented. She’d believed she’d make it, despite all the odds stacked against her in a tough, competitive world. Now she no longer had that faith or that drive. It was time, she concluded, to quit.

Could she come back here, though, without an equally solid plan? She couldn’t base such a decision on things working out with Ethan. They might not. This decision had to be about her, what she wanted for her future.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He regarded her with surprise. “I helped?” he asked, sounding astonished.

“You did.”

“Be sure to tell your grandmother about that. I could use a few brownie points with her.”

“Will do,” she promised.

“I’d better get up to bed,” he said. “You’re okay out here?”

“I’m fine. Be careful going through the house, though. Emily and Boone fell asleep in the living room in the middle of an argument.”

“Oh, boy,” he muttered. “Do I want to know what’s going on?”

“Probably not. I think they’re working it out, but stay tuned. Who knows what morning might bring?”

She wasn’t even certain what might lie ahead for her, much less for her sister.

* * *

Ethan didn’t show up for Sunday brunch. Though there were a couple of dozen people gathered in clusters all over the backyard, enjoying Jerry’s improvised omelet station, pecan waffles and homemade grits, the absence of one person was giving Samantha heartburn.

“I pushed him too hard last night,” she grumbled to Gabi.

“Pushed him how?”

“I told him he needed to open his heart, take a chance on love. I should have known he’d decide I had an ulterior motive. I scared him off.”

Gabi laughed. “I don’t think Ethan scares that easily. I’m sure there’s another explanation.”

“Has he spoken to Grandmother? Sent his regrets to Boone or Emily?”

“Sweetie, you’re asking the wrong person,” Gabi said. “Just ask one of them if they’ve spoken to him.”

“Asking would only make me look pathetic,” Samantha said.

“Okay, I’m officially confused,” Gabi said, a twinkle in her eyes. “Is this about you having hurt Ethan’s feelings with something you said last night, or is it about him hurting yours by not showing up today?”

“Oh, bite me,” Samantha said irritably. “I know I’m not making a lot of sense.”

“Sense rarely has much to do with falling in love,” Gabi said.

“I am not falling in love with Ethan,” Samantha said hurriedly, because she felt she needed to. Maybe if she could convince everyone else of that, she’d believe it herself. It was absolutely the worst possible time for her to fall in love with anyone, much less Ethan, who had complication written all over him.

“How about a big glass of orange juice?” Gabi said.

“What? I don’t think OJ, for all of its nutrients, is the answer.”

“Oh, come on,” Gabi urged. “It’ll make you feel better, especially if you lace it with enough champagne. I hear Jerry makes a really potent mimosa.”

“You’re drinking mimosas? What about nursing the baby?”