With This Kiss (19 page)

R
ebecca hadn’t thought she’d leave Celeste’s cottage more shocked than she was the previous morning. She could hardly believe the man Celeste had loved with her whole heart and soul had conned her. That he’d left her pregnant. And alone.

Rebecca’s tea had gone cold in her cup by the time she finally said to Celeste, “That’s why my bedroom is haunted, isn’t it?”

Celeste had simply stood up to clear the teapot and cups away, neither confirming nor denying the ghost—or its cause.

But Rebecca knew.

She
knew.

Her head spinning, she headed back to the inn. She was due to start her workday in an hour or so, but she wanted to go up to her bedroom first and look around. See if it looked different now that she knew what had happened in that room to change everything.

True love had come.

And then disappeared.

And yet, she pondered as she took the back stairs so that she could be alone with her thoughts rather than bump into any guests, Celeste was clearly a strong woman who seemed happy with her life.

Sean’s grandmother could have so easily given up at that point. How had she managed to survive—and push past—it all?

But that was a question for another day. A day when Celeste was good and ready to tell Rebecca more.

Knowing that day was certain to come made the wait a little easier.

Of course, when she got back to her bedroom, now that she was looking for clues to a ghost, now that she was waiting to feel the chill, to hear the horrible sounds, there was nothing to be found.

The bedroom was just like any other at the inn.

Still, Rebecca found herself pulling a chair up to the window, the same window Celeste had looked out for three days, waiting and watching for Charlie to return.

Despite all the signs to the contrary, Celeste hadn’t given up.

Rebecca watched the cars slowly move from one side of Main Street to the other. She saw young mothers pushing their babies in strollers. Store owners unlocked their front doors and began the process of opening up for the day.

And she suddenly knew that she couldn’t give up either.

There was a reason she hadn’t started making those phone calls to cancel the Tapping of the Maples Festival: she was going to fight the petition.

Her sense of purpose back, Rebecca felt much better. How quickly she’d fallen into her old ways. How quickly
she’d given up after hearing what Mr. Radin had to say. She’d thought she was changing, that she wasn’t going to run scared from anything anymore, but when put to the test, she’d crumbled like a dry ball of dirt in a child’s fist.

Her excitement about the festival came rushing back as she began to compile a list in her head of preliminary phone calls to make. She didn’t know for sure if she could actually convince the Adirondack Preservation Council to give her a chance, but she sure as heck could give it everything she had.

She was going to take that life test again… and this time if she failed, at least she’d know that she’d tried her hardest.

Sean owed her.

Rebecca had thrown herself in front of an emotional bus for him last night at his parents’ house. One way or another, Sean was going to give her back her festival.

Not only had he already made a dozen calls this morning, but he was quickly becoming intimately knowledgeable about the ins and out of the Adirondack Preservation Council. He’d spent most of the previous night after returning from the dinner at his parents’ house—the less thought about that, the better—scouring the Internet for information about park policy.

And, more important, its loopholes.

His head legal counsel hadn’t been surprised to hear from him this morning—they’d been on the phone constantly during the past few weeks as he’d sold his company—but Frank had clearly been caught off guard by what Sean was having him look into.

Sure, he knew Rebecca would be all right if the festival
didn’t happen. She’d still do her job as innkeeper to the utmost. She’d still laugh and smile at all the right places with the guests. But none of those things were enough.

Because her natural sparkle had almost been extinguished yesterday after Mr. Radin had trampled all over her festival.

Sean Murphy had never cared about a woman’s sparkle before. In twenty years, he’d done his best to stay away from serious relationships with women, and any flickers of sparkle he’d come across had been nothing more than a quick flash in a lover’s bed.

But nothing he’d done, nothing he’d told himself, had made him immune to the power of Rebecca’s smile. Seeing it fall, watching the sparks go out in Rebecca’s eyes, was nothing short of heartbreaking.

Heartbreaking enough to make him start to wonder if he actually still had a heart.

An hour later, Rebecca’s renewed excitement had pretty much fizzled out. She’d spent the past sixty minutes hitting one brick wall after another with not only the Adirondack Park’s commission but the preservation council as well.

And for some crazy reason, the one person she wanted to talk to about it was Sean. He hadn’t wanted her to work on the festival, initially, but hadn’t he used the word
we
last night?

Maybe he would be willing to brainstorm some ideas with her.

She didn’t want to give up this time, damn it!

She called his room, but there was no answer, so she went downstairs to look for him. Jean was checking out a guest when Rebecca asked, “Have you seen Sean?”

Jean nodded out to the front porch. “He’s been outside on the phone for a while.”

Rebecca’s heart did a funny little flip before diving toward her stomach. She and Sean hadn’t kissed last night, but there’d been a sensual tension between them that she could no longer deny. And every time she saw him, every time they spoke, that awareness, that attraction grew stronger.

Strong enough to scare her.

But she was done being scared, wasn’t that what she’d just decided upstairs only moments ago?

Most important, he hadn’t kissed her. Because he was still in firm possession of his self-control. And she had a feeling he rarely, if ever, lost control. Which meant it was perfectly safe to go outside and talk to him.

Sean wasn’t on the porch, but she could hear his voice coming from the rose garden off to the side of the porch. In the summer and early fall, the arbor was the favorite place for brides to marry their true loves. In the thaw of spring, the sticks were still all bare, but Rebecca found the garden to be lovely just the same, with its promise of new growth and beauty.

He was standing beneath the arbor, looking out at the lake, and the sight of him standing in the exact spot where so many grooms had stood before had her breath catching in her throat.

Her brain started playing tricks on her, changing the scene so that Sean wasn’t wearing jeans and a button-down long-sleeved shirt anymore. He wasn’t on the phone. It was no longer spring.

Instead, she saw roses in full bloom all around him. He was wearing a tuxedo with a rose tucked into his lapel.

And he was waiting for her to walk toward him in a beautiful, long white gown… looking at her with more love than she’d ever seen in anyone’s eyes.

Oh god. What was wrong with her brain? Why was it playing this trick on her? Why was it showing her a vision that seemed impossibly real? So real she could actually still smell the roses in the air, when she knew darn well there wasn’t a single flower petal in sight.

Telling herself he clearly wasn’t done with the phone yet—and that was the only reason she was leaving, not that she was running away again—she’d half turned around when a snippet of his conversation floated over to her.

“Will the entire council be there this afternoon?”

Council? Whom was he talking to?

Last night during dinner he’d used the word
we
, but that was when she hadn’t yet decided that she was going to fight the petition herself.

Was he fighting for her anyway?

“Good,” he said to the person he was speaking to. “We’ll be there at four p.m.”

Hanging up, he turned around and found her standing there staring at him.

“Rebecca, I was just about to come look for you. We have a meeting with the preservation council at four p.m. today to present the counterpetition for your festival.”

She was stunned. Beyond stunned. “I’ve been trying for the past hour to get someone to talk to me there. How were you able to get them to see us?”

But she could see from his expression that he was going to tell her it was no big deal. Only, it was.

“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday. For the way I said
it.” She’d been so mean with her, “
You’ll be pleased to hear that the festival is off.
”

Only now, she knew for sure what she’d suspected since the start: beneath Sean’s walls, the barriers he’d erected all around himself, he was a good man. Truly good.

“I don’t want you to ever apologize for being honest, Rebecca. You were angry. I had told you to drop the festival more than once. You had every reason to assume I’d be happy about it.”

She wanted to ask him why he was helping her, but the slope was already way too slippery where he was concerned. At this point, if he said even the slightest nice thing to her, she was liable to launch herself at him and plant kisses all over his gorgeous face.

Knowing that focusing on the festival would be her only savior at this point, she said, “We’ve got a lot of work to do before four, haven’t we?”

He nodded, that hint of a smile playing around his lips. “Let’s get to it.”

At which point she forced herself to focus only on their work… and not on how badly she wanted to turn that hint of a smile into a full one.

Sean couldn’t believe it, but he simply hadn’t thought things through.

He’d made a lucrative career out of thinking things through. He didn’t make mistakes.

But somehow, Rebecca was changing everything.

He wasn’t the least bit disappointed by her intelligence or by how hard she was willing to work. Heck, he would have liked to have had a few more people like her on his staff before he had sold his company.

But he hadn’t realized—nor had he wanted to accept—just how hard it would be for him to keep his own focus on the job at hand. Especially when she was sitting so close. Close enough for him to breathe in her sweet scent. Close enough to reach over and curl his fingers around hers as they cruised down one of the back roads on their way to their meeting.

He could tell she was nervous by the way she was sitting ramrod straight in the passenger seat with her hands firmly clasped in her lap.

“Tell me about growing up at Emerald Lake, Sean.”

He didn’t like to think back on his childhood. And, perhaps, if she’d asked him another time, he wouldn’t have told her anything at all, apart from the generalizations that anyone could assume.

But he wanted her to relax. And he knew talking about his travels was something she enjoyed. Only, this was the first time she’d asked him about his hometown, rather than some foreign locale she was longing to see.

The sudden urge to make that wish come true—to do so much more for her than help her get her maple-tapping festival back off the ground—hit him hard and fast. Harder so for all that it was unexpected.

“Stu said you and he used to sail every Sunday during the summer races.”

“We did. Did he ever take you out in the
Flying Scott
?”

“Once.”

“Only once?”

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a natural sailor. After getting his instructions about the mast or the stern or whatever it is backward, it nearly hit him in the head and we ended up tipping over in the middle of the lake.”

“Beginners make that mistake every time. You didn’t go out and try again?”

“I should have. It just seemed easier not to, I guess. You know, that way Stu could have a good sail without worrying about me.”

He was on the verge of offering to take her sailing again once the ice on the lake melted. But he wasn’t planning on staying in Emerald Lake that long.

He had to clear his throat before saying, “Our father taught us to sail. To this day he’s still one of the best sailors I’ve ever met. Thirty knots coming at him and he doesn’t even blink, just grins and hikes out into the wind.”

“I like your father a lot.”

He could hear the affection in her voice. “He’s a good man,” he agreed, his words gruffer than he had wished.

“Why don’t you go hiking or fishing with him, Sean? He wants so badly to spend time with you.”

Her hands had come unclasped now and she was turned to face him instead of staring so steadily out the window. He should have been upset that she was poking into his private life, but he found that he was simply glad to have helped her forget about their meeting for a few minutes.

And a part of him liked knowing that she cared.

He took a deep breath and blew it out before admitting, “My relationship with my father is complicated.”