First Time in Forever Page 23

  He suspected she’d lowered the water level by swallowing half of the pool, but he respected her determination to do it by herself.

  He dropped his grandmother at her book group, but instead of driving back to the Ocean Club, he parked outside Summer Scoop.

  The store was closed, and Lisa answered the door with a glass of wine in her hand. “Ryan!” She opened the door to let him in. “Emily is here. We’re having a Save Summer Scoop meeting.”

  He looked at the wine. “That involves wine?”

  “It definitely does. Emily brought it. It’s delicious. Come and join us.”

  He followed Lisa into the small kitchen, noticing the toys piled hastily into a box in the corner. Emily had papers spread all over the kitchen table and her laptop open.

  This was an Emily he hadn’t seen before.

  She was dressed in skinny jeans and a turquoise T-shirt that hugged her curves. Distracted by those curves, Ryan lost orientation and banged into the door frame. Pain exploded through his shoulder, and he decided life had been more comfortable when she’d worn black, voluminous tops.

  He thought back to a disturbingly frank conversation they’d had the day before when she’d told him how hard it was to find clothes when you were big breasted. She’d explained that cute underwear was hopeless and that bras needed serious engineering to have any hope of offering support, and that when she exercised she had to wear two support bras. She’d explained that shirts that buttoned down the front were no good because they always gaped and that she couldn’t wear long necklaces because they dangled off her breasts.

  By the time she’d finished talking, he’d been relieved he wasn’t a woman.

  As he waited for the pain in his shoulder to die down, she lifted her head from the laptop and flashed him a smile.

  “Hi, Ryan.” She was keying numbers into a spreadsheet, her fingers swift. An untouched glass of wine sat by her elbow.

  “So—” dragging his gaze from her hair, he eyed the papers spread across the table “—you’re finding ways to attract tourists and put me out of business?”

  “Competition is healthy, Ryan.” Emily hit Save. “It will be good for you.”

  He was fairly sure that what would be good for him was a few hours with her naked in an oversize bed, but he kept that thought to himself. “I had no idea you had such a ruthless streak.”

  Lisa handed him a glass of wine. “She’s amazing. We’ve been looking at ways to reduce costs. Emily thinks I should talk to Doug Mitchell about the rent on this place.”

  Ryan thought about Doug, who never gave anyone anything for free if he could charge for it. “Doug isn’t known for his financial generosity or his gentle heart. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  “He’s a businessman.” Emily printed out a document. “He’s charging almost twice what he should, and if Summer Scoop closes, he won’t be getting any rent at all.”

  “Unless he finds another dreamer like me.” Lisa topped up her own wineglass.

  “You’re going to speak to him tomorrow.” Emily rescued the pages from the printer, clipped them together and slipped them into a file. “Show him these numbers.”

  “Can I do it on the phone with a script?”

  “It’s harder to say no to someone face-to-face. We can rehearse it, if it would make you feel better.”

  Lisa looked gloomily at Ryan. “I had no idea she could be this scary.”

  He didn’t answer. There was plenty about Emily he found scary, the biggest thing being just how much he wanted to drag her back to his place. “If it persuades Doug to reduce the rent, it will be worth it.”

  “If he does, then there might be some hope for me. Look at all these ideas.” Perking up, Lisa picked up a sheaf of papers. “Scoop of the Day. Every day we pick a different flavor and promote it. Happy Hour—half price ice cream between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. every day. Name an ice cream—every time you buy an ice cream, you enter into a competition to have an ice cream named after you.”

  Ryan wondered if anyone would buy an ice cream called “Hot and Desperate.”

  To distract himself, he glanced over Emily’s shoulder at the spreadsheet, and immediately her scent wrapped itself around him. “How will discounting increase profits?”

  “Because we’re going to drive more traffic toward the store.” Emily pushed a piece of paper toward him. “We’re going to ask the town council for permission to put a sign up next to the place where the ferry docks. Also to put some pretty tables and chairs outside, so that people can sit for a while and watch the boats.”

  Ryan refrained from pointing out that they could sit and watch the boats from the deck of the Ocean Club. “And when the fog rolls in and folks are trapped indoors?”

  “They can be trapped indoors here.” Visibly excited, Lisa started sketching out ideas using the twins’ art materials. “We’re going to paint the place and put tables and chairs inside. We’re going to have things for the kids to do, like coloring and jewelry making.”

  “Won’t that have a significant cost implication?”

  “It shouldn’t.” Emily made a note to herself. “Skylar knows plenty of suppliers.”

  “I thought her work was high end.”

  “It is now, but before she started designing jewelry for the rich and famous, she used to do the occasional children’s party. She’s very creative.”

  Lisa snapped the top off a blue pen. “And Emily’s biggest idea? A stand on the waterfront just beyond the harbor and near the beach.”

  Emily pushed a sketch toward him. “If they won’t come to the ice cream, then we’ll take the ice cream to them. What do you think?”

  It was so obvious Ryan wondered why no one had thought of it before. “You’ll need a food truck license.”

  The anxiety was back on Lisa’s face. “Will that be hard? Would they refuse me?”

  “I don’t see why, when everyone is so keen to see Summer Scoop work. And they gave a license to Chas when he wanted to serve gourmet burgers. Seems to me that gourmet ice cream right next door would make perfect sense. He might even be prepared to lease you the stand next to his. He owns both of them.” Ryan caught Emily’s eye. “Let me speak to a few people. Assuming there is no problem with the license and Chas is willing to help, who would run it? You don’t have the budget to employ anyone, do you?”

  Emily finished her wine. “Lisa could run it at lunchtimes and weekends when the island is at its busiest. I’ve been going through the numbers, and her quietest time here in the store is lunchtime—I guess because people are either already on the beach or they’re in one of the restaurants or cafés. If we get the go-ahead with the license, we’re going to try it for a month. See what happens.”

  “Leave it with me.” Ryan put the papers back on the table, and Lisa passed the wine across to him.

  “Drink. You’ve earned it. You’re now officially part of the rescue team. I’m especially grateful since I know we’re in competition.”

  “I can stand a little competition.”

  “In that case, next time you hold a lobster picnic on the beach, Lisa is going to provide the ice cream.” Emily pushed the laptop toward him. “Take a look at these numbers, and tell me if you can see anything I’ve missed.”

  He couldn’t see anything except those smoky green eyes and that soft mouth, but he forced himself to look at the screen. “Seems to me you’ve pretty much covered everything.” Up until now he’d only ever seen her out of her depth, literally and figuratively. It was interesting seeing her comfortable and confident. “Where’s Lizzy tonight?”

  “Snuggled in the twins’ bedroom.” Lisa topped up all the glasses. “Hard to know which of them is more excited. Lizzy looks so much like them, they could be triplets.”

  “She’s staying the night?”

  “No, I’ll scoop her up when we’re ready to go home.” Emily shut down the spreadsheet and closed the laptop. “Which I guess is now.”

  “You could leave her here and pick he
r up in the morning.” Lisa said it casually, but Emily shook her head.

  “We’re taking this a step at a time.”

  “You mean you’re taking it a step at a time.”

  She smiled. “You’re right, that’s what I mean. Letting Lizzy sleep over is a step I haven’t reached yet.”

  “Think what you’d be able to do with a whole night off.” Lisa grinned at her. “Adult company. Sleeping in.”

  “I have to go.” Trying not to think of what he’d do with Emily if he had her in his bed for a night, Ryan stood up. “I need to work late to make sure you’re not going to put me out of business.”

  Lisa laughed and walked him to the door.

  *

  “IT’S A CRIME that a man with a body like that should be allowed to wear clothes.” Lisa sat back down at the table. “That’s the worst thing about being a widow. No sex. Actually, it’s not the worst thing. The worst thing are the rules you don’t even know exist.”

  Emily slid her laptop back into her bag. Having Ryan there had seriously disturbed her concentration. “Rules?”

  “I call them Rules for Widows. Society has unwritten rules about when it’s decent to start seeing other men. The problem is that none of those rules take into account the quality of the relationship.”

  “You were unhappy?”

  Lisa stood up and walked to the bottom of the stairs, checking there was no sound from the bedroom. Then she closed the kitchen door carefully so there was no chance they could be overheard. “Miserable. My husband had three affairs that I know about, one when I was pregnant with the twins. There were plenty of times when I could have killed the bastard myself, so it makes no sense that I got lumbered with all this guilt when he died. Why should I feel guilty? I want to smack it out of myself.”

  “Oh, Lisa—”

  “Hey, life doesn’t always send us what we want, as we both know.”

  A month ago Emily would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now she didn’t even know what she wanted. The feeling of panic that had been her constant companion when she’d first arrived had receded to manageable levels. She and Lizzy had found an easy rhythm that was unexpected. But most unexpected of all was how much she enjoyed her swimming lessons with Ryan. Not just being with him, but the actual swimming. It gave her a feeling of strength to have overcome a fear that had been part of her life for so long.

  “Why did you choose Puffin Island?”

  “Because it had happy memories for me.” A dreamy look crossed Lisa’s face. “My parents brought me every summer. Dad was a marine biologist, and he worked at the university, so we used to come for the whole vacation. We hired a cottage near South Beach and did all the usual beach-based things. Poking around in tide pools, kayaking—I loved it. I spent a couple of summers at Camp Puffin, but the happiest one was when I turned seventeen.”

  “You met someone?”

  “Took me five minutes to fall in love.” She reached for her wine. “Do you remember that exciting feeling of discovering your own sexuality as a teenager?”

  For Emily, it hadn’t happened as a teenager, it had happened a few weeks before when she’d first met Ryan. And the discovery process was ongoing. She was beginning to think she didn’t know herself at all. “What happened?”

  “I met him a week before we were due to go back to Boston. Something clicked between us. I’d never met anyone I could talk to the way I could talk to him. We spent every moment together.” Lisa gave a humorless laugh. “I often wonder if that’s been the root of my problems. That one perfect week ruined me for anything afterward.”

  “You didn’t stay in touch?”

  “I tried. I sent him emails, but they bounced so I guess he gave me an email that didn’t work.” Lisa shrugged. “I thought about him all the time, but then I met Mike. I’ve often wondered if it was my fault he had all those affairs. Because I was too closed off. My heart hurt, and I didn’t want it to hurt again. Does that make any sense?”

  Emily thought about the way she’d protected herself after her sister had died. “Perfect sense.”

  “Maybe Mike knew there was a tiny part of me I kept from him.”

  “Or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Did you think about leaving him?”

  “All the time, but I didn’t want my babies to grow up without a father, and he was a good dad. If he’d been a terrible father I could have left for their sakes, but leaving for my own sake felt like the ultimate in selfishness.”

  “Is it selfish to want a good life for yourself?”

  “He was with one of his lovers when he died.” Lisa blurted the words out. “They had to cut both of them out of the car. I’m worried that one day the kids will look up the press coverage and find out the truth.”

  “Oh, Lisa—” Emily reached across and took her hand.

  “I just want to protect my babies.” Lisa’s eyes filled, and she groped for a tissue. “I want to stop anything bad happening to them. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

  Emily’s mouth was dry as sand. “Why is it ridiculous?”

  “Because you can’t control everything. It took me a long time to see that and realize there wasn’t anything I could have done. I couldn’t stop their father having an affair. I couldn’t stop him dying with his latest girlfriend in the car. I couldn’t stop the press finding out. All I could do was teach them to cope with whatever life threw at them. That’s the best lesson of all, isn’t it? I wanted to make sure they grew up strong and able to look after themselves. I didn’t want to fill their heads with my baggage because, life being what it is, I knew they’d probably pick up plenty of their own.”

  “Don’t talk to me about baggage.” Emily sat back in her chair. “I suspect Lizzy and I could fill a cargo plane with no space left over.”

  “But you have skills. You’re supporting yourself and Lizzy. I brought the twins here because I thought hard work and a dream would be enough. I wanted to get away from the sympathy and the pitying looks and live in a place where people didn’t know my rat bastard cheating husband had died in a car with his skinny lover.” She sniffed. “I wanted to show the twins I was strong, but all I’ve done is show them I have bad judgment. I’ve failed.”

  “What you’ve shown them is that you’re not afraid to go after what you want. And if it doesn’t work out, then you’ll find a way to pick yourself up, and that’s a good lesson for any child because life is about falling and then getting up again. But it’s going to work out. You’re not going to fall. Not this time.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.” Now that she knew the full story, she was even more determined to do what she could, even if she had to eat all the ice cream herself. “Providing Doug drops the rent and we can reduce some of your other costs, you’ll make enough to keep going. But we’re aiming for better than that. The boy you met that summer—you haven’t seen him since you’ve been back on the island?”

  Lisa shook her head. “No. And he isn’t a boy now. Late twenties, I guess.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Tall and dark. A bit like Ryan. He likes you, by the way.”

  “Ryan?” Emily didn’t think “like” described what was going on between them. “He was Brittany’s best man. He’s keeping an eye on me because she threatened to kill him if he doesn’t.”

  Lisa laughed. “Somehow I don’t think that’s what’s going on here. Are you interested?”

  Emily thought about the slow kisses and the wild heat.

  She was interested. And scared. The greater the emotion, the greater the capacity for hurt, and she knew this relationship could go nowhere.

  “I have Lizzy. That’s more than enough to adjust to for now. And children are the perfect contraception.”

  “True. On the other hand I might be able to help with that. Would you trust me with Lizzy?”

  “I have trusted you with Lizzy. She’s sleeping upstairs with your kids.”

  “I mean overnight. I swear if a photographer k
nocks on the door, I’ll kill him with my bare hands. Even if I didn’t already hate them after everything they printed about Mike’s accident, I wouldn’t let anything happen to Lizzy. I already love her.”

  “I trust you, Lisa. It isn’t you, it’s me. I have a problem with letting go.” Over a glass of wine, she’d told Lisa the truth about Lizzy’s identity, but she hadn’t shared the story about Katy. “I want to be there the whole time to protect her.”

  “Are you really worried the photographers will come here?”

  “Every day that passes makes it less likely. Ryan thinks the trail will have gone cold. That they’ve lost interest.”

  “So leave her with me,” Lisa urged. “Go on a date. Have a night of wild sex. Believe me, if that is ever an option for me, I’ll be dropping the twins with you!”

  A wild night of sex.

  Was she the only person in the world for whom sex had never been wild?

  Feeling inadequate, Emily shook her head. “That isn’t going to happen.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TWO DAYS LATER Ryan was on his way to deal with a problem at the marina when he saw Emily walking hand in hand with Lizzy toward the section of the harbor reserved for the boat tours. The child was talking nonstop, and Emily was listening attentively, occasionally nodding and interjecting.

  He compared it to the first day when she’d sat in the Ocean Club staring at Lizzy as if she were a bomb that might detonate at any moment.

  Instead of using the path down to the marina, Ryan diverted and joined them on the waterfront. “Taking a trip?”

  “Yes.” Lizzy was so excited she was almost dancing. “We’re going on the boat. I swam on my own yesterday for the first time, and now Emily is taking me to see the puffins before they fly away for the winter.”

  It was impossible not to respond to that excitement. Also impossible not to wonder how much of a treat it would be for Emily.