Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) (7 page)

Zane mimed shooting a basketball through a hoop. “Sounds like a slam dunk.”

“Nope. Everyone in the Morrissey family went to an Ivy League school. Her dad put his foot down. Insisted Piper do the same.”

“Seems counterintuitive not to let his daughter get the best training possible.” A snort of laughter. “And I don’t recall any movies where Harvard or Princeton students trudged through the snowdrifts to their grape-growing classes.”

“Yeah, no. But Cornell does have a decent program. Not as good as Davis, but good enough, especially when paired with a business degree the way her dad insisted. Piper was devastated.”

Ward chunked at the nearest tree with the toe of his boot. Maybe he shouldn’t still be so mad, ten years later. Maybe he shouldn’t have to cross to the opposite side of the street every time he saw Patrick Morrissey to keep from giving in to the urge to kick his balls so high up his throat they’d look like tonsils. But he did. Whoever hurt Piper, blood relation or not, had a permanent spot on Ward’s blacklist.

“She’d been dreaming of flying off to California for years. And when she showed the application to her parents, they ripped it up.”

“Quite the sensitive parenting approach.” Along with the clenched jaw, the professor now had a matching distended vein over his temple.

“Piper was all torn up. Ran out of her house, and kept running until she ended up over at my family’s barn. That’s where I found her. Held her while she fell to pieces. I couldn’t take it. The sound of her crying about broke me. I didn’t know what to do, how to make it all better. So I kissed her.”

Zane stood to high-five Ward. “Typical guy logic. I probably would’ve done the same thing. Did she stop crying?”

“Yeah.” Instantly. The tears dried up. The sniffles and cries replaced by pants and moans. Neither one of them had realized how much bone-deep attraction was at play until they acted on it. He’d never tasted anything sweeter than Piper’s kisses. Had never felt such an intense connection just from making out. Or maybe that was the perk of being best friends from the beginning. “We were inseparable from that night on. For more than a year. Then...everything fell apart.”

Zane threw him a frustrated, guilt-inducing look. Probably the same one he leveled at any students who blew off an assignment. “I’m gonna need more than that.”

Everything he’d said up to this point wasn’t news. Ward had told the story of how he and Piper got together lots of times. And he’d certainly discussed her douche-bag father before. But from this point forward, it was all new territory. New and
hard
territory. He planted his back against the tree to face the lake again and bent his knees, sliding until he sat at its base. And reminded himself that hopefully, at the end of all this talking, Zane would help him figure out how to handle Piper.

“I led the football team to four straight play-offs. When I got a full ride to college, the town threw me a parade.”

A deep, long laugh rumbled out of Zane. It finally stopped abruptly. “You’re joking. You’ve got to be joking.”

“Aside from the dead guy who inspired this spot—” Ward waved his hand behind him toward the mailbox “—nobody else from Seneca Lake is famous.”

“Ah. They thought you’d bring reflected glory to this humble burg. They’d all get to live your fame vicariously.”

“More or less. They felt like they had buy-in, I guess? Everyone pitched in to give me a stipend for textbooks. They were sure I’d be drafted. Hell, my coach at college was sure too.”

“What happened?”

There it was. The big question. For just a second, Ward remembered how much easier it was when everyone in town hated him and nobody pushed him to talk about himself at freaking all. He pulled a knee to his chest and draped his arm over it. “I was young. I was an idiot. I let it all go to my head.”

“Again, gonna need specifics.”

“Piper and I were doing the long-distance thing. The scholarship covered my tuition, room and board, but I needed to save up to visit Piper, so I worked in a distillery part-time. Between that, practice and studying, I didn’t have time to deal with girls. Until one night, I was lonely. Feeling sorry for myself with my girlfriend being so far away. I caved. I let this pretty little blonde thing kiss me.”

To his credit, Zane didn’t glare at him or flinch in judgmental surprise. “How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

Zane kicked Ward’s running shoe. “For God’s sake, cut yourself some slack. Everybody does something stupid at that age.”

Cutting slack for stupidity that only affected yourself was easy. That covered speeding tickets. Failing an exam because you were too damn cocky to study. When other people got hurt by your jackass choices, that was another thing entirely.

“Not everyone is stupid enough to get caught. Piper had driven out to surprise me. Which she did. Surprised her too, to find me in the hallway of my dorm with my arms wrapped around another girl. It was all over but the shouting.”

Lots and lots of shouting. Tears. Swearing. Rinse. Repeat.

After a long, sucked-in breath, Zane said, “That doesn’t explain why, to this day, some of the town still gives you the side-eye. People here must date and break up all the time. Ella and Casey got past your breaking Piper’s heart, right?”

“It was rough for a while.” Like doing a shot straight from the still without letting it age. “But they worked hard to be fair to both of us. As Piper’s friends, they were pissed at my behavior. As my friends, they knew how bad I was hurting. My suffering went a long way to mending those fences.”

“If they could do it, then everyone else sure should’ve by now. Seems like a few die-hard idiots in this town are holding a grudge against you for no good reason.”

“You think that was all? Not by half.”

“Ah.” Zane got up, then came over to join Ward on the shore. “Go on, spit the rest out. Then we can be done with it. Because as much as it sucks for me to hear you describe your douche-baggery, I’m guessing that dragging this out is even less fun for you.”

“I felt even more sorry for myself. I’d lost the perfect girl. So I heaped idiocy on top of stupidity and got drunk. The next day, scouts for the draft were at practice. And I had the mother of all hangovers.”

“Did you play for shit?”

Ward snorted. “That’s an understatement. Played bad enough that the scouts wrote me off. Was so hungover and
off
that I didn’t pay attention. I lunged for the ball, hit a bench and tore the hell out of everything in my knee.”

Yeah, that memory came roaring back in Technicolor. The pain so bad it took his breath away more than a punch to the gut. Blood pooling on the floor. The weird silence hanging over the entire place, so quiet Ward could hear his coach’s strangled “Oh, shit” from the entire length of the field.

“I wasn’t just out of the draft that year. I was done forever. Yeah, the doctors said I could try a few more surgeries and maybe get back in long enough to get drafted, but I wouldn’t survive a full season. And I wasn’t dumb enough to risk crippling myself for a few good months, no matter how happy it would’ve made the people of Seneca Lake.”

“When you do something, you really pull out all the stops. Overall, that’s a good quality. But I’m guessing you don’t want to brag about how epically you managed to screw up that year.”

Ward rubbed at his knee. The ache in it never went away entirely. Always stiffer in the morning. It was why he jogged first thing, to loosen it up. But that daily pain was a constant reminder he didn’t need, and couldn’t ignore. “The town felt like I let them down, that I shamed them. They were embarrassed that they’d pinned all their hopes on me, made such a fuss, and I turned out to be an average fuckup.”

“Oh, there’s nothing average about what you did.” Zane elbowed him in the ribs. “It takes skill to mess up every aspect of your life simultaneously.”

“Thanks. Anyway, they were all furious. Cut off the money they’d been sending. The newspaper ran an editorial about how shameful my actions were. So many people clipped that and mailed it to me that I papered the entire door to my closet with it.” Because Ward figured it was better to be smacked in the face every day with the reminder of what he’d done. To face the pain and humiliation and regret each morning as a reminder not to come close to repeating it.

“And people are still mad about this? After ten whole years?”

“Not all of them.” Actually, not even most of them. Ward had to admit that attitudes had softened considerably. “There are a lot of good people here. I had to prove myself when I came back. But once I made it clear I was here to run a business, to contribute, they accepted me as a grown-up.” Then he shook his head. Exhaled hard. “Except that town pride runs deep. Some people took what I did personally. Like I’d cheated on their own daughter. Like I’d single-handedly lost the freaking Super Bowl. For the most part, it’s guys who hit their own peak in high school, and spend their lives reliving those glory days. And it burns them that I’m a part of that memory.”

“Seems to me like you’ve more than paid the price. You’re the one who lost the perfect woman. Who didn’t get to live the dream of being a professional athlete.”

“And they didn’t get to live the dream of saying they knew one.” Ward winged a stick as hard as he could. Which was pretty hard. After all, nothing had happened to his “golden arm.” Now he just used it to apply the Midas touch to turn grapes into whiskey and vodka.

“Have you forgiven yourself?”

What? Ward snapped his neck around to squint at Zane. “Are you qualified to be poking questions like that at me? Do you have a degree in psychiatry I don’t know about?”

“Don’t bite my head off. I thought you wanted help on figuring out how to woo Piper.”

“Stop using that word. There’s got to be a manlier word. I’m giving up on the whole plan unless you come up with something better to call it.”

With a wink and a leer, Zane replied, “Bed her and wed her?”

Who said anything about marriage? Ward wanted not to have Piper’s eyes flicker every time she saw him, as though she were slamming walls into place. “Let’s not go overboard. Look—” Ward scrambled up to grab the journal off the bench “—I’ll do anything. Obviously.” He tossed the heavy book onto the grass next to Zane.

More laughter. This time, Zane threw his head back and downright roared with it. “You’re using the journal?”

“Maybe.” That had been his plan, anyway, before Zane treated him like the closing act at a stand-up club. “It’s a time-honored tradition here on Seneca lake. Everyone—locals and tourists alike—ask questions in there all the time. Ask for advice. And the town answers.”

“But what if those same few people who still think you suck write in an answer? What if they intentionally try to make things worse for you two?”

“I’m not going to use names.” He might only have the one degree to the professor’s handful, but Ward still deserved more credit than that. “It’s anonymous. For just that reason.” And because if Piper found out, she’d probably never forgive him.

Zane rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be fun.”

“Cut it out. This is my life, not a sporting event you can bet on.”

“Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that. But I’ll bet Gray would throw some money in a pot with me. Casey, too. She’s scary competitive. I digress. Have you forgiven yourself?”

“What difference does that make?”

Zane stroked his chin as if he had a beard. “A non-answer is, in its own way, a definitive answer.”

“Professor, you’re killing me here.”

“I’m not being nosy. Or difficult. Not intentionally, at any rate. Those are just awesome side benefits. My point is that until you forgive yourself, you won’t be able to move forward. You’ll be constantly in apology mode.”

Ward didn’t have to look far to find someone who thought he owed Piper as many apologies as she wanted, for the rest of her life. He stared down at his reflection in the glassy water. “So?”

“I don’t think your goal is to make up for the past. Not your end goal.”

“What is it, then?”

“You want to figure out if you two have a future. Obsessing over the past will anchor you there, instead of letting you sail forward.”

Damn it. That was smart. Annoyingly so. Mostly because Ward didn’t know the answer to Zane’s question. Shit. Not even in college anymore, and the guy still managed to give him homework.

Chapter Five

Sometimes being an adult was no fun at all. Piper thought back to high school, when she shared classes with Ella and Casey, as well as cheerleading practice, drama club rehearsals and the hours they spent on the phone and the internet chatting every night. If she had something to tell them, the sharing, the squeals were almost immediate.

Whereas she’d been left hanging last night. Bursting at the seams like the overstuffed Keep Calm and Drink Wine pillow she kept on her bed, and unable to tell them any of it. Casey had led three local scout troops on an overnight hike through her forest. Ella had been pressed into helping decorate the Manor’s ballroom for tomorrow’s wedding when her entire events staff caught food poisoning.

And Piper had learned her lesson about late-night phone calls. She wouldn’t bother her friends—or their significant hotties—after bedtime ever again unless blood or bail was involved. So she’d poured a glass of so-so Cabernet (why waste excellent wine when she was too churned up to appreciate it?) and paced. Thought about a second glass, but even distracted, she could tell it wasn’t worth an immediate repeat. Piper spent the next hour scouring her kitchen and bathroom instead. Neither the wine nor the immaculate tilework had given her the satisfaction she’d craved.

Cosgrove General Store was quiet this early in the morning. The crazed coffee seekers from all around the lake wouldn’t show up en masse for another half hour. Her four-inch platform pumps tapped loudly against the wide planks of the floor as she strode past all the shelves of Seneca Lake tchotchkes and wine-related trinkets and maneuvered through high-top tables. She dropped her leather bag on the first stool near the counter. And nearly jumped right out of her shoes at the feel of a cold, wet nose snuffling at her ankles.

“Good morning, Mitzi.” Piper bent to give the wiener dog a simultaneous belly rub and ear scratch, her favorite combo. Right after the tinkle of the bell hanging from the screen door, rubber soles slapped their way the length of the store.

Piper didn’t need to look up. Tennis shoes meant Ella was here. If it’d been boots, it would’ve been Casey in her ugly Forest Service uniform. And a super-heavy boot clomp would be Ward. Live in the same small town with the same people, it got to the point where you knew many of them by their footfall. Piper loved that. She loved the comfort of knowing her friends were always nearby. Knowing she’d not only see them every day, but sometimes run into them two or three times a day. Their constant presence reassured her, wrapped around her with a warmth better than a fresh-from-the-dryer towel.

“Need more coffee,” Ella mumbled, brandishing a travel mug in front of her. “And more staff. Non-puking staff. Cross your fingers for that, okay?”

“Did you have to stay late decorating the Mayhew Manor ballroom last night?”

“
Late
doesn’t begin to describe it. Our bride folded
one thousand
origami cranes. Each one required twenty-seven steps.”

Piper was all for romance. And pretty decorations. But this crossed the line into crazy town. “Why would anyone do that? It must’ve taken forever.”

“They’re supposed to bring luck. They brought me three paper cuts.” Ella held up both hands, displaying bright red bandages that matched her diagonally striped red-and-white skirt. “I had to put seven at each place. You can’t carry a bag of a thousand cranes on your hip. Do you know how many trips it took back and forth to do that?”

“Is this a rhetorical question, or should I whip out my calculator and actually try to do the math?”

“No.” Ella pried the lid off her mug and shoved it beneath the coffee urn’s spout. “Too early for math, even for you and your business-savvy brain.”

“Sorry you had to do the cranes all by yourself. There is a bright side to it, though.” Piper joined her at the coffee bar. Friends didn’t let friends drink alone. That went for everything from margaritas to blueberry coffee. So she filled her favorite green stoneware mug to the rim.

“No. No, there’s not. Because once I finished with the cranes, I had to go back and place the favors. And the place cards.
And
tie the stupidly pretty brown organza bows around each chair.”

Poor Ella. She’d put in a full day of being on her feet, giving massages at the spa and
then
had to pitch in to cover a three-person decorating job. Piper crossed to the covered cake plate mounded with donuts at the end of the counter to pick out her friend’s favorites.

“The bright side is that, however lousy
your
night may have been, at least you didn’t eat the toxic clam pizza for lunch like your entire event staff. Paper cuts are nothing to whine about compared to spending a whole night clamped around a toilet.”

“Don’t try to cheer me up.” Ella toed out a stool and collapsed onto it. She hung her head over her steaming mug as if merely inhaling the caffeine would work miracles. “I deserve to whine. What’s the point of owning a hotel if you can’t order minions around to do all the dirty work?”

Casey tackle-hugged her from behind in lieu of saying hello. “Wow. You really are cranky. You only bring up minions when things are sucktastic.”

“I had one of the bellboys deliver crackers, soup and ginger ale to all of them at their homes. I’m not heartless. I’m just worn out.”

Piper plucked another plate from beneath the counter, knowing Casey would already be eying the pastry pile too. Great. Ella Mayhew was one of the sweetest-tempered women on the planet. She rocked a seriously bad mood about as rarely as a solar eclipse. Why did it have to be today, when Piper needed her so badly?

“You don’t know from worn out until you’ve had not one, not two, but
three
teenaged boys wake you up in the middle of the night because they’re scared a bear will attack them on the way to the bathroom. And by bathroom, I mean the tree a measly fifty yards away from the campfire.”

Ella swiveled around and sniffed at Casey’s shirt. “Is that what that smell is? Campfire smoke?”

“I am not even going to think about what you could be smelling on my shirt.” Casey shuddered and stepped back. “Teenaged boys are disgusting. And they talk a mighty good game in the parking lot, but get them deep in the woods on an eight-mile hike and they turn into a bunch of scaredy-cats. I’m going to stand in the shower until I run out of hot water. But first, coffee. Breakfast. Ooh, and I want to talk about something girly to whitewash my mind from boy stuff.”

Perfect. Piper pounced at the opportunity. “I need dating advice. Is that girly enough for you?”

“Technically, it involves boys, but I’ll let it slide. Especially since you almost never ask for our advice.”

Ella slurped from her mug. “More to the point, she never takes it.”

“I always listen to what you have to say. I fold in your arguments as carefully as folding egg whites into meringue batter. My opinion just carries more weight.”

“So we’re the light-as-air meringues, and you’re the heavy-as-lead cake disaster? You’re what...fruitcake?”

Not exactly where she was going with the analogy. “I really need your help this time.”

“This sounds serious.” Ella straightened up.

“It can’t be. Piper’s never serious about guys. Or never takes them seriously. Remember the one she dumped after only three dates because of his name?” Casey slid onto a stool and broke off a piece of the apple fritter on her plate.

Clearly, she’d have to run through the gauntlet of their teasing before she could get to the point. Piper went back to finish adding skim milk and a heavy sprinkle of cinnamon to her coffee. “His name made me giggle. I couldn’t say Elton without snickering, at the very least. How was I supposed to have sex or contemplate a future with a man when I couldn’t even say his name?”

Casey planted her tongue in her cheek. Or maybe it was the apple fritter. “I don’t know—maybe give it more than three dates? Practice makes perfect.”

“Life’s too short to waste on the wrong man.” That was always Piper’s answer. Especially because she was so sure she’d already found the right man, and lost him. She knew what it felt like to have her heartbeat race every time the right man walked in the room. She knew because it happened every darn time Ward Cantrell came near her.

Not
wanting
to want him didn’t make it go away. It didn’t change her bone-deep conviction that his dry humor, deep laugh and willingness to take chances made him opposite of her enough to be interesting, while still sharing a lot of the same viewpoints. Ward was the right man for her. The only thing he lacked was her trust, and Piper wasn’t at all sure she’d ever be able to give that back to him.

Ella snorted. “Is that what you told yourself when you refused to go out again with the one who got mad when you stole his dessert on the very first date?”

“I only nabbed one bite of his dessert, and it showed his true colors. If he’s willing to be so selfish on a first date, imagine what he’s like once you’re settled into a relationship?” Probably hogged all the covers. Ate all the points off pizza slices. Would make her pack her own tube of toothpaste on a road trip, instead of sharing to conserve precious suitcase space. All of those things would be intolerable.

“Well, if you’ve found someone you actually want to date and haven’t dismissed for some trumped-up reason, why do you need us to weigh in at all?”

“Yeah.” Casey grabbed another donut and brandished it in the air. “If he doesn’t have a criminal record and is employed
and
you haven’t found a reason to run him off yet? There’s no way we’d try to talk you out of dating him. Who is this paragon of male perfection?”

Piper almost did a spit take. And a giant coffee stain wouldn’t exactly blend in on her sage-green sheath dress. “He’s not perfect. He’s anything but perfect much of the time.”

“I like the sound of that.” Casey waggled her eyebrows. “So you’ve got the hots for a bad boy?”

Oh, yes. The ultimate bad boy. The town’s baddest boy, depending on who you asked. “Well, yes.”

“Go for it. Everyone should indulge in the fun of a bad boy as many times as possible before settling down.”

Ella’s green eyes turned dreamy. “I remember mine. Marco D’Onofrio, junior year of college. He was soooo hot. I thought he was off-the-charts bad because he went commando. Of course, later on I discovered he just never remembered to do laundry. That’s why you fling with bad boys, instead of committing to them.”

Flipping her hands at Piper, Casey ordered, “Go. Fling.”

Exasperated laughter spilled from Piper. “Will you let me get a word in edgewise? This isn’t a fling. I’m not entirely sure what it will be, but I’m positive it won’t be a fling. If I agree to his terms. If I do it at all.”

“You’re babbling,” Ella noted. “You almost never babble. That’s my territory you’re invading. Who’s got you so tied up in knots?” They both stared at her with wide, expectant eyes.

Now that she had the silence to fill, Piper hesitated to fill them in the rest of the way. Right now it was a secret. A choice to make. Once she told Ella and Casey, it took on a life of its own. And she could admit to herself that she was scared. Scared to do it. Scared not to do it. Scared of every possibility. Scared enough to grab for a calorie-laden double chocolate glazed and stuff a quarter of it in her mouth.

“Ward Cantrell,” Piper mumbled.

Casey made a tsking noise. “Ugh. Did you talk to Ward about this first? Did he get all in your head?”

“You should’ve come straight to us,” Ella piled on. “Ward isn’t exactly, um, objective when it comes to your dating life.”

Their sweet support was making this ten times more difficult. “I didn’t ask Ward for advice. Ward is the one who asked me out.”

Casey slapped her hands on the counter and sprang to her feet. “No!”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“It’s wonderful,” Ella squealed.

Almost simultaneously, Casey grinned and said, “It’s about time.”

Not at all what Piper expected to hear from them. Quite the opposite, in fact. “Whoa. Just slow down. Why are you both jumping on the Ward bandwagon?”

Casey looked surprised by her line of questioning. “He’s our best friend too. We love him to bits. Why shouldn’t we want our two best friends to end up together?”

“Don’t forget how he looks. All those muscles and those intense eyes.” Ella let out what was probably supposed to be a purr, but sounded more like a hairball stuck in her throat. “Ward is one hundred percent yummy. You couldn’t do better.”

Why did nobody seem to remember her abject misery and two years of utter heartbreak caused by Ward? No matter how selfish, Piper wanted one of her friends to be just as shocked, just as outraged as she was that he’d dared to even ask such a thing. To set aside completely—for a minute—their friendship with Ward and just be
her
friends. “You haven’t even heard all the details.”

“Sorry.” Casey got up and filled a mug covered with chalkboard paint. Then, as usual, she sketched on a lopsided pine tree. “But this isn’t a proposal story. We don’t have to know what you were wearing and where he was standing. He asked you out. You, as usual, are thinking it to death first instead of just saying yes. What more do we need to know?”

Piper balled her hands on her hips. Challenge accepted. “How about that this isn’t a fling, and it isn’t just a date, either? Ward wants me to promise to date him for one month. At the end of it, he’ll let me lease some of his acreage to start my port line.”

“He’s sneaky.” Ella’s tone was as full of admiration as though Ward had presented Piper with a pair of Louboutin heels. Which, truth be told, probably would’ve gotten her to a yes much faster. Bribery was a classic because it worked.

“He’s cagey. Wily.” Casey stabbed her arm into the air. “I’m going to start calling him Wile E. Coyote Cantrell.”

With a shake of her head that sent her brown hair tumbling over her shoulders, Ella corrected her. “He’s brilliant.”

Oh, for God’s sake! “He’s certifiably crazy,” Piper huffed out. “You can’t force someone to fall in love with you just by spending time with them. If that was all it took, I’d have to switch teams and marry the girl who does my manicures every week.”