Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (10 page)
A middle-aged man slid onto the stool beside her and started small talk while the bartender made a mixed drink for a woman with bottle-blond hair and too much mascara. She laughed at something the bartender said, and he winked as he set the drink down in front of her.
Sam sipped while she talked to the man beside her. Phil was peeved with his wife, and the more he imbibed, the more peeved he was.
By the time she finished her third beer, she was feeling mellower herself. The alcohol was a welcome anesthetic, numbing her pain. This place felt more like home than the old cottage.
When Phil left, the bartender opened a new bottle for her and leaned against the distressed wooden countertop. “So what’s your name, gorgeous?”
She was far from gorgeous, but who was she to argue? It felt good to have the attention of an attractive man. Someone who was less threatening than Landon.
“Samantha.” The name sounded more feminine than its shorter version, and she wanted to feel feminine just then.
“I’m Anthony, but everyone calls me Tully.” His smile was contagious.
“As in Cap’n Tully?”
“One and the same. What brings you back to the island?”
For a moment she wondered how he knew, then she remembered telling him earlier. Sam figured she’d better make this beer her last tonight if she wanted to keep her wits. “I’m getting my house ready to put on the market . . . you know, painting and stuff.” Her words came out with effort, but her tongue was loose. “I live in Boston with my daughter. It’s a good place to live. Lots to do, and there’s always the Red Sox.”
They talked about baseball and Boston, and every so often Tully stepped away to wait on a customer. But he always came back, planting his elbows near her beer bottle. Once when Tully stepped away, a kid barely old enough to be in the bar hit on her. Tully came back and told the kid to take a hike.
Sam’s third bottle was empty, and she knew she’d had enough, so she set her chin in her palm and talked. Tully’s humor and charm made the darkness of the cottage and her anxiety over Landon seem so far away, she wasn’t sure they were real. For a moment, Landon’s face flashed in her mind, but she focused on Tully. Thinking about Landon was confusing.
When Tully asked her to go out on his boat with him the next Saturday, she was too mellow to say no. He seemed harmless enough, and a day of fun sounded like a good idea. Besides, she didn’t need Landon. She just needed a distraction.
L
andon stepped around the stacks of boxes and bags on Sam’s back porch, propped the screen door open with his foot, and knocked. He had the distinct impression she’d been avoiding him since he asked her out, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.
Caden answered the door. “Hi, Landon. Come on in. Mom’s in the kitchen.”
“How’s it going?” he asked Caden.
“Okay. Is Max outside?”
Landon smiled. “Sure is. He’s waiting for you.”
Caden slid out the door, and Landon stepped into the kitchen, where Sam kneeled on the floor, stuffing a box with everything she took out of the gaping cabinet.
“Can I help?”
Sam sighed. “I’ve got it covered. Just cleaning out cabinets.” She continued working, not sparing him a glance.
He ignored the hint. Landon grabbed a box and began filling it, watching Sam’s back go straight like a perturbed cat’s. Why did she have to be so difficult?
Most of the pans and dishes were in pretty good shape, though mismatched. He supposed that kind of thing mattered to most women. “Don’t you want to keep any of this?”
“Nope.”
They worked in silence for a while. Landon wondered if Sam had second thoughts about turning him down. He knew she felt something between them too. Didn’t she want a relationship? A husband? A father for Caden?
As premature as it sounded, given Sam’s very recent return to his life, Landon hoped to take the relationship in that direction. Even that last summer, he’d been thinking forever when it came to Sam. She was every bit the challenge now that she had been, but then, he’d never been one to give up easily when something mattered.
Maybe if it was less like a date and more like an outing, she’d be more open. He’d keep at it until she said yes. Deep down, he knew she wanted to, though he couldn’t figure out what held her back. He’d never met anyone so closed. The door to her heart was like a vault door, thick and impenetrable. If he wanted to win her over, he’d better move fast, because at the rate she was emptying those cabinets, she’d be gone before he knew it. He couldn’t help but take it personally.
“You’ve been working too hard. Why don’t we take a day off Saturday? We could go to the surf side and teach Caden how to ride the waves. She’d have a blast.”
Sam shifted the dish towels around in the box to make room for an electric frying pan. “I don’t think so, Landon.”
He waited for an excuse, like all the walls needed a coat of paint, but she didn’t offer one.
“How about just the afternoon, then? We could tape and trim in here in the morning, have a relaxing afternoon at the beach, and grab a quick supper on the way home. I’ll help you paint after we eat. I’ll bet we could get the whole inside painted over the weekend.”
Sam stood and opened an upper cabinet, shoving the filled box to the side with her foot. “I can’t.”
“I know you have a lot of work to do, but—”
“It’s not the work, Landon.”
Though she continued to empty the cabinet of glasses and bowls, he sensed hesitancy in her tone. Why couldn’t she say what she meant?
He shoved a strainer into a box and stared up at her. “What, then?”
A long pause. “I have a date Saturday.”
Landon watched her filling the box. He’d asked her out the night before last, and she hadn’t had a date then. Or had she? Maybe that’s why she’d turned him down. He found himself hoping that was it.
“Since when?” he asked.
She wet her lips. “Last night.”
Nice. She’d turned him down and accepted someone else’s offer. Heat crawled up the back of his neck, making the hairs stand on end. He shoved a stack of pan lids into the box, and they clattered loudly.
He felt her watching him, but he wasn’t interested in eye contact. Who was it? Someone she knew when she lived here? Someone she just met? And where could she meet someone, when she’d hardly left the property since she arrived?
He folded the flaps of the box and kicked it away, then grabbed an empty one and filled it mindlessly. He was acting like a petulant child but couldn’t seem to help himself. “Who with?”
She went back to work. “I don’t think you know him. His name’s Tully.”
The name stopped him, a blender balanced in his hands. “Tully Sullivan?” His tone was sharp, but he was ticked.
She tossed him a glance. “You know him?”
He wanted to add that everyone knew Tully, or at least knew about him. The man was a player. Scott, who hung out at Tully’s bar, told Landon the man hit on anything in a skirt. And Landon thought he’d been arrested several years prior on assault charges.
“You could say that,” he said instead. He didn’t know which bothered him worse: the thought of Sam being preyed on by that jerk or the fact that Sam had chosen Tully over him.
He latched onto the latter thought. Sure, the guy had looks going for him, but he was a jerk. Is that the kind of man Sam wanted? He shoved the blender into the box and kicked it to the side. It was lighter than he thought, and it ricocheted off the refrigerator.
He had so much more to offer Sam. She deserved better than Tully, couldn’t she see that?
He tried to remember the nature of the assault charges filed against Tully. The details were vague. It seemed like a woman had filed them, though. He didn’t want Sam alone with a man like that.
He attempted a calm tone. “He’s not a good man, Sam.” An understatement at best.
Sam lifted her chin. “He seemed nice enough to me.”
“Of course he did—he was hitting on you.”
“Is that really what’s bugging you?”
Landon stood. “I’m not kidding. He had assault charges against him awhile back.”
“Really. What for?”
He put a hand against the countertop and leaned into it. “I don’t remember exactly.”
Sam turned away, emptying the cabinet of glasses.
“He’s bad news.”
“It’ll be fine. We’re just going out on his boat for the day. Broad daylight.”
“Doesn’t really matter if it’s broad daylight if there’s no one around for miles.”
She tucked the glasses into the box, working silently.
“And what about Caden?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll ask Miss Biddle to watch her.”
She had it all figured out. He’d offer to watch Caden himself, except he wasn’t about to enable the date.
Sam wasn’t sure how she expected Landon to respond, but this was a surprise. The way he leaned toward her, his brows shoved together, she knew he wasn’t going to let up.
“Don’t go, Sam. Call him and cancel.”
“I’m not canceling.”
“I don’t trust the guy.”
“Well, it’s not really your call, is it?”
He clenched his jaw and looked away.
For the first time, she wondered if there was any credence to the assault charges. Nantucket was a small community, and rumors could fly faster than a jet ski, but what if it was true? Maybe being alone on a boat with Tully wasn’t the smartest move. But she was eager to get out on the water, away from this place that smelled like Emmett. And she wanted Landon to forget about her. There were too many reasons they couldn’t be together. Reasons she couldn’t begin to explain.
Sam wasn’t sure she was capable of love, and she didn’t want to find out. He needed to find some nice girl who wasn’t damaged by life. Someone like Melanie.
“I’m serious, Sam. I don’t want you going out with the guy.”
His possessiveness hit a nerve. “Maybe you should come along and be our chaperone.” She was being sarcastic, but as the thought rolled off her tongue, she wondered if she’d hit upon something. “Seriously, why don’t you invite someone, and we’ll make it a double date.” It would relieve her anxiety about being alone with Tully and give Landon a chance to go out with someone else. She congratulated herself on the idea.
A myriad of emotions flickered over his face. “What?”
“I’m sure Tully wouldn’t care. You could ask Melanie—unless you had someone else in mind.”
His jaw muscles twitched. He studied her until she had to look away. She put the remaining bowls in the box and set it on the floor. “What do you think?”
“Melanie and I are just friends.”
Perhaps. But that could change given the right conditions. She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Sam grabbed a fresh box for the cleaning supplies under the sink, but Landon blocked her way. “Excuse me.”
Landon moved aside, and she kneeled to empty the cabinet.
“You’re still planning to go?”
At this point, she wasn’t giving in even if she was wrong. “Yes.” If the word came out a little sharp, so be it. He was too stubborn for his own good. She’d given him an opportunity to fix things.
The room filled with silence except for the sounds of her loading the box. She heard Caden outside telling Max to fetch, then praising him.
“Fine. I’ll ask Melanie.”
It was what she wanted, so why did a pain start just under her left rib? She tipped her chin up. “Great,” she said with all the enthusiasm she could dredge up.
“O
h my goodness, it’s like a yacht!” Melanie slid on her sunglasses.
“Not bad,” Sam said.
Landon’s prayer for rain on Saturday went unanswered. Instead, he found himself standing on the marina pier between Sam and Melanie while white puffy clouds drifted across a bright blue sky. The smell of dead fish and salt water lingered in the air.
When he called Melanie, he’d tried to make the invitation sound like a friendly outing with Sam and Tully instead of a double date, but she’d seen right through it.
“You still care for Sam, don’t you?” she’d asked.
Was he so transparent? Now he felt like a fool for asking her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called.”
There was a moment of silence. Landon cringed. He deserved to be told off.
“I have an idea,” she said. “Why don’t I go along on the outing anyway? Maybe seeing you with me will make Sam see what she’s missing.”
And that’s how the plan had been set in motion. Melanie was a sweetheart to do this for him.
Now, as he stood on the dock and watched the Ocean Alexander Flushdeck rock in the water, his legs trembled. Memories of the night Bailey drowned flashed like an omen in his mind, turning his stomach.
Come on, Reed, pull it together
.
“Hey, everyone.” Tully exited the cabin, ducking his head as he cleared the threshold. “Come aboard.” Tully helped Melanie, then he took hold of Sam’s hand.
The relaxed smile on her face hit Landon hard. She looked as carefree as a young girl. Why could Tully make her feel that way when he couldn’t?
“Welcome aboard
Lady Love
. You can have a seat on deck or join me on the flybridge. I’ll show you around once we get to Martha’s Vineyard.”