The desire to throw rationality to the wind and recklessly agree to stay was like a hook behind her belly button, tugging at her. But a lifetime of ingrained caution wouldn’t let her. And as much as she’d come to appreciate Sanctuary, she didn’t truly want to shrink her horizons to the edge of the island and never experience anything outside of it.
Although …
“I guess I don’t have to go back to D.C. at the end of the week,” she said, muffling the words against the wings of his collarbone.
She felt him draw in a breath. “But … your job. Do you have enough vacation days saved up to stay longer?”
Squirming slightly, Ella nudged his clavicle with her forehead and studied her own sandy toes. “Well. As it happens, I’m not actually on vacation, per se.”
His fingers tightened, individual points of pressure on her back. “Tell me what that means.”
Sighing out a breath, Ella turned her cheek to nuzzle into his chest and let her arms steal around his trim, hard waist. “I may have had a bit of a burnout issue. According to my boss. Who mandated that I take a leave of absence, which happened to coincide with Merry’s decision to come down here for a visit.”
“That’s why you accepted the leave of absence,” Grady guessed, with startling accuracy.
“I didn’t want to admit that he was right, that the way I was going, I was heading for a nervous breakdown.”
Grady ran a hand down her spine as if he were soothing a nervous cat, and Ella had to smile. “But now that you’ve had some time to take a break and catch your breath, you can see how stressed out you were back in the city.”
“Right.” Ella laughed. “Because reconnecting with my estranged mother, fighting with my sister, and starting a new relationship has been so relaxing!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she cringed. She’d never been with a guy who wasn’t, on some level, surprised to find out they were in a relationship, no matter how many dates they’d been on or how many times he’d slept over at her apartment.
Grady’s hand never stopped in its slow, rhythmic stroking of her back, though, and after a long moment, Ella felt herself relax against him.
“I guess that’s true.” His voice was a deep rumble she felt through her whole body. “You’ve been through some rough stuff in the last couple of weeks. But hopefully a few good things have happened, too.”
“More than a few,” she managed through a throat gone suddenly tight. “Even the hard things. I wouldn’t change any of it now if I could.”
“So you’ll stay.” A wealth of satisfaction wrapped around his tone, like vines around a tree.
“At least for a little longer,” Ella said, tilting her head back to get a look at his face.
Even the slow smile she loved couldn’t erase all the darkness in his eyes, but Grady was happy. She could tell. And his happiness sent an answering thrill through her.
Hard on the heels of that thrill, however, was a cold shiver of doubt. Would he still be this happy, this interested in keeping her around, when he heard her plans for Jo’s property?
CHAPTER 26
Jo happened to be out in front of the barn when Harrison McNamara’s big black SUV emerged from the pine copse and parked in the patch of gravel by the doors.
Hands tightening on the back gate of her own truck, Jo did a quick head count. Merry was inside, determined to help the vet as he made his rounds, but since Dr. Ben Fairfax was no idiot, she wasn’t getting any closer to the injured stallion in stall four than the hallway. Last Jo saw, Merry was fuming at Ben’s restrictions and Ben was scowling inflexibly. It made Jo grin.
And Ella was out in the back paddock with Grady, running through the exercises Jo showed him when he first moved to Sanctuary.
Which was basically where she’d been for the last five days, ever since she asked if it would be possible to extend her visit—except for the time she’d spent on the phone and at her laptop, working on what Jo assumed was the revised proposal for the Windy Corner B and B.
The last few days had been idyllic, almost perfect. She had both her girls at home, and there’d been a lot of warmth, a lot of storytelling about the history of the Hollisters on Sanctuary Island. Every hesitant smile and surprised laugh renewed Jo’s hope for a real relationship with both Ella and Merry.
Relaxing her hands enough to work the finicky locking mechanism, Jo lowered the back gate and contemplated the stacks of fifty-pound bags of horse feed that represented the last of her budget for the month, and waited for Harrison.
After the way they’d left things, him showing up here wasn’t likely to mean good news.
She heard his door slam and closed her eyes briefly, trying to prepare herself for the punch of regret and longing when she looked at him.
But nothing could prepare her for the tired set of his shoulders, the way his bearded cheeks seemed a little hollow, as if he’d skipped too many meals in favor of sitting at his desk. Her heart clenched tighter than a fist.
“Jo. How have you been?” His voice, though, was the same as ever—gruff and calm, steady as a rock.
She suppressed a shiver and gave him a nod. “Good.”
“Are your girls here? I heard they didn’t leave as planned last Friday.”
She read nothing in his tone other than politeness, but Jo couldn’t help but stiffen a bit. Which was unfair, because she wanted to feel only easy, uncomplicated joy at the chance to deepen her connection to both her daughters—but as she stared at Harrison, she was conscious of a deep pool of sadness.
Covering it up with a smile, she said, “You heard right. Merry’s even talking about moving here for good.”
His brown eyes went bleak for a bare instant before his polite mask descended once more. “I’m very happy for you.”
Jo rushed to fill the well of silence between them. “How’s Taylor? She hasn’t come by the barn in almost a week.”
“Fine. Well, mostly. You know Taylor—she really feels her feelings.”
“She’s still a teenager,” Jo reminded him. “That’s normal. I’ll call her tonight and make sure she knows she’s always welcome here, no matter what.”
“That would mean a lot.” Harrison glanced at his watch, and Jo swallowed hard. Time always seemed to be slipping away from them.
Searching around for another topic, she said, “Ella said she wanted to stay because she needs more time to research her proposal for how to turn Windy Corner into a moneymaking property.”
Wry amusement warmed Harrison’s expression. “Based on the hearts and stars and little bluebirds twittering around my nephew’s head these days, I hope that’s not her only motivation for sticking around.”
Jo’s smile widened, felt more real. “I’m not sure even Ella understands why she’s having such a tough time leaving Sanctuary.”
She and Harrison shared a smirk, the threads of history and understanding that wove them together tightening into solid knots. After a moment, though, his answering smile faded, his lips thinning down until they all but disappeared behind his salt-and-pepper beard.
“Unfortunately, I’m not here to gossip about young love,” he said grimly. “Although I’d like to hear more about Ella’s business proposition, because I got a call from Mr. Leeds’s attorney this morning. Apparently, Mr. Leeds is getting impatient.”
All of a sudden, it was there between them, as solid and impenetrable as a brick wall—Harrison’s proposal.
Jo’s refusal.
“I still have a couple of weeks on the grace period they promised,” Jo said tightly. “Are they going back on that?”
“No. But I think the attorney was hoping to get an idea of what your plans are for coming up with the money.” He raised his bushy brows. “I admit, I’m more than a little curious about that, myself.”
Finding refuge in movement, Jo turned back to her truck. Those feed bags weren’t going to unload themselves. “Well, I’m sorry you made the drive all the way out here for nothing, but you can tell Mr. Leeds and his attorney they’ll have my plans by the end of May, as agreed.”
“Jo.” His quiet voice stopped her in the act of reaching for the first stack of bags. “That’s not the only reason I drove out here. I miss you.”
Oh, now that was just unfair. She’d never had any defense against him when he went all frank and honest on her.
Jo scrambled to get her legs back under her. She needed to find her footing in this conversation, or she’d end up agreeing to anything that might bring a smile back to Harrison McNamara’s handsome, weathered face.
“I miss you, too. But my answer hasn’t changed.”
Frustration sharpened his tone. “You’re not thinking this through.”
She heaved one of the fifty-pound burlap sacks of feed over her shoulder and marched off toward the barn before she exploded. “No, you’re the one who hasn’t thought it through. Say I marry you, the debt gets paid off, my home and the stables are saved … then what?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. Then we live happily ever after with our beautiful daughters, who all fall in love with good men like Grady and never leave Sanctuary Island?”
Tossing the bag to the ground, Jo rounded on him with fire rising in her face, hot enough to blow the top off her skull. “Listen to yourself! This isn’t a fairy tale—this is real life. Can you honestly tell me you’d live happily ever after with me and never wonder if I’d only married you to get myself out of debt?”
Harrison planted his hands on his trim hips, pulling his black polo shirt tight across the barrel of his chest. He looked mad now, too, and some part of Jo heaved a sigh of relief.
Fighting, she could handle. It was when he broke out the vulnerability, let her see beneath the suave, charming banker to the decent, loyal, imperfect, struggling single dad underneath that Jo got into trouble.
The muscle below his left ear ticked, the way it always did when he ground his teeth. “Do you remember what you told me on our first date? You said you wanted to take it slow, and given your history—and mine, for that matter—I certainly understood. Things were good between us; at least, I thought so. You certainly helped me see that life was still worth something, that there could be joy in the world after Carol died. I’d like to think I did the same for you. But Jo, ten years isn’t taking things slow—it’s being stuck in the mud. And now you’ve come up with yet another excuse, the same way you do every time I try to take us to the next level.”
“Now hold it right there. My daughters finally being ready to reconcile with me was not an excuse!” Jo bit out. “It was my one chance to finally get everything I ever wanted, but it wasn’t going to be handed to me on a silver platter. It was hard enough getting them to trust me and open their hearts to me—I couldn’t risk how much harder it would’ve been to introduce them to a whole new ready-made family that didn’t include them.”
“I know.” The lines around his whiskey-brown eyes softened and the line of his shoulders dropped. “I get it, Jo. And I’m glad that’s working out for you. But it’s hard to face the fact that there’s no room for me—for Taylor and me—in the life you always wanted.”
Jo’s skin felt too tight, her body stiff and distant, like a cage around her heart. “That’s not what … I never meant to hurt you. And Taylor will always be like a daughter to me.”
“I believe you, and I appreciate it.” He pulled his keys out of his pocket and jingled them restlessly, avoiding her eyes. “But I wish I could believe what we had together ever meant a damn thing to you.”
She pushed out a shaky breath. “You know that it did. I love you, Harrison.”
“Right.” He smiled faintly, but his eyes were dark and distant again. “It’s just our timing that needs some work, I guess. I’ll wait to hear from you about the lien, if you want me to go with you to the meeting with Leeds and the lawyer.”
“Thank you. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”
So many more words crowded Jo’s chest, fighting and kicking to get out. But what could she say, really? Nothing she could say would help this situation.
She couldn’t do what he wanted. She refused to marry him with the specter of this money between them. It would be like adding a third person onto the marriage license—one who wanted nothing more than to make trouble.
And her relationships with her girls were only now starting to get better—she was still afraid to risk rocking that boat, and Harrison knew it.
What he didn’t know, and what she couldn’t tell him as he turned and trudged off to his car without a backward glance, was how tempted she was to say yes.
Marrying Harrison McNamara would be a dream—but Jo would spend the rest of her life knowing that when it finally came time for her to stand on her own two feet, the way Aunt Dottie taught her, she’d stumbled and clutched for the nearest support.
No, there was no way a marriage between Jo and Harrison right now could work. And as he’d said, ten years was a long time to wait.
She could only hope that his patience held out a little longer.
* * *
Ella stood in the darkness just inside the barn and reflected that her coming-to-terms-with-stuff muscles were getting quite the workout this month.
She’d been looking for Jo to ask her a question about one of the exercises Grady couldn’t recall with perfect clarity when she’d seen her mother facing off with that handsome older man.
The tension between them was palpable at fifty paces, and Ella was about to fade back and let them have it out when she heard her own name.
Even telling herself it was none of her business, and anyone who eavesdropped deserved whatever they ended up hearing about themselves, she couldn’t stop herself from sliding back into the shadows behind the open barn door and listening in.
And what she heard changed everything, rearranged her preconceived notions as if someone had upended the box of puzzle pieces that made up her ideas about her mother, and shook them out all over the floor.
She waited until Harrison McNamara was in his big SUV and driving away down the gravel road before stepping out of the barn.
Ella watched Jo, whose shoulders had slumped the instant Harrison’s truck disappeared into the pines, reach down to heft the bag she’d dropped in the midst of her argument.
The question beat at Ella’s chest like a trapped bird.