With This Kiss (5 page)

And he didn’t look any happier to see her than she was to see him.

O
h hi,” Rebecca said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so breathy. “I didn’t realize there was anyone in here.”

Sean’s eyes quickly took her in. The slightly wrinkled dress. Her bare feet.

For some reason, not wearing her shoes around him made her feel almost naked, even though she still had her dress on. It was too intimate.

Far more intimate than she ever wanted to be with Stu’s brother.

“I got hungry and thought I’d come down to get a snack, but I didn’t think anyone would be down here except maybe one of the guests wandering around the library or playing chess.”

Oh god, she was babbling.

Stop talking, Rebecca. Just stop.

She clamped her lips shut and tried to lift her feet to back out of the room, but her feet were stuck like she’d just stepped into quick-drying cement.

Sean gestured to the cake. “There’s plenty.”

It wasn’t exactly an embossed invitation to sit down
with him, but it didn’t take a social genius—which she was not, by any stretch of the imagination—to see that if she ran now, she’d look guilty of something.

Like, maybe, breaking his brother’s heart.

And, probably, single-handedly driving him out of town.

As if she needed any help from her stomach, it growled so loud Sean’s eyes actually widened.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

She shook her head, looking down to her wrist for a watch, but she’d already taken it off in preparation for the thwarted bath. “A long time ago.”

She couldn’t have been more surprised when Sean stood up, got a clean plate off the rack, and put a really large piece of cake on it. For her.

“Sit down, Rebecca. You were on your feet all day.”

He’d noticed?

Oh. How sweet.

She tried not to flush. It was so embarrassing, but with her light coloring if she blushed it didn’t just cover her cheeks. It also covered her chest. A chest that was on far better display in the green dress than she usually kept it.

Realizing she was still standing there in the most awkward way, she tried to put a smile on her face—and moved toward the cake.

And Sean.

Finally, her limbs obeyed her—unlike her heart, which was racing out of control again.

What was wrong with her? Why did Sean make her so nervous? Well, not nervous exactly, but kind of like she was buzzing on the inside.

She hadn’t felt this way about a man since—

No.

No way.

All the things she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge she had felt about meeting Sean when she and Andi had been talking upstairs earlier came to the fore. But even worse than the fact that she clearly had no self-control over her stupid feelings was that she was certain Sean could see her attraction to him written all over her face.

Her unfortunate reverse poker face.

Taking the stool to the far side of the one Sean had been using, she was pleasantly surprised again that he didn’t sit down until she was seated. He was obviously a gentleman like his brother and father. It should have made her more comfortable.

Instead, her nerves ratcheted up a notch.

There was nothing quite like a man who looked like a bad boy acting the part of a gentleman. It tended to do all sorts of ooey-gooey things to her insides.

Okay, so she’d sit and eat as fast as she could and then she’d flee.

She was reaching for the fork when a pang landed in the pit of her empty stomach at the thought. Her instinct had always been to run. From bad jobs and bad boyfriends. Coming here, to Emerald Lake and the inn, brought her to the first truly solid place she’d ever had beneath her feet.

Why should she be the one to leave in a hurry just because Stu’s brother had come home for a wedding that should have never been in the first place?

Three weeks ago when she’d gone to break it off with Stu, she’d vowed that she was going to change her life for the better. She’d started off by throwing herself into not just Andi and Nate’s wedding, but something that was all
hers: the Tapping of the Maples Festival. In two weeks she was going to put on her first big event in the Adirondacks. Even before Stu had left, she’d watched the details line up one after the other and knew in her heart just how great the festival was going to be for the entire town.

So, yes, she was uncomfortable, sitting in the inn’s kitchen with Sean. But that didn’t mean she was going to fold under the pressure. Just the opposite, in fact. Not only was she going to sit here and enjoy every single bite of her chocolate cake, but she was going to force herself to relax about Stu’s brother. For years she’d listened to Stu’s stories about his beloved older brother and she’d wanted to meet him. Finally, she was getting her chance.

“So,” she said to Sean. “Stu said you were traveling?”

“I was.”

While she waited for him to say more she finally took a bite of the cake. Oh god, it was good, half a dozen layers of chocolate cake surrounded by white and brown frosting. So good that she might have actually let loose a small moan of appreciation.

Closing her eyes to fully appreciate every single taste sensation of the cake, when she finally swallowed it down and opened her eyes back up, she was surprised to find a glass of milk in front of her.

After drinking half the glass in one gulp, she smiled and said, “Thank you. That was the perfect touch.”

“You’re welcome.”

She swore one half of his mouth almost quirked up as he said it, but she couldn’t have proved it for a jury. It was just a sense she had that he was loosening up a little bit.

“Where were you traveling, if you don’t mind me asking?”

One of the things she loved most about her job was talking to the inn’s guests about their travels. She very much wanted to visit all those wondrous places she’d heard about.

It was another vow she’d made to herself: one day would see the seven wonders outside of a book or cable TV program.

“I’ve been all over Asia these past weeks.”

She could tell he was a big traveler, simply by the way he said it, like it was no big deal to visit Asia. If it had been her, she would have been gushing all over the place and pulling out pictures.

“I’ve always wanted to see that part of the world,” she murmured after taking a second, smaller bite of cake. “Do you have a favorite country in the Far East?”

“Japan.” He seemed almost surprised by his response. “Especially in the spring.”

She leaned forward on her hands guessing, “Were the cherry blossoms in bloom when you were there?”

“Everywhere.”

She closed her eyes, trying to imagine what it must have been like to stand beneath the pink blooms. “How lovely it must have been,” she said, a smile on her lips at the vision in her head.

“Lovely,” he echoed.

She opened her eyes and found his gaze locked to hers, a definite smile trying to form on his lips. His brown eyes were darker than she remembered them being a few minutes earlier. More intense. Which was saying something, because he was one of the most intense men she’d ever come across.

Wanting to go back to that space they’d just been in
where things had finally felt somewhat comfortable, she said, “Stu told me you own your own business.”

His almost-smile disappeared. “I just sold it.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that. Of course, she went for honest. Just like she always did. “Is that a good thing?”

“It was time to move on.”

Yes, she knew about moving on. “Any thoughts about what you’re going to do next?”

Feeling borderline comfortable again, she was about to take another bite of cake when Sean said, “Look, Rebecca, you seem like a nice person, but the truth is I don’t understand what happened with you and my brother. Maybe you could explain it to me.”

She nearly dropped the fork at his abrupt conversational switch. But really, how could she blame him for asking the question? They hadn’t had a chance to talk much about it beyond her earlier, “
Yes, the wedding is off. And by the way, your brother has gone god-knows-where.
”

“I’ll do my best.” She wanted to be as honest as possible with him, despite knowing she had to keep Stu’s secret.

Ugh. This was going to be a hard conversation. The first of many to come if she wasn’t mistaken.

She put down the fork on the side of the plate and pushed it away from her. She wasn’t hungry anymore, anyway.

“You probably know that Stu and I have been friends for a really long time. Since college.”

“He always said you made him laugh.”

She smiled at the comment. “He made me laugh, too. Did he tell you the first time we met was a nude-drawing class?”

Sean’s lips twitched a little bit again and she found herself wishing he would let himself smile. But, again, his mouth flattened out before that could happen.

“No.”

Rebecca shook her head. “I probably should have known right then and there that I wasn’t cut out for being an artist.” She wrinkled her nose. “If it had been a naked woman then maybe I could have done it with a straight face, but a naked old man… Well, it was just so gross…”

He didn’t say anything, simply raised an eyebrow, and she realized she was getting off track.

“Anyway, fast forward ten years later, and I needed a job.” And an escape. From her mistakes. “Stu offered me one here at the inn.” She looked around the inn’s kitchen, at all the upgrades she’d helped make in the past nine months. “I love working here. I absolutely love it.”

“Did you and Stu date in college?”

“No. We were just friends.”

“When did that change?”

She dreaded this next part of her explanation. Because this was where it got sticky and didn’t totally add up—even in her own mind. But she felt that she owed Stu’s brother the fullest explanation she could give him. She would have told Stu’s parents the same thing she was about to tell Sean, but they’d never actually come out and asked her. Unfortunately, it had been so awkward between them since Stu left town that she hadn’t felt comfortable just blurting it out.

She had to take a deep breath before answering. “It didn’t. Not really.” She picked a chocolate crumb off the stainless-steel countertop with the tip of her index finger and absentmindedly licked it off. “That was the problem,
in the end. I think we both were far more enamored with the idea of getting married and settling down than we were of each other.”

Sean was silent for a long moment. “So you didn’t love him?”

Rebecca didn’t like the way he said it, like she’d set out to purposely hurt his brother.

“Of course I love Stu. I’ve loved him practically from the moment I met him.” She was sitting straighter on her stool now, her shoulders back, her chin up. “But as a friend.”

“How could it have taken you so long to realize this? You were engaged for months.”

“When I saw Andi and Nate together,” she admitted softly, “I knew I could never settle for anything less than that kind of love.”

She couldn’t believe she was saying these deeply personal things to a man she’d met only hours before. A man she wasn’t sure liked her very much.

But Rebecca didn’t know how to lie.

And the truth was, she didn’t want to lie about her emotions anymore, about what her heart did or didn’t feel.

Next time around the relationship block, she wanted love. Real love.

Not the false promises she’d let herself believe for so long.

“So when you realized this, you broke it off with him.”

“I was going to, but he—”

She stopped, realizing what she’d been about to say. When Stu had begged her not to tell anyone he hadn’t specifically added his brother’s name to the list, but she’d made a promise to her best friend. And as hard as it was to keep that promise, by definition
anyone
included Sean.

“He what?”

She could see suspicion in Sean’s eyes. He knew she was keeping something from him.

“He told me he’d just realized he couldn’t marry me either. We agreed to call off the wedding.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “So the wedding was off. But you were still friends, weren’t you?”

“Of course we’re still friends,” she said, even though a little voice in her head couldn’t help but wonder how a true friend could leave her to deal with not only the aftermath of their breakup but the inn and the Maple Festival all by herself.

“Why did he leave, Rebecca?”

Sean’s voice was soft. Lulling. Coaxing. Mesmerizing, even.

Suddenly Rebecca realized that if anyone could get Stu’s secret out of her, it was Sean.

This knowledge had her scooting off the stool, picking their plates up, and putting them in the sink. She could feel his eyes on her the entire time.

“Do you really expect me to believe that he didn’t tell you why he was leaving? That he just left?” His voice was still smooth, but there was steel behind every word. Along with a determination to learn not only Stu’s secrets… but every single one of hers. “Especially after you’ve just told me he’s your best friend? Why wouldn’t he have confided in you, even if you had both made a mistake about getting engaged?”