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“Aunt Lenora says you should come in out of the rain.”
He could only blink in reply. Erin took a step closer.
“Burke, I’m sorry. But she’s not coming back. There’s no point in standing out here, waiting for her.”
“I’d rather be out here than in there—” he gestured toward the tent “—where they can all stare at me.”
Erin took his hand, the warmth of her fingers startling him. His own were chilled straight through to the bone.
“No one’s staring, Burke. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Her words penetrated, and he laughed, an empty, bitter sound. “I’ve just been stood up by my fiancée on my wedding day, which was already ruined by this freak rainstorm. I kind of think I have something to be embarrassed about.”
Erin’s eyes sparked. “Well, I imagine standing out here in the rain like an idiot only makes it worse.”
His jaw sagged. “You know, most people would be feeling sorry for me right about now.”
She sighed. “I do feel sorry for you, Burke. But I don’t pity you. Tessa’s not a cruel woman. If she didn’t want to marry you, then I suspect she had a good reason. Now, are you coming in out of the rain or not?”
He swallowed, shifting his gaze from Erin and to the arbor that had looked so festive and fresh only an hour earlier. Now, the boughs of greenery were sagging, dripping water in rivulets down the white columns. The flowers had lost quite a few petals, beaten from their stems by the rain and littering the ground in a soggy mess.
“I have nowhere to go,” he said, more to himself than to Erin. He’d lived for so long without a home that he hadn’t realized how much he was looking forward to finally settling down.
All of his possessions were boxed up in Tessa’s garage. He was supposed to move in with her after their honeymoon. He felt a pang at the realization that he wouldn’t have a home after all.
“You can stay at the Moontide,” Erin told him. “Aunt Lenora already said so.”
“I can’t stay at the inn,” he replied, almost defensively.
Erin frowned. She was a mess, the rain having washed her mascara in black lines down her cheeks. He felt a twinge of guilt that she was standing out here, in the rain with him, when no one else had bothered.
“Why not?” she demanded.
He couldn’t explain it to her, couldn’t give voice to his feelings on the subject. There were so many reasons for him to stay away from the bed-and-breakfast. Despite the fact that it had been his permanent home for four years as a teenager, he had never felt like he belonged there. And even less so now, knowing it was the house where Erin and Gavin had made their home, even though his brother had been deployed in the army for much of that time. Maybe it shouldn’t have mattered, given that the inn was over two centuries old and had housed hundreds, maybe thousands, of guests during its lifetime. What was one more?
But it wasn’t that simple. Not for him.
While this internal argument ensued, Erin’s fingers tightened on his, the heat of her skin briefly bringing some feeling back into his own.
“It’s either the inn, or we ask Allan to put you up in the Delphine.”
This snapped some sense back into him. “I am not going to ask my fiancée’s father to put me up at the resort he owns after she ditched me.” He coughed. “Ex-fiancée,” he corrected.
Erin frowned. “You said it yourself, you have nowhere to go.”
He closed his eyes at the reminder. How had he ended up here? Just an hour ago, he’d had everything he ever wanted—he’d been about to become a husband, hopefully within the next year or two, a father, and he’d finally felt a sense of belonging. At peace. Settled.
But now all his dreams had washed away with the coming of the rain...and Tessa’s desertion.
The Delphine and the Moontide were the only two hotels in town. The Lodge had boarded up its doors last year. So he could either drive an hour outside of town and use his credit card to put himself up at a motel on the outskirts until he could figure out his next move, or he could go begging Allan Worth for a free room at the Delphine.
He was sure his father-in-law—correction, his ex-fiancée’s dad—would have let him stay in the suite he and Tessa were meant to have for their wedding night, but no way did he want to set foot in that room now. Nor did he want to stay at the Delphine at all, where the staff and Tessa’s family could take note and whisper about him behind his back.
That only left the Moontide.
Erin stood there patiently, letting him sort through his options before she spoke up once more.
“It would make Aunt Lenora happy,” she pointed out. “She’s always said that the years you lived there were some of her happiest.”
He hadn’t lived at the Moontide since he was eighteen years old. Other than a handful of visits, he hadn’t spent any length of time at the bed-and-breakfast since he and Gavin had lived there as teenagers.
“She’s missed having you under her roof,” Erin added.
He swallowed, not daring to voice the question that rose unbidden.
And you, Erin? Did you ever miss me?
He quashed the thought as quickly as it came. There was no point in thinking along these lines. He had spent several long years burying that question as deeply as he could. The only reason it surfaced now, he told himself, was because he was feeling vulnerable and betrayed. But he would not even consider the subject because it no longer mattered.
His heart protested, whispering, It does matter. It’s always mattered.
But he ignored his heart’s cry and tugged his hand free of Erin’s.
“All right. If Lenora has a room to spare, I’ll come to the Moontide.”
Erin looked at him so intently that he shifted away from her.
“But only tonight, Erin. Just until I get things sorted out.”
Erin didn’t argue with him, and no matter how hard he tried to bury the feeling, part of him wished she would.
* * *
THE UNEXPECTED STORM had blown over, but it left behind a few threadbare clouds and an unseasonal chill in the summer air. Erin laid out Kitt’s long-sleeved pajamas and left him to dress for bed before checking in on Burke.
Her brother-in-law had collapsed onto the bed in the Galway Room, one of the Moontide’s middle-size bedrooms, as soon as they had returned home from the Delphine.
As she peeked inside the door he’d left ajar, she could see he hadn’t moved from where she’d left him, and the gentle rise and fall of his chest told her he’d fallen into a sound sleep. She moved into the room and opened the armoire, pulling out one of the family afghans, knitted years ago by Aunt Lenora’s grandmother.
She buried her face briefly into the soft, worn cotton, inhaling the scents of lavender and cedar from the armoire’s interior before she unfolded it and stepped toward the bed. She draped the blanket over Burke’s sleeping form, arranging it carefully, the same as she did for Kitt when he fell asleep on the couch while reading.
She lingered in the room, tidying up small details like centering the pair of porcelain songbird figurines sitting slightly askew on the fireplace mantel, pushing the ceramic pitcher and basin on the bedside table away from the edge and tugging a stray cobweb free of the wooden desk chair.
At one time, Aunt Lenora kept a girl on the payroll to come in twice a week for detailed cleaning of the rooms at the B&B. But in the last year, the inn’s revenue had dropped so much that she’d been forced to try to clean the rooms herself. At eighty-nine, scrubbing floors and washing windows had taxed the older woman to her limits. When Erin had come upon her one day, leaning on the wardrobe in the Killarney Suite and heaving for breath, she had known it was time to take over.
The next day, she’d given Connor her two-week notice at the restaurant and began working at the inn full-time. She booked the reservations (though there were fewer than there once had been), made the morning breakfast (and lamented how much food was wasted), kept up with the piles of laundry that a B&B generated and cleaned the rooms, all while raising Kitt on her own and keeping an eye on Aunt Lenora.
The older woman had reluctantly given over much of the B&B’s maintenance to Erin, but that didn’t mean she’d retired. On any given day, Aunt Lenora could be found outside in the garden, tending to vegetables and flowers or crawling up into the attic to go through the expansive mementos stored in its rafters.
Erin had found her there just last week, after hours of searching. She’d fallen asleep in the attic’s drafty environment, curled up in a pile of blankets with her arms wrapped around an album. After waking Aunt Lenora, Erin returned to the attic to restore order and found the album lying open.
It was a scrapbook of Gavin’s life with pressed clippings of his high school wrestling career, a copy of his graduation program, the Findlay Roads Courier’s article about his time in the army and then, at the back, his obituary.
Erin hadn’t needed to read the words. She knew each one by heart.
Sergeant Gavin Daniels passed into eternal rest this past week at the age of thirty-two.
She and Aunt Lenora had decided to leave the specific details of his passing out of the paper, for Kitt’s sake more than anything. It had been bad enough that her son had lost his father. She wanted to shelter him as much as possible from the senselessness of Gavin’s death by a drunk driver.
The obituary had gone on to list Gavin’s various accomplishments in the army before detailing what Erin considered the most important part of his life’s summation.
Gavin leaves behind his wife, Erin, and his son, Kitt, as well as a great-aunt, Lenora, and a brother, Burke, along with many friends who will forever miss his spirit, laughter and kindness.
In the stifling air of the attic, Erin had started to cry, and even now, recalling the words, she had to blink back tears. That final statement had been truer than she might have known. She missed Gavin more with each passing day.
Her grief was cut short as Burke groaned in his sleep, and Erin turned back toward him. His face was lined with emotion, his brow furrowed in slumber.
She bit her lip, her feelings a tangled mess. On the one hand, she felt sympathy for the way the day had gone. He and Tessa had seemed like the perfect couple. She was petite and blonde, cute and sweet, and a lovely foil to Burke’s tall, muscular physique, brown hair and blue eyes. They were easy around each other. Burke would often drape an arm around Tessa’s shoulders as she leaned into him. The sight had always pierced Erin with a pang of envy, and she told herself it was the residual grief of losing Gavin.
But after today, she was forced to admit she wasn’t so sure that was the only reason. Because at the root of her jumbled emotions about this day, there was one she hadn’t expected to feel.
Relief.
She was relieved that Tessa had fled, pleased that she wasn’t going to be Burke’s wife. And that feeling frightened her. She had buried whatever she once felt for Burke. She’d convinced herself her feelings for him were long dead. She had loved Gavin, had married him, borne him a son, had been faithful during his years deployed overseas with the army and had grieved him every single day since his death.
And yet...she couldn’t ignore how her heart had thumped with joy when it became apparent that Tessa had bolted.
Burke stirred, curling his fingers into the afghan she’d placed over him. She felt herself flush as she watched him.
She shouldn’t have felt relief. She shouldn’t have been happy about what he’d lost. She shouldn’t be feeling anything for Burke at all, except to think of him as Kitt’s uncle, her brother-in-law. She had loved Gavin. She still missed Gavin.
But as Burke sighed in slumber, she felt that same rush of relief once more. Biting her lip in frustration, she quickly turned and hurried from the room, down the hall and refused to look back.
CHAPTER TWO (#ud202ade5-d063-59e8-b4a5-985d137fa226)
BURKE SURFACED FROM sleep slowly, some elusive memory chasing him toward wakefulness. He kept his eyes closed, trying to orient himself. The bed beneath him was soft, much more comfortable than the flimsy mattress he was used to on the boat.
That’s when he remembered. He’d sold the boat, the most permanent home he’d had in the last fifteen years, because he’d planned to move in with Tessa after the wedding.
But there had been no wedding. And he no longer had a place to call home. He was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment at this realization. He’d never settled before in his adult life. Moving back to Findlay Roads and buying the boat had been the closest he’d come to putting down roots. He’d convinced himself that roots were overrated, and he’d done his best ever since his high school graduation to stay on the move, never lingering too long, never growing attached. Because he knew what happened when you grew attached to things.
Tessa was proof of that.
Why had she bailed on their wedding yesterday? He thought back on the last few weeks, leading up to their big day. She’d been distracted and perhaps a little moody, which was unusual—Tessa was one of the sweetest people he’d ever known. She was kind and encouraging, warm and welcoming. But he’d chalked it all up to stress over planning the wedding. Now he realized that she must have been having doubts, feeling the pressure of committing to him. And clearly she’d decided a lifetime as his wife was not for her.
He felt a pang of disappointment at the thought. He could have loved Tessa for the rest of his life. He did love Tessa, he quickly amended. But now there’d be no forever for them.
As he wallowed in this realization, he eventually began to prickle with awareness. The room around him was silent, but he sensed sunlight filtering through the windows. He had yet to open his eyes, blocking out reality for as long as he could. But he began to feel there was someone in the room with him.
He thought of Gavin, his older brother, who had lived in this house, the same as he had, during high school. And after Burke had moved on, Gavin stayed, marrying Erin and making his home here at the inn, in between his stints of army deployment.
For a fleeting moment, Burke wondered if maybe Gavin was here with him, if his spirit still walked the halls of the B&B. But he knew better. Wherever his brother was, it wasn’t here.
Still unnerved by the sense that someone was in the room with him, he opened his eyes. His nephew, Kitt, sat at the end of the bed, his blue eyes intent on Burke. He smiled at the little boy. Kitt ducked his head and didn’t smile back.
It bothered Burke. He’d only met the kid once before he’d moved back to town. Gavin’s son had been all of three years old at the time, but Burke remembered him as a round-faced, smiling child. That little boy had slight resemblance to the one before him now. This Kitt was subdued, his face already losing its cherubic roundness. He was far too serious for a six-year-old.
Then again, Burke could relate. His and Gavin’s parents had died in the fire that had destroyed their home when Burke was ten years old. After that, he’d also lost his ability to laugh. It was Gavin who had kept him afloat, Gavin who had remained optimistic despite years of being shuffled from one family member to another. Burke had survived only because of his older brother.
But Kitt had no older brother. The thought pained Burke, both in his grief for Gavin and sympathy for his nephew.
“What’s up, little man?”
Kitt shrugged and scooted farther down the bed. Burke couldn’t quite make out his nephew’s expression, both from his lowered head and because of morning shadows in the room.
Burke didn’t press him to respond. He remembered his own childhood, the dual experience of self-inflicted isolation and the longing for someone to care.
He glanced around the room. This had once been his bedroom, long ago. But after years of being absent, Aunt Lenora had converted it into the Galway Room. He found he liked the changes. He hadn’t had many mementos growing up. When he’d lived here, the room had been sparse, the way he preferred it. But now it had a homey, lived-in quality that made him homesick in a contradictory sort of way.
“Is your mom around?” He didn’t know why he asked the question, other than the fact that thinking about his years in this house always led his thoughts to Erin.
Kitt gave a half nod and wiggled off the bed. Burke thought maybe he intended to leave, but he only moved a few feet away and settled on the floor.
Burke sat up and rubbed the pads of his fingers against his eyes, trying to focus. He sniffed the air and smelled the tantalizing aroma of coffee. At first, he thought maybe the inn was entertaining guests today, but then he remembered that Aunt Lenora had closed the B&B this weekend in order to attend the wedding without distractions.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” Burke asked Kitt. The little boy shook his head, though he still didn’t look up.
Burke sighed, wishing there was some way to draw his nephew out of his uncommunicative shell. Then, to his surprise, Kitt spoke up.
“Mom’s making blueberry pancakes. She said they’re your favorite.”
Burke was startled, not only by the sound of Kitt’s voice but also that Erin had remembered, after so many years, that blueberry pancakes were his favorite breakfast food.
“She’s right. I love blueberry pancakes.”
“So did my dad.”
This soft announcement, barely whispered into the stillness, gave Burke pause. “Yeah, I had to eat fast whenever our mom made them when we were kids.”
He hadn’t thought about that in years, family breakfasts gathered at the table. Those days had passed lifetimes ago. And to remember them brought more pain than pleasure. But he noticed that Kitt had lifted his head to watch him after this statement.
His little face was as somber as ever, but he looked curious now. “What else did he used to do when you were kids?”
Burke experienced a tug of grief. He didn’t allow himself to go back to these days. His childhood had been a precious, beautiful thing, and then it had been his greatest source of pain. But he hated to refuse the rare question from his nephew, so instead, he changed the subject.
“Tell you what? How about we go get some of those blueberry pancakes, and we can talk about what it was like growing up with your dad some other time?”
Kitt hesitated but then seemed to decide this was a fair offer. He nodded his head and stood to his feet, padding toward the door. Burke swung his legs over the bed and quickly realized he was still wearing his dress shirt and tux pants from the day before. He frowned, but a glance around the room revealed no other clothing. He’d have to find out what happened to the luggage he’d planned to take on the honeymoon.
