With This Kiss (32 page)

For so long, for his entire adult life, he hadn’t believed in love.

But now, here, tonight, love was all he could feel. For these few, precious hours with Rebecca in his arms, he could forget everything but her. Nothing else needed to matter.

And in the morning, when life, when reality came rushing back, he’d start to try and figure out how to balance what he knew to be true about the world with this new love that he couldn’t deny.

He pressed a kiss to the center of Rebecca’s chest, wanted to feel her heart beating beneath his lips. Her hands moved from his shoulders to thread through his hair.

“Sean?”

He lifted his head and instantly read her desire. But there was something else there, something that had his heartbeat hitching in his chest.

“I want you so badly, but—”

She shifted, and for a split second, he was afraid she was going to move away. Instead, thank god, she pressed herself more tightly against him as if she were trying to take shelter in his arms.

“I’m scared.”

He would have expected her to be scared the other times they’d made love, when he’d flat out told her he wasn’t going to make a commitment to her. Why now?

She answered him before he could ask the question, saying, “When I thought you didn’t love me back, I knew I had to be prepared for… for this to all end. I kept telling myself that I didn’t have expectations. Even though
I knew I was falling for you, it was easier somehow to know that it went only one way. I know it sounds strange, but it was safer. For me. For my heart. But now, if something happens—”

He kissed her before she could finish her sentence.

“I love you, Rebecca. You love me. Whatever comes, we’ll figure it out. Together.”

But even though she whispered her love again, even though he lay her back on the bed and stripped the slip all the way off before moving into her waiting arms, even though the peak they reached together was higher, and so much sweeter than it had ever been before, Rebecca’s words
if something happens
were waiting for him in the back of his subconscious.

And the bedroom was growing colder.

D
uring the next week as Rebecca worked to make sure the Tapping of the Maples Festival came together as well as she’d envisioned it would, Sean helped her when she needed it, gave her enough kisses through the day to fry what was left of her brain cells, but otherwise was on the phone working on his own business.

She didn’t want to pry, or try to listen in on his private calls, but she couldn’t help hoping that he was following through on his idea to acquire more inn’s throughout the Northeast—and that this new business would keep him here, at Emerald Lake. She would never want her love to be something that boxed him in. Still, she couldn’t help but hope that she was important enough to him that he’d factor her into his future plans.

And that she wasn’t the only one with visions of long white dresses and babies with his eyes.

Every night, when she thought she was too exhausted to do anything more than sink into a bath with a glass of wine, just being in Sean’s arms was enough to chase away
all thoughts of sleep and baths—unless he was in there with her doing deliciously wicked things to her.

But she knew it wasn’t just how hard she was working; it wasn’t just her lack of sleep at night that had her so off-kilter during the busy week.

It was the secret he’d trusted her with.

The secret he expected her to hold forever.

Sean had never trusted a woman enough to let himself love her. Not until her. She couldn’t stand the thought of betraying his trust. But she couldn’t stand being near Elizabeth, either. Not knowing what she knew.

Not knowing how badly the woman had hurt her own child.

Every day that frustration, that anger on Sean’s behalf grew bigger and bigger. Rebecca was very much afraid the day would come when she wouldn’t be able to hold it all inside anymore.

“Your work crew has arrived!”

Rebecca turned to see Nate and Andi, Nate’s eleven-year-old sister Madison, and Andi’s mother, Carol, walking in through the inn’s front door. She’d been so busy this week she hadn’t seen Nate since they’d returned from their honeymoon.

Forcefully pushing her thoughts about Elizabeth aside, she gave him a hug. “Thanks for coming to help, you guys.”

“This is exciting,” Madison said. “My friends are all dying to tap a maple.”

Nate grinned. “We’ve been practicing making the perfect pancakes to eat the syrup on all week.”

Surrounded by her friends, warmth flooded Rebecca. Emerald Lake was beautiful, but that wasn’t the only
reason why she’d fallen in love with this town. She’d fallen for the community almost as quickly as she’d fallen for the natural surroundings.

But she’d fallen even faster for the man who was walking into the room. Her body was attuned to Sean so that she could always feel his presence before she saw him coming down the stairs.

He was smiling as Carol called out a greeting, and Andi shot Rebecca a surprised glance.

Rebecca had almost forgotten that he hadn’t smiled when he first came here. It was still one of her greatest pleasures to tug a grin or, even better, a full-blown laugh out of him.

A few moments later, he was standing behind her and his arms were around her waist, pulling her against him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Rebecca almost laughed at the way Andi’s eyes just about popped out of her head. Nate and Carol simply looked pleased.

Looking at her friends who were waiting to help her, she realized that all along, while she’d looked at putting on this festival as hers alone, she’d been so wrong. Andi and Nate and Madison and Carol—just a few of the people she’d come to love so much in Emerald Lake in such a short period of time—reminded her that the work she’d done had all been for the community.

A community she was absolutely thrilled to belong to.

“Now that everyone’s here, why don’t we—”

The words dried up in her throat as Bill walked in the inn’s front door… followed by Elizabeth.

A burst of anger came so swiftly that Rebecca’s hands actually fisted. She knew it had all happened twenty years
ago, but she had just found out the truth about what Elizabeth had done, and Rebecca felt raw inside. How could she help but be protective toward the man she loved?

It was only when she felt Sean tense behind her, and pull her tighter to him, that she snapped out of her haze.

Bill was smiling as he asked, “Can you use a couple extra pairs of hands?”

Rebecca hoped the smile she gave Bill wasn’t as shaky as it felt. “Absolutely. Thanks for coming.”

It was a relief to bury herself in details, to get everyone off and running. Andi, bless her heart, ran interference with Elizabeth, so that Rebecca didn’t have to deal with the woman face to face.

The problem was, she knew she couldn’t keep her distance forever. One day she was going to have to figure out how to sit down at a dinner table with Sean’s mother… and not throw a sharp knife at her chest.

When everyone else was out putting up tents and moving the tapping equipment into the spots she’d marked on her map, Sean reached for her hand.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

It still gave her the shivers every time he called her that. Every time he said
I love you
felt brand new, like she was hearing it, feeling it, for the very first time in her life.

“You’re tired.”

He kissed her eyelids, first one then the other, and she let herself sink against him. Just for a moment and then she’d get back out there and run around some more getting everything that needed to be done, done.

He pressed a soft kiss to her mouth before saying, “Everything is going according to plan. The festival is going to be a hit.”

After everything she’d been through to get it off the ground, not once, but twice, she knew she should be ecstatic.

“I hope so.”

“I know you have a lot of work to do, but I want to show you something first.” Sean led her by the hand, out the front door of the inn and over to the gazebo.

She looked out across the lake, over to the maple forest, then back at the inn. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

She didn’t get it at first, but then as he wrapped his arms around her again, her back to his front, and she felt his strength, his steady heartbeat against her skin, she took one deep breath. And then another.

Finally, she saw what he’d brought her outside to see.

In the span of the few short weeks they’d known each other, the trees had gone from bare to budding to bright green leaves just starting to grow. The roses that had been hiding during the freezing days were more than ready to show off their pinks and whites and reds and purples in the sunlight. The mountains were no longer white and brown, but every shade of green.

“It’s going to be summer soon.”

She’d always thought she was so in tune with the seasons, but it had taken Sean to remind her that she was missing the miracles taking place right before her eyes.

“As soon as the water’s warm enough, I’m going to take you sailing,” he said. “And when we tip over, we’re going to get right back up.”

She knew what he was trying to tell her: he was going to stay.

“I love you,” she said softly as she turned in his arms and slid her hands around his neck.

And as they stood there, forehead to forehead, in the place so many brides and grooms had stood before, Rebecca felt more love for Sean than she ever had before.

Bill couldn’t take his eyes off of Sean and Rebecca. “Remember the day we stood in that gazebo?”

Elizabeth looked up with surprise from the table that she was trimming with fabric. “The gazebo?”

She followed his gaze to the inn where their son and his girlfriend were holding each other and looking out at the lake.

“Of course, I remember,” Elizabeth said softly. “Our wedding was one of the best days of my life.”

Bill took in the wistful expression on his wife’s face, the clear longing for what had once been.

He longed for it, too, had been trying for days to find a way to take them back to that place they’d been so many years before. But Elizabeth had returned from Lake Yarns on Monday night distant and clearly out of sorts. He hadn’t been able to push past her walls, and he was, frankly, getting tired of trying.

Not when it felt like he’d been trying for so long. And where had it gotten them?

But seeing Rebecca and Sean, so obviously in love with each other, gave Bill hope to try again.

One last time.

“Mine, too,” he said, putting the staple gun he was holding down onto the table.

He took Elizabeth’s hands in his. They were cold and, if he wasn’t mistaken, trembling.

“Betsy,” he said. “I love you.”

Her eyes were big. Wild. “I love you, too. So, so much.”

Her words were just right, but there was a desperation behind them that worried him.

“Tell me what’s bothering you. Let me try to help.”

Oh god. She couldn’t keep her hands from tensing in his.

This was her chance to tell him the truth. To confess everything, to lay her soul bare and hopefully wash it clean.

Only, Bill was clearly trying so hard to reconnect. He’d been doing sweet things for her all week, picking freshly bloomed flowers for the vase in the center of the kitchen table, coming home with her favorite fresh-baked bread from the bakery when she couldn’t get away from her computer.

Holding her at night when she was tossing and turning.

If she told him about her affair, he’d pull away.

He’d hate her.

She moved closer, loving the way his arms wrapped around her.

She couldn’t give this up.

She just couldn’t.

“I was just thinking about Stu,” she finally said.

It was true; she’d been thinking all day that her son should have been here helping along with everyone else. Thinking Stu should have never run in the first place. That he should have been brave enough to face them… and to remember that they all loved him, no matter what, no matter whom he loved.

“I wish he’d come home.”

Bill was silent for a long moment, and she got the
distinct sense that he knew she wasn’t saying everything she had to say.

Finally, he said, “I wish he was here, too. He belongs here. With his family. His friends.”

She felt him shift, knew he was looking back toward Sean and Rebecca again.

“Looks like there’s going to be a wedding, after all, doesn’t it?”

Tears pricked her eyes. She was so glad her son had found the love he deserved.

And she prayed that nothing would come between Sean and the woman he loved.

“Yes,” she said, feeling Bill’s heart beat against hers. “It does.”