He was almost rambling.
Shit.
“You like her,” William said.
Vaughn didn’t reply. He’d never been able to lie to his father. Instead they walked in silence until they came to the bandstand. His father stopped. The council had placed a plaque up on the boardwalk there years ago, telling the tale of Eliza Hartwell and Jonas Kellerman. It suggested that there was magic on Hart’s Boardwalk, and that if you walked the boards with your true love beside you, you would stay in love together forever.
It was schmaltzy sentimental nonsense meant to charm the tourists.
“Interesting,” his father murmured.
Of course William Tremaine, the world’s biggest romantic, would find it interesting.
“It’s ludicrous.”
He raised an eyebrow at his son. “I don’t know how you got so cynical.”
“I don’t know how you didn’t.”
“Perhaps because I was lucky enough to know your mother longer than you did.”
That shut him up.
He stared out at the water. “I don’t remember you being this sentimental.”
“I think it’s my age,” William remarked as he stepped up beside him. “And the fact that you’re getting older. I worry you’ll end up alone. I don’t like the idea of you being alone. And . . . there’s a selfish part of me that would like a grandchild one day.”
For the second time in the space of thirty minutes Vaughn felt guilt seize him. “I would do anything for you . . . but a grandchild isn’t likely, Dad.”
They were silent again for a while, and Vaughn was just beginning to hope the conversation was over when William said, “I didn’t raise you to insult women. Did you really call Bailey ‘mediocre’? Insulting and untrue.”
“Regrettably I did. In my defense she insulted me first.”
“That’s not a defense.”
“Dad—”
“She’s got spunk, she’s clearly intelligent and driven to be running that inn by herself, and strong to have retained her sense of humor the day after finding her boyfriend screwing a younger woman . . . and she’s very attractive. Lovely eyes. And that smile . . . that’s a great smile. Gets you right in the gut.”
Vaughn huffed in amusement. “I wouldn’t know. She’s never smiled at me.”
“Ah, well, you’re doing something wrong.”
He groaned. “Dad, I know you’re worried about me, but I’m fine. I’m better than fine. And I’m living my life the way I want to live it. That means a parade of women through my bedroom. The Bailey Hartwells of the world are not for me, and sadly that means no grandkids for you. Can you please just accept that so we can enjoy the rest of your visit?”
“You know I’ve always tried to let you live your life your way.”
“And it’s one of the reasons I like you.”
At that his dad gave a bark of laughter and slung his arm around Vaughn’s shoulder. “Okay then. What do I get to see next?”
FIVE
Bailey
At times I wished I wasn’t addicted to Emery’s coffee. If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have bumped into Vaughn and his charming father, Liam Tremaine, today of all days. Then again as always my curiosity about Vaughn was piqued by meeting his father.
I usually grabbed a cup of Emery’s coffee in the morning for Jessica and for myself, as I passed by her office on my way back to the inn. We both needed our coffee before we had to converse with too many people. Coffee made it easier for me to work in hospitality. Coffee made the memory of the horrible encounter with Tom this morning easier to handle and Emery’s had slowly become one of my favorite hangout spots over these last few months. The hodgepodge of white-painted furniture and Tiffany lamps set against rich teal walls appealed to me. I liked cozy casualness and Emery did it in style. Not to mention I loved lazing a winter afternoon away by Emery’s fireplace.
Before Jessica arrived in Hartwell last summer I didn’t know Emery Saunders all that well. All I knew was that she was this ethereal young beauty with a bad case of shyness. Usually I was good at drawing people out of themselves but I think my somewhat brash style of doing so was too much for Emery. Jessica’s soothing presence did wonders for the young woman and she’d managed to get Emery to open up. Well . . . open up to Jess, me, and our friend Dahlia.
She still couldn’t put together more than a sentence around most strangers and men.
I’d grown fond of my coffee-giver and so I was more than a little curious about her. I had been since her arrival in Hartwell eight years ago. It was just that my curiosity had grown in proportion since becoming friends with her. We knew little of her life before Hartwell—she didn’t talk about it and Jessica had urged me not to push Emery on the subject. So I hadn’t.
All we knew was that she’d inherited her grandmother’s company and that was probably how she had been able to afford to buy property on the boardwalk. We didn’t know what kind of company it had been, or where she and this mysterious grandmother had hailed from. Nothing. Nada.
My friend could barely say two words to men but she seemed fascinated by my love life. And Jess and Cooper’s love life.
I could understand her fascination with Jessica and Cooper. Since meeting last summer they had made this passionate, beautiful connection that even I envied.
They’d proven the legend of Hart’s Boardwalk true.
The legend sprung from my family—the founding family. Back in 1909 my great-grandmother’s sister, Eliza, was the darling of Hartwell. Our family had wealth and power and Eliza, being the eldest, was expected to marry well. Instead she somehow crossed paths and fell in love with a steelworker from the Straiton Railroad Company, based just outside of town. Jonas Kellerman was considered beneath Eliza and also a con artist. Her family tried to convince Eliza that he was only using her to gain her wealth.
But Eliza didn’t believe her family and she and Jonas made plans to marry in secret. Her father, my great-great-grandfather, found out their plans and he threatened harm against the Kellermans if Eliza didn’t marry the man he had chosen for her. To protect Jonas she agreed to marry the son of a wealthy Pennsylvania businessman. But, devastated, on the eve of her wedding Eliza snuck out and went to the beach late at night. She walked right into the ocean. By chance Jonas was up on the boardwalk with some friends, drowning his sorrows, when they saw Eliza. He rushed down to save her and his friends say they saw him reach her. But the ocean carried them away together and they were never seen again.
Over the years people have grown to believe in the legend that Jonas’s sacrifice and the purity of their love created magic. Also because townies who fall in love on the boardwalk stay in love their whole lives. There’s a spot on the boardwalk near the bandstand with a brass plaque for tourists about the legend. It says if they walk the boardwalk together, and they’re truly in love, it will last forever. As for my great-great-grandfather, he made a few bad investments and lost a lot of his wealth. People believed the Hartwells were punished for what happened to Eliza.
When my parents decided to retire they sold what we had left of the Hartwell estate, with the exception of the inn. My father had run a small real estate and property management business while my mother and I ran the inn. They sold the property company to Ian Devlin. The inn they gave to my siblings and me. My brother, Charlie, was a financial advisor in Virginia, and my sister, Vanessa, was a restless, money-hungry little bird that flew around Europe chasing one rich man after the other.
Neither of them wanted to help me continue to run the inn so I considered Hart’s Inn all mine.
I was possessive of it and of the boardwalk and the people in it. Admittedly that’s why my antagonism with Vaughn came to fruition. I thought I was protecting everyone from him when he first arrived.
I knew my mistake but by now the tone of our acquaintance had already been set.
/> “I think I might have a crush on Tremaine’s dad,” I blurted, five seconds after the men had walked out of the door.
Emery laughed. “The term ‘silver fox’ was invented just for him.”
“What happened there?” I threw my hands up in exasperation.
“What do you mean?”
“Well there is no denying that he spawned Tremaine.” Vaughn was an exact younger replica of his father. “But seriously? How did a man like Liam end up with a son like Vaughn?”
Amused, Emery crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s not like you know his father. You spent ten minutes with him.”
“And in that time I learned that he is way more down to earth and amiable than his son. You’d think he’d pass that kind of charm along to his only child.”
“Vaughn is charming to me.”
I tried to not let her words sting but in the end they did. “Of course he is. You come from money. You’re one of his people.”
“I don’t think—”
“Maybe it’s his mom,” I mused, realizing I didn’t know anything about Tremaine other than what everyone else knew—he was a hotelier from Manhattan and his father was the CEO of an international real estate and construction company. The secretive bastard wouldn’t divulge anything else. And I was above Googling someone. Okay. I wasn’t above Googling someone but I was above Googling a man who thought so little of me.
“Maybe what is his mom?”
“Maybe she’s a cold fish.”
Emery gave me a strange look. “Why are you speaking in present tense? Vaughn’s mother died when he was very young.”
Shock hit me right along with guilt for calling a dead woman a cold fish. “I didn’t know that. God. That’s horrible. How do you know that?” I tried not to feel peeved that Emery knew something about Vaughn that I didn’t.
We weren’t in high school after all.
Even though Vaughn made me feel like I was.
“My grandmother. She read the New York and Boston society pages religiously.”
“Does everyone else know about his mom?” Or was I the only insensitive idiot who didn’t?
“I don’t know actually. Now that I think about it no one has ever mentioned it.”
“What else do you know about him?”
“Not a lot. When my grandmother died so did the days of having to listen to her read the society pages to me. Grandmother died when Vaughn was in his early twenties and up until then he was always in the pages for being with a different woman at each event.”
That wasn’t a surprise, I thought, not at all bothered by the rumors that Vaughn had a different woman in his hotel suite every weekend.
Apparently, not much had changed. He was a player then and a player now.
He had to be charming to get all those women into bed. Of course, the fact that he looked like he did certainly helped, but women responded better to a combination of good looks and charm.
At least I did.
Not that I would respond to Vaughn if he did decide to turn the charm offense on me.
Still . . . it was a little hurtful that apparently I was the only one not worthy of seeing that side of him.
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion on my beautiful friend. “What do you mean he’s charming to you?”
“I just mean he’s always very congenial and polite to me.”
“Do you like him?” I tried not to sound accusatory.
“In the way that you mean, no. He’s a little too intimidating for my liking.”
I studied her, my curiosity shifting from Vaughn back to Emery. “Anyone around here strike your fancy?”
Her pale cheeks flushed a pretty pink. “No one in particular. I’m not really looking . . . I mean . . . I’m not very good at talking to men.”
No shit. I grinned and leaned across the counter. “Sweetie, men are easy. Just pretend to find everything they say fascinating.”
“It’s that simple?”
I eyed the tall, willowy blonde in front of me. “When a woman is as gorgeous as you, yes.” A shallow truth, but a truth nonetheless.
Emery blushed harder. “Believe me, as soon as I try to talk to men they’re desperate to get away.”
I hid my wince because I knew she spoke the truth. Even Cooper had told me Emery’s discomfort around him made him want to be anywhere else than in her presence.
“Man lessons,” I decided. “Jess, Dahlia, and I will give you lessons.”
“Man lessons?” Her blue eyes filled with trepidation.
I waved away her obvious concern. “Don’t worry. We’ll just teach you how to talk to them.”
“I don’t—”
“It’s decided!” I backed away and turned on my heel before she could argue with me. “I’ll organize it for this week sometime. Ta-ta!”
I grinned at my cheekiness as I wandered back out onto the boardwalk. I felt for Emery, I really did. I’d never been shy so I didn’t know what it was like, but I could only imagine how it could cripple your social life. Emery Saunders was too sweet, kind, smart, and beautiful to have no social life. I was going to give her one even if the idea terrified her.
Tom had been pretty shy when I first met him but it was hard to be shy around someone like me. I remembered the way he’d blushed on our first date every time I said something inappropriate. He’d come a long way since then, making me laugh with his own dirty jokes.
I frowned.
He hadn’t made me laugh last night.
Last night he’d made me cry. This morning he’d made me cry.
Melancholy washed over me suddenly and I began hurrying along the boards to my inn. To my solace. To the place I could just bury my feelings in work for now.
Two Weeks Later
The entire north end of Hartwell’s mile-long boardwalk was considered prime commercial real estate. My inn sat at the top of the northern end and was a large version of a typical Hartwell home. It had white-painted shingle siding, a wraparound porch, blue-painted shutters on the windows, and a widow’s walk at the top. It was one of the least architecturally commercial buildings on the boards, even down to my hand-painted sign in my well-manicured garden. A bright neon sign, like the ones so many of the buildings here had, would have clashed with my beautiful inn.
My best friend, Dahlia McGuire, owned the building next door, Hart’s Gift Shop, a much smaller structure than the inn, but architecturally similar down to the white-painted shingles. It even had a porch, although not a wraparound.
Beside Dahlia’s was a candy store, next to that an arcade, and from there the boards ran along the main thoroughfare. There was a large bandstand at the top of Main Street—our longest and widest avenue, with parking spaces in the middle to accommodate all the visitors to not only the beach and boardwalk but to the commercial buildings on the street. Trees lined Main Street, where restaurants, gift shops, clothing boutiques, retailers, fast-food joints, spas, coffeehouses, pubs, and markets were neighbors.
Back on the boardwalk were the ice cream shack, a surf shop, and then Antonio’s, the Italian restaurant owned by an older couple, my good friends, Iris and Ira. Iris was currently frantic because the building next to hers, once a tourist gift store, was under renovation to be transformed into a restaurant by some fancy French chef currently living in Boston.
Just down from Antonio’s was the largest building on the boards. A behemoth. Paradise Sands Hotel and Conference Center. There were no neon signs for that place, I’ll tell you.
It was neighbor to the ever-so-popular bar Cooper’s, and Cooper did have a neon sign because it was that kind of place. It was the boardwalk. And just down from Cooper’s was Emery’s Bookstore & Coffeehouse.
For the most part I enjoyed small-town life. I enjoyed my place in small-town life. People generally liked me, they saw me as an established pillar of soci
ety since I was the founder’s descendant, and the majority of folks in my town were wonderful.
However, it wasn’t the first time I’d had to suffer through the downside of small-town life. During the past two weeks I’d had to put up with people making trips to the inn to offer me their sympathy but also to try to find out for themselves if the rumor that I found Tom screwing a younger woman in his apartment was true. I almost called a town meeting at the bandstand to give them a step-by-step account of what happened just so the nosy bastards would leave me alone. However, Jessica talked me out of it.
It was hard enough getting over a breakup, and coming to terms with the realization that I was actually okay with the breakup, when there were a ton of people around to tell me I couldn’t possibly be okay since I was a victim.
But I was okay! I was not a victim.
Only Jess and my boardwalk buddies seemed to believe me.
Iris had said, “You getting rid of him didn’t surprise me. Just sorry it took you this long.”
Thanks, Iris.
Emery was surprised but once I explained what had been going on she believed me when I said I was fine. Jess was glad I was moving on with my life in the hopes of meeting someone I deserved. Dahlia had always liked Tom but she was mad at him for cheating on me and understood why I didn’t want to give him another shot.
How was I feeling other than okay?
Guilty. I felt guilty because I didn’t feel as bad as I should. I missed my friend but I didn’t miss my lover. And worse, I realized that things had become so complacent and distant between us that I’d actually been missing my friend for a really long time, so the missing him part wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be.
In fact, I felt like this huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
Of course that weight had been replaced by the weight of crippling fear that I would end up alone, unmarried, and childless for the rest of my life.
“I’m considering online dating,” I announced.
Cooper looked up from making two Long Island iced teas and a club soda but refrained from responding.