Ryan turned and looked out the window she was standing next to. There was a small front yard, and then the hill sloped downward toward a gnarled tree that looked like something from a fairy tale. His eyes traveled past it, on down the hill. There was a cottage, and beyond that was the lake, but it was the cottage that caught his attention. It was pink. And he was very nearly certain it was the place the Mahoney sisters were so determined to buy. Ryan had come from the other direction to get to Gigi’s place earlier today and hadn’t noticed until just now. But there it was. Right down there. The pink cottage.
“Isn’t that a great view?” Emily prompted as he stood there trying to think of what to say. Because what he wanted to say was, “My company has been hired by the Mahoney sisters to buy that land and build a three-story bed-and-breakfast right there that will almost certainly ruin this awesome view of yours.”
“That is a great view. You don’t often see a pink house,” was the best he could come up with.
Emily moved closer, and he could feel the heat of her body. Or maybe that was just heat from the sunshine coming through poorly insulated window frames? No, it was Emily. She smelled really nice again today. It was hot, and he hoped his antiperspirant was doing its job, yet there she stood next to him, warm as sunshine, smelling like flowers, with just a hint of moisture giving her face a glow. So even though Emily Chambers was technically off-limits, and even though his company was poised to ruin her view, he really wanted to give in to his baser desires and make her glow all over. What would happen if he just leaned over and kissed her?
“That pink house belongs to Bridget O’Malley,” Emily said, wiping a smudge off the window glass, clearly not reading his mind. “She is closing in on a hundred and three years old. Last I knew she was still baking all her own bread, but Gigi said she’s starting to get forgetful. The fire department would really like her to stop cooking because they get called out here every time she forgets to take something out of the oven.”
Bridget O’Malley, huh? He tamped down a sigh. It was definitely the place the Mahoney sisters were interested in. He wished he could mention that to Emily, but all he said was, “One hundred and three? That’s amazing. If my dad lives to that age, he’d still have another forty-five years to go.”
“Sure, and Lilly would have seventy-seven. By the way, did you tell him that their clandestine rendezvous are the worst-kept secret on the island?”
He shook his head. “Did you tell your sister?”
“No, not yet, but at least my dad is still in the dark. Father’s Day was not the day to tell him, and I convinced Lilly to keep it to herself for a while longer. I’m having such a nice visit, and quite frankly, I don’t want her making Harlan all grumpy and spoiling that. Let’s go sit on the porch. It’s stifling up here.”
He followed her down the stairs, and they went outside to literally sit on the porch, because there were no chairs. Even so, the breeze was nice, and he sure could use some cooling off.
“What do you think I should do with the teeny-tiny kitchen in this place?” she asked, pulling her knees up in front of her.
Ah, at last. A problem Ryan could solve. “I have a couple of ideas. Do you have any drawing paper?”
“I think so.” She hopped up and went inside, returning a minute later with a notebook and pen.
He talked as he sketched. “If you take out that powder room to the left of the kitchen, you can expand this way and add an island in the center, and then you can add another section of cabinets right here.”
“I love that idea,” she said. “I never would have thought of that. You’re pretty good at this construction stuff, I guess.”
Ryan knew he was pretty good at this construction stuff, but hearing her say it and having her gaze at him with that light in her eyes, he felt like he was the best in the world.
“I have lots of ideas.” He did, too. He kept silent on the ones involving her and a mattress and focused instead on suggestions for the cottage renovation. An hour later, they were surrounded by sheets of paper, torn from the notebook and covered with sketches.
“Wow, I’m not joking. You really are good at this stuff,” she said, holding up a drawing of two tiny bedrooms transformed into a luxurious suite. “You’re practically a superhero. Like . . . Remodel-Man. Or Construct-Thor.”
“You’re funny.” He flipped the page and started another drawing.
She leaned over to see it, and her hair tickled his nose. He laughed and reached up to push the strands away, and damned if her hair wasn’t every bit as soft as he’d imagined. His fingers curled around it, catching, twisting. She looked up at him in surprise, and the urge to kiss her nearly overwhelmed him. Gazes locked, the moment hung suspended. Her lips were only inches away, looking so soft and so tempting. He leaned forward, nearly closing the distance, and something went crash! Followed by more crash, crash, crash inside the house, and Ryan and Emily jerked backward like they’d been zapped by a live wire.
“Nothing!” Georgie called out, almost immediately. “That was nothing. Just dropped a big frickin’ jar of about five hundred frickin’ nails down the stairs.”
“Butterfingers!”
“Shut up, Garth!”
Ryan looked back at Emily, who was now staring at her shoes and not at him, and he knew the moment had passed.
Chapter 20
“I’ve decided I want to try every flavor of fudge and every flavor of ice cream on the island,” Chloe said as she licked a dribble of triple-caramel swirl from the side of her waffle cone.
It was a beautiful evening near the bay, and after a tough day of dealing with cabinets being delivered that were the wrong finish, Horsey being late because the shoelace of his work boot had broken so he’d had to run to O’Doul’s to get some new ones, the Trillium Bay building inspector stopping by to let Emily know she had more forms to fill out, and smashing her thumb with a hammer just when she was trying to show off to her crew her hammering prowess, Emily had decided that this was a good night to have dessert for dinner. She’d gotten no argument from her daughter, and so they were now sitting on a bench near Trillium Park, having ice cream and watching the ducks paddle around in the water.
“Every flavor of ice cream? That’s a lot of flavors,” Emily said. She’d gotten a strawberry sundae, just as she had as a kid whenever Gigi would take her for ice cream. She never got these in San Antonio and had no idea why. Surely they’d taste just as good there, but then again, maybe they wouldn’t because Texas just wasn’t Trillium Bay.
“Yep,” Chloe said with another swipe at her cone. “But you’ve always told me it’s important to have goals. I think tomorrow morning I should have coffee ice cream. Because, you know, coffee in the morning?”
“Not sure about that, but I’m glad to know you consider goals important. So, what did you do earlier today?”
“I went up to Holmes Point with Susie Mahoney. I know we’re not supposed to like them because of, you know, that feud stuff, but I really like her. I like all the kids here. Everybody is so nice.”