“I’d rethink that second brownie if I were you, Wynnie. Sam’s not going to want you if you let yourself go just because you’ve had a baby.”
Picturing the light at the end of the tunnel that was her parents’ departure, Wynter smiled brightly. Making sure to catch her mother’s eye, she added a dollop of ice cream to the top of the brownie and spooned up a big bite. Ignoring her mother’s hands on her hips and the ‘I’m-telling-you-you’ll-regret-it’ raise of her eyebrows, she focused instead on the mix of cold ice cream with the warm brownie, the melted chocolate chips sliding down her throat after coating her tongue with blissful sweetness.
Sam caught her eye across the table and winked. It brought back memories of growing up under Gloria’s thumb. Sam—and Holt as well—had made it so much more tolerable. On the one hand, she was happy, grateful she had Sam to lend support. But on the other she was frustrated that her mother could make her feel like a recalcitrant child. She was an adult, with an infant of her own, for goodness’ sake! She had to stop letting Gloria get under her skin. Enough was enough.
“So, when is the wedding?” Gloria looked from Wynter to Sam. The smug smirk peeling the corners of her mouth upward showed how pleased she was that she had managed to rattle her daughter’s cage . . . Again.
“Mother!”
Wynter sent a horrified look at Sam, amazed when he didn’t seem nearly as uncomfortable about the turn of conversation as she was. Gloria wasn’t his mother. She couldn’t push his buttons as easily as she could her daughter’s.
“And do you intend to invite your brother? Because I don’t think it’s appropriate for him to attend when he hasn’t participated in being a member of this family for so long.”
“A wedding comes after a proposal, mother. A proposal comes after a good long courtship.”
“Oh, please. No one says courtship anymore. You’ve got a baby to think about now. If Sam is going to raise Lottie as his own, you need to move forward.”
“Sam, I want to apologize for my mother. Her conversationally-appropriate filter seems to be broken.” When mortified, resort to humor.
“My daughter will not just shack up with a guy because it’s convenient.” Burt’s voice thundered across the table. Oh, good Lord! Charlotte whimpered in her sleep, from the bassinette in the adjoining room.
“She didn’t say we wouldn’t get married, Mr. Allen. We just don’t see the need to rush. I love your daughter, sir. And I love little Charlotte. I intend to take care of both of them for the rest of my life.”
Wynter stood up from the table, ostensibly to check on her sleeping baby. She felt like a weasel, forcing Sam to lie to her parents. She didn’t feel bad lying to them. No, they had brought this all on themselves. But poor Sam was having to go above and beyond the call of even the closest friendship. This is not what she’d meant to ask of him when she showed up on his doorstep, pregnant, broke, and incredibly desperate.
When she returned from the living room, assured that the livelier-than-necessary conversation hadn’t woken Charlotte, her father had settled down. He was tucking into his third helping of dessert, not that her mother chose to point that out. Gloria’s smile, upon seeing Wynter in the doorway, was calculating. She wasn’t finished yet.
“So when do you think you’ll be moving back to Scallop Shores?” And there it was.
She stopped breathing. Did Gloria know this whole thing was a farce? The woman’s sharp gray eyes pinned her to the spot. Wynter’s brain shorted out. She couldn’t form words, just stood there with her mouth slightly open. Burt turned in his seat, also awaiting a response.
“We haven’t discussed the specifics, have we, babe? It’d be best if we waited until spring, when the snow finally melts and we can think about putting the house on the market.”
Oh, Sam. One lie just led to another. She’d really gotten him into a pickle.
“Mom, I promise we aren’t going to make any life-altering changes without giving you plenty of notice. Okay?”
“You mean like searching out a friend you hadn’t seen in over ten years, in favor of moving in with your parents when you were nearly ready to give birth?”
“Sure beats being completely shut out of your son’s life, and the lives of his children, though, because your control-freak ways pushed him away, doesn’t it?” That’s right. She went there.
Gloria’s face turned red, then slightly purple. Her eyes went from wide to a scrunched up mean. Her mouth opened, closed, the tight seal of her lips wrinkling like she’d been sucking on lemons. She whipped around, her focus now on Burt, urging him to get involved. He started to speak and Wynter cut him off.
“No, you both listen to me. If you want any kind of relationship with me or with Charlotte, you will stop with the smothering.” She stepped away from the doorframe, pointing a finger at her mother and then swinging it to include her father.
“You need to trust that I am a grown woman who can take care of herself. It isn’t Sam’s responsibility to take care of me. If he chooses to be a part of our little family, it’s because he wants to, not because he has to.”
Wynter suddenly realized her speech was really meant for him. She could care less whether her parents understood her need to be independent. But Sam? She didn’t want his charity. She didn’t want him to feel obligated to take care of her and her daughter.
She snuck a glance at him across the table. Even his eyes were smiling, and his expression bolstered her flagging confidence. What she wouldn’t give for this scenario to be real. That they really were headed for marriage. That Sam was finally willing to move back to Scallop Shores, to face his demons. He looked at her with such warmth, such affection. It was almost like—No. She had to remember they were putting on an act for the benefit of her parents. Her imagination was sending her down a path she had no business following.
• • •
This was the last night they would have to share a bedroom under the guise that they were a loving couple. Wynter should have felt relieved. Instead, she found herself following him with her eyes, watching him shuck his jeans to sleep in his boxers, wishing she had the nerve to invite him to share the bed.
Sam turned, as though he could feel her eyes upon him. He frowned. She schooled her features to hide her own turmoil, as he seemed to understand that something was up. She experimented with a shaky smile. His frown deepened. Hey, it had been a long day. As far as acting went, she was spent. He propped a pillow and lay down on top of the covers with her, thankfully leaving his T-shirt on.
“You feeling guilty for lying to your parents?”
“Not at all. They deserve it.” She didn’t even blink. “I’m feeling guilty that you had to lie. This can’t be easy for you.”
“I don’t know. I’m kind of surprised at how good I am. Should I be worried? Are you a bad influence on me?”
Wynter giggled, punching her friend in the arm before settling down to rest her head on his chest. This should have put her at ease. They’d snuggled like this so often in the past. Sam would climb the old oak and tap on her window. She’d let him in and they would talk the night away. He’d comb his fingers through her hair. It had always made her want to purr. Eventually, she’d fall asleep. Sam would let himself out the window, closing it as best he could, before sneaking back into his own house in the wee hours of the morning. Her parents had been none the wiser.
Sam was on the scrawny side in high school, his slight chest bony, his long arms skinny. While they had been apart he had changed. Her skinny computer nerd had filled out. Now her head rested on one well-defined pec, while her arm stretched across the wide expanse of his chest. He was her Sam, and then some. Instead of snuggling into his chest, ready to chat the night away, Wynter found herself distracted by the scent of his spicy soap. Her fingers itched to play with the hair that curled against his neck. She remained still, hoping the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath her cheek would calm her heightened senses.
“I was proud of you tonight, standing up to your parents like you did.” His deep voice rumbled through his chest, sending shivers all the way to her curling toes.
Great. Now she just wanted to crawl up his body and whisper naughty things in his ear. Wynter stiffened against Sam’s side. What used to be as natural as breathing was now the sweetest form of torture. Every place their bodies touched tingled. Her skin wanted more surface area covered. Her brain wanted her to lift off and hover, removing herself from the temptation that was her scrumptious best friend.
“I’ll just be glad when they leave.” Wynter couldn’t resist rubbing her cheek against the worn fabric of Sam’s tee. His fingertips skittered up her arm before finding their way into her hair to massage her scalp.
“Mmm . . . Me too.” The gravelly tone of Sam’s voice caught her off guard. Had he meant that the way it sounded? Or were her own needs interpreting that as suggestive?
The pads of his fingers pressed little circles into her hairline. Wynter ground her teeth together, suppressing the moan that would betray exactly how she really felt about him struggling to escape.
“Sam, about Scallop Shores. You didn’t have to tell my parents you would come with me. I understand why you stay away.” Understood but hated it.
He used the pressure from his fingertips in her hair to force her to meet his eyes. His jaw was rigid, his eyes dark and dangerous. She opened her mouth to speak but it hung slack as she registered the hunger in his expression.
“I don’t want to talk about Scallop Shores.”
“But—” Shut me up, Sam.
And he did. Sam hauled her up, bringing their faces into alignment before claiming her lips in a kiss that stole every breath, every thought, every last reservation she had. This time the moan did escape, slipping from her mouth into his. He swallowed it greedily, sharing a low sonorous growl of his own.
She wanted more. Her fingers became restless, darting over surfaces she hadn’t ever imagined touching. This was her Sam, after all, and she didn’t think of her Sam like that. Except that now she couldn’t stop thinking of Sam and sex in the same context. He made her want things she couldn’t have. He made her bold, ready to ask for what she needed.
His large hands cupped her bottom, pulling her against him right where the tightest bundle of nerves scraped against hard steel, urging her to lose all control and ride this wanton wave of lust to the finish. She couldn’t think. She could only need. Her body trembled with the force of it.
Then the toilet flushed in the hallway and her father exited the bathroom, whistling a tune. She knew, from memory, that he carried a rolled up magazine under his arm. Squeezing her eyes shut, she broke the kiss, trying to gain control of the situation. Sam held her chin up with one finger, and when she peeked through her lashes, she saw that he had no intention of letting her father interrupt what they had started.
She buried her face in his chest. This had gotten completely out of control. Never mind that it was what she wanted more than anything in the world. It was wrong. She couldn’t have Sam. She shouldn’t have Sam. Kissing Sam, touching Sam, it was all so good. And that was what made it wrong.
Wynter pushed herself off his chest and scrambled for the edge of the bed, shrugging off his hand when he reached for her shoulder. God, he’s going to think I’m nuts! How to explain the guilt, the wrongness of wanting her best friend? She’d been married to Holt for nearly ten years and had never felt this passion, this all-consuming desperation to share herself with him. This was wrong.
Really, what kind of woman throws herself into the arms of another man mere months after losing her husband, the father of her new baby girl? A woman who should never have married that man in the first place. Holt had been there for her at a time when she’d felt alone, lost. He’d deserved a wife who gave him her whole body and heart. He just hadn’t gotten it.
And now she was giving herself to Sam with all the reckless abandon of a . . . She couldn’t even think the word. It was dirty. It was shameful. Yet it fit her to a T. Please forgive me, Holt. I’m acting like a slut. There. She’d said it, at least in her own head. Admitting it didn’t make the reality of it feel any better.
“Talk to me, Wyn. I’m not going anywhere.” This time he cupped both shoulders tightly, pulling her against him.
“See, that’s just the thing. You aren’t going anywhere. But I am.” She turned, catching sight of his stubbled jaw and resisting the urge to reach out and stroke it with her fingertips.
“My future is in Scallop Shores. I’ve known that I would go back since Holt and I left for college. As much as I want you in my life, in Charlotte’s life, it’s just not going to work. Unless you’re willing to face your past, slay your demons, this,” she laid a palm on his chest and then moved it to her own, “this is just temporary. And I don’t want to start something with you that we can’t finish.”
His silence told her he understood, and agreed. What had she been expecting? That he’d suddenly offer to overlook a past that had haunted him for twelve years? His focus was on her left shoulder and try as she might, Wynter could not get him to look her in the eye. His expression was pained. She hadn’t meant to make him feel guilty. That was all on him.
“It’s late, Sam. Let’s get some sleep.”
This time he did look up, and the raw vulnerability she witnessed made Wynter want to take his hand and help him beneath the covers. She yearned to hold him, kiss him and tell him everything was going to be okay.
It was supposed to be all about her. Now that Holt was gone, it was Wynter’s chance to live independently, make her own choices. She had her daughter to think of and no time for complications.
But the more time she spent with Sam, the tighter he became woven into her life. They’d shared a past, they were connected. She’d understood that, had shamefully tried to exploit that. But these new feelings she was having for Sam? It was getting harder and harder to separate her wants and needs, her goals for the future from this old farmhouse in Middle-Of-Nowhere Vermont, or from the man who used to be her buddy and was starting to look an awful lot like her soul mate, a concept she’d considered a fairy tale until very recently.
Wynter slipped beneath the covers alone. Her toes stretched across the length of the mattress as though, if she stretched far enough, she could reach Sam, curled up with an extra blanket on the floor beside the closet. She hugged the pillow, catching just a lingering trace of Sam’s scent. Burying her face, she breathed deep. If she’d thought her life was complicated before arriving at Sam’s place, it was nothing compared to now.
• • •
The cement floor of the basement was chilly, even under her stocking feet. Wynter did a little dance to warm up, as she scooped the warm clothes from the dryer into the laundry basket at her feet. Kicking it aside, she transferred the wet things from the washing machine into the dryer and turned it back on.
“Were you just going to hide down here until we left?” The sound of the dryer had masked her mother’s arrival.
She’d been planning to come back upstairs. Maybe at the last possible second, but she’d have been there to see them off. Barely. Slipping into her dutiful daughter persona, Wynter conjured a mental clock, ticking down the minutes until her mother was in that large rental currently parked in the driveway, heading toward the airport and away from them.
“Just getting a little laundry done while Charlotte sleeps.” She didn’t have the energy for another go ‘round.
Hauling the basket up on her hip, she was about to lead the way back up to the living room when her mother stopped her with a hand on her arm. Gloria wasn’t the touchy-feely type, so this was enough to stop Wynter in her tracks.
“I wanted to talk to you alone. Before we go.”
Yep. Another go ‘round.
“Mom, I’m tired and I’m busy. You remember what it was like having a newborn around, I’m sure. There is very little time to get things done in between Charlotte’s little catnaps.”
“I do, yes. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, actually.”
Dropping her arm to her side, Gloria seemed to struggle for the right words.
This was interesting. Wynter set the basket of clothes on the dryer and began pairing socks, holding them together and rolling them into a ball, just as her mother had taught her.
“We haven’t had the easiest relationship. I know I’m partly to blame for that.
Before she could cough, sputter, gag, or in any other way acknowledge that gross exaggeration of the truth, her mother had continued.
“Everything I did was out of love for you and your brothers. I was the best mother I knew how to be. I want you to know how much I loved you all, how much I still love you.”
“Mom, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She’d run out of socks and was frantically searching the bottom of the basket for anything that would keep her from having to make eye contact. Who was this alien pod person that had taken over her mother’s body? The lonely little girl that had craved her mother’s affection was still there, hiding inside Wynter’s heart. And she was intrigued.
The adult in her was suspicious. Why now? Was this a last-minute ploy to get her to see reason and get her to fly home to Florida with them?
“I bought something, just a little present.”
Ah, there we go! A plane ticket, no doubt.
“Mom, you didn’t have to. Really.”
Gloria reached into the pocket of her baggy brown corduroys and withdrew a small box. It was too tiny to house a plane ticket. She held it out to Wynter, her expression one of uncertainty.
Taking a deep breath, her nose picking out equal parts dryer sheet and musty basement, Wynter accepted the box with trepidation. Her mother watched her closely. It was unnerving, really. A simple white box, it made very little sound when she shook it.
Removing the lid, she gasped. Inside was a bracelet, clearly meant for an infant. The links were gold, delicate. Dangling from the center of the chain was a flat charm, a filigreed rose etched into the metal.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Turn it over.” Gloria gestured with her hand.
Engraved on the back were the words Beloved Granddaughter. Wynter pressed her fingers to her mouth. Emotions she didn’t think she possessed for the woman in front of her clogged her throat, made it impossible to speak.
“She doesn’t have to wear it, of course. I just thought she ought to have something to remember us by.”
“Remember you by? It’s not like this is the last time you’ll ever see her.”
“Isn’t it? You’ve made it more than clear that you don’t need us.”
“I just . . . you were pushing too hard. I guess I was a little unreasonable.”
Wynter wrapped her arms around her mother. The slight woman felt stiff. They stood awkwardly for a few moments. Nope. Affection just didn’t seem to come naturally with them. The relief was tangible when they pulled apart.
“Thank you. I will make sure Charlotte treasures this bracelet.”
Gloria offered her a quiet smile and patted her hand. “There’s something in the bottom of the box for you, too. But you can look at it later, after we’re gone.” Then she retreated up the stairs, leaving Wynter stunned.
Had she misjudged her mother? Perhaps the idea of losing the relationship of another grandchild had made the woman resolve to be a better person. It didn’t erase the years of childhood trauma Gloria had inflicted on Wynter, but it was a start. A fresh start. And that made her heart feel good.
They made it through the rest of the morning and her parents’ departure rather uneventfully. It wasn’t until hours later that she recalled her mother’s mention of a gift and picked up the jewelry box again. There was a piece of paper stuck inside the bottom, underneath the soft batting. Curiosity piquing, Wynter plucked it out and unfolded it.
A check made out to her in the amount of ten thousand dollars was pinched between her trembling fingers. In the subject line, at the bottom of the check, it read Scallop Shores Travel Fund.
Of course. It was just like her parents to throw money at a problem. Her mother had called it a gift, but there were so many different ways she could interpret this check. Did they really just want to help? Or was this a means to get in one last dig at Wynter, to say that they didn’t think she could carve out a new life for her daughter without their assistance or Sam’s?
Stiffening her spine, she tore up the check, until the pieces of paper were so tiny she couldn’t make out any of the writing. Wynter would earn her own way back to Scallop Shores. She would find a way to pay back Sam for his generosity. And she’d do it on her own.