“You’re nervous.” Greg’s statement was decidedly accusatory.
“Don’t be silly,” Nina assured him. “I’m not the least bit nervous.”
He stared pointedly at her finger, twirling a curl of hair at the nape of her neck. Good lord. Was she that obvious?
“Right,” he said. “Not nervous. Got it.”
“So I’m nervous. Whatever. So sue me.”
On the official opening day at the inn, everything was finally ready—painted, freshened, furnished, buffed and polished. Flower arrangements from a local grower graced the tables and fireplace mantels. Becky Murray, a local musician, was playing the harp like a seraphim. The muted notes shimmered through the salon, creating an air of elegance and luxury. The staff was discreetly going about their duties. Bone-china trays of treats from the Sky River Bakery had been set out on an antique table, along with a silver samovar of iced tea. Nina and Greg were ready at the registration desk while the housekeeping and support staff were nearly invisible in the background. Everyone was awaiting the arrival of the first guests. Some waited with more nervousness than others.
Part of the reason for her nerves was standing next to her in a gorgeously tailored sport coat—not too formal, but dressy enough to show this day meant something to him. He smelled of some delicious cologne and seemed so at ease in the luxurious setting, while Nina was having second thoughts about her new sundress. She was having second thoughts about everything. Ever since he’d kissed her, she felt as though aliens had possessed her body. She was no longer in control. All Greg had to do was walk into the room and her panties fell off. She fantasized about him constantly. Once, to her horror, she’d caught herself unconsciously doodling his name on hotel stationery.
To his credit, he was a gentleman about the encounter. He hadn’t said anything, hadn’t pushed the issue. Nina tried to put it behind her. She kept telling herself it was no big deal. He’d kissed her, and she’d brushed him off—not because she didn’t like him but because she liked him too much. He’d claimed he wanted their relationship to change, but he hadn’t said what he expected it to change into. Nina figured they were better off leaving that stone unturned.
Greg seemed mercifully oblivious to her thoughts. “Everything is going to be fine. Better than fine. Today’s going to be a kick in the ass.”
“I know that’s what I look for when I go on vacation,” she murmured. Yet when he smiled at her, she felt that now-familiar melting sensation, and knew he was right—everything would be fine. His supreme self-confidence was infectious. People were going to walk through that door, take one look at this tall, smiling, incredibly handsome man and know they’d chosen the right spot for their holiday. How could they not?
“Welcome to Fantasy Island,” she murmured in a fake Spanish accent.
“What’s that?”
“Um, nothing.” Nina had initially expected this whole process to be hard for him. She’d expected him to wave a white flag of surrender, declaring that he’d made a terrible mistake, that he didn’t want the inn after all. Now she conceded that he’d done a fantastic job with the place. He had a natural air of calm and the respect of everyone who worked for him—including her. Somehow, he had orchestrated the opening of the Inn at Willow Lake with amazing precision.
This was problematic. He was supposed to fail and go away.
There was still a lot of summer left, she reminded herself. Plenty of opportunities for Greg to learn he didn’t belong here, that he was better off designing golf courses or mall layouts. The arriving guests could very well change everything. People were fickle, unreasonable, hard to please. They’d wear him down by summer’s end. She could afford to be pleased for him—for them all—today.
She glanced at the card Sonnet had sent her—Good luck, Mom—that Nina had propped on the desk under the reception counter, and her nervousness slipped away. The card depicted a romanticized drawing of Casteau, the little town of cobblestone streets and ancient churches where Sonnet now lived with her father and his family.
“I guess you miss her a lot,” Greg said.
She nodded, startled by his scrutiny. “It feels a little funny that she’s not here for this. She’s been present for every big moment of my life, even my high school graduation. Then there was college graduation, my swearing-in as mayor, everything.” Nina sighed and touched the card.
“So this is a big moment for you,” he said.
“Absolutely.” Why pretend otherwise?
For some reason that made him smile. “Me, too.”
A sound drifted through the open window—the thud of car doors slamming, and voices approaching. Greg squared his shoulders as the first guests came through the door. “Welcome to the Inn at Willow Lake,” he said.
They were the Morgans, a couple from the city, an effusive woman named Sadie and her husband Nate, who was quiet and indulgent. Nina checked them in and Walter showed them to their room. Within the next couple of hours, they welcomed a variety of guests—a dating pair from Buffalo who had won the Web-based promotional contest for a free stay. There was a young woman named Kimberly Van Dorn, traveling alone, who was so stunningly gorgeous that Nina stopped what she was doing to stare. Not that Kimberly Van Dorn noticed, of course. She saved all her attention for Greg, managing to slip certain key facts into the conversation—she had attended Camp Kioga as a girl, and she was newly divorced.
Greg took it in stride, assuring Ms. Van Dorn that her stay would be relaxing, a chance to escape the everyday demands of life.
She barely looked old enough to have been married for any amount of time. She was tall as an Amazon, with Katharine Hepburn cheekbones and a swimsuit-model figure, cascades of red hair, and—probably most attractive of all to the men present—she drove a fancy sports car and had brought along a set of golf clubs. Amazing. Here was every man’s fantasy all in one shiny, revved-up package.
Yet Greg treated her the same as any other guest as he handed her a room key and sent her and her designer luggage off with Walter.
“Welcome to the Inn at Willow Lake,” he said to the next party of guests.
“Gayle, hi.” Nina was happy to see a familiar face. Gayle had been her assistant when she was mayor. She turned to Greg. “This is Gayle Wright, and her husband Adam.”
“We own the Windy Ridge Flower Farm.” Gayle surveyed the salon. “The flowers look fantastic in here.”
Nina had ordered weekly service from Gayle and Adam. Gayle was a genius at arrangements. Instead of the usual jungle of flowers in a giant urn, she’d created single-variety arrangements in clear vases, grouping them on pedestals of varying heights around the salon. “You get the credit for that,” Nina assured her.
Gayle beamed. “I wish the kids—”
“No, you don’t,” Adam interrupted, then addressed Nina. “This is the first time we’ll both be away from them overnight.”
“All three of them are at my mother’s,” Gayle said.
“And they’re fine,” Adam assured her.
Nina observed them, feeling a peculiar warmth build inside her heart. She’d gone all through school with Gayle, a quiet, heavyset girl with lanky brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As an adult, Gayle had changed very little, yet when she was with her husband, she glowed from within. Being in love really did make a person beautiful. It was a magical phenomenon in that way. When you looked at a couple like Gayle and Adam, you saw something that was invisible, yet as tangible and real as the earth itself. That was the way love was supposed to be. That was what Nina wanted for Sonnet one day. Okay, it was what she wanted for herself. Maybe she was crazy for still believing it was possible.
It was the inn, she thought, and this romantic atmosphere they had worked so hard to achieve. Good lord, it was working, even on her.
“Is this a special occasion for you guys?” she asked.
A light flickered and dimmed in Gayle’s eyes. She pressed her lips together, nodded. Her hand found her husband’s. “Adam’s National Guard unit is being deployed.” Her voice wavered over the announcement. “He’s leaving next week.”
Nina felt a chill touch her spine, but she kept her smile in place. “We’ll make this weekend extra special for you,” she promised. The chill lingered as she watched them go, and it occurred to Nina that even true love had its down side—the hurt that came from separation, the fear of danger.
As the Wrights made their way to their room, Greg was already speaking with the next couple—Jack Daly and Sarah Moon, from Chicago. They were young and prosperous-looking, perhaps a little subdued.
“Any special occasion for you?” Greg asked.
The couple exchanged a smile, tinged with irony. Jack was slender and attractive, with close-cropped hair and the spare, athletic look reminiscent of Lance Armstrong. “Yeah, actually, it is,” he said, but he didn’t elaborate; he scooped the keys off the desk and headed for the stairs.
His wife, Sarah Moon, finished signing the registry book with a flourish. She had a quiet beauty that radiated from her smile, which she used to deflect her husband’s brusqueness. “I’m glad we’re staying a whole week,” she said. “We need the time.”
Nina and Greg exchanged a glance as the couple headed for their lakeview suite. “I wonder what that was all about,” she murmured.
“None of our business,” he reminded her.
She sniffed. “You’re no fun.”
He laughed softly. “I’m tons of fun. You just haven’t given me a chance yet.”
“A chance at what?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know.” The phone rang, and he answered it, never taking his eyes off her.
Saved by the bell. She pretended to forget their conversation as she busied herself with other things, and stayed busy the rest of the afternoon and well into the evening. She enjoyed every minute of it, as she’d known she would. She liked orchestrating the guests, making sure they had not just everything they needed, but things they didn’t know they wanted—like a crisp linen mat on the floor by the bed at turndown time, accompanied by a soft pair of spa scuffs.
By the time they had everyone checked in and finished up for the night, it was nearly 10:00 p.m.
“Wow,” said Greg, looking around the salon. “That was amazing.”
“Good amazing or bad amazing?” she asked.
“Just…amazing.”
She grabbed her bag from a cabinet under the counter. “And just think, you get to do it all over again tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Good night, Greg.” She made a hasty exit, not eager to linger with him in the dim, flower-decked salon. She walked alone down the lighted path to the boathouse. Out on the dock, a couple stood holding each other in an embrace while a silver mist of moonlight played upon the water. There was something compelling about the way they clung to each other, and Nina looked away, loathe to intrude on their privacy. She smiled, because that was exactly what she wanted for the guests of the inn—romantic moments of searing intimacy, a chance for people to connect or renew bonds that had grown weak or ragged with the demands of everyday life.
Yet on the heels of Nina’s satisfaction came a peculiar restlessness. She stole one more look at the couple on the dock. They were kissing now, lost in each other. And without warning, Nina was pierced by a loneliness so deep that she shook with it.
Snap out of it, she chided herself, climbing the stairs to her place. Not everyone got to fall in love. And that wasn’t such a bad thing. Love tended to complicate matters and so often, it ended badly. It wasn’t something she wanted or needed in her life at this point. She’d done just fine without it for a very long time.
At this hour, she didn’t feel just fine. She wasn’t sure what she felt like. She wasn’t hungry, although she’d skipped dinner. It was too late to call Jenny and talk about her day. In Belgium, it was not quite dawn, and Sonnet would probably be sound asleep.
Within minutes, the phone rang, and Nina snatched it up. Problems with the guests already? “This is Nina,” she said in a clipped voice.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Sonnet! Good lord, what are you doing up at this hour?”
“I got up especially to call you, see how things went today.”
Nina smiled and wandered out to the deck. “It was great, honey. I wish you’d been there.”
“Me, too. So, how’s it going with Mr. Bellamy?”
Nina’s grip tightened on the handset. Did Sonnet know? “Never mind me,” she said. “You’re in Europe. Let’s talk about that.”
“Whoa, you totally evaded my question. Nice, Mom.”
“I didn’t evade. I simply don’t want to bore you.”
“So are you getting along?” Sonnet persisted.
Yes.
“Is he driving you nuts?”
Yes.
“Are you—”
“It’s business, all right? His business, and I work for him. The inn had its grand opening and everything went really well.” She saw the flash of a camera in the distance. Looking across the lawn, she spotted Daisy, easily picking her out by her very pregnant silhouette, outlined by the path lights. Daisy was with a tall, long-haired boy, walking down by the lakeshore, taking pictures. “Daisy has a new friend,” she told Sonnet, welcoming the diversion. “He’s Connor Davis’s younger brother.”
“Way ahead of you, Mom,” Sonnet said. “Daisy already e-mailed me pictures. He’s a complete hottie but Daisy claims they’re just friends. For the time being, anyway.”
Nina watched them for a moment, their shadows fused into one that lay huge upon the sloping lawn. Their heads were inclined together as they talked. “Just friends,” she agreed. That was all they could be, under the circumstances. Watching them, she remembered being young and pregnant, missing out on the chance to date and stay out late and do stupid, irresponsible things. By the age of fifteen, she’d done more than her share.
“Mom?” Sonnet prodded. “You got quiet on me there.”
“Oh. Sorry. Bad connection. How was Wiesbaden?”
“Incredible. Except Kara and Layla whined the whole time we were at the castle, because they were bored.” When Sonnet spoke of her two younger half sisters, her tone changed to one of exasperation. “I swear, sometimes I just want to smack them.”
“In my family, we just went ahead and did that.”
“Did it work?”
“Temporarily.”
“Then I might have to try it.”
Nina laughed. “But other than that, everything’s okay?”
“Totally.”
“I mentioned to Greg that you’ll be seeing Daisy’s mom when you go to The Hague. I figured he should know. He’s fine with it, of course. Even encouraged you to contact her. Although that doesn’t matter. What matters is you—”
“Mom.”
“I mean, she’s the obvious person to show you around, since she’s a local there, and works at the ICC—”
“You’re babbling.”
“Oh. Sorry. Long day, I guess. I’m keyed up.”
“I don’t blame you. I’m excited for you. And I miss you. I miss home.”
“Everybody misses you.” She felt a squeezing sensation in her chest. Of everything in Nina’s life, Sonnet was her one true thing. Without her, there was nothing to mask Nina’s desperate loneliness.
“But I need to go now.”
“I know, honey. I can’t believe you got up so early just to call me. You’re the best.”
“I just wanted to be the first to say congrats again on the opening. I’ll see you before you know it,” Sonnet said.
“Can’t wait.” Nina turned off the phone and sighed, leaning against the railing of the deck. The hotel grounds were empty now. Daisy and Julian had gone somewhere else. In the silence following the phone call, she felt a tug of yearning for her daughter. Sonnet was coming back for the Bellamy wedding. Nina couldn’t wait to see her again, and she refused to think about the fact that Sonnet would be leaving for college right after the wedding.
She took a deep breath of the sweet night air and reminded herself that she had to get up early tomorrow. She ought to go to bed. Wandering inside, she discovered that she was too restless, so she opted for putting a Tony Bennett CD on the stereo and pouring a glass of wine. Then she wandered back outside, drawn by the cool stillness of the night. Sipping her wine, she swayed gently to “Because of You,” drifting softly through the screen door. This was more like it, she thought, feeling her nerves uncoil, massaged by the music and the wine. She didn’t need anyone or anything except this—a pleasantly cheesy song, a glass of merlot, a little peace and quiet to savor the victory of a day that had gone well.
The quiet lasted maybe thirty seconds. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. The motion-activated security light flickered on.
“Greg,” she said, feeling a hard-to-deny quiver of reaction. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said, stepping onto the deck.
“Daisy?” she asked, unconvinced that “nothing” had brought him here.
“She and Julian are on the computer, working with some pictures she took.”
They stood awkwardly for a moment. Tony Bennett warbled “Love Look Away.” Nina had no idea what to make of this visit. Nothing was the matter, and he’d come to see her. He glanced at her wineglass. “Drinking alone?”
“I think today warrants a glass of wine. And I was just on the phone with Sonnet.”
“I’m not sure that counts.” He glanced around. “You look pretty alone to me.”
She scowled at him. “You don’t have to rub it in.”
“I’m not. I’m alone, too,” he pointed out.
She nodded. “So have you heard from Max? How was his trip to Holland?” Accompanied by his grandparents, he’d gone to see his mother. Nina sensed that Greg had mixed feelings about his son being away, because she had been experiencing the same thing with Sonnet, all summer long. On the one hand, the freedom from moment-to-moment responsibility was exhilarating; on the other hand, the child’s absence left a hollow spot where doubts had a way of flourishing.
“His trip was fine, and we talk every day,” he said. “We talk, but I have no idea how he’s doing. He says he didn’t mind the overseas flight. Sophie’s parents are great with him.”
“How long will he be away?”
“A couple of weeks. I hate to see him miss his Little League practices and games, but I guess it’s more important for him to spend time with his mother.”
It was, she knew, the age-old dilemma of a divorced couple. She didn’t envy him.
“Max seems to handle this well enough, but there are definitely times when I know he’s completely messed up about the divorce and I feel like shit.” Greg’s candor was disarming.
“He is a typical kid,” she assured him. “Everybody has their ups and downs.” It sounded like an empty platitude, though. For a child of divorce, life could be complicated. For Max, visiting his mother entailed an intricate journey and precise scheduling, a lining up of helpful adult relatives.
“When we first split,” Greg said, “Sophie thought both kids would move overseas with her. She had a school all picked out, a house…but they had trouble right away and the kids begged to live in the States. They chose this town, this life. I don’t pretend it was me personally. Given the way things worked out for Daisy, I sort of wish—”
“Don’t,” Nina advised. “That’s completely pointless.”
“I just hate the thought that I’ve made a mistake, let them down. Max has kind of gotten lost in all the drama about Daisy. In a lot of ways, he’s a typical kid—all boy, all mischief, all the time. Some days, he seems happy, having this idyllic small-town boyhood—the lake, the ball field, the family summer camp up the road. Other days, he acts as though being here is torture.”
“Which is why you should be fine with letting him visit his mother.”
“Yeah, good point.”
“So listen, can I get you—”
“I hope you don’t mind—”
They both spoke at once, then both stopped. Greg laughed. “After today, I was just too wired to sit still, so I thought I’d pay you a visit.”
She was ridiculously pleased to hear it. “I admit, I’m a bit keyed up, too. Would you like a glass of wine? Or I have beer.” She bit her lip. Beer was so unsophisticated. She shouldn’t have mentioned it. She always felt so out-classed by Greg. She wondered if he noticed.
“Thanks. A beer would be great.”
She hurried inside and opened a longneck bottle of microbrew. At least it was a boutique beer. “Would you like a glass?” she called.
“Straight from the bottle’s fine.”
Nina Romano, what the heck are you doing? she asked herself. Then she stifled the little voice in her head. She brought him the beer, angled her wineglass in his direction. “To a great start for the inn.”
“I’ll drink to that,” he said. “We did great today, both of us.”
Nina felt an odd tension between pleasure and disappointment. “So all the hard work was worth it.”
“Yep.”
“You didn’t ever feel like giving up?”
“Before the place opened? No way,” he said.
“Suppose you get tired of all the work and hassle.”
He gave a soft, velvety chuckle, which she found far too appealing. “Not an option,” he said simply, and took another swig of beer. “What, you expect me to pick up my toys and go home? I’m not a quitter. I had every advantage growing up but it didn’t spoil me. I like to work. I don’t shy away from things just because they’re hard. And you worked damn hard for this place. Why would you expect me to bail?”
Observing him these past few weeks, she recognized that giving up was not his way. He was hard-wired for success, no matter what he did. Maybe that was why he took his divorce so hard, she speculated. Maybe one day, she’d ask him about that. No, she thought. That was far too personal. This—her relationship with Greg—was about the inn, a business enterprise. She reminded herself to focus on that. She imagined their guests comfortably ensconced in rooms where she’d sweated every detail, from the fresh rose in the bud vase at the bedside table to the thick terry robes and shea butter soaps. In their advertising literature, they promised “uncommon luxury,” and Nina meant to give it to them.
“Well,” he said, finishing his beer, “I’d better get going.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, listen, about tomorrow night—I thought maybe we could go to dinner.”
“You mean like a date?” Nina was incredulous. She thought their kiss had been a fluke. A crazy impulse. She thought they’d gotten past it and moved on.
“No. I mean, yeah. A date, whatever. A date between friends.”
“I can’t date you, Greg,” she said, surprised at the sharpness of the regret she felt.
“Why not?”
The regret deepened. She wondered if it was possible to forget about business and rivalry, forget the fact that he was a Bellamy and simply enjoy his company.
“I just…can’t,” she said. “It’s a bad idea, any way you look at it. We talked about this before.”
“No, we didn’t. I kissed you and you spent the next week pretending it didn’t happen and refusing to talk about it.”
Ouch, she thought. “All right, suppose we hit it off. Suppose we want to keep seeing each other.”
“Then it will be really easy,” he assured her, “since we both live on the premises.”
She shuddered—with excitement? Nervousness? She couldn’t be sure. “Think about it. How much would it suck to work together after we’ve broken up?”
At that, he laughed aloud. “We’re not even dating and you’ve already got us broken up.”
“I just like to think things through to their logical conclusion.”
“And the logical conclusion to the two of us dating is that eventually we’ll wind up at each other’s throats.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“Nah. Just trying to figure out the way your mind works.”
No one had ever bothered to do that before. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She was in danger of letting Greg own her heart as well as her career. And because she had always taken care of herself, the idea of giving so much to a man scared her.
“Tell you what,” he said. “How about we go to dinner tomorrow and just see how it turns out.”
“Maybe I already have a date,” she said suddenly.
Though it was too dark to see his face, she could see his shoulders stiffen. “Maybe you do? What, did you just remember it?”
Actually, it was a standing offer—Nils had said there would always be a lane for her at the bowling alley on couples night.
“I do,” she said decisively. “I’ve got a date.”
“You could’ve told me that when I brought it up and spared us this whole conversation.”
“You caught me off guard,” she admitted.
“Right,” he said, heading toward the stairs. “You’re never off guard, Nina.”