“Hey, Anna, the electrician wants to know if you can meet him for a few minutes this evening. He said there’s an ice cream stand with tables next to the town park, about seven o’clock?”
She looked over at Eryn, frowning. “Did he say why?”
“Nope.” Her assistant held up her phone to show her the text. Hers was always the number given to the property owners and contractors they hired, since she had a separate, personal cell phone. Anna only had the one and didn’t like giving out the number. Then Eryn moved closer to Anna so she could keep her voice low. “Maybe there’s a problem and he doesn’t want to talk to you about it with the family around.”
Apprehension made Anna’s skin prickle. What if the electrician was having some kind of crisis of conscience and wanted to confess that the whole Bayview Inn thing was a fraud? “Tell him I’ll be there.”
She knew it was going to cause her some anxiety for the rest of the day, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. If Brady did try to tell her Tess was lying about the house’s history, she might be able to shrug it off. She could tell him that some properties were more historical than others, but that the house and location were too beautiful to pass up. And she had learned from Joel that his great-great-great-grandfather had built the house. It was a historical family home. It just wasn’t an inn and never had been. If Brady wanted to reveal something about Tess being a fraud, she’d just have to get him on board as far as continuing to go along with the story.
Shortly after their lunch break, Anna filmed some segments in the guest rooms upstairs with Mike while Eryn and Cody were with the family downstairs. Basically just her walking through the rooms and giving a recap of what they’d done and what they were hoping to accomplish. She kept it short and simple, since she already knew they wouldn’t need filler for the Bayview Inn episodes.
Once they were done, she lingered in the room. It looked out over the back of the property, and she had to admit that given her age, Tess kept some incredible gardens. A lot of the beds were perennials and wildflowers, but they were beautiful riots of color and free of weeds. Considering how early it was in the season, a lot of thought had obviously gone into the planning.
She heard footsteps enter the room and turned, expecting Mike or Eryn. But it was Finn, and he stopped short when he saw her. “I didn’t know you were in here. Hope I’m not interrupting.”
It was three days since he’d kissed her. Or she’d kissed him. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had enjoyed that kiss thoroughly, and it was probably for the best that they hadn’t been alone since.
No more kissing. Possibly the rashest words she’d ever sent in a text message, and she wished she could take them back. It wouldn’t be smart on her part, but depriving herself of this man’s kisses—and possibly more—for the duration of her stay in town didn’t feel like a smart decision, either.
“Just going over my to-do list in my head,” she said, since telling him she was spending her alone time worrying about an off-site meeting with the electrician would only lead to questions she didn’t have the answers to. And probably wouldn’t want to give him if she did.
“We’re looking for my dad’s phone.”
She smiled. “I guess you’ve already tried calling it?”
“Yeah, but he silences it so it doesn’t go off while the cameras are on, and it’s not vibrating enough to be found. Its last known location is in this house, but that’s not super helpful.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen it,” she said. “But I know Mike and Cody had a pile of tech stuff on the kitchen counter. It might have gotten tossed in with that accidentally.”
“Thanks.” He started to leave but turned back to face her. “Are you okay? You seem a little... I don’t know. Sad? Upset?”
“I’m fine. It’s been a long day, I guess.”
“You’re sure?” he asked, the warmth in his eyes making her feel all sorts of things she didn’t want to be feeling.
Please just go.
Please come over here and kiss me again.
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything, though.” And then he was gone, leaving her staring at the empty doorway and thinking she could really use a hug. Among other things, of course, but right now the thought of his strong arms wrapped around her and holding her close almost brought tears to her eyes.
After shaking off the melancholy, she got back to work. They were going to tackle the kitchen very soon and though the room didn’t allow for a lot of flexibility in design, she wanted to have plenty of notes to go over with Tess. They’d have a one-on-one meeting—or one-on-four, actually, since the rest of the family wasn’t going to let Tess make design choices unattended, thanks to the salmon pink—within the next couple of days, and it would be tight filming since they’d have both cameras in the kitchen with them.
She took measurements and made sketches until it was time to call it quits, and then she ate a light dinner with Eryn and the crew. The big RV had an outdoor kitchen and they grilled some chicken breasts while Mike made what he called a garden salad but was really a pile of tomatoes, shredded cheese and croutons, with just enough cucumber and lettuce to make it respectable.
When the alert went off on her watch, she went to her RV to freshen up and grab the car keys. Even though she hadn’t eaten much, her stomach was tied up in such a knot of nerves that it almost ached. After brushing her teeth and redoing her ponytail, she grabbed her bag and stepped back outside.
Eryn was waiting for her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you?”
“I’m sure.” She couldn’t take the chance the electrician wanted to expose the scam Tess was running, and this was about the time of day Eryn usually called her wife. “I’ll probably only be a few minutes, and you know you want to FaceTime Kelly before the baby goes down for the night.”
“It just seems a little off,” Eryn said, her eyebrows drawn together in an impressive scowl. If she only knew just how off everything really was.
“We’ve already met the electrician. And we’re meeting in a very public place. Go make your call and I’ll probably be back before you’re done.”
Her confidence faded as soon as she was in the car, and her hands trembled as she gripped the steering wheel. She couldn’t take Eryn with her. Or any of the guys, for that matter. She couldn’t take that chance without knowing what was on Brady’s mind. But it was odd that he hadn’t just stopped by the house to talk to her.
When she reached the ice cream shop, she didn’t see him anywhere, so she bought a soda and a small dish of twist with jimmies and sat at one of the small wrought iron patio sets between the shop and the park. She wasn’t sure she even wanted the ice cream, but this was where she’d agreed to meet and it would have felt strange to sit at one of their tables without buying one.
She’d eaten about half of it and abandoned the spoon in the rapidly melting ice cream when he finally approached the table. “Anna? Brady Nash. We met briefly at Tess’s the other day, but it was pretty busy and I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”
“I remember, and it’s good to see you again,” she said, deliberately keeping her tone light so he wouldn’t see her underlying tension. “Please, join me.”
After pulling out the chair across from her, he sat and folded his hands on the wrought iron tabletop. “You scored a table in the shade. Well done.”
“Do you want an ice cream?” She gestured at hers with her spoon. “It’s good. I would have gotten two, but I wasn’t sure what flavor to get.”
He smiled, and something in his eyes set off alarm bells, though she couldn’t say why. There was something vaguely familiar about his face, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. “I’m all set, thanks. When I leave, I’m going to grab some to take home to Reyna—my wife.”
“Reyna.” Anna tilted her head. “She and her mom own the combination car repair shop and bakery?”
“That’s her.” He practically glowed when he said it, and Anna felt a pang of jealousy. She wouldn’t mind having a man look that proud when he talked about her. “She’s probably already getting text messages from people speculating about why her husband is having ice cream with the pretty out-of-towner from the TV show.”
“Gossipy town, huh?” Luckily, the inn was a big enough project to exhaust her crew, so they were mostly traveling between the campground and the house, without spending a lot of time in town.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“So what can I do for you, Brady?” It was time to cut to the chase. “My assistant told me you didn’t really say.”
He was silent for so long she had time to register the ticking sound wasn’t in her head and that there was a real, old-fashioned pedestal clock with a second hand standing a few feet away.
“I’m pretty sure you’re my sister,” he finally said in a voice that was very low and suddenly sounded very rough.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
After finally remembering to swallow and finding it difficult, Anna took a sip of her soda to wet her dry mouth. Her mind was reeling, but she had to say something. Anything. “So the people speculating that this meeting might be gossip worth reporting to your wife either don’t know I’m your sister, or they have seriously twisted imaginations.”
“Mom, my brother, Chris, and our wives are the only people who even know I have a sister.” Mom. She must have made a face because he winced. “Christy. My moth...our mother, I guess. If I’m right.”
“You’re right,” she whispered.
Christy. Christine Elizabeth Smith... Nash. Anna hadn’t known she went by Christy. When her dad had broken the news of her biological mother to her, that was exactly how he’d referred to her. Your mother. He hadn’t even called her by her name, never mind a nickname. She’d found that out when she was finally given the birth certificate she’d never seen before.
“I’ve only known since a few days before Christmas,” he continued, keeping his voice low, though the rough edges had smoothed out. “She had some dental surgery and the drugs made her loopy. She told me enough to make me ask more questions when the drugs wore off.”
“What did she tell you?”
“Honestly, not much. Your name and that you were on TV, but when we asked her more questions, she dug in her heels. She said she was ashamed and didn’t want to talk about it. And that she checked on you once, but your father told her you were happy and healthy and loved the woman he’d married as if she was your own mom. She didn’t want us turning your life upside down.”
Heat flooded Anna’s face and her fingers curled until her nails were pressing into her palms. “She was ashamed.”
Brady started to reach across the table, as though to comfort her, but froze just shy of touching her arm. After a few seconds, he pulled his hand back. “Not of you. She was ashamed of herself, because she left you.”
Then why didn’t she come back? Anna didn’t voice the question because she wasn’t sure she could just ask it. She was afraid if she finally asked the question that had haunted her since she was sixteen, it would be at full wail and within minutes, everybody in town would be talking about her.
But Brady—holy crap, her brother—must have run out of bombs to drop because he was just watching her, waiting for her to say something. After mentally shoving back The Big Question, she realized she did have others.
“Is she married? Who’s your dad?” She stopped for a second, blinking. “Are there more brothers or sisters?”
“It’s just Chris and I, although I guess I could have other siblings out there, but I wouldn’t have any way to know since my father never looked back after he left us.”
He said it matter-of-factly enough, so maybe it was her own issues when it came to an absent parent that had her looking for the tightness around his mouth and tension in his shoulders.
“So I got the dad and no mom, and you got the mom but no dad,” she said softly, even though it wasn’t really true. She’d had a mother. Just not the mother she’d been born to.
“Chris and I are both married. His wife teaches school and they have two boys—CJ and Benny. And my wife, Reyna, and I have a little guy named Parker who’s almost eleven months old.”
Anna’s head spun as she absorbed the information. There was this entire family she belonged to, yet didn’t even know. “I have two half sisters, from my dad. And I was married once. I’m divorced now.”
“When I heard you were in town, I did a Google search. I’m sorry your divorce went down like that.”
Anna’s face flamed, as it always did when she thought about her ex-husband. Finding out about his infidelity when her phone blew up with texts from friends with a link to the tabloid photos had been so traumatizing that she still wanted to curl up in a ball when reminded of those dark days. But a more relevant thought pushed its way through the lingering humiliation. “How did you know who I am?”
“You look like her,” he said bluntly. “From when I was a kid.”
“People keep asking me if they’ve met me before, so I figured there had to be a resemblance.”
“A very strong resemblance. Remarkable, really. When I first saw you at Tess’s house, you were on the phone. The way you looked and sounded in that moment—even the way you were standing—was like the strongest déjà vu I’ve ever experienced. Add in the fact I knew you had a TV show and she told us your first name.” He shrugged. “I just knew, I guess.”
“Who else knows?” she asked in barely more than a whisper because it was so hard to force the words out. “That I’m here, I mean.”
“Right now, as far as I know, I’m the only person who knows. I was going to tell Mom because there’s this part of her heart that’s broken by what she did, but...” He paused for a few seconds, shaking his head. “But as much as I’d hate keeping this big a secret from her, it’s really your choice if you want to meet her or not.”
Meet her. Anna’s hands trembled and she clasped them in her lap. “She still lives here? Or close by?”
“She lives here in Blackberry Bay. She came back after...well, after she left you and your dad. Nobody in town ever knew she’d had a baby while she was away. But I figure you either came here looking for her or this is the world’s most wild coincidence.”
“A little of both, actually. The Bayview Inn application was a coincidence. But when I chose it, I was hoping to get to know more about her.”
“Well, you can actually get to know her. But only if you want to.”
A chill went down Anna’s spine, making her shiver despite the warmth of the evening. “I...don’t know.”
She’d expected—hoped—to learn more about the woman who’d abandoned her to her father. But somehow she’d never considered the possibility she might actually be able to meet her mother. The show getting an application from the town where her mother had been born decades before had seemed an unlikely coincidence. Her mother still living there had seemed too far-fetched to even consider.
“You don’t have to decide right now,” Brady said. “I’m not going to tell anybody—well, except Reyna, because spousal privileges and all that. And I know Tess’s house well enough to know you’re not leaving anytime soon. Your assistant has my contact info, so just reach out if you decide you want to meet her. Or just...to keep in touch with me, if you want.”
“I go out for ice cream and get an instant brother,” she said with a chuckle.
“I’ve known I have a sister a little longer than you’ve known you have two brothers, so I’m not going to push. But no matter what you decide about our mother, I’d love to have you over to the house to spend time with me and my family before you leave town.”
She nodded, unexpected tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m an aunt.”
“Three instant nephews.” He blew out a breath. “I do hope you’ll at least meet her. I think it would bring both of you some peace. And Parker’s not really talking yet, but at some point Auntie Anna might get mentioned.”
“Give me a few days to think about it,” she said, though she already knew she wasn’t going to be able to leave town without at least meeting Christy. Especially since keeping in touch with her nephews was already feeling important to her.
“No pressure,” he said, giving her a warm smile before he pushed back his chair and stood. “I should grab that ice cream and get home, but you can call or text me anytime.”
She stood and reached out to shake his hand. Somehow a hug felt more like the thing to do, but there were people around and that would be a lot harder to explain. “I’ll shoot you a text later so you’ll have my number instead of going through Eryn.”
“Perfect. And listen, this town is fueled by gossip, like I said before, and more than a few people might try to ferret out why you and I were seen having a conversation today, but nobody needs to know the truth. Just tell them you had some questions about the electrical work I’ve done at the house—at the inn, I mean—because everybody knows I’ve spent years trying to keep that woman from burning the place down with antique extension cords.”
Anna blinked. “That’s right. You’re Finn’s friend.”
“Yeah, we go way back.” He held up his phone. “Let me know what you decide, okay?”
She nodded and then watched him walk away, wondering if she should call him back and make him swear on whatever she could come up with that he wouldn’t tell Finn she was Christy Nash’s daughter.
What a tangled web she’d managed to get herself wrapped up in.
It had been about eighteen hours since Finn walked into the upstairs bedroom and found Anna alone. And he’d spent every one of those eighteen hours regretting not kissing her again. Except for the hours he’d been asleep, of course. Hours during which he’d had a dream he really wished hadn’t faded from his mind within minutes of waking up.
No more kissing.
He’d respect her decision, of course, but he was grumpy about it. And having spent the morning with his entire family and the whole Relic Rehab crew in the kitchen—which had felt a lot smaller than it usually did—arguing over the best way to renovate it certainly hadn’t helped his mood. They’d spent a solid twenty minutes just convincing Gram she didn’t need an espresso-and-latte-making station.
“People like those sorts of drinks,” she’d said, putting her family in the unpleasant position of not being able to point out there were no people. They’d had to rely on Anna trying to make her understand there really wasn’t space for it and that regular coffee was fine in the mornings.
And Finn had almost choked on the water he was drinking when Gram essentially confirmed she was actually planning to keep this ridiculousness going by actually making the house an inn. He’d really been hoping her comments to that effect had simply been to support the renovation scheme, but if she was going to try to make the house pay for itself by inviting strangers to stay in it, there were going to be a lot of phone calls from his mother in his future. They were going to need a better plan.
Now that everybody had scattered to other parts of the house—probably all needing a break from each other—he was alone in the kitchen, taking the cabinet doors off and other mindless tasks that gave him an excuse to not be a part of whatever else was going on.
When Anna walked in, notebook in hand and frowning in concentration, he had mixed feelings about the interruption. He wasn’t thrilled about giving up his alone time. But, on the other hand, he did like seeing her walk into a room.
She’d been out of sorts today, though. Just as she’d been toward the end of yesterday. Distracted, as though she was lost in thought when she was usually focused on every detail of what they were doing. And he wasn’t sure if it was the kiss, or something else. Or maybe Gram or one of his parents had let something slip—said something that wasn’t adding up when it came to the falsified history of the inn. That possibility kept him from coming right out and asking her if anything was bothering her.
“I need to make a run to the hardware store,” Anna said as she tore the sheet out of her notebook.
Finn wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself, but he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of her going to the hardware store alone. While Gram might think she had everybody on board with her plan, Albert Foss was definitely a wild card. “We can take a short road trip in my dad’s truck if you want. Hit the big-box store.”
“I don’t need that much. And I like small-town hardware stores. They usually have decades’ worth of cool stuff to pick through. You never know what you’re going to find.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “But I wouldn’t turn down a ride, if you’re offering. It won’t fit in the car, and the crew is in and out of the SUV all day. They use the back like a mobile storage closet.”
“Whenever you’re ready.” Being alone with her was going to cause all sorts of problems with his willpower, but her being alone with Albert at the hardware store could cause even worse problems.
“Five minutes?” she asked after a glance at her watch. “I just want to ask the others if they can think of anything else we need right now.”
That gave him five minutes to give himself a stern talking to. This wasn’t a date. They weren’t going cruising down a back road. They weren’t parking by the lake and making out as best they could in the bucket front seats of his pickup. It was a quick errand and he was going to be all business. Drive her to the hardware store. Help her find the stuff she needed. Load it in the bed of the truck. That was it.
No more kissing.
When she walked out of the house almost ten minutes letter, her cheeks flushed with what looked like a mix of exasperation and heat, that resolve slipped a little. She wasn’t a great actress. He knew he could get her to rescind her no-kissing rule with very little effort on his part.
But he wouldn’t, because that would make him a jerk. She’d given him her boundaries and he would abide by them.
She was quiet during the ride, her gaze alternating between the passing scenery and the list in her hand. Her head moved slightly in time to the radio, so he just let her enjoy the music while he navigated the narrow streets, looking for a place to park near the hardware store.
“This town seems to get busier every day,” she said as he turned the ignition off. She handed him the list to hold while she unbuckled and sorted her bag and her phone before getting out of the truck.
“It’s the Friday of Memorial Day weekend,” he pointed out. “Tourists are good for our economy, but not great for parking. It gets worse when schools let out for the summer, and between July Fourth and Labor Day, most of the people who live here just walk or do their errands on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.”
After pulling open the hardware store’s wooden screen door for her, he took a deep breath and followed her inside. This had the potential to be a very bad day.
“Looking for anything in particular?” Albert asked in his standard, gravelly-voiced greeting.
“I have a list of things,” Anna said, “but I’d rather just look around for a while. I love hardware stores.
“You look familiar,” he said, scowling heavily as he tried to place her.
“Just one of those faces,” she said lightly. “I get that a lot. Finn, do you have the list?”
“Right here,” he said, holding up the sheet of paper. “Let’s start at the back of the store.”
“You need any help finding something, just give a shout. Though Finn probably knows where everything is, since his family’s had an account here since my grandpa first opened the doors.”
“So much history,” she said, and Finn bit back a growl. The last thing he needed was for Albert to start talking. He talked entirely too much. “But this will all be going on my company card, since it’s for the Bayview Inn project.”
“The what?” When Finn gave him a very pointed, wide-eyed look over Anna’s head, Albert sighed and folded his beefy arms across his chest. “Right. The inn.”
“Should we pick up some more caulking while we’re here?” he asked Anna. Anything to steer her away from the conversation and back onto their task. “You can never have too much caulking.”
“Yes, you actually can have too much caulking.”
To Finn’s relief, she took the list out of his hand and started walking toward the back of the store. He shot Albert a final warning look and then followed her down the aisle.
Sometime in the early 1970s, Albert and Finn’s grandfather had had a falling out. Gramps had been the road agent at the time, and Albert felt that when snow got plowed, extra was being deposited at the end of his driveway deliberately because the cherry pie Albert’s wife had made beat out Gram’s for a blue ribbon at Old Home Day. So in retaliation, Albert started a rumor that Tess Weaver made her pie with canned filling, and the next time it snowed, Gramps had spent hours using the town’s plow truck to build a veritable mountain of snow across Albert’s driveway.
You didn’t slander a woman’s pie recipe in Blackberry Bay.
Blowing the whistle on Tess Weaver’s big scheme would be quite the payback, decades in the making, so Finn didn’t breathe an easy breath until Albert had added up all their purchases and handed Anna her credit card back.
But on his last trip out the door with the supplies, Albert called him over. “Hey, Finn. You tell Tess I haven’t had a decent cherry pie since my wife passed on. Sure would be nice of her to make me one, even if it is second-best.”
“I’ll give her the message,” Finn promised, and then he got the hell out of there before Albert changed his mind.
Or before he really threw caution to the wind and let Albert know in no uncertain terms that nobody in this town currently baked or had ever baked a better made-from-scratch cherry pie than Tess Weaver.