“Owen?” Mari was wearing a lifejacket over her sweatshirt. Her free hand rested on his chest as she’d steadied herself, and he held her at the waist, though she was no longer in danger of wobbling over. Her cheeks were flushed as she looked up at him, her eyes bright. And all he could think about was dipping his head to kiss her. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
“Gran kicked me out.”
And now he knew why. His grandmother must have seen Mari go into the boathouse with Jacob and Bernard. Though Mathilda had been in bed by the time he returned from the bookshop last night, and they hadn’t discussed Mari again today, so she couldn’t possibly know about their kiss, his grandmother obviously hadn’t forgotten her intention to get them together.
As the oldest of five, Owen was far more used to telling people what to do than obeying orders. But when it came to Gran scheming to set him and Mari up, Owen wasn’t about to complain.
“Our fearless leader has returned!” As soon as Mari stepped out of Owen’s arms, Bernard gave him a bear hug. “Your gran looked great at the pub last weekend. We were hoping you’d find your way back to us sooner rather than later, weren’t we, Jacob?”
His partner nodded. “Good to see you back in the boathouse, Owen. And it seems you already know Mari.”
Her cheeks were still flushed as she explained, “Owen has been helping me sort out Charlie’s things in the bookstore.” She shook her head. “I mean bookshop. I keep forgetting that’s how you say it in England.”
“Call it whatever you want—store, shop, hub, joint,” Bernard said. “As long as you’re planning to reopen it.”
Though she smiled in response, Owen could see that she also felt a little put on the spot. “I’m still trying to get my head above water,” she said with a laugh, obviously trying to downplay the massive cleanup job ahead of her in the bookstore.
“Stop pressuring her,” Jacob said to Bernard. Then he turned to Owen. “We were just about to give Mari the basics on how to use her paddle, but I think it would be better if I got this one out on the river before he puts his foot any further into his mouth.”
With that, Jacob pulled Bernard away, leaving Owen and Mari alone.
“They mean well,” he said softly. “No one wants to pressure you into doing something you’re not comfortable with.”
“Both Jacob and Bernard are absolutely lovely, and I know they wouldn’t want to pressure me. I just hate the thought of letting anyone down,” she confessed.
“You won’t.” When she didn’t look convinced, he decided to give her some room to breathe by changing the subject. “Have you spent much time on a paddle board?”
She shook her head. “I always meant to try it, but somehow I never seemed to find the time. Jacob and Bernard are remarkably persuasive, though. I’d like to stay out of the river, if at all possible, so I’ll happily take any pointers you’ve got.”
“Once you get your balance, it’s a piece of cake, especially when the water is like glass.” He showed her where to stand on the board, how far apart to set her feet, and where to grip the paddle. “In a pinch, you can always lower yourself to a kneeling or seated position, which will further stabilize you.” When she still looked a little uncertain, he said, “I’ll be beside you the whole way, Mari. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She met his eyes, staring at him for a long moment. Finally, she smiled. “I know you won’t.” Then she picked up her board to carry it to the river’s edge. “Ready?”
He smiled back, never happier about his grandmother’s meddling. “Ready.”
Some people wobbled around the first time they got on a paddle board before finding their boarding legs. Others fell into the water. But Mari picked it up right away.
The tide was slack, perfect for paddle boarding. And the water was calm enough that they barely had to push their paddles into the water to glide across the surface.
She silently concentrated on her strokes until she’d gained the confidence to multitask by talking at the same time. “How long has it been since you’ve come out with the group?”
“A year. Ever since my grandmother had a stroke.”
She looked upset by the information. “Oh no! I had no idea.”
“Which is exactly how she wanted it. We canceled her appearances, claiming she needed more time to write, and asked everyone who knew the truth to keep the news to themselves. She already hated how much writing time she’d lost while recovering. The last thing she wanted was for people to question the quality of her new books, or suggest that the stroke had stolen any of her creativity.”
“On the contrary,” Mari said, “now that I know about it, all I can think is how marvelous her dedication to her writing must be. Instead of letting a stroke stop her in her tracks, I bet her books will be even richer now for the experience.”
If Owen hadn’t already liked Mari so much, her boundless confidence in Mathilda’s talent and commitment to her writing would have done it. “It’s what I’ve been telling her, but she refuses to listen.”
“She sounds delightfully stubborn,” Mari said with a smile.
He laughed. “It’s hard to believe you haven’t met her yet. She would have come to the shop to greet you, but she wanted to give you a little time to settle in first.”
“I’d love to meet her. And I can come to her, if that’s easier, depending on how her recovery has gone.”
“She’s doing really well. There are likely some faculties that she’ll never regain use of one hundred percent, but the slowdowns in her speech and gait only tend to surface when she’s tired. I moved into her back cottage to help out.” Before she could make the mistake of painting him as some kind of hero, he explained, “Of everyone in the family, it made the most sense for me to look after her. I’m already there during the day, so staying into the evenings wasn’t a big deal.”
“It’s really lovely how you watch out for her.”
His gut clenched. As open as she’d been with him, it suddenly didn’t feel right not to be just as open with her. “There’s more to the story.” Owen had never fallen off his board, but just then he caught the edge of his paddle on the water in such a way that he nearly catapulted himself in. “It was my fault.”
She frowned. “How could your grandmother having a stroke be your fault?”
“Not the stroke, but the severity of it. If I had been in the cottage, if I had seen her fall and called the ambulance immediately, there would have been less damage, and her recovery would have been much easier.”
“Of course I understand that you wish you had been there to call for help at the first signs. But I can’t imagine your job entails sitting at your grandmother’s side twenty-four seven—or that she would want you to do that.”
“You’re right. She has never asked more of me than she would any other business manager. But the stroke happened during the middle of the workday, when I was away at a meeting. One I went to behind her back.” He made himself look Mari in the eye as he admitted, “A major streaming service offered me a job heading up their literary licensing division. I was flattered and couldn’t resist an afternoon of seeing how badly they wanted me. When I got back from the city that night, Gran was lying on the floor, barely conscious.”
“I’m so sorry, Owen.”
So was he. “You’re the only one who knows the full story.”
“Thank you for telling me,” she said softly. “I promise to keep your confidence. But does your grandmother know you feel this way? That you haven’t stopped blaming yourself for not being there for her?”
He shook his head. “I’ve never wanted to admit how close I came to betraying her.”
“But what if you did talk with her about what happened that day?” Mari asked. “Do you really believe that’s how she would look at it? As a betrayal? Or would she understand that you’re only human? I’m sure she’s messed up before, just like each and every one of us has. But you wouldn’t want her to beat herself up for her mistakes forever, would you?”
Mari’s questions stopped him as though he’d run aground. He’d been too riddled with guilt to think about the situation from any other perspective. “Gran isn’t the kind of person who holds a grudge.”
“Then why are you holding one against yourself?” When he didn’t immediately reply, she added, “I can’t help but think that if you told her what you just told me, both of you would feel so much better.”
Owen had thought Mari needed his help. But maybe he needed her help just as much.
“I’ll sit down with her tonight and lay it all out.”
Mari gave him an encouraging smile. “I’m sure you’ll feel a million times better once you get everything off your chest.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. But you’re right that, either way, I need to be honest with her.” And he wasn’t sure he would ever have seen it without Mari’s help. “Thank you for listening—and for showing me a fresh perspective on the situation.”
“Anytime,” she said, giving him another smile. A smile that made him desperate to kiss her again. So desperate that if he wasn’t positive they’d both end up in the river, he would have leaned over on his board to taste her lips right there and then.
She bit her lip, looking as though she was trying to make a decision about something. The rest of the group paddled back around toward the boathouse, and she remained silent while they did the same. It wasn’t until they were pointing upriver again that she spoke.
“I could use a fresh perspective too.”
“Did something happen at the shop?”
She nodded. “The postman came. I think Charlie’s mail must have been held until word got out that I was here.” She looked a little green, and not from motion sickness. “There were more than a half-dozen bills. Big ones.”
Owen uttered a low curse. He wished Mari’s situation were easier, cleaner, simpler. Though he’d offered to do Charlie’s books many times over the years, her father had never taken him up on it, so Owen had no idea what kind of financial position Mari had been left in. He had a feeling it wasn’t in the black.
“There’s not quite enough left in his accounts after probate to pay these bills,” she continued, answering his unspoken question. “I’m going to need to pull from my savings to completely cover them.”
Owen had spent most of his life ironing out his younger siblings’ problems. In fact, going to work for his grandmother had been an extension of that. Now, he was already working out how to solve Mari’s problems—finalizing the TV contracts for Mathilda’s Bookshop on the River series would be a good start, although it would be a while before the network lawyers signed off and wrote her a check—when it suddenly hit him that what she needed most of all wasn’t a to-do list.
The best thing he could give her was a reminder of who she was at her core.
“Yesterday, when we were talking at dinner, you told me that owning a bookshop is your dream come true. I know opening those bills must have been tough. I know it might not be easy to find the money to pay them. And I know we only met a little more than two days ago. Nonetheless, I’m one hundred percent sure you deserve to live your dream—and that you’re not going to let anything keep you from doing just that.”
He hadn’t meant to give a full-on speech, and when he couldn’t read her expression for several strokes of their paddles, he worried he might have overstepped the mark.
Finally, she spoke. “I’ll admit that I nearly hit the panic button when I first saw the bills. That’s why I ended up walking around the island all afternoon, because I thought it might help clear my mind. And it did, but not in the way I thought. I didn’t crunch any numbers. I didn’t think of any brilliant guerrilla marketing moves. I simply enjoyed being here. Exploring the island I’d only ever dreamed about from afar.” Her lips turned up slightly at the corners. “Charlie obviously also had a dream to run a bookstore, and he made it happen despite having lost his family because of his drinking problem.” Her smile slipped a little as she said, “For as much as I loved him when I was a little girl, after the way he left, I can’t honestly say that I feel like I owe it to him to save his store. It’s more that I owe it to myself. To see if it’s possible to make my dreams come to life.” She smiled at the sound of Jacob’s laughter ahead of them. “I still have a lot to assess and think over before I’m ready to commit one hundred percent to staying and trying to make the bookstore profitable, but it’s a nice bonus to know how much everyone else on the island seems to want me to succeed, and to stay.”
They paddled up to the shore in front of the boathouse.
“We all do, Mari.” Especially him. Because from the first moment Owen had set eyes on Mari, he’d had the feeling that she was the missing key to all of his own dreams finally coming true.