Forever Love on Fireweed Island (Island County Book 4) (11 page)

“You like it there, don’t you?” He slid a mug over and poured a cup of coffee for me and then for himself.

“I’ve learned to love what I have to say on quite a lot of subjects, if that’s what you’re asking.” I took a sip and looked at him over the rim of my mug.

More times than not, Jake wore an expression as if on the verge of some great discovery, and I found myself wanting to know what that was . . . what was going on inside that mind of his.

“So you’ve spoken with this Walter character?” His brow quirked slightly as he leaned against the counter.

“Well, through messaging and stuff.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I’ve spoken with him over the phone.”

“What does he look like?” He put his coffee down and stretched his arms behind him.

“No idea.”

“How can you not know what he looks like?” He folded his arms. “He’s got to have some photos, or how else would you know he’s out there doing whatever it is he’s writing about?”

“He takes tons of photos. He just doesn’t happen to be in them.”

“Sounds like a fraud.”

“He’s definitely not a fraud. They wouldn’t have published his experiences if he—”

“What about that guy that wrote a memoir, and it turned out to be fake? He even got picked up on
Oprah’s Book Club
.”

I laughed. “And now the guy writes one Young Adult bestseller after another with a pen name. So that didn’t work out so badly for him.”

“All I’m saying is to be careful. The guy might not be what you expect.”

“It’s not like I’m ever going to meet him. It’s just innocent blog comments and a message now and again about what he’s been up to. If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think you’re getting jealous.”

“Maybe I am.”

“Well, don’t be. I won’t be dating anyone but the fellows between the pages.”

“You might be missing out,” he offered.

“I probably am,” I agreed, walking back toward the living room. “But it’s safer for everyone that way.”

“It almost sounds like you’re dating this Walter person. He’s between the pages, so if that’s your criteria, you might meet him and fall right at his feet.”

“That will never happen again,” I scoffed. “Trust me. I’m done with looking up to any guy.”

Jake took a seat and grabbed the laptop.

“Good. Because they should be looking up to you.”

His words sent a shiver through me, and rather than sit in the chair, I plopped on the couch.

“So it sounds like your divorce was amicable?” I asked.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” He gave me a sideways glance.

“You seem so in control, and I’m so full of tangents. All it takes is one reminder for me to ramble on about my ex.”

He sucked in a deep breath and focused on the screen. “It wasn’t amicable in the least bit.”

“Then how do you stay so—”

“Guarded.”

“I was going to say calm, but I guess guarded would work even better.”

He tipped his head back and laughed. The lines around his eyes from smiling over the years were sexy as hell, and I imagined what had put them there.

“So your ex-wife didn’t make things easy?”

Why was I asking? Why? I didn’t want the dirty details . . . or did I?

“We never should’ve gotten married. She knew it and so did I, but we just fell into it.”

“How do you fall into marriage?”

“We were roommates, and it turned into something more—or at least, I thought it did. What I didn’t realize was that every time I was out of town traveling, she had someone else on speed dial.”

“Ouch.”

His situation sounded so familiar, it gave me chills. I wound up pulling an ivory throw over my lap as he continued.

“I thought the sting was going to be worse than it was.” He scratched the whiskers on his chin and looked over at me. “I think that’s how I knew it needed to end. I didn’t care that she’d found someone else.”

“I guess that would be a pretty big revelation.”

“It was. But once she realized she wasn’t going to get the same lifestyle, things got dirty pretty quickly. We had an ironclad pre-nup, but I got to the point where I just didn’t care. All I wanted was for it to be over, so I gave far more concessions than needed purely to end it. The thought of dragging on a divorce for spite wasn’t doing it for me. I’m sure my attorney didn’t agree, but I write his checks.”

I nodded and ran my hands down Coco’s fur.

“I wanted out so badly, I didn’t care either. I’m sure my attorney was disappointed in me too, but I just wanted enough to get my feet on the ground. I never wanted to feel like I owed him a thing.” I let out a deep breath and stretched my legs out in front of me. The throw fell off. “It takes so much out of a person.”

“Only as much as you let it,” he said. “Remember that.”

“True. I guess I haven’t let it take that much out of me.”

“You’ve sworn off men,” he reminded me. “From my point of view, that’s kind of a big deal.”

I laughed and shook my head.

“I’ve only sworn off real ones. These lips do not need to feel another’s.”

His eyes darted to my mouth, and his gaze darkened, sending electricity to parts of my body that hadn’t been shocked awake for years. Worried I was about to do something I’d regret, I hopped off the couch and went searching for my phone. The sun had long since set, and I still hadn’t heard from Mrs. Coleville. She would be the perfect distraction.

“It’s really nice of you to do this, but I don’t want you to feel obligated. You probably have to get home soon for work tomorrow.”

“Nope. I’m just fine. Unless, of course, you’d like me to leave.” He looked over the top of the laptop, smiling. “I can come back tomorrow and finish up.”

“Finish up? As in you’re getting close to fixing it?”

He nodded. “Island Reads will be up and running before you know it. Your blog will run like nothing ever happened . . . no comments lost and no posts missing. Just keep your virus detection up to date. It looks like that’s how the virus got in that took your blog down, but I can finish up tomorrow. No problem.”

Jake started to move the laptop off his knees when I shook my head far too eagerly.

“No need to go. Stay as long as you need, but let me do something like treat you to dinner or make you one later this week. I feel so bad you’ve used up an entire evening working on my computer.”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be. We were going to be together tonight anyway. Doesn’t matter to me if it’s over a candlelight dinner or a hacked blog.” He continued staring at the screen, and I wondered how these things rolled off his tongue so smoothly. “Besides, I have to admit, I’m having far too much fun reading your posts.”

I groaned and knew I was doomed. It was one thing for BlznBookie to read my posts. He knew what to expect, but this was far different. Jake had no idea who I was, and his first impressions of me were already skewed. This only made me sound like a hopeless romantic who didn’t believe in love, and how would that even work?

I wandered off to check out the window, and still no Mrs. Coleville. I was certifiably worried now. She wasn’t someone who just left for hours and hours without at least telling me or making arrangements for Coco.

It wasn’t until morning when I realized that life wasn’t always what it seemed.

The town was abuzz with news about Mrs. Coleville, which shoved my predicament right out the door, where I firmly believed it needed to stay. No one needed to remember the picture of me dangling from a tree. Natalie dropped by my house to fill me in—with a latte in hand—about Mrs. Coleville. She’d gotten the inside scoop from Connor, one of our island’s police officers.

As it turned out, Mrs. Coleville had been secretly rendezvousing with Harry Winters since Memorial Day at his cabin on the northern point of the island, Duplicity Point. Harry had been divorced since he was seventy, and now he was nearing eighty, gardening and selling his flowers at the local farmer’s market. Why they felt the need to hide their relationship was anyone’s best guess.

When Mrs. Coleville hadn’t returned this morning by six, I called Jake, and he contacted Search and Rescue. I was such a nervous wreck, all I could do was pace with Coco in my hand until I got the news, but I still couldn’t relax until I knew Mrs. Coleville was fine.

It wasn’t until I saw the bright red tow truck pulling the gold Cadillac into her driveway with a bedraggled Mrs. Coleville sitting in the passenger seat of the humongous diesel that I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Coco in hand, I flung open the front door and ran over to Mrs. Coleville’s driveway and opened the passenger door.

“What in the world happened to you?” I asked, still clutching Coco.

“My car died for absolutely no reason at all, and my cell didn’t work.” She reached for Coco, and I helped her off the shiny silver step to the pavement.

“I don’t know if that’s the complete truth.” Fred Coleville chuckled, coming around to unlatch the car.

She shot him an icy stare, but that didn’t stop from him continuing.

“Grandma ran out of gas, and her phone wasn’t charged.” He grinned.

“You’re not a very nice grandson,” she retorted. “There are some family secrets that are meant to stay secret.”

“Well, we’re just lucky it wasn’t winter.” He looked over at me. “She tried to drive her car onto the gravel shoulder and managed to go into the ditch.”

“Is there nothing sacred, Freddy?” Mrs. Coleville squeezed Coco. “At least this little one knows when to keep her flapper shut.”

“Speaking of your princess.” I smiled, patting Coco on the head. “I’m guessing you didn’t get my messages then. We had to watch her because she somehow snuck out and decided to call the middle of the street home.”

“Who is we?” Mrs. Coleville asked, her eyes narrowing, completely ignoring Coco’s naughty deed.

“Pardon?” I asked, glancing at my phone. I still had an hour to get ready and make it to the library on time.

“Who? You said
we watched Coco
. Who makes it a
we
, not an
I
?” Her eyes twinkled.

I laughed, shaking my head. Mrs. Coleville had been pretty merciless about my love life since I became her neighbor. She always wanted details on my dating life, which were always easy to give since there were none.

“It’s not the type of
we
you’d be interested in. Just a friend.”

“Nick?” she asked, walking toward the house as her grandson continued to lower her vehicle to the ground.

“Not Nick. Jake.”

“The fireman?” She stopped at the door and snuggled her nose next to Coco. “You two made quite the news story. He stopped by on Saturday, and I told him you were at the farmer’s market. I also told him to take it slow with you, but he obviously doesn’t plan on taking my advice.”

So Mrs. Coleville was the one feeding Jake’s mind with tidbits about me. I wondered what else she managed to divulge about me.

“Well, rumor has it your story will be replacing mine this week. It’s not every day a car goes into a ditch and a woman is trapped inside all night.”

“It wasn’t that dramatic,” she assured me. “If I had six feet of snow around me, then maybe I’d get my fifteen minutes of fame . . . but not this time.”

“Well, my dangling incident wasn’t dramatic either.” I smiled.

“It was pretty hilarious though. Once we got Coco to safety, anyway.” She flashed a wry grin. “So about Jake. Did my meddling help?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. He just came over to help me get my blog up and running.”

“Is that what you young people call it nowadays?” She pushed her door open and put Coco inside.

“Not at all. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but I’d love to hear about your date with Mr. Winters. He’s such a nice guy. I love buying flowers from him.”

“I need to see how Coco got out while I was away.” Mrs. Coleville began to close the door, and I stuck my foot in the jam.

“How is Harry doing? I didn’t see him last weekend,” I teased.

Her eyes grew wide and she blushed. “He’s doing just fine, but no blogs are being fixed.”

I chuckled and removed my foot so she could shut the door. I was lucky to have Mrs. Coleville as a neighbor. She had a good sense of humor, even if she wanted to pair me up with any single man in the state of Washington.

On my way back to my house, a text appeared from Jake.

Heard she’s back safe and sound. Did you return the fur ball with a death wish back to her rightful owner?

I chuckled as I walked away from Mrs. Coleville’s house. It felt like I could finally take a deep breath in knowing she was safely back at home.

Coco is happy to see her mom. Thank you for helping. I can’t believe no one saw poor Mrs. Coleville in the ditch.

A text came over immediately.

I think she’s the only person who uses that road. How about a second attempt at dinner out tonight?

I felt like I was back in high school getting asked out for prom. A flurry of excitement swirled around me as I walked into my house, but then I remembered the signing at the library today. I didn’t want Jake to think I wasn’t interested, but I couldn’t exactly blow this work engagement off, not to mention I lived for these moments. I slid into a dining room chair and sent a text back.