Playing for Love at Deep Haven (2 page)

 
After a lifetime of living in apartments,
Violet loved the idea of having so much space to herself, even temporarily. She’d
be able to write in a different room every day. A great room with a fireplace,
a gourmet kitchen, and a deck with sweeping views were all at her disposal. The
house, and its inspiring location, was worth the thousand dollars because Violet
was in desperate and immediate need of inspiration.

She’d already
spent the twenty thousand dollar advance her publisher had paid her last
December when she’d signed the contract for
Us
After We
, and she’d already begged for two extensions on her deadline, once
in May and again in August. Here it was October, and she had written precious
little. Not to mention, the royalties from her first novel alone weren’t enough
to sustain her Greenwich lifestyle without
Shep’s
second income. Her bank account was dangerously low and her unwritten
manuscript was due on October 20
^th
, in about two weeks. If she
didn’t deliver it this time, she’d be held in contempt, and not only would she
have to return the advance she’d been living on, she’d have to pay a penalty
for breach of contract. Coming to Deep Haven was an act of sheer desperation,
and she was hoping such a beautiful spot would finally shatter her crippling
writer’s block.

If she was
honest, there was another reason Violet had felt drawn to Deep Haven, aside
from its beauty. Although it was a little less showy than the Smalley mansion
across the bay in Bar Harbor, it was built in the same style: in the same gray,
weathered Nantucket wood. It looked out at the same bay, albeit from the
opposite side. The photos online had made the place feel familiar to her, as
though staying in it somehow still connected her to the wealthy, well-known
Smalleys
. The family into which Violet had almost married.
Almost.

Waves beat
lightly against the stone retaining wall at the edge of the lawn in the dying
light of dusk. Violet closed her eyes, breathing deeply, feeling a rare peace
fill her as the salty air soothed her lungs.

The last time
she’d seen Shepherd Smalley, fourteen months ago, he’d turned to her at the front
door of their apartment. He was about to leave for work, but stopped at the
last minute, facing her.

“Say, Vi, I was
thinking . . . ,” he’d started in his New England prep school accent that
reminded her of the Kennedys’, his astute, thoughtful eyes twinkling.

She’d glanced up
from her coffee and newspaper, tilting her head to the side and smiling at him.
His hand was on the doorknob and his freshly shaved face managed to look
youthful and shrewd at once, his cerulean eyes set off by a crisp blue oxford
and Vineyard Vines tie. “Hmm?”

“I was thinking
we should make things official. You and me. I was thinking we should …”

Her heart raced
from peaceful plodding to a gallop and the sudden impact took her breath away,
making her gasp. The newspaper fell to the table in a soft rustle. She fought
the insane urge to run back to the bedroom, throw the covers over her head and
act like he hadn’t spoken. She reached up with one hand to straighten the
Coke-bottle-thick, black-rimmed glasses she wore every morning before putting
in her contacts, then rested her hands on her flushed cheeks.

 
She had simultaneously dreamed of and dreaded
this moment ever since they graduated from Yale together six years ago. In her
dreams, she was wearing a cocktail dress, sporting a perfect manicure, and had a
heart overflowing with love
only
for
Shepherd Smalley. She pulled her threadbare bathrobe around her body as she
took in her
unmanicured
hands, the nails chewed down
to unattractive nubs. And her heart . . . her heart raced, thumping
uncomfortably in acknowledgment of its deceit, hating that someone else still
took up a large chunk of real estate there. She balled her hands in her lap and
looked up to catch his eyes, feeling overwhelmed and slightly nauseous.

“We should . . .
?” She gulped, unable to finish the sentence, overwhelmed by panic and guilt.

His glance dropped
to her fisted hands, then to the neckline of her ancient bathrobe before
returning to her face. He winked at her, looking boyishly sheepish. “No, Vi,
you’re right. This isn’t the right way, is it? I can do better than this.
Somewhere special with candlelight and…”

His voice
tapered off and he turned toward the door and lingered for a moment in thought,
fingering the pocket of his suit jacket. She didn’t say anything. Not a word.
She stared at him as he looked back at her and winked again before closing the
door behind him.

We should . . . ?

Those were the
last words he would ever hear from her lips. They haunted her.

We should . . . ?

A million times
since his death, she’d finished the sentence for herself. Mostly, remembering
Shep’s
laughing blue eyes and easy manners, she’d finish it
like this:
We should go back to bed where
we’re safe. Where no teenagers late for school are driving and texting while you
innocently walk to the law office where you’re the brightest and youngest
partner. Where the diamond ring you’re holding in your suit jacket pocket
doesn’t get knocked into the park across the street from the impact of the car.
The car. On your beautiful body.

Since his death,
Violet indulged an idealized version of
Shep
, casting
their imperfect relationship in the hazy half-light of perfection—the best
moments and good times taking precedence over the rest. Sepia memories of
Shep
, who’d rescued her broken heart in college, who’d loved
her more than she deserved to be loved. She remembered them as happy together.
She remembered herself happy with him.

But there were
rare moments—dark, agonizing times when her brain overrode her attempts to
whitewash the truth, even in the midst of her grief. In those hated moments,
the bright, unforgiving glare of truth replaced
Shep’s
affable blue eyes with turbulent dark gray, shrouded by long, thick, chestnut
brown lashes. She’d grapple to hold on to
Shep’s
face—so
comforting and genteel—as it was eclipsed by another visage: brooding, serious,
intense. And the way she finished the sentence would inevitably change:
We should never have stayed together for so
long,
Shep
. Not when someone else still owned half of
my soul and refused to vacate my heart, despite my bitterness, in the face of
my contempt, regardless of my efforts to forget him and accept that he never,
ever wanted me as much as I wanted him.

It didn’t matter
how quickly she forced the thoughts and images from her mind—her heart would
twist all over again: with guilt over
Shep
, yes, but
also with the fresh pain of a brooding boy’s long-ago rejection. A sharp ache
of longing would knock the wind from her chest as almost-forgotten music
engulfed her mind. It had been nine years. Nine years since she held his slim,
pale body against hers. But she wasn’t any closer to forgetting that brooding
boy now than the day he walked—no,
ran
—away
from her.

“Oh,
Shep
,” she murmured, trying to force her thoughts back to her
almost-fiancé, who was taken from the world too soon. She looked out at the
dying light on the harbor, wishing away the haunting gray eyes that lingered in
her subconscious. “I’m so sorry I didn’t love you enough,
Shep
.
I should have let you go.”

Violet shook her
head, wiping the stream of tears coursing down her cheeks. The sun had set
during her reverie, and in front of her, the dark water of Winter Harbor
twinkled with lights reflecting from the houses that lined the shore. It was
comforting that the bay still looked the same, that the place
Shep
had so loved maintained its timeless beauty, as if in
memorial.

“Here’s to you,
Shep
,” she said softly, hoping it wasn’t a mistake to
return to the place they’d spent so many enjoyable summers together. She looked
around the dark, empty porch, where fall leaves gathered and crackled in the
corners. She’d hoped the quiet and solitude would force her to write, but her
loneliness made her gasp suddenly. She hugged her body tightly in the cooling
darkness.

It’s good to be lonely. It’ll force you to work. And
that’s why you’re here: to work, not to mull over your unlucky love life.

Suddenly, a
bright light from behind her unexpectedly lit the entire deck like daylight,
and she squinted in surprise as an SUV pulled into the driveway. Her mind raced
through the details of the rental. Could it be Lena, joining Violet for a
getaway? Surely not. Lena Lewis had made no mention of visiting. In fact, since
their check and key exchange, Violet hadn’t seen Lena, even though the check
had been quickly cashed. She’d e-mailed Violet the name of a local maid and a
handyman who could assist her during her stay, sharing that she was headed out
of the country indefinitely and wouldn’t be available to answer any further
questions.

That was
certainly it, then. This must be the handyman or maid coming to offer
assistance in opening the house. That must be it. She squinted, feeling herself
at a disadvantage, and wished she hadn’t left her glasses in the car. Trying
not to feel freaked out that she was out in the middle of the woods with a
stranger approaching, she took a deep breath before leaving the deck and walking
back toward the driveway.

Chapter 2

Zach looked at
the enormous, dark house in front of him, whistled under his breath, and wondered
who owned the
Prius
he’d parked beside. Unlikely it
belonged to the handyman John Lewis had mentioned. Maybe a very environmentally
conscious maid? He shrugged, letting himself out of the car and stretched his
arms over his head. He could smell the sea, and it smelled like . . . freedom.

“Excuse me?”

He looked to his
left to see a shadowy figure approaching from the deck. It was hard to make out
her features in the darkness, but he could tell from her voice she was a woman.
She stopped about ten feet away from him, lingering in the shadows at a safe
distance.

“Sir?” she asked.

“Yeah. Hey,
there. I’m the houseguest.”

She didn’t move
forward, so neither did he, sensing her wariness.

“What did you
say?”

“‘Hey, there?’”
he repeated, feeling like an idiot.

“No. The next
part.”

Zach always
looked for tells in people’s voices, but hers was strange: quiet and refined, like
it had been wiped clean, without a hint of an accent that might give him a
little information about where she was from. It was carefully modulated, almost
as though she’d watched a lot of Grace Kelly movies and taught herself how to
talk that way.

“Oh. I’m the,
uh, the houseguest. I’m the guy staying here for the next few weeks.”

She laughed, and
the timbre pinged in his head, strangely familiar.

“What are you
talking about?
You’re
staying here?
I’m
staying here.
I’m
staying here for the next two weeks.” Her voice ratcheted up a
notch and lost just a touch of its refinement.

“I don’t think
so. John told me it was free for the entire month of October and that I could use
it for as long as I like.”

“John?”

“John Lewis. The
owner.”

“Well,
Lena
Lewis said
I
could stay here,” she said tightly.

“Oh, man.”

Lena Lewis. Loony
Lena, John’s estranged wife who’d sometimes show up at the Cornerstone offices,
carrying on publicly about her shitty divorce settlement. John had bragged to
Zach just last week that while Lena had ended up with their condo in Greenwich,
he hadn’t had to pay her another dime. Zach remembered his exact words: “A
solid
prenup’s
worth its weight in gold, Z.”

“Oh, man . . .
what
?” asked the woman.

“You probably
already know this if you’re friends with Lena, but John and Lena Lewis are at
the end of a pretty nasty divorce. I’m positive John owns this house. And I’m
pretty sure Lena’s hard up for cash.”

“No. No
no
no
. You must be wrong! Lena
Lewis is—well, we’re in a ladies club together. She
 
said I could use this place rent free. I just
needed to pay her a thousand dollars for the utilities.” She whipped her
iPhone
out of her back pocket and started typing quickly. “I
have an e-mail.” She kept typing, the phone’s screen casting a slight bit of
light on her shadowed form. She tilted her head back, glancing up at the starry
sky in frustration. “There’s no signal here. But, believe me, I have an e-mail
giving me permission to be here.”

Zach cocked his
head to the side, squinting to see her better in the dim light, but she stood
several feet away. He could barely make out her silhouette.

“Well, John said
I could use it. Said it was empty and vacant. Said I should use it to get away
for a few weeks and work.” He rubbed the inside of his wrist before flicking
his lower lip with his thumb.

The moon shifted
from behind cloud cover and for a moment he could make out the shininess of her
eyes. She probably didn’t mean for them to drop and linger on his lips for the
second they did, but he noticed. She shifted slightly, catching some moonlight,
and he could see her chest was proportionally larger than the rest of her
slight frame. Zach was a fan of big tits on small women and felt his body
tighten a little.

“But I have
e-mails,” she insisted again. “Lena said I could . . .
You cannot stay here
.”

“Huh. Okay,” Zach
said. He saw what was going on here. He had been invited to use the house
by the actual owner
, cleared his
incredibly busy calendar, pissed off Malcolm, rented an SUV for two weeks, and
brought his guitar, keyboard, and two weeks’ worth of Scotch on an eight-hour
excursion north only to be kicked out before he got in the door.

Not so fucking fast, fake-voiced, Sister-Big-Boobs.

“Looks like you’ve
got a little problem,” he said as he backed up against the side of the SUV,
crossing his arms.

“Looks like
you’ve
got a problem. I have permission
to be here. I
paid
to be here.”

“You
may
or
may not
have permission to be in a house that doesn’t belong to
the person offering it. And all you probably
paid
for was Lena Lewis’s ticket to
Cabo
,”
he said, walking around to the back of the SUV and popping the trunk, the dome
light shining down on his various bags and cases.

“What are you
doing?” she demanded in a light shriek, and something about her voice made him
pause again. When she dropped the bullshit mid-Atlantic accent, even for an
instant, her voice was oddly familiar. New England, maybe? Someone he’d known
at Yale? His brows furrowed, and his heart kicked up a notch. He jerked his
head out of the brightly lit trunk and glanced at her again. After the glare of
the trunk light his eyes had to readjust to the darkness, so he couldn’t make
out a thing.

Write me something beautiful, Zach.

 
The words floated through his head but he
clenched his jaw in annoyance. This chick wasn’t
her
, and he wished to Christ his mind would quit doing this to him,
looking for her everywhere. After nine years, it was exhausting.

Annoyed with
himself, he turned back to the trunk.

“What am I
doing? Unpacking.” He lifted a guitar case out of the trunk and set it against
the bumper while he hefted a backpack onto his shoulder.

“Are you deaf?
This is my house! I have permission to use it!”

That imperious
fucking tone was getting under his skin. “Actually, princess, I don’t think you
do. But hey, I’m easy. It’s a big house.”

“And?”

He turned to
face her, adjusting the backpack and putting his hands on his hips. “What’s
your name?”

“What? Why do
you want to know?”

He could just
make out her crossing her arms over her chest in the darkness. He’d met all
types, but she was giving new meaning to
high-strung
.

“Well, if we’re
going to share a house, we should probably be on a first-name basis, don’t you
think?”

“Share? Are you
crazy? You’re a stranger! A t-tattooed stranger!”

He looked down
at his arm, illuminated by the dome light. Yep, a high-strung snob. The girl
she reminded him of wasn’t a snob. Never had been.

“My tattoos have
been known to bite, so it’s a good thing you’re keeping your distance.”

“Oh! I—”

He really wasn’t
in the mood to deal with dramatics. He gestured to his guitar case, trying for
a gentler tone. “Listen, I’m a musician and I live in Manhattan. I’m just here
to work. I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine, Greenwich.”

He pulled a
heavy duffel bag onto his other shoulder. She stared at him from the
respectable distance she still maintained, apparently speechless.

“Now I’m not a stranger,”
he added.

“How did you
know I’m from Greenwich?” she asked softly to his back.

“Lena lives in
Greenwich,” he said, remembering John’s comment about the settlement and the condo.
“Not that I know her personally.”
 

He made his way
up the front walkway, adjusting the bag to bend down and feel under the welcome
mat for the key that John said would be waiting. He picked it up, unlocked the
door, and walked into the entry, flicking on the light switch to his left. The
lights didn’t go on, so he put his bag on the floor by the door. With the house
in disuse for several months, he probably needed to trip the circuit. When he
turned around, she was standing a little closer to the house, at the foot of
the steps in the dark behind him.

He could feel
her discomfort, and some part of him was glad. She was starting to come into
focus for him now: a rich, entitled, snob who was probably using Daddy’s money
for a two-week getaway to
find
herself. Well, she could find herself in one half of the house while he wrote
music in the other. Hell, on tour, he’d happily stayed in hotel suites a tenth of
the size with three times as many people, some perfect strangers. There was no
reason they couldn’t share the house. And if she didn’t like it, she could go find
somewhere else to stay. He had just as much right to be here as she did. More
right, really.

As he turned to
head back to the trunk, she backed up. “The gentlemanly thing to do would be
for
you
to find a motel.”

“I guess. But we
haven’t established that I’m a gentleman.”

“You’re well-spoken.”

He scratched his
jaw. That observation sort of surprised him, especially coming from her. He was
used to people like her taking in the tattoos and shaggy hair and piercings,
and drawing conclusions about the rest of him. He tugged his keyboard case out
from the back of the trunk.

“I’m sorry I
said that about your tattoos,” she added softly, still hovering near the steps
in front of his car.

“Look, I’m not
trying to be a jerk by staying. I drove a long way to be here, and I really do
have a lot of work to do. John said this place has four bedrooms. There’s
really no reason we can’t share it. In fact, I’ll take one bedroom, and you can
have the other three. In the basement there’s a soundproof listening room and
studio, and I plan to spend most of my time there anyway, so I’ll stay out of
your way. You won’t even hear me. You can just . . . find yourself or whatever
it is you came here to do.”

“
Find myself?
”

“Isn’t that what
you rich girls from Greenwich do? Open your trust funds so you can go to spas
and rent vacation mansions and find yourselves?”

“Now who’s the
snob?” she asked, and for a second he thought he detected a slight accent in
her amused voice, and the sound pinged in his head again. He squinted, trying
to see her better without approaching her.
Her
face fluttered through his mind again, but he pushed it away. That girl and
this girl were
nothing
alike.

“Whatever,” he
said, reaching for the paper grocery bag that held three bottles of very good Scotch
that clanked together as he nestled them against his hip. “I’ll lay low. My
tattoos will barely pollute your rental space.”

“I already
said
I was sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” He swung
another duffel bag onto his shoulder and took the handle of the keyboard bag.

She had taken a
few steps closer to the trunk and stood a couple feet away from him now. Her
head was bent as she looked down at the ground, nervously shifting her weight
from one foot to the other.

“We can’t stay
here together,” she said softly. “Y-you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not
sleeping in a house with a total stranger—”

“With tattoos,
no less!”

“—who
I don’t know at all.”

”Look, I told
you, I’m a musician. My name is Zachariah Aubrey, and—”

She gasped, which
grabbed his attention. Still in the shadows, she stared at him, gaping, and he
stared back, startled by her reaction. A cross between a whimper and a cry
escaped from her throat as she reached up to cover her mouth. His heart seized
in his chest, pumping like crazy as a wave of realization crashed on the shore
of his consciousness.

“Oh my God,” she
murmured in a shocked, shaky voice against her fingers, her snooty accent entirely
replaced with a heartbreakingly familiar Maine lilt. “You’re Zach Aubrey.”

He nodded, his
brain fighting to fit everything together—her voice, posture, expression, and those
dark, glistening eyes—just in time for her to confirm it.

“Zach,” she whispered,
stepping forward into the pool of light by the open trunk. “It’s Violet.”