Sea Glass Island (4 page)

And in a lot of years of living, her gut hadn’t steered her wrong on more than one or two occasions. This wasn’t going to be another one of them. She’d see to it.

* * *

Samantha squirmed uncomfortably under Ethan’s cool gaze. Not even Emily’s steady stream of chatter or Greg’s determinedly upbeat efforts to keep the conversation flowing could cut through the tension at the table. It was getting on her nerves.

When she’d finally had enough, she stood up. “Ethan, could I speak to you outside, please?”

Every single person there looked startled by the request, but Ethan rose as if she’d just offered to show him an escape route from a particularly unsavory prison.

Casting one last scowl at her sister, Samantha led the way onto the deck at the side of the restaurant and headed toward the railing where they’d have a view of the ocean across the street. Thanks to an offshore storm, the surf was churning, reflecting her own emotions. She drew in a deep breath of the refreshing, salty air and turned to face Ethan.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have figured out that Emily and Grandmother had hatched some kind of plot the minute Emily started insisting we come here for lunch.”

Ethan’s hard expression eased slightly. “Not entirely your fault. This is your family’s restaurant, and I did come here, after all. I knew there was a chance you’d be around.”

She regarded him curiously. “So, why did you come?”

He shrugged. “Lost a bet, to be perfectly honest.”

Samantha’s lips twitched at his resigned tone. “To whom?”

“Greg,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’m thinking his matchmaking gene just might rival Emily’s and Cora Jane’s. If I’d had any idea he had such a devious, romantic streak, I’d never have opened that clinic with him.”

“So, what are we going to do about this? We’ve been warned. We know what they’re up to. Just hours ago we vowed to end the madness, and here we are again. Are we naive or just no match for their ingenuity?”

“No idea,” he conceded. “I’m way out of my element here. Oh, there have been a few people who’ve tried to set me up ever since my engagement ended, but most of them gave up eventually. If you say no often enough and forcefully enough, people stop trying.”

“So, you’re dead set against ever getting involved in another relationship?” she asked, hoping there was no hint of disappointment in her voice.

“Pretty much.”

“All because of a woman who, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, sounds about as sensitive as a slug?”

Ethan smiled at that. “That pretty much sums up Lisa.”

“Well, that’s just crazy,” she said. “If you can see her for the kind of woman she was, then you shouldn’t let her have any influence whatsoever over the choices you make now.”

He gave her a wry look. “So I’ve been told.”

“You don’t buy it?”

He hesitated, then said, “Maybe we should come at this from a different direction. You’re younger than I am, but if you’ll pardon me for stating the obvious, you’re not a kid. Why aren’t you married? Or have you been?”

Samantha winced at having the tables turned on her. “No marriages,” she conceded. “I guess I never met the right man.”

“So it’s not because some insensitive clod broke your heart?”

She thought about it, not sure how to explain the choices she’d made. “Amazingly, I don’t have any ill will toward any of the men I’ve dated, not even toward the man I was pretty sure I loved.”

“What happened with him?”

“He was an actor, which isn’t always the smartest match for an actress, even though you both understand the demands of the business. That’s the upside.”

“And the downside?”

“My career took off for a time. His tanked. He couldn’t handle it.” It sounded so simple, but it had been the most painful period of her life. No matter how she’d fought to keep silent about her own successes to keep him from feeling like a failure, it hadn’t been enough.

Ethan gave her a sympathetic look. “Pride can be a pain, can’t it?”

“Masculine pride surely can,” she responded agreeably. “I’m surprised you can admit that. After all, wasn’t it your pride your fiancée hurt, as much as your heart?” She studied him with a worried gaze. “Or did she really break your heart?”

For a minute the look on Ethan’s face suggested she’d gone too far. His jaw tensed, his eyes sparked and then, in an instant, a smile tugged at his lips.

“You don’t mince words, do you?”

“I don’t see a lot of point in it, no.”

“That’s a refreshing change,” he told her. “I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years with people who are way too careful about speaking their minds around me. Even if what they want to say has nothing at all to do with my injury, they seem to think I’m too fragile to be challenged.”

“So they think you can’t take the truth?”

“Probably. And, to be honest, when I first got back and was going through rehab, I probably couldn’t. If anyone even looked at me the wrong way, I’d explode. Believe me, I was impossible to get along with.”

“I imagine that’s just as much part of the healing process as learning to deal with the prosthetic.”

He looked surprised once more by her insight. “It was. A few people, like Boone and Greg, figured that out and never gave up on me. I’d kick ’em out, but they kept right on coming back.”

“Unlike your fiancée?” she said, disliking the woman intensely.

Surprisingly, he shook his head. “It wasn’t my temper that pushed her away. I don’t think I could have blamed her for that. No, she stuck it out until I was on my feet, so to speak. Then she bailed. She said she couldn’t cope with me not being the man she’d fallen in love with, as if my leg were the most important part of my anatomy and losing it made me less of a man.”

Samantha shook her head. “The woman was an idiot.”

Ethan laughed. “Thanks for the ardent defense, but maybe we should get back to our immediate problem. What do we do about the meddlers?”

“Stay alert. Let them do their thing, I guess,” she suggested, though she was unconvinced that the strategy would work.

“Seriously?”

“It’ll make them happy to try,” she said, “and there’s nothing that says we have to get with the program, right?”

He held her gaze for a minute, just long enough for a spark of sexual tension to sizzle between them. “Nothing,” he agreed, though he too sounded a little unsure of himself when he said it.

Samantha held out her hand. “Friends, right? We have a deal.”

Ethan took her hand in his. She couldn’t help noticing that his grip was strong, his fingers long and slender. It was the sure and steady hand of a surgeon.

“We have a deal,” he said.

He was awfully slow to release her hand. When he did, his eyes were troubled.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Ethan, I thought being straight with each other was an implied part of our bargain,” she scolded.

He gave her a rueful look. “I have this odd premonition that we’ve just made a fool’s bargain.”

“Oh?”

“I’m thinking that unless we’re very, very careful, we’re going to blow this whole friendship thing to smithereens,” he said direly.

Samantha had to fight to hide the laugh that bubbled up at his unmistakable frustration, because the truth was, on some level, that was the best news she’d heard in a very long time.

4

“S
o, when are you seeing her again?” Greg asked Ethan as they drove back to the clinic. There was no mistaking the spark of mischief in his eyes as he spoke.

Ethan frowned at him. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he insisted.

“You and Samantha. Don’t even try to deny that something happened when the two of you were out on the deck. You came back looking like two cats that had managed to dine on some very tasty canaries.”

“What a lovely analogy,” Ethan commented. “You obviously have a poet’s way with words.”

“Not exactly the point,” Greg said. “Let’s stick to the accuracy of my assessment. When are the two of you getting together again?”

“Whenever circumstances dictate,” Ethan said irritably.

Suddenly Greg’s eyes lit up as if he’d just discovered the secrets of the universe. “And you’re not happy about waiting for those circumstances to roll around, are you? Oh boy, I knew it! You’ve got the hots for her.”

“Once more you’re demonstrating your way with words,” Ethan grumbled. “I do not have the hots for anybody. Turns out she’s a nice woman, not at all what I expected.”

“Beautiful, too. Do not try to tell me you didn’t notice. Otherwise I’m going to have to check your vital signs the second we get back to the clinic.”

“I noticed,” Ethan said tightly. “Will you please drop this?”

“I’m thinking I probably shouldn’t,” Greg said cheerfully. “I’m thinking you need me to be a thorn in your side, a burr under your butt, as it were, until you finally get back in the dating game.”

“Dating is
not
a game I want to play,” Ethan claimed, though he was clearly not convincing his friend. He’d been happily protecting his heart for a good long time now. He saw no reason for that to change. The last time he’d taken a risk on love, it hadn’t worked out so well.

“Ah, but sometimes life just comes along and gives you an unexpected chance to reach for your heart’s desire, ready or not,” Greg said. “A smart man seizes those moments.”

Ethan scowled at him. “Heart’s desire? Game? Which is it? How exactly do you see this going?”

“What I see isn’t important,” Greg insisted. “What do you see? And do not try to tell me you’re oblivious to the possibilities.”

“I see disaster waiting to happen,” Ethan said with a level of frustration he hadn’t felt in months, maybe not even years. Shouldn’t he have a better grip on his own blasted destiny? Surely it was just a matter of willpower. If he wanted to resist Samantha, he could do it, the same way he’d avoided every other entanglement since Lisa had so unceremoniously dumped him. Of course, it didn’t help that his friend refused to let the matter drop.

“Because you’re not really attracted to her?” Greg persisted.

“No,” he bit out.

“Because you don’t think she’s attracted to you?”

He recalled the look that had simmered between them more than once on the deck. Whatever she’d said about friendship, she was interested in more, no question about it. Was he insane for not taking her up on it? After all, it wasn’t as if she’d be around for long. Her life was elsewhere. They could indulge in a satisfying two-week fling, no harm, no foul. Greg would certainly approve. Boone probably would, too, though he might get a little protective since Samantha was about to be his sister-in-law.

“It doesn’t matter if she’s attracted to me or not. We’ve agreed to be friends, period. We are not succumbing to the pressures of the meddlers, you included.”

Greg stared at him incredulously. “Whose dumb-ass idea was that?”

“Hers,” Ethan said. “I agreed.”

Greg shook his head sorrowfully. “I always thought Lisa was the idiot. Now I’m wondering if you’re one iota better.”

Ethan frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This gorgeous woman, who’s had a thing for you for like a million years, has been delivered practically into your arms and you’re content with friendship.” Greg shook his head. “It’s pitiful, man. Just pitiful.”

Ethan was beginning to think maybe his friend was right, but that didn’t mean he intended to do a single thing to change the rules he and Samantha had just negotiated. There was safety in following those rules. There was the peace and serenity he’d claimed he wanted for years now.

And, sadly, there was total, unrelenting boredom, he admitted only to himself.

* * *

Samantha was pacing the floor with Daniella Jane, who was impatiently and loudly proclaiming that it was dinnertime. Even with the baby’s cries echoing in Samantha’s head, she felt this incredibly fierce tug as she held her niece.

“Come on, sweetie,” she murmured soothingly. “Don’t let your mommy walk in the door and get some crazy idea that I’m a terrible aunt. Settle down. Dinner is on its way, I promise.”

Dinner, of course, was tied directly to Gabi’s arrival. She was still nursing the baby. Normally she kept Daniella Jane with her at the gallery for that very reason, but she’d taken a visible deep breath and agreed to let her daughter come home with Samantha an hour ago. It had definitely been an act of faith. The way Samantha had heard it, the baby had barely been out of Gabi’s sight since the day she was born.

Today’s reluctant concession was supposed to be a win-win, giving Gabi an uninterrupted hour to get some work done while Samantha bonded with her niece. She had no idea how things were going on Gabi’s end, but she wasn’t exactly bonding. If anything, she felt as if she was selfishly depriving her niece of sustenance to fulfill her own maternal yearnings.

The back door of Gram’s house burst open, and Gabi’s guy, Wade Johnson, came in, grinning.

“That’s my girl,” he said, reaching for the baby, whose cries instantly changed into gurgles of delight. He winked at Gabi. “She’s already learned to let the world know when she’s displeased. Nobody will be walking all over this woman.”

Samantha chuckled. Wade might not be Dani’s biological father, but he was already a dedicated parent. “You do know that you’ve just given me a terrible inferiority complex, don’t you?” she said. “I may give up on the whole motherhood thing after the way that child started cooing the instant I handed her off to you.”

“Don’t take it personally,” he said, holding the baby high in the air. “Dani and I have a deal.”

“A deal?” Samantha questioned, smiling.

“Yep. We work at being so good together that there’s not a chance her mama will change her mind about marrying me. Right, baby girl?”

Daniella Jane giggled happily.

“So, where is Gabi?” Wade asked. “It’s not like her to be late for this little one’s suppertime. Did you convince her to take a nap?”

“Are you kidding me? She’s using my offer to watch the baby to get some work done. You can take the workaholic out of a high-powered job, but you can’t take the drive and ambition out of her. The success of that studio the two of you created is her personal mission.”

“It was supposed to be a low-key alternative to that last nightmare job,” Wade grumbled.

“Sorry. Gabi’s not made for low-key.” She studied him closely, aware of what a laid-back kind of man he was. “That’s not a deal-breaker for you, is it?”

“There are no deal-breakers for me when it comes to Gabi,” he said flatly. “She’s it for me. If she’s happy, I’m happy.”

Samantha barely contained a sigh of envy at the conviction she heard in his voice. Boone sounded the same way when he talked about Emily. Was she ever going to find the same sort of devotion? Would anyone ever look at her as if she were the sun, moon and stars all rolled into one?

Gabi sailed into the house just then, her expression frantic. “Is the baby okay? I know I’m late, and I know how fussy she gets if she isn’t fed right on time.”

“She definitely made her feelings known,” Samantha told her. “But Wade showed up with his magic touch, and she’s been good as gold ever since.”

Gabi bent down and gave Wade a lingering kiss. “Thanks,” she murmured as she took the baby from him.

“Sit,” he said, pulling her down beside him.

“But Dani needs to be fed,” Gabi protested.

“And here’s as good a place as any,” he said, his gaze locked with hers.

When the baby settled into place, Wade grazed his knuckles gently over her cheek in a touch so tender it brought tears to Samantha’s eyes. With the three of them so absorbed with this moment, she felt like a fifth wheel.

“I’ll get dinner started,” she murmured, though she doubted anyone heard her.

In the kitchen, she decided on pasta with a simple marinara sauce. While the water for the pasta was boiling, she tossed a salad with fresh lettuce and tomatoes from the local farmer’s stand where she’d stopped on her way home, added a bit of spring onion and blue cheese and then her own personal vinaigrette. She’d make her meal out of this, giving a token nod to her need to watch her weight.

She’d just minced some garlic into a skillet with olive oil and was preparing to add the tomato sauce when Cora Jane, Jerry and Emily came in.

“It smells fabulous in here,” Emily said, sniffing the air. “I had no idea you could cook.”

“All Castles need to know their way around a kitchen,” Samantha recited, grinning at Cora Jane when she said it. “How many times did you say that to us when we were here in the summer?”

“Not enough, apparently, since not a one of you went into the restaurant business,” Cora Jane said. She checked on the sauce, then eyed Samantha speculatively. “Of course, maybe it’s not too late.”

“Uh-oh,” Emily teased. “Grandmother’s got that look in her eye. You’d better run for your life, Samantha, or you’ll be running Castle’s before the summer’s out. If that sauce is as delicious as it smells, there will be pasta dishes on the menu and you’ll be in the kitchen making them.”

Samantha handed the spoon she’d been using to stir the sauce to Cora Jane. “Not a prayer,” she said at once. “This is your domain, Grandmother. I’m just an innocent bystander. I’m only in the kitchen because Gabi, Wade and the baby are having family time in the living room.”

“And you let them chase you off?” Cora Jane asked.

“They didn’t even know I was in the room, much less that I’d left,” Samantha said. “I think we’d better get a wedding date on the calendar for those two soon.”

“We’re eloping,” Gabi announced, arriving in the kitchen just in time to overhear the comment. “All this fuss is way too much.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Cora Jane said, looking horrified. “Get Wade in here right this minute, and I’ll set him straight about that.”

“He’s putting the baby down,” Gabi said. “And he and I are agreed about this. No hoopla when our time comes. Just a quiet ceremony with family.”

Samantha noticed the color rising in Emily’s cheeks at Gabi’s words.

“Are you suggesting that my wedding is over-the-top?” Emily asked, an edge to her voice.

“No one is saying any such thing, honey bun,” Cora Jane said quickly, shooting a pointed look in Gabi’s direction.

“I’m just saying it’s a lot of work and stress for a party,” Gabi said defensively. “But I certainly don’t begrudge you and Boone for having the wedding of your dreams. It’s just not Wade and me.”

Emily burst into tears at that and fled out the back door.

“That girl’s nerves are getting to her,” Cora Jane assessed. “I don’t think it’s all about the wedding, either. I suspect there’s something else on her mind.”

“Such as?” Samantha asked.

Cora Jane huffed a sigh of frustration. “No idea.”

“I’d better go,” Gabi said with a sigh. “I should have kept my big mouth shut. I know she’s sensitive about the wedding spinning a little out of control.”

Samantha held up a hand. “I’ll go. I know I’m not the traditional peacemaker around her, but I’m thinking she might not want to hear anything you have to say right now.”

“Go ahead,” Cora Jane said. “I’ll finish up here and get dinner on the table. Don’t be too long, okay?”

Samantha kicked off her shoes on the porch and walked barefoot through the grass down to the pier. Emily was sitting on the bench at the end, her shoulders hunched, her face streaked with tears.

“You probably agree with Gabi,” she accused when Samantha sat next to her.

“Not the way you’re thinking,” Samantha said.

“See, I knew it! You always think I make lousy choices.”

Samantha was saddened by yet more evidence that the two of them had a long way to go before they’d ever understand each other.

“And you always anticipate the worst from me,” Samantha replied quietly. “Did you not hear what I said? I told you that though I agreed with Gabi, it was probably not in the way you were thinking.”

Emily scowled at her. “You either agree or you don’t.”

“Does everything always have to be either black or white to you?”

“It generally is,” Emily said.

“Oh, sweetie, there is an awful lot of gray in the world. Believe me, you’ll figure that out eventually.”

“And now you’re saying I’m not that experienced or wise or something,” Emily said, obviously taking offense when none had been intended.