The Guest House (19 page)

“Spending time with you has been the bright spot in my life, Edie Worthington,” he admitted. “I don’t want that to go away.”

“Then we’ll just be friends,” she said.

“I don’t want to just be friends.”

She sighed; they were going around in circles, getting nowhere.

“Give me a chance to end it,” Tucker pleaded. “Be with me and I promise I’ll stop it. I’ll stop
everything
.”

Edie searched his eyes in the faint light that crept in from the cottage, thinking how they shone with hope.
Everything
. Could he really mean it? She smiled, reminded of the unintentional pact they had made under the shade of the Grange Hall.
Looks like we’re both going to have to fight to get what we want, doesn’t it?

“I’ll wait,” she said.

Relief shuddered across his face.

“Promise?” he asked.

“I promise.”

T
he last time she and Hudson had made love, Lexi knew it was the last time. The same way a person spots a lilac bush in late June and thinks to herself,
Yes, those lavender blooms are perfect but they have turned. You’d never know it to look at them, and if you bury your nose in their tiny blossoms and inhale that sweet scent, you’d swear they might live on that branch forever. But take my word for it and soak them up as best you can, because tomorrow, the edges of those tiny petals will have browned, and then they are as good as gone.

They’d agreed to meet for the weekend at their favorite inn on the Vineyard and had sex on the beach, something they’d done only a handful of times in their five years together. Her skin had itched incessantly afterward, a condition she’d blamed on the sand and the flies, when the culprit had been her own fear. Hudson had most likely meant to leave her that visit, and might have done it, had Lexi not surprised him with the gift of a photograph, a framed picture of the guest house in the mist. She’d captured it one morning the year before, at dawn, when the fog was so thick that the tiny cottage appeared to float inside it, like a magical kingdom in the clouds, and that was how she would always choose to remember the guest house, and their love. When she’d handed him the photograph, Hudson had considered it a long while before he’d thanked her and tucked it into his suitcase. She’d studied him the whole ferry ride back, looking for his promise in every gesture, every glance, every word.

In the days after Hudson had left her, Lexi had sworn she would never again be blindsided by desire. Now as she steered her car down the sun-dappled dirt of Birch Drive, she felt a sickening mix of outrage and shame, Owen’s recent condemnation returning to her.

Every Moss is like every other Moss, Lex. You can’t trust them—you of all people should know that.

She’d left through the main door, knowing that Cooper wouldn’t see her go and that he’d never hear her engine over the din of the construction noises on the lawn. What else could she have done? Stayed and confronted him? Heard his weak excuses for why he’d never told her he’d been mining her mother’s heartbreak for his next bestseller?

Her heart thundered as she swung the car onto the main road. All the times she’d asked him about his novel—all the chances he’d had to tell her the truth—and he’d remained vague. Her thoughts flashed back to their night together, his gift of the darkroom. Had that been given to her out of his guilt; had he hoped to buy her forgiveness when the book finally came out?

She sent the driver’s window down all the way, taking in deep breaths of air as she sped toward town. She didn’t want to burden her best friend at the store, but Lexi didn’t know where else to go.

Kim was with a customer when Lexi pushed through the front door. She suspected the distressed look on her face was apparent, because almost immediately Kim excused herself and steered Lexi into the storeroom, motioning for one of the staff to take over the register.

“What’s wrong?” Kim led Lexi to a sofa by her desk and sat down next to her.

“Cooper’s book. It’s about my mom and Tucker. It’s about that summer.”

“What? How do you know?”

“I found the pages of his manuscript,” Lexi explained.

“When?”

“This morning.”

Sure her guilt was all over her face, Lexi looked up to find her friend’s eyes shining with understanding—and delight.

“Oh, my God, you slept with him, didn’t you?” Kim breathed. “Finally!”

“No, not
finally
,” said Lexi crossly. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said?”

“So he thinks their story was romantic enough to be a real novel, okay,” Kim said with a shrug. “I knew you were going to sleep with him. I had this weird feeling last night; maybe it was the moon or something, but—”

“Kim!” Lexi rose, stunned. “You’re not listening to me.”

“Of course I’m listening to you,” Kim insisted. “I just don’t see what the big deal is that he’s writing about your mom and his dad.”

“The big deal,” said Lexi, “is that it isn’t his story to tell. The big deal is that I gave him plenty of chances to tell me what his book was about and he told me—he even told you!—that he wasn’t sure. He lied to me, Kim.”

“
Hudson
lied to you, Lex.”

Lexi frowned. “This isn’t about Hudson.”

“Since when?” Kim demanded.

Lexi stared hotly at her friend, waiting for Kim to back down, to act like a best friend was supposed to act and to share in her indignation, her hurt. The way Kim had done when Hudson had broken her heart.

“Why are you defending him?” Lexi said.

“I’m not defending him. I just don’t understand why you’re blowing this out of proportion.”

“
I’m
blowing this out of proportion?”

“Sweetie, look,” Kim began gently. “All I know is that when you and Cooper were at the game, you seemed . . .”

Lexi stared expectantly at her friend. “I seemed
what
?”

“Happy,” blurted Kim. “Okay? You seemed happy. Like really happy. Like I haven’t seen you since—”

Hudson
. Kim didn’t have to say it. And maybe that was the problem.

Lexi moved for the door; Kim followed her. They walked out of the store and back to Lexi’s car.

“I should never have taken this job in the first place,” Lexi said as she tugged open the driver’s door. “I should have known better.”

“That’s Owen talking,” said Kim. “You know it is.”

Kim waited while Lexi climbed in and rolled down her window. “Where are you going now?”

“To pack,” said Lexi. “The agent said I can start moving some things in tonight.”

“Do you need help? Jay’s home today. And you know he loves any excuse to tool around in that truck.”

“Thanks, I’ll let you know.”

Kim leaned in, her voice soft with worry. “I love you, Lex. And I know you well enough to know when you’re falling for someone. I just don’t want to see you give up on something special.”

Lexi slipped on her sunglasses, suddenly needing to hide her eyes from her best friend.

“I’m not the one giving up, Kim.”

Kim’s gaze remained leveled but unconvinced, even as she stood up and stepped back. Lexi started the car and with a halfhearted wave pulled out into the street.

•   •   •

E
die was at the sink when the yellow Jeep turned into her driveway shortly before six. Recognizing the car at once, she hurried to wipe her hands and meet her visitor.

“Cooper.” She pressed the screen door open fully. “This is a surprise.”

“I’m sorry to show up like this, ma’am. I was hoping Lexi might be here.”

“She’s not,” said Edie. “She’s moving into a house in Truro. She’s been taking little loads over all day.” Edie considered Cooper’s fraught expression as he absorbed the news, a blade of late-day sun making hard shadows on his knotted forehead. Surely he knew that Edie was aware of what had transpired between him and Lexi; that Edie had seen her daughter’s car in the driveway that morning and not seen it in her own driveway the night before. And yet she’d also seen Lexi flee the Moss cottage, peeling out without even a wave. Then Lexi had announced that she would start moving out her things.

Now Edie knew why.

Cooper offered a strained smile. “I think I may have screwed up, but I’m not exactly sure how. I’d just like to talk to her.”

Maybe it was his eyes, kind and warm and reminding her once again of Tucker, that made her go to the fridge and pull down the Post-it note that Lexi had left with her new address. Whatever the reason, relief flooded his features when Edie handed it to him. As she closed the door and watched Copper pull back out onto the road, Edie told herself some people, even those who thought they knew better, needed a little push now and then.

I
t would make a good home, Lexi decided as she surveyed the view from her back deck, her third—and last—carload of the day stacked in the bedroom. Since the power and water wouldn’t be turned on until tomorrow, she wouldn’t be able to spend the night, but she was still determined to christen her first sunset in her new home. She unwrapped a goblet from a box on the counter and poured herself a generous glass of a red she’d brought, then carried both glass and bottle back out to the deck, settling into one of the plastic chairs the previous tenant had left behind. A sultry evening breeze feathered her face as she sipped her wine, watching the horizon bruise with shades of violet and pink.

It was her first moment of real quiet since the morning, and she’d been dreading it. As perfect as the scene was, no amount of wine or pastel streaks in the sky would mask the overriding disappointment she’d been shoving into the back of her mind all afternoon. Not unlike that last box no one wanted to unpack, its contents having no real destination; better to just stuff it into a closet and deal with it after the next move.

Cooper had called three times, and each time Lexi had stared at her chiming phone, her heart racing with an impossible mix of relief and hurt that forced her to simply continue to stare at the screen until the phone fell silent again. She’d waited a whole ten minutes before listening to the first voice mail, her pulse quickening at the sound of his voice, the one she’d woken to that morning. When the next message came, she managed to wait an hour. When no more calls came, she grew even more hurt, feeling foolish. It hadn’t helped that Kim had derailed what had been a clear course for sympathy, then gave her, Lexi, a disparaging look as she’d waved her off.

Cooper had lied to her; there was no getting around that. She’d let her guard down, hoping things could be different this time—let herself have feelings for him. Feelings that she only hoped would drain with the glass of wine she was well on her way to emptying.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway made her set down her glass and walk to the edge of the deck to see around the house. Her breath caught to glimpse a yellow sliver of Cooper’s Jeep and Cooper himself climbing out. How had he known where she . . . ? Her mother. It had to be. Who else knew the location of her new home?

Butterflies took flight in her stomach. She moved back to her wine, trying to compose herself in the few moments it took for Cooper to follow the narrow path of uneven pavers around the house. Hearing his footsteps near, she turned and found him standing at the deck steps, looking far too good in an olive green T-shirt and khakis, and holding a bouquet of gerbera daisies, her favorite. Had she told him that? She was sure she hadn’t.
Kim
. He’d obviously gone to Tides for the flowers.

Great, she thought sourly. Now there were
two
traitors in her camp.

“This is quite a spot,” he said, gesturing to the view.

She met him at the steps. “You should take them back,” she said flatly, gesturing to the flowers. “I can’t keep them here.”

“No vase?”

“No water. They aren’t turning it on until tomorrow.”

Cooper considered the bouquet a moment, then turned to the neighboring house, a beach cottage like hers. “Hang on a second.”

She started to dissuade him, but he had already made his way to the neighbor’s door. Though Lexi couldn’t hear their exchange, he carried a plastic cup when he returned.

“Do you have a vase, or should I go back and ask for that too?”

God, he was determined. Exasperated, she reached down and took the flowers. Cooper followed her up the steps and through the sliding patio doors into the house. Saying nothing, she rummaged through one of her opened boxes for something suitable and found a porcelain pitcher, emptying his borrowed water into it and tearing off the bouquet’s cellophane sleeve.

“You missed one heck of an omelet,” he said. “Cheddar and tomato. One of the best I’ve ever made.”

She stuffed the stems down into the vase.

Cooper folded his arms. “This is about the book, isn’t it?”

She gave him a frosty look as her answer.

“I didn’t tell you I was writing it,” Cooper explained, “because I wasn’t going to publish it.”

“You honestly expect me to believe that? You said yourself you were desperate for a new book. Why would you bother writing a story you didn’t plan to sell?”

“Look, I’ll admit I wasn’t so cavalier when I started it,” Cooper said, watching her set the flower arrangement on the sink, then wipe her hands testily on her hips. “But the deeper I got into the writing, the more I knew I could never submit it.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you could have told me the book was about my family. Instead you used me for research.”

“What research?”

“That night,” she reminded him. “When we were eating on the porch and you wanted to know about my parents building the guest house.”

“I was just making conversation,” Cooper said. “I was curious.”

“Obviously.”

She spun away from him and faced the sink. Cooper came beside her.

“It’s not just the story,” Lexi said, drawing in a shaky breath. “It’s . . . it’s everything.” She turned to him. “Why did you have to set up that darkroom for me? Why did you have to try to compete with him?”

Cooper stared at her, stunned. “Is that why you think I did it? To compete with Hudson?”

“Isn’t it?” she asked carefully.

“Why would I want to do that? From what I remember, my brother set the bar pretty low.”

She dragged her gaze back to the window, tears of frustration pushing up her throat.

“It’s just a story, Lexi. Something that happened almost fifty years ago. It doesn’t have anything to do with us.”

“It has
everything
to do with us,” she said. “You’re writing about the man who broke my mother’s heart wide open. You’ll humiliate her.”

“Is that what she told you? That my dad broke her heart?”

“It’s the truth,” Lexi said firmly. “Everybody knows that.”

“Not according to Jim.”

“And how would he know?”

“He was here that summer; he saw it all—and what he didn’t see, my father told him.”

“I’ll bet.”

Lexi felt Cooper’s gaze still fixed on her, searching her profile a moment before he said, “I don’t think it’s me you’re really mad at.”

She swallowed. “I want you to leave.”

Cooper stepped closer, his voice tender but firm. “I’m not Hudson, Lexi. I can’t help that he’s my brother, or that he came first and screwed it all up, but he’s not me. And whatever still hurts, or whatever you feel you didn’t get to say to him, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested in being his stand-in.”

“Please go,” she whispered again.

This time he did, the rumble of his Jeep backing out over the gravel coming through the screens a few moments later.

When he’d gone, she moved to her purse, reaching in for her phone to call Kim, not even sure what she was going to say, but her hand landed instead on Cooper’s book and she stopped, remembering his inscription. She hadn’t read it yet.

She pulled out the paperback and slowly opened it, her heartbeat hastening with anticipation as her fingers found the title page.

For Lexi,

To new chapters and new stories.

Cooper