It had been a long time since anyone had seemed so thrilled about his company, he thought as he carried his steak inside to cover it with foil and slide it in the refrigerator.
He didn’t know what impulse had prompted him to agree to go along with them. He only knew it had been a long while since he had allowed himself to enjoy the quiet peace of an August evening on the shore.
Maybe it was time.
THIS WAS A mistake of epic proportions.
Will walked alongside Julia while her twins moved ahead with Conan. Simon raced along with the dog, holding tightly to his leash as the two of them scared up a shorebird here and there and danced just out of reach of the waves. Maddie seemed content to walk sedately toward the ice-cream stand in town, stopping only now and again to pick something up from the sand, study it with a serious look, then plop it in her pocket.
Will was painfully conscious of the woman beside him. Her hair shimmered in the dying sunlight, her cheeks were pinkened from the wind, and the soft, alluring scent of cherry blossoms clung to her, feminine and sweet.
He couldn’t come up with a damn thing to say and he felt like he was an awkward sixteen-year-old again.
Accompanying her little family to town was just about the craziest idea he had come up with in a long, long time.
She didn’t seem to mind the silence but he finally decided good manners compelled him to at least make a stab at conversation.
“How are you settling in?” he asked.
She smiled softly. “It’s been lovely. Perfect. You know, I wasn’t sure I was making the right choice to move here but everything has turned out far better than I ever dreamed.”
“The apartment working out for you, then?”
“It’s wonderful. We love it at Brambleberry House. Anna and Sage have become good friends and the children love being so close to the ocean. It’s been a wonderful adventure for us all so far.”
He envied her that, he realized. The sense of adventure, the willingness to charge headlong into the unknown. He had always been content to stay in the house where he had been raised. He loved living on the coast—waking up to the sound of scoters and grebes, sleeping to the murmuring song of the sea—but lately he sometimes felt as if he were suffocating here. It was impossible to miss the way everyone in town guarded their words around him and worse, watched him out of sad, careful eyes.
Maybe it was time to move on. It wasn’t a new thought but as he walked beside Julia toward the lights of town, he thought perhaps he ought to do just as she had—start over somewhere new.
She was looking at him in expectation, as if she had said something and was waiting for him to respond. He couldn’t think what he might have missed and he hesitated to ask her to repeat herself. Instead, he decided to pick a relatively safe topic.
“School starts in a few weeks, right?” he asked.
“A week from Tuesday,” she said after a small pause. “I plan to go in and start setting up my classroom tomorrow.”
“Does it take you a whole week to set up?”
“Oh, at least a week!” Animation brightened her features even more. “I’m way behind. I’ve got bulletin boards to decorate, class curriculum to plan, students’ pictures and names to memorize. Everything.”
Her voice vibrated with excitement and despite his discomfort, he almost smiled. “You can’t wait, can you?”
She flashed him a quick look. “Is it that obvious?”
“I’m glad you’ve found something you enjoy. I’ll admit, back in the day, I wouldn’t have pegged you for a schoolteacher.”
She laughed. “I guess my plans to be a rich and famous diva someday kind of fell by the wayside. Teaching thirty active fifth-graders isn’t quite as exciting as going on tour and recording a platinum-selling record.”
“I bet you’re good at it, though.”
She blinked in surprise, then gave him a smile of such pure, genuine pleasure that he felt his chest tighten.
“Thank you, Will. That means a lot to me.”
Their gazes met and though it had been a long, long time, he knew he didn’t mistake the currents zinging between them.
A gargantuan mistake.
He was almost relieved when they caught up with Maddie, who had slowed her steps considerably.
“You doing okay, cupcake?” Julia asked.
“I’m fine, Mommy,” she assured her, though her features were pale and her mouth hung down a little at the edges.
He wondered again what the story was here—why Julia watched her so carefully, why Maddie seemed so frail—but now didn’t seem the appropriate time to ask.
“Do you need a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the ice-cream stand?” Julia asked.
Maddie shook her head with more firmness than before, as if that brief rest had been enough for her. “I can make it, I promise. We’re almost there, aren’t we?”
“Yep. See, there’s the sign with the ice-cream cone on it.”
Somehow Maddie slipped between them and folded her hand in her mother’s. She smiled up at Will and his chest ached all over again.
“I love this place,” Maddie announced when they drew closer to Murphy’s Ice Cream.
“I do, too,” Will told her. “I’ve been coming here for ice cream my whole life.”
She looked intrigued. “Really? My mom said she used to come here, too, when she was little.” She paused to take a breath before continuing. “Did you ever see her here?”
He glanced at Julia and saw her cheeks had turned pink and he wondered if she was remembering holding hands under one of the picnic tables that overlooked the beach and stealing kisses whenever her brother wasn’t looking.
“I did,” he said gruffly, wishing those particular memories had stayed buried.
Maddie looked as if she wanted to pursue the matter but by now they had reached Murphy’s.
He hadn’t thought this whole thing through, he realized as they approached the walk-up window. Rats. Inside, he could see Lacy Murphy Walker, who went to high school with him and whose family had owned and operated the ice-cream parlor forever.
She had been one of Robin’s best friends—and as much as he loved her, he was grimly aware that Lacy also happened to be one of the biggest gossips in town.
“Hi, Will.” She beamed with some surprise. “Haven’t seen you in here in an age.”
He had no idea how to answer that so he opted to stick with a polite smile.
“We’re sure loving the new cabinets in the back,” she went on. “You did a heck of a job on them. I was saying the other day how much more storage space we have now.”
“Thanks, Lace.”
Inside, he could see the usual assortment of tourists but more than a few local faces he recognized. The scene was much the same on the picnic tables outside.
His neck suddenly itched from the speculative glances he was getting from those within sight—and especially from Lacy.
She hadn’t stopped staring at him and at Julia and her twins since he walked up to the counter.
“You folks ready to order?”
He hadn’t been lumped