Where Your Heart Is (Lilac Bay Book 1) (10 page)

It was pretty impressive, actually. Who would have thought that the women of Lilac Bay could hold their liquor so well?

“They’re going to drink Cora’s entire stock of gin,” I said, watching as a girl across the room decided to forgo her cup entirely and drink straight from the bottle.

“Serves her right,” Libby said. “Forgetting her hosting duties until the last minute.”

“What’d you do the last time you hosted?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “Brownies.”

“Really? Brownies? Sorry, Libby, that doesn’t sound too impressive.”

Her smile turned into a downright wicked grin. “They had a special ingredient.”

Posey snorted loudly, and I turned to her in shock. “Posey Conley!”

She merely giggled. “They were really good. And then we ate all the fudge in Libby’s shop.”

Libby barked out a laugh. “Oh God, we did. And then we went to your café—”

“Mostly because David was working,” Posey managed through her laughter.

“And cleared out the rest of the sandwiches in the case.”

I looked at the two of them, unsure if I should laugh or be shocked. “You’re delinquents!”

Libby shook her head. “You haven’t even hung out with Jill yet.”

Once everyone had managed a passable imitation of the chocolate martini—or managed to get themselves drunk enough not to care—Cora moved us on to the recipe contest. “I’ve got all kinds of crap up here,” she said, pointing at the jars and bottles on the table in front of her. “So share like good little girls, okay? No fighting over the caramel sauce.”

“What are you going to make?” I asked Posey.

She shrugged and then hiccupped. “I feel a little fuzzy, honestly.”

“That’s what happens when you down half a bottle of gin.”

I walked up to Cora’s table, peering at the ingredients. Caramel, chocolate sauce, sprinkles, peanut butter, powdered sugar…the options were a little overwhelming. Just when I was thinking I might as well grab some chocolate sauce and be done with it, Riley pushed past me, her face tight with concentration. “Excuse me,” she said in a falsely sweet voice. “Are you using that chocolate?”

“Uh—”

“Thanks!” she gushed, pulling it from my hand. I remembered what Posey had said about her.
The most competitive person you’ll ever meet
. Well, Riley hadn’t met me. I wasn’t the youngest multi-million-dollar dealmaker in my firm’s history for nothing. I turned back to the ingredients, my eyes narrowed, and started making my selections.

Ten minutes later, most of the girls had given up, happy enough to sip whatever they’d added to the gin in their cups. Posey was carefully squirting caramel sauce onto a spoon before licking it off. Libby was leaning back in her chair, eyes half closed, a happy smile on her face. Neither one of them was paying much attention to Cora, who was now going from table to table, judging the martini recipes.

“Very good, Riley,” she said, somewhat begrudgingly. I smiled at her tone, thinking I could definitely like Cora. Then she was at my table. “What’d you make?”

“Pineapple Upside-down Cake,” I said, pushing my cup toward her. She raised her eyebrows before taking the cup to her mouth, sniffing the concoction once before taking a sip. “Wow, Iris,” she said, grinning at me. “That’s really good!” To my delight, she took another sip, and then another. I was pretty sure she’d only had one taste of Riley’s.

“Well, that’s an easy call,” she said, raising my cup into the air. “Iris Holder is our winner!”

I laughed, clapping my hands a little. Posey jumped at the sound, focusing bleary eyes on me. “You won?”

“I won!” Riley shot me a dirty look while the rest of the women—at least the ones sober enough to follow along—cheered, and my smile grew. If there was anything I loved in the world, it was winning.

“Aw, man,” Bad Perm said. “You didn’t like mine?”

“No, Sherry,” Cora said evenly. “I didn’t like your pickle juice martini.”

“Sissy.”

“Most of you did very well,” Cora said, shooting Sherry a disgusted look. “But Iris’s Pineapple Upside-down Cake Martini will be the cocktail of the week starting on Friday.”

“Yay, Iris!” Posey cheered. “And now we get to drink the rest!”

“Because you haven’t had enough already,” Cora commented, collecting her now nearly empty gin bottles.

“We should take these over to your pub, Cora,” Jill giggled, looking down at her cup. “See if there are any upstanding citizens of the male variety who might want to try them out.”

“David’s not working,” Cora said dryly, shaking her head at the eruption of giggles.

“Poor David,” Libby said. “Always so objectified by the ladies of the Libbies.”

“I don’t objectify him,” Bad Perm Sherry said, grinning. “I love him for his mind
and
body.”

There was a lot of laughter at that—at least until Posey opened her mouth. “Iris has kissed him, you know,” she murmured before licking yet another dollop of caramel off her spoon.

The room went very quiet as twenty sets of eyes all turned in my direction.

“Posey,” I hissed, glaring at her. She looked up at me, all innocent, until the force of my glare finally seemed to break through the gin haze in her mind. Her eyes widened. “
Walnuts
. Did I say that out loud?”

Jill broke the silence first. “You kissed David Jenkins?” she cried.

“Oh my God!” someone else squealed.

“What was it like?”

“When?”

“Where?”

“How was he?”

I looked to Libby, desperate, but she merely shook her head, holding her hands up as if to tell me I was on my own. “It was a long time ago,” I said, struggling to be heard over the giggles. “We were kids.”

“Teenagers,” Posey corrected before catching my eye. “Oops,” she repeated. “I’ll shut up now.”

“Okay, you have to spill the details,” Cora said. “No one in this room has had the honor of those lips on theirs. You can’t hold out on us.”

I looked around at the women. This wasn’t a big island. The twenty or so women in this room represented a large portion of the dateable female population. And David had lived here his whole life. None of them had ever kissed him?

“David doesn’t date,” Cora said, as if reading my mind.

“And believe us, we’ve tried,” Jill added.

“He dated Margo,” Posey argued, and my mouth dropped open. He dated Margo? Margo was the worst. Out of all the people on the island, that’s who he picked?

“He didn’t date Margo,” Libby said. “They maybe hooked up.”

Posey mimed puking under the table, and I laughed, even as a flicker of something like jealousy shot through me.
Don’t be stupid, Iris
, I told myself.
You said it yourself. It was ages ago that you had a claim to him
. But still… Margo?

“Come on!” Sherry yelled from the back. “Details, girl! Details!”

“Fine!” I held up my hands, not sure if I felt like laughing or pulling out Posey’s hair for even bringing this up. “We dated when we were sixteen. It was only a few months—”

“You told me a few dates,” Libby interrupted.

“Well… I lied.”

She laughed at that, and I was surprised to find myself smiling back. It was weird, but I was kind of enjoying myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in a room full of women in a purely social setting. Most of my social life in Chicago was tied to work. Not that I didn’t go out. I did, regularly. But it was almost always for networking purposes, or some club or restaurant opening that I had to attend for the firm. When was the last time I’d just hung out like this? Maybe the Libbies weren’t quite as glamorous as the nights out I had enjoyed in Chicago, but that didn’t mean they weren’t fun.

“So you dated for a few months,” Cora said, rolling her hand in front of her in a gesture clearly meant to encourage me to continue.

“He was… well, my first boyfriend, I guess.”

There were several sighs at that, and one girl could be heard murmuring, “You’re so lucky.”

“I was the new girl at school,” I explained, starting to get into my story. “And I was terrified. I didn’t know anyone except for Posey, and she was out sick my third day. I sat in the cafeteria, totally by myself. And then…” I paused for dramatic effect. Hmm, maybe I’d had a bit more of the gin than I realized.

“And then?” Riley prompted, leaning forward in her seat, apparently forgetting all about our earlier competition.

“And then David was there.”

“Aww,” several voices chorused.

“Like a knight and shining armor,” Posey murmured dreamily.

I laughed. “Knight
in
shining armor. And you weren’t even there.”

“No,” she agreed. “But I can picture it.”

“So he sat with me that day, and then the next, and then…” I shrugged. “We started hanging out.”

“I want to hear about the kiss!” Bad Perm called, smacking her hands on the table.

“Which one?” I asked, feeling cheeky. There were squeals and laughs across the room, and I laughed, really enjoying myself now. “He was a very good kisser,” I said.

“Your first kiss,” Posey added. I nodded.

“Talk about a lot to live up to,” Cora murmured.

You have no idea
, I thought. There hadn’t been many guys like David in my life, no matter how much I tried to tell myself that he had been nothing but a teenage crush.

“Did you, you know?” Sherry asked, waggling her eyebrows.

“No,” I said quickly, thinking about those nights we’d spent in the back of his dad’s boat, fumbling in the dark. I’d wanted to. I would have been crazy not to want to, but he was my first boyfriend, and I wasn’t ready. Not yet. And then… well, then everything had turned into a mess, and I left.

I stared down at my empty cup, the happy mood slipping away. I thought he was the perfect boyfriend, so loyal and patient with me. But it hadn’t lasted. Of course it hadn’t. What good thing ever did?

“He was heartbroken after she left,” Posey told the crowd when it was clear I wasn’t going to elaborate. “He didn’t go out with anyone the entire rest of the year.” I shot her a sharp glance. She had never told me that.

“Well, now you’re back!” Cora said encouragingly. “Are you going to go for it?”

I thought about our plans for the following day—a whole day with just David—and a shiver went down my spine. Until I remembered the way he’d been looking at me since I returned. “No,” I said, shaking my head. “Definitely not.”

“Are you insane?” Riley asked, eyebrows raised.

“I’m not staying,” I said. “I’m just here for a visit.”

“So do some David-themed visiting,” she said. “Specifically, visit his bedroom.”

That had everyone laughing again, the attention diverted as half the room started chatting about what they would do given the opportunity to visit David’s bedroom.

“You okay?” Posey asked, leaning toward me. I nodded. Of course I was okay. I wasn’t going to get all worked up over David, no matter how popular he might be among the Libbies. It was ancient history, after all.

“Is that the time?” One of the women suddenly yelped. “I have a sitter at home!”

A quick glance at the clock over the mantel revealed that it was nearly eleven. It certainly hadn’t felt like that much time had passed. I guess that’s what gin will do to you. Lots of gin.

“Next week is Maggie’s turn,” Libby called over the noise of everyone gathering their things. “Baking or books?”

“Baking,” Maggie replied. “No way am I leading a book discussion.”

“We never read books anymore!” Jill whined. “All these baked goods are going right to my hips.”

“The last time we did a book night, she hosted,” Libby told me. “She had us read that
Sleeping Beauty
book by Anne Rice.”

“Isn’t that…”

“Extremely graphic BDSM erotica?” Libby asked. “Yes. Yes it is. She followed it up with a rope-tying demonstration.”

I choked on a laugh, remembering David’s description of Jill recruiting him to help read
Fifty Shades
. Suddenly his warning about her made a lot more sense.

“We’ve all been a little gun shy about reading books ever since,” Libby said, shaking her head.

“I would think so.”

Even a slightly drunk Posey was still a helpful Posey, so we stayed back with Libby and Cora, cleaning up the mess, as the rest of the women said their goodbyes. Many singled me out for a hug or a congratulations on my winning martini. I found it much easier to accept their embraces than I had at the beginning of the night. I blamed the gin, though I had a suspicion it might have been the effect of enjoying their company.

“So,” Posey said, slipping her arm through mine when we finally hit the darkened street outside. “Did you have fun?”

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” I said, shaking my head. “But I really did.”

“
Y
ou shouldn’t feel
this nervous.”

I stared at my reflection in the mirror, trying to make myself believe the whispered words. I shouldn’t feel this nervous. It wasn’t like a date or something. Not that I even wanted to date David. That was just silly.

But I was about to be alone with him for a number of hours. And I had no idea what he had in mind during that time.

“You’re an adult, Iris,” I told the woman looking back at me in the mirror. “Stop being ridiculous.”

“Talking to yourself is never a good sign,” Posey said from the doorway. I spun around in surprise. I hadn’t even known she was in the house, but here she was, watching me, clearly amused. “What’s going on?”

Damn it. I did not want to have this conversation with her right now. I could just picture her reaction if I told her that I was nervous about spending time alone with David.

“Nothing,” I said, pushing away from the dressing table. “Just being silly.”

Posey stepped into the room and perched herself on the edge of my bed, her fingers running over the sleeve of the cardigan I had deposited there. “What’s with the outfit change?” she asked, gesturing at the other clothes strewn over the quilt.

There was no way she was going to be satisfied with my excuses. I sighed deeply, stretching out on the bed next to her. She watched me for a long moment before lying down herself, head next to mine on the pillow. I knew we would wrinkle the clothes I had left there, but I had already determined that none of them were right anyhow.

“What’s up with you?” she asked.

“Please don’t make fun of me,” I begged, closing my eyes. “David is coming in a few minutes, so we can check out that vendor.”

There was a pause long enough to make me wish I could see her face. “Okay,” she finally said, voice unreadable. “And that makes you…?”

My eyes snapped open so I could give her a proper glare. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m nervous as hell.”

Her lips twitched a bit, but to her credit, she managed not to smile. “Why are you nervous? I thought you detested David.”

“Detest is a strong word,” I said. When her eyes lit up, I hurried to continue. “I mean, I don’t
like
him. In fact, I dislike him. Thoroughly. He’s arrogant and moody and totally a jerk.”

“He’s not a jerk,” she said softly. “Moody, maybe. But he’s been through a lot.”

My eyebrows went up at that. “Like what?”

Posey shrugged. “Not for me to say. It’s his business.”

“Posey! We’re best friends. We’re supposed to tell each other everything.”

She pulled on a strand of my hair. “You’re not very good at guilt trips, FYI.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, her words repeating in my head.
He’s been through a lot
. Was that why all the women on the island seemed determined to be sweet to him, regardless of his scowling face or brusque attitude? I had assumed they had a sweet spot for him because he was cute—not that
I
thought he was cute, of course, but objectively, I could see how… Anyway… Maybe there was another reason for their seeming insistence on excusing his every move. I had a flash of the older ladies at the fish fry, piling him with extra slices of pie. The more that I thought about it, the more the women in town seemed almost… protective.

“Hmm,” I murmured, and Posey elbowed me.

“Don’t go fishing around, Iris. He’s a really private guy. If he wants to tell you what his deal is, he will.”

Why did that send a little stab of rejection through me? It wasn’t like my feelings should be hurt by his failure to open up to me. We weren’t even friends.

“I won’t,” I told her. “I have plenty of experience with people nosing around in my past.”

She reached down and squeezed my hand briefly. “See? Maybe you guys have something in common. I’m glad you’re getting to be friends again.”

“We’re not friends,” I snapped. “All I said was that I didn’t detest him.”

“Well, you’re going to the mainland with him.”

“For work. Which you basically engineered.”

She pulled herself up into a sitting position so she could look down at me. “Then why are you so nervous?”

I groaned, pulling a pillow over my head. “I don’t know,” I cried through the feathers. But Posey was having none of my attempts for privacy. She tugged the pillow away from my clutching fingers and tossed it to the end of the bed.

“Come on, Iris. You’re up here changing your outfit”—her eyes flickered across the mess on the bed—“a lot, by the looks of things. You say you’re nervous. You’re talking to yourself. Obviously you’re feeling something.”

I avoided her eyes. “He makes me feel… self-conscious.”

That got a frown out of her. “You’re the least self-conscious person I know.”

I made a face at her. I might come across as having my shit together, but that was mostly façade. You didn’t get to be successful in my line of work by appearing to be anything less than with it.

“You’re always confident,” she went on. “You shouldn’t let some guy change that.”

“I’m not… He doesn’t…” I sighed, sitting up to face her. “He just looks at me like he thinks I’m… not worthy of his time. It’s jarring.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it. Like I said, he might be a little moody, but he’s like that with everyone.”

“I think it’s different with me.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “Maybe it feels that way because you guys have history?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’d hardly call it history. We were together for what? Three months?”

Posey was silent, and I could practically feel her disbelief rolling off her in waves. She had, after all, been right there with me in those months of mooning over David Jenkins. The little flirtations in class, my constant obsession with recapping every moment that we had shared with her later, analyzing it for meaning. I had been absolutely over the moon when he asked me out. Posey had seen it all. And she had seen my reaction when it all fell apart.

When she next spoke, I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “If you feel like he’s being rude to you, you should call him out on it. You don’t deserve that, Iris. Whatever there might be in either of your pasts.”

Hmm. When she put it like that, she had a point. Why was I letting myself get tied up in knots over the way some guy—a near stranger—seemed to see me? I’d pretty much called him out on his rudeness at work, and we ended up having a nearly pleasant conversation.

“You’re right,” I said. “I should stand up for myself.”

She grinned. “Now there’s the Iris Holder I know. She doesn’t take garbage from anyone.” We both laughed, and she hopped off the bed. “Feel better?”

I nodded automatically, but a little voice in the back of my head was already questioning if that was true. Sure, I felt resolved not to let him make me feel crappy. But that thread of nerves was still there. The thought of spending the afternoon with him… why did it get me so out of sorts?

But Posey was looking at me too closely. Determined not to let her see my thoughts play out on my face, I jumped up from the bed and turned to grab the same cardigan I had been wearing earlier, flipping my hair and humming softly. I might have been able to pull off the casual act had the doorbell not rung at that moment, freezing me in place.

“I’ll go let David in,” Posey said, voice filled with laughter. “Oh, and Iris?” I looked up at her face. She was grinning. “Go with the blue cardi. It matches your eyes.”

Before I could splutter out a reply, she was off, practically skipping down the hall, and I was pretty sure I heard soft laughter fading as she made her way to the stairs.

I was still scowling when I followed her a few minutes later… after changing to the blue cardigan.

* * *

F
ive minutes
into the outing with David, and things were already awkward. We’d barely said a word since we stepped off my grandmother’s porch. He was walking quickly, head down, hands in his pockets. I was finding it a struggle to keep up with him. I thought about Posey’s words, how I should call him on his rudeness, and stopped abruptly in the middle of the road.

I figured it would take him a moment to realize I was no longer moving, but he stopped immediately and turned toward me. “Everything okay?”

I shook my head, arms crossed. “Can we slow down a little? Some of us have shorter legs, you know?”

His eyes flicked down my legs, and I felt an immediate flush come to my face. He looked almost… appreciative. I was suddenly very glad I had decided on shorts.

“Sure,” he said, turning away. “Sorry.”

I felt a little silly for my outburst—I should have just asked him to slow down from the beginning—but we were getting close enough to the ferry dock that any embarrassment was quickly buried under a growing nervousness. Of course, I hadn’t mentioned this to Posey back at the house—that at least some of my unease about the day had absolutely nothing to do with David.

You can do it
, I thought to myself.
You’ve been on the ferry a bunch of times. It’s a beautiful day, no rain. The bay will be calm.

Then I made the mistake of looking up. We were at the top of a small hill, the town stretched out below us. From here, the bay was clearly visible—stretching on and on, the mainland a thin line in the distance. Damn.

“You can do it.”

“Do what?”

My eyes snapped up to David. We had spent most of the walk with him a few steps in front of me, but he was right next to me now, peering down into my face, waiting for an answer.

“What?”

“You said, ‘You can do it.’ Do what?”

Shit. I had said that out loud? I waved my hands dismissively. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

He watched me for a minute, and I wondered if maybe he would push it. Then he shrugged, eyes back on the road ahead of us, and I was grateful for once that David didn’t find me very interesting.

I spent the next few minutes trying to shore up my courage. And I very well might have been fine—until David turned right instead of left at the end of Main Street. “Where are we going?” I asked, stopping

He didn’t stop with me this time. “The mainland.”

I hurried to catch up, nearly tripping over my feet. “But the ferry—”

“We’re not taking the ferry,” he said, pointing to the marina. It was down the shore a bit from the ferry dock, filled with boats of all makes and sizes. “We’re taking my boat.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Your boat?”

“Yeah. I always take it when I’m going to the mainland. Why pay for the ferry and wait on their schedule when I have a boat of my own?”

He pointed to the end of the marina, where the smaller boats were moored. Oh no. Oh no, no. These boats looked
tiny
. I tried to imagine any of them out there in the bay, and I shuddered. They couldn’t possibly be safe. As much as I hated the ferry, at least it was big. The size definitely added a level of protection, as far as I was concerned. If nothing else, it kept me far away from the surface of the water. But in one of those boats… I gulped. I would probably be able to reach down and touch the waves, if I wanted to. And I definitely did not.

David was halfway down the street when he realized that I wasn’t following. He turned to face me, confusion, and maybe a touch of impatience, coloring his expression. “Is there a problem?”

“Um, I don’t think I’ll join you, after all.” I was trying to keep the panic from my voice, but from the look on his face, I didn’t think I was doing a very good job. I hurried to continue. “I have a lot to do at the café and—”

He frowned, eyebrows coming down over those grey eyes. Somehow, they looked lighter today. Probably the sunshine. “I thought you wanted to check out the vendor?”

“Um, you can do that,” I said quickly. “I know Mimi trusts you.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” he said slowly, eyes searching my face. “But I’m just a shift manager. Choosing stock is more than a little bit above my pay grade.”

“Oh, but—”

“I’m not authorized to sign for it, Iris.”

Somehow, the sound of my name on his lips sent a little thrill through me, stronger even than the fear coursing through my blood. But then, I looked out at the little boats bobbing in the harbor, and the thrill disappeared. “I… I mean…”

Damn it. Why hadn’t I insisted that Posey do this? Why on earth had I ever thought it was a good idea to agree to spend a day with David when I knew it would involve going out on the water? I was so stupid. And there was no way—

“Hey.” Suddenly, David was standing right next to me, peering down into my face. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I croaked, voice hoarse. I swallowed. Twice. “I just have all this work.”

“Iris.” There was that thrill again. Then his hand, heavy and warm, was on my shoulder, and I felt the strangest sensation. A physical pull, way too strong to be ignored, forcing my eyes up to his.

I expected him to look impatient. Annoyed by whatever shenanigans I was pulling. Pissed that I was slowing him down. But he didn’t look like any of those things. His eyes were calm, his expression patient. Maybe even concerned.