Where Your Heart Is (Lilac Bay Book 1) (12 page)

He nodded. “That’s Lake Michigan for you. Some of the most beautiful water in the world.”

He wasn’t kidding. I could see all the way to the sandy bottom. “How deep is this?”

“Only about five feet,” he said. “Honestly, we’d be able to see bottom at this depth even if it was murky. But if we went out farther from shore, you could still see the bottom, even out at twenty feet.”

I shivered a little at the thought of that much water, but David was pointing out things for me to look at. The longer I peered down into the crystal clear water, the more I could see. Sea grass waving gently in the current. A clam nestled into the sand. A school of silvery little fish darting around. “This is nice,” I said.

“This is my favorite place on the whole island. You can’t reach it by land. Too rocky over there. You can only get to it by boat.”

I turned away from the water to watch his face. “You’re trying to teach me some kind of lesson, aren’t you?” I asked. “Like, you want to show me that I would have missed out on all of this if I didn’t face my fears. The cove is symbolic, right?”

He laughed as he turned and slid down onto the cushioned seat, crossing his arms. “It’s not symbolic. I just like it back here. I thought you might like it, too. I figured you’d feel better about being in the boat if you had something nice to look at.”

“Oh.”

He grinned. “But I guess the symbolic thing works, too.” He watched my face. “Want to put your feet in?”

“In the water?” I squeaked.

“It’s not deep. And we aren’t moving. I promise you won’t fall.”

I thought about the symbolism—would I be missing out if I didn’t give it a try? Just like I would have missed out on the cove itself?

“Come on,” he said, sensing that I was wavering. “If you hate it, we’ll leave.”

At the rear of the boat, he opened a little gate to reveal the small platform I’d noticed back in the marina when he was demonstrating his access to the motor. The platform sat close to the water, and there was no guardrail or walls to keep me from tumbling into the waves—but there weren’t waves, I reminded myself. The water was totally calm, even more so here than out in the bay. And the water wasn’t the murky dark of my nightmares—it was clear, all the way to the bottom. Even if I fell, I’d be able to touch at five feet. There was nothing scarier down there than the silvery fish darting through the sea grass.

David pulled off his boat shoes and plopped down on the platform, then turned to offer me a hand. “You doing this?”

Still feeling a little unsteady, I took his hand and sat down on the platform, staying as far from the edge as possible. “Not gonna get your feet wet from there,” he pointed out.

“I just need a minute.” I pulled off my wedge sandals and set them carefully at my side, catching David’s eye. “Do you have any shoes that are flat?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Of course I do.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t seen any.”

“Have you been making a habit of checking out my footwear, David?”

He rolled his eyes. “Like I wouldn’t have noticed the ridiculous stilettos you were wearing the day you came over on the ferry. You nearly broke your neck in those things.”

“A, those weren’t stilettos. They were only like, three-inch heels. And B, it wasn’t my shoes that almost killed me. It was that damn chicken!”

“Scared of water I can understand. But chickens? Really, Iris?”

“I am not scared of chickens, plural! I was scared of that
particular
chicken. Because it surprised me.”

“So much so that you thought jumping in the bay would save you.”

“I was not going to jump in the—” I caught sight of his flashing eyes and knew a laugh was not far behind. “You’re the worst.”

He did laugh then, pulling on my elbow to nudge me closer to the water. “Are you putting your feet in or not? Shall we add wet toes to the list of things that scare you senseless?”

“The worst,” I said again, inching to the edge of the platform, which was maybe a foot above the water. I was going to have to sit right on the edge to get my feet wet. I took a deep breath and dropped my feet into the water.

“Holy shit!” I cried, pulling them right back out. “It’s freezing!”

“It’s May,” he said. “What did you expect?”

“Not ice water.”

“It’s Lake Michigan, Iris.”

“We have Lake Michigan in Chicago, you know, David,” I snapped, more than a little annoyed by his smarty-pants routine. “It doesn’t feel like
that
.”

He tugged on my elbow again. “It’s refreshing. Besides, if you give it a minute, your skin will go so numb, you won’t even feel the cold.”

“You really know how to sell it.” But I complied, sticking my feet in once more. Once I got past the shock of the cold, it did feel kind of cool. No pun intended. The water was so smooth, almost silky, against the skin of my feet. I kicked a little, watching the sunlight hit the pale pink polish on my toes.

We were both quiet for a moment, staring down at the water until David cleared his throat. “So, Chicago. You like it there?”

“You live here. The way this place gossips, don’t you already know my whole life story?”

He laughed. “Your grandmother is very proud of you. And talkative.” David watched the cliff for a moment. “You lived there before the divorce, too, right?”

I nodded. I didn’t really like to think about life before the divorce. “Mostly. We moved a lot with my parents’ work, but Chicago was always home.”

“So you went back there?” His voice was quieter now. “When you left the island?”

Awesome. A topic I liked even less than life before the divorce—life
after
the divorce.

“No. My dad was working overseas then, so I couldn’t live with him. That’s why I had moved here with my mom in the first place. I had nowhere else to go. I went to boarding school when I left here.”

I felt his eyes on me. “Boarding school? That sounds kind of rough.”

I shrugged. “It was good for me. My grades got better, and I was able to get into DePaul.”

“With Posey.”

I nodded, smiling a little. College with my cousin had been one of the best experiences of my life.

“What about you? Did you leave for college or… uh…”

“Stay here my whole life like a loser?” I was relieved to hear the humor in his voice. “No, I went away to school. Northwestern.”

I turned to face him, shocked. “But that’s right near Chicago.”

“I know.”

I smacked his arm. “Nobody told me you lived there. Was it just for school?”

“Nah.” He stretched out on the platform, leaning back on his elbows. “I got a job in the city after. Stayed for a few years.”

“No way! So we were probably living there around the same time.”

“We were.” His eyes met my face. “I applied to work at one of your restaurants, you know.”

“What? When? Which one?”

He shrugged. “Gino’s, I think. It was ages ago.”

I shook my head. “Why don’t I remember this?”

“I never got an interview. I doubt you reviewed all the applications yourself.”

“No… But you should have told them you knew me!”

David’s attention went back to the cliffs. “I’ve never been into the nepotism thing.”

I looked down at my hands, knowing full well that I never would have had any kind of career if it wasn’t for my dad’s name.

“What job did you apply for?”

“Sous chef.”

I sat up straight, staring at him. “You’re a
chef
?”

“
Was
a chef.”

There was something in his tone that told me he didn’t want to talk about it any further, but I was way too blown away by this admission to drop it. Besides, he was the one who had brought it up.

“I can’t believe this. You lived in Chicago and you were a chef? No wonder you came up with those amazing sandwich recipes.”

“I make all the sandwiches for the café now.” He sounded sullen. “Since your grandfather’s stroke at least.”

“This is incredible!”

I couldn’t read his eyes when he looked at me. “Am I more up to your standard now?”

I gaped at him, shocked by the sudden change in his attitude. “What?”

“Living in a big city, having a flashy job. Sounds a lot better than living here my whole life and working in your grandma’s café, doesn’t it?”

“I did not say that.”

“You were thinking it.”

He seemed so angry. I’d thought of him as moody since the day I arrived on the island, but I hadn’t seen him like this. “David, I was not thinking that. It was just unexpected—”

“Because you didn’t think I had it in me.”

“
No
. Because it wasn’t something I had ever heard before. On an island like this, where everyone talks about everyone else’s business. It was new information, that’s all.”

He was still scowling, but he seemed to relax a little.

“And I thought you hated the city,” I added. “That’s what you always said back when we… well. When I lived here.”

He ignored my awkward reference to our dating history. “I do. I did. And I was right to. I was miserable there.”

“Then why did you stay after school?”

He let out a long sigh, running his hands through his hair. “Why do stupid men do anything?”

Ah. “A girl.”

He shot me a wry smile. “The source of most misery in the world.”

“Hey!” I cried, smacking his arm. But he was smiling again, so I figured I’d let the insult pass.

“What happened with her?”

He shrugged, but his eyes seemed to tighten. Whatever it had been, I had a feeling it wasn’t good. What had Posey said?
He’s been through a lot
. Just when I thought the shrug was the only answer I would get, David spoke. “She turned out to not be worth leaving home for.”

I don’t know why his words stung me the way they did. Maybe it was the deep certainty in his voice on the word home. That it was a place worth coming back to, a place that had a hold on him. Had I ever felt that way about Chicago? About anywhere?

“What about you?” He turned to me now, a teasing sort of smile on his face—but his eyes were still tight. “Any great love affairs in Chicago?”

It was my turn to shrug. “Phillip and I broke up a few weeks ago.” I attempted a self-deprecating smile. “It was his condo we were living in, hence my arrival in Lilac Bay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” They were meaningless words, the kind you threw out without thinking when someone offered their sympathy about something like this. But they were also, I realized, true. It
was
okay. “Huh,” I muttered.

“What?”

I shook my head, trying to clear it. “I just realized…” I turned to him. “I don’t really miss him. Isn’t that weird? We dated for a year. We
lived
together. But today is the first time I’ve even thought about him in days.” It was true. I’d spent my time in Lilac Bay worrying about what it would be like to stay here, worrying about my job and my dad, worrying about what in the hell I was supposed to do next. But I had barely spared a stray thought for Phillip.

David’s eyes seemed to be carefully searching my face, his expression unreadable. “I think it probably says something about your relationship,” he finally offered. “Sounds like he wasn’t the one.”

“Yeah.” I didn’t bother to point out that I didn’t believe in
the one
. What was the point? That kind of thing never lasted.

“I can’t really picture you with a Phillip, anyhow,” he added, pulling his feet up from the water.

“Why not?”

He rolled his eyes, standing. “Phillip? Come on. He can’t even shorten it to Phil?”

“Says the guy who refuses to answer to Dave.”

He grinned, holding out a hand to help me up. “David is classic. Phillip is just…” He mock shuddered. “Smarmy.”

The sound that escaped my throat sounded very much like a giggle, and a little voice in the back of my head warned me that it was never a good sign to be giggling in the company of cute men with whom one has a history.

“Come on,” David said, heading to the front of the boat. “We have a farm to visit.”

I followed him up, taking my seat. It was strange—the idea of the water stretching between us and our destination no longer felt quite so scary. I had already come such a long way.

O
n Saturday morning
, Posey and I planned to enjoy an entire day free from the café. We had it all planned out—manicures at the island’s best salon (a close call between Sherry’s Hair Barn and Curlicues, but since Sherry turned out to be none other than Bad Perm from the Libbies meeting, Curlicues won out in the end) followed by lunch with Cora at her pub, shopping, and finishing with a glass of champagne up at the Big Hotel. I was looking forward to the uninterrupted time with my cousin—and hopeful that a day full of walking the island would keep me distracted from dangerous thoughts of grey eyes and sandy blond hair blowing in the breeze on
Love Spell
—

You’re not sixteen anymore
, I reminded myself as I made my way downstairs. Apparently, Posey was waiting for me in the kitchen—I could hear the unmistakable sounds of her chattering.

But it wasn’t Mimi I found talking to her when I got downstairs. Our cousins Andrew and Edward, along with Edward’s boyfriend Zane, were crowded around the kitchen table, stuffing their faces with what appeared to be crepes.

“Look who decided to join us,” Edward said, his mouth full.

“You’re disgusting,” I pointed out, to Zane’s nodded approval. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We always come over on Saturday mornings,” Andrew said, leaning down to give Jasper the rind of his bacon. The beagle wagged his tail appreciatively before he moved over to Zane and took up his begging pose once again.

“Let me guess—Mimi cooks you breakfast on Saturdays?”

“Are you implying,” Andrew asks, wiping powdered sugar from his mouth, “that we only show up at our beloved grandmother’s abode when she bribes us with food?”

“I’d say that’s fairly accurate,” Posey said, appearing at the table with her own plate of crepes. “There are some on the warming rack for you, Iris. I’d grab them now before these slobs eat everything.”

I fixed myself a plate of crepes and a cup of hot coffee before joining my cousins at the table. “Where is our venerated grandmother, anyhow?”

“She wanted to get to Spring Hill early,” Andrew said. “Pops meets with the neurologist this morning, and she wanted to be sure she was there for it.”

I nodded, feeling a swell of nervousness. According to Mimi, he’d really been improving over the past week. But it was hard to parcel out the real truth from her general optimism.

“My mom is with her,” Posey said, passing me a plate of fruit.

“So we’ll get the full story,” Andrew added shrewdly. I nodded, feeling slightly better.

“So, cuz,” Edward said, leaning toward me across the table. “How are you enjoying your time here on our fine island?”

“It’s been good,” I replied, surprised by how true that statement was. Between getting to spend so much time with Posey and Mimi and my work at the café, I felt pretty busy—just the way I like it. And then there were the girls from the Libbies, many of who had reached out to me in the days since the meeting.
And David
, a voice in the back of my head whispered. I frowned.

Andrew let out a snort. “You should see your grimace. You sure don’t look like it’s been good.”

“Shut up, Andrew,” I said.

“I heard you got roped into going to that nutcase gathering,” he continued, ignoring Posey’s grunt of disagreement. “Bet you don’t have anything like that in Chicago.”

“I don’t think they have anything quite like that anywhere,” I pointed out. “But it was actually pretty fun.”

Posey beamed at me, but Andrew snorted again. “That’s only because you haven’t seen them perform in the town talent show yet.”

“There’s a talent show?” I asked, feeling a little like I just got whacked in the chest. Just when the madness of Lilac Bay started to feel almost normal, they have to come up with some other random, ridiculous event.

“The talent show is fun,” Posey argued. “Tell them, Zane.”

“I mean”—he swept his arms out a little, looking almost apologetic—“I get to help design costumes. With sequins. What’s not to like?”

“You’re such a cliché, babe,” Edward said, putting his arm around his boyfriend and kissing the side of his face.

“Says the man who was listening to Cher in the shower this morning.”

“Are there any more of these?” Andrew asked, wiping his finger along the edge of his plate to scoop up the remaining powdered sugar.

“I don’t know, Andy.” Posey’s voice was irritated. “Why don’t you get off your butt and check yourself.” She looked at me, shaking her head. “We really need to do something about the rampant patriarchy in this family.”

Edward snorted. “Have you met our grandmother? Are you really going to call our family a patriarchy?”

“She spoils the boys senseless,” Posey argued. “She does the same with Greg. Always pushing more food on you, cleaning up after you. It’s gross.”

“That’s not patriarchy,” Andrew said sweetly. “She just loves us more.”

Posey’s eyes flashed as she geared up for the fight. “You are so—”

But whatever he was, we weren’t destined to find out. At that moment, her cell phone rang. Posey seemed to forget her anger as quickly as it had risen.

“Bet it’s Paul,” Andrew said, rolling his eyes. I couldn’t help but notice that he said our future cousin-in-law’s name in the same tone Mimi had used the other day.

“It’s my mother, idiot,” Posey hissed before pulling the phone up to her ear. “Mom? What’s up?”

I watched as her eyes grew wide, a sick feeling of dread growing in my belly. I vaguely noticed that the boys had fallen silent, a practically unheard of occurrence. But then Posey grinned. “Seriously?”

“What?” I asked, tugging on her shirt. “What is it?”

She tilted the phone away from her mouth. “They’re letting him come home!”

“
What
?” the four of us chorused.

She waved her hands dismissively, going back to the phone conversation. “Okay. Yeah. Okay. Wow. That’s really great, Mom. Okay. Yeah. I’ll spread the word. Give him a kiss for us, okay? You, too. Bye.”

She hung up the phone, her eyes alight with excitement. “He’s going to be released on Friday!”

“I don’t believe it!” I cried. “I had no idea he was doing that well!”

“Mimi kept saying,” Andrew said, shaking his head. “But I thought that was just her being… you know. Mimi.”

“This is nuts,” Edward said, grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t believe he’ll actually be back.”

A sharp little pain wiggled its way into my excitement at the news. It was really touching to see my cousins so thrilled at the prospect of Pops coming home. But it also stung, just a little. Because he was such a part of their lives. And not in the vague, distant way he was a part of my life. But in the everyday, see-him-all-the-time, vital component way. They saw my grandparents on a weekly, if not daily basis. Andrew and Edward had worked at Rose’s for years, all the way through high school. Pops had been their first boss. They’d had countless family dinners here at Lilac Ridge. It was their home.

“You okay?” Posey asked, nudging me with her shoulder.

“I’m great!” I told myself to concentrate on the good news—Pops got to leave the hospital and come back to the home he loved so much. His own bed and, let’s face it, kitchen. My grandmother.

“Oh my God,” Posey suddenly said, clapping her hands together. “Their anniversary is Saturday! This is like, the best timing ever.” She turned her sparkling eyes to each of us. “We should totally do something special for them!”

I kind of expected the boys to roll their eyes, to write her enthusiasm off as yet another Posey-ism. But I underestimated them—or maybe I underestimated their regard for our grandparents. Because they each sat up a little straighter, grinning. “Totally,” Andrew said. “Good idea, Pose,” Edward added, Zane nodding beside him.

Suddenly, an idea hit me like a blow to the chest. I actually gasped out loud, sounding much more like Posey than myself. “I know!”

“What?” they all chorused.

In truth, it had been bouncing around in the back of my mind since the moment I arrived, a little half-formed daydream. “We should reopen Rose’s,” I said. “Just for one night,” I added quickly. “Just for them. We can get the dining room all cleaned up, bring a table down from storage. Do something with the lights.”

No one said anything for a long moment. “I don’t know, Iris,” Zane finally said, his voice gentle. “It seems like that would be an awful lot of work. Have you been inside lately? The place is pretty run down.”

“Well, yeah,” I agreed. “But we could do it. I mean, this is what I do, you guys. I develop properties. And our grandparents have a gorgeous property, just sitting there empty.”

“And you want us to… redevelop it,” Andrew asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes. For one night. For their anniversary.” I looked at each of their faces. Andrew and Edward still seemed pretty skeptical, but Zane’s face had turned thoughtful. And Posey was nodding, a slight smile on her lips.

“Look, it will be a lot of work to get it cleaned up,” I acknowledged. But with the four of us—”

“And my lazy brother,” Posey added.

I grinned at her. “With all of us helping, I know we can do it.” I pointed at Zane. “We have the best dining room manager on the island. If anyone can get that room looking pretty again, it’s Zane.”

“You
are
very lucky to have me,” he agreed, smiling.

“Okay, Iris,” Edward said, leaning across the table. “I’m not opposed to the work it would take to get the place looking good. But you seem to be forgetting one important thing.”

“A pretty essential thing, actually,” Andrew added, and I struggled not to scowl at them. I hated when they did that freaky twin mind-reading thing.

“What?”

“The best part about Rose’s wasn’t how nice the dining room was,” Edward said.

“It was the food,” Andrew agreed.

“And in case you haven’t noticed, none of us can cook anything like Pops can.”

I sat back in my chair, grinning. “Leave that to me. I have someone in mind.”

* * *

T
hey let
Pops come home on Friday. By that time, we had nearly transformed the dusty, long-neglected lower dining room at Rose’s. I would have rather used the second floor, with its views of the lake, but a quick inspection had shown the paneling to be suffering from water damage. It would take weeks to replace it all.

But a private dining room on the lower level had been cleaned—hours of sweeping, dusting, mopping, and scrubbing. And that was just to get the place clean enough to bring in polish for the wood paneling. Andrew polished and polished the mahogany until it gleamed. Or it would have, if the lights weren’t giving us such a hard time. The bulbs were all burned out, naturally, but even after they’d been replaced, half the sconces didn’t work and the grand chandelier was flickering weakly. So we’d had to bring in an electrician—a real one, from the mainland, not Jerry who it turned out had a side job as something of a handyman on the island.

Once the lighting was figured out and the place was clean enough for Zane’s exacting standards, we brought furniture down from storage on the third floor. The tables and chairs were in good shape once we got them polished up. But moths had gotten into the linens, which had been brought back from France by my grandmother forty years ago. Posey had bawled the day we found those holey tablecloths, but that may have been as much to do with how exhausted she was, working at the school all day, pulling her shifts at the café, and spending her free time at Rose’s.

I couldn’t help but notice that Paul never came by to help. The tone Mimi and Andrew had used when saying his name was making more sense to me.

Then there was the piano. There had always been live music at Rose’s, and it seemed impossible to reopen, even for a night, without it. But that required bringing in a piano tuner, also from the mainland. As I soon learned, northern Michigan’s piano-tuning needs greatly outpaced their supply of tuners. In the end, I had to bring someone up from all the way down in Grand Rapids. Not cheap. But I was happy to pull the money from my savings. After all, I was saving a bundle living here instead of expensive Chicago.

The hardest part of the entire endeavor was keeping it a surprise. Ever since they’d announced that Pops could come home on Friday, Mimi had been spending every day on the mainland, wanting to make sure she knew his care procedures backward and forward. Of course, a nurse would be visiting the house daily, and he’d be getting his outpatient physical and occupational therapy several times a week right here on the island. But if anyone thought Mimi was going to sit back and leave the next phase of his recovery to the professionals, they obviously didn’t know my grandmother.

Even with Mimi out of the way during the day, the secret had nearly been ruined several times. She was suspicious of all the time I was spending away from home in the evenings, the only time most of my cousins could help, since they had normal jobs and all. And a suspicious Mimi is a dangerous Mimi. The woman practically defined the word tenacious. Somehow, I managed to assuage her suspicions with a series of excuses. I was taking a dance class at Sherry’s studio (the bad-permed Libbies member owned a dance studio, along with her salon, since apparently, no one on this island could be employed in a singular capacity). I pretended to help Posey and Paul repaint their dining room. I even told her I was letting Aunt Deen show me how to make fudge. I wasn’t sure she bought my excuses, particularly the fudge thing which was, admittedly, not at all my forte. I’d been known to burn boxed mac and cheese. But she was tired from her long days at Spring Hill and let it slide.