She’d been planning to discuss it with Dan, after she’d finished making the pies, but then he’d started kissing her and she’d decided the subject could wait until the entire family was gathered together today.
“I was talking to these people I met in the cafeteria, the Simpsons—”
“They’re that nice couple from outside Forks,” Raine remembered.
“Doesn’t Mr. Simpson own a hardware store?” Lilith asked. “And they both work in it?”
“That’s them. Mrs. Simpson’s mother’s was an oncology patient, in the late stages of lung cancer. They were telling me how difficult it was to afford a motel room every time she had to be hospitalized. This last bout, the nurses managed to find a bed for Mrs. Simpson, but whenever her husband visited, he had to sleep on either the floor or the waiting room couch.”
“I saw him there one night.” Lilith frowned. “Poor man looked exhausted. I was almost wishing I could just take him home with me.”
“That’s my idea.” Savannah smiled, pleased that someone else had thought the same thing. Of course, that someone was Lilith, who’d never been known for her practicality. “That’s what I want to do.”
“Bring more people into this house?” Raine asked.
“No, of course not,” Savannah said, shooting a reassuring gaze at Ida who’d furrowed her brow. Her grandmother had always been a generous person, but there were limits. Especially these days. “But
I
have the room.”
“Which you intend to use for a bed-and-breakfast after the new year,” Lilith reminded her.
“I’m still going to do that. But
I’m
living in the lighthouse and the keeper’s house has a lot of bedrooms, since it was designed for a large family….” Her voice dropped off as she recalled the reason Lucy’s house hadn’t been filled with children.
“It’s okay,” Henry said gruffly. “It’s no secret how my mother died. I’m just glad to know my folks had some good years.” Savannah had given him the journals and was pleased when they seemed to have brought him some comfort.
“My point is that in the event all the rooms in the keeper’s cottage get booked, and I go ahead with my plan of adding a dinner menu, as well, I’ll probably have about as much business as I can handle without having to hire more people, which I don’t really want to do at this point. And that makes the assistant keeper’s house superfluous.”
“But it was going to be the honeymoon cottage,” Lilith said.
“It would have made a lovely one,” Savannah agreed. “But it should also make a lovely cottage for out-of-town guests whose families are stuck in the hospital.”
“Are you thinking along the lines of the Ronald McDonald houses?” Dan asked.
“Exactly.” Dan’s ability to understand precisely what she was thinking may have made her a little uneasy in the beginning, but she’d come to be pleased at how easy it was to share ideas with him. “Since the whole idea is to give the families someplace to relax and get away from the hospital atmosphere without putting themselves in debt with motel bills, I’d want them to be able to stay free. Unfortunately, even with your generosity in agreeing to carry back some of the mortgage, Henry,” she said with a smile his way, “I can’t afford to just give the cottage away.”
“You’ll need to set up a nonprofit foundation,” Dan said.
“I was hoping you and Raine could take care of that.”
He exchanged a look across the table with Savannah’s sister, who nodded thoughtfully, “Sure. The paperwork won’t be difficult to set up at all. But you’re still going to need some funds to administer.”
“I had a thought about that, too.” Savannah turned to her mother. “I was hoping perhaps we could have a film festival of all your old slasher movies at the Orca Theater.”
“Really?” Lilith’s smile flashed like a newborn star. “Do you think anyone would actually want to come to a Lilith Lindstrom film festival?”
“False modesty doesn’t suit you, luv,” Reggie said. “Your films have reached cult status. I’ll bet you’d fill all the ferries in Seattle with fans flocking to see them. Especially when they found out we were going to get together on stage for old times’ sake.”
“You?” Savannah stared at him. “Are you talking about giving a benefit concert?”
Reggie’s grin was as bright as his former wife’s. “Now, you didn’t think I was going to let your mother have all the fun?”
Tears of gratitude and love burned at the back of her lids. Savannah couldn’t recall the last time her mother and father had been together in a room without vases and curses flying, and she thought back to what Raine had suggested about every breath stirring the universe.
Their grandmother’s stroke had been a terrible thing. Yet it hadn’t happened in a vacuum. Henry had definitely become more thoughtful; Coldwater Cove had lived up to its slogan as The Friendliest Town on the Peninsula; thanks to her parents’ cooperation, families with ill loved ones would be helped; and wonder of wonders, Lilith and Reggie actually seemed to be burying old hatchets. And not in each other.
That made Savannah wonder if perhaps the Buddhists might just be on to something, after all.
A
fter the last touchdown had been scored and pie served, after Ida had ridden her glider upstairs for her evening nap and a drowsy Amy had been tucked into the same bed her mother had once slept in, Reggie took Dan aside and suggested they go out on to the back porch where they could have a little private chat.
The evening was cool but clear. A few resolute fans still waited in front of the house for Reggie’s departure, but so far there’d been no problems. Dan suspected that one reason for their good behavior was Jack’s Olympic County Sheriff’s Department Suburban parked in Ida’s driveway.
Reggie pulled a gold case from one of the zippered pockets of his metal-studded black leather jacket, offered a cigarette to Dan, who refused, then lit one for himself.
“Britta doesn’t like me to smoke,” he revealed conversationally on a plume of blue smoke. “She’s a health fanatic.”
If tobacco was the only thing Reggie was smoking these days, Dan figured Britta may already have moderated her husband’s behavior.
Reggie tugged on an earlobe, where a diamond stud glittered in the moonlight. “So, what are your intentions concerning my baby girl?”
“I like a man who comes straight to the point,” Dan murmured.
“There’s not much I haven’t done, some of it I’ve regretted, most I haven’t. But every so often, I actually learn from my mistakes,” Reggie said. “Not saying anything when Savannah showed up in London with her new husband is one of the few I regret.”
“She was already married. What could you have done, realistically?”
“What I should have done. Ripped out the bugger’s heart and had one of my roadies toss him into the Thames.”
From the dangerous edge to his tone, Dan had the feeling that Reggie wasn’t kidding. Or exaggerating.
“That sounds like a warning.”
“You’re a perceptive bloke. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m also in love with your daughter.”
“Loving Savannah’s not hard to do.” The tip of the cigarette glowed red as he inhaled. “It’s what you’re planning to do about it that interests me.”
Dan knew he could end this conversation by telling Reggie that his relationship with Savannah was none of his business. Especially, since from what Dan had heard, Reggie had never been in the running for Father of the Year. But having been thinking a lot about family and children lately, he could understand Savannah’s father’s concern. He could also understand Jack’s often stated desire to lock Amy in a convent closet until she turned thirty.
“I’m going to marry her.”
“Does she know this?”
“I haven’t said anything, but I suspect she’s picked up on the signs. I’m also not certain she’s real thrilled with the idea. Yet.”
“Wouldn’t think she would be,” Reggie agreed as he looked out into the deep shadows of evergreens at the edge of the yard. “Her mum and I didn’t set a real good example.”
Dan wasn’t about to argue with that.
“Never met anyone who could drive in a point like a barrister, though. Most of them are stubborn blokes.” He slanted Dan a look. “Guess you are, too.”
“When it’s something—someone—I want.”
“And you want my Savannah.”
“Absolutely. Forever.” The idea had admittedly come as a surprise. The more Dan had thought about it these past months, the more he couldn’t imagine how he’d ever thought of a future without Savannah in it.
“Now there’s an idea,” Reggie murmured. “I envy a man who can feel that commitment for one woman. You might be almost good enough for Savannah….
“I wasn’t the best dad,” he volunteered, proving again that Reggie Townsend also had a major talent for understatement. “But I like the idea of being a grandfather.”
The wide grin that had graced the cover of
Rolling Stone
innumerable times over the past three decades flashed brilliantly in the spreading yellow glow of the porch light.
“I’ll get the little nipper a set of drums. He can come on the road with his old gramps during school holidays. Another generation of Townsends makin’ his mark.”
“Another generation of O’Hallorans,” Dan corrected mildly as he imagined a miniature Reggie, clad in black leather, hammering away at a snare drum in the living room. When the mental image made him smile instead of cringe, Dan decided that just went to show how flat-out nuts he was about Savannah.
“What were you and Reggie talking about earlier?”
They were at the lighthouse, in the lantern room Savannah had turned into a bedroom, sprawled in the lacy white iron fairy-tale bed she’d found at an estate sale in Gray’s Harbor. She was playing with his hair while Dan nuzzled his face between her breasts.
“Just guy stuff.” He frowned as he viewed the bruise, touched his lips against marred, fragrant flesh. “I was too rough with you.”
She lifted her head from the pillow and looked down at the bluish brand. “You could never be too rough. Besides, it was mutual.” Her smile reminded him of a satisfied Siamese as she skimmed her fingertips over his cooling skin. “Wait until you see your back.”
Ruled by the ravenous hunger that had been building all day during the family Thanksgiving dinner, they’d fallen on each other the moment they’d entered the lighthouse, hands bruising, mouths feasting, hearts pounding. He’d taken her like a conqueror; she’d ridden him like a witch.
They’d left clothes scattered across the floor, and he was going to have to go shopping to replace the skimpy scarlet-as-sin silk and lace that she’d been wearing beneath her sweater and that was now lying torn somewhere on the stairs.
The idea of wandering around like a bull elk lost in a frou-frou potpourri-scented lingerie shop wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun time. Maybe he could just make a quick sweep through the place, buy one of everything, then bring the haul back here for her to try on. Dan imagined Savannah putting on a private fashion show for him right here in the lantern room. Now that would be a great time.
“What kind of guy stuff?” she asked.
His lips moved lazily, lingeringly down her torso. “You know. Football—”
“Reggie doesn’t believe Americans play football,” she reminded him.
“Basketball, then. Baseball. Fishing.”
“I cannot imagine my father drowning nightcrawlers.”
He felt her chuckle against his mouth as he tasted his way down her stomach. “Okay. We mostly talked about you.”
“I was afraid of that.” She sighed. “When he called last month, I made the mistake of mentioning your name. Just in passing, but he latched onto it and started drilling me like he was some Victorian earl determined to keep his daughter chaste until he could marry her off.”
“I think that’s undoubtedly a universal feeling among fathers of daughters.”
“I hope he didn’t come on too strong.”
“Nah. He just wanted to be certain that I was planning to make an honest woman of you.”
“What?” She bucked as he dipped his tongue into her navel.
“We got along like gangbusters once I assured him that I’m not just amusing myself with your luscious body. That I intend to marry you.”
Dan had decided, somewhere between the pumpkin pie and ripping her clothes off, that there was no point in wasting any more time. The lighthouse was nearly ready for its grand opening, Ida was recovering by leaps and bounds, and except for the new little detail of the charitable foundation Savannah wanted to establish, which should be a snap to set up, there really wasn’t anything keeping them from making this arrangement permanent.
“Marry?” A chill raced over her skin. She stiffened beneath him.
“I guess that wasn’t tonight’s secret word.” He sighed heavily as she pulled away. “You can’t tell me that it comes as a surprise, Savannah. I’ve been up front all along about how I feel.”
“I knew you wanted me.”
“Wanting’s easy. I want my bank statement to balance, a cold beer when I’m fishing, and to decimate my opponent in court.
“I
love
you.” In contrast to his earlier passion-driven caresses, he trailed a feather-light touch over her breast. Splayed his fingers over her heart.
“Maybe you just love the sex.”
“There’s no maybe about it. I’m wild about the sex. It’s world class, triple-A blow-your-brains-out sex, and if we could figure out a way to bottle it, we’d make a fortune.
“However, whatever crazy ideas you might have picked up from the weasel, great sex and marriage are not necessarily an oxymoron.”
Dan knew things were going downhill when she pushed away his hand and pulled the rumpled sheet that carried the scent of their lovemaking up over her bare breasts, nearly to her chin.
“Know that from personal experience with Amanda, do you?”
“No.” He heard the edge to her tone and assured himself that a jealous woman was not an indifferent one. “I know that from personal experience with
you
. With us together. If you weren’t so focused on the past, you’d realize that you know it, too.”
An anger born of frustration began to claw at him; Dan ruthlessly banked it. “What we’ve got going here isn’t any short-term, no-strings, convenient affair that satisfies a temporary physical itch. I’m still going to want to rip your clothes off when I’m ninety. I’m still going to get hard as a boulder when I think about doing this.”
He caught her chin between his fingers and kissed her, hard and deep and long until he’d drawn a ragged moan from her throat.
“And this.” She was already going lax, her bones turning to water as he reached beneath the sheet with his other hand and stabbed his fingers into her. Her hips moved with him, the hot, slick moisture making a sucking sound as he unrelentingly drove her to yet another shuddering climax.
“Tell me you won’t still want me sixty years from now, Savannah. Try telling me that you won’t want me to want you.”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” Her swollen, ravished lips trembled. “Of course I want you. I need you. But I don’t
want
to need you, damn it.”
It was the despair in her voice that slashed at him. Made him back away when he knew that if he pressed his case, he could win. But at what cost?
“I know you don’t.” He ran a hand down her tousled hair, feeling as if she’d taken a dagger to his heart when she visibly flinched. “But we can deal with it. Together.”
“I have to deal with it on my own.” Her eyes glistened, but her mouth had firmed. Along with, he sensed, her resolve. “I have to be clear, in my own mind, that I’m not just using you.”
“Darlin’, you’re welcome to use me any time your sweet little heart desires.”
His attempt at humor fell as flat as a heavy stone thrown into the cove. “This isn’t funny.”
“On that we agree.” He reluctantly pushed himself out of her bed. “Not that I want to put any pressure on you, but how much longer do you think this journey of self-discovery might take?”
“I don’t know.” She was looking down at the sheet she was smoothing with nervous hands. “If we could just keep things the way they are, perhaps—”
“Nope. That’s not an option.”
“Why not? We’re doing so well. Why risk ruining what we have?”
He’d watched the color drain from her face, turning her complexion as white as the cold sickle of moon hanging in the sky outside the windows. Then he admired the way she gathered up the composure that had momentarily scattered.
Her back stiffened; he resisted, just barely, the urge to stroke it. Part of him wanted to shake her, to make her see what was so clear to him; another, stronger part wanted to kiss her silly.
“I’ve reached a point in my life where I’m not all that interested in an affair. There’s just no challenge in it. It’s too easy to find someone to sleep with you, someone who doesn’t want to hang around and try to make morning conversation afterwards when all you really have in common is lust.
“I want the whole ball of wax. And I want it with you. Marriage, kids, even some furry mutt that’ll chew up our shoes and dig up all John’s carefully planted tulip bulbs. How about a golden retriever? They seem sort of like a family-type dog, don’t you think?”
She blew out a breath. “I think you’ve gone crazy.”
“Crazy about you,” he said agreeably. Since the warm, fuzzy mental family image was pleasing him when their discussion was not, he decided to concentrate on it as he yanked on the briefs that had been dropped on the floor halfway between the door and the bed.
“I can’t be a mother right now. I have a career.”
“So does Terri Stevenson,” he reminded her. “And Raine. But I understand that a new enterprise takes more time. So, I’m willing to wait a while for the kids.”
“Crazy,” she muttered because she couldn’t argue against the two examples of working mothers he’d presented.
He tried again. “I can understand how, after all the storms you survived growing up, you’d be tempted to find a nice, pretty little harbor, drop anchor, and stay safe and sound. But sometimes those harbors aren’t as safe or pretty as you might originally believe.
“Change is always a little scary, Savannah. But it’s also good. Dumping the weasel and escaping your bad marriage was good. Moving home was very good. What you’ve done with this place is spectacularly good.