Главная страница | Современные любовные романы | Holiday In The Hamptons

Holiday In The Hamptons
Sarah Morgan
Professional dog-walker Felicity Knight loves everything about New York…until her ex-husband starts working at her local vet clinic. She hasn’t seen Seth Carlyle in ten years, but one glimpse of him – too gorgeous, and still too good for her – and Fliss’s heart hurts like their whirlwind marriage ended yesterday. So when her grandmother in The Hamptons needs help for the summer, it seems the perfect way to escape her past…Their relationship might only have lasted a few scorching months, but vet Seth knows Fliss - if she’s run away to The Hamptons, it’s because she still feels their connection and it terrifies her. He let her go once before, when he didn’t know any better, but not this summer! With the help of his adorable dog Lulu, and a sprinkling of beachside magic, Seth is determined to make Fliss see that he’s never stopped loving her…


Praise for Sarah Morgan
‘The perfect book to curl up with’
– Heat
‘Lovers of romance will relish this tale of friendship, fun and flirting set in beautiful New York.’
– My Weekly
‘Morgan excels in balancing the sweet and sexy to create the perfect blend.’
– Booklist
‘A gorgeously sparkly romance about letting go and learning to love again.’
– Julia Williams, bestselling author of Coming Home for Christmas
‘Full of romance and sparkle’
– Lovereading
‘Morgan is a magician with words’
– RT Book Reviews
‘Definitely looking forward to more from Sarah Morgan’
– Smexy Books
‘Morgan’s novel delivers the classic sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic experience.’
– Publisher’s Weekly
‘Perfect chick-lit’
– BEST Magazine
‘Her dynamic prose like narrative is eloquent, the laugh-out-loud humor lightens the load and both her big-city and small-town settings are perfect’
– RT Book Reviews
‘Another winner from Sarah’
– Annie Cooper’s Book Corner
‘I am fairly certain there will never be a Sarah Morgan book that I won’t love. This was no exception. My very favourite book of hers to date!’
– Erin’s Book Choice
‘A fun loving story with the sprinkling of magic I love in Sarah Morgan’s books.’
– Sarah Mackins
‘Simply gold! A spectacular storyline.’
– A Page of Fictional Love
‘Fresh, romantic, complexity and heart! Sleepless in Manhattan is everything you want in romance!’
– Chicks that Read
‘Sleepless in Manhattan is Sarah Morgan at her best.’
– Rachel’s Random Reads
SARAH MORGAN writes warm contemporary women’s fiction with her trademark humour which has gained her fans across the globe. Sarah lives near London with her husband and children, and when she isn’t reading or writing she loves being outdoors, preferably on holiday so she can forget the house needs tidying. You can visit Sarah online at www.sarahmorgan.com (http://www.sarahmorgan.com), on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan (http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSarahMorgan) and on Twitter @SarahMorgan_ (http://twitter.com/@SarahMorgan_)


Copyright (#u9816700b-0546-5424-862a-8f7aeff8ddc6)


An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017
Copyright © Sarah Morgan 2017
Sarah Morgan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9781474057592
Version: 2018-10-26
Dear Reader (#u9816700b-0546-5424-862a-8f7aeff8ddc6),
I love writing about friendship, especially friendship between sisters. My heroine in Holiday in the Hamptons, Fliss, is a twin, but she couldn’t be more different from her sister Harriet. What could be more interesting than two people who are identical on the outside and yet totally different on the inside? Fliss is a fighter and protective of her sister, but deep down she has her own vulnerabilities. When her ex-husband appears on the scene, she’s forced to confront issues she’d thought she’d left behind. But Fliss isn’t the same person she was at eighteen (are any of us?!) and she is about to learn just how much time, and life, alter things.
This book explores how relationships change, not just romantic relationships, but the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter, sister and sister (and woman and dog!), all against the backdrop of ocean and sand dunes.
My first glimpse of the Hamptons was from a plane and I was captivated by the long stretches of sandy beaches, dunes and the yachts studding the sparkling ocean. It’s a favourite place for New Yorkers looking to escape the madness of the city and it seemed like the perfect place to set a summer book.
Wherever you are this summer, I hope this book gives you the perfect escape.
Love Sarah
xxxx
To Flo, with love and thanks for all the insight into life as a twin. You’re the best.
“The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.”
—Charlotte Brontë
Contents
Cover (#ud4deee9e-1eae-5334-aa55-8cf30122c6d2)
Praise (#uc707eee7-4b3c-5e91-b968-7bfe5a02afa7)
About the Author (#ulink_88791596-d606-5822-b558-13136a85933a)
Title Page (#ufbac3df1-1f40-5f26-b029-83a8240d5928)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#udfa8ee9a-3096-58c8-a6e1-f07f8940450b)
Dedication (#ulink_87c7b1e7-036f-5941-9e38-ee462a375727)
Epigraph (#ulink_7c4a742e-4be4-5cd3-914f-16ab5eb684b4)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_db3ab757-77c0-5cbc-8fa3-a43abb8681cc)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_3a4189de-ea40-5351-85fb-ce19735cc947)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_835c633f-0088-5746-8431-8e83afc58953)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_68c6ff04-8fed-5a9c-9608-fdaf3b93ebd0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_76b38770-f988-5a58-855f-4b7fb08ec8f8)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_4c31c0d0-c4c1-5405-8958-65941d01ba08)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_5cd7e8eb-7827-5c6e-8b49-9b2dbce32bf6)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
THANK YOU (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE (#ulink_6653293f-bc27-5b08-84fe-651d0985eeac)
AS EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAYS WENT, it had to be the worst ever.
Fliss ran through the overgrown garden that wrapped itself around three sides of the beach house. She didn’t feel the sharp sting of nettles or the whip of the long grass against her bare calves because she was already feeling too many other things. Bigger things.
The old rusty gate scraped her hip as she pushed her way through it. Misery fueled every stride as she took the grassy path that ran through the dunes to the beach. No one could catch her now. She’d find a place away from everyone. Away from him. And she wasn’t returning home until he’d left. The birthday cake would stay uneaten, the candles unlit, the plates untouched. There would be no singing, no salutations, no celebration. What was there to celebrate?
Fury licked around the edges of her misery, and underneath anger and misery was hurt. A hurt she worked hard never to show. Never let a bully see you’re afraid. Never let yourself be vulnerable. Wasn’t that what her brother had taught her? And her father, she’d worked out long before, was a bully.
If she’d had to find one word to describe him it would be angry. And she’d never understood it. She got mad from time to time, so did her brother, but there was always a cause. With her father, there was no cause for the anger. It was as if he rose in the morning and bathed in it.
Words pounded in her head, matching the rhythm of her strides. Hate him, hate him, hate him…
Her feet hit the sand. The wind lifted her hair. She gulped in another breath and tasted sea and salt air. Squeezing her eyes against the tears, she tried to replace the sound of her father’s voice with the familiar soundtrack of seagulls and surf.
It should have been a perfect summer’s day, but her father had a way of sucking the sunshine out of the sunniest day, and no day was exempt. Not even the day you turned eighteen. He always knew how to make her feel bad.
She tried to outrun her feelings, her breath tearing in her chest and her heart pounding like fists on a punching bag.
You’re nothing but trouble. Useless, no good, worthless, stupid—
If she was as worthless as he believed then she should probably run into the ocean, but he’d be pleased to be free of her, and she was damned if she was going to do a single thing that might please him.
Lately she’d made it her life’s focus to live down to the low opinion he had of her, not because she wanted to make trouble but because his rules just didn’t make sense and pleasing him was impossible.
The cruelest part was that he wasn’t even supposed to be here.
The summer months were their oasis of time away from him. Time spent with her siblings, her mother and her grandmother while her father stayed in the city and took his anger to work every day.
She’d grown to love those precious weeks when sunlight burst through the darkness and all she trailed into the house was sand and laughter. They stayed up late and woke in the mornings feeling lighter and happier. Some days they carried their breakfast to the beach and ate it there right by the ocean. This morning’s choice, her birthday breakfast, had been a basket of ripe peaches. She’d been wiping the juice from her chin when she’d heard the wheels of her father’s car crunch on the gravel of the beach house.
Her twin sister had turned pale. Her peach had slid slowly from her fingers and thudded onto the sand, the fruit instantly transformed from smooth to gritty. Like life, Fliss had thought, hiding her dismay.
Her mother had panicked, thrusting her feet into her shoes while trying to tame wind-blown hair with a hand that shook like the branch of a tree in a storm. During the summer she was a different woman. An outsider might have thought the changes were a result of the relaxed pace of beach life, but Fliss knew it was due to being away from their father.
And now he was here. Intruding on their blissful beach idyll.
Her brother, calm as always, had taken control. It was probably just a delivery, he’d said. A neighbor.
But they all knew it wasn’t a delivery or a neighbor. Their father drove the same way he did everything, angrily, revving the engine and sending small stones flying. Angry was his calling card.
Fliss knew it was him, and the sweet-tasting peach turned bitter in her mouth. She was used to her father ruining every part of her life, but now he was ruining summer, too?
The cloudless blue sky seemed hazed with gloom, and she knew that until he left again she was going to be dragging her bad mood around like a ball and chain.
She was determined to see him as little as possible, which was why she’d chosen the beach over her bedroom.
Her flip-flops hampered her pace, so she slowed and kicked them off. This time when she ran her feet were silent, the sand cool and smooth under her soles. In the distance she could see the white mist of surf erupting over rock, and she could hear the crash and hiss of waves advancing and retreating.
Somewhere in the far distance someone called her name, and she quickened her pace.
She didn’t want to see anyone. Not like this, when she was raw and vulnerable. She always kept her feelings inside, but right now there didn’t seem to be room for them all. They filled the space around her heart, made her head ache and her eyes sting. She wasn’t going to cry. She never cried. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. If her eyes were watering, it was because of the wind.
“Fliss!”
She heard her name again and almost missed her stride because this time she recognized the voice. Seth Carlyle. Oldest son of Matthew and Catherine Carlyle. Old money. Wealthy, successful, smart and decent. Classy. No skeletons in that family. No raised voices or kids quivering in fear. She was willing to bet Catherine Carlyle didn’t virtually crawl around the walls in order to prevent herself drawing the attention of her husband, and she could never in a million years imagine Matthew Carlyle raising his voice. In the Carlyle house, plates would be a vessel for food, not a weapon for throwing. And she was sure Seth had never made his father feel ashamed or disgusted. He was the golden boy.
He was also her brother’s friend. If he knew she was upset, he’d tell her brother and Daniel would once again step between her and their father. His protective instincts had put him in the firing line on more occasions than Fliss wanted to count. She didn’t mind him doing it for her twin because when Harriet was stressed her stammer got so bad she couldn’t always speak for herself, but Fliss didn’t want him to do it for her. She could fight her own battles, and right now she felt like fighting to the death.
Ignoring Seth’s voice, she kept running. He wouldn’t follow her. He’d return to the group and join them in a game of beach volleyball, or maybe they’d surf or swim. Things she’d planned to do today, before her father had arrived unexpectedly for the weekend and ruined it all.
She ran until she reached the rocks. She clambered over jagged edges without pausing, ignored the sharp sting in the palm of her hand and landed on the smooth sand on the other side.
She’d been visiting this part of the Hamptons since she was born, and the summers that she, her twin and her brother had spent with their grandmother had given her the only happy memories of her childhood.
“Fliss?” It was Seth again, and this time his voice was deeper, lower, closer.
Damn. “Leave me alone, Seth.”
He didn’t. Instead, he vaulted down from the rocks, lithe and athletic, his shoulders blocking out the sun. He was wearing nothing but board shorts. His chest was bare and glistened with droplets of water. He was on the swim team at college, and the four summers he’d spent as a lifeguard had given him muscles in all the right places. Everyone on the island knew about the time Seth Carlyle had risked his own life to save two young kids who had ignored the warnings and stupidly taken an inflatable out onto the ocean. That was the kind of guy Seth was. He did the right thing.
She only ever did the wrong thing.
Fliss had spent the summer listening to the other girls lusting after Seth, and it wasn’t hard to understand what they saw in him. He was smart and good-humored, self-assured without being cocky. And sexy. Insanely sexy, with that lean, powerful body and skin that turned golden at the first touch of the sun. His hair and his eyes were dark as jet, a legacy from his grandfather’s side of the family, who were Italian. He was the same age as her brother, which made him too old for her. Her father would freak at the five-year age gap. Girls your age should date boys, not men.
As she watched Seth stroll toward her, she felt her muscles clench. Clearly her libido hadn’t gotten the memo. Either that, or sexual attraction was no respecter of ages.
Or maybe she wanted him because she knew her father would freak.
He planted himself in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
How could he tell that something was wrong? She’d had years of practice at hiding her feelings, but Seth always seemed to see through the layers of protection that blinded everyone else to the truth.
She’d joked to Harriet that he was like an X-ray machine, or an MRI scanner, but the truth was he was just scarily perceptive. Or perhaps what she should really say was that he was perceptive, and she was scared.
If she’d wanted people to know how bad she felt most of the time, she would have told them.
“Nothing is wrong.” She didn’t mention the fight with her father. She never talked about it with anyone. She didn’t want people to know. She didn’t want sympathy. She didn’t want pity. Most of all she didn’t want people knowing how bad those fights with her father made her feel, not just because she’d learned to hide her feelings, but because part of her was afraid that saying the words aloud might give them credence. She didn’t want to give voice to the niggling thought that maybe her father was right. That she might actually be as worthless and useless as he believed her to be.
But Seth wasn’t so easily deflected. “Are you sure? Because you don’t look like a woman celebrating her eighteenth birthday.”
Woman.
He’d called her a woman.
It made her giddy. Right there and then, she felt the age gap evaporate. Poise and power replaced doubt and insecurity. “I wanted time to myself.”
“On your birthday? That doesn’t sound right to me. No one should spend their birthday alone, especially not an eighteenth birthday.”
She’d known Seth for years, but they’d grown closer than ever this summer. Unlike her father, Seth never seemed outraged by her antics. When she’d gone skinny-dipping in the ocean late at night, her twin, Harriet, had begged her not to go, but Seth had simply laughed. He hadn’t joined her, but he’d waited on the rocks until she returned safely. Because Seth Carlyle always does the right thing.
Still, he hadn’t judged or lectured, simply handed her a towel and sprang down onto the sand as if his job was done. He never touched her, and she’d wished a million times that he would, even though she knew he was watching over her because he was Daniel’s friend and a responsible person.
She found herself wishing it again now. Which proved she was anything but a responsible person.
To be sure she didn’t give in to temptation and fling her arms around him, she wrapped them around herself.
His gaze dropped. “You’ve cut your hand. You should be more careful on these rocks. Does it hurt?”
“No.” She snatched her hands behind her back, one half of her hoping he’d leave while the other half hoped he’d stay.
“If it doesn’t hurt, why are you crying?”
Was she crying? She brushed her cheek with the heel of her hand and discovered that they were wet. “I kicked sand in my eyes when I was running.”
He thought she was upset because of the wounds he could see.
He had no idea about the wounds she kept hidden.
“Why were you running?” He closed his hands over her arms and drew them gently in front of her. Then he turned her hands over so he could examine them. His fingers were broad and strong, and her hand looked small in his. Delicate.
She didn’t ever want to be delicate. Her mother was delicate. Watching her navigate her stormy marriage was like watching a single daisy struggling to stay upright in a hurricane. Fliss wanted to be hardy, like a thornbush. The sort of plant people treated with respect and care. And she was fiercely determined to earn a good living so that she would never, ever find herself trapped in the situation her mother had found herself in.
If I leave your father, I’ll lose you. He’d make sure I don’t get custody, and I don’t have the money or influence to fight that.
Seth bent his head, and she watched as strands of dark hair flopped over his forehead. She itched to touch it, to slide her fingers through it, to feel its softness under her hands. And she wanted to touch the thick muscles of his shoulders, even though she already knew they wouldn’t be soft. They were everything hard and powerful. She knew that for sure because last summer someone had tossed her in the water and it had been Seth who had hauled her out. Being held by him was something that no woman would forget in a hurry.
Unsettled, she dragged her gaze to his face. His nose had a slight bump in it thanks to a football injury the summer before, and he had a scar on his chin where he’d head-butted a surfboard and needed fourteen stitches.
Fliss didn’t care. To her, Seth Carlyle was pretty much the most perfect thing she’d ever laid eyes on.
There was something that set him apart from the others. It wasn’t just that he was older, more that he was so sure. He knew what he wanted. He was focused. He made doing the right thing sexy. He was studying to be a vet, and she knew he’d be good at it. He was going to make his father proud.
Unlike her.
She’d made her father disdainful, exasperated and angry but never proud.
And she didn’t want to drag Seth down with her.
She snatched her hand away from his and curled her fingers into her palm to stop herself from touching him. “You should join the others. You’re wasting a perfect beach day.”
“I’m not wasting anything. I’m exactly where I want to be.” His gaze was focused exclusively on her. And then he gave her that wide, easy smile that made her feel as if she was the only woman on the planet. She didn’t know which got to her most—the way his mouth curved, or the way those sleepy dark eyes crinkled slightly at the corners.
Her stomach flipped. After being made to feel unwanted, it was a change to feel the opposite.
What would happen if she put her arms around his neck and kissed him? Would he get carried away and do the wrong thing for the first time in his life? Maybe he’d take her virginity right here on the sand. That would really give her father something to complain about.
The thought made her frown. Not even by virtue of a thought did she want her father to tarnish her relationship with Seth.
“You really shouldn’t be here. With me.” She leaned her back against the rock and gave him a fierce stare designed to repel, but it didn’t work with Seth.
“I saw a car outside your house. Was it your father? He doesn’t usually join you in the summer, does he?”
She felt as if she’d plunged naked into the Atlantic. “He arrived this morning. Decided to surprise us.”
Seth’s gaze didn’t shift. “To celebrate your birthday or ruin it?”
He knew.
She squirmed with horror and embarrassment. Why couldn’t she have a normal family like everyone else? “I didn’t hang around to find out.”
“Maybe he wanted to deliver his gift in person.”
“That’s your father, not mine.” The words blurted out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Mine didn’t bring a gift.”
“No? Then it’s a good thing I did.” He braced one arm on the rock behind her and reached into the pocket of his board shorts with the other. “Hope you like it.”
She dragged her gaze from the swell of his biceps and stared at the cream velvet pouch in his palm. “You bought me a gift?”
“It’s not every day a woman turns eighteen.”
There it was again, that word. Woman. And he’d bought her a gift. Actually chosen her something. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t care, would he?
Her parched self-esteem sucked up the much-needed affirmation. She felt dizzy and light-headed, even more so than she had the time she’d smuggled a bottle of vodka to the beach.
“What is it?”
“Open it and see.”
She took the bag from him, recognizing the shell logo picked out in silver. She knew that whatever was inside it wouldn’t have come cheap. She and Harriet had walked past the exclusive jewelry store when they had occasion to be in town, but the prices had stopped them even staring in through the window. Of course, price wasn’t an issue if your name was Carlyle.
She tipped it out of the bag onto her palm, and for a moment she forgot to breathe because she’d never seen anything so pretty. It was a necklace, a silver shell on a silver chain. It was the shiniest, most perfect gift she’d ever been given.
Forgetting about keeping her distance, she flung her arms around him. He smelled of sunshine, sea salt and man. Hot, sexy man. Too late she remembered that she was wearing only her tiny shorts and a tank top. She might as well have been wearing nothing for all the barrier it created. Her skin slid against his and her fingers closed on those shoulders. Under the silken, sun-bronzed skin she felt the dip and swell of hard muscle and the dangerously delicious pressure of his body.
She knew she should let him go. Her father would freak if he could see her. He hated her hanging out with boys.
But Seth wasn’t a boy, was he? Seth was a man. A man who recognized that she was a woman. The first person to see her that way, and she decided that just might be the greatest birthday gift of all time.
Her father made her feel like nothing, but Seth—Seth made her feel like something. Everything.
“Fliss—” His voice was husky and his hands slid to her hips, holding her still. “We shouldn’t—you’re upset—”
“Not anymore.” Before he could say anything else, she pressed her mouth to his. She felt the coolness of his lips and his sudden start of shock, and she thought to herself that if he pulled away she’d die of embarrassment right here on the sand.
But he didn’t pull away. Instead he tugged her against him with purposeful hands, trapping her against the solid length of his body. Behind her she could hear the rush of the ocean, but here in the privacy of the dunes there was only Seth and the indescribable magic of that first kiss.
As he angled his head and kissed her back, she thought that her eighteenth birthday had gone from being the worse day of her life to the best. Melting under the erotic slide of his tongue and the intimate stroke of his hands, she stopped thinking about her father. All she could think about was the way Seth’s mouth made her feel. Who would have thought it? Who would have thought that good-boy Seth had such a bad-boy side? Where had he learned to kiss like this?
She told herself that she deserved romance on her eighteenth birthday. She deserved this.
Never before had anyone, or anything, made her feel this way.
And never before had doing the wrong thing ever felt so right.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_2d479ea5-5f2f-5451-8a3b-b390db1f35b4)
Ten years later…
“I’VE DECIDED WE should expand the business.” Fliss kicked off her shoes and left them in the middle of the floor as she walked barefoot to the kitchen. “Have you looked at our schedule for the next month? We don’t have a single available slot. Our referrals have doubled, and bookings are through the roof. Time to capitalize on success and think about growth.” Onward and upward, she thought. It felt good.
Her sister, busy feeding a puppy she was fostering, was less enthusiastic. “We already cover the whole of the east side of Manhattan.”
“I know, and I’m not suggesting we expand the dog-walking part of the business.” She’d thought it over, studied the competition and run the numbers. Her head was filled with possibilities. “I think we should branch out into an area that has a better profit margin. Offer additional services.”
“Like what?” Harriet pulled the puppy closer. “We’re a dog-walking business. The Bark Rangers. You’re thinking of branching into cats? The Meow Movers?”
“We already feed and care for cats if the owner requests it. I’m talking about pet sitting. Overnight stays. Holiday cover.” That part got her sister’s attention.
“You want me to stay overnight in a stranger’s home? Forget it.”
“Obviously the stranger won’t be there. If the owner is in residence they’re not going to need pet sitting.”
“I still don’t like the sound of it.” Harriet wrinkled her nose. “I like my own home. And if I do that, how do I foster?”
“I haven’t worked that part out yet.” And she knew better than to suggest her sister reduce her fostering commitment. There was no way Harriet would ever turn her back on an animal in trouble.
And she didn’t want her sister unhappy.
She’d grown up protecting Harriet. First from her father, and then from anyone and everything that threatened her twin.
It was protecting Harriet that had given her the idea of starting the business in the first place, and if she was going to expand then she needed to introduce the idea gradually.
She checked her phone for new bookings. “All I’m saying is that I’d like to look at the business more broadly. You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried, exactly. But I don’t understand where this is coming from. Have we had a complaint about one of our dog walkers or something?”
“No. Our dog walkers are the best on the planet. Mostly because you have an uncanny instinct for sensing when someone doesn’t really like animals. Our screening process is excellent, and our attrition rate is close to zero.”
“So why the sudden change?”
“It’s not sudden. When you’re running your own business it’s important to evolve. There’s a lot of competition out there.” She’d seen just how much competition, but she didn’t share that with Harriet. No sense in worrying her.
“But you’ve said yourself that plenty of people who set up as dog walkers are unreliable. People are not going to trust their beloved pets with an unreliable walker. We’ve never lost a client. Never. Clients trust us.”
“And they will trust us in their homes, too, which is why I think we should extend the service we’re offering. I’m considering running obedience classes, too. I can think of a few dogs who might benefit.”
Harriet grinned. “Who was it this time? Dog or owner?”
“Dog. Name of Angel.”
“The poodle? Belongs to that magazine editor?”
“That’s the one.” The thought of it had Fliss rolling her eyes. She didn’t share Harriet’s tolerance when it came to misbehaving dogs. “If ever a dog was misnamed, it’s that one. He may be an angel on the outside, but on the inside he’s all devil.”
“I agree, but I don’t see why one badly behaved canine would make you question our entire business. Our business is fine, Fliss. You’ve done well.”
“We’ve done well.” Fliss emphasized the we and saw Harriet flush.
“Mostly you.”
“That’s rubbish. Do you really think I would have come this far without you?”
“You bring in all the business. You handle the finances and all the difficult phone calls.”
“And you make the animals so happy, and their owners so happy, that our word-of-mouth recommendations are through the roof. It’s our business, Harry. We’re a team. We’ve done well, but now I intend to do better.”
Harriet sighed. “Why? What are you trying to prove?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. Is it wrong to want to grow the business?”
“No, if that’s what you really want, but I’d like taking the time to enjoy my job. I don’t always want to be rushing to the next thing. And if we expand, we’d have to find premises.”
“Way ahead of you. I thought we could look for something that also has space for an office. Then our apartment might not be flooded with paperwork and I might actually be able to find my bed. And the coffee machine.” She glanced from her phone to the stack of papers on the countertop. It seemed to grow every day. “There used to be a coffee machine hidden somewhere here. With luck I might find it before I die of caffeine withdrawal.”
“I moved it. I had to put it out of Sunny’s reach. He’s chewing everything he can find.” With the puppy still tucked under one arm, Harriet stood up. She pushed Fliss’s shoes to the side of the room and then walked to the kitchen and scooped up the papers. “There’s a message on the machine. I didn’t get to it in time. New business call.”
“I’ll call them back. I know you hate talking to strangers on the phone.” Fliss grabbed an energy bar from the cupboard and saw her twin frown. “Don’t look at me like that. At least I’m eating.”
“You could eat something wholesome.”
“This is wholesome.” She flicked the button on the coffee machine. “So going back to my plan—”
“I don’t want to spend the night in someone else’s apartment. I like my own bed. We’d have to recruit, and that would be expensive. Could we even afford it?”
“If you’d been paying attention at our last company meeting, you wouldn’t be asking me that question.”
“Was that the ‘meeting’ where we had take-out pizza and I had to bottle-feed those kittens?”
“Same one.”
“Then I don’t think I gave you my full attention. Just give me the top line.”
“It’s the bottom line that should interest you, and the bottom line is looking good.” Fliss poured coffee into two mugs, her head buzzing. With each new success, the buzz seemed to grow. “Better than our wildest dreams.” She eyed her sister. “Not that you’re the wild-dream type.”
“Hey, I have wild dreams!”
“Are you naked in them and writhing on silk sheets with a hot, naked guy?”
Harriet turned pink. “No.”
“Then trust me, your dreams aren’t wild.” Fliss took a mouthful of coffee and felt the caffeine bounce through her system.
“My dreams are no less valid than yours just because the content is different.” Harriet settled the puppy in his basket. “Dreams are to do with wanting and needing.”
“As I said—naked, silk sheets, hot guy.”
“There are other types of wanting and needing. I’m not interested in a single night of sex.”
“Hey, if he was hot enough I’d be willing to stretch it out a few days, at least until we’re both dying of thirst or starvation.”
“How are you ever my twin?”
“I ask myself the same question frequently.” About as frequently as she counted her blessings. How did people survive without a twin? If her childhood had felt like being trapped in a windowless room, Harriet had been the oxygen. Together they’d discovered a problem really did seem smaller if it was shared, as if they could carry half each and make it weigh less. And if Fliss knew, deep down, that her sister shared more than she did, she comforted herself with the knowledge that she was protecting Harriet. It was something she’d done all her life. “It’s because I’m your twin that I know your dreams as well as I do my own. Yours would be a white clapboard beach house, picket fence, a sexy doctor who adores you and a menagerie of animals. Forget it. If you want that kind of relationship, you’re going to need to read about it in a book. And now back to business. I think the Bark Rangers could legitimately offer pet sitting and even possibly dog grooming and obedience training. Think of it as an extension of what we do. We can offer packages where we—”
“Wait a minute.” Harriet frowned. “Are you saying you think romance only exists in books?”
“The type of romance you want only exists in books.”
“You only have to look at our brother to know that isn’t true.”
“Daniel fell in love with Molly. There’s only one Molly. And they’re basically together because their dogs are best friends.” She caught her twin’s eye and shrugged. “All right, they seem happy, but they’re the exception, and it’s probably because Molly is a relationship expert. That gives her an unfair advantage over the rest of us.”
“Maybe instead of expanding the business, you could take more time for yourself. You’ve been working at top speed since we started this business. It’s been five years, and you’ve hardly paused to breathe.”
“Six years.” Fliss grabbed a yogurt out of the fridge. “And why would I want time to myself? I love being busy. Busy is my drug of choice. And I love our business. We have freedom. Choices.” She nudged the door shut with her bare foot and saw Harriet wince.
“I love our business, too, but I also like the parts of my life that have nothing to do with the business. You’ve made a huge success of it, Fliss.” She hesitated. “You don’t have anything to prove.”
“I’m not proving anything.” The lie slid off her tongue while the voice inside her head shouted more loudly than usual. Useless, worthless, never make anything of yourself…
“Don’t you ever want more out of life?”
“More?” Fliss thrust a spoon into the yogurt, deciding it was time she shifted the conversation. This was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I’m young, free, single and living in New York City. What more is there? I have the world at my feet. Life is perfect. I mean, seriously, could life be any more perfect?”
Harriet looked at her steadily. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
Fliss’s heart started to pound. Her appetite vanished.
This, she thought, was one of the disadvantages of having a twin. She could hide the way she was feeling from everyone else in the world, but not from her sister.
She put her yogurt down and decided she needed to work harder at it. She didn’t want Harriet to know that she was terrified. It would make her anxious. “I was going to, I really was. I had the building in sight and I’d memorized what I was going to say—”
“But?”
“My feet wouldn’t go that way. They were glued to the spot. Then they turned around and walked in the opposite direction. I tried arguing with them. I said, ‘Feet, what do you think you’re doing?’ But did they listen? No.” And since when had she been so pathetic? She gave what she hoped passed for a careless shrug. “Please don’t say what I know you’re about to say.”
“What was I about to say?”
“You were going to gently point out that it’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—”
“Seth,” Harriet said. “At least say his name. That would be a start.”
The start of what? She didn’t want to start something she’d worked hard to put behind her.
And she couldn’t blame her sister for pushing because she hadn’t been honest, had she? She hadn’t told Harriet how she felt.
“Seth—” His name stuck in her throat. “It’s been three weeks since Daniel bumped into him—Seth—at the vet practice. The plan was that I’d take control of the situation and go and see him in order to avoid an awkward encounter in the street.”
“You’ve changed the plan?”
“Not officially. It’s more that the plan isn’t working out. It’s awkward.” It was okay to admit that much, wasn’t it? Finding something awkward wasn’t as bad as finding it terrifying. “And I don’t think an encounter in the street could be any more uncomfortable than a face-to-face in the clinic.”
“I can imagine it feels a little awkward, but—”
“A little awkward? That’s like calling a hurricane a light breeze. This isn’t a little awkward, it’s mega awkward, it’s—” She floundered for a description and gave up. “Forget it. No word has been invented that correctly reflects this situation.” And even if it had, she wouldn’t be using it. She didn’t want Harriet to know how bad she felt.
“‘This situation’ being bumping into your ex.”
“You manage to make a highly complex and delicate situation sound simple.”
“That’s probably the best way to look at it. Don’t overthink it.” Harriet lowered the puppy to the floor and stood up. “It’s been ten years, Fliss. I know it was a traumatic time.”
“No need to dramatize it.” Why was her mouth so dry? She took a glass from the cabinet and poured herself some water. “It was fine.”
“It wasn’t fine. But everything that happened is all in the past. You have a whole new life, and so does he.”
“I never think about it.” The lie came easily even though a day rarely passed when she didn’t think about it. She also thought about what Seth’s life might have looked like if he hadn’t met her and occasionally, when she was indulging herself, what her life with Seth Carlyle could have looked like if the circumstances had been different.
Harriet studied her with a mixture of concern and exasperation. “Are you sure? Because it was a big deal.”
“As you say, it’s been ten years.”
“And you haven’t been seriously involved with a man since.”
“Haven’t met anyone who interested me.” Anyone who measured up. Anyone who made her feel the way Seth had made her feel. There were days when she wondered if what she’d felt had been real, or if her teenage brain had augmented those feelings.
“It upsets me when you don’t share your feelings with me. I can understand why you hid everything from Dad, and even from Daniel, but this is me.”
“I’m not hiding anything.”
“Fliss—”
“All right, maybe I hide some things, but there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s the way I am.”
“No. It’s the way you learned to be. And we both know why.” Weary, Harriet stooped to remove Fliss’s shoe from the puppy’s mouth.
Fliss stared at her sister, the urge to confide momentarily eclipsing her quest for privacy. “I—I think about it sometimes. About him.” Why had she said that? If she opened the door a crack, her emotions were likely to come pouring out and drown everyone around her.
Harriet straightened slowly. “Which part do you think about most?”
That fateful birthday. The kiss on the beach. His mouth and hands. The laughter, the sunshine, the smell of the ocean. Passion and promise.
She could still remember it vividly. Almost as vividly as she remembered everything that had followed.
“Forget it. I don’t really think about it.”
“Fliss!”
“All right! I think about it. All of it. But I was dealing with it pretty well, until Daniel told me he’d seen Seth here in New York.” You were supposed to be able to leave your past behind. What were you supposed to do when it followed you? “Do you think he knew I was living here?”
New York was a city of eight million people. Eight million busy people, all running around doing their thing. It was a city of possibilities, but one of those possibilities was to live here anonymously, blending in. It had been perfect, until the day Seth Carlyle had taken a job in the vet practice they used regularly.
“In New York? I don’t know. I doubt he knew he’d be this close to you. It’s not as if you’ve been in touch.”
“No. Never been in touch.” It was the only way she’d been able to cope. Put it behind her. Move on. Don’t look back.
He hadn’t been in touch with her either, so presumably he’d been taking the same approach.
Harriet lifted the puppy back into his basket. “I know it feels difficult, but you’ve built a whole new life, and he has, too.”
“I know, but I wish he hadn’t chosen to move his life onto my patch. I should be able to walk the few blocks around our apartment without having to peer around street corners like a fugitive.”
“You’re doing that?” The shock in her twin’s eyes made her wish she’d kept that information to herself.
“I was talking hypothetically.”
“If you’d done what you planned to do and just walked in there and said, ‘Hi, good to see you again,’ you would have cleared the air and you wouldn’t be glancing over your shoulder. Things will feel easier when you’ve actually seen him.”
“I have seen him,” Fliss muttered. “He was standing in Reception when I made my first attempt to approach the building last week.” It was his hair that had caught her eye first, and then the way he’d angled his head to listen to something the receptionist was saying to him. He’d always been a good listener. It had been ten years since she’d touched him or stood close to him, but everything about him was achingly familiar.
Harriet was gaping at her. “You saw him? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Nothing to tell. And don’t worry, he didn’t see me.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I dropped to the ground like a navy SEAL on a secret mission. I didn’t move until I was sure he’d gone. I had to stop a passerby calling 911, which was both annoying and reassuring because usually New Yorkers are too busy doing their own thing to pay much attention to a body on the ground. Why are you gaping at me?”
“You dropped to the ground. And you’re trying to pretend you’re fine with this?”
“No pretense necessary.” She ground her teeth. Didn’t her sister have a dog to walk or something? “You’re right. I have to do this. I have to meet him and get it over with.” The thought of it made her heart and pulse thunder a protest. It was a fight-or-flight response, and her body seemed to be choosing flight.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“What I really want is for you to pretend to be me so that I don’t have to do it at all.” She saw Harriet’s eyes cloud with worry and cursed herself for saying too much. “I was joking!”
“Were you?”
“Of course. If I let you do that I’d lose the last shred of my self-respect. I have to do this by myself.”
“Remember what Molly said. You should control the meeting. Make an appointment for one of the animals. That way you have a reason to be there and something else to talk about. If it’s awkward you can keep it professional.”
“If?”
“Memorize one line. ‘Hi, Seth, good to see you. How are you doing?’ I can’t believe I’m saying this to you. You’re the one who is great with people. I’m the one who is tongue-tied and awkward.”
“You’re right. It should be easy. So why isn’t it?”
“Probably because you left so much unresolved.”
“We’re divorced. How much more resolved than that can you get?”
“You were in love with him, Fliss.”
“What? Don’t be crazy. It was a teenage crush, that’s all. Sex on a beach that got a bit more hot and heavy than we’d planned—” Her voice tailed off as she met Harriet’s unwavering gaze.
“You’re doing it again. Hiding your feelings from me.”
“Believe me, you don’t want a dose of my feelings.” She stiffened as Harriet stepped forward and gave her a hug. “Oh. What’s that for?” She felt her sister’s arms tighten around her.
“I hate seeing you hurt.”
Which was why she never let her twin see the true extent of her hurt. “Of course you do. You’re the good twin. I’m the bad twin.”
“I hate it when you call yourself that. I would love to have your qualities.”
“You don’t have room for any more qualities. You’re already loaded with them.”
“I hate it when you call me ‘good.’ I’m not good, and one of these days I’m going to do something really bad to prove it.”
“You couldn’t be bad if you tried, although if you ever decide to give it a try I hope you’ll call me. I’d like to see it. You’re strangling me, Harry. I can’t handle affection before I’ve had at least two cups of coffee.” And because she didn’t trust herself not to say more than she wanted to say. Harriet’s affection was like a key, unlocking a part of herself she preferred to keep secured.
“You’re not bad, Fliss.”
“Try telling that to Seth and the rest of the Carlyle family.” And to her father. “He had a glowing future until I came along.” She poured herself another glass of water.
“He’s a vet. His future looks just fine from where I’m standing. And why do you take all the responsibility for what happened? He made a choice, Fliss.”
Had he? Remembering the details, Fliss felt color flood her cheeks. There were things she hadn’t even told her twin. Things she hadn’t told anyone. “Maybe. That’s enough talking for one day.” She felt unsettled, like a snow globe that had been shaken, leaving her previously settled feelings to swirl madly around inside. How could she still have so many feelings after so long? Weren’t they ever going to fade? It was annoying and unfair. “If Seth is going to be living here, maybe I should leave New York. That would be a solution.”
“That’s not a solution, that’s avoidance. Your business is here. Your life is here. You love New York. Why would you leave?”
“Because now he’s here I’m not sure I love it anymore.”
“Where would you go?”
“I’ve heard Hawaii is pretty.”
“You’re not going to Hawaii. You’re going to channel your inner warrior and go see him. You’re going to say, ‘Hi, Seth, how’s the family?’ And then you’re going to let him talk. And when he’s finished talking you’re going to notice the time and leave. Done. How do you know he won’t be pleased to see you?”
“Our relationship didn’t exactly end in a good way.”
“But it was a long time ago. He will have moved on, as you have. He’s probably married.”
The glass slipped through Fliss’s nerveless fingers but fortunately didn’t break. “He’s married?”
Why did she even care whether he was married or not? What relevance did it have? What was wrong with her?
“I don’t know he’s married. I was just putting it out there, but clearly I shouldn’t have.” Ever practical, Harriet retrieved the glass and started mopping up water.
“You see? I can’t possibly talk to him because I’m not in charge of my emotions. But you are. You should definitely pretend to be me. That way you could have this conversation and get it over with and you won’t feel awkward.”
Harriet straightened. “I haven’t pretended to be you since I was twelve.”
“Fourteen. You’re forgetting that time when I pretended to be you in biology.”
“Because that sleazy creep wouldn’t stop tormenting me about my stammer. Johnny Hill. You punched him. How could I have forgotten that?”
“I don’t know. It was a great day.”
“Are you kidding? You had to have eight stitches in your head. You still have the scar.”
“But he never touched you again, did he? And neither did anyone else.” Fliss grinned and rubbed her fingers along the scar hidden under her hair. “You got a reputation for being scary. So you owe me. Go and see Seth. Be me. It’s easy. Just do and say everything you’d never do or say and you’ll be convincing.”
Harriet gave a wry smile. “You’re not such a bad girl, Felicity Knight.”
“I used to be. And Seth paid the price.”
“Stop it.” Harriet’s voice was firm. “Stop saying that. Stop thinking it.”
“How? It’s the truth.” But she’d paid it, too, and it seemed as if those payments never stopped. “If I could find a way to avoid seeing him, I would. I have no idea what to say to a man whose life I ruined.”
* * *
FOUR BLOCKS AWAY Seth Carlyle had his hands full of moody cocker spaniel.
“How long has he been like this?”
“Like what? Angry?”
“I meant, how long has he been limping?”
“Oh.” The woman frowned. “About a week.”
Seth examined the dog thoroughly. The dog snarled, and he eased the pressure of his fingers. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hurt you. Just need to take a good look and see what’s going on here.” He kept his voice and his touch gentle and felt the animal relax under his hands.
“He likes you.” The woman looked at him with surprise and dawning respect. “Dr. Steve says you’re helping him out. Said you were a big-shot vet who worked in some animal hospital in California.”
“I don’t know about the first part, but the second part is true.”
“So why leave California? Tired of all that sunshine and blue skies?”
“Something like that.” Seth smiled and turned his attention back to the dog. “I’m going to run some tests and see if those will give us the answers we want.”
“Do you think it’s serious?”
“I suspect it’s a soft-tissue injury, but there are a few other conditions I need to rule out.” He gave some instructions to the vet technician, ran some tests and checked the X-ray. “We should limit his exercise.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Make sure you keep him in a small space.”
“No more walks in Central Park?”
“Not for the time being. And give him some time in his crate.”
Once he’d completed the notes, he walked to Reception.
“Meredith?”
“Hi, Dr. Carlyle.” Her face turned pink, and she dropped the magazine she’d been reading under the desk. “Is there something I can do for you? Coffee? Bagel? Anything at all? You just need to ask. We’re so grateful to you for stepping in and helping out.” It was clear from the look in her eyes that anything wasn’t an exaggeration, but Seth ignored the unspoken invitation and the hopeful look in her eyes.
“I’m good, thanks. Did I miss any calls while I was in the clinic?”
“Yes.” She checked the notepad in front of her. “Mrs. Cook called to tell you Buster’s wound is looking better. One of the vet techs took the call. And Geoff Hammond called about his pooch. I put him through to Steve.”
“That’s it?” He felt a stab of disappointment, and Meredith checked again, desperate to please.
“Yeah, that’s it.” She glanced up. “Why? Were you expecting someone in particular?”
My ex-wife.
“No.” His reason for asking wasn’t something he intended to share.
He’d been waiting for her to come to him. Thinking about it, he realized he was treating Fliss much the same way he’d treat an injured, frightened animal. With patience. No sudden moves.
He couldn’t even pretend that perhaps she didn’t know he was here. He’d run into her brother, Daniel, on his second night in Manhattan. It had been an uncomfortable encounter, and it had been obvious from the tension heating the air that the animosity Daniel Knight felt toward him hadn’t diminished over time. Daniel would have told Fliss that Seth was in Manhattan. The Knight siblings were so close they might as well have been sutured together. He suspected that part of the reason for that was their stormy family life. Growing up they’d formed a bond. Seth didn’t blame Daniel for being protective of Fliss. Someone had to be, and it hadn’t been her father.
He’d met her when she’d been a leggy fourteen years old. She’d been part of the group who hung out together on the beach during those long, blissful summers in the Hamptons. At first glance she was indistinguishable from her twin, but anyone who spent a few minutes in their company would have known which twin they were talking to. Harriet was reserved and thoughtful. Fliss was wild and impulsive and attacked life as if she was leading an army into battle. She was first into the water and last out, swimming or surfing until the final rays of the sun had burned out over the ocean. She was bold, brave, loyal and fiercely protective of her quieter sister. She was also a daredevil, but he’d sensed a level of desperation to her actions, almost as if she wanted someone to challenge her. He’d had the feeling sometimes that she was living life just a little too hard, determined to prove something.
He’d known nothing about her family life that first summer. Her grandmother had owned the beach house on the bay for decades and was well-known in the area. Her daughter and children visited every summer, but unlike his own mother, who was actively involved in the local community both at the beach and back in their home in upstate New York, Fliss’s mother was virtually invisible.
And then one day the rumors had started. They’d trickled along the narrow lanes and into the village stores. A couple of people passing had heard raised voices and then the sound of a car driving too fast along the narrow island roads toward the main highway. The rumors spread from person to person, whispers and questions, until finally Seth heard them. Marriage problems. Family problems.
Seth had rarely seen her father. Almost all his impressions of the man had come from Fliss and Harriet’s reaction to him.
“Dr. Carlyle?” Meredith’s voice brought him back to the present, reminding him that his reason for being here was to move forward, not backward.
Since he’d arrived in New York he’d seen Fliss twice. The first time had been in Central Park on his first day in Manhattan. She’d been walking two dogs, an exuberant Dalmatian and a misbehaving German shepherd who had seemed determined to challenge her skills. She’d been too far in the distance for him to engineer a meeting, so he’d simply watched as she’d strode away from him, noticing the changes.
Her hair was the same smooth buttermilk blond, pinned haphazardly at the top of her head in a style that could have been named “afterthought.” Lean and athletic, she walked with purpose and a touch of impatience. It had been her attitude that had convinced him he was looking at Fliss and not Harriet.
She’d grown into a confident woman, but that didn’t surprise him. She’d never been short of fight.
He was desperate to see her face, to look into those eyes and see the flare of recognition, but she was too far away and didn’t turn her head.
The second time he’d seen her had been outside the office. The fact that she was hovering indecisively convinced him again that this was Fliss and not her sister. He guessed she’d been trying to summon up courage to confront him, and for a moment he’d believed maybe they were finally on their way to having the conversation they should have had a decade before. He’d also witnessed the exact moment she’d lost her nerve and fled.
He’d felt a burst of exasperation and frustration, followed by an increased determination that this time they were going to talk.
The last time they’d seen each other the atmosphere had been full of emotion. It had filled the air like thick smoke from a fire, choking everything. Maybe, if she’d been different, more willing to talk, they could have stumbled their way through it, but Fliss, as always, had refused to reveal her feelings, and although he had more than enough feelings for both of them, he’d not known how to reach her. The brief intimacy that had connected them had vanished.
He refused to believe that connection had been purely physical, but it had been the physical that had devoured their attention.
If he could have wound time backward he would have done it all differently, but the past was gone and there was only the present.
They’d had no contact for ten years, so this was always going to be an awkward meeting for both of them, but it was a meeting that was long overdue, and if she wasn’t going to come to him, then he was left with only one option.
He’d go to her.
He’d tried leaving it alone. He’d tried pushing it into his past. Neither had worked, and he’d come to the conclusion that tackling it head-on was the only way forward.
He wanted the conversation they should have had a decade before. He wanted answers to the questions that had lain dormant in his head. Most of all, he wanted closure.
Maybe then he could move on.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_7f8cc76e-3b19-5dee-b34d-9a9446c910b6)
HARRIET’S PHONE RANG just after 5:30 a.m., and Fliss was already halfway through the door. She’d been woken early by one of their dog walkers who’d picked up stomach flu after a night out and couldn’t crawl out of her bed let alone walk an energetic dog. Thoughts of Barney the bulldog waiting patiently in his owner’s apartment in Tribeca for someone who wasn’t going to turn up drove Fliss from the comfort of her bed a full hour before she would normally have forced herself upright.
At least it was walking a dog.
She liked the simplicity of dealing with animals. Animals never tried to force you to talk about things you didn’t want to talk about.
“Harry? Someone is calling you.” She yelled her sister’s name and then cursed as she heard the shower running.
Knowing there was no way her sister was going to hear the phone through the sound of running water, she eyed the device, torn between the need to leave and do battle with the subway, and the almost irresistible lure of possible new business.
They’d call back.
But Harriet might not answer it because she hated talking to strangers on the phone. And then they’d lose business.
Damn. She closed the front door, checked the number and frowned as she answered.
“Grams?”
“Harriet? Oh, I’m so glad I’ve reached you, honey.”
“I’m—” Felicity was about to say that she wasn’t Harriet, but her grandmother was still speaking.
“I don’t want to worry you, but I had a fall.”
“A fall? How? Where? How bad?”
“I tripped in the garden. So silly of me. I was trying to do something about the fact it’s so overgrown. And the gate is so rusty it will hardly open. You remember how it always made a noise?”
“Yes.” Fliss stared through the window of her apartment. She’d poured oil on the gate to try to stop its creaking when she’d sneaked out in the night to meet Seth. “Are you hurt? Where are you now?”
“I’m in the hospital. Would you believe I’m in the same room they put me in when I had my gallbladder removed ten years ago?”
“What?” She shouldn’t be thinking about Seth. “Grams, that’s awful!”
“It’s perfect. This room has a beautiful view of the garden. I’m very pleased to be here, and they’re taking very good care of me.”
“I meant awful that you’re in the hospital, not awful about having a nice room.”
“Well, it’s not so awful while I’m here. The awful part will be when they send me home. And they won’t do that until I assure them I have someone there to keep an eye on me for a while. I think it’s a fuss about nothing, but I’m a little bruised and apparently I was unconscious for a while.” There was a pause. “I was wondering—I hate to ask since I know the two of you are so busy with your business, but is there any chance you could come just for a few weeks? Just until I’m back on my feet? I’m too far from town to be able to manage easily, and if I can’t drive I’m going to struggle. Would Fliss be able to manage without you? It would mean leaving New York, but you always used to love the summers here.”
It would mean leaving New York.
They were the best words she’d heard in a while.
Fliss tightened her grip on the phone. “Leave New York?” Her mind raced ahead. “You want me to spend the summer with you?”
“A few weeks should be enough. I’ll need help with the shopping and cooking, and simple things around the house. Just until I’m back on my feet and mobile. And then there’s Charlie, of course. I don’t know how I’m going to walk him, and he does need exercise.”
Fliss winced. Charlie was her grandmother’s beagle. He was stubborn and single-minded. He also bayed a lot, which meant Fliss invariably resorted to headache tablets whenever she visited.
Biting back her natural response, she reminded herself that she was pretending to be Harriet.
“How is darling Charlie?” She almost choked on the words. How did her sister manage it? How was she so unfailingly kind and generous?
“Too energetic for me to handle for a while, and you’re so lovely with him. I shouldn’t have got another dog at my age, but he brings me so much joy. Sadly I can’t cope with him if I’m resting.”
“Of course you can’t.” Fliss glanced up as Harriet emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel. “I’ll come.”
“You will? Oh, you’re such a good girl. You always were.”
No, she wasn’t. She’d never been a good girl. That was the problem. And even now she was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. But she was doing it, so that was what counted, wasn’t it? Did it really matter if she had her own reasons for wanting to escape the city?
“When are you able to come home, Grams?”
“The day after tomorrow if you’re able to pick me up from the hospital. You’ll need to rent a car—”
“No problem. I’ll handle that.” She felt a rush of relief. The cloud that had dampened her mood for the past few weeks lifted. Here was the perfect solution to her problem, right under her nose. She didn’t have to fly to Hawaii. She didn’t even have to leave the state of New York. “Take care, Grams. I’ll give your love to Fliss.” She ended the call, and Harriet raised her eyebrows.
“Why are you giving love to yourself?”
“She thought I was you.”
“And saying, ‘I’m Fliss, not Harry,’ didn’t enter your head?”
“I was about to say that, but then my genius plan came into my head instead.”
“Suddenly I’m nervous.”
“You know I mentioned going to Hawaii? Turns out I don’t need to. I’m going to spend the summer in the Hamptons.”
“Summer in the Hamptons?”
Fliss grinned. “Yeah, you remember the place. Beaches, villages, sand and surf, ice cream dripping on your fingers, traffic and tourists—”
“I know all about the Hamptons. I also know you usually avoid it.”
“I avoid it because I’m afraid I might bump into Seth, but Seth is in Manhattan. If I go to the Hamptons I can walk instead of skulking. And Grams needs me.”
“I thought it was me she needed.”
“We’re interchangeable.”
“Why does she need you? Has something happened?”
“She had a fall. She’s in the hospital but they’re letting her go home as long as someone is there for her.”
“Oh no! Poor Grams.” Harriet looked horrified. “Why didn’t you tell her it was you on the phone?”
“Because then she would have asked to speak to you. She wanted you, not me. She probably doesn’t think I’ll be a good nurse.” She wondered, just for a moment, what it would be like to be the one everyone wanted around. “And she’s probably right.”
Harriet sighed. “Fliss—”
“What? We both know I’m not the nurturing type, but I swear if you agree to let me go and stay here instead, I’ll take really good care of her. I’ll do anything. I’ll bathe her. I’ll be sympathetic. I’ll walk Charlie.”
“You don’t even like Charlie.”
“I take exception to his selective deafness, that’s all. I hate the way he has to smell absolutely everything we pass. He almost pulled my arm out of its socket last time I walked him.”
“He’s a beagle. Beagles are hunting dogs.”
“He shouldn’t be hunting when I’m walking him.”
“He’s the perfect dog for Grams. She can’t walk as fast these days, but that just gives Charlie more sniffing time. I think beagles are incredible. They’re basically a nose on four legs.”
“You think all dogs are incredible. And Charlie is not so incredible when he’s baying. But I’ll handle it. I’ll handle everything. I’ll even hug him if that’s what it takes. And I’ll tell you everything that is happening and I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll even make your chocolate chip cookies.”
“No!” Harriet looked alarmed. “Don’t do that. You’ll set the house on fire.”
“All right, no chocolate chip cookies.” Fliss flopped down onto the chair. The sheer relief at the prospect of a reprieve made her realize how stressed she’d been. “Please, Harry. I really need to get out of Manhattan. It’s driving me crazy. I can’t relax, I’m not sleeping, and when I don’t sleep I’m in a continually rotten mood—”
“I’d noticed. Fine, go.” Harriet rubbed the ends of her hair with the towel. “But you’ll have to tell Grams the truth. You can’t pretend to be me. That crosses a line.”
Fliss didn’t comment.
She’d crossed so many lines in her life she no longer knew which side of the line she stood on.
“I can’t tell her before I go. She might tell me she doesn’t want me.” There was an ache in the pit of her stomach. The truth was everyone wanted Harriet. Harriet was kind and generous. She was warm-natured and even-tempered. Harriet had never gone skinny-dipping. She’d never lied to a man and had wild sex on a beach. “I’ll tell her the moment I arrive and pick her up from the hospital.”
“Are you sure this is going to help? Sooner or later you’re going to have to come back and meet Seth. You’re postponing the inevitable, that’s all.”
“Postponing the inevitable looks good from where I’m standing. Never do today what you can put off until next week.”
Harriet folded the towel neatly. “All right. But the moment you pick Grams up from the hospital, you explain everything.”
“Absolutely.”
“You tell her what’s happened and you tell her you’re Fliss.”
“I will. That’s what I’m going to do.”
“No skinny-dipping.”
“Hey—” Fliss spread her hands “—I’m a reformed character.”
“No stealing tomatoes.”
“They were good tomatoes. And the family were away for the summer, or so I thought at the time.” Fliss grinned and then caught Harriet’s eye and stopped grinning. “But just to be safe I’ll buy tomatoes on one of the roadside stands, I promise. No taking produce that doesn’t belong to me, even if it is perfectly ripe and no one is picking it and I know it’s going to go to waste. No way would I do that.”
Harriet gave her a long look. “And what am I supposed to say if I bump into Seth?”
“You’re sure you couldn’t pretend to be me?”
“No.”
“Because you’re so honest.”
“Well, there’s that, but also I’m a terrible actor. And what if he kissed me thinking I was you?”
You’d be the luckiest woman on the planet.
Her stomach gave a lurch. “That wouldn’t happen. You’re not going to bump into him, but if you do then you smile and say hello. I suppose.” She shrugged. “If I knew what to say, I’d be saying it myself. I don’t think you’re going to run into him.”
“It’s because you’re afraid of running into him that you’re leaving.” Harriet gave her a pointed look. “And I use that vet practice all the time.”
“Then maybe you will run into him. But you’ll be fine. So will you hold the fort while I go to the Hamptons? I promise I’ll still do all the paperwork, handle the accounts and make any phone call that makes you feel nauseous.”
“All right.” Harriet walked toward the bedroom and paused in the doorway. “But don’t burn the house down.”
“No cooking. I promise.”
She’d promise anything. Anything. She couldn’t live here with Seth working just a few blocks away, knowing that she could bump into him at any moment.
She needed to get out of town.
* * *
“MOM WANTS TO know if you’ll be joining us in Vermont for the Fourth.” Vanessa’s voice held a trace of irritation.
Seth knew his younger sister well enough to know it was best ignored. She was an organizer, and no one else ever did things to her satisfaction. If she’d been an animal she would have been a sheepdog, rounding everyone up the way she wanted them. “I can’t get away. I’m working.”
“On the holiday weekend?”
“This may surprise you, Vanessa, but pets don’t always get sick according to a schedule.”
“You’re not the only vet in the state of New York. Can’t you switch with someone? We need to plan. We’ve rented two cabins at Snow Crystal Resort and Spa, right by the lake. It will be idyllic. And so good for Mom. This is all new. Nothing we’ve ever done before. It’s the land of maple syrup, applesauce and great hiking. The place has the best restaurant for miles around. I keep reading about the chef. She’s French. You know how much Mom loves everything French. And, best of all, there will be no reminders of Dad.”
Seth felt a wrench in his gut. His father’s sudden death was recent enough that he saw reminders everywhere. He wasn’t sure if they were painful or precious, but one thing he did know was that traveling to Vermont wouldn’t make the loss any easier to bear.
“Plan without me.”
“I’m planning with you, that’s why I’m calling.” There was a pause. “I thought you could invite Naomi.”
It was Seth’s turn to feel irritation. “Why would I do that?”
“Because she’s still in love with you! You dated her for almost a year, Seth.”
“And we broke up ten months ago.”
“Dad died and it was a terrible time. None of us were ourselves.”
It was more than that. So much more. “Drop it, Vanessa.”
“I will not.”
Families, he thought. “Why are you bringing this up now?”
“Because I don’t understand what’s going on with you. You meet the perfect woman and then you break up with her?”
“This isn’t your business, Vanessa. You don’t need to understand. It’s my relationship. My life.”
“What relationship? That’s the point, Seth, you don’t have a relationship! You had a dream relationship, the perfect relationship, and you crashed it. And I just don’t get you. I love Naomi. Mom loves Naomi.”
“Yeah, well, this may come as another surprise to you, but it’s not enough that my family loves the woman I’m dating. I have to love her, too.”
“How could you not? Naomi is the sweetest person on the planet. What is wrong with her?”
“There’s nothing wrong with her. And you’re right, she’s a sweet person.”
“Finally we agree on something. So the question I should probably be asking is what is wrong with you?”
The problem was that he didn’t have a sweet tooth. He liked something with a kick. Bite. Tooth-rotting sweetness didn’t hold much appeal, but he had no intention of sharing that detail with his older sister. His youngest sister, Bryony, would never in a million years have dreamed of interfering.
“You need to leave this alone, Vanessa.”
“I can’t leave it alone. You’re my brother, and Naomi is my friend.”
And for Vanessa, that was enough. She wanted things to be the way she’d wanted them.
“Seth won’t play my game,” had been her constant whine as a child. Remembering brought a wry smile to his lips. He hadn’t played her game then, and he certainly wasn’t playing it now.
“If you truly care about Naomi then you’ll step back from this one. If you interfere, you’ll make things worse. It’s not fair to her.”
“I thought, maybe, if you spend some time together in Vermont the two of you might—”
“It’s over, Vanessa. And if you hint at anything else to her, if you imply that if we got together for the Fourth then there might be a big reconciliation, then you’ll be the one hurting her. It’s the wrong thing to do.”
“Is it wrong to want to see you settled and married one day?”
“I’ve been married.”
There was a tense pause. “That one didn’t count. It wasn’t real.”
He’d counted it. Every hour. And it felt as real now as it had then. “Are you done?”
“Now I’ve annoyed you, but it was Vegas, Seth. Vegas! Who gets married in Vegas? I can only assume you did it because you had some misguided notion about taking her away from her father. Protecting her. You’ve spent your life rescuing things, but she didn’t need protecting. You’re such a gentleman, and she took advantage of you.”
Seth decided it was a good thing his sister couldn’t see him smiling. “Maybe I’m not such a gentleman. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
“I know you never would have married her unless she’d forced you.”
“You think she handcuffed me to the door of the Elvis Chapel?”
“So if it was a real wedding, why didn’t you invite us?”
“Because it’s impossible to invite you without your opinions coming along for the ride.”
“You hurt Mom’s feelings.”
He tensed, knowing it was true and knowing also that his sister knew exactly how to wound. “I need to go, Vanessa. I have patients to see.” An ex-wife to track down.
“Maybe I’m crossing a line—”
“You always do.”
“—but that happens every time we talk about her. You’ve seen her, haven’t you? That was why you took the job in New York.”
He didn’t need to ask whom she meant. He contemplated not answering but decided that would prolong the conversation. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
“‘Yet’? That means you’re intending to. What are you thinking? Or maybe you’re not thinking and it’s testosterone affecting your brain.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I want you to be happy, that’s all. Maybe you should meet her. Maybe if you actually came face-to-face with her again, you would get her out of your system.” She made Fliss sound like a drug overdose; something that could be overcome with the right antidote.
“There’s nothing wrong with my system, but thank you for granting your permission.”
“I hate sarcasm.”
“And I hate your need to control other people’s lives as well as your own.”
“You drive me crazy, do you know that?”
“It’s a brother’s duty to drive his sister crazy.”
“Not this crazy.” Vanessa sighed. “On second thoughts, I take it back. I don’t think you should see her. You don’t make good decisions when you’re around her. She ripped your heart out, Seth, and then she used it as a football.”
“‘She’ has a name.”
“Felicity. Fliss—” Vanessa almost choked “—and you’re talking in your quiet voice, which I know means you’re mad at me—messes with your head, Seth, and she always did. She’s a—a minx.”
Minx? Only his sister would have come up with a word like that. Seth thought about Fliss, remembering the wicked gleam in her catlike eyes and the teasing curve of her mouth. Maybe minx suited her. Maybe he had a minx addiction.
Maybe he was in as much trouble as his sister thought he was.
“Are you done?”
“Don’t cut me off! I don’t want you to be hurt again, that’s all. I care about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Are you sure?” His sister’s voice was thickened. “You were the one who held it all together when Dad died. You were there for everyone. Our rock. You’ve got broad shoulders, Seth, but who do you lean on? If you don’t want to get back together with Naomi, you should find someone else. I don’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life.”
“We’re not populating Noah’s Ark, Vanessa. We don’t all have to be in twos.”
“I’m not going to mention it again. You’re old enough to make your own decisions, you’re right. Let’s talk about the house, instead. Mom wants to sell it.”
His gut twisted. “It’s too soon to make that decision.”
“I know you don’t want to sell it, but she can’t stand the thought of going back there.”
“She might feel differently in a while.”
“And she might not. Why does it matter to you, Seth? You’re building your own place near the water. Once that is finished, you won’t need Ocean View.”
He thought of the big house that had been part of his life for as long as he could remember. Maybe Vanessa was right. Maybe he was holding on to it for himself, not for his mother. “I’ll speak to a Realtor as soon as I have a chance. Get a valuation.”
“Good. I can leave that with you, then?”
“Yes.” He could almost hear her mentally ticking it off her list. Vanessa survived by lists. If something wasn’t on her list, it didn’t get done. He could imagine her, pencil in hand, ready to tick off find Seth a wife. She’d inherited her organizational tendencies from their mother, who was a warm and generous hostess. No one arriving at the Carlyle home would ever feel anything other than welcome. Summer at the Hamptons had been an endless round of entertaining both friends and family. No one would ever be fed the same thing twice. His mother had a file. People’s likes and dislikes, marriages, divorces, affairs—everything carefully recorded so that there were no awkward moments. And she had a team of people to help her.
Vanessa was the same, except she was more drill sergeant than congenial host.
“And you’ll think about the Fourth?”
“I don’t need to think. I know I’m working.”
“In that case I’ll visit you soon. We’ll have lunch. And, Seth—”
“What?”
“Whether you see her or not—whatever you do, don’t let her hurt you again.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_211d4910-d315-5748-a850-ad72586b56f2)
SHE RENTED A CONVERTIBLE, because if you were going to drive to the beach on a hot summer’s day, you might as well enjoy the ride. The insurance alone should have been enough to make a grown woman cry. Fortunately she’d never been much of a crier. Her business was going well. She was young, free and single. She intended to enjoy every minute of it. She was leaving her troubles—or should that be trouble in the singular?—behind in Manhattan.
Feeling pleased with herself, she took the Long Island Expressway out of the city and then hit Route 27. As usual it was clogged with traffic, cars idling bumper to bumper. She sat in it, inched forward, then stopped, inched forward again, working hard on her patience, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel as she stared moodily ahead of her. Too many people going nowhere. It was almost as bad as the traffic in Manhattan, except that she had more sense than to drive in Manhattan.
Calm, she thought. Breathe.
Harriet always told her she should try meditation or mindfulness, but Fliss didn’t know what to do with all the energy burning up inside her. She wasn’t a mellow person. She wasn’t calm either. Harriet practiced yoga and Pilates, but Fliss preferred kickboxing and karate. There was nothing quite so satisfying as landing a punch or smacking someone hard with a well-placed turning kick. Restful and calm she certainly wasn’t, but hey, she could pretend. With a touch of her finger, she changed the playlist, switching from pounding rock that had perfectly matched the pounding beat of New York City, to something more mellow and laid-back.
Instead of thinking about Seth, she tried to think about her plans for the business. Harriet was all for keeping it small. Fliss wanted expansion. She’d need to convince her sister it was the right thing to do, remembering that they each loved the business for different reasons. Harriet loved it because it allowed her to work with animals, which kept her well within her comfort zone. Fliss loved it because she fed on the adrenaline rush of building something and watching it grow. Each new client was another brick in the wall of financial security she was building around herself.
No one would ever be able to control her or dictate to her.
She earned her own money. She made the decisions about her life.
Useless? Worthless? Not so much.
She tried to focus on the business, tried to think about everything and anything but Seth. So why was it that trying to not think seemed to make her think of him more? Maybe it was because she was going back to the beach. Back to the place where she’d spent the happiest days of her childhood. The place where the land met the water.
Back to the place where they’d met.
At the mouth of the Peconic River, at the eastern end of Long Island, the land split into two forks at a place the Native Americans called Paumanok. Fliss took the south fork leading to the coveted side of the island. She waited until she hit an open stretch and then floored it. Too fast, but who cared? She finally had the road to herself, and after idling in traffic she wanted the speed.
As the road narrowed slightly, she slowed and made a right turn, inching through the tiny hamlets that led down to the water’s edge. This was where the elite chose to spend their summers. People who had made it, and people who wanted to pretend they’d made it by hiring out a beach house for a few weeks each summer.
She spotted a farm stand overflowing with produce and on impulse pulled over and grabbed her purse. She didn’t know what food her grandmother would have in the house. If she shopped now at least she wouldn’t starve, and even she couldn’t burn salad.
She was wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt, but after a couple of hours idling in the car under a baking-hot sun she couldn’t wait to strip them off and dive into the ocean. Naked? She grinned, remembering her promise to her twin. This visit she was going to try her hardest to keep all her clothes on. Which was going to be tough, because it was the type of heat that fried brains and sharpened tempers.
She pulled on a baseball cap and tugged the bill down. Not that she was likely to see anyone she knew, but she wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation. She waited, head dipped, foot tapping, while the family in front of her chose fruit for their lunch—make up your minds already—and then stepped forward to make her choice. There were plump juicy peaches, local strawberries, fresh-picked lettuces and a dome of shiny, jewel-like tomatoes. She bought a selection, then she took a photo and sent it to her sister.
Proof I’m not borrowing from people’s gardens.
Next to the farm stand was a food truck. They served macchiato, and Fliss sipped the coffee thinking that as far as exiles went, this wasn’t so bad. The availability of good coffee in this comparatively small spit of land was disproportionate to the number of inhabitants.
She’d forgotten how it felt to be standing with the sun heating your skin with the scent of the ocean clinging to the air. It took her back to her childhood, to those delicious first moments when they’d arrived at the beach with the long, lazy weeks of summer stretching ahead.
They’d loaded the car early in the morning so they could make the drive before the worst of the heat. She could still remember the painful tension of those early-morning departures. She could picture her father’s thunderous expression, and hear her mother soothing and placating. It was like spreading honey on burned toast. Didn’t matter how much you tried to sweeten it, the toast was still burned.
They’d learned to gauge his mood. When her brother arrived at the breakfast table and muttered “stormy today,” or “dark clouds and a little threatening,” they all knew he wasn’t talking about the weather.
On the day they left for the summer, they all hoped and prayed that the weather would be in their favor.
Harriet had slid into the back of the car and tried to make herself invisible, while Fliss had helped her brother load, pushing the bags in randomly in her haste to get away. Just do this. Let’s go.
Right up until the moment they drove away there was always the chance that they wouldn’t leave. That her father would find some way to stop them.
She remembered the catch of fear in her throat. If he refused to let them go, the summer would be ruined. And she remembered that delicious feeling of freedom when they pulled away and realized they’d done it. It was like bursting out from a dark, oppressive forest into a patch of bright sunlight. Freedom had stretched ahead like a wide-open road.
She’d watched, bathed in relief, as her mother’s death grip on the wheel lessened, the blood finally returning to her knuckles.
Her brother, claiming seniority and therefore the front seat, had covered their mother’s hand with his. “It’s all right, Mom.”
They all knew it wasn’t all right but were willing to believe it was, to pretend, and the more miles they put between themselves and the house, the more her mother changed.
They all did, Fliss included. She’d left her old life and her bad mood back in Manhattan, like a snake shedding its skin.
She glanced around, wondering how being here could still make her feel that way and wondering why it had taken a crisis in her life to bring her back here. Apart from brief visits to her grandmother, she hadn’t spent a significant block of time here since her teenage years.
Coffee finished, she continued on her way. This part of the island had some of the most coveted real estate in the whole of the Hamptons. She drove past curving driveways, high hedges and cedar-clad mansions topped with high gables and worn by the wind and the weather to shimmering silver gray. Some were inhabited year-round, some were rented by “summer people,” visitors who clogged the roads and the stores and drove the locals mad. Most belonged to the seriously rich.
Her grandmother’s house lacked the square footage and sophisticated security of some of its nearest neighbors, but what it lacked in grandeur, it made up for in charm. Unlike some of the newer mansions that surrounded them, Sea Breeze had been standing for decades. It had a pitched shingle roof and wide windows facing the ocean, but its real benefit was its proximity to the ocean. Developers hungry for any opportunity to exploit the most coveted piece of land in the area had offered her grandmother eye-watering sums of money to purchase the property, but her grandmother had steadfastly refused to sell.
The local community knew the story of how Fliss’s grandfather had bought the beach house for her grandmother on the day of their marriage. Her grandmother had once told her that selling it would have felt like giving away a wedding ring, or breaking a vow.
Marriage, she’d told Fliss, was forever.
Fliss felt pain in her hands and realized she was gripping the wheel so tightly she’d almost cut off the blood supply.
Her marriage hadn’t been forever.
She and Seth hadn’t even hit the three-month mark. And that was her fault, of course. She wore the guilt of that, and it made for uncomfortable clothing.
For a split second she lost concentration, and in that moment a dog shot into the road. He appeared without warning, a blur of golden brown.
Fliss slammed on the brakes, sending dust and her pulse rate flying.
“Dammit.” She sat there, fighting the shock, her heart almost bursting out of her chest. Her hands shook as she groped for the door and opened it. Had she hit it? No. She hadn’t felt a bump or heard anything, but the dog lay in the road, eyes closed. She must have hit it.
“Oh God, no–” She dashed to its side and dropped to her knees. Along with her other crimes she was now a destroyer of innocent creatures. “I’m sorry! I didn’t see you. Please be okay, please be okay,” she was muttering under her breath when she heard a voice behind her.
“She’s fine. It’s a trick of hers.”
The voice punched the air from her lungs. She wanted it to be a mistake, but the recognition was visceral, and she wondered dimly how it was that a voice could be so individual, like a fingerprint. It could have belonged to only one person. She’d known that voice measured, teasing, commanding, amused. She’d known it hard with anger and soft with love. She’d been hearing that voice in her dreams for the past ten years, and she knew there was no mistake even though it made no sense.
Seth was in Manhattan. He was the reason she was here. If it hadn’t been for Seth, she wouldn’t even have been on this road at this time, and if she hadn’t been thinking about him she would have been concentrating and maybe spotted the dog before it appeared without warning from behind the sand dunes.
“Are you all right?” Now the voice was deep and calm, as if he was used to soothing the ragged edges of a person’s anxiety. “You seem pretty shaken up. I promise you the dog really is fine. She used to work in the movies and they trained her to play dead.”
Fliss closed her eyes and wondered if she should do the same thing.
She could lie down in the road, hold her breath and hope he stepped over her and moved on.
She was relieved about the dog, of course, but she wasn’t ready to talk to Seth. Not yet. And not like this. How could this have happened? After all her careful planning, how had she found herself in this situation?
There was no justice. Or maybe this was justice. Maybe this was her punishment. Being made to suffer now for all the sins of her past.
The dog opened its eyes and sprang to its feet, tail wagging. Fliss had no choice but to stand up, too. She did so slowly, reluctantly, brushing the dust from her knees, postponing the moment when she was going to come face-to-face with him.
“Maybe you should sit down.”
Maybe I should make a run for it.
She forced herself to turn.
Her gaze locked with his, and instantly she was sucked back in time. She was eighteen years old, lying on the sand naked, lazily warm and content, her limbs entwined with his, their faces so close they were almost touching. She’d always liked being physically close, as if proximity lessened the chance that she would ever lose him. Touch me, Seth, hold me.
He’d touched her, held her, and she’d lost him anyway.
And clearly he was surprised to have found her again.
Shock flickered across his face, followed by confusion. He reached out and pushed her hat back, taking a closer look at her face. “Fliss?”
She was confused, too. She’d assumed time would have diluted the effect he had on her. Neutralized her feelings. Instead it seemed as if it had concentrated everything. She hadn’t seen his face for almost ten years, and yet everything about it was painfully familiar. The crinkles at the corners of his eyes, the few wayward strands of hair that insisted on flopping over his forehead, those thick lashes that framed eyes as dark as a pirate’s heart. Sexual awareness punched through her with shocking force. The magnetic pull was so powerful the force of it almost jerked her forward. If she’d been in the car, the air bag would have deployed.
She was baking hot and sweaty, which made her all the more resentful that he managed to look so cool. He was wearing a white button-down shirt and khakis. He’d always been strikingly handsome, and the extra years had stripped away the last of the boy and shaped the man. He had the same athletic physique, but his shoulders were wider, his body stronger and more powerful.
Once, she’d believed that maybe happy endings really weren’t just for books and movies. Her feelings for him had filled her until there was no room for anything else, until she hadn’t known how to contain them. Fortunately all those years with her father had provided advanced training in how to hide them, which was just as well because Seth looked insanely good and she looked—
She didn’t want to think how she looked.
It was definitely karma. Punishment for her past sins, which were too many to count.
She was trapped by that gaze, and her brain and her tongue knotted at the same time. So she did what she always did when she found herself in a tight corner. She acted on impulse.
“I’m not Fliss,” she said. “I’m Harriet.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_dcc19f4c-0f39-50fd-80f2-65b0c628743c)
HARRIET.
Until she’d said that, he’d been about to kiss her. Right there on the road and to hell with anyone who happened to be passing. The knowledge unsettled him. Fliss had always brought out a side of him he rarely accessed, and it seemed not much had changed.
Except that this was Harriet, not Fliss. And kissing her would have brought on more than mutual embarrassment. His objective had been to douse old flames, not rekindle fires.
Vanessa was right. He was in trouble.
He stepped back, almost treading on Lulu. The dog yelped and jumped out of the way, sending him a reproachful look. Her day wasn’t going well. His wasn’t much better.
“I didn’t expect to see you here.” There was a time when the Knight twins had spent every summer with their grandmother, but that time was long past. Most of the group of kids who had hung out together during those long hot summers had gone their separate ways. The only friend he still saw from those days was Chase Adams, who had taken over the running of his father’s construction company based in Manhattan. Since his marriage, he’d been spending more time at his beach house.
“Didn’t expect to see you either.” She pulled the brim of her hat down, virtually concealing the top half of her face. “I heard you were in Manhattan. Daniel mentioned that he ran into you—” Her tone was casual, but there was something else there that he couldn’t identify. Nerves? Since when had he made Harriet nervous?
“That was temporary. I was doing a favor for a friend of mine.”
“Steven?”
“Yes. We were at college together. He was shorthanded and he asked me to help out.”
“So that’s it? You’re done? No more Manhattan?”
“For now.” He wondered why she was asking so many detailed questions about his whereabouts. Maybe Fliss was thinking of visiting her grandmother and her twin was going to deliver a warning. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that she was avoiding him.
“So you’re here for the rest of the summer? Staying with your family?”
“Just me.” How much did she know? They’d had no contact since that summer ten years before, but these days there were a myriad ways to find out information. Did Fliss ever talk about him? He had a million questions, but he reined them in. What was the point in asking them? He didn’t need answers from Harriet. He needed them from Fliss. “And you? What are you doing here?” It was unsettling looking at her because she could so easily have been Fliss. Outwardly the twins were identical. Same blue eyes, same buttermilk-blond hair.
Inwardly they were as different as the sun and the moon.
“Grams fell. She’s in the hospital.”
“I hadn’t heard.” And that surprised him because wherever he went on this patch of land someone, somewhere, was always keen to fill him in on local gossip. “How bad is it? When did it happen?”
“A couple of days ago. I’m not sure how bad it is, but they won’t let her go home unless someone is there with her. She was knocked unconscious, I believe, and she says she’s a little bruised. I’m off to the hospital as soon as I’ve unpacked.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, but thanks. I’ll be picking her up tomorrow.” She gestured vaguely to the car, a showy red convertible that gleamed in the sunshine.
He glanced at it, thinking that it didn’t seem like something Harriet would drive. On the other hand it had been ten years and a lot changed in ten years, including the fact that she no longer seemed to be shy with him. There was no sign of the stammer that had plagued her teenage years. Fliss had confided in him how difficult it was for her sister, how the moment their father had started shouting, Harriet had been unable to push a single word out of her mouth.
For her sake he was pleased that had changed.
It was partly because he didn’t want to be the one to bring her stammer back that he didn’t question her about Fliss.
“How did she fall?”
“In the garden. It needs work.”
“So you’re here to take care of her. That’s lucky for her. She doesn’t need to worry about being well fed.” He smiled at her. “I still remember those chocolate chip cookies you used to make. If you ever have any spare that need eating, I’m right next door.”
“Cookies?” A look of alarm flickered across her face, and he wondered what he’d said to trigger that reaction.
“You don’t cook anymore?”
“I—yes, of course I cook. But proper food.” She stumbled. “Nutritious—er—things. Are your parents here this summer?”
The question knocked him off balance.
So she didn’t know.
Sadness washed over him. It came and went like the tide over the sand.
The years opened up like a gulf. So many changes. So many life events he and Fliss should have shared and weathered together. Instead they’d done it apart.
“My father died. Ten months ago. Heart attack. No warning. It was very sudden.”
“Oh, Seth—” Her reaction was as spontaneous as it was genuine. Her hand came out and she touched his arm for a few seconds before snatching it back. “I’m truly sorry.”
“Yeah, it’s been tough. We’re selling Ocean View.” And he was still getting his head around that, trying to untangle his own wishes from those of his mother. Trying to work out what his father would have wanted him to do. And in a way that was easy. His father would have wanted him to do whatever made his mother happiest.
Which meant he was selling the house.
“That’s why you’re here? Because you need to sell the house?”
“No. I’m here because this is my home.” So that was something else she didn’t know. “I live here.”
“But you said—”
“I bought a house close to Sag Harbor. It’s near the beach and the nature preserve. It needed some work, but it’s nearly finished.”
“You’re saying you’re here permanently?”
Was he imagining it or did he see panic? He had to be imagining it. “Yes. I run Coastal Vets, on the edge of town.”
“Oh. Well, that’s great.” Her tone told him it was anything but great.
He studied her face intently, searching for answers. “How are things with you, Harriet?”
“Good! Fliss and I run a dog-walking business in Manhattan. The Bark Rangers. We’re doing well. A bit too well. Fliss wants to expand—you know what she’s like.”
He didn’t know. Not anymore. But he wanted to. Had she changed? Was she still impulsive? Did she still kick her shoes off at every opportunity? Did she still hide her feelings?
He had an urge to ask a million questions but held himself back.
He was pleased, but not at all surprised, that Fliss had set up and was running a successful business.
“So if your grandmother has fallen, you’re going to be here for a while. How will Fliss manage the business without you?”
“We have an army of reliable dog walkers, and I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“So we’re going to be neighbors. I’d like to help in any way I can.”
The look of panic was back. “That’s not necessary! I’m sure we’ll be fine, and I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“It’s no bother. Everyone in my family is fond of your grandmother, myself included. She brings Charlie to the clinic for checks, as do all her friends. And she has many. She’s been part of this community as long as any of us can remember. My mother would never forgive me if I didn’t help out.” He looked at her for a long moment and decided to test a theory. “How is Fliss?”
“Fliss? She’s so happy. Doing really well. She’s built the business up from nothing, and now she’s so busy she barely has time to breathe. It’s an exciting time. All good.”
It didn’t tell him anything he wanted to know, but that was because he hadn’t asked the right questions, of course. Is she seeing someone? Is she married? Why did she get as far as the door of the vet clinic and then turn around? Why is she avoiding me?
Those were the questions he’d wanted to ask.
But he’d got one thing cleared up.
An important thing.
“I’d better go. The clinic opens in an hour and there’s always a crowd at this time of year.” He whistled to Lulu. “We’ll be seeing you around, Harriet.”
“Looking forward to it.” Her tone told him she wasn’t looking forward to it at all.
He loaded the dog into his truck and drove back toward his house. It was within easy driving distance to the clinic, down a road that was little more than a rough track.
He’d found the house two years before and fallen in love with the location. The property itself had been a little harder to love, and it had taken every day of those two years to transform it into the home he wanted.
With the help of Chase, who had pulled together a team to help both with the design and the construction, he’d knocked down the single-story building and replaced it with a two-story structure with a double-height dining and living area and a wall of glass opening onto the pool.
The house nestled behind dunes that were part of a bird sanctuary, and in the evenings during the renovation he’d often sat on the deck, nursing a beer, watching the gentle sway of the sea grass and listening to the plaintive call of the gulls.
A short drive and he was on the edge of town, but here there was only the whisper of the wind and the rhythmic crash of the ocean. People had been listening to the same sound for centuries, and there was a simplicity to it, a soporific blend of nature that soothed the senses.
His house lacked the palatial feel of his childhood home, and in his opinion, it was all the better for that.
There were no ghosts here, and no memories.
He let Lulu out of the car and stood for a moment, admiring the lines of his new home.
“Got yourself something good here.” The voice came from behind him, and he turned with a smile.
“Chase! I didn’t notice your car.”
“I was right behind you, but you were obviously thinking about something else.”
Not something, someone.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you this week. I thought you were in Manhattan, wheeling and dealing.” He eyed his friend’s board shorts. “You don’t look much like a CEO of a major corporation.”
“What can I say? I’ve discovered the joys of the weekend.”
“It’s Wednesday.”
Chase grinned. “So the weekend has started early.”
“This from a guy who didn’t used to know what the weekend was. Who are you and what have you done with my friend? On second thoughts, don’t answer that. I like this version of you better. I guess that’s what being married has done to you.” Seth closed the car door. “How’s Matilda?”
“Uncomfortable. The heat is bothering her. The baby’s due in four weeks, and I’m working down here from now until it arrives.” He raked his fingers through his hair, looking uncharacteristically nervous. “I’m going to be a dad. CEO of a family. Toughest job yet.”
“Funny, because I would have said Matilda was CEO of your family. You’re just staff.”
“You could be right about that.” Chase narrowed his eyes as he studied Seth’s house. “It’s coming along.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to admit I was right about the deck?”
They’d argued about the details by email and in person. “You were right. And I owe you.”
“You’re welcome. And you can pay me in babysitting.”
Seth felt a stab of pain under his ribs. “Not my area of expertise. But if Hero ever needs a vet, I’m your guy.”
“He’s bound to need a vet. That dog has no clue about personal safety, and I can tell you he is no one’s idea of a hero. I keep suggesting Matilda rename him—Liability was my suggestion—but she refuses. He’s too big and strong for her to walk at the moment.” Chase frowned. “I don’t suppose you know of any dog-walking companies around here you can vouch for?”
Seth shook his head and then thought for a moment. “Have you heard of the Bark Rangers?”
“Yes, but they’re in Manhattan. It’s run by the Knight twins, but I’m guessing you already know that. We use them when we’re in town, although I’ve never dared confess that to you before. Not sure if it’s sensitive.” Chase looked at him cautiously. “The name Knight doesn’t exactly come up in conversation these days. Is this a topic we should be avoiding?”
“No. And it so happens I just ran into Harriet.” He paused, wondering how much to say. “Her grandmother fell, so she’s here for a while. I’ll see if she can help you.”
“Matilda is friendly with Harriet, but I haven’t seen either of the twins for ten years. Not since—”
“Not since you were best man at my wedding. You don’t have to tiptoe around, Chase. As you say, it was ten years ago.” Plenty of time to adjust and put it in his rearview mirror. People had dismissed it at the time—too young, too fast—so he hadn’t had to deal with shock or surprise. There had been more than a few knowing nods from folks who thought you could judge a relationship from the outside, as if you could get the measure of a house by peeping in through one window.
“I didn’t know you were still in touch.”
“We’re not.”
“This is the first time you’ve seen Harriet since you broke up? That must have been weird.”
“Yes.” Weird wasn’t the word he would have chosen, but he went with it.
“Maybe it’s easier that it’s just Harriet.”
“Maybe.” Seth didn’t expand on that. “Anyway, she’ll be walking her grandmother’s dog, so I’ll ask her if she’ll walk yours, too.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.” Chase changed the subject. “So when are you moving in? And, more importantly, when’s the housewarming? Are you here for the Fourth or are you going away?”
“I’m here. Working and on call over the holiday weekend.”
“That’s tough.”
“Honestly? Not really.” Seth rescued Lulu, who had managed to wedge her head in a hedge. “The rest of the family are spending it in Vermont.”
“Having a change.” Chase nodded, understanding. “How’s your mom doing?”
“Considering everything, she’s doing okay. But she wants to sell Ocean View.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
Seth looked at his new home, at the smooth lines, the deck, his view of the dunes. He wouldn’t swap it for anything. So why wasn’t he more motivated to sell the house? “I think it’s the right thing to do, although I’m not sure about the timing.”
“The timing is perfect. It’s summer, the house will show at its best. Trust me on that. I may not know a thing about babies, but I do know about real estate.”
“I wasn’t talking about the timing for the market, more the timing for my mother. I’m worried it’s too soon and that she’ll regret the decision.”
Chase put his hand on Seth’s shoulder and squeezed. “I’ll ask you again—how do you feel about it?”
As always Chase was observant. And sensitive. It was one of the reasons they’d been friends for so long.
“Conflicted.”
“I can imagine.” Chase sighed. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think hanging on to things necessarily eases the pain. Maybe it even makes it worse.”
“Intellectually I know that. Emotionally, I seem to be having trouble with it. We spent every summer there from the year I was born. It feels as if I’m not just selling a house, I’m selling memories. And Mom always loved it here.” He paused as Chase’s phone rang. “You should get that. It might be Matilda.”
“It is Matilda. Damn—” His friend fumbled with the phone and almost dropped it. “What’s wrong, honey? Is it happening? Is it now? What do I need to do? Who do I call?”
Seth watched, amused, as his friend went from calm to agitated. He waited for him to end the call and raised an eyebrow. “Well? Do we need to put the midwife on alert?”
“No. She wanted me to buy peaches from the farm stand. Peaches! Look at me. I’m a wreck. What the hell is wrong with me?” Chase pocketed his phone and shook his head. “I run a successful corporation—”
“—which has nothing to do with delivering babies.”
“True. I’m not good with that stuff. I prefer my problems numerical. If it can’t be analyzed or put on a spreadsheet, I’m clueless.”
“We both know that’s not true. There’s not a job in your company you can’t do.”
“Maybe, but being able to caulk a window isn’t going to help me if the baby comes early. If that happens, I’m going to be calling on you.”
“I’m a vet,” Seth said mildly. “I’ve delivered puppies, kittens, foals and even a camel—”
“A camel?”
“Don’t ask. I’ve never delivered a human, but don’t worry. This baby is not going to come early. First babies never do.”
“You’d better be right about that or I’ll sue you. And then I’ll bring the baby to our poker nights.”
Seth gestured toward the house. “Do you need something to calm your nerves? I haven’t stocked the fridge yet, but I might be able to find a beer.”
“That is tempting, but my pregnant wife wants peaches, so I guess I’d better find her peaches.” He flashed Seth a smile and strolled to his car. “One day this is going to happen to you, Seth Carlyle, and that will wipe that grin off your face. In the meantime, if you could ask Harriet about walking Hero, I’d be grateful.”
Holding his smile in place, Seth bent to give Lulu a belly rub, watching as Chase reversed the car and headed down the lane toward the main road.
Lulu whined and licked his hand, understanding that something wasn’t right.
It was lucky for him Chase wasn’t so perceptive.
And lucky for him Chase needed help with a dog.
He told himself that offering to ask Harriet about dog walking had everything to do with helping his friend, and nothing to do with creating another opportunity to talk to Harriet.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_6a11a3ba-ceaa-56ca-ac61-31cfe6fbe9a6)
SEA BREEZE.
Fliss parked and stared at the house. It hadn’t changed. Same weathered clapboard, same gravel drive that had skinned her knees so many times. Juniper and cypress lined the driveway, and clusters of Rosa rugosa bushes erupted with delicate pink blossoms.
Right now she didn’t feel as if she’d changed much either.
What had happened to her confidence? The grit and drive that had propelled her this far?
She couldn’t stop shaking. Not because of the dog, but because of Seth.
She’d been prepared for everything except bumping into him.
She’d told herself that she’d built it up in her head, but in the end seeing him in person had been worse than she’d imagined. She hadn’t anticipated the powerful jolt of chemistry or the sudden frantic fluttering inside her. It seemed that time could heal a lot of things, but not the strange, indescribable pull that drew her to Seth Carlyle. It would have been easy to dismiss it as sexual attraction. Easy, and incorrect.
None of which explained why she’d been stupid enough to pretend to be Harriet.
Frustrated with herself, she grabbed her small suitcase, retrieved the key from under the flowerpot and let herself in.
Calm descended like a comforting blanket. Apart from the odd occasion when their father had joined them unexpectedly, this was the place she’d always been happiest.
She stood for a moment, drinking in familiarity. The large seascape on the wall had been painted by her grandfather. The basket on the floor, stuffed with boots and flip-flops, had been there forever. There were towels, neatly folded, ready to mop sand and mud from overeager dogs because here, at the beach, there had always been dogs.
It had been a place of noise, chaos, chatter and laughter.
No one had to tiptoe. No one had needed to watch what was said.
Summer in the Hamptons.
She stepped forward, and the planks creaked under her tread. How many times had her grandmother scolded her for running into the house with sandy feet?
She pressed down harder, feeling the wood give a little beneath the pressure. Right there. That was where she and Harriet had hidden their “treasure.” Fliss knew about the loose floorboard because she’d been careful to tiptoe around it whenever she’d sneaked out to meet Seth. Harriet had returned from one of her many trips to the beach, her pockets stuffed with shells and stones rubbed smooth by the ocean. She’d wanted to take them back to the city, as a memory, but they both knew their father would throw them out, so Fliss had found a box and tucked them out of sight under the floorboards.
They were probably still there.
She stared down at the floor, lost in memories of happy times. And, despite everything, there had been happy times. And perhaps those times had been all the happier, even more precious, because of the tough times that surrounded them. The good moments shone brighter because of the dark.
She strolled through the house, and the years fell away. She remembered the camps they’d built, the games of hide-and-seek they’d played, the hours spent splashing in the waves and digging in the sand. In this place, Fliss had seen her twin sister blossom. The tortured, tongue-tied silence that punctuated their days in New York had been replaced by conversation. Reluctant at first. Tentative. A trickle of words. And then the trickle became a steady stream and the stream became a torrent, like a surge of water escaping past an unwanted obstruction. Harriet’s stammer had reappeared only on those rare occasions their father visited.
That was all in the past now.
These days there were no unexpected visits. He stayed out of all their lives.
Pushing aside that thought, Fliss shoved the door closed and walked into the kitchen.
It had all the signs that the occupant had left in a hurry.
A pan lay unwashed on the stove, a carton of milk on the countertop.
Fliss threw the milk away and washed the pan.
Domesticated? She could do that if she had to. And maybe she’d even ask her grandmother for a cooking lesson while she was here. That would surprise Harriet.
She moved through the rest of the house, checking everything. The back door was locked, so presumably whoever had helped her grandmother from the garden had taken the time to secure the house. She went upstairs and checked her grandmother’s bedroom. The window was secure, the bed made.
She wandered past the room her brother, Daniel, had occupied whenever they’d stayed and took the stairs up to the attic room she’d shared with her sister. Instinctively she stepped over the fourth step with its telltale creak, and then realized what she’d done and smiled. She knew a hundred ways to sneak out of this house undetected. She knew which stair would betray her, which window would stick and which door would creak.
She pushed open the door of the bedroom, remembering how she’d oiled the hinges.
Her mother slept like the dead, but had her grandmother known she was sneaking out?
Harriet had known, but she’d never said anything. She’d pretended to be asleep so she wouldn’t have to lie if questioned.
Fliss glanced around the room.
Not much had changed. Two beds were tucked under the slope in the roof so that you had to duck your head before you stood up in the morning. She strolled to the window and gazed down into the garden, noting the offending apple tree with its curved branches and thick trunk. The roots were visible on the surface, as if it was trying to remove itself from ground it had occupied for so long.
And there, beyond the apple tree, was the gate.
She’d oiled that, too, turning it from an alarm to an ally.
From her vantage point high in the house she could see that the path to the beach was overgrown. It didn’t surprise her. No one used the path except the inhabitants of Sea Breeze, and she doubted her grandmother was in the habit of taking the rough sandy trail that led through the sand dunes to the beach.
For a moment she was tempted to kick off her shoes and run down that path as she had as a child, eagerly anticipating the moment when she crested the dunes and saw the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
Her feet were halfway out of her shoes before she stopped herself.
She needed to stop giving in to impulse and behave responsibly.
She slid her feet back into her shoes and instead rose on tiptoe and leaned her forehead on the cool glass, trying to see past the knotted vegetation that obscured the path to the dunes beyond. She knew every dip and curve of that path.
People said that memories faded in time, but hers hadn’t faded at all.
She could still remember that warm summer night in minute detail, every sound, every color, every touch.
She moved away from the window. What was the point of torturing herself? It was behind her. She should be moving on. And she would have been doing exactly that if she’d just told Seth the truth when she’d met him earlier. A few words, that was all she’d needed to say. Instead she’d pretended to be Harriet.
Why had she done that? Of all the stupid, impulsive—
And she wished she’d known about his father. If she had, she wouldn’t have asked that tactless question about his family. She’d probably hurt him, and she’d already hurt him enough.
And by pretending to be Harriet she hadn’t been able to offer anything more than conventional platitudes. Her twin wouldn’t have understood how close they were, or how much he had admired his father. Fliss understood that. For a fleeting second before he’d hidden it she’d seen the raw pain in his eyes, and she’d ached for him. She’d wanted to wrap him in her arms and offer whatever comfort she could. She wanted to tell him that she understood.
Instead she’d uttered a few meaningless words. And in pretending to be Harriet, all she had done was postpone the moment when she came face-to-face with him as herself.
Now what was she going to do?
The question wasn’t whether she would bump into him again, but when.
Which left her with only two options. Either she carried on pretending to be Harriet, or she confessed all and told him she was Fliss.
That would be both awkward and embarrassing. He’d want to know why she’d pretended to be her sister, and he’d read too much into it.
No, until she could work out a way to extract herself from the lie she’d spun, she’d have to continue the pretense. Which raised the question of what she was going to do about her grandmother.
She’d promised Harriet that she’d tell their grandmother she was Fliss.
And she would. She just had to hope Seth and her grandmother didn’t meet until after she had untangled the mess she’d made.
Why did everything she touched get so complicated?
Frustrated with herself, she flung open windows, letting in the smell of the ocean.
Then she went back downstairs into the kitchen and unloaded the food she’d bought at the roadside stand.
She piled fruit into a bowl and placed it in the center of the table. The long cedar table had a few more scratches than she remembered, but other than that it looked the same as ever. Some of her earliest memories were of staying here, and she was glad nothing significant had changed, as if by finding things the same, a certain level of happiness was guaranteed.
How many meals had they eaten here, the three of them, wriggling impatiently on their chairs, waiting for the moment they could return to the beach? Because summers had been all about the beach. The beach and freedom.
The beach and Seth.
And that was the problem, of course. Seth was part of almost every memory she had of this place. Which meant that somehow she had to fill her head with something else.
Fliss returned to the entryway and picked up her suitcase. She’d unpack and then drive straight to the hospital.
She’d tell her grandmother the truth, and then try to work out a way to unpick the lie she’d told Seth.
* * *
SETH FINISHED EXAMINING the dog. “Chester is doing well, Angela.”
“Good. I need him fit for the Fourth of July.”
“You’re doing something special for the holiday weekend?”
Angela lifted Chester down from the examination table. “No. We’re staying home. That’s why I need him fit. He hates loud noises. He was so scared last year I almost called you and asked for a tranquilizer.”
“That’s always a possibility, but there are other methods I prefer to try first.”
“Such as?”
“Back in 2002 there was a study by an animal behaviorist and psychologist that showed that classical music had a soothing effect on dogs in shelters.” Seth washed his hands. “And a few years after that another study by a veterinary neurologist showed that slower tempos, single instruments were more calming than busy, noisier music.”
“So you’re saying I should be playing Beethoven instead of Beyoncé?”
Seth tugged paper towel from the dispenser and dried his hands. “That’s your choice. There are other things you can do, of course. Close doors, windows and curtains so that you block out the noise as much as possible.” At this time of year he delivered an endless stream of advice about keeping pets away from fireworks and checking the yard for debris.
“I’m dreading it. Chester hates fireworks, and our neighbors love them.” Angela stroked the dog’s head. “The moment they start he tries to escape.”
“Take him for a long walk during the day,” Seth suggested. “It will tire him out and he’s more likely to relax. As for the noise, have you tried turning up the TV?”
“No, but it’s a good idea.”
“And make sure your yard is secure. This is the busiest time of year for the animal shelters. They have to deal with a number of terrified pets who have escaped.”
“Chester is microchipped. We had it done after a friend suggested it last year. Just in case. I couldn’t bear to think of him out there running around, terrified and lost. I’m keeping all the doors shut. And my TV will be booming.” Angela reattached the dog’s lead. “So you’re back from the big city. There were a few people who thought you’d stay there.”
He heard the question in the statement and knew that whatever he said by way of an answer would spread through all the local villages by noon. “This is my home. There was never any chance that I’d stay there.”
“Well, that’s good to know.” Her shoulders relaxed. “You wouldn’t be the first to be tempted by the bright lights of Manhattan. We were laying bets at my knitting group that you wouldn’t be coming back.”
“Manhattan is always fun for a visit, but I wasn’t tempted.”
At least, not by the city.
An image of Fliss appeared in his head. She was laughing, the strap of her minuscule bikini sliding over her shoulder as she raced across the beach, her bare feet kicking up the sand.
He tapped a key on the computer and entered the details into the notes.
Nancy, the vet technician, handed over an information leaflet and showed Angela out.
She was back moments later.
“I overheard that last part of the conversation. Were you really not tempted to stay even for a moment? I have to admit if I had the choice between New York City and here, I’d take Manhattan.” She struck a pose and broke into song, grabbing a syringe from the box to use as a microphone.
Seth rolled his eyes. “It’s not enough that I have to suffer the inquisition from the patients. Now I have to suffer it from the staff, too?”
Nancy stopped singing and put the syringe back. “It’s just that when you leave, I leave, so I need some notice.”
“I’m moving into my new house in the next week or so, and I don’t plan on leaving it anytime soon.” He closed the file. “Was Angela our last patient for the morning?”
“Smoke the kitten was back in, but you were tied up so Tanya dealt with him. She said to tell you to go to lunch. She has everything in hand.”
Tanya, the other vet and his partner in the practice, was a wonder. “Good. I’ll be on my cell if you need me.”
“Hot date, Dr. Carlyle?”
“Not exactly.”
But he was working on it.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_dfce31ad-9853-51a4-99c1-8699232ae3a1)
“CAN YOU BELIEVE he actually showed up at the hospital?” Standing in the garden of her grandmother’s cottage, Fliss updated her sister on the phone. “I mean, I came here to avoid him, and I’m seeing more of him than I did in Manhattan.”
“I think it’s adorable.”
“It’s not adorable! It added another layer to my totally craptastic day.” Fliss rubbed her fingers across her forehead. “All right, maybe it was kind of him, but it was also inconvenient.”
“Why?”
“I’d already told him I was you, and then there was Grams coming toward us in the wheelchair and—”
“No! You let Grams think you were me? Fliss, you promised!”
“And at the time I meant it! But then Seth showed up right at the wrong moment and I was trapped. This is what I mean. Not at all adorable.” The phone crackled and Fliss paced to the top of a sand dune, trying to get a better signal. Her toes sank into the soft sand, and long grass tickled her ankles. She wondered what it was about this place that nudged her toward the impulsive.
“If you’d told him the truth when you bumped into him, you wouldn’t have been trapped.”
“I know. And I didn’t intend to lie to him, but my mouth took over and said I was you before I could stop it and now the whole thing is getting out of control. Are you mad at me?”
“No, but I’m not good with all this deception. I wish things weren’t so complicated.”
“Me, too.”
“Are you sure Seth didn’t recognize you?”
“Positive. He hasn’t seen me in ten years. I guess that worked in my favor.” And while part of her was relieved about that, another part was a little hurt, which made no sense at all. She’d known him without even turning her head to look at him. How could he not know her? “Having told him I was you, I didn’t have any choice but to keep pretending I was you. It’s just for a couple of weeks. What can possibly go wrong?”
“A million things! Fliss, if you keep pretending you’re me, this thing is going to snowball.”
“Are you kidding? It’s sweltering here. No snowballs in sight.” Her attempt at a joke fell flat. “Maybe you can come for a visit in a week or so and we can swap identities and Grams will never know.”
“She’s going to know. For a start we don’t dress the same way.”
“I’m dressing the way you’d dress if you were at the beach.” She stared down at her flip-flops. “I’m wearing shorts and a tank top.”
“I’m more likely to wear a sundress.”
“I’m not wearing a dress. And I’ve seen you wear shorts.”
“Are you keeping your shoes on?”
“Most of the time.”
Harriet sighed. “Maybe you’ve fooled Seth, but do you really think Grams can’t tell the difference between us?”
“She was expecting you. People tend to see the person they expect to see.”
“You have to tell her.”
Fliss rolled her eyes to the sky. Yet another problem to solve. Usually life sent the boulders, but in her case she seemed to manage to throw them into her own path. “I will. Soon.”
“How is she? I’m worried about her.”
“Well, apart from the fact I almost died of shock when I saw her because ‘a few bruises’ turned out to be a massive bruise that covered pretty much the whole of her body, she seems remarkably like herself.”
“And they’re sure nothing was broken?”
“So they said. We’re using ice on the bad parts.”
“Which are the bad parts?”
“Actually, they’re all bad. It’s finding some body that isn’t bruised that’s the challenge. And talking of which, I should go and help her. We’re doing it every few hours to reduce the bruising and swelling.”
“You won’t be coming home soon, then?”
“No.” And now she was trapped here with Seth. The irony didn’t escape her. “Poor Grams.”
“Yes. Tell her the truth, Fliss. She’ll understand that it feels awkward with Seth.”
Would she? How could her grandmother understand something she didn’t understand herself? It shouldn’t be awkward, should it? Not after ten years.
Brooding on it, she ended the call and wandered back into the house. She removed ice packs from the freezer and then lifted a jug of iced tea from the fridge and took it to her grandmother, who was resting in the living room.
Sunlight spilled through the large windows, illuminating the soft, overstuffed sofas that faced each other across the room. The pale blue fabric was worn in places, but they were soft and comfortable—built for snuggling. Her grandmother had believed in the importance of reading time, and Fliss had spent many hours curled up with a book. She’d pretended she’d rather be outdoors on the beach, but secretly she’d enjoyed the quiet family time that was absent at home. Harriet had preferred Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer, but Fliss had veered toward adventure stories. Moby Dick. The Last of the Mohicans.
“Grams?” She paused in the doorway, and her grandmother turned her head, a smile on her face.
Fliss felt a stab of shock. “The bruising on your face is bad. Is it worse?”
“Just changing color.” She held out her hand for the tea. “Don’t fuss.”
“I don’t fuss.” And then she remembered that if she was Harriet, she’d be fussing. “Poor you. Let me help you ice it.”
She put a thin cloth between the ice pack and her grandmother’s skin as the doctor had demonstrated. “I’ve never seen bruising like this.”
“It will fade.”
“Maybe you should stay out of the garden from now on.”
“Nonsense. I was looking out of the window a moment ago, worrying about what’s happening to my plants while I’m trapped here immobile.”
“If you tell me which plants, I can do whatever needs to be done.” Fliss poured tea into a glass.
“You’re a good girl.”
Fliss felt like a fraud. She wasn’t a good girl. She was a liar and a fraud.
She had a sudden urge to blurt out everything to her grandmother, but she couldn’t face seeing disappointment on her face. Or finding ways to dodge the inevitable questions about Seth.
“Anything you need,” she murmured, and wandered back into the kitchen to throw together a salad for supper. As long as she didn’t actually have to cook anything, she could keep this up for a while. Even she couldn’t burn salad.
She was chopping tomatoes, focused on trying to make each piece as neat and uniform as Harriet would, when there was a knock on the door.
Her heart sank. She hadn’t factored in visitors. This deception was spreading before her eyes, like a drop of ink spilled into water.
She tipped the tomatoes in with the lettuce and hoped whoever it was would go away.
“Harriet?” Her grandmother’s voice came from the living room, and she bowed to the inevitable.
“I’ll get it.”
Hopefully it would be one of the neighbors with a casserole. At least then she’d only have to reheat. She was a champion reheater. And accepting a casserole could happen without worry about anyone suspecting her identity.
She opened the door, replacing her “why are you bothering me?” look with what she hoped was a reasonable imitation of Harriet’s wide, welcoming smile.
The smile died on the spot.
It was Seth, standing shoulder to shoulder with another man she’d met only once before in her life. At her wedding.
Chase Adams.
Holy crap, she was totally and utterly screwed.
It didn’t help that Seth leaned his arm against the doorjamb, all muscle and male hotness.
“Hi, Harriet, we just wanted to drop by and say that if you need any help, all you have to do is ask. You already know Chase, of course. He has a whole team of people who can fix anything that needs fixing in the house.”
“We haven’t met in person, but my wife, Matilda, talks about you a lot.” Chase shook her hand. “It’s good to finally meet you, Harriet. I’m sorry for your grandmother, but her misfortune is my fortune because it brought you here and I need a favor.”
A favor?
Right now she wasn’t in the mood for favors.
She just couldn’t seem to catch a break.
“Good to meet you, too.” More lies, all piling one on top of the other. She wondered how long it would take for the weight of them to topple the pile. With luck, they’d knock her unconscious when they fell. “How can I help you?”
“You know Matilda is due in four weeks, and you also know Hero is a bit of a handful. As you’re going to be walking your grandmother’s dog, I wondered if you’d mind walking Hero, too, while you’re here. You can drop in and see Matilda at the same time. I know she’d be thrilled to see you. She hasn’t had a chance to meet that many people here, so she’d be pleased to see a friend, and you already walk Hero back in Manhattan, so you know all his little quirks.”
Fliss stared at him.
She didn’t know any of that.
All she knew was that she was doomed.
“Sure,” she croaked. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
Except perhaps sticking her head in a bucket of freezing water and inhaling.
* * *
SETH STROLLED TO the car. “Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome.” Chase paused by the car. “Matilda talks about Harriet all the time. The two of them have become friendly.”
“And that’s a problem because…?”
“It’s not a problem. It’s just that—” he turned to look at the house, a frown on his face “—Harriet didn’t seem too enthusiastic at the idea of meeting up with Matilda.”
Seth unlocked the car. “That’s because that wasn’t Harriet. That was Fliss.”
“Excuse me?”
“You were talking to Fliss.”
“So why did she say she was Harriet?”
“Because that’s what she wants me to think.”
“But—wait a minute. You’re saying she’s pretending to be her twin?” Chase stared at him, bemused. “Why? What possible reason could she have for doing that?”
“Me. I’m the reason. She’s avoiding me.”
“Avoiding—?” Chase shook his head. “But you’re here anyway.”
“Let me put this another way—she’s avoiding having to have a conversation with me as herself.”
“I’ve deciphered tax returns less complicated than this. You were married! Why would she think she can fool you?”
“We haven’t seen each other in ten years. She probably thought I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. That I wouldn’t know.”
But he knew. He knew her. Every detail.
“How long did it take you to work it out?”
“About ninety seconds. I mentioned cookies, and she panicked.” It had been fleeting, but he’d seen it. It had been enough to convince him that he was looking at Fliss.
“She has a phobia about cookies?”
“No, but she is a terrible cook. They had to call the fire department after one of her attempts.”
His friend grinned. “Does her grandmother realize?”
“I would imagine so. She’s a pretty smart woman.”
“So are you going to tell Fliss you know?”
“No. I’m going to let her carry on being ‘Harriet’ until she decides to tell me the truth.”
“Why?”
Lulu rolled onto her back hopefully, and Seth crouched down to rub her belly. “First, because if we keep up the pretense then she has no reason to avoid me.”
“None of this makes sense. If she was avoiding you, why would she be here in the first place?”
“She knew I was in Manhattan and didn’t realize it was temporary. She came here to reduce the chances of running into me.” And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? It was good that she was unsettled enough by his presence to go to those lengths. Not so good that she was so afraid of facing him she was prepared to conceal her identity.
Chase unlocked the car. “You have one hell of an effect on women, Carlyle. Next you’ll be telling me she pushed Grandma down the stairs to give herself a reason to come here.”
Seth laughed. “No, but I suspect she grabbed that excuse like a drowning man might grab a life preserver.”
“So if Grandma is the life preserver, what does that make you? The big bad crocodile waiting in the water to eat her alive?” Chase paused by the car. “And tell me what the ‘second’ is.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/sarah-morgan/holiday-in-the-hamptons/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.