12. Twelve
Twelve
Henry
I gave myself a moment to miss them both, Gram and Nan, but tonight wasn’t about what I'd lost. Juliet needed someone in her corner, and now that we were on speaking terms, why shouldn’t it be me? Hopefully finding her and bringing her home safely would win me some points on the redemption scale.
Some distant part of my brain chanted finder’s keepers , like she was a treasure I’d stumbled upon in the woods, but I tried not to dwell on that thought.
My eyes locked on Juliet’s face. “You really do look like her, you know.”
“So I’ve been told,” she replied.
I forced my gaze away as we entered the cottage, moving slowly until she was able to flip on one of the lamps near the door. When I saw the sea of boxes on the living room floor, I gave a startled laugh. Nan had been something of a neat freak; I could just imagine her opinion of this chaos.
“What is all this?”
“Most of what Nan had in storage upstairs,” she told me, watching my face for a reaction. “I thought maybe I could find some details about why my mother left town . . . or why she lied about us having no other family, or who my father was. You don’t happen to know any of those answers, do you?”
I looked skeptically at the spread. “I’m afraid not. I can’t remember ever hearing any speculation, really, but most people knew better than to gossip about Nan’s family. Do you think Nan even knew who your father was?”
“Maybe not,” she admitted. “My mom must have been only a couple months pregnant when she left. I just thought maybe somewhere, there might be some clue about it. I guess I was hoping to get lucky while going through this stuff. I didn’t even know Nan existed until it was too late. What if I have other family out there that I don’t know about?”
It might have just been exhaustion, but I could hear her voice rising in pitch and watched as she bit back any further outbursts. I saw the conflict in her cornflower eyes and guided her to the cozy recliner that had been shoved into a corner of the room.
“Easy,” I said, my voice and hands gentle despite the teasing words. “That’s a battle for another day. For right now, you just need to relax. I’m going to run back out and get the pizza.”
She nodded, closing her eyes while I fetched our dinner. When she moved to get up from the chair upon my return, I stopped her before she could rise.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned as I pulled dishes from the kitchen cupboards.
Thankfully, I was familiar with the cottage, because she was in no shape to assist. I handed her a plate of food and a water bottle from the fridge, then grabbed my own and plopped down on the sofa. We ate in silence, then I put the remainder in the fridge and went to rummage through a closet in the downstairs hallway.
Juliet frowned in confusion when I returned with a pile of neatly folded blankets and a spare pillow.
“I didn’t even realize that stuff was in there. I feel like a moron, not knowing my way around a cottage this small,” she said glumly.
“I’d be happy to give you a tour tomorrow,” I joked, tossing the bedding onto the couch. When she narrowed her eyes at me, I grinned and added, “Look, it’s a good thing for both of us that I’m familiar with the place. Libby would annihilate me if she heard that I expected an injured woman to wait on me.”
Juliet gave a reluctant smile. Now that her skin was no longer streaked with blood, I was able to appreciate that expression more fully. I sat down beside the blankets and stretched my legs out in front of me.
“I guess that’s true. Just feels a little weird,” she admitted. “This whole move has been kind of surreal.”
“Where did you live before?”
A few hours ago, I hadn’t had any interest in knowing more about this woman, but now I was invested, eager to learn all I could. She’d clearly inherited more than just Nan’s red hair and heartstopping blue eyes. It took a damned lot of strength to get up after the kind of spill she’d taken, then walk for miles in an unfamiliar forest, all alone.
A swift wave of relief that I’d been the one to find her filled me as I waited for her response.
“Just outside of Minneapolis.”
I didn’t think I was imagining the flash of homesickness in her eyes. “Do you have any family out there?”
Juliet was silent so long that I opened my mouth to apologize for the question, but she waved it off before I could speak.
“My mom died six months ago. Pancreatic cancer. It was just me and her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said gently.
That loneliness I'd sensed earlier was written clearly across her freckled face. I wanted to say more, to offer some degree of comfort, but I couldn’t find the words—and I still wasn’t sure she’d even want them from me at this point.
Juliet apparently decided to seize the opportunity to learn something about me in return.
“What about your family? Aside from Gerard, obviously. You mentioned that you have a brother, does he live around here? What about your parents?”
“My brother Aaron is a nurse at Libby’s clinic. He married his college sweetheart and moved to Oakville, just down the road. My parents bought an RV when they retired and are currently working their way across the country,” I said with a grin.
My family was close, sometimes annoyingly so, but I loved them fiercely. Juliet didn’t hesitate to smile back this time.
“My best friend, Sarah, is backpacking through Europe with her husband at the moment. She makes me feel like a homebody.”
“You, a homebody? You just moved halfway across the country with a single week’s notice, Red. That strikes me as pretty adventurous.”
The comment caused a faint blush to rise in her cheeks, or maybe it was the nickname. Either way, I liked it. Maybe a little too much for my own good.
“Maybe. So . . . you’ve been married?”
“I wondered when you’d get around to that.” I smiled at her expression, alight with curiosity. “Yes, Libby and I got married very young, realized we both had very different aspirations in life, and got divorced less than a year later. It was all very amicable. She married the love of her life a few years back, who happens to be one of our best friends, and now it’s her life goal to find me someone to settle down with.”
Juliet laughed. “Sounds like Sarah. I think wondering what’s happening here is probably driving her up the wall right now. I’m positive it’s making her poor husband crazy, having to deal with her worrying about me. They spent years planning this trip and saving up so they could spend as much time as they want over there, and here I am, distracting them from it all.”
“At least you’ll be keeping her entertained with your adventures,” I teased.
Juliet threw a balled up napkin in my direction, but it fell short of actually hitting me. I laughed and laced my hands behind my head, watching Juliet’s gaze drift to my chest. When I glanced down, I noticed that my shirt had stretched tight across my pecs, and I bit back a grin.
Even in her disheveled state, she was beautiful in a way that tempted me to hold onto her and never let go. I hadn’t hesitated for even a second before volunteering to spend the night watching over her, though I fully anticipated the experience might be torturous for us both—for her, because she was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of me staying at the cottage, and for me, because she was in no condition for me to act on any of the less-than-chivalrous images I’d entertained while Libby patched her up.
Instead, I cocked a brow. “What about you? Did you leave a boyfriend back home, pining after you?”
“No,” she said, grimacing. “My ex and I broke up when he proposed to me in my mother’s hospital room, three days before she died.”
“You have got to be shitting me.”
“Nope. I managed to avoid him asking me to move in with him by moving back to my mom’s house when she got sick, and I guess I thought that would slow things down. We barely saw each other during those months. I, uh, didn’t handle the proposal scene very well.”
“Who would? What a jackass.”
With a glum nod, she shrugged and kept her gaze on her lap. “What’s done is done, and that’s very done after how I responded.”
I wanted to ask for details, to get a clear picture of this fiery woman knocking her asshole ex down a peg, but we weren’t there yet. Maybe someday. Instead, I turned the conversation back to safer subjects.
“Do you like it here? Spruce Hill, I mean?”
She finally forced her eyes back to my face. I grinned at her obvious reluctance, but then she wrinkled her nose and I was distracted by how adorable I found that particular expression.
“Well, the local hillsides are quite memorable.” She smirked when I laughed. “But yes, I like the area. The town, the lake. It’s beautiful here. I just feel like a total outsider, you know? Like I plunged into taking on this whole life involved with the inn and this house and I don’t know anything about any of it.”
“It’s a lot to deal with,” I said gently.
“My mom didn’t even tell me. Not once in my entire life. All of this history, and she left me a note to find after she died.”
No turning back now—apparently we were venturing into deeper topics. Later, maybe she’d blame the painkillers or exhaustion for oversharing and letting me in, but at this exact moment, I couldn’t deny the simple feeling of connection running like an invisible thread between us.
I wanted that connection, wanted to earn her trust, especially after I’d bungled so badly before, so I nodded sympathetically.
“Mrs. Gregson mentioned that after you called. What did it say?”
“That I needed to protect myself, that the choices she made were a matter of life and death, and that the owner of the inn would explain it all. It’s here somewhere but I can’t find the damn thing. The last thing she wrote to me, and I lost it.”
Her voice wavered and I shook my head, hoping she wouldn’t burst into tears. “Hey, we’ll find it. Look at all this stuff—it’s like a needle in a haystack right now, but it’s gotta be somewhere. I’ll help you.”
After a shaky breath, she nodded. “Thank you. These boxes seemed less overwhelming than owning an inn at first, but now I feel like I’m drowning.”
“I’ll help,” I reiterated firmly, waiting until she cracked a tiny smile before I continued. “And if Nan left it all to you . . . well, she was the shrewdest person I’ve ever met. She must have known what she was doing.”
Juliet studied me, her eyebrows drawn together in consternation. “That sounded suspiciously like a compliment.”
“It might have been. Don’t tell anybody, though.”
“What was she like?”
My lips tugged into a smile as I looked toward the photos on the mantle.
“Feisty,” I said, cocking my head. “Smart. Canny, I think, is the word my grandfather used to use. She could be sweet as pie one minute and rip you a new one the next, without ever losing that twinkle in her eye. She knew practically everything about everyone in town, but she refused to gossip.”
“I’ve been getting that impression. The commentary in her journals is hilarious,” she said softly.
“I don’t know if she had any kind of formal education after high school, but she knew everything there was to know about running that inn. She did almost everything entirely on her own for a long time, Gramps told me, until she finally hired the folks who work there now, most of them before I was even born. She was loyal and headstrong, tough as nails. She would have loved you, Juliet.”
A visible tremor of emotion rocked her and she blinked back tears that turned her eyes a brilliant turquoise. For a moment, she avoided meeting my eyes, but I didn’t take it personally, not when I could see she was struggling to control her reaction. When her gaze landed on the photos on the mantle, it seemed to steady her, so I ventured to speak.
“I know I apologized already, but I really am sorry about how I treated you at the beginning,” I said quietly. “And if avoiding me is what kept you away from the inn, then I’m doubly sorry. I had no right to criticize you. I can’t imagine how hard it was to lose your mother and leave everything you’ve ever known to come out here.”
“I’m sorry too. Everything was just a bit overwhelming, and everyone else was so damn nice,” she said, leaning her head against the chair back.
She swallowed hard and risked a glance in my direction, catching me grinning at her disdain over the word before she went on.
“I needed something to pour my energy into and you certainly gave me that.”
“Well, I’m glad I could help, then. If there was any doubt you were Nan’s flesh and blood, it evaporated that morning. You’re every bit as feisty as she ever was.”
At that, Juliet couldn’t hold back a smile. “You think so?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Looking like someone you’ve never met isn’t much of a connection, even if it finally explained the origin of my hair color.”
“Possessing the same inner fire, though, that seems like something to cling to. Something to be proud of,” I ventured. “You’re exactly what she would have wanted in a granddaughter, Juliet.”
From the radiant expression that dawned on her face, it was exactly what she needed to hear.