Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
When Erin had bad ideas, apparently they happened in threes.
Shoving the charred foil packet of potatoes away from the flames on the grill, she cursed herself for all three of those ideas.
First, for deciding to start something with a guy who had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
Second, for confiding to Bethany and Nina that she was going to act on that decision.
And third, for inviting him to this dumb dinner.
She’d asked him in a fit of optimism, thinking they could enjoy each other’s company while forgetting their pasts.
But while she was just trying to scrub the memory of a loser who had lied to her, Remy was still grappling with the traumatic loss of his wife. A loss he unreasonably blamed himself for.
How the hell had she ever thought sex and steak could fix that?
Burned potatoes sure wouldn’t.
By the time her doorbell rang—the classic chime echoing through her sparsely furnished house and bouncing off the ceramic tile floors all the way to the back patio—she was close to tears.
She had not shed a single tear for her loser ex-boyfriend since the day she’d found out he was married, and here she was sniffling hard.
Erin slammed the grill shut and turned off the heat.
Marching through the house, she flung open the front door. Only to find Remy on her porch looking as lost and miserable as she felt.
To his credit, he held a bakery box in one hand and a bag from the liquor store in the other.
His hazel gaze flicked over her, taking in her vintage pink sundress and skinny white patent leather belt paired with gray argyle tennis shoes.
As she stared right back, she couldn’t help but think how they were a mismatch on so many levels.
Remy was classically handsome in dark jeans and a white tee with a camel-colored linen jacket.
His dark hair was neatly combed, the ends curling at his collar, still damp. Her heartbeat jumped at the thought of him showering for this…for her. And that, right there, was why she’d been so pushy with him. She was crushing on him like a teenager no matter how much she wanted to deny it.
“Hi.” He awkwardly held up the goods. “I may have overbought since I was hungry and everything looked good.”
“You show grace under pressure when I practically twisted your arm into dinner.” She took the bag and the box. “Come on in and let me apologize for being so bossy. It’s a bad habit of mine.”
“No apology necessary.” He followed her through the living area where white leather couches and bright blue glass lamps made the room look like a Wedgwood dish. A rattan coffee table and accent furniture kept it from being too fussy looking. “Nice place you have.”
“Thank you.” She took a left into the kitchen. “I like decorating and I find plenty of cool stuff when I go on buying trips for the store. It’s a constant battle not to cram the house full of things I think are neat.”
She felt nervous and tempted to call off the whole thing. Send him back to the B and B. But after he’d showered, shopped and shown up she also didn’t want to be rude.
“Erin—”
“Remy—” She started at the same time so they talked on top of each other. “You go first.”
“I just wanted to thank you for inviting me over.” He took her hand to turn her toward him.
Then he let it go quickly, almost as if he wanted to make sure not to touch her.
“I know I may not be the best company, but it was a good idea to have a place to go while Sarah is out. You were right about that.”
Relieved she’d had good instincts about something, she relaxed a little, though her hand still tingled warm where he’d touched her.
“You may rescind those words once you see how badly I burned the potatoes.” She set the wine on the wooden kitchen island and searched for a corkscrew. “I’ve been nervous all day, feeling like I twisted your arm into coming here.”
“You didn’t.”
“Kind of I did.” She passed the corkscrew to him to let him open the Chianti, then pulled down some glasses from an overhead cabinet. “My brother calls it Type B Bossiness because I tend to wear people down quietly.”
He slid the cork free and poured two glasses, his head a hairbreadth from the pans that hung over the countertop. “I can see that. You don’t have the traditional entrepreneur’s mind-set.”
“I work as hard as anyone else.” She tipped her chin, defying him to say otherwise.
“That’s easy to see.” He leaned back on the counter and folded his arms, an amused smile on his lips.
“But most of the shop owners I meet for this show are idea people. They have a big vision, but not always the day-to-day organization to make the dream work. You have both. Or at least, you have the follow-through.”
“I can’t afford to fail.” She pointed at the glasses. “If you carry those outside, I’ll start the steaks.”
They moved to the back deck, where the sun was already casting a purple glow. In the distance, she could see the converted barn where Mack and Nina had an apartment, but the lights were off and Erin guessed Nina must be staying at her grandmother’s for the weekend.
“Everyone fails sometimes,” Remy pointed out, his eye roaming the “pasha’s palace” furnishings. “Want me to light the lamps?”
He picked up the igniter she kept near the hurricane lamp on one end table.
“Sure.” She turned up the grill’s heat to sear the meat, keeping half an eye on Remy as he moved to each of the purple glass shades to burn a candle inside the hanging fixtures.
The fading sun caught a mix of gold and brown in the scruff of hair around his jaw as he concentrated on his task.
She hadn’t lit the candles earlier, fearing the atmosphere would look too romantic—as if she was expecting more from the night than just dinner.
Seeing the space lit up now seemed to turn up the heat on the night. Or was that just on her part?
He turned just in time to catch her staring. More warmth rushed to her cheeks.
“I need to time these,” she blurted. “Do you have a watch?”
“Yours not working?” He set the igniter down and strode closer.
Of course she was wearing a watch herself. She was just way too nervous.
“You wouldn’t need to ask that if you saw what happened to the potatoes.” She pointed to the two sad packets of foil charred to a crisp that she’d left on an upper shelf of the grill. “Can you tell me when two minutes are up?”
“Done.” He kept her company while she waited for the sear to finish. “Until then, how about a toast?” He passed her one glass of wine and picked up the other.
“To Type B Bossiness.” His gaze locked on hers and her heart rate cranked up speed. Thankfully, he turned away before she made an idiot of herself and swooned on him. “And springtime in Heartache.”
Seizing the chance to focus on something besides him, she lifted her glass and admired the flowering dogwood trees and rogue honeysuckle patches that climbed up the potting shed in the backyard.
“Hope springs eternal. Cheers.”
When she faced him and clinked her glass to his, she noticed his expression had changed. His face was totally blank. Skin pale. Eyes focused somewhere else entirely.
She put a hand on his arm. “Remy? You okay?”
He set his glass down unsteadily, a little Chianti splashing over the rim, but he didn’t notice.
“Sorry.” His voice was hoarse as he lowered himself to a seat. “It’s been two years. Two. Years. And stuff still grabs me by the throat sometimes and takes me right back there…”
He shook his head. Shoved a weary hand through his hair.
“People grieve at their own pace.” She switched off the grill and sat next to him. “It takes time.”
She hated to spout lame platitudes, which he had probably heard too often, but she didn’t know what more to do.
She’d caught hints of the old pain in his eyes when she had first met him—before she’d known about his wife.
And now, understanding where it came from, she felt even more helpless to do anything about it.
It was foolish for thinking anything could happen between them tonight. Remy wasn’t anywhere near ready for a rebound fling. It sure put what she’d gone through with Patrick into perspective.
“You want to talk about it?” She debated the wisdom of taking his hand for about a nanosecond. Then, acting on basic human kindness, she took it and squeezed. “I don’t claim to have any answers, but Type Bs make really great listeners.”
He stared at the open fields beyond the lawn.
“You remember, when we made the toast, you said ‘hope springs eternal’? Liv had the words stenciled in her studio above the windows that looked out on her gardens. I helped paint it. In fact, it was one of the few things she didn’t paint by hand in there.
” He shrugged. “She was a talented artist. But even I can handle filling in a stencil.”
“It sounds beautiful.”
“It was.” His voice went rough again. His eyes focused on some point she couldn’t see.
“So beautiful, in fact, that she told Sarah’s biological father all about it in a letter one of the many times she wrote to that bastard, trying to get Brandon to acknowledge their daughter.
” His gaze returned to Erin again. “I told you he’s been in jail since before I met Liv?
He’s some kind of computer genius who, as Liv said, never ‘lived up to his potential.’”
“Liv sounds like an amazing person.”
“Yeah. But some days, it’s hard to forgive her for talking to the waste-of-space felon.
He’s the reason she’s dead. He told his cell mate all about our house.
” Remy squeezed her hand hard. Not in a bad way.
But she wondered if he realized it. Her heart hurt for him.
“The cell mate targeted our home for a robbery after he got out of prison two months later. He shot her in the studio where she was working. I kept that place until the trial was done and knew he was in jail for life. Then I burned the studio to the ground before I sold the main house.”