“You’re starting to freak me out. Stop looking at me like that.” She stepped back, hands raised. “I’m bad news, Seth.” With that, she turned and strode back along the beach toward the house.
I’m bad news.
He wondered who had told her that. Her father or his sister? Had Vanessa in her tactless, interfering way somehow scraped against feelings that were already raw?
He caught up with her by the car.
“If you’re bad news, then you’re my type of bad news.” He braced his arm against the door so that she couldn’t escape until he moved. “I have the afternoon off tomorrow. I’ll pick you up. We’ll take a picnic.”
“That’s ridiculous. I—”
“Does two o’clock work for you? I should be done by then. The wind and tide will be perfect.”
“It doesn’t matter! I’m not going to—”
“Dress casual. You know the score.”
“Dammit, Seth! We can’t just—this is ridiculous—” Her voice came to a stuttering halt. “Grams is having friends over for lunch.”
“So she doesn’t need you there.”
“I promised to walk Charlie.”
“I have a clinic in the morning, so you’ll have time to do that before I arrive.” He held out his hand. “Give me your phone—”
She sighed and then handed it over.
He entered his details into her contacts. “Text when you’ve finished doing whatever you need to do for your grandmother. I’ll work on the house until I hear from you.”
“If I did come, and I probably won’t because I’m going to be busy, where would we go?”
“Sailing in Gardiner’s Bay, the way we always used to.”
And she would come, he was sure of it. Fliss loved the water too much to say no. The first time he’d taken her and her sister out on a boat was the only time he’d seen Fliss speechless.
She’d stood in the bow, her hair streaming out like a pennant, legs braced against the roll of the boat.
A repeat of that, he hoped, would be enough to tempt her.
Without giving her more time to conjure up more excuses, he whistled for Lulu and strolled back toward the house.
Generally he wasn’t given to keeping score, but if he did he definitely would have won that round.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ROSE FELICITY ADAMS lay asleep in Matilda’s arms. Hero lay across the doorway, his head resting on his paws.
“He won’t let us out of his sight,” Matilda said. “Chase is worried I’m going to trip over him.”
Fliss hovered at the edge of the room watching her friend. She’d never seen anyone so content. It was hard to believe the drama of a few nights before had ever happened. True, she looked tired, but there was a light in her eyes, and a smile of pure happiness hovered around her mouth. Fliss wished she could feel half as relaxed. Instead she felt restless and unsettled.
And it wasn’t seeing the baby. For some reason she didn’t entirely understand, the raw feelings of loss and grief that had poured out of her that night of the birth hadn’t returned. Somehow they’d diminished, the sharp edges worn away by the tide of her emotion. Emotional erosion.
No, it wasn’t baby Rose who was the cause of her current feelings.
It was Seth.
I want to discover what we have now.