Forever and For Always

Daniel just shrugged. “Nothing wrong with an Agatha now and again. She’s a great storyteller.”

“But aren’t her books for middle-aged women?”

“Why don’t you read one and tell me?” he said cheekily.

Emily smacked him with a pillow. “How dare you. Thirty-five is hardly middle-aged!”

They laughed as Daniel wrestled Emily down onto the couch. He tickled her mercilessly, making her squeal and pummel his back with closed fists. Then they both fell, exhausted from the play-fight, into a tangle of limbs. Emily’s giggles died down. She panted, catching her breath, her arms wrapped around Daniel, twining her fingers through his hair. Their silly moods faded away, becoming more serious.

Daniel pulled back so he could see her face. “You’re beautiful, you know,” he said. “I’m not sure whether I tell you that enough.”

Emily could tell the subtext of what he was saying. He was referring to earlier, to his not having told her that he loved her too. He was trying to make up for it now by showering her with compliments. It wasn’t really the same thing, but she was happy to hear it nonetheless.

“Thank you,” she murmured. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Daniel smirked, smiling the crooked smile that Emily loved so much.

“I’m so glad I met you,” he went on. “My life now compared to where it was before you, it’s almost incomprehensible. You’ve flipped everything on its head.”

“In a good way, I hope,” Emily said.

“In the best way,” Daniel assured her.

Emily felt her cheeks turning rosy. As much as she enjoyed hearing Daniel speak these words, she was still shy, still a little bit unsure as to where she stood with him, and unsure of how close she should really let herself get considering how up in the air everything was with the B&B.

Daniel seemed to be struggling to say the next words. Emily watched him patiently, her gaze encouraging.

“If you went away, I don’t know what I’d do,” Daniel said. “Actually, I do. I’d drive to New York to be with you again.” He took her hand. “What I’m saying is stay with me. Okay? Wherever that place may be, make it be with me.”

Daniel’s words touched Emily deeply. There was such sincerity to them, such tenderness. It wasn’t love that he was communicating but something else, something similar or at least as significant. It was a desire to be with her no matter what happened with the B&B. He was banishing the ticking clock, saying he didn’t care whether she didn’t make it work by the Fourth of July, that he would be there with her still.

“I will,” Emily said, gazing up at him adoringly. “We can stay together. No matter what.”

Daniel leaned down and kissed Emily deeply. She felt her body grow warm in response to him, and the heat between them intensified. Then Daniel stood and extended a hand to her. She bit her lip and took his hand, following him in eager anticipation as he led her to the bedroom.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The date had been exactly what both Emily and Daniel needed. Sometimes they both became so weighed down by all the work at the B&B that it was easy to let such things slide. So it was no surprise when they both slept through their 8 a.m. alarm clocks. Emily in particular had some much needed sleep to catch up on.

When they did both finally wake – at what now felt like an absurdly late hour of 9 a.m. – they decided it would be best to enjoy some more time in bed, since they’d had such a good time between the sheets the night before.

They finally got up at around ten, but even then they enjoyed a long, lazy breakfast before finally admitting that they ought to head back to the main house to continue working on the new rooms.

“Hey, look,” Daniel said as he closed the carriage house door and locked it behind them. “There’s a car in the drive.”

“Another guest?” Emily questioned.

They began to stroll together, hand in hand, up the gravel path. Emily glanced up at the house, where she could see a woman with glossy black hair standing on the porch, several bags beside her, ringing the bell over and over.

“I think you’re right,” Daniel said.

Emily gasped, suddenly realizing who it was standing there.

“Oh no, I forgot about Jayne!” she cried. She checked her watch. Eleven. Jayne had said she’d be arriving at ten. She hoped her poor friend hadn’t been standing there a whole hour ringing the bell.

“Jayne!” she called, racing up the gravel path. “I’m so sorry! I’m here!”

Jayne spun at the sound of her name. “Em!” she cried, waving. When she noticed Daniel pacing toward them just a few steps behind, her eyebrows shot up, as if to say, “Who is this guy?”

Emily reached her and the two women embraced.

“Have you been standing here for an hour?” Emily asked, concerned.

“Oh, come off it, Emily. How well do you know me? Of course I didn’t get here on time. I was about forty-five minutes late!”

“Still,” Emily said, apologetically. “Fifteen minutes is quite a long time to stand on someone’s porch.

Jayne stomped the decking with the heel of her boot. “Sturdy, solid porch. It did a good job.”

Emily laughed. Just then, Daniel reached them.

“Jayne, this is Daniel,” Emily said hurriedly, knowing she had no choice now but to introduce him.

Daniel courteously shook Jayne’s hand, even while she eyed him like a piece of meat.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Emily’s told me all about you.”

“She has?” Jayne said, her eyebrows rising up her forehead. “Because she’s told me nothing about you. You’re a well-kept secret, Daniel.”

Emily couldn’t help but blush. Jayne wasn’t one for subtleties, or keeping her mouth closed when she really ought to. Emily just hoped that Daniel didn’t search for meaning in her words and come up with conclusions that really weren’t true.

“Want me to help carry your bag?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” Jayne replied.

The second Daniel bent over to pick up her bags she craned her head to check out his backside. She caught Emily’s eye and nodded her approval. Emily cringed.

“Let me take those,” Emily said quickly, nudging Daniel out the way and grabbing the bags. “Wow, Jayne, these things are heavy! What did you pack?”

“Oh, you know,” Jayne said. “Two outfits a day – daywear and nightwear – plus an extra something for a formal evening, just in case. Lingerie, of course. Facemasks and moisturizers, makeup bag and brushes, nail polish, hair straighteners, curling tongs – ”

“Did you really need to bring straighteners and curlers?” Emily queried, lugging the bags over the threshold and into the corridor.

“ —and crimping irons,” Jayne added. “You never know what mood might strike.” She grinned wickedly at Emily.

“Emily,” Daniel said, “you seem to be struggling. Why don’t you let me take those up to Jayne’s room?”

“Thanks Daniel,” Emily said, making sure she was strategically blocking Jayne’s view of Daniel’s butt as he bent over. “Why don’t you put those in Room One please?”

The original guest room, Room One, was affectionately nicknamed Mr. Kapowski’s room by Daniel and Emily, but right now Emily didn’t feel like delving into that particular story. She knew she sounded weirdly rigid and formal asking him to put the bags in Room One, but at this point in time she didn’t care; her sole focus was getting Daniel safely away from Jayne as quickly as possible, preferably without her ogling his ass as he climbed the stairs. The farthest room in the house seemed to be a good distance.

Emily turned to Jayne. “Let me give you the tour.” She steered her friend into the living room.

“Oh my God!” Jayne squealed before the door had even closed behind them. “Is that the new man in your life? Tell me it isn’t so! Really? How did you keep it so quiet? Why aren’t you calling up everyone you’ve ever met, including your kindergarten teacher and the postman, to tell them you’re dating a hot lumberjack?”

Jayne spoke incredibly quickly, and loudly, in a way that could give someone a headache after five minutes in her company.

“He’s not a lumberjack,” Emily whispered, feeling embarrassed. How had she forgotten how brash Jayne could be? What on earth made her think it was a good idea to invite her oldest friend to the B&B when doing so would mean her relationship was scrutinized? She didn’t want her to scare Daniel off; she’d already done a pretty good job of that herself by blurting out that she loved him yesterday.

“But girlfriend,” Jayne added, “he is seriously hot. You can see that, right? I mean I know your tastes have gone all wacky over the last few months but you can still see a hot guy when he’s standing in front of you, right?”

“Yes,” Emily whispered, rolling her eyes. “Please don’t be weird with him. It’s new. Really new.”

“What do you mean weird?”

“Like don’t say anything about babies or marriage. And don’t mention Ben, or any of my exes. Or my mother. Please, God, don’t say anything about how crazy my mother is.”

Jayne laughed. “You really like this guy, don’t you? I haven’t seen you this anxious in a long time.”

Emily squirmed. “Actually, yeah, I do. I think I’m in love.”

“No. Freakin’. Way!” Jayne cried, the volume of her voice rising a thousand notches. “You’re in love?”

Just then, Daniel entered the room. Emily froze and Jayne’s eyes widened in shock. She pressed her lips together.

“Oops,” she said loudly, looking from one mortified face to the other. “So Daniel,” Jayne added, breaking through the wall of tension that had filled the room like a balloon, “tell me all about you.”

Daniel looked from Emily back to Jayne and gulped. “Um, actually, I think I’ll leave you ladies to it. The dogs need walking.” He backed out of the room in a hurry.

Emily sighed, feeling herself deflate. It hurt her that Daniel was acting so awkwardly about the fact she was in love with him. She turned to Jayne.

“Can we get out of here for a bit? I could show you around Sunset Harbor. You’ve never been here and this is where I spent most of my summers as a kid so it would be cool to show you the sights.”

“Babe, tell me what footwear I need and I’m totally on it. Are we talking hiking boots? Jogging sneakers?”

Trust Jayne to have brought every possible type of footwear with her.

“Actually, you know, I haven’t been for a run since I left New York,” Emily said. “It might be fun to do that. It’s too beautiful a day to spend it in the car, and we’d certainly cover more ground than if we walked. We can take the ocean path.”

“Sounds great,” Jayne said. “I got so many calls yesterday after I finished speaking to you that I had to give up on the twelfth mile. I could do with a proper run.”

Emily gulped. A proper run for her had never really gone further than five miles. Right now, after six months of laziness, she’d be happy just to hit two miles.

“I’ll just get changed,” she said.

She rushed upstairs, leaving the B&B at the mercy of Jayne. When she reached the bedroom, she found Daniel lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Are you okay?” she asked tentatively. “I thought you were taking the dogs for a walk.”

“I just had to get out of that room,” Daniel said.

“Oh,” Emily replied, glumly. Was the thought of her loving him so repulsive he had to run away?

Daniel sat up, looking dazed. “I mean why does she have to talk so quickly? And loudly? And why does she have to say five words when one will do?”

Emily realized then that the reason Daniel had rushed away so quickly was not because of her but because of Jayne, because of her fast-paced New York way of talking. She laughed, releasing some of the tension that had built inside of her.

“You know I used to be just like her.”

Daniel shook his head. “No way. I don’t believe it.”

“Yes way,” Emily replied, insistent. “Just you wait. By day five you won’t be able to tell us apart.”

“Dear God,” Daniel said, falling back against the mattress.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Jayne looked like a supermodel as she jogged beside the glittering waves, her hair flowing behind her, her limbs long and lithe. Unlike Emily, Jayne had hardly even broken a sweat. Everyone they passed checked her out, bowled over by her beauty, by seeing someone so stunningly attractive in their quiet, sleepy town.

“I don’t even remember the last time I saw the ocean,” Jayne said. “I mean other than during the drive over here. Sometimes New York makes you forget that there’s anything other than roads and buildings out there.”

“That’s true,” Emily replied, panting, finding it difficult to form even the shortest of sentences.

Raj was just putting some potted plants outside his shop when they passed.

“Hi, Emily!” he called.

She waved back, conserving her breath. Then she saw Parker Black in his wholesaler’s van. Parker was a young man, only around twenty-three or twenty-four years old, with a mop of curly blond hair. He’d inherited the wholesalers at the age of just sixteen when his father passed away and had done a sterling job keeping the operation going. When Emily opened the B&B, she immediately knew she wanted Parker to be her wholesaler.

He honked his horn and waved.

“Get lost, ya creep!” Jayne shouted.

“No, no, he’s not honking like that,” Emily puffed, shaking her head. “That’s Parker, my wholesaler. He’s honking to say hello.” She waved back.

“Oh,” Jayne said. “Does everyone know everyone else here then?”

There was a hint of disdain in her voice. Emily recognized it because she’d shared the same views when she’d first arrived – of Sunset Harbor being a boring small town, filled with busybodies who knew each other’s business.

“Pretty much,” she panted, only she said it with a grin, because that fact was one of the best things about the town to her now, because she’d made so many friends since she’d gotten here and had changed her opinions of so many things it was almost unfathomable.

They reached the bridge that connected the island to the mainland.

“This is where my car broke down,” Emily said, recalling the moment she’d become stranded on the bridge on her way into Sunset Harbor, just as a snowstorm had begun. It had been Birk who’d rescued her that night. Though it had been awful at the time, Emily now remembered that night fondly.

“Uh-huh,” Jayne said, seemingly uninterested. Her enthusiasm for the ocean had already seemed to wane. “Oh my God,” she said, suddenly brightening. “Did you watch the last season of Singing Sensations?”

“Nope,” Emily said. “I don’t have a TV anymore.”

Jayne looked horrified. “Oh. Okay. Well, anyway, there was this one contestant who was literally the hottest human in the entire universe.”

Emily listened patiently as Jayne spoke about things she now considered unimportant. Had she sounded so boring to other people once upon a time? Had she really cared about such trivial things? The only good thing about Jayne commanding the conversation was that Emily could focus on breathing, something that was becoming increasingly difficult the further they ran.

“How’s life, though?” Emily asked as soon as there was a moment of silence. She wanted to know about actual stuff, not all this pointless TV gossip.

“It’s all right,” Jayne said. “I split up with Harry. You know that, right? Then I was seeing Brandon for a while. Still am. Kind of. We have a casual thing going on.”

Emily nodded and focused on keeping one foot pounding in front of the other. “And work?” she asked when she realized Jayne had finished talking.

“A constant stream of never-ending crap,” Jayne replied. “I’m so envious of you. I would love to have nothing to do all day.”

Emily frowned. “I work,” she said, though her shallow breath didn’t allow her to embellish.

“Oh, come on,” Jayne said. “It’s hardly comparable, is it? Twelve-hour days in a New York office compared to loafing around in an oceanside B&B!”

“I work,” Emily said more forcefully. “And I don’t loaf.”

Jayne looked over at her friend. “Are you red because you’re mad at me or because of the jogging?”

“Both,” Emily stammered.

Jayne drew to a halt. Emily stopped next to her. She bent over and gripped her knees, taking deep breaths.

“I didn’t mean you didn’t work,” Jayne said, her tone sounding like one audible eye roll. “I just meant that there’s clearly a slower pace to life out here. I’m telling you I’m jealous of you. That’s a good thing!”

Emily straightened up. Was that how she and her friends used to express themselves, through being jealous of one another? What was wrong with just supporting each other’s ventures, rather than comparing themselves constantly to work out who was on top at any given moment?

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