One Winter's Sunset

She got to her feet, gathering her dishes from her afternoon snack and headed down to the kitchen. Carol was peeling potatoes at the table, and had a basket of fresh green beans waiting to be cleaned beside her. Emily put her dishes in the sink, then sat in the opposite chair and started twisting off the stringy ends and breaking the green beans in half, then adding them to a waiting colander. “I remember doing this when I was a little girl,” Emily said.

Carol smiled. “You always did like helping me in the kitchen. Half the time I’d have to kick you out and remind you that you were on vacation, not part of the KP crew.”

Emily shrugged. “I liked being here.”

“Instead of with your own family.”

“We weren’t much of a family to begin with,” Emily said. “My mother was always off doing her thing, my father was always working. And when they were together, they fought like cats and dogs.”

An understatement. Emily’s parents’ marriage had been mostly a marriage of convenience, two high school friends who’d married at the end of senior year, then had a child in quick succession, before realizing they were better friends than lovers. They had lived separate lives and only came together for birthdays and major holidays. The annual “family” summer vacation to the Gingerbread Inn was more of an opportunity to spend time with their friends and play shuffleboard than to bond as a family. The only time all three of them were together was Friday nights, when they all went into town for dinner at their favorite diner.

Carol picked up a fork and pricked holes in the scrubbed potatoes. “So when you grew up you did the opposite, right?”

Emily let out a little laugh and thought about how she had described her parents. She’d done the same thing, though not on purpose. For years, Emily had done her own thing and Cole had worked. The only saving grace—they hadn’t caught a child in the middle of that mess. Not until now. Emily covered her belly with her palm. When Sweet Pea arrived, she vowed to give her baby the childhood Emily had never had. “I pretty much carbon copied their life. At least I’m smart enough to get out before bringing kids into that...mess.”

“Oh, I don’t know if it’s the same thing. I saw your parents together. If they were ever in love, it wasn’t there by the time they started coming up here in the summers. You and Cole on the other hand...” Carol shrugged.

“Me and Cole what?”

“There’s still feelings there. Whether you believe it or not.” Carol put the potatoes in the oven beside a chicken roasting on the middle rack.

“That’s just because he doesn’t want to accept that it’s over.” Emily took the colander to the sink and ran cool water over the green beans.

“If you ask me, he’s not the only one who still cares.” Carol put her back to the counter and faced Emily. “I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

Heat rushed to Emily’s face. “That’s just the hormones.” Even as she said the words, though, she knew there was more involved than a rush of hormonal input. She’d kissed him back, with as much desire and depth as he had kissed her. The familiar rush of heat had risen in her, and still simmered in her gut, even now.

She still cared about him, and always would. Love...

She’d avoid that word and combining it with the name Cole. Smarter to do that than to get wrapped up in a fantasy, instead of reality.

Carol just hmmed at that and started the dishes. Emily picked up a dish towel to help dry, but Carol shooed her away. “You’re still a guest here, missy. So go do what guests do and relax.”

Emily headed outside, forgetting until she heard the tapping of a hammer on nails that Cole was out here, working. Still. She started to turn around and head back into the inn when Cole called out to her.

“Hey, do you mind helping me for a second?” he said. “I could really use a second pair of hands.”

He was holding a long board in one hand, a hammer in the other. With the tool belt slung across his hips and sawdust peppering his jeans and work boots, he looked relaxed. Sexy.

A few minutes of helping Cole would be about being nice, not about getting close to him and admiring his body. Or the heat that still rushed through her veins whenever he was near.

“What do you need?” she asked.

“Just hold one end in place. I’m trying to get the rest of the siding repaired on this side of the building, but first I have to fit this fascia board in place.”

She stared at him. They’d built the New York house from the ground up, and though Emily had been in charge of the decisions about faucets and paint colors, Cole had handled all the construction details, because he had spent so many years working on houses and knew the lingo. “Fascia board?”

“It goes up there.” Cole pointed to the roofline ten feet above them.

She couldn’t see any way that Cole could do this job alone, not without risking a broken neck. “Okay. Just don’t ask me to hammer. You know how I am with tools.”

“Oh, I remember, Emily.” He winked at her. “My thumb remembers, too.”

“Sorry.” She grinned. “Again.”

Cole got on one of the ladders and waited for Emily to get on the other one. They stepped up in tandem, until he had the board in place under the gutter and she had aligned her edge with the roofline.

“I’m just teasing you about my thumb,” he said with a smile. “It wasn’t so bad.”

“That’s not what you said that day. All we were doing was hanging some pictures, and you made it into a major project. Tape measure, level, laying out the frame placement with masking tape. Our house wasn’t the Louvre, you know.” She grinned.

“So I’m a little anal about those kinds of things.”

“A little?” She arched a brow.

“Okay, a lot. I guess I deserved having you hit my thumb with the hammer.”

“Well, as long as we’re admitting weaknesses, I guess I was a little impatient. I just wanted the whole thing to be done.” She shrugged. “I could have gone slower, and maybe not given you a hammer whack in the process.”

“Even if I deserved it?”

She laughed. “Hey, you said it, not me.”

He fiddled with the board, aligning it better, then grabbing a nail out of the tool belt and sinking the first one into the plywood. “You know, I think that was the last time we ever worked together on something.”

“It was.” Emily shifted her weight. A wave of light-headedness hit her, but she shrugged it off. “It’s no wonder. That day didn’t go very well.” It had ended with a fight and Cole sleeping on the couch, too, but Emily didn’t mention that. They had an easy détente between them now, and she wanted to preserve that peace a while longer.

“True,” he said softly. “Let’s hope this goes better.”

“It should.” She grinned. “We’re on opposite ends of the board.”

Cole laughed, then dug in his tool belt for a few more nails, hammering them in one at a time. “All appendages accounted for?” he asked her.

“Yup.” The light-headedness hit her again, and she leaned into the ladder, shifting her grip on the board again. “You almost done?”

“A few more nails. Hold on a second. I have to move my ladder down toward you.” He climbed down, shifted the ladder a few feet forward, then climbed back up and started hammering again.

A wave of nausea and dizziness slammed into Emily. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t ease the feeling. Her face heated, she swayed again. All she wanted was to get off this ladder. Now.

“Cole, I...I need to get down.” She let go of the board, gripped the ladder and climbed down to the ground. The light-headedness persisted so she sat on the edge of the porch, under the cool shadow of the overhang.

In an instant, Cole was there, the board forgotten, his voice filled with concern. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just got a little dizzy being up so high.”

“Then you sit. Or, if you want, go inside. I can handle this. The hard part is all done.”

“I’m fine. Just give me a minute.” She waved him off, part of her wanting him to hold her close and tell her it was all okay, the other part wishing he would go away and leave her be. Heck, wasn’t that how she had felt for the past six months? Torn between wanting him close and wanting him gone.

It was as if she couldn’t quite give up on the dream. Couldn’t let go of the hope that this could all work out. Their marriage was like the Gingerbread Inn, Emily realized. In desperate need of major repairs and a lot of TLC.

The only difference? The inn wasn’t past the point of no return yet. Their marriage, on the other hand, was. If anything told her that, it was the conversation the other night about kids where Cole made it clear he wasn’t on the same page as she was. Now she was having a baby her husband didn’t want, and the sooner she accepted that, the better. Besides, any change in him this week was temporary. She knew that from experience. At the first sign of trouble at the company, Cole would be gone, for weeks on end, and she’d be on her own.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Cole asked. “You look a little pale.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Just a little pregnant, is all.

He looked like he wanted to probe deeper. Instead, Cole cleared his throat and shifted the hammer in his hand. He glanced up at the fascia board they’d installed, then back at Emily. “I, uh, better finish up.”

She shifted to the side so he could climb up the ladder and finish hammering in the wood. By the time the last nail was in, Emily had gone inside. Because staying out there watching Cole fix the inn she loved only made her long for the impossible.

* * *

Cole’s back ached, his shoulders burned and his legs hurt more than after his thrice-weekly run. His hands had calluses and nicks, and a fine shadow of stubble covered his jaw. When he looked in the mirror, he saw a man as far from a billionaire CEO as one could get.

It felt good. Damned good.

Still, he was smart enough to know he couldn’t stay here forever. He had a business to get back to, a business that needed his attention. Every day he spent away from WTD was one that impacted the bottom line. People depended on him—families depended on him—to keep the profits coming so they could pay their mortgages and put food on their tables. Instead, he was here, working on the Gingerbread Inn, a place that meant something to Emily.

Because he’d thought they stood a chance. After that kiss, hope had filled him. Hope they could find their way back as a couple if they just spent more time together. But it seemed every time they got close, she put up this wall. Or she walked away, shutting the door as effectively with her distance as she had the day she’d asked him to move out of their house.

Did she have a point? Was it all about not wanting to give up? Admit defeat? Was it about the battle, not about love?

His phone vibrated against his hip. Cole flipped it out, shifting from carpenter mode to businessman in an instant. He dropped onto the bottom step, and for the next half hour, worked out the details of a deal with a partner in China, made a decision about firing a lackluster employee and hammered out the contents of the quarterly investor report with Irene, his assistant.

“The place is going nuts without you,” Irene said. “You’d think the sun had stopped shining or something.”

Cole ran a hand through his hair. This was why he rarely took vacations and worked most weekends. “I’ll come back in the morning.”

“You will do no such thing.” Irene’s calm voice came across the line strong and sure. In her sixties, Irene had always been more than an assistant—she’d been a guiding force, a sort of mother not just to Cole but to everyone at WTD. She was plainspoken and filled with common sense, so when she talked, Cole knew he’d do well to listen.

“And why would I stay here when the company is in a panic?”

“Because it’ll do all the lemmings around here some good to take on a little leadership. And because it’ll do you even more good to do something other than wither away under the fluorescent lighting.”

He chuckled. “I am far from withered away, Irene.”

“You go entire days without seeing the sunshine. You’re here before me, stay long after those with common sense go home. You need to notice the world around you, not just the workload before you.”

Wasn’t that what Emily had said a hundred times over the years? She’d told him he worked too many hours, was home too few. He’d insisted the company needed him, but maybe it was something more, something deeper inside himself that kept him behind that desk day after day instead of with his wife, enjoying the life he had worked so hard to afford.

Irene had a point. If he took a few days off, then maybe the so-called lemmings he’d hired would step up to the plate and do what he’d hired them to do—lead in his stead. Rather than everyone looking to Cole because he was always there in the driver’s seat.

“I’m doing that now.”

“Are you? Because I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that you haven’t heard those birds chirping in the background or the soft whistle of the breeze through the trees. How about the sun? Is it shining bright, or is it dimmed by cloud cover?”

Cole raised his gaze and squinted. “Bright.” His gaze skimmed over the pale blue sky, then down the trees, almost bare now that November was edging toward December. Birds flitted from branch to branch, determined to stay as long as they could before caving to winter’s cold. The breeze danced in the last few dangling leaves, waving them like flags. Through the trees, he could see the lake, glistening and inviting while squirrels dashed to and fro, making last-minute preparations for winter. He paused a long moment, letting the day wash over him and ease the tension in his shoulders. “You’re right. I never noticed any of that.”

“And you need to, Cole. Before it’s too late.”

“It might already be.” He let out a long breath. Irene was the only one who knew about his marital problems. As his right-hand person at WTD, she had seen the end of his marriage coming long before he had. She’d noticed that there’d been fewer and fewer lunches with Emily, more long days when he didn’t leave before dark and more weekends spent at the office instead of at home. He’d also given Irene a heads-up about the projects he was working on—both the one with the inn and the one with his marriage.

“Has she kicked you out of that inn yet?” Irene asked. “Told you to leave?”

“Not yet.” Though, given her reaction to their kiss, Cole wasn’t so sure Emily wanted him around anymore. She hadn’t said that out loud yet, but he’d sensed a distance, a wall whenever he got too close. Like when she’d felt ill and he’d asked her if she was okay—Emily had suddenly gone cold and distant.

“If she hasn’t kicked you out, then it’s not too late. Now get your head out of the office and pay attention to what’s around you,” Irene said. “I’ll handle things here. We’ll all be fine.”

He chuckled. “Is that an order?”

“You bet your sweet bippy it is. Now let me go so I can get some work done around here. Not all of us can sit around in the sun, listening to the birds chirp, you know.” Her words lacked any bite and held only affection and worry.

“Thanks, Irene,” Cole said, his voice quiet and warm.

“Anytime, Cole. Anytime.” Then she was gone. Cole tucked the phone back into his pocket.

He started to get to his feet, to get back to working on the fascia and soffits. He paused. Looked up at the sky, then sat back down, leaned against the porch post, closed his eyes and drew in the scents and sounds of the world he had missed for too many years.

CHAPTER SIX

EMILY STOOD ON the porch for a good minute, sure she was seeing things. Cole sat on the top step, his back against one of the thick posts, his face upturned to the sun. Asleep. Harper lay on the weathered boards beside Cole, eyes closed, tail tapping a slow, happy rhythm.

Emily smiled. Her workaholic husband, taking a break. Something she hadn’t seen in so long, she’d been half-sure he was a robot, not a man. In sleep, he looked younger, boyish almost, with his face relaxed, his shoulders untensed.

Like the man she used to know. The man she had fallen in love with.

Her hand strayed to her abdomen, and for a second, she allowed herself to picture Cole’s face when she told him about the baby. To imagine a future where he brought them home from the hospital, and they formed a little family of three.

Then Cole’s phone started buzzing, the screen lighting with yet another call. A dose of reality inserting itself before she got wrapped up in a fantasy.

Carol came out on the porch. “He’s asleep?” she whispered.

Emily nodded. “Doesn’t happen very often.”

Carol chuckled. “I’ve known men like that. Would rather work themselves half to death than admit they need a nap. Or a helping hand. I tell you, men are some of God’s most stubborn creatures.”

Emily laughed. “I agree with that.”

The buzzing at his waist finally roused Cole. He jerked upright, disoriented for a second, reaching for the phone with an instinct well honed over the years. Just before he pressed the button to answer it, he noticed Emily and Carol, and set the phone back in the holster. “Sorry, I, uh, guess I fell asleep.”

Cole ignoring a work call? And taking a nap in the middle of the day? That made for two miracles in the space of a few minutes—and two things Emily never thought she’d see.

“You’re human...sleep happens.” Carol smiled. “Either way, I’m glad you woke up. Dinner’s in the kitchen and just waiting for some hungry people to come along.”

Cole got to his feet and brushed the sawdust off his jeans. “A home-cooked meal? Can’t remember the last time I had one of those.”

“That’s because you have to be home to have one.” The words slipped from Emily’s lips before she could stop them. Sometimes it seemed the years of resentment lay in wait behind paper walls, waiting for any small opening.

“You’re right.” Cole paused beside her on the porch. His blue eyes met hers. “But I also have to have a home to go to.”

She shook her head and looked away before the familiar argument about their separation sprang up between them on this pretty fall day. She didn’t want to fight anymore. Not one more disagreement. She’d had enough of those to last her a lifetime.

“Let’s not do this,” Cole said, as if he’d read her mind. “It’s too nice of a day to argue about anything other than whether the sky is a cerulean-blue or cornflower-blue.”

She smiled. “Cornflower. Definitely.”

“I agree,” Cole said.

Carol put a hand on each of their shoulders. “There’s a home here, and a meal, and both of you are invited to the table if you promise to mind your manners.”

Cole grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

Maybe it was the way he said ma’am, or maybe it was the way he smiled, but Emily found her anger melting in the light of both, and she paused in the doorway to shoot Cole a conspiratorial smile. “That means no food fights, you know.”

“Too bad.” He leaned in toward her, smelling of soap and sunshine. “Because sometimes cleaning up afterward can be a hell of a lot of fun.”

“I remember.” The words whispered into the small space between them, the memory charging the air. They’d come home from their quick three-day honeymoon to the tiny one-bedroom apartment that had been their first home. She’d worked half the day on a dinner for her new husband, poring over a cookbook she’d got out of the library, fixing chicken and peas and baked potatoes, then attempting a chocolate cream pie because he’d once said that was his favorite. “I really messed that meal up, didn’t I?”

He chuckled as he followed her into the inn and down the long hall toward the dining room that flanked the western side of the house and looked out over the lake. “It wasn’t that awful.”

“Your memory is faulty. The chicken was burned, the peas shriveled and dried, and the potatoes undercooked.” She shook her head. “But you ate every bite.”

“Couldn’t disappoint my new wife and tell her that she couldn’t cook.”

“I still can’t cook.” That had been the one benefit to Cole’s sizable income—the convenience of ordering already-made meals. Emily vowed to learn to cook before the baby came. She imagined herself baking cookies and whipping up macaroni and cheese, with Sweet Pea helping measure and stir. Emily would never be Betty Crocker, but if she could at least master the basics, she could create the kind of warm, cozy home she’d always wanted.

“You might not be able to cook,” Cole said. “But you can make a pie that sticks to my forehead.”

She laughed. The laughter felt good, and she realized it had been far too long since she’d had a damned good laugh. “I didn’t mean to throw it at you, but when you ate it like it was the most delicious pie you ever ate, I got so mad.”

“It was the most delicious pie I ever ate, Emily.”

They had stopped outside the dining room, lingering by the doorway while Carol put the finishing touches on the table. Harper sat in the corner, waiting and hoping for a scrap.

Emily stood within inches of Cole. Close enough to touch, to see the gold flecks in his eyes, to get wrapped up in the tempting scent of his cologne, the draw of his warm body. She moved away, headed for the table before she did any of those foolish things.

“How could you say that pie was good?” She reached for the pile of silverware on the corner and placed it beside the place settings. Avoiding the desire washing over her, the need to kiss him again, as strong as when they’d first dated. Damn. When would she stop wanting Cole? The separation and divorce would be much easier if her body got on board with her brain. “I forgot the sugar. That was the worst pie ever.”

Cole slipped in beside her, tucking the folded napkins under the knives. “It was the most delicious pie ever, Emily,” and he paused a beat until she looked up at him, “because you made it with love.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, then shook her head and stepped away. Oh, how she wanted to believe in that look in his eyes, the words he spoke, but she was afraid, so afraid, that if she did, they’d end up traveling the same path as before. They’d done it countless times over the years. Now, with a baby caught in the mix, Emily couldn’t afford to hold on to a fairy tale that she knew had an unhappy ending.

“Unfortunately, you need more ingredients than love to hold a recipe together and make it work,” she said and turned away before he saw the tears brimming in her eyes.

* * *

Cole had to admire Carol, the inn’s owner. She could have brokered a Middle East peace treaty with ease. She’d sensed the tension between Cole and Emily the instant she sat down at the table, and managed to shift the conversation to subjects that kept the room feeling light and lively. As they ate, they talked about the weather, the repairs to the inn, the Patriots’ chances of making it to the Super Bowl. Fun, easy, small talk.

“Did Emily ever tell you the story about the lake’s history?” Carol asked Cole as she laid warm plates of homemade apple pie before them. Melting scoops of vanilla ice cream puddled over the flaky crust. The impressive dessert could have starred on a magazine cover.

Emily let out a little laugh. “Oh, not this one. It’s not even true.”

“It is, too,” Carol said, then grinned. “Or at least partly true.”

“Let me guess,” Cole said. Even though he was stuffed from the amazing roast chicken, potatoes and green beans, he dived into the pie with gusto. “Barrow’s Lake has its own resident Loch Ness monster?”

“No, no, though that might draw in more visitors, and that’d be good for business.” Carol put a finger on her lips. “Hmm...if only I could buy a Loch Ness monster in the pet store.”

“Two words,” Cole said. “Inflatable toy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for the summer tourists.” Carol laughed. “Well, our lake story is a little more innocuous. Way back, years ago, before the invention of the car—”

“When dinosaurs roamed the earth,” Emily added.