A Bride Until Midnight / Something Unexpected: A Bride Until Midnight

Kyle tossed the crime novel he’d been reading onto the bed. It landed facedown on the rumpled pillow beside him. Picking up the remote again, he aimed it at the small television on the nearby wall, adjusted his pillows and tried to get comfortable. He’d already caught the beginning of a comedian’s act, a portion of the race Braden had qualified for in Europe, and the end of a black and white war movie. He’d watched an infomercial selling kitchen knives, a lot of garbage, and a piece about the disappearing rain forests in South America.

He stayed away from the news.

Powering off the television, he sat up on the edge of the bed. By the light of a small lamp in the alcove that distinguished the bedroom from the living room, he padded quietly to the window. He stood in the shadows looking up at the sky. There, in the west, was Pleiades. According to an ancient Greek legend, the bright cluster of stars represented seven sisters who’d been openly pursued by a relentless hunter named Orion. Zeus, the ruler of the gods, took pity on the beautiful maidens and changed them into doves before setting them free into the heavens.

Those ancient stargazers sure knew how to tell a story. They must have spent a lot of time studying the night sky. Kyle wondered if they’d been insomniacs, too.

The inn settled around him. Somewhere a car downshifted. The air outside his window was still, the night so quiet he could hear the river flowing over the rocks in the distance. The dark windows of the neighboring houses reflected the crescent moon. Old post lamps lined the driveway and lit the inn’s front lawn. The only illumination in the backyard was a square patch of yellow stretching onto the grass close to the inn. He couldn’t see the origin of that light but he could tell from the angle that it was coming from the first floor.

He wasn’t the only one awake at this hour.

Summer swirled the pale wine in her glass. After enjoying a generous sip, she returned to the stove where she stirred hot cream into a bowl containing beaten egg yolks and sugar. Humming with the radio, she then poured the mixture into the saucepan, adjusted the flame and began to slowly stir.

She loved cooking at night, loved the rhythm, the aroma and the steam. The process of measuring and mixing, folding and stirring was soothing. It cleared her mind, which helped her contemplate solutions to problems.

Take Kyle Merrick for instance. He was an investigative reporter. Of all the legitimate professions in the world, his had the potential to be the most damaging to the new life she’d built. That made this attraction anything but safe.

No wonder she’d been genuinely relieved when she’d learned he wouldn’t be attending Madeline’s wedding. Now he was staying in The Orchard Inn. What were the chances of that happening? she wondered.

She’d fairly melted in his arms when he’d kissed her in this very kitchen. She couldn’t very well pretend indifference now without raising his suspicions. Besides, she wasn’t that good an actress.

As she stirred the mixture in the saucepan, it occurred to her that having Kyle under her roof might not be so terrible after all. She needed to set some boundaries, for sure, but having him in close proximity meant she could keep an eye on him.

She took another sip from her fluted glass and turned down the flame under the front burner. The stove was forty-five years old and was often cantankerous, but tonight it was cooperating beautifully. Her crème brulee would be a masterpiece. She stirred and hummed, and hummed and stirred, her mind on the sweet concoction and the little oasis of light she’d created in the otherwise dark inn.

She liked nearly everything about her life as an innkeeper. Keeping this place running smoothly and in the black brought her a sense of accomplishment she hadn’t known until she’d taken on the responsibility shortly after coming to Orchard Hill. She enjoyed serving breakfast and especially liked meeting new people and hearing all about their lives and dreams. She’d come to appreciate the steady progression and the one hundred and one tasks from check-in to checkout. She didn’t mind the daily punctiliousness of freshening rooms and shopping and seeing to her guests’ needs. The daylight hours belonged to them.

The night was hers.

Tonight the air was unseasonably warm. Thanks to the apple trees in the nearby orchards resplendent with blossoms, it was also wonderfully fragrant.

Turning off the flame beneath the thickened concoction, she sniffed the rising steam. With a moan, she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, she was no longer alone.

Kyle stood in the doorway where the light was faint, one hand on his hip and an easy smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Am I interrupting?”

Always with that lilting sensuality. Deciding there was no time like the present to implement the boundaries she needed to set, she gave him a friendly smile and said, “You’re welcome to come in, on one condition.” She scooped up a spoonful of the hot mixture and gently blew on it. “Try this.”

He sauntered to the stove wearing loafers, faded jeans and a T-shirt with wording in French. Bringing his nose close to her spoon, he took a trial whiff.

There was a certain level of trust involved as he touched his lips to the still warm dessert. It was his turn to moan.

She reached for another spoon and sampled some, too. “That’s not half-bad, is it?”

“Half-bad? Are you kidding? It’s magnificent.” Kyle moved slightly to make room for Summer as she went to the sink and washed her hands. She was wearing a white tank top and those knit pants that looked so damn good on women. Hers rode low on her hips and were held up by a string tied in a loose bow.

“Do you always cook when everyone else is sleeping?” he asked.

“It’s when I enjoy it the most, and when I have the most time for it. The first strawberries of the season are ripe,” she said as she dried her hands on a yellow towel. “I thought I’d spoon the crème brulee over them and offer a bowlful to my guests with breakfast which, by the way, is served every weekday between seven and nine.”

Her movements were fluid, her voice quiet, as if in reverence to the night. She must have seen him looking hungrily at the crème brulee, for she took a bowl from the cupboard, filled it, added a clean spoon and handed it to him.

The bottom of the dish was warm in his palm, the aroma wafting upwards so sweet smelling his mouth watered. He didn’t dig right in, though.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Aren’t you going to have any?”

It didn’t take her long to make up her mind. Soon they were leaning against opposite cupboards, ankles crossed, bowls in one hand, spoons in the other.

“So,” she said between bites, “are you going to see Harriet again?”

Kyle didn’t know whether to laugh or scoff. Everything about Summer Matthews was a contrast. The way she’d ladled her concoction into bowls and daintily ate it was refined. Her reference to his date bordered on brazen. Earlier she’d been sipping tea. Now her wine glass was empty. She was as regal as royalty, and yet she seemed to run this inn single-handedly. It couldn’t be easy to keep up with the repairs of a building this old—floors pitched, doors didn’t close, pipes rattled. And yet every item in the house had so obviously been chosen. The retro range and state-of-the-art refrigerator and the scratched oak table and cane-bottom chairs sitting tidily on an aubusson rug didn’t scream good taste. They whispered it.

“I think I met Harriet’s secret tonight,” he said, scraping the bottom of his bowl.

Summer’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Her secret?”

“Walter.”

“You met Walter?”

“He joined us for dinner.” Kyle emptied his bowl only to have it miraculously refilled. It happened again before he’d finished telling Summer about the evening.

Walter Ferris was a large man with beefy hands, thick gray hair and bushy eyebrows. He’d probably been a handsome devil once. In his late seventies, he was straightforward and astute. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off Harriet all night. Harriet had given Kyle plenty of attention, but he’d caught her eyes going soft on Walter a time or two when she’d thought Kyle wasn’t looking.

They had history, no doubt about it. And since they had the same last name, and they didn’t act like kissing cousins, Kyle wondered what their connection really was.

He didn’t normally give relationships more than a passing thought. It had been a long time since he’d been in one that lasted more than a month or two. He’d never stood in a woman’s kitchen eating warm crème brulee at three in the morning. Maybe there was something to the adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, although Kyle preferred other more evocative ways.

“Do I have crème brulee on my chin?” she asked.

He shook his head but didn’t apologize for staring. “What were we talking about?”

She seemed to have forgotten, too. It made them both smile.

“Walter,” they said in unison.

Walter Ferris had a story for every occasion but, other than a vague recollection of Summer mentioning a mother and sister who’d died before she’d moved to Orchard Hill, neither he nor Harriet seemed to know a lot about her past.

“I’m a little surprised Walter joined you tonight,” Summer said. “They usually have dinner together on Tuesdays and Fridays.”

Kyle stared at her, his spoon poised between his mouth and bowl. “Are you saying Harriet and Walter have regular dinner date nights?”

She’d spooned another bite into her mouth and therefore couldn’t answer. He wondered if evading questions was intentional or automatic.

“Are they married then? Ah,” he said, finally understanding the dynamics. “They’re divorced. If I were to harbor a guess, I’d say Walter wants her back. Men are easy to read that way.”

“I don’t like to talk about people behind their backs,” she said.

“If you’d rather we can talk about us.”

Summer used the ruse of carrying Kyle’s empty bowl to the sink to buy her a little time. It also gave her a little much-needed space.

By the time she’d rinsed the bowls, he was leaning against the countertop in the inn’s main kitchen again, his ankles crossed, arms folded. If she’d stopped there, she would have believed he was completely at ease. But it only required one look at his lean face, his lips firmly together, his green eyes hooded, and she knew the ease was secondary. He was a man who took nothing for granted, a man who didn’t rush or gloss over details. He was the kind of man who would take his time pleasuring a woman.

“There is no us,” she said. What was wrong with her voice?

“Not yet, you mean.”

It was the perfect opening for her to say, “You and I don’t know each other, Kyle. You’re just passing through Orchard Hill, but I live in this town. My livelihood is hinged on my reputation.”

He uncrossed his ankles and straightened, leading her to assume he was going to take the rejection with a grain of salt and go back upstairs. Instead he joined her in front of the sink.

“Sunrise or sunset?” he asked.

“What?”

“Sunrise or sunset?” he repeated.

She’d turned the radio down when he’d first joined her in the kitchen. Now the low hum barely covered the quiet. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

“I’m getting to know you. I think the modern terminology refers to this stage as the date interview. You’re right, that’s an easy one. You are sunset all the way. It’s your turn. Go ahead, ask me anything.”

She started the faucet and squirted dish soap into the stream. “This isn’t a date,” she reminded him sternly, but she couldn’t help thinking he was right about her and sunsets.

What could it hurt, she thought, to participate in a little harmless middle of the night conversation? After considering possible safe topics, she said, “Bourbon or Merlot?”

“Bourbon, hands down.”

She was surprised. She’d have pegged him as the kind of man who had an extensive wine collection.

“Hard rock or Rap?” he asked when it was his turn. “First, what are you doing?” He pointed at the sink she was filling with sudsy water.

“The dishwasher’s broken, and there won’t be money in the budget to have it repaired until July,” she explained. “Hard rock and Rap are both okay on occasion, but my favorite musician of all time is Leonard Cohen.”

As two iridescent bubbles floated on the rising steam, he said, “So you’re a romantic at heart.”

Had he moved closer? Or had she? Putting a little space between them again, she scoured a saucepan.

Kyle said, “I’d offer to fix your dishwasher, but I’m afraid my brother Braden is the mechanical genius in the family. I’m good with my hands in other ways.”

“I’m sure you’ll be very happy with yourself.”

His laugh was a deep rumble, the kind that invited everyone to smile along. They were standing close again, her shoulder nearly touching his arm. This time he was the one who moved slightly. Picking up a towel, he began to dry. “I believe it’s your turn.”

Hmm, she thought as she washed measuring cups and spoons. “Baseball or football?”

“Football, but I like races the best. European Auto Racing is my favorite, probably because my youngest brother is trying to break records and hopefully not his neck. Chicken or fish?”

“I’m more of a pasta girl. Dogs or cats?”

“Dogs,” he said. “Friends or family?”

Rinsing her wine glass and carefully handing it to him by the stem, she said, “I don’t have much family.”

“Then it wasn’t a family connection that brought you to Orchard Hill?”

Keeping her wits about her, she said, “Madeline likes to say Orchard Hill found me. The elderly couple that used to own The Orchard Inn had been looking for someone to take it over. I applied, and the rest is history.”

“So you work for this old couple?” he asked.

“I bought the inn from them with the money my grandmother left me. She’d been very ill and died right after I moved here.” Summer’s grandmother had been the only one who knew where she went, and the estate attorney had promised to keep her location confidential.

“The grandmother you and your sister spent summers with on Mackinaw Island?” he asked.

She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised he’d been listening when she’d mentioned that. Keeping her eyes on the dish she was washing, she said, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you I don’t have much family.”

“If you’d like, you can borrow some of mine. Other than Riley and Braden, most of our relatives are female. One mother, two stepmothers and too many grandmothers, aunts and family pets to count. Action-adventure or horror?”

She laughed at the awkward segue. “I live alone in a hundred-and-twenty-year-old inn. Definitely not horror.” It was her turn to ask a question. She took her time deciding which one. “Crime dramas or reality TV?”

“Could I get another choice here?”

“You don’t watch much television?” she asked.

He made a sound universal to men through his pursed lips. “Three hundred channels and there’s still nothing on half the time.”

She looked up at him and smiled, for she’d often thought the same thing.

“See what I mean?” he said, his voice a low croon befitting the dark night. “We have a lot in common. We’re practically soul mates.”

She wished she could blame the warm swirl in the pit of her stomach on the lateness of the hour or the wine. “Out of all these questions,” she said, “we’ve found only one thing we have in common. I don’t believe in soul mates.”

His gaze went from her eyes, to her lips, to the base of her neck where a little vein was pulsing. He folded the towel over the edge of the sink and got caught looking at her lips again. He didn’t pretend he didn’t want to kiss her. And yet he waited. A man who had enough self-confidence to want a woman to be sure wasn’t an easy man to resist.

A gentle breeze stirred the air. Somewhere a night bird warbled. Moments later an answering call sounded from across the river. Summer didn’t recognize the bird-song, but she understood the language of courtship. It seemed to her that birds had a straightforward approach to life. They built a nest in the spring, raised a brood and, as if guided by some magical internal alarm clock, they gathered in flocks and flew south to a tropical paradise for the winter, only to return and start all over again in the spring.

Summer had started over once. She never wanted to do that again, which brought her right back to where she and Kyle had started. Whatever this was, be it a date interview or simply a pleasant interlude, it was ending. It had to.

Taking a deliberate step back, she said, “Good night, Kyle.”

He handled the mild rejection with a degree of watchfulness and his usual charm. She wasn’t expecting the light kiss. Little more than a brush of air, it was over by the time she’d closed her eyes. The dreamy intimacy lingered as he walked to the door.

“Thank you for the midnight snack,” he said quietly, “and for having a sunset personality.”

She smiled. And he was gone.

It was a few minutes before Summer’s heart settled into its normal rhythm. Occasionally Madeline used to join her in the kitchen late at night. Kyle was the only man who ever had. Strangely, his presence hadn’t been an intrusion. Without even trying, he’d made her feel understood. Kyle Merrick would make a good friend.

He would have been a good lover, too. Of that, she had no doubt. All things considered, his middle of the night visit had gone well. He seemed to have accepted the limits she’d set. It was a relief, and yet, with every swish of the drawstring at her waist and every rustle of the fabric at her midriff, she was reminded of what she was missing.

She stuck her hands on her hips and huffed. She supposed there was always the next best thing.

On the counter sat the uncorked bottle of wine and the bowl containing the remaining crème brulee. She pushed the wine out of the way and reached for a spoon.

Friday morning dawned cloudy and gray. The temperature had dropped overnight and the barometric pressure had been on the rise ever since. Spring had returned to Orchard Hill.

Seven of Summer’s eight guests had shuffled to the breakfast table groggy or grumpy or both, adversely affected by the atmospheric change. Kyle was the last to amble downstairs. Looking surprisingly rested and amiable, he took a seat at the long dining room table as she was clearing away the place settings of five men who’d already left for their day’s work restoring the train depot.

“Good morning,” she said, as she did to each guest every day.

“Morning,” he answered. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

The last two remaining carpenters looked askance at him. When thunder rumbled an exclamation point disguised as weather, Kyle had the grace to counter his sunny outlook with, “Easy for me to say. I’m not being forced to work in it today.”

With a few grumbles, he was forgiven.

“Coffee and juice are on the sideboard,” she said. “I’ll be right back with your breakfast.”

Kyle was alone at the table with his coffee when she returned with his plate of crisp bacon, whole wheat toast and a stack of piping hot pancakes. In a separate bowl was a generous serving of fresh strawberries sans crème brulee.

“Have you already had breakfast?” he asked.

She thought about the slice of toast she’d eaten two hours ago while the bacon was frying and answered simply, “Yes.”

“A cup of coffee, then?” he asked.

Summer had hit the snooze button once, and then she’d hit the floor running. She hadn’t slept well the previous night, and, after only three hours last night, sleep deprivation was catching up with her. Caffeine sounded wonderful. In fact, she could have used a direct IV line of the stuff. She went to the sideboard and poured herself a piping hot cup.

It wasn’t unusual for her to have a cup of coffee with a guest. Her boarders all happened to be men this month, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes families stayed here. Throughout the year, groups of women came for girlfriends’ weekends of wine tasting and shopping and marathon chick flick rentals. Summer’s mainstay came from sales reps and other men and women employed by companies with projects too far away for a reasonable commute.

She sipped her coffee while Kyle dug into his breakfast. They talked about everyday things. He told her about a book he was reading, and she relayed a funny story from a former guest. Out of the blue, he asked her if she’d ever been married.

She looked him in the eye and with complete honesty said, “No, have you?”

He offered her a pancake before he drizzled the stack with syrup. She took it and daintily ate it with her fingers while he explained why he’d never married.

She was laughing by the time he summed it up. “Women are complicated.”

“And men aren’t?” she asked.

Cutting into his stack of pancakes, he said, “I’d be happy to explain the differences to you, but I have to warn you, it’s not a topic for sissies.”

Somehow she believed he was only half joking. In a like manner, she said, “I’m fairly certain I can handle it.”

He seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to share his expertise. The man obviously had a playful side to go with his voracious appetite. The pallor she’d glimpsed yesterday was less noticeable this morning. His eyes crinkled at the corners, as green and changeable as the weather. He hadn’t bothered to shave. The stubble on his jaw was a shade darker than his hair. The collar of his shirt was open at his throat, the green broadcloth a color and style that would fit in anywhere.

“Basically there are five classifications of men,” he began as he spread jelly on his toast. “The butt heads are by and large the worst. Normally I would refer to them as something more crass, but I’m going to try to do this delicately, so we’ll stick with butt heads. These are the guys who make promises they have no intention of keeping. They’re hard and heartless. These are the liars, stealers, cheaters, politicians, CEOs, anybody with no conscience. They give all men a bad name.”

She was listening, for she’d once known a few of those. Intimately.

“Next are the sorry-asses. Forgive me but there’s no delicate way to describe this category. They’re the drunks, the guys who mean well but are too lazy to bring home a paycheck, get their own beer or mow the lawn. You know, your basic losers.”

She couldn’t help smiling again.

“Third is the—let’s call the third category the dumbbells. If sorry-asses are your basic losers, dumbbells are your basic users. This is the guy who doesn’t have any money with him on Pizza Friday, who has to be shown repeatedly how to use the business system at work but can navigate every search engine for his personal use on company time. He’s more obnoxious than harmful.”

She made an agreeable sound, which earned her an appreciative masculine grin that went straight to her head.

“The last two categories are the smart alecks and the wise guys. At first glance you might think they’re one and the same. They’re both on the mouthy side, but smart alecks are irritating and wise guys are charming and entertaining.” He took a big bite of his pancakes and smiled smugly, as if his work here was done.

“You’ve certainly cleared that up,” she said over the rim of her coffee cup. “Tell me this. Why do women put up with any of you?”

Those green eyes of his spoke a full five seconds before he said, “Because some of us are irresistible.”

“You don’t say.”

They fell into a companionable silence. She finished the plain pancake and sipped her coffee, and he made a good-sized dent in his breakfast.

Thunder rumbled overhead. Kyle felt an answering vibration that was more like the pulsing beat of a distant drum than weather. It started deep inside, radiating outward. This was desire, the kind that burned slow and got hotter. There was only one way to appease it, and she was sitting across the table from him.