The Bookstore on the Beach - Brenda Novak Page 0,29

But what she’d felt when she saw him at the restaurant—that twinge of guilt for being attracted to him in spite of her love for Nick—had frightened her. The last thing she needed was to complicate her life by once again becoming infatuated with Quinn Vanderbilt.

She thought of that encounter in his tree house when she was a junior in high school and shook her head. He’d treated her kindly, had been gentle. She remembered almost melting when he first kissed her. But he’d definitely tried to talk her out of stripping off her clothes. She was the one who’d insisted they go so far. He’d just finally given up and indulged her.

She cringed. God, she’d been so young and naive. She wished she could go back and erase the whole incident. She hoped he’d forgotten about it. If it hadn’t meant anything to him, why would he have any reason to remember it?

Although...on second thought, it couldn’t be every day that a girl followed him home and acted the way she’d acted. No way would a guy ever forget that.

She raked her fingers through her hair as she continued to stare at that friend request. Damn it. Even if he couldn’t forget it, she wished she could. She told herself sex with Quinn didn’t mean anything to her now—not after Nick. And yet, in this moment, when she was lying in bed alone and it felt as though it had been an eternity since she’d felt a man’s arms around her, the thought of making love with Quinn Vanderbilt filled her with a sudden and very acute desire.

“No way,” she muttered, horrified by her own reaction, and closed her laptop without accepting him.

7

The next two weeks passed so peacefully and uneventfully that Mary decided she’d been right to leave the past in the past. Taylor and Caden had taken up with a group of friends they really enjoyed, and Autumn appeared to be catching up on her rest and settling into a healthy routine. She was quicker to smile than at any time since Nick had gone missing, and she’d quit talking about him all the time. She hadn’t yet boxed up his belongings—Mary was waiting for that. But had Mary listened to Laurie, her family would not have had this chance to recover.

Although Autumn spent mornings with her kids, making breakfast, doing yoga on the beach—something Taylor had insisted they try—and tending to the garden Mary had planted before they arrived, she usually came into the store after lunch.

Having her help was nice, especially because a third person in the store enabled Mary and Laurie to leave together, if they wanted to. They met with the architect they’d chosen to explain how they wanted the coffee shop to look and began vetting contractors, trying to determine who would do the best job for the most reasonable price.

Mary was worried about going into debt. She’d always been conservative, cautious—afraid if she wasn’t cautious she’d lose everything she’d so painstakingly established in Sable Beach. Laurie was much more of a risk taker. She insisted they were doing the right thing—that having a coffee shop in the store would keep them relevant—but she had her husband and her family to fall back on if it turned out to be the wrong decision. While Laurie and Laurie’s family had done a lot for her, Mary wasn’t truly related to them and knew she couldn’t depend on them quite to the same degree.

Still, during this golden period when the summer was just getting into full swing, it was easy to believe that all would be well. Everything seemed to be going right. Mary had even been sleeping soundly, hadn’t had a nightmare since Autumn, Taylor and Caden’s first night.

She was feeling so good she found herself humming along with Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” which was playing over the stereo system in Mabel’s Food and Drug, while Mary was waiting in line to check out. She eyed the racks of gum and candy near the register as the man ahead of her spoke to the cashier, Lenore Graybel. For only purchasing a soda, he seemed to be taking a long time, but Mary wasn’t in any hurry. Autumn was at the bookstore with Laurie, so Laurie could leave if she needed to; Mary didn’t have to worry about the time.

She dropped a couple of candy bars into her basket, thinking Taylor and Caden might like them, and the man wearing chinos and a