If for Any Reason (Nantucket Love Story #1) - Courtney Walsh Page 0,106
if he’d been unaware it was happening at all. Or maybe he’d simply been in denial. Because he was pretty sure it started the moment he thought he spotted her getting off the ferry her first day back.
Now here he was, standing in her bedroom, ignoring what she sent him here to do and picturing the way she spent her nights. Did she sleep all under the covers or did she leave one leg out? Did she close the curtains or let the moonlight fill the room? Did she get lonely or sad or have trouble falling asleep?
He wanted to know these things—all of them.
“Hollis?”
He turned and found Jack standing in the doorway of the guest room.
“Do you need something?”
The way Jack asked the question, as if he were the one who could help him, bothered Hollis. “Uh, no. Emily needs something.”
Hollis glanced down and saw the turquoise binder on the end of Emily’s unmade bed. A binder he could’ve grabbed without lingering over the way the room looked and smelled.
He picked it up.
“Just making sure,” Jack said. “Do you have a second? Thought I’d show you the progress they made in the backyard. I have a feeling she’s not going to want to sell this place once we’re done.”
It was too much to hope for. Hollis was pretty sure nothing was going to change her mind on the house.
“Sure,” he said, though he really didn’t have a minute. Emily needed him back.
And yet, this could be the in with Jack he’d been waiting for. He followed the man down the stairs, through the house, and out back. As expected, the crew had done a stellar job with the landscaping. The flagstone patio was only one of an endless number of things they’d done in the yard. They’d added sprays of colorful flowers and bushes and giant pots of greenery that would likely blossom later in the season. They’d trimmed trees, pulled more weeds, added mulch—basically, they’d made everything presentable again.
Even Gladys Middlebury would approve.
“Think she’ll like it?” Jack asked. He was staring out across the yard, and Hollis took a moment to study Jack’s profile. The curve of his nose, the high cheekbones, even the skin tone was remarkably similar—why had he never seen it before? The resemblance was unmistakable.
Jack looked at him, expectancy on his face, and only then did Hollis realize he hadn’t answered the man’s question.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think she’ll love it. You guys did a great job.”
“Well, thanks for your help with it,” Jack said.
“What were you doing looking around in Isabelle’s room that day?” Hollis asked.
Jack went back to staring at the yard.
“I heard you and Eliza talking last week,” Hollis said. “She doesn’t like you—why?”
“It’s a long story,” Jack said, facing him.
“Do you have any intention of telling Emily that story? Don’t you think she deserves the truth?”
“The truth about what?”
“About who you are,” Hollis said.
Jack turned away.
“I’ve been trying to figure out your game this whole time.”
“My game?”
“Yeah. Something never added up. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. How Eliza can’t stand to have you around, how you seem to know the family as more than just someone who caddied for Alan back in the day, how you sort of look like Emily—the parts of her that don’t look like her mom. It’s been staring me in the face this whole time.”
Jack dragged a hand over his face, the whiskers of his unshaven chin scratching against it. “I’m going to tell her. I just . . . I don’t know how she’ll react.”
Hollis could feel his stomach twist into a tight ball. “Oh, you don’t know how she’ll react to meeting the father who never wanted her? Do you know her mom left her a letter basically warning her to never fall in love because you good and broke her heart like you did?”
Jack sighed. “There’s a lot to this that you don’t understand.”
“I have a daughter,” Hollis said. “I understand.”
Regret rolled around inside his belly. He had a daughter he’d basically abandoned—did he have any right to lecture this guy for making the same mistakes he’d made?
“Then you know how important it is that I get this right,” Jack said. “I came here because Alan asked me to. And because I finally felt like I could.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Isabelle’s dad sent me a letter,” Jack said. “Or I guess his lawyer did—after Alan died. In it, he told me he was leaving her the house and to