A Haven on the Bay - Nicole Ellis Page 0,60

the restaurant would be closed for a while. Taylor would be horrified when he saw the current state of his beloved kitchen.

Ugh. He was out-of-state at his sister’s wedding, and Meg hated that this would ruin his vacation time with his family. She’d tried so hard to keep the flames down, but even the large fire extinguisher had been no match for them. If only Lara had said something as soon as things got out of control, maybe the result would have been different. Or if Meg had been out in the kitchen instead of in Taylor’s office making sure everything was set for the dinner service that evening, maybe she would have been able to prevent Lara’s mistake.

She closed her eyes. All the maybes in the world weren’t going to make the damage to the Lodge’s kitchen disappear. Someone knocked on the open door and both Meg and Libby turned to look.

“Are you alright?” Theo asked. “Zoe called to let me know about the fire.”

The fact that he’d come to the hospital reassured Meg that he cared about her. Even though neither of them had wanted anything serious when they’d started dating, they’d been together long enough that she was starting to want more from a relationship. Up until now though, she’d wondered if his feelings for her were purely superficial.

She smiled warmly at him. “I’m okay. I inhaled a bit of smoke, so they wanted to keep me here overnight for observation. But I’m basically fine.”

Libby stood and assessed Theo, then leaned down to press her cheek to Meg’s in an awkward, hospital-bed hug. “I’m going to head out, but call me if you need anything.”

“I will. Thanks, Libby.”

Libby left and Theo sat down in the chair she’d just vacated. “What happened?” he asked. “All Zoe said was that there was a fire and you were in the hospital. I was so worried.”

“The deep fryer caught fire and part of the kitchen burned. I tried to put it out, but it wasn’t enough.”

“That sounds awful.” He kissed her cheek and squeezed her left hand.

“It was.” She gazed into space, reliving it once more. She knew she hadn’t been the one in the wrong. Lara had been the one to start the fire with her ill-conceived plan to fry donuts without knowing what she was doing. However, that fact, much like the useless fire extinguisher, did little to quell the flames of guilt that continued to consume her. The kitchen had been Meg’s responsibility.

“Hey,” he said so brightly that she jerked to attention. “I have something to tell you.”

She pushed herself upright and reached back to pile up some pillows as a backrest. “What is it?”

“I’m heading up to the San Juan Islands next weekend.” He beamed at her. “And I was hoping you’d come with me.”

She stared at him. “You mean for the weekend?” The Inn had just opened. There was no way she could get away for a few days.

“No.” He shook his head and looked at her like she was being obtuse on purpose. “I’ve decided to explore the islands up there before winter comes.”

“So, you’re talking about a few months.” She burrowed the back of her head into the pillows to think. Theo was asking her to leave Willa Bay—leave her friends, family, and the Inn for months.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “We’d be back by Christmas though.”

“If I leave now,” she said slowly, “Shawn and Zoe will want to push back the timeframe for renovating the barn.”

He shot an exasperated look at the ceiling then focused on her. “Are you still stuck on that? I thought you’d change your mind after the Inn opened. Aren’t you busy enough with the Inn?”

She gaped at him like a big-mouth bass, about to be filleted. Did he not understand how important having her own restaurant was to her? Had he taken all of their conversations so lightly that he’d failed to realize that?

“Yeah,” she said in a level voice. “I want to renovate the barn. I know I can make it into something special.”

He leaned back in the chair. “Okay. I hadn’t realized you still wanted to do that.” He was quiet for a moment.

In the stillness, Meg caught sight of a man’s figure paused in the hallway outside of her room. He stood as still as a statue, his hands wrapped around a large bouquet of flowers. For a moment, she thought it was Taylor. When he called out to someone further down the hall, she realized she’d