Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk #3) - Samantha Young Page 0,7
honest, I’d kept to myself living in Hartwell these past nine years. Emery had moved to town a year after me, but she was so shy and socially awkward, no one really knew her. That is until Jessica Huntington came to Hartwell last year, befriended Bailey, and then Emery. Jessica was now Jessica Lawson. She’d married our friend Cooper who owned the bar next to Emery’s bookstore. Jessica was one of the town doctors, and if she had time between appointments, she’d try to join us for coffee. However, she and Cooper were on their honeymoon in Canada.
And now all four of us were friends. Emery was coming out of her shell more and more, but the woman was still a mystery.
All I knew about her was that she inherited a lot of money from her grandmother, including property like the bookstore. I knew she was timid, especially around men, which made no sense considering she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met in real life. Seriously. She was tall, slender with curves in all the right places, had long white-blond hair that no grown woman should have naturally, and the delicate features of a Disney cartoon. Cooper’s sister, Cat, often joked that Emery looked like Elsa from Frozen.
Aside from her resemblance to a Disney character, I also knew Emery was a total romantic. Anytime Bailey spoke about Vaughn, or Jess talked about Cooper, Emery got this sweet look of longing on her face.
“Shouldn’t he want to spend all of his time with me?” Bailey pulled me out of my Emery thoughts.
“You need to talk to him about this. Now. Before it goes any further,” I advised. There had been way too much miscommunication between Bailey and Vaughn already. “If Jess was here, she’d say the same.”
Bailey wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know …”
Well, I did know, and I had no problems saying how I felt and doing so bluntly. Thankfully, Bailey appreciated that part of my personality. “Do you really want a husband and a father to your kids who is never there?”
“No.” She shook her head and then straightened her shoulders with determination. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. It’ll probably scare him off, but I’ll talk to him.”
“After what he said to you, I don’t think anything you do will scare him off,” Emery offered, taking the words right out of my mouth. On the day of Jess’s wedding, Vaughn had gotten into a fist fight with an old flame of Bailey’s that turned out to be Vaughn’s high school friend. The guy insulted Bailey and Vaughn decked him (you couldn’t write this stuff!), and when the fighting was over, Vaughn gave her this amazing speech about all the reasons he loved her. When she’d told us what he’d said, I’d kind of fallen in love with him myself.
“Yeah, he certainly seems to get a kick out of your obnoxious honesty,” I teased.
“My obnoxious honesty?” Bailey gestured to me. “Pot.” And then to herself. “Meet Kettle.”
I laughed. “Whatever. Just talk to him.”
At the sound of the bell ringing through the bookstore, Emery got up to see if the customers needed her and I repeated to Bailey that she needed to talk to Vaughn. Seriously, my friend had to know by now that there was no chasing off Vaughn Tremaine. He looked at her like she was his whole reason for existing.
“They’re just browsing the books, so I told them to come get me if they need me.” Emery sat down with us again. “What were we saying?”
“We were discussing my possible relationship-ending talk with Vaughn. Oh, and the fact that my sister seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet. I swear to God, if I don’t find her soon, my parents are going to get on a flight out here.”
“And that would be a bad thing?” I think not. It wasn’t my place to say anything, but Vanessa was a born troublemaker, and I didn’t like the idea of her causing problems for Bailey as my friend was getting her life together. Maybe it would be a good thing if Stacy and Aaron Hartwell came back to take the responsibility of looking out for Vanessa off Bailey’s shoulders.
“Right now?” Bailey said. “Yes. I’d like to get to know Vaughn without my dad breathing down my neck. I love the man, but he also is the only one in my family who knew about Oliver Spence.”