“Looks like you’ve got company,” Christy Palmer whispered as she walked past Justine’s desk.
Seth. It had to be Seth. Her head shot up with a smile she couldn’t restrain.
Only it wasn’t Seth who strolled into the bank, but Warren. He carried a huge bouquet of fresh flowers in a glass vase. Every eye in the room turned to him as he headed directly for her office.
If Justine could have slid out of her chair and hidden beneath her desk, she would have. She’d promised an answer to his proposal, and the deadline had come and gone, and still she didn’t know what to do.
“Hello, baby.” Warren greeted her loudly enough to ensure that everyone in the bank heard him.
“Hi, Warren,” she returned without emotion.
“I came to invite you to lunch.”
“Sorry,” she said, fighting the urge to be flippant, “but I have a noon meeting.” That was true enough, but she didn’t mention it was a meeting with one of the tellers and would take all of five minutes. If that.
Warren sighed. “I’m still waiting, you know.”
“For what?” She closed the file she was working on.
“You still haven’t given me your decision.”
“I told you,” Justine said impatiently, lowering her voice, “that if you pressure me, the answer is no.”
“Hell, I figure we might as well get married, seeing that all we’ve done lately is argue. Is that what you want? What’s happened, baby? We used to be close and now all of a sudden, it’s like I’m not good enough for you.”
“That’s not it.” How could she explain something she didn’t fully understand herself?
“It’s that high-school reunion of yours, isn’t it?”
Justine didn’t know how many times she’d had to tell him otherwise.
“If that’s not it, then it has to be that old boyfriend you met up with.”
Seth wasn’t an old boyfriend. “I never went out with him.”
“But you wanted to.”
“No.” Not when she was in high school, at any rate. The problem was a more recent one.
“We need to talk,” Warren said urgently.
“Warren,” she began, doing her best not to show her frustration, “I can’t just take off in the middle of the day because you want to chitchat.”
“You could if you married me—you wouldn’t have to work.”
Justine narrowed her eyes. “Don’t say another word.”
“All right, all right.” He held up one hand, smiling. “Come on, this’ll only take a moment.” He set the flowers on the corner of her desk and pleaded with his eyes.
It wasn’t like Warren to be humble. She realized this must be important, at least to him. Normally he went out of his way to act arrogant.
“Fine,” she said, motioning for him to sit down.
“I’d rather do it someplace more private,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder.
Justine darted a look at her watch. “Listen, I have an appointment in ten minutes. I can leave after that. Would you like to meet outside? We could talk there.”
“All right.”
Justine thought he seemed relieved.
Sure enough, Warren was waiting for her when she left the bank. He was leaning against his car and straightened when she stepped outside. Hurrying around to the passenger side of the car, he held the door and Justine climbed inside. He didn’t need to tell her that the engagement ring was stored in the glove box.
“I only have a few minutes,” she reminded him when he slid into the seat beside her. “I’ve got meetings all afternoon.” A slight exaggeration, but in a good cause.
“You sure you can’t get away for lunch?”
She answered him with a hard look.
He shrugged. “Just asking.”
“What’s all this about?”
Warren gazed out the side window. “I wanted to talk to you about us getting married.”
“Warren!”
“I think I know the reason you can’t make up your mind.”
Great. If he had any insight into that, she’d gladly listen.
“You’ve got the hots for Seth Gunderson.”
For one moment she was too breathless to respond. Breathless with embarassment—and chagrin. “I most certainly do not! That you’d even say such a thing—”
“Now, don’t get mad. The least you can do is hear me out before you get all riled up.” He clenched the steering wheel with both hands—the only outward evidence of tension.
“Fine,” she said curtly. This was what got her about Warren. As insensitive and blind as he could sometimes be, every now and then he had the uncanny ability to know her better than she did herself.
“You don’t have to hide the way you feel about Seth.”
She crossed her arms irritably. “Is that right?”
“I can give you the things a woman wants. Jewels, gifts, status.”
Justine rolled her eyes. “That’s what a woman wants? You sure, Warren?”
In response, he leaned across her and opened the glove compartment, withdrawing the ring box. He flipped open the lid and she nearly gasped, seeing all four gorgeous carats of the diamond in the full light of day. It sparkled like nothing she’d ever seen.
“You tell me,” Warren said. “You’re a woman meant to wear a ring like this.”
Justine didn’t argue with him. He was right; this was an incredible diamond and any woman would feel beautiful with it on her finger.
“Well?” he pressed.
She gave a long, drawn-out sigh, conceding. “You’ve made your point.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Is there anything else?” she asked. “I need to get back to work.”
“You want the ring, and I want you to have it, but you’re still hesitating and I think I know why.”
Justine said nothing.
“I can give you all the things you deserve in life, but we’re both aware that there’s one thing I can’t give you.”
“Warren…”
“Hear me out. You want Seth Gunderson. You’re young and healthy, and hell, I’m not blind.” He held her look, then pointedly slid his gaze past her. “But I can be.”
Justine frowned. “I don’t understand.”
Warren slid his arm along the back of her seat. “Baby, you want sex. What woman doesn’t? So go ahead, with my blessing. Screw his brains out if that’ll make you happy, and then come home to me.”
The crudeness of his words made her gasp. “You’re sanctioning an affair?”
“If not Seth, then someone else. You pick.”
“That’s not the kind of marriage I want!”
He spoke as though he hadn’t heard her. “The only thing I ask is that you tell me who it is.”
Justine couldn’t believe they were having this conversation or that Warren would suggest something so…so reprehensible. “I’m not like that, Warren.”
He grinned with the amusement of a man who’d seen it all. “You never know, Justine. You just never know.”
Fifteen
As a single man, Jack Griffin didn’t make a habit of turning down dinner invitations, especially ones that came from Bob and Peggy Beldon. Peggy was an extraordinary cook, and meals at their bed-and-breakfast were the stuff of culinary legend.
Jack had been friends with Bob for more than ten years; Bob and Peggy had owned Thyme and Tide for seven. It was on Lighthouse Road, a mile or so from Olivia’s house. The two-story white structure with the black wrought-iron fence had been called the Mansion before Bob and Peggy bought it. A Navy Commander was said to have built it in the early 1900s. It had turrets, one at either end of the house, and the larger of the two had a widow’s walk.
The B and B had been successful from the outset, due in no small part to the Beldons’ skill as hosts—and of course, to Peggy’s cooking.
Jack arrived with a bouquet of flowers and a healthy appetite.
“Welcome,” Peggy said as she opened the door and kissed him on the cheek. “We don’t see nearly enough of you. Our guests aren’t scheduled to arrive until late, so we’re free to relax for a few hours.” Her eyes crinkled in a smile. “I always enjoy the opportunity to feed someone who appreciates my cooking as much as you do.”
“Invite me to dinner any time you like,” he said enthusiastically.
“Did I hear the doorbell?” Bob walked in and the two men exchanged handshakes.
“I’ll take care of these flowers,” Peggy said and left the room.
Jack followed his friend onto the patio behind the house. Its location granted a full view of the cove, with the Bremerton ferry in the distance.
“I’ve already got the cribbage board set up and ready to go,” Bob told him. “How about a glass of iced tea?”
“Sounds great.”
While Bob hurried into the kitchen for the tea, Jack inspected Peggy’s herb garden. It was lovely to behold, a delight for all the senses. Even Jack, who liked to say that he had “a green thumb—green with mold,” derived real pleasure from Peggy’s garden. Many of the fresh herbs were used in her prized recipes, and he wondered what she’d serve tonight.
Bob returned with two glasses of iced tea. “This retirement is for the birds,” he muttered. “It looks like the house is going to need painting this summer, and Peggy thinks I should be able to do it myself.”
“She’s joking, right?”
“I hope so.” Bob sank down on one of the lounge chairs. “Can you believe it’s the middle of June already?” He sat upright with a startled look.
“What’s wrong?”
Bob glanced away and seemed embarrassed, as though he’d said something he shouldn’t have. “Nothing,” he said, shaking off the question. “Just another one of life’s regrets. Let’s not discuss it.”
Jack frowned, but if there was anything he understood it was regrets.
“So—you’ve been here almost a year,” Bob said casually, reaching for his tea.
Jack nodded. A year. Well, it would be in October. Busy as he was with the newspaper, the months had flown by. It seemed only a few weeks ago that he’d sat in Olivia’s courtroom that first time…. He was shocked to realize that six months had passed.
“What do you think of Cedar Cove now?”
“Hey,” Jack said with a grin. “It’s my kind of town.” Bob and Peggy had been raised in Cedar Cove. They’d graduated from high school together, and then Bob had been drafted and gone off to fight in Vietnam. He’d come home haunted by demons—memories and experiences he could scarcely speak of, even now. Those demons had led him to look for oblivion in the bottom of a bottle. Jack had faced his own demons from Nam and they, too, had led him to the deceptive gratifications of alcohol. He’d met Bob in a rehab center, and they’d struck up a friendship that had grown over the years. Although he had ten years’ sobriety now, the consequences of those hard-drinking years still lingered. Only now had Eric begun to trust him.
