Confessions of a Girl-Next-Door (14 page)

If only.

“Nate isn’t here,” Holly said. She folded her hands at her waist and smiled her most serene smile. Oh, what it cost her on the inside.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting to find him home. I saw his truck up at the marina.”

“Then what were you hoping to find?” Holly’s face began to ache beneath the smile.

“I don’t know what you mean.” The other woman blinked innocently.

Holly blinked back. “Oh. I’m sorry. I must have been mistaken.”

Nadine expelled a breath then. “No. I’m the one who’s sorry. I … I’ve been curious.”

“About?” Holly asked, even though she was sure she knew.

“You and Nate and …” She swept her hand in an arc. “And your living arrangements.”

“Sleeping arrangements, I believe, is what you really mean.”

Nadine had the grace to grimace and then to apologize again. “I’m sorry. You seem like a very nice person and you’ve already told me that you and Nate have known each other since childhood. I must seem a little pathetic.”

“Not at all.”
Suspicious and territorial, certainly. But not pathetic.
Holly would feel the same way if she were in the other woman’s shoes.

“Nate might have mentioned that we date.”

“He did. Yes.”

“It’s not serious.”

He’d told her that, too. “But you would like it to be,” Holly said sympathetically.

“Yes.” Nadine fiddled with the band of her wristwatch. “We get along very well, Nate and I. We like a lot of the same things—movies, food, you name it. But I’ve always sensed that he was holding back.”

She glanced up at Holly then. Nadine no
longer looked like the successful businesswoman she was, or the jealous, sometimes girlfriend who’d brashly come calling on a potential threat. Now, she just looked vulnerable … and uncertain.

She was saying, “I told myself it was just a typical case of commitment phobia and that eventually he would come around. But …”

Holly waited silently for the other woman to continue. What could she say?
Don’t worry about me as competition. Even if Nate does have feelings for me, they can never come to anything.

“I think he loves you,” Nadine announced. “I think he’s always loved you.”

Holly’s mouth dropped open, but the denial drumming in her head never made it to her lips. And, even though she knew it was foolish and hopeless, her heart thunked almost painfully in her chest.

He loves me.

The door opened then. At the threshold stood the man in question, his expression wary as he divided his gaze between the pair of them.

“Hi.”

“Nate!” Nadine pasted a smile on her face
that did nothing to camouflage her guilt. “Hi.”

He nodded to Holly before saying, “I thought that was your car I saw drive past the marina.”

“I … I came to give Holly the key to the place she rented for the next couple weeks.”

It was completely plausible. Nate seemed to relax. For her part, Holly held up said key and smiled.

“It will be ready anytime after noon tomorrow. The current occupants have checked out early, but housekeeping hasn’t finished up inside yet.”

“I’m not in any hurry,” Holly said. She flushed immediately. It wasn’t exactly the right thing to say.

Nate pointed toward the kitchen. “I just came home to grab a bite to eat. You’re welcome to join me. Both of us.”

Holly didn’t bother to add that she’d already helped herself to some leftovers from the previous night’s takeout.

“Thanks for the offer, but I can’t stay. I … have a little work to finish up at the office before I can finally knock off for what remains of the weekend,” Nadine explained.

“Okay. Well, good seeing you.”

“Yes. You, too. And thanks again for bringing me some business.” Nadine worked up what passed for a smile.

“No problem.”

Holly turned to him the moment the other woman was out the door. “Are you oblivious or just insensitive?”

“What do you mean?” Nate toed off his shoes slowly, like a man who clearly knew that he’d stepped in something messy.

“Nadine is half in love with you!” Actually wholly in love with him, but Holly sought to leave the poor woman some dignity. After all, she knew how Nadine felt.

His brow furrowed. “Why are you so worked up?”

She didn’t have an actual answer for him, at least not one that made sense, so she crossed her arms and remained stoic.

Nate continued. “The other day you were upset over that fact for a different reason, if I’m not mistaken.”

He had her there. Holly tried again. “You need to be honest with her.”

In an instant, Nate went from being cautiously
baffled to angry. “I’ve been nothing but honest! With her. With you.” He jabbed a finger in Holly’s direction. “The one I’ve lied to all along has been myself! I’ve pretended that I’m over you. Well, guess what, Princess. That’s never happened.”

His outburst left Holly speechless for a moment. As he raked the hair back from his forehead, she found her voice.

“I just want you to be happy, Nate.”

“So, what? You want me to marry Nadine?”

No!
Her response was as visceral as his earlier one had been. But what Holly managed to say, and in a tone that was amazingly neutral under the circumstances, was, “If that’s what it takes, then yes.”

“So, because you’re willing to make a lifetime commitment to someone you don’t love, I should, too?”

She stepped back as if he’d struck her. Before she could respond, he was already apologizing.

“God, Holly. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. Our situations are vastly different.”

“Yes.”

But as Holly laid awake long into the night, she found herself wondering if they had to be.

N
ATE
was still asleep on the deck when Holly crept downstairs early the next morning and took the cordless telephone from its cradle in the kitchen. She’d reached some conclusions during the long, sleepless night. The first was that she needed to call Phillip.

After speaking to her mother that first night on the island, she’d left a brief comment on his office voice mail, well aware he wouldn’t be at work to receive it. It was the act of a coward, she could readily admit. Well, an actual conversation couldn’t be put off any longer. In fact, it was something that should have occurred a long time ago, not long after she and Phillip were first introduced. Certainly after he’d first broached the subject of marriage.

Nate was right. Holly wasn’t without power. And, while her options might be
limited, she wasn’t without choices, either. She would not marry a man she didn’t love, regardless of how “perfect” her mother and others in Morenci deemed him to be.

Phillip answered in French on the third ring. He’d been raised speaking French, which, along with Italian and English, were all spoken in Morenci. She answered in kind.

“Bonjour.”

“Hollyn! God in heaven!” he declared. “I have been so eager for your call.”

“Did you not receive my earlier message?” she asked.

“Yes. But it was so brief and you sounded, well, you sounded very unlike yourself. It only served to make me more concerned.”

Holly wanted to be touched by his words. She wanted to feel even a glimmer of the warmth that she’d felt upon hearing Nate’s confession that he’d been worried about her when she hadn’t returned to Heart Island that first summer.

But that great void inside of her remained empty, just as she’d known it would. There was no love to fill it up. Respect and affection were insubstantial as substitutes.

“I must apologize for leaving so abruptly. I’ve been in touch with my mother and so I
am well aware of what an inconvenience my absence has been for everyone.”

“Yes, it has been a bit of a trial,” he concurred. “But we’ve managed. The press, they are none the wiser, and I have enjoyed this bit of sport in tricking them.”

“Wonderful.” What else could she say?

“You will be home soon, yes?”

“Yes.”

Too soon for her liking, Holly thought, her gaze on the horizon, where the first fingers of light had stretched over the bay. The scene was so peaceful, she closed her eyes and tried to capture it in her memory.

“Excellent. Excellent. I have an important dinner with some foreign investors on Wednesday. I was hoping that you would accompany me. They asked specifically if you would be there. You know how fascinated some people are with royalty.”

Indeed, she did.

“Wednesday?” That was three days away. “I hadn’t planned to return by then.”

“But you will have been gone nearly a week, Hollyn.” His voice took on an impatient edge. “Should your absence continue, well, it will become much more difficult to explain … to everyone. More engagements
will have to be postponed or canceled. Your mother assured me—”

Holly was done letting her mother to speak for her, as well-intentioned as Olivia might be. “I am allowed a life of my own,” she replied, amazed she’d said so, but in no hurry to take it back.

Her words as well as her tone must have surprised Phillip, too. “Is everything all right?”

“Never better. I am just making it clear that, royal or not, I am allowed to have a life.”

“Of course.”

But his tone was filled with more bafflement than agreement.

Holly pressed ahead. “I understand that I have obligations, but if I were ill or otherwise indisposed, well, other arrangements would be made.”

“Are you ill,
ma chérie
?”

She held back a sigh. “Not how you mean.”

“Ah. I think I understand,” Phillip replied.

“You do?”

“You are a princess, yes. But a woman first. I have moved slowly with our romance out of deference for your royal position, but perhaps that is not what you’ve wanted. Perhaps I have been remiss in declaring myself.”
His tone lowered to an intimate level and he added, “In declaring my feelings.”

Alarm bells were going off in Holly’s head. Dear God! Surely he didn’t think she
wanted
him to declare them? Maybe at one time she’d hoped that hearing pretty words might soften her heart toward him, but they would only further complicate matters now.

She rushed to assure him, “Your feelings have been very clear, Phillip. Indeed, they have been clear from the beginning. I fear, however, I have not been clear in my feelings. I am quite fond of you, certainly. And I have been flattered, very flattered, by your interest and attention these past several months.”

“Flattery is not what I was hoping to achieve,” he remarked dryly.

“I wish I could tell you that I have … romantic feelings where you are concerned, but I think it is best for me to be honest. I enjoy your company and treasure your friendship, but—”

“Let us leave it at that,
ma chérie
. That way I will have my pride.”

“I’m sorry, Phillip. Truly.”

“As am I.”

Nate shifted on the lounge chair and stifled a moan. His back was killing him. But he didn’t care. The conversation he’d just overheard trumped physical discomfort.

He’d averaged a B in French during the four years he’d taken it in high school, and he’d never become fluent. But from Holly’s subdued tone and some of the key words he’d picked up on her side of the conversation, it was clear the news she’d delivered to Phillip was not good.

Nate resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air. Such a reaction would have been juvenile. But he didn’t try to subdue his grin. As the sun broke over the water, even the wicked itching on his legs from the poison ivy couldn’t dampen his good mood.

Holly’s bags were once again downstairs and lined up at the side door when he popped in just before noon. While he’d been at the marina office helping Mick with the week’s checkouts, both cabins and boat slips, she’d been busy. And not only was her luggage ready, but she’d also brought down her bedding. Now, she sat in his kitchen munching on toast that was closer to black than brown,
and drinking a cup of the coffee he’d made before heading out.

“All ready to go, I see. And you even stripped the bed.”

“It’s what a good guest should do.” But then she looked dubious. “Right?”

“Sure.” Though Hank had shown no such compunction.

“Nadine called a bit ago and said housekeeping had finished up. I can check in whenever I want.”

“Well, then, let’s not waste time. It’s going to be another gorgeous day. You’re going to want to spend it on that fancy deck.”

She smiled uncertainly. “Nate.”

“Yes?” He wondered if she would bring up her earlier phone conversation. Just as Nate wondered if her breaking things off with Phillip had anything at all to do with him. Regardless, he was glad she was taking a stand and taking back some of the power she’d claimed not to have.

“I … I … If you wouldn’t mind stopping at the grocery store in town I would be most grateful. The cottage is stocked with all of the basics such as spices and condiments, from what I’ve been told, but that I will need to bring my own meals.”

He glanced at the burned toast, but resisted asking what she knew of making meals.

“What’s that on your legs?” she asked as he toted her bags outside.

“Calamine lotion,” he muttered.

“Cala—” She wasn’t quite successful at swallowing her laughter.

“Go ahead,” he offered. “Get it out of your system.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied innocently, even as amusement shimmered in her eyes.

“You’re dying to tease me about catching poison ivy.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He gave her extra points for her serious expression. “Tell me, does it itch as horribly as I remember from my third summer here?”

“Worse,” he grumbled, but mostly for effect. The fact was it was hard to remain irritable recalling how absolutely adorable Holly had looked that year dotted with the same pink lotion that now covered the better part of his calves.

Nate accompanied Holly inside the island’s small market, leaving her to her shopping while he picked up a few staples of his
own. Like most weeks, he’d probably dine out as much as he would dine in, so he didn’t bother with much more than the basics: bread, more coffee, a bag of donuts, lunch meat and potato chips and two boxes of cereal. He’d stop to pick up milk on the way back.