Nantucket Romance 3-in-1 Bundle (89 page)

Tucker looked at Arielle. “What’s going on?” he asked finally.

Say something. Think, Sabrina!

Arielle was looking at her, too, her eyes searching for answers Sabrina didn’t have.

“Excuse us,” a man behind Sabrina said.

They were blocking the exit. Sabrina and Arielle moved outside, letting the man pass.

What could she say? She was caught. There was nothing she could do but introduce them. Her eyes begged Arielle to play along.

She swallowed hard. “Tucker, I’d like you to meet Arielle. I was—I was going to surprise you, but, well, here she is. The woman you’ve been writing to all this time.” In her stomach, an aching hole opened, wide and gaping. The smile on her face felt frozen and stilted. Plastic.

Arielle studied Sabrina a moment, then turned a dazed smile on Tucker.

Tucker looked between them. Finally, as if remembering his manners, he extended his hand. “Nice to meet you.” He cleared his throat. “In person, I mean.”

Arielle shook his hand. “You too.”

Sabrina shrank inside as they touched. What had she done? What was going to happen now? Now that Tucker thought he’d met the woman of his dreams?
You’re going to lose him for good, that’s
what.
The thought awakened an old wound.

A tap on the café window snagged her attention. Char motioned toward Gordon, who gave an exaggerated shrug from the kitchen window. His brows were pulled low in a deep V. It was the same look he had right before he’d fired their last server. The couple at table five was glaring at her. She had to get back in there.

Tucker gave his cap a sharp tug, then stuffed his hands in his pockets.

“I have to get back to work and—uh—Arielle has to be somewhere else . . .” Sabrina looked to her cousin for a confirmation.

“I do. I have to be somewhere else.”

“So, maybe you two can catch up later?” Sabrina eyed Arielle, who took the hint and started walking away.

“Sure, later,” Arielle said.

Tucker nodded once. “See you.”

As he entered the café behind her, Sabrina could swear he was burning a hole through the back of her head. She needed a moment alone like she needed oxygen. She didn’t even look at Gordon as she passed the kitchen and headed to the employee restroom. Just two minutes. She closed the metal door behind her and bolted it shut, leaning against it. Her legs quaked. Her entire body had become the epicenter of some horrific earthquake.

What now? What was going to happen? Could she get Arielle to leave? But then Tucker would wonder why she’d come at all.

There had to be some way out of this.
Think!

She remembered the look on Tucker’s face. Not the response she expected from someone meeting the woman he’d been desperately searching for. But then, he’d come to the café expecting coffee and had gotten the surprise of his life instead. Maybe he’d been in shock.

Well, he wasn’t the only one. And Arielle must be totally perplexed. But she could deal with her cousin later. Right now, she had to face Tucker, had to seem pleased that she’d located his Sweetpea.

Sabrina closed her eyes and banged her head against the door.

Okay, maybe she could fix this. Maybe she could convince Arielle to spend a day with him and then go home. Then Sabrina and Tucker could continue writing, and everything would return to normal.

Normal.
The word had such a nice ring.

She drew a deep breath, let it fill her lungs, then exhaled, feeling in control now that she had a workable plan. Of course, she’d have to convince Arielle to cooperate. And she’d have to endure the knowledge that Tucker was with her cousin. The notion made her stomach twist.

One bridge at a time, Sabrina.

A tap on the door startled her.

“Sabrina . . .” Char’s voice called. “You okay in there?”

She straightened. “I’m fine.”

“Well, Gordon’s not, honey. You’ve got three orders up, and he wants to know why you’re MIA.”

“Be right out.” Sabrina splashed cold water on her face and tidied her ponytail.
Just go out there and do your job. You’ll be too busy
to chat with Tucker. Tell him you’ll talk to him tonight. No, scratch that.

There’s no reason for you to go to his house tonight since you’ve already
found Sweetpea.

The realization hit her fresh, and her spirits deflated. No more evenings at Tucker’s. No more impromptu suppers or boat rides. No more sitting close at the desk while he read over her shoulder.

You ninny. That’s what you wanted.
All these mixed feelings were making her crazy. But she couldn’t worry about that now.
Get through
the next half hour. Once Tucker leaves, you can figure out everything else.

She exited the restroom and collected the plates of food. “Sorry about that,” Sabrina told Gordon when he glared at her through the window.

She delivered the food to the tables, then took the orders of two new customers. Next she went for the coffee carafe and stopped at Tucker’s table first. No sense delaying the inevitable.

“So,” he said as she poured the coffee, “you found her, huh?”

Sabrina drew up her lips and hoped for the best. “Surprised?”

He leaned back in the chair. “You could say that.”

He was looking at her oddly. Staring. Studying her as if he’d ordered oatmeal and she’d served a bowl of wet sand.

“Well, Sabrina . . .” Oliver said from behind her. “What do you think about that? You know, about my giving an employee a vituperation yesterday?”

“Oliver, I—”

“So, how’d you do it?”Tucker asked. He adjusted his cap, crossed his arms over his chest. His arm muscles bulged against his fists.

A man across the room caught her eye and raised his empty mug in the air expectantly.

Sabrina nodded his direction, then looked at Tucker. “How did I . . . ?”

“Find her,” Tucker said. “How did you finally find her?” His words sounded like ice chips, chiseled from a thick, heavy block. His chin rose. He tilted his chair back on two legs.

“I—”

Oliver hooted. “I stumped you, didn’t I?”

She turned a glare on Oliver. “It means reprimand,” she said just to shut him up.

“She from Ohio, like you thought?” Tucker asked.

Why didn’t he seem happier? “Uh, no. Georgia.”

The bell dinged as Gordon put up another order. She had to get it together. “I have to get back to work. I’ll explain later.” Maybe by then she would actually have an explanation.

Harbormaster: Women are so complicated. What do you people want?

Chapter Seventeen

Tucker steered his boat into the harbor, relieved his last tour was over. The bow sliced through the water, parting it effortlessly. A wind had kicked up from the east, blowing in angry gray clouds that reflected his mood more accurately than the cumulus clouds that dotted the sky earlier.

Every customer annoyed him that day. The forty-something woman whose coiffed hair required them to move at a snail’s pace, the dad who let his kids riffle through the boat’s cubbies and compartments, the couple who couldn’t keep their hands off each other all the way to the Vineyard and back . . .

Even Dorothy’s bluntness had annoyed him when he’d returned to the office between customers.
“Boy, you’re in a snit today.”

No kidding. What man wouldn’t be when the woman he loved was foisting him on some other woman? And that’s what Sabrina was doing.

He recalled the moment that morning when he’d come face-to-face with the phony Sweetpea. He’d relived the nightmare a hundred times, and each time it left him more irritated than the time before.

It stank, and that’s all there was to it. How much could Sabrina care for him if she pushed him on some other woman? Didn’t the thought of him with someone else make her want to hit something?

And who was this woman, anyway? Some longtime friend of Sabrina’s here to play a part? How long would she stay, and was he supposed to see her again? Take her out?

He pounded his fist on the steering wheel, feeling it vibrate under his hand. He didn’t want to be with this woman . . . Amber? Arielle? He couldn’t even remember her name. He wanted to be with Sabrina. But now that she’d supposedly found Sweetpea, he wouldn’t be spending time with her at all. There was no excuse for her to come over now.

So much for Operation Sweetpea. Instead of forcing Sabrina out of hiding, he’d forced her to find a stand-in.

Now he’d be back to stealing moments at the café during coffee refills. Back to pretending to read the paper while he watched her every move. Back to being his old, pathetic self.

Only now he had a new girlfriend to amuse. He prayed she wouldn’t stay long. What if she remained the rest of the summer? What if she was moving here?

Please, God, no.
His thoughts took every disastrous detour, and by the time he finished ruminating, their old online relationship didn’t seem so terrible after all.

Arielle was waiting inside the door when Sabrina returned. “Okay, spill it.”

Sabrina closed the door and set her bag down. “Nothing like being bombarded the moment one gets home.”

“Nothing like being pawned off on some stranger at seven o’clock in the morning.”

“Touché.” Sabrina went to the kitchen and poured a glass of iced tea. Her head pounded. All she’d wanted was to come home, curl up in bed, and pretend today never happened.

Arielle had followed her to the kitchen. “Out with it. Who’s this Tucker guy, and why did you say I’ve been writing him for a year?”

Sabrina sighed. “Let’s sit down.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

They sat at the kitchen table. Sabrina looked out the window, where dark clouds hung low over the ocean. The water chopped and churned beneath them, an angry, moving canvas. Despite the day’s beautiful start, a storm was brewing. She hoped Tucker was off the water.

“You’re Sweetpea,” Arielle said. “Why did you tell that guy it was me?”

“I’ll get to that. Sheesh. Let me start at the beginning.” It was the only way to make her cousin understand the importance of what she was about to ask.

“This should be good.” Arielle crossed her arms and cocked her head.

Not a great start.
Just get it over with.
Sabrina stalled with a sip of tea, then told Arielle about the start of her relationship with Harbormaster. She told Arielle how stunned she was to discover Harbormaster was Tucker from the café. And then came the first hard part.

“After he sent his own photo, I didn’t know what to do,” Sabrina said. “I couldn’t send my photo or he’d know it was
me.
”

Arielle’s face softened. “What’s so bad about that? He probably would’ve been delighted. You could’ve started dating.”

Sabrina shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Then explain it.”

“I’m not like you. He wouldn’t have been delighted. He would’ve been disappointed.”

Arielle started to interrupt, but Sabrina waved her off. “And I didn’t want that anyway. I
don’t
want that.”

“Don’t want what?”

“A relationship. I’m done with that.”

“You can’t be done with relationships, Sabrina. They’re part of life.”

“Well, they’re not part of my life. And I like it that way.”
Liar.
Well, maybe
like
was too strong a word. It was safer that way, that’s what she’d meant.

“But you have a relationship with him, whether you call it that or not.”

“A relationship at a safe distance. I can handle that.”

Arielle shook her head. “We’ll get back to that later. So he sent a photo and you didn’t reciprocate. What happened next?”

Back to that. How could she say it? It seemed so harmless at the time. She never intended for Arielle to know or be involved. How was she to know that—

“Sabrina?”

“Well, I couldn’t send my picture, and he wanted a photo and . . .”

“And . . . ?”

Sabrina licked her lips, gone suddenly dry, like someone had sucked all the moisture from the air. “Remember that photo you sent me? The one of you on the beach in Florida . . . ?” Her voice got smaller as the sentence dragged out.