Suddenly Last Summer (15 page)

“This, coming from you?” She tilted her head. “How many hours do you work a day, Dr. O’Neil?”

“I don’t keep count but there are times when I think the daily average comes to more than twenty-four.”

She smiled and then she was gone, striding across the deck with a bounce in her step, remarkable given the fact she had to be running on adrenaline and not much else.

He watched as she disappeared inside the Boathouse and then turned to find his grandfather standing next to him.

Sean tensed. The past few days the atmosphere had improved, but still there had been no opportunity to bring up the issue both of them were avoiding.

“That boy has been coming here since he was three. I lent him a pair of Tyler’s old skis on the family’s first winter trip.” His grandfather watched as Brenna taught Sam to handle the kayak. “Look how he loves it. When he’s grown he’ll bring his children back here and they’ll enjoy doing the things he did as a child. It’s how things work around here.”

Here we go,
Sean thought, and braced himself for the inevitable lecture about tradition and family.

Hadn’t his father had to listen to the same lecture from his cradle to his grave?

Grief punched him hard and along with the guilt came the frustration and anger.

“Maybe they’ll want to do something different as the kids get older. Maybe they’ll want to try other things or travel to—” He broke off as Sam gave a yell of delight, the boy’s laughter so infectious that Sean found himself smiling, too.

His grandfather grunted. “Maybe they will. Because I’m pretty sure he’s having a horrible time out there and he’s never going to want to do it again.”

Sean sighed. “It will be good for the business if they come back.”

“It’s not just about business. Not everything can be measured in dollars and cents. Your great-grandfather didn’t set up the resort because he wanted the money. He believed Snow Crystal was too special to keep it just for the family. It’s the air, the scenery, the local food—he thought somewhere like this should be shared and appreciated with people who felt the way he did.”

“I know the story, Gramps.”

“He loved this place. He and your great-grandmother started by letting out a few rooms. Bed-and-breakfast. Then they built the main lodge. He taught me all of it so that I’d be able to take over. By the time I was sixteen there wasn’t a single job in the place that I didn’t know how to do.” Pride rang in his voice. “By the age of eighteen I was running the place.”

It was a story they’d all heard a thousand times, gathered around the kitchen table while their mother cooked.

“What about you?” Sean turned to look at his grandfather. “Was there ever a time when you thought you might want to do something different?”

“This place was my dream.” Walter’s voice was gruff. “Living here was all I ever wanted. I knew it was a privilege. I’d been given this piece of land to tend and nurture and she was my responsibility. I used to wake up in the morning, eager to get to work. When a man feels like that, he knows he’s doing the right thing with his life.”

It was the first time Sean had ever felt he and his grandfather were speaking the same language. “That’s how I feel about being a surgeon.” He’d never tried to explain himself before and he was cautious about doing it now because he knew his grandfather had tunnel vision when it came to Snow Crystal. “People come to me broken and I do my best to fix them. Finding different ways, better ways, is what I love doing. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

“I know. I watched you grow up. Knew you were going to be a doctor when Tyler fell out of that tree. Jackson was as white as the snow. You? You just handled it.” His grandfather watched as Sam’s kayak rocked in the water. “It’s just a shame you have to be doing the job so far away. Your brothers could use your help around here. If you were closer, you could come back more often.”

Sean felt sweat prick the back of his neck because he knew the reason he didn’t come home had nothing to do with distance. “I’m busy.” That, at least was the truth. “Working long hours.”

“Don’t know how you can bear to live in a city. Too many people and not enough space. I wouldn’t be able to stand it, having to fight for my own patch of air to breathe.” Walter waved again at Sam. “So are you going to finish in time for the party or are you still going to be fixing this place at Christmas?”

Sean glanced sideways, relieved to see his grandfather had more color. “I’ll finish in time for the party.” He could have finished days ago. Could have been back in Boston, enjoying his life, thinking only about himself instead of having to juggle a schedule that would have made a grown man cry. “I’m out of practice. Slow.”

His grandfather was still watching little Sam. “You worked so hard
not
to finish this damn deck your brain almost burst with the effort. But it was fun to watch. How long did it take you to undo what you’d already done?”

Sean stared at him. “You—”
Shit.
“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I may not be a doctor, but that doesn’t make me stupid.”

Sean rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Was it that obvious?”

“I was the one who taught you to work with wood. You were good. If I’d really thought the deck was taking you that long I would have dropped you in the lake myself.”

Sean shook his head, realizing how badly he’d underestimated his grandfather. “If you knew, then why the hell didn’t you say something before now?”

“Because for once in your life you were putting something ahead of your work.”

Sean breathed deeply. “Gramps—”

“And you were home. Your family likes having you home from time to time. It doesn’t happen enough. It’s done you good to slow down a bit and spend time at Snow Crystal. I’ve been watching you. You’ve been enjoying the lake and the forest.”

Sean gave a disbelieving laugh. “You didn’t really have a heart attack, did you? The whole thing was an excuse so you could sit on the deck with your feet up sipping Élise’s lemonade while I work my butt off.”

His grandfather sent him a look. “You can finish up here at the proper pace, put those tools back where Zach can find them and see what you can do to help Élise before she runs herself into the ground being in two places at once. That girl does the work of ten.”

That was something he wasn’t going to argue about. And her dedication still puzzled him. “She’s obsessed with making sure the Boathouse opens on time. She’s worried about letting Jackson down so she wants everything perfect. She puts a lot of pressure on herself. He’s damn lucky to have her. She could get a job in any restaurant she wanted. Or open her own place.” Seeing Sam paddle his way into the weeds at the edge of the lake, Sean eased himself upright, ready to intervene, and noticed his grandfather was watching, too.

“The boy is fine. Brenna is there. She’s got him.” He glanced over his shoulder to the Boathouse. “Élise wouldn’t leave. She loves it here. This is her home. The Boathouse was her idea, did you know that?”

“Yes.” He remembered the conversation they’d had on the first night, when they’d walked together and she’d told him about growing up. She’d talked about her mother. “But it’s still a job. Staff move on. It’s a fact of life. Why would someone with her talent stay in one place? Experience is valuable. Every hospital I’ve worked in has taught me something different.”

His grandfather kept his eyes on Sam. “I guess sometimes a person needs more out of life than just a job.”

“That’s rich, Gramps, coming from you.”

“This place is more than my job. It’s my home. Maybe Élise feels the same way.”

“It’s not the same. You were born here.”

“You’re a man who likes fixing things, so tell me this—” Thoughtful, his grandfather ran his hand over the smooth surface of the railing Sean had finished the day before. “When someone comes into the hospital after an accident, can you tell just by looking that some part of them is badly broken?”

Sean wondered why he was changing the subject. “Sometimes, not always.” It seemed a strange question to him, especially from his grandfather who was skilled at first aid. “You can’t assess the extent of internal injuries by just looking, you know that.”

“So it’s possible for someone to look perfect on the outside, but have a lot of damage under the surface? Damage you can’t see just at a glance?”

“It wouldn’t be a glance. We’d do a thorough examination and there might be signs. Sometimes the nature of the accident would make us suspect there might be internal damage. We’d do a bunch of tests, use X-rays or other types of imaging to—” He broke off and stared at his grandfather. Then he glanced over his shoulder and looked at Élise who was still finishing off work inside the Boathouse.

It’s possible for someone to look perfect on the outside but have a lot of damage under the surface.

His grandfather eased away from the railing and reached for the walking stick Alice had insisted he keep with him. “Good thing you moved around all those hospitals and picked up all those skills. It would be easy to miss something like that unless you were very skilled. That fancy hospital in Boston is lucky to have you. Now I need to get back. If I don’t lie down, your grandmother worries about me. I do it to please her.”

“No, wait a minute—” Sean was still looking at Élise. “Hell, Gramps—what are you saying?”

“You’re the one with the medical degree and after the hours you’ve spent in that hospital since you left home, you should be good at what you do.” He rapped his stick on the deck. “Figure it out.”

* * *

É
LISE
HAD
HER
head full of a million different things and the moment she looked up and saw Sean leaning against the door frame, all of them vanished.

She’d spent the past few days trying to pretend he wasn’t working half-naked on her deck. It had taken almost superhuman effort.

“Can I do something for you?” Oh, God, she shouldn’t have said that.
Of course, there was something she could do for him. And there was plenty he could do for her. If she’d let him. Which she wasn’t going to.

“I’m finished.” He put Zach’s toolbox down at her feet, giving her a perfect view of wide shoulders.

“I thought you were going to try and make it last another day.”

“Not much point. Turns out my grandfather was on to me right from the start. We talked.”

“You mean you fixed things?”

“No.” He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “We didn’t talk about that. But other things.”

She felt a pang of disappointment. “So you still haven’t tackled it?”

“We just managed to be in each other’s company for ten minutes without killing each other. I figured that was a good start. And now we can give up pretending, I’ve finished the deck.”

Delight mingled with another far more dangerous emotion. Disappointment. If he’d finished the deck then he’d be leaving. He’d be going back to Boston and without a reason to come home, they were unlikely to see each other again before Christmas.

It appalled her how much she minded.

“So we can go ahead with the party.” A few days ago she’d thought it was hopeless. She’d been depressed and dejected at her own failure to complete the task. Now that she knew it was going to be on time, she should have been bouncing with joy. So why wasn’t she? “I am very pleased. Today you are truly my hero.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, because it’s time to talk about payment.” He folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, that lazy blue gaze fixed on her face.

“Payment?”

His skin was glistening with the sweat of hard labor and she took a step backward. It was too reminiscent of that night last summer when they’d driven each other wild. She knew how those shoulders felt. She’d had her hands on them. And her mouth. And he’d had hands and mouth on her, too. She couldn’t stop thinking about it and clearly he couldn’t, either, because his eyes were fixed on her lips as if she were a meal he wanted to eat.

“Yeah, we haven’t talked terms. But I’m ready to do that.”

“What do you want?”

He smiled. “We’ll start with dinner. I’m hungry.” His gaze lowered to her mouth. “And given that you haven’t stopped working all week, you must be hungry, too.”

Merde.
“Sean—”

“Eight o’clock suit you or do you want to make it later?”

“No, it doesn’t suit me! There is no time for dinner. I have a party for more than one ’undred people in less than two days.”

“You’re nervous.” His voice was soft and there was a gentle gleam in his eyes. “You always drop your
h’
s when you are stressed.”

“Yes, I am nervous! This opening is really important to me.”

He raised his eyebrows. “So it’s the Boathouse that is making you nervous?”

“Yes! And as I was saying, I
have—
” she put special emphasis on the
h,
huffing the word at him “—nothing for the guests to eat. And I need to look at the deck. I don’t want anyone falling through it.”

He smiled, a slow sexy smile that slid into her bones and cut her off at the knees. “You want to take a closer look at my work? I can assure you it’s the prettiest deck in Vermont and no one will be falling through it. Of course, if they do then I can fix whatever they break.” He was so damn sure of himself and she ground her teeth.

“We don’t eat dinner together. We don’t do that.”

“Well, this time we’re going to. We’ve both had a long week.” He hadn’t bothered shaving that morning and his jaw was hazy with dark shadow, his eyes a lazy blue under thick eyelashes.

She wanted to eat dinner with him so badly it terrified her. There was no way, no way, it was going to happen.

“If you are hungry I will book you a table in the restaurant. The specials tonight are
coquilles Saint Jacques
and
confit de canard.
You’ll enjoy it.”

“I’m not dressed for the restaurant.”

“You’re not dressed at all.” Her gaze slid to the sleek, pumped-up muscles of his shoulders. “That is the problem.”

“It’s a problem?” His husky voice told her he didn’t see it as a problem at all, and Élise ground her teeth.