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“Lena,” she said, making her voice bright. “Are you ready to go to Jean’s? She’s taking you out on the boat today.” Her daughter had a beach bag that was always filled with what she needed to spend the day on the sand. “I’ll get you a water bottle.”
“Dad made lunch,” she said.
“Good.” Clara opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of cold bottles of water. She tucked them into Lena’s blue-and-white striped bag and straightened. “We have to leave in a few minutes. Get your shoes on, okay?”
“Okay.” Lena scooted to the edge of the couch and pushed herself to standing. She went around the corner and down the hall to her bedroom, and Clara ran her hands through her hair.
“Scott,” she called. “We have to go.”
“Two minutes,” he yelled back, and it sounded like he had a toothbrush in his mouth.
Clara texted Jean that they were leaving, and then she texted Tessa the same thing.I’m already on Diamond, Tessa said.Just walking the shops until it’s time to go over to the restaurant.
Clara smiled, her fondness for Tessa deepening.Thank you, she sent to her.Scott is coming.
So you decided to tell him.
Yes, Clara said.It didn’t feel right to not tell him, and I couldn’t lie once he saw what I’m wearing.Worry ate through her, but Clara didn’t know what to do about it. Taking money from a private donor wasn’t a crime. People invested in businesses each and every day. If Jennifer Golden had the money she wanted to risk, that was up to her. Wasn’t it?
What Clara didn’t understand was why she couldn’t tell Robin about it. Or anyone. Scott, even.
His footsteps came down the hall, and he paused and said, “Come on, Lena-Lou. Time to go.”
They both walked back into the main area of the house, and now Scott wore black slacks, a white, long-sleeved shirt, and a crisp blue tie with a paisley pattern on it. He used to wear professional office attire five days a week for work, and sometimes on Sunday when they opted to go to church.
“You look great,” Clara said, and she meant it. She stepped over to him and spread her palms over the corners of his collar. She’d done this every morning for many years. He put his hands on her waist and drew her closer to him. Clara went gladly, surprised at how good it felt to be in his arms again.
It had been a long time.
Her heart softened, and she tilted her head back to indicate she wanted him to kiss her. A hint of surprise entered his eyes for only a moment, and then he leaned down and touched his mouth to hers. He’d kissed her quickly sometimes when he was running late for work. Sometimes it was filled with passion, an indicator of what he wanted do later, when the job wasn’t waiting for him. Sometimes it was just a kiss, a “I’m off to work, love you, hon,” type of thing.
This kiss was like kissing him for the first time all over again. Joy dove through her, as did a fair amount of heat. He tightened his grip on her body, a growl starting somewhere below his throat. “You don’t have to do everything alone,” he whispered, barely breaking the kiss to say the words. He matched his mouth to hers again, and Clara matched him stroke for stroke, hoping all of her flaws could simply be kissed away.
She knew they couldn’t. She kept things too close to herself sometimes. She didn’t tell him everything. It wasn’t that she liked suffering alone; it was that she simply didn’t know how to communicate very well.
He finally broke the kiss when her phone rang, and Clara turned her head to fix her lipstick while Scott cleared his throat. They’d been sleeping in the same bed since they’d moved into this house, but that was all that had been done—sleeping.
She came to bed after him, usually, and he was either asleep or watching TV with his headphones in. Clara looked at her phone and saw Tessa’s name there. With an inferno still raging in her veins, she swiped on the call. “Hey, Tess.”
“You’re probably in the car,” she said. “But we just got the email from Vanity Fabrics. They’re going to donate everything for the bedrooms!” She started to laugh, but Clara could only stand there in her rented living room and stare.
“They are?” she asked, the whisper falling from her mouth.
“Yes!” Tessa giggled again. “I told you we should be asking for donations for everything. There are companies who do charitable things as tax write-offs. It’s advertising for them, besides. I’m going to make a list of other places we can ask. Maybe we can get this inn open after all.”
Clara didn’t like those last two words, but she could at least acknowledge them now. Everyone around her had been watching her efforts with the inn with some level of wariness, including herself. Scott too. It had been him who’d finally told her that they might not be able to finish the project and get it open.
She’d been angry. Anything Clara didn’t like, she got angry about. In the end, she almost always came around to the truth, though. This was just one more instance of it.
“Thank you, Tessa,” she said. “This is incredible.” She turned to face Scott, who cocked his brows again. “We just got all of the linens donated from Vanity Fabrics.”
He simply blinked at her, and Clara laughed this time. Giddiness pranced through her, and she said, “We’re on the way. We might be a minute or two late. Wait for us, okay?”
“I will,” Tessa promised, and Clara ended the call.
“Come on,” she said. “We’re a tiny bit late, so we need to hustle.” She did just that, curbing her impatience at the extra seconds it took Lena to get in the back seat. Scott ran her into the lighthouse, and he jogged back to the car.
“Ready?” he asked. He started driving before he buckled his seatbelt, and Clara reached over and took his hand in hers.
