Sophie Love - For Now and Forever

Emily frowned. “That was twenty years ago.”

“It doesn’t matter if it was twenty years or twenty minutes to these people.”

“You were singing their praises at the harbor,” Emily said. “Now suddenly you hate them?”

“I like some of them,” Daniel contested. “But they’re mostly small-minded townsfolk. Believe me, it would have been worse if I’d been there.”

Emily raised an eyebrow. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that those people had turned out to be kind, fun folk. That she was beginning to consider them friends. But the last thing she wanted was to have an argument with Daniel when their honeymoon phase had barely begun.

“Why didn’t you just tell me you didn’t want to come to the party?” she said finally, forcing her voice to be calm. “I felt like an idiot waiting around for you.”

“I’m sorry.” Daniel sighed with regret, then set a cup of tea down in front of her. “I know I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. It’s just I’m so used to being alone, to not having anyone to answer to. It’s part of who I am. Having all those people around suddenly, it’s a lot to cope with all at once.”

Emily felt bad for him, for the way he felt more comfortable alone. To her, that didn’t seem like a particularly happy trait to possess. But it still didn’t excuse his behavior.

“I mean, just Cynthia on her own would have been bad enough,” Daniel added with a sheepish grin.

In spite of herself, Emily laughed. “You should have just told me,” she said.

“I know,” Daniel replied. “If I promise not to take off like that again, will you forgive me?”

Emily couldn’t stay mad at him. “I guess,” she said.

Daniel reached over and took her hand. “Why don’t you tell me how it was? What did you all talk about?”

Emily gave him a look. “You want me to recount the conversations of people you just told me you hated?”

“I won’t hate it coming from you,” Daniel said with a smile.

Emily rolled her eyes. She wanted to stay mad at Daniel for a little bit longer to teach him a lesson, but she just couldn’t help herself. Plus, she had some big news to tell him regarding the B&B and she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She tried to dampen her enthusiasm but found herself unable to contain it.

“Well, the main topic of conversation,” she said, “was turning the house into a B&B.”

Daniel almost spat out the sip he’d taken. He looked up over the rim of his teacup. “A what?”

Emily tensed up, suddenly nervous about telling Daniel about her new dream. What if he didn’t support her? He’d just told her that being alone was part of who he was, and now she was about to tell him that having all manner of strangers traipsing in through the property might become a common occurrence.

“A B&B,” she said, her voice smaller and more timid.

“You want to do that?” Daniel asked, setting his cup down. “Run a B&B?”

Emily wrapped her hands around her own cup as though for reassurance and shifted in her seat. “Well… maybe. I don’t know. I mean I’d need to crunch the numbers first. I probably won’t even be able to afford to get it off the ground.” She was stammering now, trying to downplay the idea, unsure what Daniel would make of it.

“But if you could afford to, that’s what you’d want?” he asked.

Emily looked up and met his eye. “It was what I wanted to do when I was younger. It was my dream, actually. I just didn’t think I’d be any good at it so I gave up thinking about it.”

Daniel reached out and put his hand over hers. “Emily, you’d be amazing at it.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“So you don’t think it’s a terrible idea?”

Daniel shook his head and beamed. “It’s a great idea!”

She brightened suddenly. “You really think so?”

“Absolutely,” he added. “You’d be an amazing host. And if you need money to put into it I’d be happy to help. I don’t have much but would give you whatever I have.”

Though touched by his offer, Emily shook her head. “I couldn’t take your money, Daniel. All I’d really need to get things started is one decent bedroom and a pot of coffee. Once I get the first guest in, I can put the profit straight back into the business.”

“Even so,” Daniel said. “If you need any renovation work done, work on the grounds and stuff, you know I’m happy to chip in.”

“Really?” Emily asked again, still unable to believe it. “You’d do that for me?” She thought again of Daniel’s generosity, and how he came through for her in her time of need. “You really think it’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” Daniel assured her. “I love the idea. Which bedroom would you do up first?”

During their last three months of doing up the property they hadn’t made much headway with the upstairs. It was only Emily’s parents’ old room (now hers) and the bathroom that had been completed. She’d need to select another one of the rooms to focus on.

“I don’t know yet,” Emily said. “Probably one of the big ones at the back.”

“One with an ocean view?” Daniel suggested.

Emily gave a little shrug. “I’d have to put a bit more thought into it first. But it wouldn’t take long to fix up, would it? I could have it ready for the tourist season. If I got a permit, that is.”

Daniel seemed to be in agreement. Over their cup of tea they went over all the details, the amount of time and money they’d need to get a room ready and a menu together in time for the summer influx of tourists.

“It would be risky,” Daniel said, sitting back and looking at the paper in front of him scrawled with figures and sums.

“It would,” Emily agreed. “But then again quitting my job and walking out on my boyfriend of seven years was risky and look how well that played out.” She reached forward and squeezed Daniel’s arm. As she did so, she sensed a hesitation in him. “Is everything okay?” she asked, frowning.

“Yeah,” Daniel said, standing and picking up their empty mugs. “I’m just tired. I think I’ll call it a night.”

Emily stood too as it suddenly dawned on her that he was asking her to leave. The passion of the previous evenings seemed to have been entirely extinguished. The romance of their morning in the rose garden dispersed. The thrill of the motorcycle ride across the cliff tops gone.

Pulling her nightgown tightly around her, Emily went over and kissed Daniel on the cheek. “See you later?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” he replied, not looking her in the eye.

Bewildered and hurt, Emily left the carriage house and made the cold, lonely walk back to her own house to spend the night alone.

“Morning, Rico!” Emily called as she strolled into the dark, over-crammed indoor flea market the next day.

Instead of Rico, it was Serena’s head that popped up from behind a table that she was in the middle of artfully distressing. “Emily! How’s it going with Mr. Hot Stuff? I never got a chance to properly talk to you about it at the party.”

Daniel was about the last thing Emily wanted to talk about at that point in time. “If you’d asked me that two days ago I would have said it was going amazingly. But now I’m not so sure.”

“Oh?” Serena said. “He’s one of those, is he?”

“One of what?”

“Falls in too deep and scares themselves cold. I’ve seen it a million times.”

Emily wasn’t sure how a twenty-year-old could have seen anything a million times but didn’t say it. She didn’t really want to get into a conversation about Daniel right now.

“So, I’m looking for a couple of specific pieces,” Emily said, rummaging in her bag for the list she and Daniel had made last night before he’d effectively kicked her out his house. She handed it to Serena. “I’m not ready to buy anything yet, I just want to get some ballpark figures.”