Sarah Morgan - Holiday In The Hamptons

He’d known nothing about her family life that first summer. Her grandmother had owned the beach house on the bay for decades and was well-known in the area. Her daughter and children visited every summer, but unlike his own mother, who was actively involved in the local community both at the beach and back in their home in upstate New York, Fliss’s mother was virtually invisible.

And then one day the rumors had started. They’d trickled along the narrow lanes and into the village stores. A couple of people passing had heard raised voices and then the sound of a car driving too fast along the narrow island roads toward the main highway. The rumors spread from person to person, whispers and questions, until finally Seth heard them. Marriage problems. Family problems.

Seth had rarely seen her father. Almost all his impressions of the man had come from Fliss and Harriet’s reaction to him.

“Dr. Carlyle?” Meredith’s voice brought him back to the present, reminding him that his reason for being here was to move forward, not backward.

Since he’d arrived in New York he’d seen Fliss twice. The first time had been in Central Park on his first day in Manhattan. She’d been walking two dogs, an exuberant Dalmatian and a misbehaving German shepherd who had seemed determined to challenge her skills. She’d been too far in the distance for him to engineer a meeting, so he’d simply watched as she’d strode away from him, noticing the changes.

Her hair was the same smooth buttermilk blond, pinned haphazardly at the top of her head in a style that could have been named “afterthought.” Lean and athletic, she walked with purpose and a touch of impatience. It had been her attitude that had convinced him he was looking at Fliss and not Harriet.

She’d grown into a confident woman, but that didn’t surprise him. She’d never been short of fight.

He was desperate to see her face, to look into those eyes and see the flare of recognition, but she was too far away and didn’t turn her head.

The second time he’d seen her had been outside the office. The fact that she was hovering indecisively convinced him again that this was Fliss and not her sister. He guessed she’d been trying to summon up courage to confront him, and for a moment he’d believed maybe they were finally on their way to having the conversation they should have had a decade before. He’d also witnessed the exact moment she’d lost her nerve and fled.

He’d felt a burst of exasperation and frustration, followed by an increased determination that this time they were going to talk.

The last time they’d seen each other the atmosphere had been full of emotion. It had filled the air like thick smoke from a fire, choking everything. Maybe, if she’d been different, more willing to talk, they could have stumbled their way through it, but Fliss, as always, had refused to reveal her feelings, and although he had more than enough feelings for both of them, he’d not known how to reach her. The brief intimacy that had connected them had vanished.

He refused to believe that connection had been purely physical, but it had been the physical that had devoured their attention.

If he could have wound time backward he would have done it all differently, but the past was gone and there was only the present.

They’d had no contact for ten years, so this was always going to be an awkward meeting for both of them, but it was a meeting that was long overdue, and if she wasn’t going to come to him, then he was left with only one option.

He’d go to her.

He’d tried leaving it alone. He’d tried pushing it into his past. Neither had worked, and he’d come to the conclusion that tackling it head-on was the only way forward.

He wanted the conversation they should have had a decade before. He wanted answers to the questions that had lain dormant in his head. Most of all, he wanted closure.

Maybe then he could move on.

CHAPTER TWO

HARRIET’S PHONE RANG just after 5:30 a.m., and Fliss was already halfway through the door. She’d been woken early by one of their dog walkers who’d picked up stomach flu after a night out and couldn’t crawl out of her bed let alone walk an energetic dog. Thoughts of Barney the bulldog waiting patiently in his owner’s apartment in Tribeca for someone who wasn’t going to turn up drove Fliss from the comfort of her bed a full hour before she would normally have forced herself upright.

At least it was walking a dog.

She liked the simplicity of dealing with animals. Animals never tried to force you to talk about things you didn’t want to talk about.

“Harry? Someone is calling you.” She yelled her sister’s name and then cursed as she heard the shower running.

Knowing there was no way her sister was going to hear the phone through the sound of running water, she eyed the device, torn between the need to leave and do battle with the subway, and the almost irresistible lure of possible new business.

They’d call back.

But Harriet might not answer it because she hated talking to strangers on the phone. And then they’d lose business.

Damn. She closed the front door, checked the number and frowned as she answered.

“Grams?”

“Harriet? Oh, I’m so glad I’ve reached you, honey.”

“I’m—” Felicity was about to say that she wasn’t Harriet, but her grandmother was still speaking.

“I don’t want to worry you, but I had a fall.”

“A fall? How? Where? How bad?”

“I tripped in the garden. So silly of me. I was trying to do something about the fact it’s so overgrown. And the gate is so rusty it will hardly open. You remember how it always made a noise?”

“Yes.” Fliss stared through the window of her apartment. She’d poured oil on the gate to try to stop its creaking when she’d sneaked out in the night to meet Seth. “Are you hurt? Where are you now?”

“I’m in the hospital. Would you believe I’m in the same room they put me in when I had my gallbladder removed ten years ago?”

“What?” She shouldn’t be thinking about Seth. “Grams, that’s awful!”

“It’s perfect. This room has a beautiful view of the garden. I’m very pleased to be here, and they’re taking very good care of me.”

“I meant awful that you’re in the hospital, not awful about having a nice room.”

“Well, it’s not so awful while I’m here. The awful part will be when they send me home. And they won’t do that until I assure them I have someone there to keep an eye on me for a while. I think it’s a fuss about nothing, but I’m a little bruised and apparently I was unconscious for a while.” There was a pause. “I was wondering—I hate to ask since I know the two of you are so busy with your business, but is there any chance you could come just for a few weeks? Just until I’m back on my feet? I’m too far from town to be able to manage easily, and if I can’t drive I’m going to struggle. Would Fliss be able to manage without you? It would mean leaving New York, but you always used to love the summers here.”

It would mean leaving New York.

They were the best words she’d heard in a while.

Fliss tightened her grip on the phone. “Leave New York?” Her mind raced ahead. “You want me to spend the summer with you?”

“A few weeks should be enough. I’ll need help with the shopping and cooking, and simple things around the house. Just until I’m back on my feet and mobile. And then there’s Charlie, of course. I don’t know how I’m going to walk him, and he does need exercise.”

Fliss winced. Charlie was her grandmother’s beagle. He was stubborn and single-minded. He also bayed a lot, which meant Fliss invariably resorted to headache tablets whenever she visited.