Page 15 of A Heart to Find (Sweetheart Island #2)

“I see you looking at my plate like a wolf who hasn’t caught prey in months and has had to settle for scraps.”

Keira snorted indignantly.

“I am not! I have a perfectly wonderful choice right in front of me, thank you very much.”

“Good, glad you feel that way. Because I didn’t want you trying to steal my delicious stack of French toast with the genuine Danton, Vermont-made maple syrup poured so generously over the powdered sugar and butter.”

Salivating but trying to hide it, she sipped her tea before picking up her fork to dive into her spinach omelette and fruit salad.

Why had she decided to go so healthy today?

Oh yeah, because she had way overdone it with the sweets and needed to rein things in so she could fit into her clothes over the next week.

“I feel you watching me intently every time I take a bite.”

“Am not.”

Her denial sounded weak even to her.

“Here.”

He held out a forkful of fluffy toast dripping with syrup.

What could she do but open her mouth to receive his offer?

It was the polite thing to do!

Wrapping her lips around the fork, she closed her eyes in ecstasy. Notes of cinnamon and maple burst in her mouth, and she fought the temptation to call the waitress over to change her order.

“Isn’t that better?”

he teased, serving himself a generous bite.

“Don’t try to pretend that carbs aren’t the true love of your life.”

He looked so smug, but he wasn’t wrong.

“Hey, I could have changed you know.”

He shrugged and offered her another bite. She hesitated. But it looked so good and her belly overruled her good sense, so she leaned in for a bite, laughing around the fork when her swinging hair caught a drip of maple syrup as it fell.

She thanked him around an extra large bite and tried to wipe the sticky goodness out of her hair.

“You’ll smell like maple for the rest of the day,”

Jared teased.

“Maybe we can find a breakfast-for-dinner place, too.”

“Not the worst idea you’ve ever had…”

“Remember the days when we thought we were so sophisticated because we were having picnics by the river with our loaves of French bread and hunks of cheese?”

She smiled over her cup of hot cocoa.

“And don’t forget the non-alcoholic fizzy stuff in the fancy bottles.”

“Of course. And how you’d act so giddy as if you were drunk from the bubbles.”

Her smile threatened to split her face in two. Images of him pulling her to a stand to dance by the setting sun with no music other than the drumming of their hearts played through her mind like an old-fashioned silent movie. Pulling her close for a kiss when the only urgency was the need to feel as though they were one person in their bubble of love. The way he’d text her as soon as she closed her door at the end of the night so she’d know he was missing her already.

Young love.

Irreplaceable.

Foolish, yes. But she couldn’t help but feel that familiar giddiness at the memory of having lived it.

“Nice mustache, Mr. Keira Holden.”

Jared’s smile was more teasing than nostalgic, and it took her a moment to float back to the present day and to realize he was making fun of her for a whipped cream mustache.

She licked away what she could, making silly eyes as she did so, and then blotted with her napkin to take away the rest.

“There’s no shame in thoroughly enjoying a cup of cocoa,”

she admonished playfully.

“Especially this. I’ve never had anything more delicious.”

He winked and nodded.

“The only place that comes close to rivaling it is a tiny village chocolate shop in Belgium. You want to talk about hot cocoa that can transport you out of this world—this place has it. And this,”

he held his cup up in front of him, “tastes almost exactly like it.”

“It’s so neat to think about how foods and drinks can vary around the world. I want to hear more.”

She pushed her plate aside and leaned on her elbows.

“Take me on a culinary adventure.”

And he did.

He gushed about the khichdi he had in India with its delicious pairing of lentils and rice. The fresh fish stew in Ireland. The curry in London. The peking duck in China.

“You won’t eat lobster but you’ll eat cute little quack-quack ducks?”

She feigned horror and laughed at his expression.

“You’re sounding like a true kindergarten teacher now,” he joked.

“Okay, sorry. Tell me more.”

The way his face lit up, she could watch him talk about the food he had experienced around the world all day.

He went on to describe the pelmeni dumplings he had made a special trip back to a food market in Russia to taste again. The koshari a family in Egypt had made him when he missed a bus and found himself stranded.

“And honestly, I haven’t been able to find anyplace that makes pho as well as this one tiny restaurant on an out-of-the-way Vietnam street. Would never have found it if I hadn’t embraced the notion of getting lost in every new place I visit.”

“You really do have adventures when you travel, huh? I thought some of the stuff you blogged about you made up.”

“Wait a second—back up. So you do read my blog?”

Heat engulfed her cheeks once again, and she couldn’t blame the hot cocoa since her mug had been empty for too long.

“Okay, I’ll admit that I may have happened upon it once or twice.”

Why did her voice have to squeak like that at the end?

He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest for a brief moment before leaning toward her again, his dazzling smile lighting up the room and making her face burn hotter.

“You happened upon it?”

She shrugged.

“You know. People send me things. Or it shows up in trending lists. Whatever. Okay, fine. I’ve googled you. But only out of curiosity—nothing more!”

The way his lips turned up, you’d think he was the lead detective on a twenty-year cold case who had just influenced a confession.

“I really wouldn’t let this knowledge go to your head. You’ll never fit through the doorway if you let it get too big. Where’s the waitress, anyway? We need to pay the bill.”

She sensed a boatload of joyful tension between them, but he was gentlemanly enough (this time) not to gloat. Not out loud, anyway.

“Though if we’re revealing these types of secrets, maybe you can explain why you still had my number in your phone after all this time? And a New Hampshire area code?”

She smiled to let him know she was teasing, but she had been curious about those things ever since the first text he sent. She hadn’t been brave enough to bring it up until now.

He shrugged.

“I don’t delete contacts. And it was easier to keep my old number than to switch over when I moved, especially since I moved around so often.”

Disappointment coursed through her. She had sort of hoped for a more personal reason as to why he kept her number in his phone. Sentimentality, remorse. Love?

She shook those thoughts out of her head, refusing to let the ghosts of the past haunt her while she had him sitting across from her, obviously wanting to make things work out.

“Enough confessions for one meal. Back to our discussion. If you could go anywhere for no purpose other than to eat the local food, where would it be?”

“Excellent question. Hmm, can it be a tour of many countries?”

“Nope,”

she shook her head to emphasize the restrictions.

“One place. Though the place might have a variety of foods you’d want to eat—doesn’t have to be just one food item.”

“Well in that case, I’m going to have to go with what may be considered a cliché, but it’s a cliché for delicious reasons. Italy. You haven’t eaten until you’ve eaten there.”

She asked him questions, and he answered readily, and by the time he started describing the homemade gelato on every corner, she was ready to hop on a plane and travel there for dinner.

Not that hopping on planes was the sort of thing she did regularly, and not that adventure was in her blood the way it was his. In fact, he would have said she had no adventure in her blood. And he would have been correct.

Except…

She felt the world shifting, and she couldn’t deny the feeling creeping up inside her.

She wanted to taste the foods he spoke of. She wanted to meet the people who would make dinner for a foreign stranger when he was stranded. She wanted to greet the grannies who sold homemade pasta out of their own kitchens. And though she didn’t want to do some of the riskier things he seemed to enjoy so much, she did want to stroll along an ancient street in Paris, sampling baked goods from every patisserie along the way.

She wanted to step out from the shadow of her family and the hurt of losing them.

She wanted to cast aside the need to take care of everyone but herself.

She wanted to stop sacrificing her own hopes and dreams to build foundations for those who would ultimately betray her.

She wanted to be her own person.

And she wanted to do it with him.

On this day, at this diner table across from this man, she knew she was a goner.

But no matter what arguments her feeble mind tried to raise, there was nothing she could do. Her heart had seized the weapons and demanded a truce, and she was powerless to stop it.

Feeling like the heart-eyed emoticon he sent in that first text to her days ago, she watched him describe the process of making gnocchi as he had learned it in a class in Naples.

“I want to go with you.”

And without the slightest hesitation, she outed herself as a goner.

His teasing smile faded. An earnest look took its place.

Without saying a word, he reached to the center of the table where her hand had—without her permission, mind you—waited for his touch.

Warmth spread through her fingers as his tentatively touched hers. Lightly. Gently. No pressure, he simply waited for consent. Her index finger lifted and touched his, and the rest of his fingers followed suit. Wrapped in the comfort of his well-traveled, rough fingers, she’d never felt more protected. More cherished. More understood.

Probably her own fantasy and the consequence of being under the influence of an island designed to create romance, but he won her over with barely any effort on his part.

Though she tried to convince herself of that, she knew she lied to herself. He had been nothing but wonderful to her, and it was time for her to let go of old grudges and accept the fact that he was the one for her. Past, present, and, she hoped with every inch of her suddenly overeager self, future.

It was no wonder that none of her other relationships had worked. None of them were Jared.

She could forgive his young self. She could let go of the feelings of abandonment—they had been based on misperceptions and misunderstandings. They could work their way through any communication issues that came their way.

He wanted her as badly as she wanted him, and that was something she had never experienced in any relationship since she first learned to love him.

“Keira…”

“Shhh. Let’s just let this be. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to rationalize it. I just want this moment. Please.”

His fingers wove fully between hers, squeezing lightly. He lifted her hand into his and brought his other hand over to fully wrap her in his touch.

One side of his face tilted upward with the half smile she’d always loved. The familiar crevice reappeared in his cheek, and if she didn’t get the opportunity to run her finger over it by the end of the day, she’d be forever disappointed. His eyes glistened with emotion, but she could barely see through her own rose-colored heart-eyes.

The rest of the time in the diner was a fog. At some point, the waitress came over and slipped them the check. They must have paid it, but all she could see was Jared. Her Jared. The man she pined for since she was a young teenager. The man who taught her what it meant to know love. The man who made all other men impossible to fall fully in love with.

At some point he led her out of the diner and onto a sunshiney Main Street, where they joined the other masses of couples holding hands while walking romantically into the sunset.

Okay, the sun wasn’t yet setting, but that didn’t change her fantasy one bit.

His hand clutched hers like it was a lifeline, and even though her nose and ears felt cold, the hand he held was as steamy hot as the emotions coursing through her blood.

She didn’t know what had changed. Was it maple syrup intoxication? Had Cupid drugged her hot cocoa? Or had the lock on the ancient gate around her heart burst free to allow the present to rule in all matters of the heart?

She smiled up at him as he told her some goofy story about something. His words didn’t register. The only thing that registered was the floaty feeling he inspired and the realization that his touch was the only thing anchoring her to the ground.

She hadn’t imagined at the beginning of the day that she’d feel so madly, insanely, gushingly infatuated, but here she was.

And she vowed not to let anything get in the way of this feeling.

Megan linked her arm with Keira’s as they strolled out of the afternoon relationship information session and ventured out in search of caffeine.

“Let’s try that place that does the English tea. I’ve always wanted to do something fancy like that.”

Keira couldn’t deny Megan’s wish, and to be honest, it sounded fun to her, too.

As they poured tea from dainty, floral teapots, Megan and Keira recounted some of the wiser points made in the informational session.

Megan sipped her tea and then looked up at Keira.

“I do think it’s cool that they try to teach us how to be better partners. Heaven knows I haven’t been able to figure it out on my own.”

“I agree. I especially liked the reminder about taking time before reacting to something that upsets us, but about making sure to return to the issue once you’ve calmed down. My grandmother was pretty good about that sort of thing. She’d send Grampy out to do some chores in the yard while she did what she called ‘angry cleaning’, then she’d call him back in, set out some coffee, and let him know what she was upset about. I didn’t usually pay any attention to their conversations, but they always ended with a hug and a dance around the kitchen to their oldies records. And yes, they had an actual record player.”

“That’s so cute. You’re so lucky to have had them.”

“That’s for sure,”

Keira agreed.

“My mother was more of a grudge holder. A proud one, too. She thought forgiveness was a weakness. The idea of having a conversation about what upset her would have made her laugh. Why talk about it when you can stew?”

Megan nodded.

“My parents were both like that. Until my dad ditched, anyway. Who knows what he became after that? Maybe he took a seminar and became a very good listener.”

Together in their dysfunction, they wheezed in laughter.

Once she calmed down, Keira reached over for one of the delicious little sandwiches on the tiered stand in the center of their table.

“I do think that’s why my relationships with my family so easily dissolved when put to the fire, though.”

Keira felt her appetite slipping away, but she forced herself to nibble the delectable-looking sandwich, anyway.

“I guess I fall more along the lines of someone who wants to work it out than someone who wants to watch things implode.”

Megan put her sandwich down and folded her hands on the table.

“Keira, I haven’t known you long, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. And I can tell the kind of person you are. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt by so many people you’ve trusted, but I hope you’ll never let that light go out inside you.”

Keira nodded and smiled, grateful for her new friend.

“Sometimes it’s hard to see the good in yourself when people close to you treat you poorly. But I am so glad you’re in my life. We will be friends forever after this.”

“Yes! Sisters of the heart. I prefer the idea of picking my own family rather than being stuck with the ones I was biologically given. Neither of us won the family love jackpot, but I feel like I’m winning now that I know you.”

Megan picked up her sandwich and took another bite.

“And now it’s time to finish the story you started telling me earlier. About your match…”

Keira’s joy swept away the fog of sadness. Sisters of the heart. She loved that idea. Though she had loved her mother and sister enough to want only the best for them, the fact that they didn’t want the same for her had been holding her hostage in her own swamp of pain and disenchantment. But knowing there were people out there who would choose to love her and who rooted for her simply because she was worthy enough… well, there were no words strong enough to describe how she felt. Earning the love and loyalty of people when she didn’t even have to sacrifice or hope for it felt foreign. And she liked it.

Sitting up straighter in her seat, she shared with Megan all about the epiphany she had earlier when she was with Jared, though she left out the part about having the teensy bit of remaining doubt that resurfaced as soon as she parted from him.

She’d pretend that doubt wasn’t there. She knew it was a remnant of fear. Nothing more. Jared had been open with her about everything, and he wasn’t there to hurt her.

She could trust him.

She would trust him.

“And Matt? Has he proposed yet?”

Keira giggled.

“I’d be lying if I said we haven’t talked about rings and things…”

“Oh my goodness, Megan! That’s amazing for you!”

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? It’s only been a week. But I just… I just know he’s the one for me.”

“I am in full agreement,”

Keira declared, reaching over to squeeze Megan’s wrist.

“I could not be happier for you.”

“We’re not engaged or anything. We’ve talked about our future. For now, we’re enjoying the present.”

“Wise, wise move. I fully approve.”

“It makes me so happy to know you’re in the same boat with Jared. I want you to be as annoyingly happy as me.”

“Whoa, hold up. We’re not in that boat. I’m trying on the idea of venturing onto the deck. I still have my life jacket on, though. Not taking any major risks.”

Who was she kidding? If things went south at this point, her heart would shatter.

No life jacket in the world could protect her from drowning in the tears she would shed.

“Positive thoughts—that’s what we promised each other,”

Megan reminded.

“I can see you going down that dark path in your head… don’t do that, my friend.”

“You’re right. I won’t. Thank you.”

Nibbling on a raspberry and dark chocolate teacake, Megan turned the subject to something Keira had been trying not to obsess over.

“Did you find your grandma’s necklace yet?”

Keira shook her head and reached for her own teacake.

Megan frowned.

“I was hoping you’d come across it today. No word from Lost and Found?”

Keira shook her head again.

“I’ll check with them again later. To be honest, I’ve been trying not to think about it too much. It makes me think that I’m on the wrong path when I’m trying desperately to go with my heart instead of superstition.”

“I want you to find your necklace because of its sentimental value, but I can promise you that your grandmother led you here to this place to be matched with this man. It’s way too coincidental to have actually been coincidental.”

“I think you’re right, Megan. I hope you’re right, anyway.”

After tea, they rode a heated trolley back up to the resort so they could get ready for the sledding double date they had planned with the guys.

And though Keira kept trying to get her mind to focus on what could go terrifically right, her gut kept telling her that something was about to go terribly wrong.