Page 7 of Return to Lovett Cove (Lovett Cove B&B #1)

CHAPTER SIX

River wasn’t sure how to ease Jasmine’s anxieties about the property.

Everywhere she looked, her eyes widened and the lines around her mouth deepened.

She wasn’t seeing the vision her mother saw—of a completed inn with a crackling fire in the smokey fireplace and the scent of freshly baked scones emanating from the kitchen.

She was taking in the formerly leaky faucet hardware desperately in need of an upgrade, the old, scratched floorboards that could use a good sand and refinish, and the raggedy furniture a good reupholster could easily fix.

River sympathized with Jasmine’s struggle.

When Lily first came to him about fixing up the property, he thought the undertaking would be too much for a woman in retirement.

But it was exactly a woman in her position that could make it work, she’d told him.

All the time in the world was in her hands, and she could take it slow and fix the house up exactly how she liked.

Except she didn’t have all the time in the world.

Nor had she given her daughter ample time to adjust to the project.

Jasmine was thrown into owning a falling-down inn without customers and in a town so small it didn’t show up at all on map apps.

He understood why her first inclination was to sell the place.

After spending the morning reviewing her mother’s instructions and helping him fix a few things around the kitchen so she could use it, River’s stomach growled in harmony with Jasmine’s.

“How about lunch?” River asked her, rubbing his belly.

“There’s a great malt shop in town. Best milkshakes in the county. ”

Jasmine looked relieved at the idea or maybe because it would get her out of the house.

She readily agreed, and they took his truck into town.

Jasmine claimed not to be hungry, but once a waitress passed them with a double-stack burger and fries, Jasmine eagerly relented.

Two double-stack burgers with fries and a strawberry milkshake for him and a vanilla one for her.

“I really shouldn’t be eating this,” Jasmine said with a frown, although her eyes looked pleased at the feast before her.

“Why not?” River didn’t wait. He grabbed the burger with both hands and took a massive bite. He groaned with satisfaction. Perfectly juicy and dripping with the shop’s proprietary burger sauce. Better than McDonald’s. And found nowhere else on Earth.

“Look at it. It’s probably—”

“If you’re going to mention calories, I’m going to make you pay your half.” He narrowed his eyes and smirked at her.

She stiffened, her nose pointing up. “I don’t need you to buy me lunch.”

“Need no, but I am. My treat. Seriously though, are you worrying about calories? You look great. The burger is fantastic. Enjoy it. And the fries are amazing, I promise.”

Jasmine gingerly picked up the burger, stealing quick, uncertain glances at him. “You think I look great?”

“You don’t?” He couldn’t believe it. The woman was stunning. Curvy in all the right places that could devastate a man. He’d found her distracting all morning. He could’ve had one of the upstairs toilets fixed if he'd spent less time watching her and doing his job.

Instead of answering, she took a bite. Her eyes grew wide, and soon she was eating the burger with relish. “You were right,” she conceded.

He grinned while chewing on a lightly salted French fry. “Hurts to say, doesn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes and sipped her milkshake. River’s gaze dipped to her mouth as it curved around the tip of her straw. He cleared his throat and amused himself by drawing the infinity symbol in a mound of ketchup.

After lunch, they strolled up Main Street heading toward the cafe for a dessert biscuit.

People passed them on the sidewalk and commented on Jasmine’s beauty and gave her condolences on the loss of her mother.

Some asked about the renovation and expressed excitement about the reopening of the inn.

Jasmine dodged questions about the renovation and graciously accepted comments about how everyone missed Lily.

By the time they finished munching on biscuits, Jasmine mentioned the beach dunes.

Not wanting their time together to end, River offered to drive them out.

It wasn’t more than half an hour one way, and they would make it back before dark.

Thirty minutes later, River and Jasmine discarded their shoes in River’s truck and walked across the beach to the dunes.

“I can’t believe I remember this place,” Jasmine remarked. She looked across the ocean, the first genuine smile River had seen from her softening her cheeks. “I haven’t thought about this place since the last time I was here!”

“Every time I think I miss living in the city, I drive out here, sit on the dunes, and listen to the waves. Trust me, the temptation to go back dies off pretty quick.”

When they reached the dunes, he offered his hand to her, and she accepted.

Her fingers squeezed his hand tightly as they navigated the warm, loosely packed sand.

At the top, her hand lingered in his a second longer than necessary.

She looked away with a shy smile. “Thank you.” She pulled her hand away.

Despite the warm wind wafting through the beachgrass, River’s empty hand chilled. “My pleasure.”

They sat on the sand, legs pulled to their chests.

Jasmine closed her eyes. River watched her features relax and the tension roll off her shoulders.

He was glad he brought her out here. She’d been uptight and stressed from the moment she crossed the threshold at the inn.

Whatever that work promotion was, he hoped she didn’t get it.

Not because he wanted her to fail, but because if she succeeded, she would never smile like she just did.

“Do you ever miss the city?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Never regretted your choice.”

Oh, he had regrets. “Not the move, no. But how things ended with my wife… I felt like a failure. That I didn’t deserve my career because I had sacrificed everything for it. Lily helped me see that carrying the guilt wouldn’t help if I wanted to start over.”

When Jasmine opened her eyes, tears lined their rims. “I wish I’d known this side of my mother,” she whispered.

“What side?”

“The one where she actually sat quietly on a dune and listened to the waves. As a single mother, she was always going. Never quitting. Money was tight, but she got us through it. School trips, expensive car repairs…I don’t know anyone who’s worked harder to support her family and have the career she wanted. ”

“She was an admirable woman.”

“She was.”

River didn’t know this superwoman, who worked all the time and influenced her daughters to do the same. Jasmine’s frown spoke to the weight of expectations she carried from her mother. “I didn’t know that Lily,” he commented quietly. “I suspect she would’ve been miserable.”

“She was very successful. My promotion would’ve pleased her,” Jasmine sniffed defensively, tears gone.

“I don’t doubt it. She sounds like she loved you a lot. I only meant that the Lily I knew preferred to sit on the dunes and—”

“What? Count the grains of sand?”

River chuckled. “Yeah. Lily used to say climbing the corporate ladder was a waste of time.”

“Earning enough money to feed us was a waste of time?” Jasmine’s voice turned shrill.

The breeze turned cool, and the normal scent of warm sand held a heavy odor of salt. “No. That wasn’t what she meant at all.”

“Well, you didn’t know my mother. She obviously didn’t have that kind of time.”

Jasmine struggled to her feet, ignoring his offer to help.

She dusted off her pants, spraying him with sand.

Jasmine almost tumbled down the dune. River lengthened his strides to match the quick stomps she made on their way back to his truck.

He’d thought they had turned a page since meeting, but they were stuck in the sand.

And what River left unsaid, for Jasmine’s sake, was how Lily had feared not living long enough to open her inn.