Jill Shalvis - The Sweetest Thing

“Tell me again why he couldn’t just rent one of our rooms?” Maddie asked, shielding her eyes from the early morning sun. “The rooms that we actually want to rent out? He’s a paying customer.”

“That would have put him too close.”

Maddie glanced at her. “If you don’t want him here, why don’t you ask him to leave?”

“Because he said he wasn’t leaving until he won me back.”

“Is that even possible?”

The “no” was on the tip of her tongue, but she was having some trouble getting it out. She had no intention of starting anything up with Logan. None. But he’d been her only family for several years, during a time when she didn’t have a lot of others in her life, and he’d stuck with her until she hadn’t been able to make it work anymore. There were still emotional ties.

“And what about Ford?” Maddie asked.

“What about him?”

“Is he the reason Logan doesn’t have a shot? And don’t lie. I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s how I look at junk food.”

“We are way too busy to discuss this,” Tara said. “We have guests-”

“Who have been out sightseeing in the area and are no trouble at all.” Maddie took in the heavy South in Tara’s voice and smiled. “You do realize that you don’t scare either me or Chloe anymore with that tone, right?”

“Like I ever scared you.”

Maddie’s smile turned into a grin. “You know what you should do with Ford?”

Tara gave her a droll look. “Drag him up to the attic like you do Jax?”

Maddie blushed. “Hey, we go up there to-”

“I’ll pay you fifty bucks not to finish that sentence,” Tara said fervently.

From behind them came the sound of a soda can being popped open, and they all whirled around.

Ford stood on the deck of his Beneteau, drink in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Breakfast of champions. He wore a WeatherTech T-shirt, board shorts, and a backward baseball cap with his hair curling out from beneath. Looking better than anyone should this early, he toasted them with his soda, his eyes never leaving Tara’s. “Morning.”

Maddie gasped. Only she wasn’t looking at Ford, but out at the water. “Do you think Logan’s all right?”

“He’s always all right,” Tara said. “Why?”

“Because he’s waving at us.”

Ford looked out on the water, then swore as he set his soda aside and leaped forward to start the engine on the Beneteau.

“What are you doing?” Tara asked.

“Saving the bastard.” He paused and looked at her hopefully. “Unless it’s okay with you if he dies?”

“What?”

“He’s sinking.”

Tara looked. Ford was right. Logan was definitely sinking.

“Oh my God,” Maddie whispered, horrified. “I rented him that boat. Does that make me a murderer?”

Tara’s heart clutched. “He’s not dead yet.”

“Hurry,” Maddie called to Ford. “I can’t be the one who killed Tara’s ex! I look terrible in orange!”

Tara tried to remember if Logan was good in the water. He could drive like the best of the best, but she had no idea about swimming. She grabbed the two-way radio from Maddie’s hip. “Logan, why aren’t you wearing protection?”

The radio crackled, and then came Logan’s voice. “I have ‘protection’ in my bag,” he said. “But much as I don’t want to say this, darlin’, now’s not the time to be asking if I’m carrying condoms. I have problems.”

“A life vest, Logan! I’m asking where’s your life vest!”

“Oh,” he said. “I knew that.”

Maddie was yelling at Ford. “Faster! I voted for you, and I want you to win, but not this way, not by killing the ex-husband!”

Tara shook her head in disbelief. “You voted for him? I told you and Chloe not to vote. None of us were going to vote!”

“Actually, this is pretty funny, if you think about it,” Chloe said as Ford sped toward Logan.

Tara gaped at her. “What could possibly be funny about any of this?”

“How about the fact that your two men seem to be spending more time with each other than with you?”

By noon, the houseboat had been towed back to the marina, where it was determined that the bilge pump had failed. Logan was perfectly safe although slightly disgruntled, and settled back at his original beach cottage after a phone call to the owners from Tara.

The weekend guests were no trouble at all. Chloe had been right. They were in their mid-thirties, on their honeymoon, and hadn’t noticed a thing about the inn. All they wanted was their bed.

Maddie was set to handle the afternoon and evening, with both Chloe and Mia for backup if needed. Tara had a shift at the diner, and she was running late. Keys in hand, she came running out of the cottage and nearly toppled over Mia, who sat on the top step.

Holding the recipe box.

“Hey, Sugar.” Tara pulled up short. “Where did you get that?”

“From Chloe.” Mia opened the box and pulled out the first card, on which Tara had written For My Daughter. “She thought I’d like to see it.”

Tara was going to be late for work if she stopped but she knew it didn’t matter. Talking to Mia was worth being bitched at by Jan-and Jan would bitch. Eyeing the wooden step, Tara bit back a sigh. Hiking up her pencil skirt to mid-thigh, she gingerly sat.

Mia pulled her lips in, trying to hide her smile, reminding Tara that in the girl’s eyes, she was not only old but also probably embarrassing.

“The porch swing would have been more dignified,” Tara told her.

“I like it right here. I can see the world sail by.”

That was true. From here, there was a lovely view of the marina and any ships sailing past it. “Are you interested in sailing?” Tara asked her. “Because it just so happens, you’re closely related to an expert.”

Mia smiled. “I know. And yeah, I’m interested. Ford said he’d take me real soon.” She pulled out a card and showed it to Tara. “Never miss a good opportunity to shut up?”

Tara sagged a little and let out a huff of laughter. “It fit at the moment.”

“Chloe?”

Tara looked at Mia and found the girl still smiling, and felt the helpless curve of her own mouth. “Yes. She has a way, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Mia looked down at the box and was quiet a minute. Normal for her, not normal for Tara. She had to bite her tongue to keep it from running away with her good sense, to keep from filling the silence. And damn, it was hard to do, but when Mia finally spoke, it was worth the torturous wait.

“You thought of me,” she said.

Tara let out a low laugh. “A little.”

Mia lifted her gaze from the box and met Tara’s.

“A lot more than a little,” Tara said very softly.

Her daughter’s eyes warmed, those beautiful eyes that made Tara think of Ford every single time she looked into them. She wanted nothing more than to have Mia keep looking at her like that, but she had to tell her all of it. “I want you to know the truth, Mia. I need you to know the truth. I don’t regret giving you up.”

Mia went still. “Oh.”

“I loved you,” Tara said, and put her hand to her chest to absolve the ache she felt there at the memory of that sweet, sweet baby looking up at her. “Oh God, how I loved you, from the moment I first felt what I thought was a butterfly on my shirt and turned out to be you kicking. But I wasn’t capable of the kind of love you needed.” Tara paused, her throat tight. “Even in all my teenage selfishness, I knew you deserved more. You deserved everything I couldn’t provide. So that’s why I don’t regret it, Mia. Because in giving you up, you had a childhood that I couldn’t have given you.”

Mia ran her fingers over the grooves in the wood of the recipe box, her silence killing Tara. “And something else I don’t regret.” Tara reached for Mia’s hand. “Having you here this summer. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything, getting to know you.”

Mia’s fingers slowly tightened on hers. “Even if it means facing your biggest mistake?”

“Oh, Mia.” Tara risked all and slowly slid an arm around her beautiful, smart, reluctant daughter. “I meant what I said about that. You were never a mistake. You were meant to be, and I’m so very, very glad you’re here.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

After a beat of thinking about that, Mia laid her head on Tara’s shoulder, and Tara’s heart swelled to bursting. They sat there quietly a few more minutes, Tara ignoring the occasional and insistent vibration of her phone. She knew it was Jan; she could feel the temper coming across the airwaves, but Tara didn’t want to get up.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” Mia said.

Tara smiled. “It’s been fun giving you the good jobs and making Chloe clean the bathrooms.”

Mia’s mouth quirked. Ford could do that, too, project an emotion with next to no movement. From within Tara’s pocket, her cell went off yet again, but Mia was looking at her, something clearly on her mind, so Tara didn’t move.

“I’ve just been trying to imagine it,” Mia finally said. “Me, right now, having a baby at my age. It’s… incomprehensible. The trauma. The utter responsibility of it all.”

Tara laughed without much humor. “Don’t forget the abject terror.”

“Were your parents awful about it?”

“My dad, yes.” Tara could still hear the bitter disappointment in his voice over the phone line. It’d taken him days to return her tearful message from wherever he’d been traveling for work. “But your grandma, she was surprisingly supportive.”

“Why surprisingly?”

“We didn’t see each other often. Just sometimes in the summers. But she didn’t judge or yell. She didn’t try to make me feel bad. She just found me a special high school to attend in Seattle, and she was there when I needed her. She came for your birth. And she was there for you later too, when-”