She grabbed her thumb and twisted the ring she always wore. “I’m sorry I freaked out about the cooking classes. I mean, I think I had some valid points, but... Anyway. I overreacted.”
He didn’t say anything. Felt his heart pumping too hard.
“So what do you think?” She cleared her throat. “We could go back to how things were.”
Ah. Wasn’t there an old movie called something like that? The Way We Were? His mother had watched it a lot after Dad first left. It didn’t end well, Connor was pretty sure.
“What do you say?” she asked.
“I don’t think so, Jess.” Maybe he was a little unpredictable, too. “I can’t. I still love you. But I... No.”
She pushed her hair back with both hands, tucking it behind her ears, and he caught the faint aroma of her lemony shampoo.
“Why?” Her voice was small.
He rubbed his forehead. Good question. “I can’t keep doing this. You’ve been leaving me for the better part of a decade, Jessica. You leave me. It’s what you do. And here we are again, right? In a month or two, or three or five, you’ll break up with me. Something will come up. Something big. I’m not saying you’ve ever done anything shallow. And I’ll be right back here again. And I want...more.”
The word hung between them in the dark summer night. For a heartbeat or two, Connor thought she might crack.
“Okay.” Her voice was soft. “Sorry to bother you.” With that, she turned and walked off, her footsteps quiet.
“You never bother me, Jess,” he said to her back.
She didn’t answer. Of course not. Far be it from Jessica Dunn to make a scene or a declaration.
* * *
JESSICA SAW THAT going differently. Much differently. She’d actually been pretty confident Connor was going to be really, really happy with her offer, probably because she was an idiot.
You never bother me, Jess.
After all she put him through, he could say something like that. He was right to want more. She couldn’t blame him.
Life was a little weird these days. Her father had taken Davey off for the day, and Jess had spent the time unpacking and arranging. Her new house was adorable, bigger than the rental. She loved being in the Village with all its happy bustle. Davey had more freedom; he could walk to the green without her, and the shopkeepers all knew him and made him feel welcome. Lorelei had to stop giving him a free cupcake every day, though. Too much sugar.
But she hadn’t realized how much the noise would carry from the lake with the summer people and their boats and parties. She hadn’t realized how a room could echo if it was too empty. Or, strangely enough, how much the smaller place on Academy Street had felt like home.
It was just new. She’d get there. After all, she owned her own home on a street she’d always loved. That was her name on the deed. The first person in her family ever to be a homeowner.
But it didn’t pack the thrill she’d always thought it would.
And then there was work. For the first time ever, Jess didn’t love going to Blue Heron.
It was Marcy. Funny, how one person could change the dynamic so much. Jess wanted to get past it, but good God in heaven, the woman annoyed her! Constantly bursting into Jessica’s office uninvited to talk about what a great job she—Marcy—was doing. Constantly laughing that hacking laugh on the phone. If she said I kid you not one more time, Jess was fairly sure her head would explode.
On Wednesday morning, they sat around the big table in the conference room for a staff meeting. Prudence, Jack and Mr. Holland were out in one of the barns; they used to come to staff meetings, and Mrs. Johnson would make her famous lemon cake, and sometimes Faith would pop in, too.
That hadn’t happened in a long time. Now it was just Honor, who looked a little green with morning sickness, Marcy, who was talking talking talking; Ned, who was staring out the window; and Jess herself.
She waited for Marcy to finish congratulating herself on last weekend’s wedding. Jess had an idea to pitch—an exclusive foliage tour of the vineyard in October with a special dinner up at the Barn afterward. Very pricey, very exclusive, since the Hollands wouldn’t want dozens of people tramping through their fields and forests.
Finally, Marcy finished. “Okay,” Jess said. “I was—”
“Oh, and one more thing,” Marcy said. “I was thinking that we could totally get a foliage piece into New Jersey Lifestyle,” Marcy said. “Get people up from New Jersey, it’s like, hey, New Jersey, get off your ass and come on up, okay? We’ve got wine! We could put together this special tour of the vineyard for October, show off the trees, maybe do a dinner at the Barn. What does everyone think?”
How did she do that? How did she manage to scoop every idea Jess had had lately?
“And sure, foliage, who cares, everyone’s got it, but we here at Blue Heron have something a little special, don’t we? The Liberty maple.”
Jess’s skin prickled.
The Liberty maple. The tree Prudence had told her about, the one the first Holland had planted as a sign of his faith in the future.
The tree the Hollands didn’t talk about except to their best friends. She looked at Honor, who was frowning.
“Right?” Marcy went on. “I mean, who else has a two-hundred-and-thirty-year-old tree planted by their ancestor, the war hero? So we could do this special wine called Liberty maple muscadet or something, Liberty maple merlot, it really wouldn’t matter, and we could—”
“How do you know about that tree?” Honor asked.
Marcy stopped talking. “Excuse me?”
“How do you know about the Liberty maple?”
Holy crap. Jess’s mouth fell open. “You hacked into Honor’s computer,” she said.
There was a beat of silence.
“What? I did not!” Marcy’s eyes darted between Honor and Jessica. Her face flushed, a deep red.
Got you, Jessica thought. “And mine,” she said.
“Um...okay, chill, Jessica. I can’t remember who told me about the tree. Prudence, I guess. Maybe Faith. Anyway—”
“My sisters did not tell you about that tree,” Honor said, her voice glacier cold. Ned wore a rare scowl on his face. “Nor did anyone in this family.”
Marcy didn’t answer. Her flush had spread down to her chest, leaving blotches of red on her neck.
“I never put it together,” Jessica said. “But you’ve come up with quite a few ideas that were awfully familiar. The story on the new grape varietal, the sales retreat, now the foliage tour and dinner. You’ve been on my computer, reading my files. But the Liberty maple...there is nothing on my computer about that. That must’ve come from Honor’s.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jessica. I just... I had an idea. Sorry. I thought ideas were encouraged here.”
“Holy shit, you did, didn’t you?” Ned said. “You little weasel.”
“You’re fired,” Honor said calmly.
“You can’t fire me,” Marcy sputtered.
“I just did. Ned, please escort Miss Hannigan from the premises.”
“Hells, yeah. That sounds fun. Let’s go, Marcy.”
They left. Marcy, for once, speechless.