Risking the Crown (The Crown 2)

I couldn’t meet his eyes. All the homesick feelings I had been keeping at arm’s distance hit me the minute Mary Ellen was gone.

There was no way I could explain it to Cole without hurting his feelings.

“I think I’m going to lie down for a few minutes.” I climbed the stairs to the house and walked to our seaside bedroom.

It was hard to shake the feeling I had just cut the last connection to home.

It seemed like everything that could go wrong the next few days did.

Grayson had an earache and fever that kept all of us up at night. It wasn’t until the third day of antibiotics that he could sleep all night.

It had been a week since my parents had heard from Ryan. He was back in the field and my mom was a wreck without some kind of communication. Cole tried to tell my parents it was normal. We were on the phone with them several times a day.

There was never a good time to tell anyone I was pregnant. Everything about the timing was wrong.

When I tried to fasten my shorts this morning, the button strained and I gave up, throwing myself on the bed. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to laugh.

I grabbed a stretchy skirt and went to work.

I had five reservations on the books. I looked at the spreadsheet I had made. I was determined to get the reservations in the computer and backed up on a server so we weren’t dependent on a spiral notebook.

Work kept my mind off everything else that was falling apart.

The snowbird ad was starting to pay off. I was worried at first when I didn’t have a single reservation after the first week that I had wasted my savings, but a few emails rolled in along with phone calls. Five reservations were a start.

I sighed as I saw Aiden pull on the door handle and walk into the office. I wasn’t really in the mood for his list of complaints today. Would it be the parking lot striping or the exterior lightbulbs? It looked like he was holding the palm tree key chain.

“Are you checking out?” We didn’t have a set date on our arrangement, but I was still surprised.

“Headed to North Carolina for that boat building meeting. No sense in me taking up your best room.” He placed the palm tree on the desk.

“Oh. Are you still planning on seeing Mary Ellen?”

He smiled. “And what if I said yes?”

Aiden was a tricky guy. Reading him was difficult. “I’d say give her a hug for me and have a good time in Chapel Hill.”

“Hmm…all right, I’ll do that.”

“So, you really like her?” I didn’t know if she would appreciate me butting in like this, but curiosity had taken hold.

“What’s not to like? She’s cute, fun, and doesn’t get wrapped up in drama. I don’t see why we can’t keep things going like they are.”

I expected him to walk out, but he sat in his usual spot. I could only guess so he could torture me.

“Did you need something else?” I raised my eyebrows.

He scratched his head.

“Yeah, see I can’t figure all this out.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He paused. “I don’t get it. You. Cole. This shitty motel. The way everyone on the island loves it. What am I missing, Kaitlyn?”

I cut the bullshit and the banter we usually carried out, and stripped it down to the truth. “It’s home, Aiden.”

“This isn’t your home, and Cole is holding on to a place owned and run by a man who was dishonest with him his entire life. You’d think he’d want to burn it to the ground.”