First Time in Forever (Puffin Island 1)

“Emily is picking Hilda up. She offered to take me, too, but I didn’t want to stop giving you a reason to call by.”

“I don’t need a reason to call by.” Ryan frowned. “Emily is making the trip specially?”

“She’s a kind girl. She and Lizzy have baked a blueberry pie for our meeting. But, no, she isn’t making the trip just for that. Once she’s dropped Hilda off, she’s going around to Lisa’s to talk business. She’s put together a plan to save Summer Scoop.” Agnes said it as if it were a sure thing, and Ryan felt a flicker of unease.

“She’s not a magician.”

“No, she’s something better.” Agnes glanced at him over the top of her glasses. “She’s a management consultant. We’ve never had one of those on the island before.”

Ryan refrained from pointing out there wasn’t much of a demand for management consultants on Puffin Island.

Much as he admired Emily’s generosity in offering to help, he was more circumspect about her

chances of being able to do anything that would substantially boost the profits of a business that had been struggling from the outset.

“I hope she comes up with a plan.”

“She will.” His grandmother sounded sure. “Emily is a smart young woman, and she is determined to help make the business work. Lisa has a smile on her face for the first time in months. It broke my heart when I heard she’d bought the place, a widow with two young children. Summer Scoop has been struggling to survive since Doris Payne first opened it forty years ago. The whole community has been trying to find ways to help the girl, but there’s only so much ice cream a person can consume without their arteries exploding. If Emily can find a way to sell more of it to the summer crowd, then we’ll all be in her debt. How is the swimming going? That’s assuming ‘swimming’ is all you’re doing in that hour and a half you spend together every night.” She picked up her purse and her keys and took his arm as they walked to the car.

Ryan kept his expression blank. “It’s all we’re doing.”

“Shame.” His grandmother gave him a look. “She’s perfect for you.”

“You’ve been talking to Kirsti.”

“Rachel. And I have eyes. Don’t make that mistake of thinking age means I don’t see.”

“You wear glasses.”

“Which make my vision near perfect. That girl is longing for a family and a home.”

“Maybe those glasses of yours need changing because she’s been running from both those things most of her life.”

“Sometimes you run from the things you want most, because those are the things that scare you.” His grandmother looked at him pointedly, but Ryan chose not to engage in that particular conversation.

He wasn’t scared. He just didn’t want that.

After that first session in the pool, he’d made a point of not touching her, choosing instead to stay close enough to help if she found herself in trouble, but far enough away to ensure they focused on her swimming and not the sexual heat that underpinned every encounter.

Having made the decision to conquer her fear of water, she refused to let anything stand in her way. Not her own nerves or even an incident when she’d slid on the side of the pool and plunged into the deep end. She’d come up spluttering, wild-eyed, but had rejected his offer of assistance and instead choked and splashed her way to the side of the pool without help.

He suspected she’d lowered the water level by swallowing half of the pool, but he respected her determination to do it by herself.

He dropped his grandmother at her book group, but instead of driving back to the Ocean Club, he parked outside Summer Scoop.

The store was closed, and Lisa answered the door with a glass of wine in her hand. “Ryan!” She opened the door to let him in. “Emily is here. We’re having a Save Summer Scoop meeting.”

He looked at the wine. “That involves wine?”

“It definitely does. Emily brought it. It’s delicious. Come and join us.”

He followed Lisa into the small kitchen, noticing the toys piled hastily into a box in the corner. Emily had papers spread all over the kitchen table and her laptop open.

This was an Emily he hadn’t seen before.

She was dressed in skinny jeans and a turquoise T-shirt that hugged her curves. Distracted by those curves, Ryan lost orientation and banged into the door frame. Pain exploded through his shoulder, and he decided life had been more comfortable when she’d worn black, voluminous tops.

He thought back to a disturbingly frank conversation they’d had the day before when she’d told him how hard it was to find clothes when you were big breasted. She’d explained that cute underwear was hopeless and that bras needed serious engineering to have any hope of offering support, and that when she exercised she had to wear two support bras. She’d explained that shirts that buttoned down the front were no good because they always gaped and that she couldn’t wear long necklaces because they dangled off her breasts.