First Time in Forever (Puffin Island 1)

Élise, the head chef at Snow Crystal.

Sean stared straight ahead, thinking about that single night the summer before. For a brief moment he was back there, breathing in her scent, remembering the wildness of it.

That was something else his brother knew nothing about.

He swore under his breath and then realized Jackson was still talking.

“How soon can you get here?”

Sean thought about his grandfather, lying pale and still in a hospital bed while their mother, the family glue, struggled to hold everything together and Jackson did more than could be expected of one man.

He was sure his grandfather wouldn’t want him there, but the rest of his family needed him.

And as for Élise—it had been a single night, that was all. They weren’t in a relationship and never would be so there was no reason to mention it to his brother.

He made some rapid mental calculations.

The journey would take him three and a half hours, and that was without counting the time it would take to drive home and pack a bag.

“I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I’ll call his doctors now and find out what’s going on.”

“Come straight to the hospital. And drive carefully. One member of the family in the hospital is enough.” There was a brief pause. “It will be good to have you back at Snow Crys

tal, Sean.”

The reply wedged itself in his throat.

He’d grown up by the lake, surrounded by lush forests and mountains. He couldn’t identify the exact time he’d known it wasn’t where he wanted to be. When the place had started to irritate and chafe everything from his skin to his ambitions. It wasn’t something he’d been able to voice because to admit that there might be a place more perfect than Snow Crystal would have been heresy in the O’Neil family. Except to his father. Michael O’Neil had shared his conflicted emotions about the place. His father was the one person who would have understood.

Guilt dug deep, twisting in his ribs like a knife, because apart from the row with his grandfather and his wild fling with Élise, there was something else he’d never told his brother.

He’d never told him how much he hated coming home.

*

“I ’AVE KILLED WALTER! This is all my fault! I was so desperate to have the old boathouse finished in time for the party, I let an eighty-year-old man work on the deck.” Élise paced across the deck of her pretty lakeside lodge, out of her mind with worry. “Merde, I am a bad person. Jackson should fire me.”

“Snow Crystal is in enough trouble without Jackson firing his head chef. The restaurant is the one part of this business that is profitable. Oh, good news—” Kayla leaned on the railing next to the water, scanning a text “—according to the doctors, Walter is stable.”

“Comment? What does this mean, ‘stable’? You put a horse in a stable.”

“It means you haven’t killed him,” Kayla said as she texted back swiftly. “You need to calm down or we’ll be calling an ambulance for you next. Are all French people as dramatic as you?”

“I don’t know. I cannot help it.” Élise dragged her hand through her hair. “I am not good at ’iding my feelings. For a while I manage it, but then everything bursts out and I explode.”

“I know. I’ve cleared up the mess after a few of your explosions. Fortunately your staff adore you. Go and make pizza dough or whatever it is you do when you want to reduce your stress levels. You’re dropping your h’s and that is never a good sign.” Kayla sent the text and read another one. “Jackson wants me to drive over to the hospital.”

“I will come with you!”

“Only if you promise not to explode in my car.”

“I want to see with my own eyes that Walter is alive.”

“You think we’re all lying to you?”

Her legs were shaking so Élise plopped onto the chair she’d placed by the water. “He is very important to me. I love him like a grandfather. Not like my real grandfather because he was a horrible person who refused to speak to my mother after she had me so I never actually met him, but how I think a grandfather should be in my dreams. I know you understand because your family, they were also rubbish.”

Kayla gave a faint smile, but didn’t argue. “I know how close you are to Walter. You don’t have to explain to me.”