How to Keep a Secret

“Did you ever find what you were looking for?” Her question was met with silence so she turned her head and met his gaze.

“Did you?” His voice was rough.

What had she been looking for?

At first it had been love, but then it had been security and stability.

She’d lost all three.

Because it was impossible to think when he was looking at her, she glanced back at the maps.

She hadn’t imagined that being alone with him would be this hard.

Her feelings unsettled her. She didn’t want to be the sort of person who lost a husband one day and then wanted to rip the clothes off another man the next.

Her emotions were so close to the surface she felt like one of those volcano experiments Mack had done at school. Everything was about to boil over.

She studied the lines on the map. He must have been away for a year. More? “Where are you living?”

“On the boat.”

Some of her happiest moments had been spent on his boat. There had even been moments when she’d thought they might have a future.

Determined not to think about that, she turned. “Mack said you brought her home. You should have come in.”

He glanced at her. “Things were a little tense last time I was in the house. I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome.”

“You saved my daughter from a difficult situation. Of course you would have been welcome.”

His gaze was steady. “Is she doing all right?”

“She’s very confused right now.” She was desperate to talk about it. The responsibility was a crushing weight to carry alone. “I don’t know why she did what she did last night.”

“You never did anything reckless at her age?”

Lauren felt herself flush. They both knew the answer to that one.

“It’s tough for her, trying to fit in. She had some issues in her old school, too.” She wondered why she was telling him this. If he’d been at all interested in being a parent, they might be having a different conversation now.

“Trying to make yourself fit in never works. You are who you are.”

Which was why there had never been any hope for them.

“I didn’t only come here to thank you. Mom says you’re buying The Captain’s House.” She’d had a few weeks to digest the information and she still couldn’t believe it. “Why would you do that?”

When her mother had first announced it, it was hard to know who had been more shocked, her or Jenna. Even calm, unflappable Greg had seemed startled.

Of all the things she’d pictured happening in life, her mother selling the family home had never been on the list. Nancy wouldn’t even throw away a photograph. How was she going to dispose of the whole thing?

All that talk about finding it difficult to afford the upkeep made no sense to Lauren because she knew her mother had made a fortune with her paintings.

She was hoping it was all a mistake. Maybe her mother was having a delayed midlife crisis. The thought that Scott might be buying her home made her want to hyperventilate.

“The house is no longer for sale.” The words especially not to you hovered on her lips. “I don’t know what you said to her to persuade her to sell it but it’s not going to happen, and the fact that I’m grateful to you for saving my daughter isn’t going to change anything.”

He tipped fruit into the bowl on the table. “So you still don’t talk to your mother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”