Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

Life doesn’t work like that at all.

And that day was the day it decided to remind me of that fact.

It was nearing the end of summer, and I’d closed my gift shop/workshop that I owned on the boardwalk in the seaside city of Hartwell, Delaware. It was technically a city, but it was small with a small-town mentality. The boardwalk was about a mile long, and the north end was made up of commercial buildings, including my gift shop where I sold unique items I not only sourced but jewelry I made and designed in my workshop.

We boardwalk owners were a tight-knit community. My best friend was Bailey Hartwell, and she owned Hart’s Inn, which sat right next to my shop on the boards.

I’d closed up shop for an hour, and Bailey had left the running of the inn to her manager, Aydan, so we could grab a coffee with our friend Emery Saunders, who owned Emery’s Bookstore and Coffeehouse.

Usually, our coffee breaks were an excuse to chat about everything and nothing, but that day we had a specific focus. Bailey. Not only was her little sister in town causing problems, but Bailey had started seeing Vaughn Tremaine. This was big news in our small town. Why? Well, mostly, because anything i

nvolving Bailey was big news. As a descendant of the founding family, she was well known. But more than that, she was liked and respected. When Vaughn Tremaine bought the old Hart’s Boardwalk Hotel and ripped it down to build his contemporary five-star hotel, Paradise Sands, Bailey was not happy. She made sure the whole town and Tremaine were aware of how unhappy she was and in doing so caused a miniature war between her and the deliciously sexy Manhattan-born hotelier.

If that wasn’t enough to keep tongues wagging, Bailey’s boyfriend of ten years, Tom, shocked the hell out of everyone by cheating on her. After they broke up, the tension that had been simmering between Bailey and Tremaine sort of exploded and as I’d always suspected, they admitted they were attracted to each other.

After months of dancing around each other, they were finally dating.

I was happy for my best friend. No one deserved to get her happily-ever-after more than Bailey Hartwell.

“I never felt this way with Tom,” Bailey said with a huff as we sat drinking our coffee. We were up in the raised section of the bookstore, sitting around the open fireplace. The light spilling in from the low, shallow windows behind us cast a copper halo around her auburn hair. “I actually liked the space from Tom, even in the beginning. But with Vaughn, I want to be with him all the time because every moment we spend together, I find out something new about him—his quirks, his sense of humor, his cockiness, his flaws. And do you know what? I like it all. Flaws and all! What is that?”

Emery beamed. “You’re falling in love.”

I grinned at the dreaminess of Emery’s smile as Bailey denied such claims. To be honest, I’d kept to myself living in Hartwell these past nine years. Emery had moved to town a year after me, but she was so shy and socially awkward, no one really knew her. That is until Jessica Huntington came to Hartwell last year, befriended Bailey, and then Emery. Jessica was now Jessica Lawson. She’d married our friend Cooper who owned the bar next to Emery’s bookstore. Jessica was one of the town doctors, and if she had time between appointments, she’d try to join us for coffee. However, she and Cooper were on their honeymoon in Canada.

And now all four of us were friends. Emery was coming out of her shell more and more, but the woman was still a mystery.

All I knew about her was that she inherited a lot of money from her grandmother, including property like the bookstore. I knew she was timid, especially around men, which made no sense considering she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever met in real life. Seriously. She was tall, slender with curves in all the right places, had long white-blond hair that no grown woman should have naturally, and the delicate features of a Disney cartoon. Cooper’s sister, Cat, often joked that Emery looked like Elsa from Frozen.

Aside from her resemblance to a Disney character, I also knew Emery was a total romantic. Anytime Bailey spoke about Vaughn, or Jess talked about Cooper, Emery got this sweet look of longing on her face.

“Shouldn’t he want to spend all of his time with me?” Bailey pulled me out of my Emery thoughts.

“You need to talk to him about this. Now. Before it goes any further,” I advised. There had been way too much miscommunication between Bailey and Vaughn already. “If Jess was here, she’d say the same.”

Bailey wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know …”

Well, I did know, and I had no problems saying how I felt and doing so bluntly. Thankfully, Bailey appreciated that part of my personality. “Do you really want a husband and a father to your kids who is never there?”

“No.” She shook her head and then straightened her shoulders with determination. “Fine. I’ll talk to him. It’ll probably scare him off, but I’ll talk to him.”

“After what he said to you, I don’t think anything you do will scare him off,” Emery offered, taking the words right out of my mouth. On the day of Jess’s wedding, Vaughn had gotten into a fist fight with an old flame of Bailey’s that turned out to be Vaughn’s high school friend. The guy insulted Bailey and Vaughn decked him (you couldn’t write this stuff!), and when the fighting was over, Vaughn gave her this amazing speech about all the reasons he loved her. When she’d told us what he’d said, I’d kind of fallen in love with him myself.

“Yeah, he certainly seems to get a kick out of your obnoxious honesty,” I teased.

“My obnoxious honesty?” Bailey gestured to me. “Pot.” And then to herself. “Meet Kettle.”

I laughed. “Whatever. Just talk to him.”

At the sound of the bell ringing through the bookstore, Emery got up to see if the customers needed her and I repeated to Bailey that she needed to talk to Vaughn. Seriously, my friend had to know by now that there was no chasing off Vaughn Tremaine. He looked at her like she was his whole reason for existing.

“They’re just browsing the books, so I told them to come get me if they need me.” Emery sat down with us again. “What were we saying?”

“We were discussing my possible relationship-ending talk with Vaughn. Oh, and the fact that my sister seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet. I swear to God, if I don’t find her soon, my parents are going to get on a flight out here.”

“And that would be a bad thing?” I think not. It wasn’t my place to say anything, but Vanessa was a born troublemaker, and I didn’t like the idea of her causing problems for Bailey as my friend was getting her life together. Maybe it would be a good thing if Stacy and Aaron Hartwell came back to take the responsibility of looking out for Vanessa off Bailey’s shoulders.

“Right now?” Bailey said. “Yes. I’d like to get to know Vaughn without my dad breathing down my neck. I love the man, but he also is the only one in my family who knew about Oliver Spence.”