The Crush (59)

Adaline



The Ward family beach house was one of my favorite places on earth. When Logan and Paige celebrated their twentieth anniversary, they purchased it as a gift for the entire family. Nestled on a gorgeous five-acre plot on Camano Island, the house had six bedrooms, five bathrooms, and about a million windows facing out to Puget Sound. It was the place they spent holidays and birthdays and summer weekends together, where the grandchildren built sandcastles on the pristine stretch of sand in front of the big white house.

Over the years, between working for Molly and organizing their gatherings, I’d spent my fair share of nights in the house. If the entire family was there, I rarely stayed overnight, making the two-hour trip back down to Seattle when my work was finished. But when it was a smaller group, I always claimed the light-green bedroom in the basement—there were double doors leading out to the back patio and from the queen-sized bed, I could sit and have my coffee in a fuzzy white chair with a perfect view of green grass and blue water and towering trees. It was just down the hall from where the kids slept, and after dropping off my overnight bag, I stopped by the room with the blue bunk beds, missing my little hellions with a fierce pang.

Something about it, as I moved from room to room, reminded me of how alone I’d felt when I was at the masquerade. Not because I was lonely at the house—there were too many good memories there for me to feel sad—but it was more like I felt the absence of the people who were meant to be there with me.

Luna fell and skinned her knee on the patio outside the green bedroom, and she wanted to sleep with me that night because she couldn’t stop crying.

Asher and I used to cuddle in the big gray chair upstairs by the fireplace, reading his favorite graphic novel books, where he insisted over and over and over that I read it in the funny voices.

Molly cried to Paige and me in the hot tub, admitting that she’d had a miscarriage after Luna, and she couldn’t stop thinking about what color eyes he or she would’ve had. Or what they might have named it.

And it was in the kitchen where Emmett and I shared a glass of wine after everyone went to sleep. He told me stories about his least favorite professor at Stanford, built a house out of coffee mugs, dinner plates, and a cookie sheet, and when he made me laugh so hard that I wiped tears from my eyes, it was the first time he looked at me like he might want to kiss me.

I didn’t know how to be in any home where he’d been without thinking of him.

And I wasn’t sure what that meant for my future. Would I pine for Emmett Ward for the rest of my freaking life? It didn’t sound like any way to live.

But it wasn’t like I could place unreasonable demands on the man either.

He was in his life.

I was in mine.

And for the time being, those two did not overlap.

Which was why I took a deep breath, kept my head down, and focused on the task at hand. Which was the house. And the mile-long list of things I had to do before they arrived in about twenty-four hours.

If we could just get the hot water back on. Which, according to Molly’s text, we should know soon enough.

Molly: Help is on the way! Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.

While I waited for said help to arrive, I busied myself with trips back and forth from my car to stock the fridge and pantry with all the food they’d need. I made the beds with clean sheets, folded clean towels in each bathroom, and started hauling in the five-gallon buckets of flowers that my closest vendor had delivered onto the front porch just before I arrived. Each room would have a bouquet of Isabel’s favorites, with a small basket of items to pamper themselves—face masks, lotions, chocolate, fuzzy socks, and a plush robe that Molly splurged on with each girl’s name embroidered on the chest.

The kind of prep I was doing was admittedly outside of my pay grade. It was the sort of thing I used to do when I worked for Molly as her assistant, but even five years later, with a staff who should be doing it for me, I couldn’t bring myself to delegate the Ward family to anyone else.

I loved them too much to let anyone else take care of them. Kind of like my own family.

After chugging some water, with a splash or two onto my overheated face and chest, I set about cutting flowers and organizing the stems for each room. The sound of a car approaching had me peering out the window facing the circular driveway, but I couldn’t see anything.

I wiped my hands on some paper towel and waited for the plumber to knock. But a minute or so passed, and there was no sign of him approaching the door.

Molly had said a couple of hours, though, and with a quick glance in the mirror next to the front door, I winced at the mess of my hair. A few tugs of my ponytail holder only seemed to make it worse, and I gave up with a sigh as I heard heavy footsteps on the big front porch.

Before my hand turned the doorknob to let him in, a sweeping sensation danced up my spine. With a tilt of my head, I looked down at my arms and frowned when I noticed goose bumps.

The house, full of Emmett memories, was making me go a little crazy. It was the only explanation.

“Stop it,” I whispered.

With those words still echoing in my head, I pulled the door open.

In the shaded, cool air of the front porch, standing tall and too damn handsome for his own good, was Emmett fucking Ward.

I set my hand on my hip. “You’re the help she sent?”

His lips quirked in a tiny smile. “Nice hair.”