It was late, the party long over, when Emily finally heard the sound of Daniel's motorcycle coming up the street and turning onto the drive up to the house. She got out of bed and peered through the window at his figure as he removed his helmet and walked up toward the carriage house.
Emily wrapped herself up in her nightgown then slid on her slippers. She went downstairs and out the front door. The grass was soft as she walked across the lawn toward the carriage house. Light was coming from inside, spilling across the grass.
She knocked on the door then stood back, wrapping her arms around herself to keep out the chilly night air.
Daniel answered the door. Something about the look on his face told her that he already knew it would be her standing there.
"Where have you been?" she demanded. "You missed the party."
Daniel took a deep breath. "Look, why don't you come in? We can talk over tea rather than standing out here in the cold." He held the door open for her. Emily went inside.
Daniel made them both tea and Emily stayed quiet throughout, waiting for him to be the first to speak, to offer an explanation for his behavior. But he remained tight-lipped and she was left with no other options.
"Daniel," she said forcefully, "why did you miss the party? Where were you? I was worried."
"I know. I'm sorry. I just don't like those people, okay?" he said. "They're the ones who wrote me off when I was a kid."
Emily frowned. "That was twenty years ago."
"It doesn't matter if it was twenty years or twenty minutes to these people."
"You were singing their praises at the harbor," Emily said. "Now suddenly you hate them?"
"I like some of them," Daniel contested. "But they're mostly small-minded townsfolk. Believe me, it would have been worse if I'd been there."
Emily raised an eyebrow. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that those people had turned out to be kind, fun folk. That she was beginning to consider them friends. But the last thing she wanted was to have an argument with Daniel when their honeymoon phase had barely begun.
"Why didn't you just tell me you didn't want to come to the party?" she said finally, forcing her voice to be calm. "I felt like an idiot waiting around for you."
"I'm sorry." Daniel sighed with regret, then set a cup of tea down in front of her. "I know I shouldn't have disappeared like that. It's just I'm so used to being alone, to not having anyone to answer to. It's part of who I am. Having all those people around suddenly, it's a lot to cope with all at once."
Emily felt bad for him, for the way he felt more comfortable alone. To her, that didn't seem like a particularly happy trait to possess. But it still didn't excuse his behavior.
"I mean, just Cynthia on her own would have been bad enough," Daniel added with a sheepish grin.
In spite of herself, Emily laughed. "You should have just told me," she said.
"I know," Daniel replied. "If I promise not to take off like that again, will you forgive me?"
Emily couldn't stay mad at him. "I guess," she said.
Daniel reached over and took her hand. "Why don't you tell me how it was? What did you all talk about?"
Emily gave him a look. "You want me to recount the conversations of people you just told me you hated?"
"I won't hate it coming from you," Daniel said with a smile.
Emily rolled her eyes. She wanted to stay mad at Daniel for a little bit longer to teach him a lesson, but she just couldn't help herself. Plus, she had some big news to tell him regarding the B&B and she couldn't hold it in any longer. She tried to dampen her enthusiasm but found herself unable to contain it.
"Well, the main topic of conversation," she said, "was turning the house into a B&B."
Daniel almost spat out the sip he'd taken. He looked up over the rim of his teacup. "A what?"
Emily tensed up, suddenly nervous about telling Daniel about her new dream. What if he didn't support her? He'd just told her that being alone was part of who he was, and now she was about to tell him that having all manner of strangers traipsing in through the property might become a common occurrence.
"A B&B," she said, her voice smaller and more timid.
"You want to do that?" Daniel asked, setting his cup down. "Run a B&B?"
Emily wrapped her hands around her own cup as though for reassurance and shifted in her seat. "Well…maybe. I don't know. I mean I'd need to crunch the numbers first. I probably won't even be able to afford to get it off the ground." She was stammering now, trying to downplay the idea, unsure what Daniel would make of it.
"But if you could afford to, that's what you'd want?" he asked.
Emily looked up and met his eye. "It was what I wanted to do when I was younger. It was my dream, actually. I just didn't think I'd be any good at it so I gave up thinking about it."
Daniel reached out and put his hand over hers. "Emily, you'd be amazing at it."
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"So you don't think it's a terrible idea?"
Daniel shook his head and beamed. "It's a great idea!"
She brightened suddenly. "You really think so?"
"Absolutely," he added. "You'd be an amazing host. And if you need money to put into it I'd be happy to help. I don't have much but would give you whatever I have."
Though touched by his offer, Emily shook her head. "I couldn't take your money, Daniel. All I'd really need to get things started is one decent bedroom and a pot of coffee. Once I get the first guest in, I can put the profit straight back into the business."
"Even so," Daniel said. "If you need any renovation work done, work on the grounds and stuff, you know I'm happy to chip in."
"Really?" Emily asked again, still unable to believe it. "You'd do that for me?" She thought again of Daniel's generosity, and how he came through for her in her time of need. "You really think it's a good idea?"
"Yes," Daniel assured her. "I love the idea. Which bedroom would you do up first?"
During their last three months of doing up the property they hadn't made much headway with the upstairs. It was only Emily's parents' old room (now hers) and the bathroom that had been completed. She'd need to select another one of the rooms to focus on.
"I don't know yet," Emily said. "Probably one of the big ones at the back."
"One with an ocean view?" Daniel suggested.
Emily gave a little shrug. "I'd have to put a bit more thought into it first. But it wouldn't take long to fix up, would it? I could have it ready for the tourist season. If I got a permit, that is."
Daniel seemed to be in agreement. Over their cup of tea they went over all the details, the amount of time and money they'd need to get a room ready and a menu together in time for the summer influx of tourists.
"It would be risky," Daniel said, sitting back and looking at the paper in front of him scrawled with figures and sums.
"It would," Emily agreed. "But then again quitting my job and walking out on my boyfriend of seven years was risky and look how well that played out." She reached forward and squeezed Daniel's arm. As she did so, she sensed a hesitation in him. "Is everything okay?" she asked, frowning.
"Yeah," Daniel said, standing and picking up their empty mugs. "I'm just tired. I think I'll call it a night."
Emily stood too as it suddenly dawned on her that he was asking her to leave. The passion of the previous evenings seemed to have been entirely extinguished. The romance of their morning in the rose garden dispersed. The thrill of the motorcycle ride across the cliff tops gone.
Pulling her nightgown tightly around her, Emily went over and kissed Daniel on the cheek. "See you later?" she asked.
"Uh-huh," he replied, not looking her in the eye.
Bewildered and hurt, Emily left the carriage house and made the cold, lonely walk back to her own house to spend the night alone.
*
"Morning, Rico!" Emily called as she strolled into the dark, over-crammed indoor flea market the next day.
Instead of Rico, it was Serena's head that popped up from behind a table that she was in the middle of artfully distressing. "Emily! How's it going with Mr. Hot Stuff? I never got a chance to properly talk to you about it at the party."
Daniel was about the last thing Emily wanted to talk about at that point in time. "If you'd asked me that two days ago I would have said it was going amazingly. But now I'm not so sure."
"Oh?" Serena said. "He's one of those, is he?"
"One of what?"
"Falls in too deep and scares themselves cold. I've seen it a million times."
Emily wasn't sure how a twenty-year-old could have seen anything a million times but didn't say it. She didn't really want to get into a conversation about Daniel right now.
"So, I'm looking for a couple of specific pieces," Emily said, rummaging in her bag for the list she and Daniel had made last night before he'd effectively kicked her out his house. She handed it to Serena. "I'm not ready to buy anything yet, I just want to get some ballpark figures."
"Sure," the younger woman said, beaming. "I'll just have a look around." She was about to head off into the shop when she paused. "Hey, this is all bedroom stuff. Is it…"
"For a B&B?" Emily smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. "Yup."
"That's so cool!" Serena exclaimed. "You're really going to do it?"
"Well," Emily said, "I'll need to get the permit first, which means going to a town meeting."
"Oh pfft, that'll be easy," Serena said, waving a dismissive hand. "Does this mean you won't be going back to New York?"
"I need to get the permit first," Emily repeated with a slightly sterner tone.
"Got it," Serena said, clicking her fingers. "Permit first." She grinned and walked away.
Emily smiled to herself, happy to know there was at least one person who seemed to genuinely want her to stick around in Sunset Harbor, not just because of the profit she'd bring to the area but because they liked her.
She went over to the drawer of door handles and started looking through it. Rico had a collection to rival her father's, though Rico's were in much better condition. She was considering powder blue for the color scheme of the room, and wanted delicate glass handles to go in the chest of drawers.
As she was rummaging through the drawer of handles and knobs, she heard two voices entering the shop behind her.
"Stella said she saw him up on the cliffs again yesterday, riding his motorbike for hours and hours," one of the voices said.
Emily paused and strained to hear them better. Could they be talking about Daniel? He had a penchant for driving his bike on the cliffs, and he had been gone for a really long time yesterday.
"And he was at the festival down at the harbor the other day," the second voice said.
Emily felt her heart rate increase. Daniel had been at the festival. Well, so had everyone else, but not everyone else rode a motorbike along the cliff path. She felt certain they were gossiping about Daniel.
"You don't think he's moved back into town, do you?" the second voice was saying.
"Well, Stella has a theory that he never left," the first said.
"Oh my. Really? Just the thought of it gives me the chills. You mean to say he's been at the old house this whole time?"
"Yes, exactly. Stella told me that someone told her that he was at the garage sale the new girl had up there the other day."
Emily felt her whole body turn to ice as the voices kept on gossiping.
"Really? Goodness me. Someone ought to warn her!"
Certain now that the women were talking about Daniel, Emily stepped out of the shadows. "Warn me about what?" she said coolly.
The two women stopped and stared at her like rabbits caught in the headlights.
"I said," Emily repeated, "warn me about what?"
"Well," the first woman began, her voice now suddenly trembling. "It was Stella that said that she'd seen him."
"Seen who?"
"The Moreys' son, I forget his name. Dustin. Declan."
"Douglas," the other woman informed the first confidently.
"No, it's more exotic than that. More unusual," the first contested.
Emily folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. "It's Daniel. And what about him?"
"Well," the first woman said, "he has a reputation."
"A reputation?" Emily said.
"With women," she added. "He's left a lot of women with broken hearts, that Declan."
"Douglas," the second woman said.
"Daniel," Emily corrected them both.
The first woman shook her head. "It's not Daniel, dear. I can't remember his name but it's definitely not Daniel."
"I'm telling you, it's Douglas," the second woman said.
Emily was starting to get frustrated. She didn't want to believe what the women were saying about Daniel-about the women in his past-but she couldn't help the niggling doubt that they were creating in her mind. "Look, I'm sure that was all a very long time ago. People change. Daniel isn't like that anymore and I'm not getting into this argument with you. You should mind your own business, okay?"
The first woman frowned. "It's not Daniel! Honestly, girl, I've been in this town a damn sight longer than you have. That boy's name is not Daniel."
The second woman clapped her hands. "I've got it. Dashiel."
"Yes that's it! Dashiel Morey."
Just then Serena reappeared. She paused mid-stride when she saw the two elderly women standing there and Emily looking flustered.
"I have to go," Emily said, turning and striding out of the shop.
"Wait, what about your list?" Serena called out as Emily disappeared.
As soon as she was out in the springtime sunshine, Emily bent over and began to take deep breaths. She felt like she was hyperventilating. Her mind seemed to be spinning in circles. Though she knew the old women were just busybodies, she couldn't help but feel rattled by what they'd said, by how certain they were about Daniel's name, about his past indiscretions with women. And though Emily had been with Daniel mind, body, and soul, she had the sudden, dreadful realization that she didn't really know him at all, that one couldn't really ever truly know a person anyway. Her dad had taught her that much. If a loving family man could walk out on his family never to be seen again, then a guy she'd known for a few months could be lying about his name.
And his intentions.
