With This Kiss Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  A Preview of Home Sweet Home

  Copyright Page

  For Paul, Hunter, and Julia

  Acknowledgments

  This career has brought many wonderful people into my life—fellow writers, loyal readers, my agent, my editors, and fantastic cover artists. Thank you for the hard work you’ve put into my books over the years.

  Chapter One

  You are such a beautiful bride.”

  Rebecca Campbell smoothed out the cuff of Andi Powell’s long-sleeved silk wedding gown and smiled at her friend in the full-length mirror. Emerald Lake, still mostly frozen and lightly dusted with snow from last night’s short storm, reflected through the large-paned window to the mirror.

  Andi’s eyes met Rebecca’s in the mirror, full of excitement and anticipation for her wedding day. “I know I’ve said it a hundred times already, Rebecca, but thank you so much for everything you’ve done to help with my wedding. I could have never pulled this off so quickly, or so beautifully.”

  Rebecca was extremely pleased by how smoothly the wedding preparations had come together. Her final walk-through downstairs half an hour ago confirmed that the Emerald Lake Inn had been completely transformed into a tasteful, elegant wedding venue. She’d done it before, of course, but it meant more to her this time, knowing she was an integral part of Andi and Nate’s special day.

  Still, she had to tease her friend. “We both know you could have planned a dozen last-minute weddings in the past two weeks, Andi, and probably gotten a spread in Brides magazine while you were at it.”

  Andi grinned before tossing off, “That was the old me, before I decided to start playing with yarn all day instead.”

  Rebecca was happy to let Andi say whatever she wanted. After all, this was her wedding day. But both of them knew that moving back to Emerald Lake and becoming engaged to Nate hadn’t changed the core of who she was. Andi had always been driven. Brilliant. And on top of that, she also happened to be one of the most loving, caring people Rebecca had ever had the good fortune of knowing. Business at Lake Yarns was more brisk than ever now that Andi had taken over the store for her mother and grandmother. Not just because Andi was a great businesswoman with a background in management consulting, but because she was truly passionate about knitting—and the women who patronized her store.

  As Andi turned back to look into the antique mirror in the inn’s “wedding prep” room, Rebecca noted that her friend seemed surprised by her own appearance. The wedding gown, the soft curls brushing against her collarbone, the pretty makeup.

  “I never thought today would come,” Andi said softly. “But I always wanted it.” She lifted her gaze to meet Rebecca’s. “I’ve loved Nate my whole life.”

  Rebecca blinked quickly to push away the tears that had been threatening to fall all morning just thinking about Andi and Nate’s wedding.

  “You deserve it.” She could hear how scratchy her words sounded. She had to work to swallow away the lump that had formed in her throat at Andi’s soft confession of love. “You and Nate both deserve the love you’ve found again. Especially since this time it’s forever.”

  She shot a knowing glance at Andi’s slightly rounded stomach, the lump in her throat replaced with the joy of knowing there would soon be a new baby to cuddle and kiss and spoil.

  Rebecca refused to acknowledge the envy that tried to steal through her as her friend’s slender fingers automatically spread across the growing life inside her in a gesture of instinctive protectiveness and nurturing. But she couldn’t hide from the concerned look on Andi’s face in the mirror as she obviously noticed her heightened emotions.

  “A little more blush,” Rebecca said quickly, letting her long light-brown hair hide her face as she bent down to pick up the makeup bag.

  She knew she’d just given too much away. She always did. Some people had poker faces, but not her. On the contrary, hers would cause her to lose everything in the casino because she didn’t have the first clue how to play the game.

  And it was true. Rebecca had never figured out how to play the game. Not with love, that was for certain. And not with jobs, until she’d landed here at the inn and realized she’d finally found something she was good at. Something she loved to do.

  Even though they both knew her makeup was already perfect, Andi let Rebecca brush a tiny bit more powder over her cheekbones, just until she’d regained her composure.

  But then, before Rebecca could step away again, her friend reached out and put a hand on her arm. “You know you can talk to me, don’t you?” Her gaze softened. “My groom isn’t going anywhere,” she said with perfect confidence. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

  Knowing the last thing she should do was dump her fears and hurts and baggage all over Andi on her wedding day, Rebecca was intent on finding a way to deflect her concern. “I always get emotional at weddings. You should have seen me at each of my sister’s ceremonies. I cried buckets. The guests in my row were all wishing for raincoats so I wouldn’t soak them.” She smiled a crooked little smile, hoping to lighten the mood. “This time I’ve tucked some under the seats next to mine as a precaution.”

  But her friend, the woman she’d helped see through such a difficult time the previous fall, didn’t so much as crack a smile.

  “You don’t have to pretend with me, Rebecca.” Regret flashed across Andi’s face. “Ever since I got pregnant, my brain has been fuzzy and I just want to sleep all the time. That’s got to be why I didn’t see it all more clearly before.” She shook her head. “We shouldn’t have scheduled our wedding for this weekend.”

  Andi’s words were said softly, and while there wasn’t pity behind them, Rebecca believed that was only due to the close friendship they’d forged during the last six months.

  Unfortunately, there was no escaping the fact—not with Andi or anyone who was going to be downstairs at the wedding and reception—that Rebecca was supposed to have been the one about to get married this weekend. Instead of wearing the gown and saying “I do,” she was going to be sitting in the audience, watching two wonderful people make their vows of love to each other.

  The truth was that it hadn’t been easy walking down Main Street these past three weeks, going to the grocery store, passing people she knew on the cross-country ski trails knowing they were whispering about her. Sure, they still smiled, still exchanged the same pleasantries. But she knew either they had to be feeling sorry for her… or they were trying to figure out just what horrible thing she’d done to make Stu call off the wedding.

  And disappear from Emerald Lake the very next day without a word to anyone.

  Only the women at Lake Yarns’s Monday night knitting group had remained the same as always. Warm. Gossipy. And yet, utterly nonjudgmental. No matter how busy she was, Rebecca made sure to keep every Monday night open for drinking too much wine, and usually doing more talking and laughing than knitting.

  She felt like she’d found her home in Emerald Lake, liked to imagine growing old on an Adirondack chair on a dock while she watched her future grandchildren playing in the blue water.

  She hated to think that she’d only been accepted by the locals because she was engaged to Stu Murphy, whose family had lived in Emerald Lake for generations. She wanted to believe she belonged here on her own merit. Because people liked her and thought she contributed something valuable to the community.

  But regardless of how off-kilter she was feeling, she absolutely refused to taint Andi’s wedding in any way.

  “You know I absolutely loved being able to put on this wedding for you and Nate. And really, it worked out perfectly. You needed a wedding venue right away and I had one all ready to go.” Rebecca already had th
e tables and chairs and glasses and food ordered for her own spring wedding at the inn, so Andi and Nate were able to use them without having to try to pull together everything at the last second. “It was meant to happen this way. I’m certain of it. I absolutely love knowing that I’m a part of your happily ever after.”

  Anyone else would have stopped talking there, would have held something back, would have hidden the rest of her feelings. But Rebecca had never known how to do that. Especially when a dear friend was looking at her with such deep concern. Besides, she’d finally stopped lying to herself about her ex-fiancé three weeks ago. So what was the point in trying to hold back the full—painful—truth with anyone else now?

  “You know Stu and I weren’t right for each other. Not as anything more than friends. The truth is I enjoyed putting the finishing details on your wedding far more than I ever enjoyed working on it when it was my own.” She shook her head. “I guess that should have been my first clue that something wasn’t right. But it was seeing you and Nate together that showed me what real love was supposed to look like.”

  “You never told me that,” Andi said, clearly surprised by what Rebecca had divulged. Awareness dawned suddenly in her brown eyes. “Oh my gosh. Three weeks ago. That’s when Nate and I came in to ask about squeezing in a shotgun wedding here at the inn.”

  Rebecca nodded, feeling like she was a diary that had fallen open with a splat. “You two were supposed to be flipping through a booklet of cake toppers. Instead, your foreheads were together and you were staring into each other’s eyes.”

  She hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away from them, not even when Nate cupped Andi’s cheek and gently kissed her.

  That was what real love looked like. Deep and true love.

  Forever love.

  Just like that, Rebecca had known she couldn’t go through with marrying Stu. Not just for her sake, not just because she wanted that kind of love for herself, but because it wasn’t fair to Stu, either. He deserved forever love, too.

  “I don’t know what to say. I hate to think that I caused your breakup. But—”

  Rebecca shook her head, wanting to still the remorse, the guilt that was emerging on her friend’s face. “You didn’t cause anything. You just helped me see the light.” Finally. Long after she should have seen it on her own. “I’ll be forever grateful to you for that.”

  Andi hugged her tightly and even though Rebecca longed to tell her friend more—it simply wasn’t her nature to hold things back and the secrets she was keeping were eating her up inside—there was one thing she couldn’t tell anyone.

  Specifically, what had happened three weeks ago when she went to break her engagement to Stu after seeing Andi and Nate so in love.

  She’d been so twisted up inside her head—and heart—on her way to Stu’s suite of rooms that night that she hadn’t thought to knock before opening the door. Rebecca could still remember the way she’d been frozen in place when Stu and John, a mutual friend of theirs from college, pulled away from each other so quickly that she almost thought she’d imagined their embrace. Although he’d always been closer to Stu, Rebecca had counted John among her friends, too.

  Stu had cursed and come toward her, hands outstretched, his face ravaged with guilt. “Rebecca, I can explain. I didn’t want to hurt you. I swear it.”

  She’d waited for betrayal to kick in, for anger to burst forth. Instead, a deep sense of sadness made her chest clench—along with a flood of relief. Because he didn’t want to marry her either. Stu had been her best friend since freshman year in art college when they’d bonded over giggles during the nude-drawing class. They should have known better than to date and then actually go and get engaged to each other.

  She knew she should have been shocked by Stu’s kiss with John. Only, she wasn’t. Not when all of the warning signs, everything that hadn’t added up from the first time Stu had asked her out, suddenly made perfect sense.

  After a lifetime of dating tall, dark, and mysterious men who made her heart race, men with a core of danger and secrets that she’d longed to heal and love, Stu had been safe. Gentle. A calm lake instead of a roaring sea. Their first date had been full of laughter, and even though the very few kisses that came in later months were nothing to write home about, she told herself fireworks were overrated. Lord knew she could live without the careening emotions that usually went hand in hand with her relationships.

  Standing there in Stu’s living room with John waiting awkwardly by the window, she’d realized why their engagement had always felt so wrong to her: they’d both been desperately lying to themselves, both been wanting to believe in something that could never make either of them happy in the long run.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” was what she’d finally asked him and when he’d said, “I wanted so badly to make it work,” in clear anguish, she’d tried to say, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  She’d thought her relationship with Stu was different from her previous relationships. She’d thought it was healthy. But she’d been wrong. Which was why she hadn’t been able to force those false words out.

  Stu was a blur of emotion. “I thought I could marry you, but seeing John brought up so many old feelings. Feelings I thought had gone away. Feelings I’d convinced myself had never existed in the first place. I’m just so confused about everything. You must hate me. But I swear I didn’t cheat on you. Just that kiss.” His tears, along with his confession, broke her heart. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. So, so sorry.”

  It had been hard to get him to listen to her, to understand that she’d come to talk to him to call off their engagement, too, that she was an equal partner in breaking things off. Ultimately, she’d accepted that nothing she could say was going to calm him down. Not that night, anyway.

  “Please keep my secret, Rebecca.” He gripped her hands so tightly that she’d found small bruises along the tops of them the next morning. “I need to figure things out first. Please.”

  She couldn’t help but wonder how Stu could possibly ask her to keep a secret like that? Especially when he knew how big her honesty gene was, that she was terrible at holding anything back.

  “You know I’m no good at keeping secrets,” she’d told him, but it was the fear, the pain, the confusion in Stu’s eyes that had her finally promising to keep his secret despite her deep reservations… and the sure knowledge that keeping Stu’s secret was only going to hurt everyone more in the long run.

  Of course, she’d assumed he’d be there in the morning, had believed that once he’d calmed down they’d figure out a way to share the news that they’d decided to just remain friends.

  Rebecca found his note in the morning.

  I have to leave. I’m sorry. I need some time to think things through. I’ll come home as soon as I can, but please don’t come looking for me.

  Mere minutes later, his mother, Elizabeth, burst into the inn’s reception room gripping a similar letter in her hand. Tears were still fresh on her cheeks… and she hadn’t bothered to hide the accusations in her eyes when she looked at Rebecca.

  The church bells chiming loudly outside the inn’s window brought Rebecca back into the present moment. Andi’s look of concern had morphed into full-on worry.

  How long has she been lost replaying her final night with Stu?

  “Have you heard from him yet?” Andi asked.

  “No. He hasn’t been in touch with any of us. Not even his parents.”

  Rebecca turned her gaze out the window, as if she could somehow spot Stu out there on Main Street if she looked hard enough. But she sensed he wouldn’t be back so soon. Even though she not only needed his help with the inn, but the Tapping of the Maples Festival was rapidly approaching and she was nearly running on empty trying to take care of everything by herself.

  She understood that he was dealing with a lot right now, but every now and again she felt more than a little miffed that he’d left her here to deal with both the inn and the festival entirely on her own
for who knew how long.

  Andi gripped her hand tighter and Rebecca felt moisture tickling her eyes again.

  No. This was Andi’s wedding day. Rebecca hadn’t cried once in the past three weeks, and she certainly wasn’t going to cry for herself now as they put the final touches on Andi’s dress and hair and makeup.

  Firmly deciding that the only tears she’d cry today would be happy ones, she smiled widely and said, “I can’t wait to see Nate’s face when you walk down the aisle. He’s going to be the happiest man alive.”

  After only the slightest moment of hesitation, Andi, thankfully, let Rebecca have her way in changing the subject.

  “The church bells have chimed.” Rebecca opened the door and held her hand out for Andi. “It’s time.”

  Oh my. What a lovely wedding it was.

  Of course, the bride was gorgeous and the groom was handsome. Pink and white and red hothouse roses were in bloom all over the room. But Rebecca knew Andi and Nate could have been standing in the middle of an open field wearing jeans and T-shirts and it still would have been one of the most beautiful ceremonies she’d ever witnessed.

  The love between them was so strong it reached out to wrap itself around everyone in the room. At last, Rebecca didn’t bother to hide her tears, not when pretty much everyone else in the room was dabbing at their eyes. Thankfully, she’d thought ahead and had put a small box of tissues at the end of every row of seats. The boxes were being passed back and forth as Nate’s ten-year-old sister, Madison, reached into her basket of rose petals and threw them over her brother and new sister-in-law as they kissed and the crowd cheered.

  Rebecca was on her feet clapping along with the rest of them. The new bride and groom walked down the aisle hand in hand and she had to put her hand over her heart, as if somehow that could keep everything she was feeling—and everything she was wishing for—deep inside.