Page 37 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
“Manfred,” Roman was explaining, “wants to cut down a lot of forest and put a golf course hotel in. He’s been lurking around like a damn seagull for years now, but he got no traction until your mom got sick. Then she was ready to sell, and that’s a great parcel of land with no state restrictions on the woodland. He can clear-cut the whole thing if he gets hold of it. I think he figured once he had that in his hands, the rest of the resistance would fall away. But your mom died, and I guess he’d done enough groundwork to think you’d be an easy sale. But you didn’t come back. Eventually he started working on Jerry, trying to lawyer him into claiming eminent domain on an abandoned property.”
By Jerry, he meant Mayor Holt—a decent guy, but not exactly a pillar of strength. Still, he seemed to have held fast against Manfred. “I wonder if that’s why the mayor paid a detective to find me.”
“It is. We talked about it on the council. Nobody wanted to take your inheritance from you.”
I grinned. “You’re a councilman? I didn’t realize I was dining with a town politico.”
His chuckle was deep, and it hit me low in my belly. “Wasa councilman, because I was president of the Chamber of Commerce. Did a term there and didn’t run again. I’m not a politician.” He shifted his hold of my hand, weaving his fingers with mine, and leaned in again. “Manfred is bad news. He’s got big money behind him, but he doesn’t act like a usual CEO type.”
“He acts like a mob boss,” I finished.
“Exactly. Leo, he’s going to be at the meeting tonight. He’s not on the agenda, but he told Jerry he’ll want time during the open forum.”
That bit of new info drew me up short. “That’s when I was planning to talk.”
“I know.”
My first impulse was to skip the meeting. I was nominally attending to update the town on my plans for the Sea-Mist, but really to try to tie a knot in the town grapevine. None of that was urgent, and I had no desire to be in the same space as Darryl Manfred ever again in my life, if I could help it.
But it galled me to be afraid of a human hemorrhoid like him.Iowned the Sea-Mist, not him—and the town had actively hunted me down to prevent him from taking my inheritance from me. Whatever judgments and rumors Bluster might harbor about me, Manfred was the interloper, not me.
Roman sat quietly and watched as I worked through my thoughts.
“Okay,” I eventually said, draining the last of my coffee. “I guess the meeting will be interesting. I hope there’s popcorn. And tequila.”
He smiled. “Beautiful, charming, and strong,” he said.
WE WALKED TO ROMAN’Struck hand in hand. As was always the case in this part of California, even in August, night had brought in a foggy chill from the sea. A light, damp mist swirled around us and blessed each point of light with a sparkling halo.
As we reached the passenger door of his truck, Roman tugged on my hand and turned me to him. His eyes diving deep into mine as usual, he brought his free hand up and brushed a few stray hairs from my forehead.
“I like your hair like this,” he said, and in the low rumble of his voice I heard the desire to kiss me.
Was fifteen months of widowhood enough? Were my complicated feelings about Micah making me think I was ready now for something I really wasn’t? Was it okay that a man who’d known me as a child wanted me now? Had my return to my childhood home made me more vulnerable than I knew?
I had no answers for any of those questions. I wasn’t even sure where to find answers.
All I knew right then, standing in a parking lot across from the Bluster Marina, gazing up at this handsome, kind man, with new fog swirling around us and the rolling tide of the Pacific Ocean rocking the boats rhythmically against their moorings, was that I wanted him to kiss me.
I wanted to be held and comforted. I wanted something in my life that wasn’t work or worry. I wanted Wyatt to be able to be a kid again, unencumbered by responsibilities too heavy for his young shoulders.
I wanted to find safety and fulfillment again for my son and myself. I wanted friendship and love for us both.
In that moment, I saw those things, or at least their possibility, in Roman. In his dark eyes that showed as deeply into him as they delved into me. So I didn’t care about the other questions.
When his hand settled on my cheek, his fingers spreading into my hair, when he bent down until our foreheads were a mere swirl of fog apart, when he told me in a low purr, “I would like to kiss you, Leo,” I set my hands on his chest and offered him my mouth.
The first touch of our lips wasn’t accompanied by a crack of thunder. Lightning did not charge through my body and threaten to burn me from the inside out. Angels did not sing; the earth did not shake.
It was so very much better than any of those unrealistic tropes of fiction. Our first kiss was warm and quiet and calm. It was safe. It was comfort. It was a perfect first kiss, free of demand or desperation.
His lips were firm and warm, and they tasted of cheesecake and coffee. His short beard, tidied up for our date, scratched lightly at my cheeks, my chin, my nose. He hummed a soft sigh, and his breath wafted over my cheek. Though an inferno was not raging through my veins, I was definitely getting a bit warm, and there were a few parts of me that were starting to ... let’s call it ache.
When I slipped my hands up over his shoulders and pushed them into the short waves of his hair, he sent his tongue out gently, searching. I opened my mouth, and he took the invitation at once, but like a guest, not an intruder. He sampled me, and I sampled him as well.
There’s this dance women—straight women, anyway—usually have to perform in a first date/first kiss situation with a guy. Already in high school, most girls have to learn it. Back then, Erin called it ‘war games,’ and to this day I think that’s accurate. Guys are always trying to gain as much ‘territory’ as they possibly can, and women always have to play defense. This is usually true even for women who are totally confident in their own sexuality and totally on board with first-date festivities. Even sexually assertive women, who like to make the first move, end up to some degree playing defense. The whole cishet dating culture is predicated on male conquest, with men trying to get at least a little bit more than women want to give.
That’s how seduction is usually defined—aspersuasion.
