two mugs of coffee, a plate of bread slices and some honey before returning to the table. She held her cup between her hands and let out a long sigh. “I bet you’re wondering why this place looks like this and why I have it up for sale.”
“Yeah, but I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.” Emily had plenty going wrong in her own life that she wasn’t keen to discuss, either.
“It’s okay. It’s been hardest for me to tell the regular guests. Those people are like my family, and to think that the Gingerbread Inn will one day no longer exist...it just breaks my heart. But there’s only so much I can do.” Carol dropped her gaze to her coffee. “After my husband died, this place got to be too much for one person. Revenue dropped off when the economy struggled, and I just couldn’t afford to hire people to keep up with the maintenance. I love it here, I really do, but it’s got to the point now where the whole thing is too much. I don’t even know where to begin to repair and rebuild. So I put it on the market. Maybe I’ll get enough money to pay for a little cottage near the beach.”
Harper wriggled through the dog door in the kitchen, took one look at the two women and ducked under the kitchen table, her tail beating a comforting patter against the tile floor. Carol gave the dog a loving pat.
“I hate to see you sell it. I like knowing the inn is here, if...” Emily sighed. “If I ever need it.”
Carol’s green eyes met Emily’s, and her face filled with concern. She reached out, covered one of Emily’s hands with her own. “What’s the matter, honey?”
“Just a lot going on in my life right now,” Emily said. An understatement if there ever was one.
This morning, she’d walked out on her ten-year marriage. They’d already been separated for six months, but separated was a loose term when it came to Cole. He’d stopped by at least once a week, for everything from his favorite golf club to checking to make sure the lawn mower had enough gas for when the landscapers came by.
It was as if he didn’t want to accept it was over. Okay, she hadn’t made that message any clearer by sleeping with him again. One crazy night, fueled by nostalgia and memories, and she’d forgotten all the reasons they were wrong for each other. The reasons she had asked for a separation. The reasons why she couldn’t live with a man who broke her heart almost every day.
Emily finally realized that if she wanted space, she’d have to get it for herself. And with the new life inside her, she needed to have a clear head to make one big decision.
File for divorce or try one more time.
“Well, you take whatever time you need,” Carol said. “If there’s one thing this place is perfect for, it’s thinking.”
“I’m counting on that,” Emily said, then got to her feet for a second slice of bread. It didn’t help her think, but it sure helped her feel like she’d come to the right place. Something about being back at the Gingerbread Inn filled her soul, and right now, Emily Watson needed that more than anything.
* * *
Cole Watson bounded up the stairs of his house—okay, technically it wasn’t his right now, even if he was still making the mortgage payments—with a bottle of wine in one hand and a dozen roses in the other. He reached for the front door handle, then paused.
This was Emily’s house now. That meant no barging in, something she’d made clear more than once. He lived in a condo across town. A space of his own that was as empty as a cavern, and still echoed loneliness when he walked in at the end of the day. That was his home, like it or not, and this place no longer was, which meant he had to stop acting like he could barge in, grab the remote and prop his feet on the coffee table. He rang the bell, even though it felt weirder than hell to ring the bell of a house he still wrote a check for every month. Waited. No answer. Rang it again.
Nothing.
He fished out his key—she’d never changed the locks, something he had taken as a good sign—unlocked the door and went inside, pausing in the vast two-story foyer. Even fully furnished, professionally decorated, the massive house felt empty, sad. Seven thousand square feet of gleaming marble and granite, and it seemed...
Forlorn.
The same copper bowl he remembered them buying on a trip to Mexico sat on the foyer table, waiting for his keys. A neat stack of mail addressed to Cole sat beside the bowl under the Tiffany lamp he had bought for their first anniversary. In the parlor to the right, the same white love seat and armchairs that Emily had hated and he had bought anyway sat, facing the east garden. And down the hall, he could see the wrought-iron kitchen table and chairs, a gift from his mother years ago.
The house was the same, but...different. Off, somehow.
Then Cole spied the slip of paper atop the mail and realized why. He laid the wine and roses on the foyer table and picked up the note.
Went out of town. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t call me. I need some time to think. To figure out my next step.
Emily
The cold, stark words hit him hard. They were separated. Did he think she was going to leave him some gushy love note? Still, the reality stung, and reminded him that the marriage he thought he had and the one he did have were two very different things.
Went out of town. Where? Why? With someone?
That thought pained him the most, and drove home the other fact that Cole had yet to face. If he and Emily couldn’t repair their marriage, then at some point she would move on, find someone else. Another man would see her smile, make her laugh, hold her in the dark of night.
And rightly so, because they were over and had been for a long time. Didn’t matter if Cole was having trouble accepting the fact.
Against his hip, his cell phone buzzed. He flipped it out and answered the call. “Cole here.”
“We’ve got a wrinkle in the product launch,” said Doug, his project manager. “There was a bad storm in Japan, and the plant that’s supposed to make the screens for us was damaged pretty heavily. They aren’t sure when they’ll be back online.”
“Call someone else.”
“I did. There’s a backlog on the materials. Seems we wiped out the inventory. It’ll be two weeks before they can produce more—”
“I’ll take care of it. Get me on the first flight to...” Cole fingered the note in his hands. I need some time to think. To figure out my next step.
The next step. There were only two options—get back together or get divorced. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which way Emily was leaning.
Don’t call me.
She didn’t want him to contact her. The bridge he’d hoped might still be there between them, the connection he’d been counting on when he’d shown up with wine and roses, was gone. She’d underlined the words. Made it clear she didn’t want him coming close.
His marriage was over.
“Cole? Did you want a flight to the plant in Japan? Or to the manufacturer in Poland?”
Cole Watson, who had never
