In Your Dreams

Colleen was noted for many wonderful qualities; discretion was not one of them. “I’m not looking. I just need a date for a wedding.” She took off her parka and hung it on the hook.

“Did you ask Jack Holland? He’s always good for that. Except with me, come to think of it.”

“Well, you’re married now.”

“True. But if you just want a date, ask Jack. He loves women in distress.”

“He’s got a lot on his mind these days, I’d think.”

Colleen nodded. “He looks tired, poor guy.” She handed Emmaline a menu. “Who’s getting married?”

“My ex-fiancé.”

“Holy Saint Patrick! Okay, we need someone extremely good-looking. When’s the wedding and where?”

“Ten days. Malibu.” Em had frittered away the two weeks since she got the invitation, debating whether or not to go, whether or not to scare up a date, whether or not to simply move to Alaska and date a crab fisherman.

Colleen gave her an odd look. “Uh...is this Naomi Norman’s wedding?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“I’m going, too. Naomi and I went to college together. Same sorority.”

“Ah. Well, she was the other woman back when I was engaged.” Might as well tell her up front.

“No! You know, I never liked her. I think she asked me to be a bridesmaid because she doesn’t have any other friends.”

“You’re a bridesmaid?”

Colleen grimaced. “Sorry. I said yes because I thought it’d be nice to get out of this snowy hell with my husband before I’m too pregnant to travel. Well, we can hang out, anyway. The resort looks great.”

“Sure does.”

“So you have a date tonight, and you never know, he might be great. I mean, they never are, but let’s keep a good thought. Wait, hang on!” She slapped her forehead. “You could go with Connor. Pregnancy brain. I’m forgetting everything, even my twin. Connor!” she bellowed toward the kitchen. “You have to go to that wedding in California with Emmaline Neal!”

“No, I don’t!” came the answering shout. “Sorry, Em.”

“No worries.” Em felt her cheeks ignite.

“Yes, you do!” Colleen shouted. “Her ex-fiancé is the groom!” And hey, why not announce her romantic woes to half the town? But it was too bad, because Connor was nice and attractive and manfully gruff.

“Stop trying to hire me out,” Connor said, appearing in the door to the kitchen.

“Fine!” Colleen said. “You’re a jerk, Con.” She turned back to Emmaline. “Want a drink?”

“Sure. Blue Point Lager, I guess.”

“Or maybe a nice glass of pinot noir?” Colleen suggested. “Sends the right message. Sensuous, but not too self-absorbed, and not too butch, either.”

“I’ll stick with beer.” She paused. “I’m not gay, you know.”

“I know that. You just look it.”

Em sighed. “Great.”

“Put your hair down. It’s pretty.” Colleen reached over and took out the clip that was holding up Emmaline’s hair. “There. Very hetero. I’m a whiz with makeup. Just putting it out there.”

“Thanks. You must have things to do.”

“Message received. I’ll keep an eye out for your guy.” Colleen smiled and bustled away.

Colleen’s pushiness aside, Em was hugely relieved. Colleen would be at the wedding, and Lucas, too. Angela, as well. She’d have allies, in other words. Her parents were in the neutral column. It depended on their moods.

Hannah O’Rourke brought her the beer, and Em took a sip. Jerked her chin at the Manningsport Fire Department, who’d trickled in for their weekly meeting, which consisted of poker and dirty jokes.

So. What was she supposed to do at this very moment? She hadn’t been on many dates since the breakup. She’d been on, oh, let’s see now...two.

It had taken a while to get over Kevin, of course, the only man she’d ever dated, slept with, kissed or even held hands with. And those two dates had been pretty terrible. One guy had had to go to the hospital to pass a kidney stone; Emmaline was going to wait with him, but he told her to leave before his wife got there. The other guy had asked her to pick him up, then invited her in, flopped onto a couch, picked up his bong and asked if she wanted to get high and watch SpongeBob. “You have the right to remain silent,” she’d said, and so the evening had ended in his arrest.

Also, men weren’t really beating a path to her door. She’d read the books, the ones that instructed her to feign idiocy and let the man do all the work and be feminine and unavailable and all that, and she was more than willing to try. It was just that not many guys asked.

Em got it. She was a police officer who played hockey and had a smart mouth. Not unattractive, not drop-dead gorgeous, either, not like Colleen or Faith or anything. Shoulder-length brown hair. Blue eyes that were not sapphire, ultramarine, cobalt, turquoise or cerulean. Just ordinary blue. Her body was average, she guessed. She was in good shape in that she ran and took a kickboxing class from time to time. Then again, she’d eaten an entire Pepperidge Farm coconut cake just last night.

Kevin’s parting words to her had been about her weight.

Sigh. Mason Maynard was forty-seven seconds late. Not that she was counting.

She’d been clear in her email to him that she was looking for a wedding date and nothing more. She’d pay for his flight and hotel for the weekend, of course, and all she wanted was an amiable companion. Someone to talk to and sit with and, when interrogated by her parents, to simply say they were friends.

She’d been to weddings without a date before, of course. But those had been the weddings of nice people. Tom Barlow and Honor Holland, Faith and Levi last year.

She looked at her watch again. Allison’s ex-husband’s cousin’s friend was now three minutes and fourteen seconds late. She took a sip of beer, but not too much, because she didn’t want Mason Maynard to think she’d been waiting too long or was the type to chug like a frat boy.

It was possible that Mason would be lovely. That at the age of forty-one, eight years her senior, he’d have a heartbreak story, too. That he’d completely understand why she needed a date, and, at the wedding, he’d be charming and self-deprecating. That they’d come back to Manningsport and he’d say, “You know, I had a great time. Want to have dinner sometime?”

Because, yes. Emmaline had always wanted to get married.

It’s just that she’d always wanted to get married to Kevin.

That’s what happened when you met the love of your life when you were in eighth grade.

“Emmaline?”

She looked up so suddenly she practically dislocated her neck. “Hey! Hi! Yes. That’s me.”

Mason Maynard was better-looking than his photo.

Much better-looking.

Now there was something that didn’t happen every day. He looked like Michael Fassbender. Hopefully in every way.

“Nice to meet you,” he said with a faint smile. Emmaline’s stomach did a flip, and she felt the start of a dopey grin.

He had beautiful dark eyes and graying hair, and he looked...he looked like a husband. Not that she was getting ahead of herself.

“Yeah. You, too,” she breathed.

His grin widened. Yep. Husband.

“This is my sister,” he said, stepping aside. A thin, similarly graying woman stood there, hatchet-faced and grim. “Patricia, this is Emmaline.”

“Hello,” Patricia said in a toneless voice.

“Hi,” Em said.

Crap.

But no, no, this didn’t mean anything. After all, it wasn’t weird that a guy would bring his sister on a date, right?

Fine. It was freaky. But maybe there was a good reason. Maybe her car had broken down, or she had dropped by unexpectedly. Or, from the look of her, she needed a keeper.

“She wanted to meet you,” Mason said, winking.

“No, sure. That’s...that’s great.”

Colleen came over. “Hello! What can I get you?” she asked merrily.

“I’ll have a vodka tonic,” Mason said. “And my sister will have water with a very, very thin slice of lemon, please.”

“You bet,” Colleen said, shooting Em a look. “Anything to eat?”

“No, thank you,” Mason said, as he and his sister sat down. “We’re just here for drinks.”

Emmaline wavered. On the one hand, weird already shimmered in the air. On the other, she was so hungry her stomach was growling. “I’ll have the nachos,” she said, food slut that she was. Patricia slid lower in her seat. “You can share, if you like,” Em added.

Mason smiled. Emmaline smiled. Patricia didn’t smile. Colleen walked back to the kitchen.

“So,” said Em. “This is great, meeting you both.”

“I have a small phobia about being alone with women,” he said smoothly.

“So I always come with him,” Patricia said. “Always. Every time.”

“Ah.” Dear God, where do You hide the normal people? Love, Emmaline.

Mason laughed warmly. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No. She doesn’t.” Mason smiled again. “Only the first time. I realize it’s a little strange.”

“It’s because of our mother,” Patricia said.

“Let’s not discuss it,” Mason said.

“You should tell her, Mase,” Patricia barked. “Keeping things bottled up is dangerous! It’s dangerous!”

The fire department was now staring openly. The firefighters loved this kind of thing.

“It’s fine,” Em said. “Some things are too personal to discuss with strangers.”

“He has boundary issues,” Patricia said urgently. “We both do. Boundaries become very fluid in communes.”

“Did you say commune?” Em asked.

“And the cats. Jesus.” Patricia shuddered.

“So many cats.” Mason’s voice broke. He took a steadying breath, then tried to smile at Emmaline. She tried to smile back.

“I’m more of a dog person myself,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, reaching over to grip her hand. That was a little uncomfortable, given that he was staring intently into her eyes...and that his sister was now trying to get something out of her back molar. “You’re very kind. So! About this wedding. Difficult circumstances, I’d say.”

“You know, I’ll probably just go alone. I mean, it’s fine. But thank you.”

“He was your first love, you said in your email.”

Shit. Why did she tell him that? “Yeah.”

Patricia finished digging around in her teeth. “Mase, tell her about your first love. Do it. Tell her.”

“You don’t have to,” Em said. “Really.”

“No, no, I’d love to share the story. It’s actually quite beautiful.” He was still gripping her hand. “Lisbeth. She was so lovely, so very lovely. A friend of my grandmother’s—”

“It was the commune. We should’ve run away from there long before we did, Mase.”

“As I was saying,” Mason continued, “Lisbeth was a beautiful woman. Oh, sure, maybe a little mature for a seventeen-year-old boy, but—”

“She was seventy-four,” Patricia said, waggling a shaggy eyebrow at Emmaline. “Seventy. Four.”

“Here are your nachos!” Colleen said, setting down the veritable trough of food. Why had Em been so gluttonous and ordered them? Because now she had to at least pretend to eat.

Hang on. She was a cop. She always had an excuse.

“You know what?” she said. “I forgot to mention that I’m on call tonight. Just in case I’m needed. Patricia, I’m a police officer, and it’s such a small town that—”

“Actually, Levi’s on tonight,” Colleen said.

Dear God, could You please throw me a bone? Love, Emmaline. “No, I am.” She gave Colleen a pointed look.

“No, I’m sure of it. Faith came in for dinner because Levi’s working. So you’re off—oh.” Colleen seemed to realize she’d just bludgeoned a hole in Titanic’s last lifeboat. “Sorry.”

“No! That’s...that’s great. I thought I was on call. But I guess I’m not. Good! Fine. That’s good.”

“Eat your dinner,” Mason said with that broad, easy grin. Creepy, really. “Go ahead—enjoy while it’s still hot. We never had hot food in the commune, so I love it now.”

“Uh, would you like some? Feel free.” Do not. Do not feel free.

“We’re vegetarians,” Patricia said, taking a nacho and examining it. “Though I order ham from time to time. Did you know the French for ham is jambon? I find that fascinating.” She put the chip back on the plate. “Jambon. Jambon. Jambon.”

“Back to Lisbeth,” Mason said. “She and I were soul mates. It was so refreshing, not having to hide who I was anymore, not being blinded by what was traditionally considered beautiful. Which is one reason I think you and I will work out just fine, by the way.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. So Lisbeth’s age was no concern. You see, at the commune, we didn’t believe in aging.”

Em took a nacho. “Really. How did that work out for you?”

“She died!” Mason cried. “Lisbeth died, dropped stone-cold dead when she was weeding the basil plants!” He burst into tears. “I never saw it coming!”

“Oh, Mase,” his sister said, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t cry!” Apparently, her brother’s tears were too much for her, because she began sobbing, as well.

Emmaline glanced over to the bar. Colleen had her hand over her eyes, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

“Coll?” she called. “Can I get these to go, please?”

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN HADLEY WANTED something, as Jack well knew, nothing could sway her. Not the opinions of other people, not common sense, nothing. And right now, she wanted Jack.

Which was an utter waste of her time.

“Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” Jack’s grandmother had intoned when he’d told her he was getting married.

“What’s wrong with being a bachelor?” his grandfather had asked. “I wish I was a bachelor. I’ve been wishing that for six decades.”

“So call a lawyer,” Goggy had replied. “I’m ready when you are, old man.”

In hindsight, they both had a point.

But Jack had been thunderstruck by love, and Hadley Belle Boudreau was unlike any woman he had ever met.

She was soft-spoken and smart and funny, and though Jack’s three sisters would bludgeon him to death if they heard him say it, she had manners the likes of which Yankee women—or at least Holland women—just didn’t have. Pru wore men’s clothes and smelled like grapes and dirt, same as their father did, and had enjoyed tormenting Jack with gory, detail-filled talk of periods and ovarian cysts for the past several decades. Honor was brisk and unsentimental. Faith, the youngest, liked to punch him (still, even though she was pushing thirty).

But Hadley was—how could he put this?—refined. Southern. She was, God forgive him, a lady, the kind they didn’t seem to make in the farming regions of western New York. And again, his death would be long, drawn-out and extremely bloody if his sisters (or grandmother, for that matter) heard him say that, which basically proved his point.

There was a vulnerability about Hadley; she was a tiny thing, five-foot-two, delicate frame, silken blond hair and big brown eyes, and her smile lit up a room. But she also had an occasionally bawdy sense of humor, which kept her from being too sticky-sweet.

They’d met at a wine tasting in New York City at a noisy, swanky restaurant near Wall Street populated by lean, fiercely fashionable women and loud, confident men, all aggressively eating hors d’oeuvres and trying to top each other’s stories of that week’s ballsy successes. But the restaurant was one of Blue Heron’s best accounts in Manhattan, and the owners were quite nice.

Honor usually handled these things, but she’d asked him to go, and he was happy to. Tastings (and schmoozing restaurant owners) were part of the family business, and Jack wanted to do his part. He’d joined the navy’s Reserve Officers Training Corps in college, and after he’d gotten his master’s in chemistry (because wine making was all about chemistry), he spent his time in the navy in a lab outside D.C., studying the potential effects and treatment of chemical contamination in large bodies of water. Then he came back to Manningsport and assumed the position of winemaker alongside his father and grandfather.

That had always been the plan: education, military service and a return home, and the plan had been working just fine. He loved his family, loved making wine, loved western New York. While he was exceedingly popular with the fairer sex, he was getting a little tired of dating. He wanted to settle down, have a couple of kids.

He just had to meet the right woman, and given that he knew virtually everyone in Manningsport, he was fairly sure she wasn’t there. He’d had his heart broken twice, once in college, once by a congressional aide, but since then, he hadn’t had a relationship with staying power.

So that night, he poured wine and described what people were tasting (if they were interested). In the eyes of the Wall Street men, Jack was just a bartender, and if they were threatened by the way some of the women were eyeing him, they countered by ignoring him. Which was fine. He was only there to represent Blue Heron.

The women weren’t his type, anyway—they all seemed to be dressed in stark, narrow black dresses and wore twisted pieces of wire for jewelry. Must be the trend that year, because they could’ve passed for clones, aside from variations in skin, hair and eye color.

“So what am I drinking?” one such clone asked, leaning forward to make sure he could admire the view (not that it was hard; her bra was an architectural wonder that presented her breasts as if on a platter).

“This is a sauvignon blanc,” he said, “with notes of tangerine and apricot and some great limestone elements.”

“Mmm,” she said, letting her eyes trail down his torso.

“It’s got a firm acidity and a long, clean finish. Great with any kind of fish or poultry.”

“Want to come to my place after this?” she asked. “I’m Renee, by the way. Associate over at Goldman.”

“Unfortunately, it’s against company policy,” he lied.

Another Wall Street clone sidled up to the bar and gave Jack the same speculative look as the first woman. He suppressed a sigh and forced a smile, poured some wine and delivered the shtick.

A male Wall Streeter stuck out his glass without even looking at Jack, and Jack poured obediently.

“Not that one! The cabernet!” the guy barked. Jack cocked an eyebrow and obeyed.

Then Jack saw her.

She was the only woman in the place not dressed in dark colors, which made her seem as if she’d just wandered off a Disney set. Her dress was bright pink, her blond hair was caught up in a twist with a few loose tendrils escaping and she looked a little lost.

A lot lost, actually. She glanced around, standing on tiptoe. Then, taking pains to say “excuse me” to the loud stockbrokers (who ignored her as if judging her to be inferior to their female counterparts), she made her way to the bar.

“Hello,” he said. “How are you tonight?” He could smell her perfume.

“Hi there,” she said. “I’m a little...overwhelmed, it seems. I’m supposed to meet my old college roommate, but she’s not here just yet. Guess I feel like a fish outta water.”

She had a Southern accent and a husky voice. It worked. Hell yes.

“Jack Holland,” he said, extending his hand.

“Hadley Boudreau.” Her hand was smooth and soft. “It’s awfully nice to meet you. You’re the first person who’s smiled at me all day, I swear. I’ve never been to New York before, and my goodness, it’s a whole different country, isn’t it?”

Before she’d finished speaking, he was in love. She didn’t fit into this loud, overconfident crowd, and Jack had the sense that if someone bumped into her or stepped on her foot, she’d burst into tears. You didn’t grow up with three sisters and not know how women thought.

And Jack’s sisters had always told him he had a thing for a woman in distress.

“Where are you from?” Jack asked.

“Savannah.”

“Beautiful city,” he said, smiling.

“Have you been there?” she exclaimed. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

He told her how he’d presented a paper down there a few years ago, and her eyes grew wide with the mention of the U.S. Navy (the hottest branch, Jack always thought). She actually squealed when he mentioned a restaurant she knew, and she was so sweet and energetic and easy to please, she stuck out like a flower growing in an abandoned parking lot.

She kept sipping wine and seemed to get a little tipsy, which was cute, given that she’d had maybe a half a glass. Then again, she couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.

She was beautiful. Flawless skin, perfect nose, full, pink lips and a dimple in one cheek. She had a husky laugh that Jack found himself getting a little drunk on. Whenever he had to pour for someone else, he found himself looking back at her with a little wink or smile, and, each time, she blushed and smiled back.

When her friend came in (dressed in black, of course), Hadley introduced him, said how pleased she was to have met him and how grateful she was for the conversation. She extended her hand, and he took it, and held on to it for a long minute.

“I’m staying in the city for a few days,” he said. “Would you like to have dinner with me?”

Hadley smiled. “I think I’d love that, Jack Holland.”

They had dinner the next night at a gorgeous, expensive restaurant in South Street Seaport with a killer view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Was he trying to impress her? Absolutely. He walked her back to her friend’s apartment, and when he went to kiss her, she blushed and offered her cheek. “I guess I’m old-fashioned,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind, but I don’t kiss on the first date.”

Somehow, that kiss on the cheek was more special than anything he’d experienced to date.

The next day, Jack called his dad and said he’d be staying in the city for a few extra days. He called on some accounts, but mostly he saw Hadley. Her friend was working; Hadley had been planning to do some sightseeing before their girls’ weekend officially started. So Jack took her around and showed her the city—New York’s most famous places—Greenwich Village, the Metropolitan, the Empire State Building and Times Square, but also the High Line, the Cloisters and a bike tour of Governors Island.

They shared a pretzel in Bryant Park, rode the Staten Island Ferry, bought a cupcake from a street vendor in SoHo. In Central Park, Jack hired one of those hokey carriages, and Hadley was over the moon. She let him kiss her on the lips, and she was sweet and soft and lovely. But she also had a quick sense of humor and an earthiness to her that Jack found incredibly hot. The sight of her eating a hot dog had almost brought him to his knees, and she grinned as she chewed, well aware of the effect she had.

She was an interior decorator and loved popping into hotels to see the lobbies. On their way out of one building, a man held the door for them, and Hadley practically had a kitten. “Did you see that? That was Neil Patrick Harris! Oh, I had the worst crush on him! Think he’d turn straight for me, just for an hour?” Then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jack’s cheek. “This has been the best week of my entire life, Jack Holland.”

For him, too.

What followed was a very old-fashioned courtship. Letters (not just emails, either). Long phone calls into the night. He sent her flowers and a snow globe of Manhattan. She sent him cookies and a scarf she knitted herself. After three weeks, he went down south to visit her.

Hadley lived in a sweet neighborhood, not too far from her parents and two older sisters. Her house was a tiny bungalow, the yard filled with flowers. When Jack knocked, she answered the door (wearing a dress and heels and smelling incredible), took his coat, hung it up in a closet and poured homemade iced tea into a tall glass filled with ice. She added a couple of mint leaves picked from her garden. She’d baked sugar cookies for him and served them on a porcelain plate, first inviting him to sit down and relax.

They had dinner with her entire family that night, and everyone seemed like wonderful, upbeat, intelligent people. Mr. Boudreau was a lawyer; Mrs. Boudreau had been a college English professor. Hadley had three sisters—Ruthie was a pediatric surgeon, and Rachel was a state representative. Both older sisters were married, and each had a son and a daughter. Hadley’s younger sister, Frances-Lynne, better known as Frankie, was a senior in college, wanted to be a veterinarian and was looking at Cornell, Jack’s own alma mater.