The Sweetest Thing

Chapter 4

Two days later, Tara woke up when someone plopped down on her bed. “It’s Wednesday,” Maddie said, adding a bounce to make sure Tara was up.

“It’s also the crack of dawn.” Tara pulled her pillow back over her head and turned over. “Go away.”

Maddie yanked off the pillow. “Wednesday.”

“Sugar, you’d best at least have coffee brewing.”

Maddie reached over to the nightstand and handed her a cup.

Tara sat up and sipped, repressing the sigh that wouldn’t help anyway. Maddie had decreed Wednesdays to be “Team Building Day.” The three of them had to spend every Wednesday together from start to finish until they learned to get along.

It was no surprise that they didn’t. They’d grown up separately, thanks to the fact that Phoebe had loved men.

A lot of them.

Tara’s father was a government scientist who’d come into Phoebe’s orbit and not known what hit him. After their divorce, Tara had lived with her father. Actually, her father’s parents, since he’d traveled so much. Tara had spent only the occasional summer with Phoebe, before her mother had inherited the Lucky Harbor Inn, so those visits had consisted mostly of camping and/or following the Grateful Dead tour.

Maddie’s father was a Hollywood set designer. He’d also taken Maddie with him when his relationship with Phoebe had gone kaput. Maddie hadn’t come back for summers, so she and Tara had been virtual strangers when Phoebe had died.

Chloe had no idea who her father was and didn’t seem to care. The only daughter raised by Phoebe, she had traveled around at Phoebe’s desire. As a result of that wanderlust upbringing, Chloe tended not to worry about convention the way her sisters did. She didn’t worry about much, actually. She lived on a whim.

Unlike Tara, who lived for convention, for order. For a plan.

When Phoebe died and left her daughters her parents’ inn, not one of them had intended to stay. And yet here they sat over six months later: the steel magnolia, the mouse, and the wild child.

Having a Team-Building Wednesday.

This was their third month at it, and the days still tended to be filled with bickering, pouting, and even all-out warfare. Today, Tara guessed, would be more of the same, but for Maddie’s sake she gamely rose and dressed.

First stop-the diner for brunch. Tara took grief from Jan, the woman who owned the diner. Tara’s boss was fifty-something, mean as a snake unless she was taking money from a customer, and liked Tara only when Tara was behind the stovetop.

Which she wasn’t at the moment.

Tara managed to get them seated with only the barest of snarls. Chloe ordered a short stack and consulted with the Magic Eight app on her iPhone, asking it if she was going to have a date anytime in the near future. Maddie ordered bacon and eggs with home fries and talked to Jax on her cell about something that was making her blush. Tara ordered oatmeal and wheat toast, and was busy calculating the balance in her checkbook. If that didn’t explain their major differences right there, nothing could.

Afterward, in the already blazing sun, they walked the pier for the purpose of buying ice cream cones. In Maddie’s case, they also went for getting on the Ferris wheel she’d once been so terrified of. They did that first, holding Maddie’s hand. They might not see eye to eye on much, but some things could be universally shared, and ice cream and Ferris wheel rides were two of them.

Lance served them the ice cream. In his early twenties, he was small-boned enough to pass for a teenager, and thanks to the cystic fibrosis slowly ravaging his body, had a voice like he was speaking through gravel. He and Chloe were good friends, or more accurately cohorts, trouble-seekers of the highest magnitude. Lance tried to serve them for free, but Chloe refused. “We’ve got this,” she told him firmly, then turned to Tara expectantly.

Maddie snorted.

Tara rolled her eyes and pulled out her wallet.

“I’ll pay you back,” Chloe said.

“You always say that,” Tara said.

“Yeah? How much do I owe you?”

“One million trillion dollars.”

Chloe grinned. “I’ll get right on that.”

Tara looked at Maddie.

“You spoil her,” Maddie said with a shrug.

“Shh, don’t say that,” Chloe said. “She’s right here.”

Tara knew she wasn’t exactly known for the warm, loving emotions required to spoil someone, and that she could come off as distant, even cold. This actually surprised her because she didn’t feel distant, although she’d like to try being so sometime.

It’d be nice not to worry about things like money, or the future, or her sisters. And Tara did worry continuously, about Maddie and Chloe more than anything else-like whether Maddie was getting over her abusive ex and if Chloe would ever get over her inability to show or trust love.

Because of the these things, Tara stayed in Lucky Harbor longer than planned. Or so she told herself.

“So what’s next?” Chloe asked as they walked back to the inn. “I wore my bathing suit in hopes of getting a tan.”

“We’re going sailing,” said the Team Building Day’s president.

“We went sailing last week and nearly killed each other,” Chloe said.

“We went canoeing last week,” Maddie corrected, “and Tara nearly killed you because you tipped her over, and she’d been having a good hair day. Keep your hands to yourself and you’ll survive today’s Team Building Adventure.”

“Hmm,” Chloe said, sending a long, steady look in Tara’s direction as they boarded the Cape Dory Cruiser, the sailboat that had come with the marina.

They’d also inherited kayaks, canoes, a fishing boat, and one dilapidated houseboat. Most of these equated to some modest rental income, and they were determined to wring every penny out of the place that they could.

They had to, seeing as they’d gone through money with alarming speed to get everything up and running. Maddie’s savings was gone. Tara’s, too. It was a small price to pay, she reminded herself, for a new lease on life. A life that was lived the way she wanted, and not for anyone else.

“Tara,” Maddie said, pointing, “you’re in the cockpit.”

“Yes!” Chloe triumphantly pulled off her skimpy sundress, revealing an even more skimpy red bikini beneath. “Time to sun, ladies.”

Tara motored them out of the marina and looked at Maddie for further instructions.

“Point the bow into the wind,” Maddie said. She was the only one who knew what she was doing, having taken a few lessons from Ford.

Tara had taken lessons from Ford, too. But that had been seventeen years ago, and the lessons she’d taken had nothing to do with sailing.

“What?” Maddie asked, making Tara realize she was smiling at the memory.

“Nothing.”

“That’s more than a ‘nothing’ smile,” Chloe noted.

Tara ignored her.

“Into the wind,” Maddie repeated to Tara.

Tara looked around to figure out which way the wind was coming.

“Quickly,” Maddie said. “Or you’ll swamp us.”

Tara didn’t know exactly what that meant but it didn’t sound good. The boat was lurching heavily to the right and then the left on the four-foot swells; the wind was whipping her hair from all directions so she had no idea exactly which way was “into the wind.”

“West!” Maddie yelled. “To the west.”

“Okay, okay,” Tara said, having to laugh at the sharpness in the former mouse’s voice. “To the west it is.” Just as soon as she figured out which way was west exactly…

“Left!”

So Tara steered left.

“Pull the halyard!” Maddie called out.

Tara looked at her. “Say that again in English?”

“Hoist the sail!”

“You should add ‘aye, mate’ at the end of that,” Chloe told Maddie, spritzing herself with suntan lotion.

Maddie stood there, feet planted wide, wind whipping at her clothes, indeed looking like a modern-day pirate. “Pull it,” she commanded as Tara hustled to do her bidding. “Crank it around the winch.”

Tara glanced at Chloe.

Chloe had her face tipped up to the sun, and she was smiling, the little witch. “Isn’t it Chloe’s turn?” Tara asked hopefully.

“Not yet,” Chloe said. “I feel my asthma acting up.” She gave a little cough-cough, then affected a wheeze. “See?”

Maddie laughed. “At least put some phlegm into it.”

Chloe began to work at wheezing and ended up coughing for real.

Tara sighed and began to hoist the sail. She wanted to be the pirate, dictating orders, thank you very much.

“Harder,” Maddie told her. “You have to do it harder.”

“That sounds dirty,” Chloe said.

“Unfurl the jib,” Maddie said, ignoring Chloe. “Hurry.” She actually made a very cute tyrant in her snug capris and a tank top, looking fit and quite in charge even as she nibbled on potato chips-

Wait a minute. Tara narrowed in on the chips. How unfair was that? “Hey, if you were a really good captain, you’d share those.”

Maddie peered in the bag, probably to assess whether she had enough to share. Tara knew that Maddie believed that chips were God’s gift, the second best thing on earth. They used to be Maddie’s numero uno, but then she’d fallen in love with Jax, so sex had been moved to the top of the list.

Maddie had her priorities straight. And as she reluctantly offered Tara some chips, Tara knew it was time she got her priorities straight as well.

They sailed for an hour, with Chloe sprawled out for maximum sun coverage, her fast-acting asthma inhaler tucked into the string low at her hip. Her long red waves were corralled prettily in a ponytail sticking out the back of a baseball cap that read: DARE TO BE NAUTI, and she had huge movie-star sunglasses perched on her pert nose.

Tara looked down at herself. She hadn’t dressed special for this adventure. She’d worn thin trousers and a fitted knit top that was probably better suited for a day at the office, but it was what had been clean that morning. Besides, everyone knew that it wasn’t so much what you had in the bank, or even where you rested your head at night-it was what you wore and how you wore it. She turned to Maddie. “Tell me again why Chloe’s just lying there looking pretty?”

“Aw, thanks, hon,” Chloe said, not opening her eyes.

“Chloe’s going to get up now and reverse the entire process,” Maddie said. “And bring us back to the marina.”

Chloe sighed but obeyed and rolled lithely to her feet.

Tara gave Chloe a very immature ha! smirk and took the sun-worshipping spot. It took another hour to get back, and she spent that time enjoying the feel of the boat rocking beneath her, the scent of the salty ocean air, and the warmth of the sun drying her damp clothes and skin. She listened while feeling smug and superior as Maddie turned her bossiness on Chloe for a change.

“Watch your starboard,” Maddie called out when Chloe steered toward the marina as they came back in. “Starboard!”

“What the hell’s starboard?” Chloe yelled back.

“The right side! Watch your right side! Cripes, don’t you people retain anything?”

Chloe slid the usually easygoing Maddie a look. “Either you had too much caffeine this morning or you didn’t get laid when you got up.”

Maddie rolled her eyes.

“Didn’t get laid,” Chloe decided.

“For your information, I got up too early to get…” Maddie lowered her voice to a whisper, “laid. And I have no idea how that matters.”

“It matters because you’re much more relaxed after Jax-”

“Chloe,” Tara said, not wanting her to tease Maddie, not about this. “Not everything revolves around sex.”

“It does when you’re not getting any,” Chloe muttered.

“Internal editor,” Tara said. “Get one.”

“I don’t want to hear from you. You could be getting plenty of the good stuff from Ford, you know that? I mean have you seen him look at you?”

Tara sighed. “You could start an argument in an empty house.”

“Or on a boat,” Chloe agreed, not insulted in the least. “And nice subject change. Why does talking about sex bother you?”

Tara shook her head. “You know that sometimes it’s okay to not talk at all, right?”

Chloe smiled good-naturedly. “I do tend to miss most opportunities to shut up.”

“Hey,” Maddie said. “That would make a good quip for the recipe box, Tara. Never miss an opportunity to shut up-Chloe!” she yelped, pointing ahead. “Watch the swell-”

Too late. The five-foot swell rose up and over the nose of the boat, splashing them all.

“You’re not paying attention at all,” Maddie said with reproach after she’d swiped the ocean spray off her face.

“You know what?” Chloe asked, tossing up her hands. “Sailing is too stressful for me.”

Maddie took over as Chloe pulled out her inhaler and took a puff.

“Who are you writing those recipe cards for anyway?” Chloe asked Tara.

“My daughter,” Tara said without thinking.

“Aw.” That made Maddie smile. “That’s sweet. Think she’ll get to read them?”

Tara shook her head. “The adoption was closed. I can’t find her. She’d have to find me.” She heard the wistfulness in her voice and purposely closed her mouth, not wanting to go there. She’d spent a lot of time not going there. It was her own private guilt and shame, that she’d had to give up a baby.

“While we’re on the subject,” Chloe said, “you ready to tell us who was the father yet?”

Tara gave her a long look. Her ex had called it her “Don’t Make Me Kick Your Ass” look.

It didn’t daunt Chloe. “Tell the truth,” she said. “It’s Anderson from the hardware store. Yeah? Because he totally has the hots for you.”

“No,” Tara said. “He has the hots for Maddie. Or he did, before she broke his heart and started dating Jax.”

“Then it’s Ford.” Chloe nodded. “Ford’s totally your Baby Daddy.”

Tara froze, then carefully, purposely, forced herself to relax. “What?”

“Yeah,” Chloe said, and grinned. “We’ve known forever, actually. I was just pulling your leg with the Anderson thing.”

“Chloe,” Maddie said quietly, “you’re ambushing her. That wasn’t in the plan.”

“The plan?” Tara repeated. “There’s a plan? What was it, to get me out on the water under the guise of Team Building, where you could grill me?”

“No one’s grilling you,” Maddie said gently. “We’re your sisters. Your support system.”

“And seriously,” Chloe said. “You doing the whole Ignore-Ford thing was a dead giveaway anyway. No one ignores a man that fine.”

“We’re not discussing this,” Tara said firmly.

Chloe sighed. “I’m telling you, if we just talked instead of being repressed all the time, we’d be less grumpy. And by ‘we,’ let’s be clear. I mean you.”

“Not discussing,” Tara repeated.

“Sure,” Chloe said. “Fine. How about your blind date tomorrow night? Can we talk about that?”

Maddie was steering the boat back into the bay with more skill than Tara had shown earlier, but Tara didn’t care about that as she stared at Chloe. “How did you know about the blind date?”

“Are you kidding? This is Lucky Harbor, remember? Ethel told Carol at the post office, who told Jeanine at Jax’s office, who told Sandy, who told Lucille that Ethel set you up with her grandson-the one coming through town for a short visit. So then Lucille tweeted it to Facebook.”

Tara just barely resisted groaning. After serving the ladies of the Garden Society the other day, Ethel had cornered Tara to ask if Ford was courting her. Tara had choked on one of her own lemon bars, both at the old-fashioned and quaint connotation of the word “courting” and at the question itself. First of all, nothing about Ford was old-fashioned or quaint. Not given what he really wanted from her. Tara had firmly told Ethel no, that there hadn’t been any courting-she’d kept the mutual lusting to herself-and that’s when Ethel had mentioned needing a favor.

Tara had reluctantly agreed, and Ethel had laughed. “Oh, no, dear,” she’d said. “You don’t understand. I’m doing you the favor. I’m setting you up with my grandson Boyd. He’s a wonderful, sweet, kind man, with a great personality.”

Chloe was grinning, and Tara refused to say that she was already regretting her decision to accept a blind date. “So I’m going out to dinner. So what?”

“So if you were as smart as I thought you are, you’d be having breakfast with Ford instead.”

Tara’s belly tightened at the thought. “I’m sure Boyd’s very nice.”

“You haven’t dated in how many years? Two? Three? Ten?”

Tara didn’t bother to answer. Mostly because she didn’t actually know.

“Nice isn’t what you need,” Chloe said. “You need-”

Maddie “accidentally” hit Chloe upside the head with a buoy. Tara ignored the following scuffle but took over the cockpit so they didn’t all drown. The sails were down now so she motored them back to the docks, maybe hitting the gas a little more energetically than necessary. She ignored Maddie’s squeak and Chloe’s whoop and concentrated. She concentrated right into a big swell, rocking the boat hard.

“Ohmigod,” Maddie gasped, lifting her head, “you have to steer into-”

“My bad,” Tara said.

“And the-”

“I know,” Tara said.

“Do you also know that you’re a know-it-all?” Chloe asked casually, straightening up and adjusting her bikini.

When Tara just gave her a long look, Chloe shrugged. “We were just wondering.”

“We?” Tara glanced over at Maddie, who winced.

Wheezing audibly now, Chloe pulled out her inhaler again, shook it, and took another hit. She paused to hold her breath for ten seconds, then exhaled. “I’m not supposed to wrestle,” she said reproachfully to Maddie, then turned back to Tara. “And yes, we.”

Tara swallowed a ball of unexpected hurt. “You two were discussing me being a know-it-all.”

“Actually,” Chloe said, “we were discussing your anal-retentiveness, your obsessive need to be right, and your all-around general crankiness.”

“I’m not cranky.”

Chloe laughed. “But you are anal and always right?”

“I’m careful,” Tara said, lifting her chin, feeling defensive. Dammit. “And as for always being right, someone has to be.” Okay, so she knew she wasn’t always right but they’d been talking about her. And yes, maybe she was a little hard on them sometimes, but she was hard on everyone she cared about. She didn’t see the value in letting Chloe suffer through mistakes she’d made due to the wild abandon of youth. Chloe hadn’t had any guiding hand growing up with Phoebe, but Tara had at least had her father.

Which hadn’t saved me from a few pretty major lapses in good judgment…

Tara shrugged that off, focusing on navigating the boat into the slip. She wanted a good relationship with her sisters, and in spite of the bickering, she knew it was happening. They were getting closer.

But the real goal here was making a go of the inn. It had to be. Distracted, she miscalculated how much to crank to the left and hit the boat slip. “Sorry,” she called out as they all nearly fell to the deck. “But some assistance would be helpful!”

“You’re doing fine,” Maddie murmured.

“For a know-it-all, right?”

“Tara,” Maddie said softly, apology heavy in her voice. “I-”

“No, it’s okay.” Tara shook it off. “Really. It’s okay that you two discussed my personal life without me around to defend myself-”

“Hey, we do it right in front of you, too,” Chloe said.

Tara shook her head and moved to follow Chloe off the boat, but ended up plowing into the back of her when Chloe stopped suddenly. “What are you-”

Chloe was staring ahead, and Tara joined her at it, even letting out a soft “oh my.”

Ford stood on the deck of his racing Finn. Every single inch of him was drenched, making his board shorts and T-shirt cling to that built body as he maneuvered into his slip, his arms outstretched as he reached out to tie up the boat.

Tara had always loved his arms. They were sinewy and strong, yet capable of incredible tenderness. He gave some damn fine grade-A comfort when he put his mind to it. And his hands… they could handle rough waters or stroke her into orgasmic bliss with equal aplomb.

“You okay?” Chloe asked Tara over her shoulder without tearing her gaze off Ford.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because you just moaned.” She craned her neck and eyed Tara. “And probably you should check for drool.”

Tara gave her a nudge that might have been more like a push, then surreptitiously checked for drool. Then she went back to staring at Ford. Given the look of satisfaction on his face, he’d enjoyed his sail, and something pinged low in her gut because she’d seen that look on his face before: when he’d been stretched out above her, as intimately joined to her as a man could get.

She made another sound before she could stop herself, then bit her lip. Bending, she concentrated on tying up their boat, but her fingers wouldn’t work. “Dammit.”

Two hands appeared in her vision-big, work-roughened hands-not taking over the task, but guiding her into the correct knot. “Like this,” Ford said.

“I was fixin’ to do it myself.”

“She can do everything by herself,” Chloe told him, heavy on the irony. “Bless her heart.”

Tara straightened and shot Chloe a look, and got an eye roll in return.

“Come on, Mad,” Chloe said. “I think Tara needs a little time out.” And then she took her itty bitty bikini-clad body toward the inn, Maddie in tow.

Once again leaving Tara with Ford.

Tara flashed a vague smile in his direction without looking directly into his eyes-the key to not melting, she’d discovered-and went to step onto the dock.

Ford slid his hand in hers to assist, not letting go of her, even after she tried to tug free. He merely tightened his grip and waited her out.

With a deep breath, she tipped her head back and met his gaze. And yep, right on cue, as she took in the two-day stubble on his square jaw, the fine laugh lines around his mesmerizing eyes and the effortlessly charming smile, she melted like a glob of butter on a stack of pancakes.

“What?” he asked.

She studied his big, wet, gorgeous self and slowly shook her head. “Why couldn’t you have gone bald or gotten fat?” It really was a bee in her bonnet that he looked even better now at thirty-four than he had at seventeen. “The least you can do is burp or scratch an impolite body part, or something equally unattractive.”

His brow shot up. “You want me to scratch my ass?”

“Yes,” she said. “And maybe you could also pick your nose in public.”

His smile came slow and sure.

“What?”

“You want to jump me.”

God, yes. “Look, I have bigger problems than this, okay? Problems far more pressing than our being comfortable with each other now that we’re living in the same town again.”

Ford looked at her for a beat, then stepped into her space, crowding her up against the wall of the marina building. “I can give you something to take your mind off your other problems,” he said in a silky promise.

There was no doubt in her mind.

Sensing capitulation, he pressed his mouth to the underside of her jaw. “Just say the word.”

Word, she thought dizzily with a delicious shiver.

With a single stroke of his finger along her temple, he pulled back, eyes dark on hers as he waited.

Sex. Just sex. And it’d be great. But not enough. Not nearly enough. “No,” she said with far more resolution than she felt.

If he was disappointed, he didn’t let it show as he backed away, leaving her leaning against the wall for support, her clothes wet from his body, her body overheated to say the least.

Not a new state when it came to him.

When he was gone, Tara blew out a shaky breath and headed up to the inn. She entered the cool, fresh rooms and gave herself a minute.

“Ms. Daniels? You okay?”

Tara turned to Carlos Rodriguez, the local high school kid they’d hired for the summer to do odd jobs like moving furniture, painting, and cleaning. With his multiple visible piercings and homeboy pants that hung just a little south of civilized, they’d all been a little leery of just how good a worker he might turn out to be, but he’d done well. At seventeen, he was already six feet tall, with a lanky build that suggested he didn’t get three squares a day.

Tara knew from his application and obtaining his work permit from school that he was smart but an underachiever, and possibly a bit of a troublemaker. But that’s what happened when a kid had no authority figure in his life and was forced to work odd jobs to support himself, his younger siblings, and his grandma.

“I’m fine,” Tara assured him.

“I did the weeding and painted the laundry room.”

“Perfect. Did you eat lunch?”

“Yes.”

She bit back a sigh at the lie. “I left you a sandwich in the fridge.”

“Thanks, but-”

“No buts. Eat it.”

He turned away so she couldn’t see his face. “I’ll bring it home with me.”

Where he’d undoubtedly give it to his sisters or grandma. “Eat it here. I’ll make you more to bring home.”

He turned back and looked at her for a long beat, clearly struggling between pride and hunger. The lure of food won out, and he went into the kitchen.

Chloe came into the room from the hallway, pulling her cute little sundress on over her bikini. “Hope you’re pleased with yourself,” she said to Tara. “You chased Maddie away again. Little Miss Hates-Confrontations just up and vanished for friendlier waters.”

“There was no confrontation.”

“Are you kidding me?” Chloe said. “You’re a walking confrontation.”

“What are you talking about? You’re the one who starts everything. You never know when to just keep something to yourself.”

Chloe stood hands on hips, irritated. “Because sweeping things under the carpet and keeping everything deep inside would make me what, you? Sorry, no can do, Sis. But since you’re never going to see my side of this, maybe we should just agree to disagree.”

“Fine,” Tara said.

“Fine. And let’s not speak for a while either, at least until you can admit you’re actually wrong once in a blue moon.”

“I’d be happy to admit I was wrong,” Tara said. “If I was.”

Chloe tossed up her hands, then turned to Carlos as he came back from the kitchen, eating the sandwich. “Hey, Cutie,” she said with her usual easy charm, as if she hadn’t just been snarling at Tara. “What’s up?”

Carlos shot her a rare smile.

Chloe had that effect on men.

“Almost done for the day unless you have anything else.”

“Yes,” Chloe said. “I do have something else. Maybe you can tell my sister here that no one likes a sanctimonious know-it-all.”

Carlos divided a glance between them.

“Don’t put him in the middle,” Tara said.

“You’re just worried he’ll side with me.” Chloe turned back to Carlos. “I’ll give you a raise if you’ll also tell her she’s getting wrinkles from holding all her shit in.”

“There’s a recipe on the Facebook page for that,” Carlos said, stuffing in the last bite of his sandwich.

Oh for the love of God, Tara thought, grinding her back teeth together. “She means I’m-”

“Uptight,” Chloe said helpfully, laughing. “And could you also tell her that it’s annoying to have to look at her lingerie that she’s got constantly hanging from the shower rod?”

“Actually,” Carlos said, finally looking interested, “that wouldn’t annoy me one bit. Uh, which bathroom was that exactly?”