Where Your Heart Is (Lilac Bay Book 1) Read online

  “I’ll see you there, Hank!” she called back as he continued to make his slow way down Main Street.

  “Oh God,” I groaned, earning me an elbow to the side from my cousin.

  “Don’t start.”

  “I just don’t get it!”

  “We have our ways, Iris. It’s not a big—”

  “You do realize that it’s the twenty-first century, right?” I asked, unable to contain myself. “The internal combustion engine was invented like, a hundred and fifty years ago. It’s not going away anytime soon.”

  “We’re not opposed to cars, Iris. We just don’t want them on the island.”

  “You’d rather have horses,” I said. “Smelly, messy horses.”

  “And bikes,” she said brightly.

  “You’re all crazy.”

  She merely laughed. “The tourists like it. And you have to admit it keeps the place cleaner.” Her point was rather disproven by the pile of horse dung to our left in the street, and she hurried on. “Besides, it’s kind of nice. I never have to worry about leg day when I’m working out, what with all the walking I do—girl you should see my calves.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “And there’s no rushing around up here, you know? No traffic to fight, no gas stations, no cars breaking down or—”

  “Shelter when you need to go somewhere in the rain.”

  She shrugged. “I just bring an umbrella.”

  I gazed down Main Street, trying to see it from her perspective. The no-automobile rule had been in place since the invention of the Model T —somewhat impressive, actually, when you considered the fact that it was the auto barons downstate that had first made this a travel destination for the nation’s rich and famous. To this day, the people here held to the rule like it defined them. And I supposed, in a way, it did. If Lilac Bay Island was famous for anything, it was the absence of cars on the roads. That or the fudge sold in nearly every shop in town. Either way, people flocked to this island throughout the spring, summer, and early fall months for the ambience. For the experience of getting away from it all, from the stressful, busy lives they lived at home. I supposed I could see why that would be a draw for a relaxing vacation.

  I just didn’t see why anyone would want to live here, full time.

  “Iris,” Posey said, her voice slightly strained. “We’re here.”

  I looked up and saw that I had completely passed the café. Posey was shooting me a look that I could only describe as disappointed.

  “I wasn’t paying attention,” I said, hearing the defensive note in my voice. It wasn’t like I had forgotten what my grandparents’ café looked like. I just…hadn’t noticed it.

  Posey held open the door for me, and I slipped inside, the smell of coffee and chocolate hitting me square in the face. It was strange, the way that smelled like home. This island had never been home, not for me. Not really.

  “Hey, Mikey,” Posey called out to the guy at the register. “Everything go okay?”

  “Fine, Pose,” he called back. “Pretty slow.”

  A shadow seemed to cross over her face, but it brightened so quickly, I figured I must have imagined it. “Mikey, this is my cousin—”

  “Iris,” he said, smiling as he wiped his hands on the apron around his waist before offering me his hand to shake. “Heard a lot about you. I’m Mike.”

  Mike was tall and lanky with a smattering of tattoos stretching up his nicely developed arms. With dark black hair, dark eyes, and a devastatingly charming smile, I had a feeling he was the type of guy that could be counted on to break hearts. He also looked to be in his early twenties. In other words, far too young for me. But nice to look at all the same.

  “I’m going to finish up in the back,” Posey said, “then head home, unless you need anything.”

  “It’s under control,” he assured her.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  I followed Posey through the café toward the staff door, my eyes trailing over the familiar shelves and tables. My grandparents hadn’t changed this café much in the years since I’d last set foot inside—or the years before that, honestly. They used to have a full-service restaurant next door, back when I was a kid. It was always packed with locals and tourists alike, but they had shut that down when my grandfather had his first heart attack. The café was easier to manage, much less stress. They served coffee and sandwiches, and the best chocolates and fudge in the entire state. The Lilac Café was one of the most popular spots on the island, both for tourists and locals. It made me sad any time I thought about it, knowing the restaurant was just sitting there, unused. I could still remember the taste of my grandfather’s coq au vin—

  “Iris?” Posey asked. She had stopped in the doorway, waiting for me. I realized that I had slowed down, lost in my thoughts.

  “I was just thinking about Pops’s coq au vin,” I admitted, and her face broke into a grin.

  “Please let that slip when he comes home,” she said. “I know he’ll make it for you. It’s been ages since we’ve had it.”

  I followed her through the hallway to the manager’s office and collapsed into the chair opposite her desk. As she got to work on the stacks of papers left scattered on the desk, I asked, “When, uh, do we think that might be? Him coming home, I mean.”

  She shot me a worried little frown. “Mimi thinks next month, but…” She shrugged and my stomach clenched.

  “He’s not doing as well as they’d like, is he?”

  She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. Our grandfather had suffered a second heart attack six months ago, followed by a stroke three months later. He had been in a long-term care facility on the mainland ever since, relearning how to use the left side of his body. In all of our conversations, my grandmother had been positive about his outlook but even from miles away, I could hear the strain in her voice.

  “I’ll go see him next week,” I said, trying not to think about having to get back on the ferry. Posey nodded, looking sad.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  We were quiet for a moment as she worked. I tried not to think about what would happen if my grandfather didn’t come back to the island soon. It was a strain on my grandmother, I knew, running the café without him. Probably the reason Posey had started taking afternoon shifts after school. I felt a flash of shame. They could always count on her. Me, on the other hand…

  “Are they doing a big dinner tonight?” I asked to change the subject.

  “How’d you guess?” Posey asked, rolling her eyes. “Greg and Sage are even coming.”

  Greg was Posey’s brother, Sage his wife. They had three little kids and lived in a nice little bungalow in Traverse City, the nearest decent-sized city on the mainland. I was torn between excitement at seeing my other cousins and a nagging little stab of unease. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of them all present for my arrival in town, tail between my legs.

  “Aunt Minny, too.” Her voice was just a touch too casual, and I felt my spine stiffen involuntarily. When I didn’t say anything, she looked up at me, eyes wide and worried. “Is that…okay?”

  “Of course.” I forced a smile onto my face. “I was well aware that my mother lived on the island when I decided to come, Pose. I assumed I would see her sooner than later.”

  “Have you…talked to her?”

  I shrugged. “When I decided to visit.” I busied myself with a stack of recipe books on the counter, wishing she would drop it. I didn’t really want to talk about my mother. It wasn’t like we were estranged, or something dramatic like that. We just…weren’t that close. It wasn’t a big deal. Lots of people aren’t close to their parents.

  And I wished my cousin would stop looking at me like that.

  Before she could say anything else on the topic, there was a knock on the door. A moment later, the door cracked open, and an all too familiar head of dark blond hair filled the space.

  “Posey,” David said, nodding at her. I noticed that he wasn’t smiling, but his expressio
n was far from the scowl he had worn when he saved me on the dock. “I have that order. Can you sign for it?”

  “Oh, sure. Thanks, David.” She jumped up from her chair as he opened the door the rest of the way, handing a clipboard full of papers to her.

  “Both pages,” he instructed.

  Posey scrawled her name, flipped the paper, and scrawled again before handing the clipboard back. “There you go.”

  “Thanks. I’ll get it taken care of right away.”

  She grinned. His expression didn’t change. God, had he always been so moody? I definitely didn’t remember that.

  “Oh, David,” she said, looking over at me. “I know I said thank you back at the dock, but I’m so glad you were there.” She widened her eyes a little. “You saved my cousin, and the entire family will be eternally grateful. My grandmother would have killed me if I couldn’t manage to get her safely on shore.”

  “It’s no problem,” he said, eyes barely flicking in my direction. “You don’t have to tell them.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “That sounds good to me.”

  His eyes snapped to my face and away again so quickly, I could almost pretend I didn’t notice. “What?” Posey asked, faux-shocked. “You don’t want the entire Powell clan showering you with their thanks?”

  For the first time since I’d opened my eyes to his scowling face on the dock, he smiled. A small smile, but a smile, nonetheless. And the effect was nothing short of spectacular. His eyes crinkled up around the edges, the grey of their depths still dark but not quite so stormy. I could almost imagine him as a nice guy, the way I remembered him—but then the smile faded. “I think I’ll pass.”

  He turned to go, but Posey’s hand shot out in a blur and grabbed his shoulder. “Did my cousin get a chance to introduce herself after you saved her life?” she asked, voice sweet and innocent. I wanted to slap her. Like she didn’t know he knew who I was.

  “David and I go way back,” I said, my voice tight. Again the little eye flick in my direction. This time his gaze stuck. “Remember, Pose?”

  “Iris, right?” David asked.

  My mouth dropped open. Was he really going to pretend he hadn’t known me immediately?

  Posey must have noticed that I was too annoyed to respond, because she stepped in. “Yeah, Iris. Iris Holder. She went to school with us for a few months, David. Remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  I knew I was scowling, but I didn’t care if Posey noticed. “It’s been a while,” I ground out between clenched teeth. “I don’t blame you—I barely recognized you myself.”

  He held my gaze for a long moment. Why did that make my stomach tighten? Finally, he turned back toward the door. “Time will do that.” He nodded at my cousin. “Have a good night.”

  “You, too.” He was out the door in a flash. “You coming to the fish fry?” she called after him.

  I thought I heard him respond in the affirmative, but I was too busy thinking of cutting remarks I should have shot in his direction to be sure.

  “Well,” Posey said, turning to me, eyebrows raised. “That was interesting.”

  “What was interesting?”

  She just stood there, watching me, a smile playing around her lips. “Nothing,” she finally said. “Nothing at all.”

  She stacked up the receipts she had been working on and tucked them into a zippered pouch, which she then placed in the safe under the desk. When she was done, she straightened and looked at me. I tried to wipe away the expression I knew I was wearing—hot annoyance still coursed through me after my second interaction of the day with my former boyfriend.

  “You ready?” she asked, picking up her purse. I shook my head, trying to clear it, and accepted her arm when she offered it. “Come on, cousin of mine. Let’s go home.”

  Chapter 3

  I had to admit that Posey had a point about the distance between places on the island. It only took us about ten minutes to walk from the café to our grandparents’ house in the hills outside of town. A car probably wouldn’t have saved us much time—though I still wasn’t ready to admit that it wouldn’t have been nice to have one, all the same.

  I paused at the front walk, looking up at Lilac Ridge, a strange sense of nostalgia filling me. I hadn’t been here in ages, but Rose and Francis Powell’s house looked exactly the same as it had years ago. An expansive, white Victorian dating all the way back to the late eighteen hundreds, the house had been in the Powell family for generations. I knew that stepping inside would reveal creaking floors, drafty windows, and small, closed in rooms, all covered in the kind of dark, intricate woodwork popular many, many decades ago—a far cry from the modern, open floor plans and soaring high ceilings in the properties my firm developed. But it was all too easy to overlook those flaws from here. If I closed my eyes, I could practically see Posey, the other cousins, and me running across the wrap-around porch while our grandparents and parents sipped lemonade and half-heartedly told us to settle down. Posey and I had created a thousand fairy stories about Lilac Ridge, with its steep gabled roof, charming bay windows, and turret rising above the second floor. I had always thought it the most beautiful house in the world.

  I glanced around the yard, smiling at the pile of bikes near the porch. That was something that hadn’t changed, either—there were always bikes in the yard, abandoned by grandkids or great-grandkids or any number of neighborhood children who had come by to play in the woods behind the house and maybe talk my grandmother out of some of her famous cherry fudge cookies. Next to the walkway, her prized tulips were beginning to poke their heads above ground, and I knew the yard would be a riot of color in a few short weeks.

  Never lasts though, I thought to myself, trying to remember that there was no need to romanticize the place. The seasons were shorter up here, spring seemingly over in the blink of an eye. Only winter seemed to stick around, endless and bitter cold. I didn’t know how they all got through it without going crazy. Eventually, the weather would be too bad for ferry service, effectively trapping most of the town here until Lake Michigan froze deeply enough to form an ice bridge. Isolated, freezing, and completely on their own. I shivered at the thought, reminding myself that there was no reason to think I would still be around by winter. I should be back in Chicago by then, some new, equally flashy job making me forget all about the old one.

  “You ready?” Posey asked, voice soft.

  I shook myself a little. “As I’ll ever be.”

  I followed her up the walk. Before we even reached the front porch, I could hear the noise from inside. An adult was laughing, loud and boisterous, the sound mingling with the squeals and laughter of little voices. Probably my cousin Greg’s kids. A shout for the kids to stop running. And my grandmother’s steady, musical voice, a warm hum that cut through the rest of the noise.

  “Jonathan, you get your fingers out of that pie,” Mimi Rose scolded as Posey opened the door.

  “Hello!” Posey called out. “Look who I brought!”

  I barely had a chance to glance around the foyer before it was filled with people. The kids came barreling in first, knocking Posey right into me. Before I could get my bearings, the entryway was filled with people. Posey hadn’t been exaggerating when she said everyone was coming. They were all there. My Aunt Deen and Uncle Marcus, Posey’s parents. Greg, their oldest, along with his wife Sage, attempting to save me from their kids assault. Pops and Mimi’s oldest, my Uncle Frank, was waving from the back of the crowd, an arm around his wife, Lindsey. Their twin boys, Edward and Andrew, along with Edward’s boyfriend, Zane. I was dizzy before I’d managed to say hello to half of them.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Posey’s mom whispered into my ear, hugging me close. I felt the strangest lump in my throat.

  “It’s good to see you, too, Auntie Deen,” I managed, hoping she couldn’t hear the shake in my voice. Gardenia, known as Deen to everyone except her mother, had always been one of my favorite relatives. My mom’s older sister was exactl
y the kind of aunt you wanted growing up because she had never quite managed the feat of growing up herself. When Posey and I had sleepovers, she was right there with us in her own sleeping bag in the living room. She would take us shopping and out for pedicures, and when I was ten and my parents’ business kept them from being able to go on the family trip to Disney World, she had invited me to share their hotel room without a second thought so I wouldn’t have to stay home.

  She had also been the one to move Posey and me into our dorm when we went away to school together at DePaul. My dad had been overseas, working. Mom was…well. Let’s just say it hadn’t bothered me at all to have Auntie Deen be the one hugging and kissing me, tears in her eyes, before she drove off and left us to start our college careers.

  Before Deen could release me, Jasper, my grandparents’ geriatric beagle, jumped between us, slamming into my knees and nearly knocking me to my ass.

  “Jasper!” Deen gasped. “You’ll ruin her lovely jacket!”

  “It’s fine,” I said, kneeling down to scratch between his ears. Jasper whimpered happily, kissing my wrists, the only bit of skin he could reach.

  “Now it might take me longer to move this old body from the kitchen, but I certainly thought I ranked a bit higher than the dog in your view.”

  I looked up to see my grandmother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She was beaming at me, her eyes wet, and I felt the lump in my throat grow. “Mimi Rose,” I whispered, standing, and then she was pulling me into her strong embrace. She was taller than I was, my grandmother. Taller than my cousin Greg as well. Pictures of her when she was young revealed a statuesque beauty, imposing and regal. Her old age had stolen a few of those impressive inches, but she carried herself exactly the same way. I had always thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  There was that smell again, in her arms. The chocolate and cinnamon smell with just a hint of coffee. The scent that felt like home. I breathed in deeply, feeling like I might cry, as she hugged me close.