An (Almost) Perfect Love Story (Love Story Book Three) (4 page)

Emily buried her face in her hands. “Not so high and mighty now, are you?” I asked happily, helping myself to hash browns. I moaned as I took my first bite. “This is so good, Chris, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, leaning over to kiss my head. “I figured you guys would need hangover food. I stopped way before you, and even I feel pretty rough this morning.”

We all felt much better after we had stuffed our faces. I was thrilled to find that Ryan had brought an extra set of clothes and had no intention of going home that morning. We all took turns in the shower before settling down to veg out in front of the TV. It was just like old times, the four of us together, laughing at some stupid comedy, eating junk food, teasing each other. I could almost pretend we were back in the dorms at Michigan State, before jobs and relationships made us so busy.

I expected Ryan to want to leave as evening began to set in. He usually had big plans on the weekend; expecting him to give us two nights in a row was often too much to ask. Ryan had a staggering network of friends; it seemed as if he knew someone everywhere we went. He was always full of stories of exciting happenings in his life—club openings, hot new restaurants, parties at lofts downtown. I had no problem admitting that Ryan was much cooler than the rest of us. I was just happy to get him when I could. So I was thrilled when he suggested we order a pizza for dinner. Apparently he was staying with us after all.

As Emily phoned in our order, he wandered over to our bookshelves, perusing our selection. “You know what we haven’t done in ages?” he asked, turning to me with a big grin on his face. He held up a board game from one of the shelves. “Trivial Pursuit. You in?”

I grinned back. “Only if you promise to stay again tonight. I miss you.”

He came over and put his arm around my shoulders, kissing the top of my head. “You got it, sweetheart.” He looked down at me, his expression so very Ryan that it made my heart turn, for some reason. “Between the two of us, I bet we could get them to watch a chick-flick.”

I laughed and squeezed him back. “It’s a plan.”

Chapter Four

As the kindergarten Valentine’s Day party finally rolled around, I had to admit that Susan had a point. The kids were bouncing off the walls, the promise of candy and a suspension of the status quo too enticing. But I found that I had no desire to tamp down on their enthusiasm; I felt like a kid myself. The truth was, I had always loved Valentine’s Day, whether I was coupled up or single. I loved making big plans with whatever guy I was seeing as much as I loved holing up with Ryan and watching romantic comedies and eating chocolates those years when we had both been single when that day arrived. There was something so enticing about a holiday that was all about love.

After lunch, I gave up any pretense of teaching. I helped the kids make paper hearts to hang around the room, and then we set to work finishing up the decorating of their mailboxes. Once we had finished, I allowed them all to get out the treats and cards they had brought from home, feeling happy as I watched them eagerly deliver their goodies to friends. How could anyone hate this holiday?

I was tired when I got home, but excited as well. I would be finally finding out what Chris had planned that night. He had only given me the most basic essentials over the phone the night before. “Pack for three days. Make sure you have warm things. And your swimsuit.”

Emily was no more help. “Sorry, babe,” she had said when I cornered her for more info. “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

I grumbled as I walked down the hallway to my room, wishing I had a better idea of what to pack. Warm stuff? My swimsuit? Where are we going?

“One thing though,” Emily said, appearing in my doorway. “You should probably bring something nice for Saturday night.”

“Nice?” I asked, turning to face her. She had a huge grin on her face, and I felt like I would go nuts wondering what she knew.

“Yeah. Nice.”

I threw up my arms. “What does that mean? A dress? Club wear?”

“Here,” she said, coming into the room, her face still plastered with that knowing grin. “Let’s see…” She walked to my closet and started flicking through. “Probably not a dress, it will be too cold, but maybe your nicer jeans, and something cute on top. This sweater, maybe?… Oooh, you should borrow my boots!”

“Your boots?” I asked. “The black ones?”

“One sec,” she said, running back down the hallway to her room. She reappeared a minute later, holding a pair of tall black, leather boots. They were slouchy and soft to the touch, the most stylish thing that Em owned, and I had always loved them. “But these are your boots from Brooke,” I said, feeling touched.

Em waved her hands as if to dismiss my objection. “So? I think they’ll be perfect. Now you just need to pick a sweater.”

We rummaged through my closet until we decided on a long sweater dress in dusty pink. It was form fitting and high necked, with three-quarter length sleeves. “That will be perfect with those boots and your skinny jeans,” Emily said.

“You sound pretty confident for a girl who calls fashion ‘the biggest waste of time ever invented by man.’ ”

She laughed. “Yeah, well, you and Ryan have rubbed off on me a little. What are you gonna wear for jewelry?”

With Emily’s help I had managed to finish my packing the night before. Chris had instructed me to come home right after work, so I hoped I wouldn’t be kept in suspense for too long. I loved surprises, but I was notoriously bad at waiting.

Chris proved, once again, just how well he knew me. He was waiting in the living room when I got home, along with Emily and Elliot. They were all dressed in jeans and heavy winter coats.

“You’re here!” Emily cried, looking as excited as I felt. “It’s about time!”

“I came straight home,” I protested, moving to take off my coat, but they were all standing already, zipping up their coats.

“We’re leaving now,” Chris said, smiling at my expression. “Come on, we have a ways to drive, and we want to get there before it gets too dark.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, my excitement growing.

“You’ll see,” he said, taking my elbow. “Your bag’s in the car. Let’s go.”

* * *

Three hours later, we were pulling into a long, snow-covered driveway. We had left the metro area behind hours ago, and for many miles had seen more trees than buildings. I had no idea where we were going, only that we were clearly now in the north woods of Michigan, but now it was starting to fit together.

“Would this happen to have anything to do with Brooke?” I asked, turning to look at Emily in the back seat of Chris’s bronco. She shrugged innocently.

“We thought it was high time for you to see her place,” Chris said, reaching over to take my hand as he made a final turn, Brooke’s inn appearing through the trees and the soft falling snow.

“Wow,” I whispered, impressed.

Brooke was a friend of Emily’s and Chris’s from their high school days in Alpena. They had stayed very close over the years, despite their physical distance. Back in the fall, Brooke had opened her very own inn on Hubbard Lake with her boyfriend and business partner, Paul. I had missed the grand opening and had been wishing to see the place ever since.

“Isn’t it great?” Emily asked, clearly excited. The inn rose up in the darkness in front of us, lit from inside and casting a cozy glow over the snow around us. Moonlight glittered on the frozen lake behind the rambling, Victorian building, and twinkle lights flickered along the railings of the wraparound porch.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured, feeling excited. I couldn’t have asked for a more romantic setting for Valentine’s Day.

“Just wait till you see inside,” Chris said, turning off the engine. “They did an amazing job with the renovations.”

We climbed out of the car, Elliot pulling our bags from behind the back seat. As we trudged up the shoveled walkway, Chris put his arm around me. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he said, kissing my hair. I felt a thrill of happiness. From what I had heard from Chris and Em, Brooke’s inn had been a massive hit since it opened in the fall. Booking rooms over a holiday weekend must have been done well in advance. Chris had gone to an awful lot of trouble to make me happy.

“You’re here!”

I looked up to see Brooke, framed in the doorway of the inn, as we alighted the steps to the front porch. We called out a noisy chorus of hellos, then we were in the entryway, Brooke hugging her best friend, Emily, tightly as we all shook snow from our coats and hair.

“Welcome,” Brooke said happily, pulling me in for a hug before moving on to Chris. I took the chance to look around. Chris was right; it was amazing inside the inn. Hardwood floors gleamed from below our feet. Restored craftsman style woodwork was evident around windows and the stairway. Antique sconces added to the warm feeling, and I could hear a fire crackling from somewhere near by.

“It looks even better in the winter,” Elliot said, looking around. Brooke laughed happily.

“I won’t argue with you,” she said, straightening her black wrap-around dress. Brooke was generally very self-composed and confident, uncomfortable with overt displays of affection. I liked seeing her let her guard down a little, as she usually only did with Emily and Chris.

“Hi, guys,” Paul said, appearing from the hallway. “I’m so glad you made it.”

I looked at Paul and shook my head a little, smiling. I had only met him a few times, and I liked him, but he was far from the type I would have pictured someone like Brooke to end up with. Where she was sophisticated and stylish, he seemed more comfortable in worn jeans and T-shirts. He wore his sandy hair longish and seemed to have a permanent tan, even in the winter, from spending so much time outdoors. He
was
cute, though, I had to admit that. In a sexy, almost bad-boy kind of way.

Paul reached out a flannel-clad arm to shake hands with Elliot and Chris, then hugged Emily. “Good to see you, Donovan,” he said, smiling at her almost flirtatiously. I knew he had gone to school with Emily, Chris, and Brooke as well. The four of them had known each other for more than a decade. I felt the familiar twist of my stomach at the sight of them; it was hard not to feel like an outsider in the face of so much shared history. But then Brooke was slipping her arm through mine, rather uncharacteristically for her, and pulling me forward into the living room.

“I can’t wait for you to see everything,” she said happily. I marveled at the change in her. Brooke was acting downright girly; I didn’t think I had ever seen her like this. I wondered if it was a consequence of her new relationship with Paul or the success of the inn, or maybe a combination of both. At any rate, she had lowered her head toward mine and was telling me, somewhat conspiratorially, that she had booked Chris and me in her best room.

She led us through the lower level. There were several guests in the living room, clustered around the huge fireplace on comfortable-looking couches and chairs, reading, or talking softly. A uniformed young woman circulated with a tray of champagne. From there, we headed to the dining room, which was breathtaking with floor to ceiling windows revealing an unbelievable view of Hubbard Lake. It looked magical in the moonlight.

“You should have seen this place before,” Brooke said, a smile of obvious pride on her face as we all stood before the windows. “It was a dump.”

“You’ve done an amazing job,” I said, feeling awed. I sometimes found it hard to believe that Brooke was the same age as me. She was so driven, so successful. In addition to that, she was probably the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen. She literally turned heads wherever she went. I couldn’t blame the men and women who stared after her when she was in public; with her riot of long, black curls and ridiculously curvy body, she exuded sex appeal. Her attitude of not giving a crap what anyone thought of her only added to her appeal. To tell the truth, I was usually very intimidated by her, though I was trying my best lately not to be.

In the years that I had known her, she’d flitted from relationship to relationship, never managing to find a guy who could keep up with her. I caught Paul looking at her, as she looked out over the lake, the expression on his face clearly belying the fact that he was crazy about her. It was sweet, really. I suddenly felt like I might just understand how they had ended up together after all.

“Okay,” Brooke said, her voice turning more business like. “Let’s get you guys settled upstairs, then we can grab dinner.”

We walked back to the entryway to find that our bags had already been brought upstairs. As we ascended the huge staircase, Chris grabbed my hand. “Was it a good surprise?”

“A great surprise,” I said, smiling at him. “One question: why did I need my swimsuit for a weekend out in the woods? I’m pretty sure that lake is frozen.”

Chris laughed. “There’s a hot tub.”

“Not bad, mister.”

“We’ll have fun,” he assured me. “And I might even have one more surprise up my sleeve.”

I was distracted by his teasing promise when Brooke opened the door to our room. “Here you go,” she said, handing a key to Chris. “Best room in the house.”

I couldn’t help but sigh with happiness as we stepped inside. The room, unsurprisingly, was beautiful. A huge, four-poster bed was in the center of the room, a fireplace crackling happily in front of it. A bay window looked out over the lake below, and a loveseat and coffee table created a cozy sitting area near the fireplace. The walls were papered in light green tulle, which contrasted nicely with the cream of the bed quilt and the loveseat. It was romantic without being over the top, exactly what I would have expected from Brooke.

“You like it?” she asked, smiling.

“Love it,” I corrected, walking over to feel the softness of the bedspread.

“Well, wait until you see the bathroom,” she said. Chris walked over and opened the door, revealing a spacious room complete with marble tile and a claw-foot tub.

“You’re right,” I said. “This is even better.”

“All right, let me get Em and Elliot into their room. We’ll all meet downstairs for dinner in fifteen minutes?”