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Authors: Donna Kauffman

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BOOK: Snowflake Bay
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He came back to the conversation as Eula was asking, “Did everything go okay with Beanie and the closing? She didn't have a last-minute change of heart?”
Ben's gaze shifted from Eula to Fiona in time to see her smooth, all-business expression falter. “Did she say something to you? Was her heart not in the retirement? Because I asked her a dozen times, two dozen even, whether she was sure—”
“You bought Beanie's Fat Quarters? The old quilt shop?” he blurted out, thinking he just wanted to get his mind focused on anything besides Fiona McCrae's undergarments, but the surprise was real. “She's run that place for as long as I've been alive. Does that mean you're giving up interior design?”
Both women looked at him, but it was Fiona who responded to the question. “Beanie's been talking about retiring. She and Hannah had a little, uh, run-in, last summer, and Beanie took that as a sign that maybe it was time to move on to her next life chapter. Apparently she'd been considering it for some time. Her husband passed away a few years ago, and—”
“Yes, my folks told me. I know that was a loss to the community. All the signs he'd painted for the town over the years.”
“Yes, well, that's the thing that sort of finalized the deal. I promised Beanie that I'd be keeping the same bright, fun, cheerful mood of her place, and that I'd personally see to it that all of Carl's signs were maintained, at least as long as the signs remained relevant to the community.”
“Should consider doing some signs yourself,” Eula put in. “A good way to get involved in the Cove's business community, get folks to see who you are now, all grown up. Nice way to market yourself at the same time.”
Fiona smiled at Eula. “I was thinking the exact same thing. In fact, I've already made a quick stop to see Owen at the hardware store to see if I can bring it up at the next council meeting.” She looked at Ben. “Did you know Owen is also our new mayor?”
“I'd heard,” he said absently, but his mind wasn't really on the conversation. It was still on Fiona. Not her breasts, thank God, though they really were remarkable, but . . . just on her. When he'd come upon her in the kitchen out at the Point the previous week, she'd just seemed . . . well, like the grown-up version of the Fireplug Fi he'd spent a lifetime tormenting and being tormented by. She'd always seemed to be a little irritated with him, which in turn had just egged him on.
Though, to be fair, that day in the McCrae kitchen, it had been different. He'd appreciated her sincere interest in his parents' situation, giving him a chance to talk about the farm and his new responsibilities. Something about her straightforwardness and the fact that they were, after all, lifelong friends, had made him feel comfortable enough to share. Hell, even he hadn't known what all he was feeling until she'd given him the chance to articulate it a little. Of course, he hadn't been completely forthright with her about the exact nature of his father's health issues, and he found himself wondering if Logan had filled her in. Not that it mattered what she knew. It wasn't as if he and Logan lived in each other's pockets any longer.
“I'm sure Beanie did whatever was right for her,” Eula was saying. “If she signed on the dotted line, then it's all settled.”
Fiona's expression said she now had doubts about that, and he wondered what had prompted Eula to bring up the possibility. The woman wasn't one for idle chatter. Or any chatter. If she said something, there was a purpose to it. So why make Fiona worry about something as important as buying the building that would house her new business?
“When do you move in?”
“I can start immediately,” Fiona said, still seeming a little distracted by whatever was going through her mind. Probably replaying the closing and retroactively looking for any signs Beanie might not have been completely okay with the deal. She dug in her pocket and dangled what was, apparently, the shop key.
“What will she be doing now?” Ben asked. “Beanie, I mean.” He'd said it hoping to help cement the rightness of the transaction in Fiona's mind, but then wondered why in the hell he was involving himself in the situation at all.
He lifted a hand, stalling whatever reply he might have gotten. “Never mind, none of my business. And, in fact, seeing as you both obviously have some other business to attend to, I'll get out of your hair. Eula,” he said, looking to the older woman, “it was a pleasure to see you again.” He glanced at Fi and gave her a brief smile. “Good luck with the new place.”
Looking surprised, Fiona gave a little wave with the hand that still had the keys looped over one finger, making them jingle a bit as he strode by, stepping around her to get to the door. “Thanks.”
He had almost reached safety, but at the last second before he passed through the door, he found himself glancing over his shoulder at Fiona. More specifically, at the back side of Fiona. Okay, okay, so he was checking out her ass.
Dear Lord help him.
All he could think was
Jessica Rabbit, eat your heart out.
He lifted his gaze to find Eula's fixed directly on him. He was a thirty-six-year-old man who could not recall the last time he'd felt his cheeks heat in embarrassment. Actually, given the kind of kid he'd been, that was probably never. There was a distinct warmth in them now. He had no idea what kind of look he had on his face at the moment, but it was beyond him, it seemed, to simply snap out of it, grin, and give Eula a quick nod or wave good-bye. Instead, he was pinned there, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, by that steely pair of faded blue eyes.
Then she turned her attention back to Fiona, as if nothing had transpired between them, and he let himself out into the chill of a wind-whipped swirl of snow.
Had that been a warning?
It certainly hadn't been a blessing. Which begged the question . . . warning against what? Blessing for what? His mind zinged straight back to his initial reaction as Fiona had taken off her coat. Surely he wasn't seeking Eula March's blessing for the kinds of thoughts he was having about Fiona McCrae?
No, it made a whole lot more sense that Eula March was warning him against something he'd already figured out for himself. It didn't matter if it made no sense, didn't matter that the two of them weren't brother and sister, and in fact weren't even remotely related, nor did it matter that they were old enough now that the four-year difference in their ages didn't make thinking of her in that way wrong or unnatural. The bottom line was the same:
Hands off Fiona McCrae.
Better to keep thinking of her as Fireplug Fi.
“Yeah,” he muttered, as he shoved his hands in his pockets again and tried like hell to ignore that he was still sporting half a hard-on. And it was seven freaking degrees outside.
Good luck with that.
Chapter Six
“Did you sign the papers? Dot every i, cross every t?” Kerry asked the moment Fiona entered the Rusty Puffin, not pausing as she continued to wipe down the bar.
“I did,” Fiona told her as she slid off her gloves and unbuttoned her coat. “As of this morning at about ten, Beanie's Fat Quarters is all mine.”
Kerry let out a musical-sounding, very loud hoot she'd probably learned while working in the jungle somewhere, but since it matched Fiona's mood pretty much exactly, she grinned and enjoyed the moment.
She heaved herself up on a stool and leaned her elbows on the freshly gleaming cypress bar. “I even had the chance to go by and talk to Eula.” And, actually, her visit to Eula's was every bit as much the reason for her giddy mood as was the reality that she once again owned her own place of business. Beanie's was really perfect for her evolving business plan and she couldn't wait to dive in and begin turning it into the design studio she truly wanted for herself. But the fuel stoking her current ebullience was the moment she'd had in Eula's shop with Ben. Specifically the moment she'd taken off her coat and glanced at him in time to catch that rather poleaxed look on his face. It was quite possible it hadn't meant that he'd just looked at her as a woman, rather than a short, plump, annoying kid sister, for the very first time, but she was going to choose to believe that's exactly what had happened. And she was going to wrap up that moment in a shiny gold bow, and pull it out and open it up every time she needed a little boost. Because that look on his handsome face had made it almost worth—almost—every single moment of adolescent torment he'd put her through.
“You're looking rather cat and canary,” Kerry said, her bright green eyes gleaming now as she tucked the rag in her apron pocket and looked fully at Fiona for the first time. “More cat, less canary. You didn't swindle our poor Beanie out of the shop that's been her life's work now, did you?”
“Why is it everyone is worried about poor Beanie? Let me tell you, that woman didn't build that place into the best little quilt shop in the state of Maine by not understanding how to run a business. She drove a hard bargain. And here I thought dealing with vendors in the Fashion District in New York had immunized me to tough talk. She's no lightweight.”
“Maybe she should have been the one to head to the city and take Manhattan by storm,” Kerry said. “I bet she could have, too. One fat quarter at a time.”
Both sisters laughed at that.
“So,” Kerry said as she pulled two wineglasses out from under the bar. “Who is ‘ever yone'?”
“What?” Fiona asked, momentarily distracted by the stemware. “Why are you getting out wineglasses?”
“Today they're going to be champagne glasses,” she said with a grin. “To toast your new enterprise.”
“But—”
She frowned. “No buts. And I was asking who else was worried about Beanie.”
“Eula asked if Beanie was sure about putting her business up for sale.”
“Are Eula and Beanie friends? I didn't think Eula had actual friends. Not because she couldn't have them, I suppose—she just isn't exactly the girlfriend type, you know? So who else was worried about Beanie, and is it possible that's where that little glow you have is coming from?”
Fiona waited for her to take a breath, then said, “My glow, if I have one—”
“Like a ninety-watt halogen bulb,” Kerry put in, her smile wry now.
“—is because I finally took the big plunge. Today is the first day of my new life. The real first day. Of my new business life.”
“Which is great. And why we're going to have a toast. So who else is worried about Beanie?”
Fiona didn't want to share her Ben moment, because no one else would understand that it had been A Moment. Besides, it was all hers. To savor, recall at will, and wallow in as needed. “I went to Eula's to talk about incorporating some of her pieces into my studio decor, but having them there on consignment rather than buying them outright, so it would be promoting her place, in return for her doing some promoting of my new business. When I got there, Ben Campbell also happened to be there and—”
Kerry hooted almost as loudly as she had when Fiona had announced she'd bought herself a business.
“What was that for?” Fiona asked, determined to hold on to her happy mood no matter what Kerry said. The youngest McCrae sister was the brazen, outspoken one, and not always—okay, hardly ever—one to concern herself with how her comments might be taken by their intended recipient. “He asked if Beanie had made plans for what she'd be doing now that she wasn't a shopkeeper any longer. Then you asked about her, too, so I was just setting the record straight, that's all.
“If anyone should be worried about one of us being swindled, that concern should be for me,” Fiona went on, smoothly shifting the topic away from Ben. “For someone who looks like the warmest and cuddliest grandma ever, Beanie was not shy about getting what she wanted. And from one female business owner to another, I'm glad she was like that, because then I felt like it was an honest deal struck between two business-savvy women. Trust me when I say that, whatever her plans are for the future, Beanie Whittaker will be just fine, thank you very much.”
Kerry nodded her way through Fiona's little speech and barely waited for the last word to leave her mouth before saying, “So, what's going on with you and Ben Campbell?”
Fiona gaped, then snapped her mouth shut. She wanted to rush in and deny, deny, deny, which would have been the truth, because there wasn't anything going on between them. But Kerry was like a dog with a bone when she thought she was on to something. She had always been the one to ferret out what Santa was bringing them for Christmas, never leaving it alone until she'd figured it out. And, of course, spoil it for her siblings in a crow of triumph once she had, because she thought for sure they'd want to know, too. She never could seem to understand that some folks actually liked to be surprised Christmas morning.
Well, Fiona wasn't about to try to explain her Ben Campbell moment to anyone, much less her pit bull of a sister, so she took a different tack. Fi had watched Hannah handle Kerry over the years and was proud of herself for taking a page from the lawyer's handbook and not making her typical knee-jerk response. “What makes you think there's anything going on between me and Ben?”
Kerry waggled a finger at her. “Don't play cross-examiner with me. You're no good at it.”
Fiona did the only mature thing possible: she stuck her tongue out.
“Careful where you stick that,” Kerry said, pretending to swipe and snag it. “Mongoose might get it.” She walked over to the large, glass-front cooler and fished behind a few bottles, then pulled out a dark black one. “All I know is Hannah and Alex were in here earlier, all googly-eyed over fonts for wedding invitations, and she might have said something about you being all pissy with Ben over him calling you Fireplug. You know he doesn't mean it in a bad way. Not now, at least. I mean, he—”
“Yes, yes, he's St. Ben the Benevolent. Never hurt a fly, rescuer of parents, all-around fabulous human being, Ben Campbell,” Fiona said, already mentally kicking herself for letting both of her sisters get to her. Again.
Kerry simply arched a brow at that, then expertly popped the cork on the champagne, and laughed as the foam ran over her hands and all over her nice clean bar.
“It's not even noon yet,” Fiona said. “And isn't that the same champagne we had at Alex and Logan's wedding?”
“It's toast time o'clock,” Kerry said in response, “and yes, I pilfered it from the reception.”
“You can't pilfer a bottle of champagne you—or Fergus—technically bought in the first place.”
“Oh my God, are you going to be a buzzkill even on your own big day?” She poured them each a glass and was not modest about it.
“I'm not a buzzkill, I'm just saying—”
“Here,” Kerry said, picking up one glass and handing it to Fiona. “Drink.” She raised her own glass and said, “To my other super-responsible sister for continuing her mission to kick interior design ass, now in two states, and soon right in your very own backyard. Salute!” And with that, she tossed back the entire glass of champagne in one easy slide.
Fiona still held her glass in one hand, her mouth half open as she watched Kerry. “I don't even want to know how you can shotgun an entire glass of champagne without even so much as a hiccup. It's supposed to be sipped.”
“It's supposed to be enjoyed,” Kerry said, with a pointed gaze at Fiona's own glass. “Bottoms up, shopkeeper.”
Fiona took one sip, then, at Kerry's frown, gave her an oh-for-God's-sake look, and made her way to the bottom of her glass, too, albeit in several gulps.
“And you're right, Mama Hen,” Kerry added with a wink. “You definitely don't want to know.”
Fiona's head was pleasantly fizzy and she smiled at Kerry's pet name for her. That one she didn't mind so much, not because Kerry said it with any less annoyance than Ben did his, but because Fiona liked her role as the one who kind of held her siblings together. Hannah might be Mother Superior, but Fiona was mother confessor, problem solver, ego-picker-upper, and all-around keeper of the flame for both her sisters. And though Logan would likely deny it until he was old and gray, she'd been that for him more times than either could count as well. They might see it as her being the family worrier, always clucking over them, but it made her feel good, keeping tabs on how they were all doing, knowing that her family was okay.
She was also the resident peacekeeper, so she wasn't going to take the bait Kerry had so temptingly dangled in front of her. If Hannah thought her reaction to Ben's nickname made her pissy, so what? Fiona smiled and nudged her glass toward Kerry. She had her Ben moment now. So none of it mattered so much anymore.
“Okay, so maybe not so much cat and canary as cat and a bowl of nice, warm cream,” Kerry said, giving her a considering look. “What exactly happened at Eula's? Did you tell him what you thought of his pet name for you and chop his Campbell Christmas tree down to size?” She poured them both more champagne and leaned on the counter, keeping close enough so only Fiona heard her, though there were only three other people in the bar at that hour, and they were back at one of the two pool tables. “And have you ever spent any time wondering just how, um, stout and tall his pine might be?”
Fiona all but sprayed the sip of bubbly she'd just taken. “What?” she spluttered, certain she hadn't heard Kerry correctly, even as she knew she had.
“Why is it you, Hannah, and Logan think I'm still twelve? And even then, I have to say, am I the only one who wasn't already actively thinking about his, um, pine, even then? How am I a member of this family? You're all a bunch of Goody Two-shoes. Or I thought you were. Now Logan's getting some regularly with Alex, and Hannah with Calder.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “And you've got something going with our very own Ben Campbell. I know I'm right.”
So much for not actively denying it. “First of all, ew. Do you really need to discuss the sex lives of our siblings?” She folded her arms on the bar, mostly so she would stay steady on the stool. She was only pleasantly fizzy, nothing more, but better to be safe. “I can state, with absolutely no equivocation, that there is nothing going on between me and Ben. No, I did not chop down his tree. And also? Ew for that, too. Shame on you. He's like your brother.”
“He's not our brother. Not even our cousin. And as if you never looked at Ben Campbell and wondered, even for a moment . . .” Her words trailed off as her eyes narrowed on Fiona, then widened with absolute glee. She hooted again, and both of them heard a string of curse words float up from the pool table area as somebody had apparently missed their shot at her outburst.
“Sorry,” Kerry called out. “Free round later.”
She grinned as a cheer rang out from the pool table, then turned right back to Fiona. “So, there isn't anything going on now with Ben . . . but you've wondered about his pine. I think you want his pine. In fact, I think you want to—”
“Stop it,” Fiona hissed. She'd just wanted to hold on to her Ben moment and savor it in the privacy of her own, formerly rejected schoolgirl mind. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so. She put her glass back on the bar. Her pleasant fizziness abruptly dissolved. “I don't want anything from Ben, least of all his—” She broke off, refusing to take that particular euphemism a single syllable further. “Yes, it's true. I didn't like hearing that nickname again. I hated it back then, and no matter what the intent behind it, I'm not a big fan of it now. But then anything designed to belittle someone and make them feel badly about themselves is never going to get a rousing cheer from me. You were always in his good graces, though I'll never understand why, when you were the actual bratty little kid around him, not me. And of course Hannah could do no wrong in his eyes, so it's easy for you both to say that it was all in good fun and no harm meant.”
Looking utterly abashed, Kerry reached her hand out toward her sister. “Fi, don't. He's—”
Fiona pulled her arm out of reach. And to her absolute horror and the utter ruination of the fabulous good mood she'd been in upon entering her family's pub, she felt her eyes sting. What was it about Ben Campbell that always made her end up in tears? She wasn't even hurt—she was pissed off, dammit. “He's family, I know. And we're all grown-ups now, so you're right, it shouldn't matter. It was all a long, long time ago. We were all kids. Blah, blah, blah. But some things don't have an expiration date. And how that nickname made me feel is apparently one of them. Especially coming from the one guy who, at the time, I wanted to see me as anything but a fireplug.” There, she'd said it. All but shouted it, actually. “So you'll have to forgive me if I still don't find being called short, fat, and red all that sweet or amusing.”
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