Falling for the Innkeeper by Meghann Whistler

Author:Meghann Whistler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-05-11T15:44:19+00:00

* * *

On the ride home after dinner at the clam shack, Laura told Jonathan she was going out.

“Hot date?” He tried to keep his voice casual, but it was hard. After she’d turned him down on the Red Sox game, it was definitely hard.

Given the fact that she had Tiny to watch out for, he understood why she’d said no, although it left him feeling curiously disappointed. There was something about her that made him want to be the man she could trust with anything, with everything—her daughter, her feelings, her heart.

Was it fair, though, if he was leaving? Was it fair when he was so dedicated to his job? Surely they could try to do things long-distance, couldn’t they? And after the sale of The Sea Glass Inn went through, maybe he could convince her to move to Boston to be closer to him.

All he knew was that he couldn’t let the details cloud the fact that he hadn’t felt this way about anyone ever, and that if she was going out with some other man tonight, it would feel like a stake shoved straight through his heart.

She shook her head, a smile quirking her lips. “Brett’s got his youth ministry. I’ve got mine.”

“Okay, now I’m curious,” he said as they pulled up in front of the inn.

“I was just going to drop you off before heading out, but if you want to come, we can always use more male volunteers...”

“Uh-oh. What am I getting myself into?”

“You know how those little kids at ball hockey loved you?” she asked. He nodded. “Be prepared for the absolute opposite with our surly teens.”

They got to WCC and dropped Emma off at the babysitting room in the main church before walking over to the church annex. Outside, the crickets were out in force, as were the peeper frogs, their calls like mini alarms. Unlike in Boston, there was no background whir of cars and trucks and subway trains to drown out the indigenous sounds. Just the peeps and the chirps and their footfalls on the ground.

“Have you heard of Celebrate Recovery before?” Laura asked.

“You mentioned it the other night, didn’t you?” he said, opening the door to the church annex for her.

“It’s pretty cool. It’s a recovery program for everyone, for whatever issue they’re struggling with—alcohol, drugs, codependency, divorce, you name it.”

“Ah,” he said. “Is that how you got involved? After your divorce?”

“Actually, no. It was when I was a teenager, here for the summer after my parents took off. It’s why I’ve got such a heart for the teen ministry. Because I get it, what it feels like to struggle at that age.”

“Your parents?” he asked gently.

She bit her lip, nodded. “I guess they thought I was too old to come to Hong Kong, or I’d do better here, or something. I don’t know. But I felt bad about it for a long time. Like, what’s wrong with me that they’d leave me behind?”

“What’s wrong with you?” he scoffed.

“Yeah,” she said.

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