“Phew!” Chelsea breathed, her chest heaving from the climb. “I do those stairs daily and still…” She pointed unabashedly at her reddened face. “Jared always stayed in this room when he came home, but if you want a room on one of the lower levels—”
“This is perfect,” Kennedy sighed, glancing around at the simplicity and privacy of the new space. Her luggage sat next to a queen bed, blue and gold sheets stretched across the mattress. A small closet was to her left, next to a vanity dresser and high-backed chair that matched the furniture downstairs. Kennedy gladly kicked off her shoes, audibly groaning the moment her toes curled into the soft rug under her feet.
Chelsea smiled, grabbed Kennedy’s wrist, and tucked a key inside her palm. “This floor has its own bathroom—shower included. It’s just out the door and to the right. Breakfast is at eight thirty every morning, but don’t feel like you have to join everyone.” Her shoulders lifted as she took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s good to have you here.”
“It’s good to be here.”
Chelsea gave her a quick smile before letting out another sigh. “Sleep off that jet lag. I’m going to get Aaron started on saving our Wi-Fi. Then we can do lunch. Good?”
“Good.”
Chelsea turned, her shoes smacking against each step as she descended the stairwell. Kennedy shut herself in, smiling at finally being there, laughing at the fool she had just made of herself, and then falling back onto the bed. She propped the urn up against the pillow on the left side—Jared’s side—and grinned.
“Welcome home, sweetie.”
Chapter 3
Aaron
It had been a long time since Aaron had felt flustered over a woman’s touch, yet the very small moment he’d spent holding Kennedy’s hands had pushed all those dormant embers to the surface with a vengeance. His amusement at her mistake was pushed aside with the shock that a complete stranger could make him feel so much with so little physical contact. He hadn’t even had the excuse that it had been a while—he’d literally just cleaned up from a morning with one of his occasional female companions.
He shook his head for what felt like the millionth time since the encounter and straightened from his crouch. Hooking up a tricky Wi-Fi service was second nature, so that it barely took any concentration at all anymore, which was unfortunate because he could really use the distraction. Even if he wanted to pursue Kennedy—and for a brief moment, he really had considered it—the idea was shot to hell the moment he realized who she was. Jared would spend his afterlife terrorizing Aaron just for the thoughts he had toward the girl Jared spent the end of his days madly in love with. Aaron was grateful that he’d found out early enough that most of the attraction to Kennedy was physical, which was easily stifled and pushed aside. Still, he was amused and surprisingly aroused by the deafening tone of her accusatory voice, and then equally impressed by the quick apology that followed. He sensed a strong and humble woman, two qualities he was currently looking for.
He let out an amused huff at himself for his thoughts straying once more and bent over his laptop to plug in the cord. The battery was nearly dead from a late night of Netflixing with Natalie. She’d requested a binge-watch of one of her drama shows that Aaron found out ten minutes in that she was not watching for the plot. He’d fallen asleep around the time the fourth shirtless man appeared on-screen, but was rewarded when she woke him up around five in the morning.
As fun as it was to spend time with Natalie while they were both in town, it was never a permanent thing. She had several different “lovers,” as her job required her to travel too much and she often got lonely, and while Aaron was never too keen on that idea, he was never jealous or possessive. Natalie wasn’t the one he was searching for—and as more time passed, he feared he’d never find the elusive woman he was destined to spend his life with.
He knelt on the cushioned carpet in front of his laptop to test the Wi-Fi hookup. To think, it had only been in the past year that he’d been looking for a more stable relationship, and he was already discouraged by the lack of choices. His sporadic love life had never felt unfulfilled until his former best friend passed. Suddenly L.A., a slew of women, and a monotonous career weren’t enough, and moving back home was his way of wiping the slate clean.
“Ugh, I’m sorry, Aaron,” Chelsea said, coming into the room with a set of jangling keys. “Grant’s teacher called again, and I’m just going to go pick him up. Dan’s down the road at the Palmers’, and I’m pretty sure Kennedy is sleeping off that long train ride in her room. You okay here for a bit?”
He nodded, ignoring the buildup of nervous energy running under his skin at the thought of only the attractive woman upstairs for potential company.
“I’m about finished,” he told Chelsea, clicking over to his browser. “I was gonna check the service in other rooms, make sure it’s good, but if—”
“Oh, that’d be great.” Chelsea reached up and hurriedly fixed the colorful scarf wrapped around her head. “Kennedy’s on the top floor, but you can probably just check it out in the halls, yeah? You’re the best, Aaron. Thanks!” And she disappeared before Aaron could get another word in. He pushed away a grin at her antics, remembering that was how every Porter was. Was. After Jared’s passing, Chelsea was the only Porter alive, and she was now a Tea.
The rush of sorrow in his chest gave Aaron a much-needed reminder that while Kennedy was beautiful and intriguing, she was not his. Surely the guilt would outweigh any budding feelings. Setting his jaw, he firmly decided that Kennedy, like Natalie, was not the woman he was looking for, either.
—
“Damn it.”
Aaron let out the hushed curse yet again and reached out to examine the cable box. He’d always prided himself on being able to see the problem when everything looked just fine, but his twenty-minute job was speedily approaching the hour mark, and there was still no wireless connection available in any room at the B&B.
On the verge of losing his cool and tossing the box against the wall, he set it down on a table on the second-floor landing and blew out a steadying breath, shaking his head at the unknown problem.
“Checked the power boxes,” he said under his breath, listing off the things he’d done already to solve the mystery of the missing signal. His grumbling was answered by a soft giggle that had him flicking his gaze over his shoulder.
Kennedy stood on the bottommost step of the staircase leading up to her room, her hand pressed gently to her mouth as a shade of pink sprouted on her cheeks. Aaron couldn’t help the grin that spread across his lips, his grip sliding from the wall he was leaning against.
“Hey,” he said in greeting, internally cringing at the word falling so awkwardly off his tongue.
“Hi.” Her hand fell to her pocket, and she slipped two fingers inside. Aaron could see her jeans moving to the beat of his scattered pulse as she tapped her hip. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation.”
Her smile was playful, teasing in a way that seemed to come very naturally to her despite the fact their initial meeting had seemed to more or less embarrass her. Aaron had to stop the tempting thoughts of how much he enjoyed that playfulness in a woman, before they took complete control over him.
“Interrupt all you like,” he told her, turning away from her distracting curves and focusing on the task he was there to do. “You’re probably saving this cable box’s life.”
That soft, musical giggle floated to his ears once more, and he exhaled a little longer to try to calm the rushing warmth running under his skin.
“The lack of connection has been surprisingly nice,” she said. “I spent the last twenty minutes with a manuscript and no temptation to be distracted.”
Manuscript? Aaron turned a curious brow toward her. Kennedy’s eyes hurriedly made their way to his face from what he assumed was the butt of his jeans. He tried everything in his power to pop the ballooned ego he could feel filling his mind.
She shook her head, her loose brown
hair waving around her face. “I’m an editor,” she clarified, putting on a relaxed smile. “I spend a lot of my time reading and trying to avoid clicking over to the Internet every time I hit a page break.”
Aaron chuckled. “Are the books you’re editing that boring?”
“No,” she quickly corrected. “No, it’s not that at all. I love reading, especially my clients’ work. But it’s also my job. Don’t you get tired of…whatever it is you do?”
He laughed again, nodding at her point. While Lyra Valley hadn’t given him much opportunity to work, when he was doing it day in and out in L.A. he’d often felt the same way—loved it, even while it was occasionally wearisome.
“Is that why you’re here?” he asked, pushing up the lid of his laptop and trying once again to find a connection. “A place with fewer distractions?”
Her eyes distinctly fell down his frame, and while Aaron never felt the need to flex to impress for a woman before, his muscles locked as her gaze roamed over his arms.
She quietly observed him for so long that Aaron cleared his throat to remind her where she was, though it pained him to take her out of whatever thoughts were running wild through her head.
She laughed at herself. “I think Lyra Valley has more distractions than I bargained for.” The pink in her cheeks deepened a shade, and her dark chocolate eyes suddenly found the floor much more interesting. The corner of Aaron’s mouth pulled upward, and he turned to his computer, begging his mind not to enter into dangerous territory.
“So what does bring you here if not the peace and quiet of an underpopulated town?”
The smile that had been teasing on her lips faded, and her gaze drifted up the stairwell. After a thoughtful moment, she answered in a barely audible voice. “Jared.”
An iron fist wrapped around Aaron’s gut at the mention of his former best friend. An all-too-familiar sensation prickled at the back of his eyes, and he forced it away, unable to deal with the way things had transpired between him and Jared before his untimely death; he’d deal with that later, in the privacy of his own room. Not here in front of Jared’s love.
Jared’s love.
He swallowed hard and hoped his voice escaped him in a normal fashion. “You know, if he were here, he’d give me endless commentary on how I graduated with stellar grades from MIT, yet I can’t get this damn Wi-Fi to work.”
Kennedy’s sorrowful eyes brightened. “You knew him well, then.”
Aaron nodded. “Very.”
She leaned against the railing on the stairway. “It’s times like these that make me wish I’d prodded more about his past friends.”
“I probably wouldn’t have made the cut,” Aaron said, sheepishly running a hand over the scruff speckling his chin. The guilt in his gut did not relent in the slightest, even with finally talking about it with someone. “Jared and I didn’t part on the best of terms.”
Kennedy frowned. “I’m sorry.” And when Aaron’s eyes met hers over the screen of his laptop, he could see that she truly meant it.
He let out a long sigh and attempted a grin. “Me, too.”
Feeling a need to change the subject, even though he’d finally gotten through a conversation about Jared without breaking something or crumpling to a guilt-ridden heap, he let out an amused laugh that had Kennedy’s brows crinkling in a very adorable fashion.
“So…you hit on my brother?”
She let out a growl and buried her face in her hands. “It was not like that.”
“Sure made it sound that way,” he teased, liking the way the conversation could easily float in and out of light and heavy.
Her hands fell again to her pockets. “He was nice. My hair was all tangled up in a clip and he saved me from losing half of the strands.”
“A classic damsel-in-distress meeting.” He grinned at the wrinkle that appeared above her nose. “Continue.”
“I only asked him if he’d like to show me around town sometime. It was perfectly innocent.”
“And he mentioned he was gay because it was perfectly innocent? Hmm…” Aaron’s eyebrow rose in an arrogant tilt. Perhaps if he teased her she’d be so put off by him that she’d keep her distance and he wouldn’t have to push away at his ever-returning wicked thoughts. But from the smile in her eyes, maybe she was enjoying the conversation more than she was embarrassed by it.
“I might have attempted to flirt,” she said with a small laugh. “Obviously I won’t be doing that again.”
He thought of the way she’d sworn him off before they’d even spoken and gave her a pointed look. “Obviously.”
She mimicked his gaze. “It was an honest mistake. You can’t tell me that’s the first time it’s happened.”
Aaron thought back on the multiple occasions when he was mistaken for his brother; he had to give her credit on that one. It had been a while, though; Austin was bulkier than he was, his job at the garage requiring more heavy lifting than his as a tech guru.
He chuckled at a memory that sprang to the surface. “Did you know that Chelsea and Austin used to date?”
Kennedy’s eyes widened. “When was this?”
“Sophomore year of high school for Austin, junior for Chels. She was his last girlfriend before he came out.”
Kennedy adjusted, settling her weight on her other leg. Aaron wanted to offer her a place to sit, but there wasn’t one readily available. Maybe if he got this Internet loading they could move to one of the sitting rooms downstairs. However, in the back of his mind he knew he shouldn’t look for ways to spend more time talking with her.
He focused his attention back on his job while relaying the rest of the story. “Chelsea had asked Austin if he wanted to spend spring break with her and her family out at a condo they had in—”
“Daytona,” Kennedy filled in with a nostalgic sigh. “I loved that condo.”
Aaron grinned, but it was a little lackluster at the reminder that Kennedy had been close to the Porter family. Probably closer than he’d ever been, especially in the latter years of Jared’s life. Forcing that discouraging thought away, he continued.
“Austin didn’t want to disappoint her, and he wasn’t ready to admit who he was yet. So he asked me to go instead.”
Kennedy’s brow rose. “What?” she asked through a laugh. “Did you?”
“Of course,” he said with a laugh. “I was fifteen. And Chelsea…man, she was, you know…”
“Gorgeous?” Kennedy offered, which wasn’t a wrong description, just not the one Aaron was looking for.
“Yes, definitely,” he said. “But she was more than that. Funny, smart, older…In a town of very small numbers, she was number one on most guys’ lists.”
Kennedy’s lips turned up in a wide smile, one that had Aaron stuttering in his thoughts, wondering, if she’d been a Lyra Valley resident at fifteen, if his “number one” would have been different.
“Did you end up spending a weekend with your dream girl?” she playfully asked.
“She knew it was me before I even got out of the car.”
“Was it the dimple?” Kennedy asked with a tilt of her head.
“Dimple?”
“You have a dimple in your chin.” She nodded toward it. “I imagine you had less beard to cover it up at fifteen.”
Aaron’s brow furrowed as he ran a hand over his face. He wasn’t aware of a dimple, but there was a scar right where she was looking. With the five-day scruff, he could see how it could be mistaken for a dimple.
“Actually,” he said with a grin, “that’s a scar I got a few years ago from a well-deserved punch. So, nope, it wasn’t the dimple.”
Her eyebrows pulled together. “Then I don’t know how she told you two apart.”
He chuckled. “Demeanor. I was a little more anxious to kiss her than he had been.”
That got Kennedy laughing her musical laugh that Aaron was afraid he’d grow addicted to. He was lucky enough to be interrupted by a banging screen door downstairs, followed by a very loud Che
lsea.
“Don’t you leave your shoes there, Grant Daniel Tea. We have a full house tonight. And after your shower I want you dressed nice and ready to see Kennedy, you got it? Hey! Are you listening to me?”
“I got it! Geez, Mom.”
“Oh, don’t you give me that….”
Kennedy pursed her lips to bite away at her amusement, but Aaron wasn’t able to do the same. His laughter rose from his gut, and he shook his head as he attempted again to find a Wi-Fi signal before he, too, got a reprimanding from Chelsea.
“Well, good luck with that,” Kennedy said, pushing off the wall and nodding at his computer.
“You leaving me for better company?” he teased.
“Not that watching you not work isn’t fun…” she teased right back, adding a sexy wink that had the room momentarily spinning. When he came to, her grin was still set on her lips. “Chelsea promised me a spa treatment. I’m going to find out if that was just fancy words or an actual promise.”
He felt another laugh that came from deep within—a real and genuine expression of joy that he found rarer and rarer these days. He was beyond grateful for the brief amount of time he’d had with her, and since he planned on keeping his distance from now on, he had the uncontrollable desire to let her know.
“Well, it was really good talking to you, Kennedy,” he said, making sure his voice was steady and light. “Best conversation I’ve had in a while.”
She studied him, most likely trying to determine if he was teasing her again or being genuine. He dropped his gaze and returned to his work, not giving away anything in his expression. After a moment, he heard her feet shuffle across the floor and caught the bright green of her shirt in the corner of her eye as she started to descend the stairs.
“Me, too,” she said, throwing a wrench into his plan to keep his eyes off her. He lifted his gaze and caught the smallest of smiles on her pink lips before she turned and bounced out of sight.