21/08/2023
Happy Throwback Thursday! Today I’m sharing a different couple’s love story I never saw coming. I’d known from Honeymoon Harbor’s conception that Quinn would be the last book in the series, but I’d initially had someone completely different planned for him. Then he suddenly surprised me with the last line of this scene in Snowfall on Lighthouse Lane.
I ran upstairs to the gym, where Mr R was walking on the treadmill along a British Columbia trail with an interactive video I’d bought him playing on the TV . “Quinn just chose Amanda!” I described the scene. He thought a minute, nodded, and said “Cool. Congratulations.” And went back to TV mountain hiking.
Here‘s the scene where Quinn took my well thought out plans away from me into his own very capable hands. Because, as we’ve learned, Quinn always knows best. Except for in this upcoming Tuesday’s Forever in Honeymoon Harbor.
TWO HOURS LATER, Amanda was back in Honeymoon Harbor, having taken the ferry because she’d needed time to separate from what she’d just done. Time to breathe. To stand at the rail, the cold wind of Puget Sound whipping at her hair and stinging her cheeks, clearing her head. Now that she was going to be single, she could, she realized, go anywhere in the world. She could throw a dart at a globe and just take off. Go to Italy. Peru. Maybe even Iceland, which was supposed to be beautiful, although the growing season wouldn’t be very long there, which would prevent her from keeping a business she’d built literally from the ground up and loved.
As she saw the lighthouse come into view, followed by Brianna’s beautiful Herons Landing, Amanda watched the boats bobbing in the marina near the ferry landing and realized that she didn’t want to go anywhere. That she’d found her home. Or, more accurately, Eric had found it, but despite what had happened, it didn’t diminish the inner pull she’d felt when she’d first seen the town online. That she belonged here.
After driving off the ferry, she still wasn’t quite ready to go back to the shelter residence where everyone would undoubtedly want to hear how her visit went. She wasn’t ready to talk about sad things yet. She wanted to savor this moment of freedom. Of coming home.
On impulse, she decided to stop at Mannion’s, intending to treat herself to a glass of wine. Quinn was behind the bar as she walked in. He greeted her with a slow, easy smile that didn’t look as if he had any idea where she’d been or what she’d been up to, but she suspected he did know. There were no secrets in Honeymoon Harbor and Aiden was, of course, his brother and Quinn had also been at that interrupted Thanksgiving dinner.
“Well, welcome back,” he said as she climbed up on a stool. It may be foolish, but she always felt uncomfortable sitting alone at a table. “I saw you drive off the ferry and was wondering if you were going to come in here or Cops and Coffee.”
“Caffeine is that last thing I need after the last few days. I’ll take a white wine. A chardonnay.” She glanced around. “I like what you’ve done with the place. I hadn’t realized your talents extended to holiday decorating as well as microbrewing.”
“Cute, but unfortunately not all that original. I’ve been getting ragged about it from nearly every guy who comes in. And I know that you know all this sparkly stuff was put up by Mom and Brianna because they bought those berries and ribbons for the tree from you.”
“I cannot lie. That would be true. But I did talk them out of the gold-and-white tulle draping around the bottom. And glitter.”
“That makes you a saint in my book. One chardonnay coming up.”
He opened a new bottle, a label that had her arching a brow at the price. Eric had almost ordered it once for a table of six in a Napa restaurant they couldn’t afford if it’d been just the two of them until one of the other men, who knew about wine, had suggested a less expensive merlot.
“It’s on the house,” Quinn said. “A rep from the winery dropped off a trial case the other day and you’re the first to weigh in on whether or not I should buy more.”
“I don’t know anything about wine tasting.”
“Neither do I. But you drink wine, so that makes you more of an expert than me.” He poured the wine into the stemmed glass, then placed it in front of her on a white bar napkin.
She held it up. Studied it as if she knew what she was doing. It shone like sunshine in the light streaming in from the waterside window. “It’s got a good color.”
“That’s a start,” he said.
She swirled it around, sniffed. “I smell fruit. And vanilla.”
“Sounds good.”
She took a little sip. “There’s a hint of apple. With a touch of pear. And...” She tilted her head, took another sip. “Maybe a touch of passion fruit?”
“I’ll definitely push that on New Year’s, date nights, and Valentine’s Day,” he said.
Yet a third sip. “And a finishing of crème brûlée from the oak.”
He lifted one of those Mannion Black Irish brows and said, “I thought you didn’t know your wines.”
“I don’t.” She surprised herself by bursting into laughter. How long, she wondered, had it been since she’d laughed? “I just remembered that being part of a description from a pretentious sommelier with a fake French accent in Napa.”
He grinned. “It still sounds impressive. How does it taste, really?”
“It’s really good. Even though I don’t have a clue what went into it.”
“The rep also gave me a fancy multipage binder with lots of photos explaining the process,” Quinn said. “I’ll check it out for any foodies who’ll want to know. In case you feel like a late lunch or early dinner, one of the Harpers brought in some fresh Dungeness crab an hour ago. Jarle’s planning to make chowder, and some other stuff, but tonight’s special is going to be crab fettuccini.”
“Sold,” She hadn’t had an appetite for a week, but suddenly she was hungry. Even if that meal was a heart attack on a plate. The chef at Leaf, the vegetarian restaurant down the street where she more often ate, would probably keel over on the spot, just looking at it.
“Comfort food,” he said approvingly. “And, by the way, before you pass out at the price on the menu, it’s also on the house.”
“I can’t let you do that.”
“Hasn’t anyone told you? Everyone gets a dinner on the house for their birthday.”
“But this isn’t my birthday.”
His smile faded and his gaze gentled, touching her face like the lightest of butterfly kisses. Not a hitting on her or sexually suggestive way. But the kind meant to comfort a broken heart Amanda wasn’t certain could ever be fully put together again.
“Yeah. It is,” he said. Then turned and took her order into the kitchen.
