Vaughn huffed in amusement. “I wouldn’t know. She’s never smiled at me.”

“Ah, well, you’re doing something wrong.”

He groaned. “Dad, I know you’re worried about me, but I’m fine. I’m better than fine. And I’m living my life the way I want to live it. That means a parade of women through my bedroom. The Bailey Hartwells of the world are not for me, and sadly that means no grandkids for you. Can you please just accept that so we can enjoy the rest of your visit?”

“You know I’ve always tried to let you live your life your way.”

“And it’s one of the reasons I like you.”

At that his dad gave a bark of laughter and slung his arm around Vaughn’s shoulder. “Okay then. What do I get to see next?”

FIVE

Bailey

At times I wished I wasn’t addicted to Emery’s coffee. If I hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have bumped into Vaughn and his charming father, Liam Tremaine, today of all days. Then again as always my curiosity about Vaughn was piqued by meeting his father.

I usually grabbed a cup of Emery’s coffee in the morning for Jessica and for myself, as I passed by her office on my way back to the inn. We both needed our coffee before we had to converse with too many people. Coffee made it easier for me to work in hospitality. Coffee made the memory of the horrible encounter with Tom this morning easier to handle and Emery’s had slowly become one of my favorite hangout spots over these last few months. The hodgepodge of white-painted furniture and Tiffany lamps set against rich teal walls appealed to me. I liked cozy casualness and Emery did it in style. Not to mention I loved lazing a winter afternoon away by Emery’s fireplace.

Before Jessica arrived in Hartwell last summer I didn’t know Emery Saunders all that well. All I knew was that she was this ethereal young beauty with a bad case of shyness. Usually I was good at drawing people out of themselves but I think my somewhat brash style of doing so was too much for Emery. Jessica’s soothing presence did wonders for the young woman and she’d managed to get Emery to open up. Well . . . open up to Jess, me, and our friend Dahlia.

She still couldn’t put together more than a sentence around most strangers and men.

I’d grown fond of my coffee-giver and so I was more than a little curious about her. I had been since her arrival in Hartwell eight years ago. It was just that my curiosity had grown in proportion since becoming friends with her. We knew little of her life before Hartwell—she didn’t talk about it and Jessica had urged me not to push Emery on the subject. So I hadn’t.

All we knew was that she’d inherited her grandmother’s company and that was probably how she had been able to afford to buy property on the boardwalk. We didn’t know what kind of company it had been, or where she and this mysterious grandmother had hailed from. Nothing. Nada.

My friend could barely say two words to men but she seemed fascinated by my love life. And Jess and Cooper’s love life.

I could understand her fascination with Jessica and Cooper. Since meeting last summer they had made this passionate, beautiful connection that even I envied.

They’d proven the legend of Hart’s Boardwalk true.

The legend sprung from my family—the founding family. Back in 1909 my great-grandmother’s sister, Eliza, was the darling of Hartwell. Our family had wealth and power and Eliza, being the eldest, was expected to marry well. Instead she somehow crossed paths and fell in love with a steelworker from the Straiton Railroad Company, based just outside of town. Jonas Kellerman was considered beneath Eliza and also a con artist. Her family tried to convince Eliza that he was only using her to gain her wealth.

But Eliza didn’t believe her family and she and Jonas made plans to marry in secret. Her father, my great-great-grandfather, found out their plans and he threatened harm against the Kellermans if Eliza didn’t marry the man he had chosen for her. To protect Jonas she agreed to marry the son of a wealthy Pennsylvania businessman. But, devastated, on the eve of her wedding Eliza snuck out and went to the beach late at night. She walked right into the ocean. By chance Jonas was up on the boardwalk with some friends, drowning his sorrows, when they saw Eliza. He rushed down to save her and his friends say they saw him reach her. But the ocean carried them away together and they were never seen again.

Over the years people have grown to believe in the legend that Jonas’s sacrifice and the purity of their love created magic. Also because townies who fall in love on the boardwalk stay in love their whole lives. There’s a spot on the boardwalk near the bandstand with a brass plaque for tourists about the legend. It says if they walk the boardwalk together, and they’re truly in love, it will last forever. As for my great-great-grandfather, he made a few bad investments and lost a lot of his wealth. People believed the Hartwells were punished for what happened to Eliza.

When my parents decided to retire they sold what we had left of the Hartwell estate, with the exception of the inn. My father had run a small real estate and property management business while my mother and I ran the inn. They sold the property company to Ian Devlin. The inn they gave to my siblings and me. My brother, Charlie, was a financial advisor in Virginia, and my sister, Vanessa, was a restless, money-hungry little bird that flew around Europe chasing one rich man after the other.

Neither of them wanted to help me continue to run the inn so I considered Hart’s Inn all mine.

I was possessive of it and of the boardwalk and the people in it. Admittedly that’s why my antagonism with Vaughn came to fruition. I thought I was protecting everyone from him when he first arrived.