So much was the same, only so much had changed. Before, when she visited the island, she was a girl. Her life, while planned out for her in so many ways, was still wide open. She didn’t have to follow the carefully laid course—it was just easier to do so. She could have veered to the left, at any moment, and chosen her own path.
Like she was doing now.
“Thoughts?” John slid her a wide-eyed look, and she did her best to suppress a laugh.
“Carpet needs to go,” she whispered in his ear.
He laughed. He had a great laugh: rich and loud and warm. The kind of laugh you yearned to hear again. The kind of laugh that said so much about his character. He was honest, sincere, and kind.
And in another lifetime, he could have been someone she loved.
“Wait until you see the dining room,” he said, motioning for her to follow him to the back of the lobby, where the floor-to-ceiling windows boasted a view of the lake even if they were flanked in heavy gold drapery.
Merriment made his eyes twinkle as he turned to look her way, and she could only shake her head. Really, what was there to say?
They continued their tour to a few of the unoccupied bedrooms upstairs, each done up in heavy wallpaper with matching fabric on the upholstery and bedding, and only once they were outside, on the back deck that dropped down to the pool area and beachfront, did they allow themselves to speak freely.
“It needs a lot of freshening up,” she confirmed. “But so much potential! Do you think the new management has any ideas?”
He gave her a funny smile. “Oh, I think they could be convinced.”
She spread her arms wide, taking in the view of the South Bay lighthouse in the distance, and the harbor on the other side. “I mean, look at this! Think of what this place could be!”
“Oh, I know what it could be. And I was thinking that you could be the design expert. If you’re interested.”
She blinked and turned to stare at him. Giving her ideas for the place was one thing. Working on a project of this scale was another. “Me?”
“Why not?” He shrugged. “You know the island. You know the people and what they like. You’d be true to the history, authentic to the charm of the place.”
She would. She could. She could be everything that he was describing. But taking on a job like this was a commitment—it meant more than asking Ellie or Gemma to watch the girls for a few hours. More than helping people like Darcy freshen up their homes. It meant…It meant a whole new life. A whole new set of possibilities.
“I need some time to think about it, if that’s okay.”
He held up a hand. “Of course.”
“And thank you. For thinking of me. I just don’t want to give my word unless I can truly commit.”
“Do you mind me asking what’s holding you back?” He stopped himself, shook his head. “Sorry. That was unprofessional and I overstepped. But, this meeting wasn’t purely professional, if I’m being honest.”
“Neither was my dinner the other night,” she said gently.
They locked eyes, and what she saw in his, she realized, was hope.
She cleared her throat and began walking down the steps, eager to keep moving, even if a part of her was anxious about what would happen next.
“So, how is it that a guy like you isn’t already married?” she asked, giving him a rueful look.
“I was married,” he said simply, and she tried to hide her shock. Why hadn’t she considered this before? A man like John, patient, kind, supportive…he wouldn’t have just sat on the market, and he didn’t seem like the type who was set firmly on being an eternal bachelor either. “It was short lived. No children, much as I would have wished,” he added, casting her a glance.
Something in her tugged. He would have made a great father. He still would. After all, he was only a couple years older than she was, from what she knew. He’d be the kind of father who got down on the ground and played with the kids, who helped not just wrap the birthday presents but pick them out too. The kind of husband who’d hold doors and get the strollers through them.
“Katherine and I married young, right out of college,” he elaborated.
Hope nodded. “Evan and I met in college too.” He’d been cute, interested, and he’d seemed like the perfect choice. Her parents’ approval had only confirmed that. Made her think she was on the right path.
But had her heart ever raced, or her stomach ever fluttered, the way it did now, talking to John?
She wanted to say that it must have. But she couldn’t be so sure.
“It’s all so much simpler when you’re young, isn’t it? She was my first serious girlfriend. I didn’t know any other way. I didn’t even know who I was or what I really wanted from my life.”
Hope nodded. Yes. Yes. Yes. He understood. So, so well. What she thought she wanted was just the comfort of what she’d always known. And now…now she wanted something different.
“So we got married, and let’s just say that it was a lot tougher than we thought it would be. I was trying to move my way up at the company and I was working a lot, and Katherine struggled to find work, and that made me work even more, and then she complained that I wasn’t around, and, well, the long and the short of it is that she left me.”
Hope stopped walking. She stared at John. Possibly, she gaped. “She left you?”
The astonishment must have been clear on her face because John gave a low laugh. “Don’t look so surprised. To hear Katherine spin it, I was an absentee workaholic husband who didn’t treat her like she deserved.” He shrugged. “Maybe I didn’t.”
“I find that very hard to believe,” Hope said, shaking her head.
They had reached the beachfront now, and a breeze was blowing in off the lake. Hope slipped off her heels and let them dangle in her hand.
“Going through a divorce that young changed me,” John said. “At first, I threw myself even more into work. Told myself that I wouldn’t be punished for working too hard. Told myself that I was good at something, even if I’d failed in my marriage.”
“And now? Did you ever date?” she asked, even though she almost didn’t want to know. The thought of John with another woman bothered her, even though she knew it shouldn’t.
“Some. But none of it really stuck. And as the years went by, more and more women were already paired off.” He gaze pulled her in. “But I’d like to have a second chance. I’ve changed my ways. And I know what’s important now. I just sometimes wish I’d learned that lesson a little sooner.”
He stopped to face her and grinned, and Hope felt a strange sense of propriety toward him, a tenderness that extended beyond her own desires, a need for him to find what he was looking for.
A second chance. After all, wasn’t that what she was hoping to find for herself?
“Well,” she said when the shoreline turned rocky and it made sense to turn around. “I suppose I should head back and check on the girls before they do something like turn my sister’s novel into confetti.”
John laughed, and she did too.
“They wouldn’t really,” he said, but there was enough hesitation in his tone to prove he’d met her kids.