Return to Me (Blue Harbor Book 5) by Olivia Miles (most popular ebook readers .TXT) 📕

“It’s like you said. We owe it to each other. Sure, we parted ways—”

“We ended things,” she corrected him.

His eyes seemed to frown. “We have a lot of shared memories, Brooke. A lot of history. Don’t you think we owe it to each other, just to be sure? Besides, we’ve waited this long. What are six more dates?” He looked at her plainly, and she realized that he wasn’t going to change his mind.

And he wasn’t going to change hers either, she thought firmly. If that was what he intended to do.

“Fine. Six meet-ups. But I can’t drag this out, Kyle. I have a business to run, and a loan to apply for if I’m going to grow the way I want to and—”

He was smiling now, but it no longer met his eyes. “Just six. I’ll see you at Harborside Creamery. Tonight. Say…seven?”

He wasn’t leaving her a choice. And she was all out of words for him. With a nod, she turned and went into her small office, only releasing her breath when she sank back against the closed door.

Six dates with her husband was a small price to pay to move on with her life once and for all. She picked up a pen and drew six lines in the bottom corner of her planner and then flipped back to her business plan, trying to keep her mind on the future, even if her heart was suddenly being pulled back into the past.

6

An ice cream date didn’t call for much preparation, Brooke decided as she studied the offerings of her closet. And really, this wasn’t a date at all. It was a meeting. Or a meet-up.

It was blackmail, that’s what it was.

Still, there was no reason to show up in her sweats and a threadbare cotton tee, which was what she usually changed into at the end of a long day of work. It was a warm spring night, and so Brooke put on her favorite jeans that barely skimmed her ankles, a simple white scoop-neck tee, and grabbed a blush pink wrap sweater in case the breeze off the lake picked up.

Not that she’d be out for long. She could finish that ice cream in two and a half minutes if need be—she and her sisters used to have various ice cream eating contests as kids. Who could eat the slowest on a cooler day, and who could eat the fastest on those hot, muggy evenings in August when their treats started to melt and trickle down their hands, leaving them sticky.

She held the prize for fastest ice cream eater, even if she did get a brain freeze. Knowing this, she felt better. She’d be in and out and home in her sweats in about fifteen minutes, factoring in the walk to and from the parlor.

Or maybe she’d stop by the Carriage House Inn afterward, see if anyone she knew was in the pub so she could toast to the success of her opening week with a glass of champagne.

She started to laugh as she reached for her keys in the bowl near the back door of her apartment. Who was she kidding? This was Blue Harbor and it was a Friday night. Of course, she would bump into someone she knew tonight. Even at the creamery.

And how would that go exactly? If one of her sisters or cousins or even one of her old friends that she was yet to catch up with saw her sharing a table with her so-called ex, there would be a lot of explaining to do.

She tried to look on the bright side. Maybe it would be better to run into family or friends than to sit alone with Kyle, a man whom she hadn’t shared even ice cream with since she was still carefree and young and full of hope and promise. Maybe bumping into someone wouldn’t lead to explanation, but rather, distraction that would spare her more awkward conversation with Kyle. Maybe Kyle would realize after tonight there was no sense in dragging out the inevitable. That there was nothing left to talk about, even after all these years apart. They’d catch up, summarize the past six years, and then be left with nothing else to say.

Yes, that would be her mission. Kyle might think he had gotten his way by getting her to agree to this ridiculous ice cream date, but she planned to use her time wisely, and she’d be spending it convincing him that the only thing they owed each other was to officially go their separate ways.

*

Kyle tapped on the half-closed door to the back office and poked his head around to see his brother crouched over an ancient computer screen. Normally he’d crack a joke in this situation, tell Ryan that this wasn’t an office job, even if it was hard to find humor in the situation. The pub was barely covering the bills, and already staffing was lean. Some months he didn’t take home a paycheck, not that he was complaining. Feeling sorry for himself was something he’d never done, not when his dad had died, not when he’d given up his dreams of having his own furniture line to take over this place.

Not even when Brooke had left.

“You got the bar covered tonight?”

Pouring drinks wasn’t Ryan’s specialty, but luckily, none of the patrons of the pub asked for anything too complicated. No strange cocktails with funny names, nope. This was a beer and whiskey type of place, maybe the occasional glass of wine and usually only when a lady showed up, which was rare.

It wasn’t how he would have wanted it to be, but he respected it all the same. This pub wasn’t just an institution, it was