Where My Heart Breaks Read online

  “So knowing all of that, I told your mother she’s a damn fool. You can stay here with me at the Willoughby as long as you like. After losing John, and then getting sick the way I’ve been, I can see why having close family can be important. You’re my family, Kate, and I appreciate what you’ve done for me.”

  I clapped my hands together and then I swooped across the bench to give Patrice a massive hug. I could hear her protesting the whole time about still being weak and fragile, but I didn’t care. She had paid me one of the highest compliments anyone in my family had ever given to me. I finally felt like I was able to do something right.

  “So I take it you’ll stay on for the summer then?” Patrice asked when I finally let her go.

  “I love it here,” I said honestly. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

  Patrice smiled. “I have a feeling that has to do as much with a particular young man as anything else, but it’s a nice sentiment. Go on back to work. I’m sure he’ll be around soon, and you’ll want to get tidied up.”

  I gave her another quick hug and then I practically skipped back up to the house. When I breezed through the doorway, I found Sam leaning over the registration desk murmuring something to Millie. He straightened with a guilty look on his face when he saw me.

  “I’m staying!” I burst out. “Patrice said I could stay the summer.”

  “That’s great news!” Millie said.

  “Was there any doubt?” Sam said with a confused look on his face.

  “Why don’t you go make us some coffee?” Millie said. “Let me chat for a few minutes with Kate.”

  Sam nodded with a small smile and then disappeared toward the kitchen.

  I raised an eyebrow at my friend. “What is that about?”

  “I’m breaking down those walls,” she said with a small smile.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “You’ve got some rich, gorgeous guy back in Manhattan who has been after you for over a year. Even if you didn’t want him, there are a million guys out there. What’s your attraction to Sam?”

  Millie shook her head. “You should have spent some more time getting to know him before you chucked him to the side. Your loss, my gain.”

  I knew by her wink that she was kidding. She pulled out her phone, and I watched her type something into the Google search field. Then she handed the phone to me. It was a close up picture of Sam, but he looked different in it. He was positively hunky in his plain white t-shirt and jeans. Then I saw the picture was attached to a Wiki article on an actor named Carter Samuel Groveson.

  I thought about the first day that I met him and how he looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place him. I burst out laughing.

  “Horror Night on Frat Row!” I exclaimed. Millie shushed me, and I lowered my voice. “You probably watched that movie a million times last year.”

  “I know!” Millie said. “I recognized him right away. He’s super shy about talking about it. It was a gig that he did to earn some extra cash between his freshman and sophomore year, and I think it embarrasses him even though I told him how much I loved that movie. He said that he’s considering auditioning for a theater company in New York in the fall instead of going back to UNC.”

  “It’s such a small world,” I said. “So you like him?”

  “I’m fascinated by him,” Millie corrected. “Plus he’s a nice guy. I like that.”

  I understood what she meant. After all the jerks we met over the years, it was decidedly refreshing to meet a guy who was simply a nice guy. And as if I called him up with my mind, my own nice guy walked through the door.

  I heard Millie chuckle. “Hey, Reed. I’ll see you later, Kate.”

  I didn’t even turn to tell her goodbye. I only had eyes for Reed.

  Just like that day under the bridge, he opened his arms to me. I ran to him and jumped up into them. He whirled me around, and I laughed. All the stress and anxiety of the day bled away. I couldn’t remember ever being so happy.

  EPILOGUE

  The summer slipped through my fingers like sand after that, and soon it was time for Millie to leave and head back to school. Like her father, I couldn’t believe that she stayed the whole summer at the Willoughby, but I had a feeling a certain up and coming young actor had something to do with it.

  Patrice continued to surprise me. She offered to help me pay the tuition for school with a little bit of money she had set aside. While I appreciated her offer, I told her that it was important for me to stand on my own two feet. I signed up to take bookkeeping classes at Cheshire Community College. I still liked numbers, and I knew that I could save Patrice some time and money if I took over that side of the business for her. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with the rest of my life yet. I was going to take some time off and figure it out, and I was determined not to stress out about it. Now that I was the one making the decisions about my life, I found I wasn’t in any hurry to rush into any career choices just yet.

  Patrice offered to let me stay at the Willoughby after the summer ended too, but by then it was pretty obvious to everyone that Reed and I were inseparable. For the time being, he didn’t want to be too far away from his mother, and I understood. After Patrice’s health scare, I didn’t want to stray to far either. In a letter she sent mid-summer when my parents returned from Europe, She and I had grown close since my mother made it clear that if I didn’t come home immediately she was going to disown me. I didn’t bother responding.

  I felt like my heart was going to burst the day that Reed asked me if I’d consider moving in with him.

  “I thought we weren’t going to talk about the future,” I said. Even after Patrice was fully recovered, Reed kept mum on any topic that touched on our relationship status. I wasn’t even sure that I was allowed to call him my boyfriend yet.

  “I have a lot of superstition around saying things out loud before it’s time,” Reed said. We were standing by the lakeshore at Grossler’s Point. We hadn’t been back to that spot since that afternoon he first made love to me. He held me in his arms as we watched several boats pass by. “I don’t want to jinx anything.”

  I turned in his arms and put my hands around his neck. I decided I would never get tired of the way that he looked at me with such heat in his eyes. It was as if his insides burned for me. I felt the same way.

  “Well, I don’t move in with any random guy who asks me,” I said, deliberately being mischievous.

  Reed smiled and brushed his lips across my forehead. That simple gesture made my knees weak. “I will kill any random guy who would try to ask you because you are mine, Kate.”

  He kissed me then so boldly that I was sure he was staking his claim to my soul as well as my body. I didn’t mind that either. I was head over heels in love with Reed Black.

  When he finally released my lips, I asked breathlessly, “ So what does that mean?”

  “That means that I love you,” he said softly. “If you want me to yell it to the next damn boat that goes by I will. I want you to move in with me. I want you in my life. I want you in my bed, and I never intend to let you go. You’ve shown me that for the last ten years, I’ve been courting a memory. I will always love Izzy, but she’s my past. You’re my future.”

  His words shook me to my core. I looked up at him and knew without a doubt that he was the man for me. Forever. I stood on my tiptoes and brushed my lips against his. “I love you too, Reed Black.”

  He reached down and, hooking his arm under my legs, lifted me up into his arms. I squealed and threw back my head laughing.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m not letting any slippery damn rocks steal you away from me,” he said.

  I looked back over his shoulder and into the setting sun. In my mind, I could almost picture Jackson and Camilla standing there with their arms around each other, watching us leave.

  Then I dropped my head and nuzzled my nose next to Reed’s neck. His arms tightened around me, and I felt safe and loved. Walter Moole
n didn’t have anything on the love I’d found with Reed Black. He was my happy ending.

  #####

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  Note from the Author

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read Kate and Reed’s story! If you enjoyed Where My Heart Breaks please consider leaving a review and sharing your thoughts. I'd also love to hear what you liked (and what you didn't!) if you'd like to drop me a line at [email protected]. As always, thank you for your support.

  About Ivy Sinclair

  Ivy Sinclair cut her romance teeth on classics like Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, An Affair to Remember, and Sabrina. She is a firm believer in true love, a happily ever after ending, and the medicinal use of chocolate to cure any ailment of the heart. Ivy's guilty pleasures include sushi, endless Starbucks lattes, and wine. Readers of Ivy's stories can expect smoldering sweet stories of romance that tug at the heartstrings.

  Connect with Ivy on Facebook by clicking HERE.

  Other titles by Ivy Sinclar:

  Bittersweet Junction

  A Heart to Rescue

  Cupid’s Cupcake

  The Sleepover Seduction

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Author Credits