A Gift for All Seasons. Karen Templeton

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      Their other cousin, Blythe, an interior designer in D.C. who was there for a few days to check on the remodel’s progress, wandered into the kitchen, yawning, a study in drapey grays and silvers. Tall, blond and impossibly chic, she frowned at April.

      “Weren’t you wearing something different at breakfast?”

      Melanie poked Blythe as she bit into one of her own homemade cinnamon rolls. “I remember Patrick Shaughnessy. If vaguely. Dude’s definitely worth the wardrobe crazies.”

      Her coffee brewed, April grabbed the porcelain mug, watching the sunlight dance across her rings before she turned and caught sight of the clock, a big, old-fashioned schoolroom thing Blythe had found in some antiques store. Ten minutes. Sighing, she leaned against the counter and looked at Mel. Time to reveal a detail or two she’d left out when she’d told them he was coming to give the estimate.

      “I take it he was pretty good-looking back then?” she asked her cousin.

      “In a craggy, Heathcliffian sort of way, yeah. All the Shaughnessy boys were.”

      “So his face … it wasn’t scarred?”

      “Scarred? You mean, like … a cut that didn’t heal properly?”

      “No. Worse. Like … I don’t know. Burned, maybe?”

      “What? Ohmigod, are you serious? Is it … bad?”

      April nodded. “Although it’s only one side of his face, so I didn’t notice at first. But when I did …” She grimaced. “I sort of … freaked out.”

      Mel frowned. “Freaked out, how?”

      “I ran. Like some frightened little twit who thought she’d seen the bogeyman. And yes, he saw the whole thing.”

      “Ouch,” Blythe said.

      “Exactly.” April’s gaze drifted out the new kitchen window, widened to take advantage of the shoreline view at the back of the property, the private dock jutting out into the glittering water. Her dock now. Her property. For a moment the thought made her feel all sparkly inside, until the guilt blotted it out again. “He has the sweetest little girl.…”

      Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Blythe and Mel exchange a glance. Deciding to ignore it, April faced them again. “I actually went back to apologize, but he’d already left. So that’s my first order of business when he gets here.”

      Blythe’s eyebrows dipped. “To apologize? You sure that’s a good idea?”

      “You got a better one?”

      “Yeah. Act like it never happened.”

      “Oh, right—”

      “I’m serious,” the blonde said, her short, spiked hair like frosted glass in the sunshine. “Look, I get you feel like crap, but he’s probably used to it—”

      “So that makes what I did okay?”

      “No. But the last thing you want to do is make him more uncomfortable, right?”

      Conflicted, April looked to Mel. “So what would you do?”

      “Me? I would’ve hired another landscaper. Maybe. Hey,” Mel said when April rolled her eyes, “all you can do is trust your gut. Do what feels right.”

      The doorbell rang. Straightening, she set her mug on the counter and swiped her suddenly damp palms down the front of her jeans. “If I don’t throw up first,” she muttered, then headed toward the door, which, after a lung-searing breath, she opened.

      Only to run smack into that crystalline gaze, boring directly into hers.

      He’d never in his life seen someone blush that hard. April kept swallowing, too, like she was about to be sick. Patrick took pity on her and held up his clipboard, to remind her of his purpose there. Except she shook her head, making her red-gold hair swish softly over her shoulders and Patrick unaccountably irritated. Although about what, he couldn’t have said.

      What he could say, though, was that she was even prettier than he remembered. As in, short-out-the-brain pretty. If a trifle too put together for his taste, what with her sweater, shoes and headband all matching. She was also obviously broken up about what she’d done, even before she said, “Before we get started … there is no excuse for how I acted the other day. And I’m sorry.”

      Frankly, he was torn, between wanting to let her off the hook and wanting to see her squirm. His face took some getting used to, no two ways around it. So taking offense was pointless. People were just people.

      But something about this one especially provoked him. Maybe because he wasn’t entirely buying the whole innocent act she was trying so hard to sell.

      Patrick slid his hands into his back pockets, narrowing his eyes even as he realized she’d kept hers steady on his face. Like she was trying to prove something, probably more to herself than to him.

      “How you acted?”

      She swallowed again. And somehow turned even redder. Had to give her props, though, for not sending out her husband in her stead. Then again, for all he knew this was one of those projects where the wife handled all the design decisions and the man just signed the checks. They got a lot of those. “Yes,” she finally said. “At the garden center.”

      “Can’t say as I noticed anything.”

      “And now you’re messing with me.”

      His brows crashed together. What was left of them, anyway. “I’m not—”

      “The heck you aren’t. Because you know darn well what I’m talking about. Although if it makes you feel better, let me spell it out. I acted like a total dimwit when I noticed your scars. I don’t know why, I certainly wasn’t raised like that, and there’s no way I could live with myself without apologizing for my bad behavior. And no, you’re under no obligation to accept my apology, but I am obligated to give it. So. You ready to get started or what?”

      For a good five, six seconds, Patrick could only gape at April like, as she put it, a total dimwit. Sure, her wanting to make amends probably stemmed more from ingrained good manners than anything else, but there’d been a fire behind her words that gave him pause. That, and that damned steady gaze, which was rattling him to hell and back.

      “Apology accepted,” he heard himself mutter, then cleared his throat. “You might want to put on a coat or something, it’s pretty cold out here.”

      She nodded, then vanished into the house, only to return a minute or so later with another woman, a tall blonde who looked vaguely familiar.

      “This is my cousin, Blythe Broussard,” April said, wrapped up in an expensive-looking tan coat that fell well below her knees. “She’s overseeing the house remodel, but she’s also got some ideas for the landscaping.”

      Still no husband. Interesting.

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