Chapter 12

TWELVE

Why couldn’t she sleep in this freaking town? Diana thumped a fist against her pillow in frustration. She’d been in Crescent Falls for a week now and had yet to get a decent night’s sleep. The white noise app helped a little, but sleep was no longer her friend.

Just as Emily no longer was. Not that Emily had ever been her friend, per se. But they’d shared a profound connection when they first met. Now Emily had closed herself off, despite Diana’s attempts to set things right between them. Diana had been relentlessly friendly to her all week, and Emily had been nothing but stilted and awkward in return. It hurt more than Diana would have anticipated.

Emily didn’t trust her. She was concerned that Diana was all talk and no follow-through, which chafed like ill-fitting underwear. The very idea that Diana didn’t know how to run the inn properly…it was preposterous! But she also couldn’t entirely blame Emily for doubting her. Maybe Diana should have just told her why she left Devlin. At the ti me, it hadn’t entered her mind, but in hindsight…she wondered.

Diana had been raised to keep certain things to herself to avoid causing embarrassment for the family. It was why she’d never talked about her anxiety with anyone but her therapist, and the events that led to her leaving Devlin Hotels fell solidly in the same category. She didn’t necessarily agree with her parents’ policy, and yet, she found herself upholding it anyway. Apparently, there were some things she just didn’t know how to talk about.

In the long run, it didn’t matter. She didn’t need Emily’s approval. Diana knew she would do a good job, that she would improve the inn in ways its former owners would be proud of. Sooner or later, Emily would come around and see it, and if she didn’t, well…Diana would just keep pretending she didn’t care.

With a sigh, she rolled to her back. She knew every beat of the city sounds that played on a loop from the white noise app by now, her mind unconsciously anticipating what came next. Behind the white noise, she could hear the wind rushing through the trees, a sound that had become slightly less ominous now that she’d been here a week.

Fatigue burned her eyes and weighed down her body, so why couldn’t she sleep?

As if in answer, her limbs twitched with suppressed anxiety. It hadn’t been this bad in years. When she got back to Boston, it might be time to see her psychiatrist and get a new prescription. She’d been on SSRIs for most of her twenties, but a combination of cognitive skills learned in therapy, regular exercise, and the security that came with her appointment to vice president of independent purchasing had allowed her to keep her anxiety under control without medication for over ten years now .

Of course, she should have anticipated that her recent career upheaval would throw her off-kilter. She’d spent the last week working with Mary and Eva to make the transfer of ownership as seamless as possible. Tomorrow, Diana would be running things on her own.

She was operating without a safety net for the first time in her life. Yes, her new business was insured, but she no longer had the financial security of her personal nest egg…or the certainty that her family would bail her out if she needed help. Being on her own was exhilarating, but also scarier than she’d expected.

Being a Devlin came with a certain level of privilege. She knew that and had never taken it for granted. Her family’s wealth and reputation had given her advantages in life, both personally and professionally. Now, it was time to build her own future.

She had such big plans for this inn, and tomorrow, she could start implementing them. She wanted it to be perfect, a flawless first day as the inn’s official owner. So naturally, her body was sabotaging her. Diana sighed, her legs shifting restlessly between the sheets.

Maybe she should do more hiking. She hadn’t been on a hike since that day in June. Surely that would help burn enough energy to calm her down. Plus, she needed to take advantage of the mountain scenery while she had it. All too soon, she’d be back in the city. She’d seen a few yellow leaves outside her windows this morning. Soon, the foliage would really start to turn, and it was supposed to be extraordinary up here.

Diana sat up. Now that she’d acknowledged the anxiety prickling beneath her skin, she had a few tools available to help calm it so she could sleep. It was too late for exercise, but she had CBD drops she sometimes took on nights like this. She padded to the kitchen and dabbed a few drops on her tongue, then washed them down with a glass of water.

She could also try meditating for a few minutes to clear her head. She could already tell her thoughts were too chaotic for that tonight, though. Rather than getting back into bed, she walked to the window and stood staring out into the darkness. When she’d been here in June, she hadn’t realized how dark it got out here in the mountains. Thanks to Emily, she hadn’t even left her hotel that night. Hadn’t even looked out her window.

She’d been too busy letting Emily edge her to one of the most powerful orgasms of her life. God. She was throbbing just thinking about it. And maybe that was another reason she was wound so tight lately. She hadn’t been with anyone since. She’d been so busy getting Aster off the ground, she’d barely taken care of her own needs. Plus, she’d had Carter in the room next door.

But she was alone now, and orgasms were great for stress relief. Her hand slipped inside her sleep shorts, and she hissed as her fingers made contact with her clit. She rubbed a few circles around it, surprised at how aroused she already was. Her fingers dipped lower, sliding through her wetness as her mind helpfully replayed the way Emily had teased her, fingers ghosting over her until Diana had begged for more.

She swayed forward, her free hand slapping against the window to support herself, but…she couldn’t do this in front of the window. Even though she knew there was no one out there—her current isolation was part of the reason she couldn’t sleep, after all—she still felt exposed, on display for the creatures of the forest, if nothing else.

She hurried to her bed and crawled onto it, lying on her stomach so she could thrust her hips against her fingers the way she liked. Her vibrator would be better, but somehow she hadn’t thought to pack it. Her fingers moved almost frantically as her need grew, but every time Emily’s face surfaced in her mind, she forced it away.

Yes, she’d masturbated to the memory of her night with Emily several times since June, but she couldn’t do that now that Emily was her employee. She searched her brain for someone else to fantasize about, scrolling through her mental inventory of hot actresses, but nothing seemed to help.

“Need a little something more?” Emily’s voice murmured in her head.

“Yes,” Diana panted, stroking faster, but no . Not Emily. She groaned in frustration. Why couldn’t she do this without thinking of Emily? Purposefully, she cleared her mind, focusing on the sensations in her body, the needy ache between her thighs and the heat crawling over her skin. Her breath caught as she pressed her fingers more firmly against her clit.

She braced her knees against the quilt, thrusting harder against her fingers. She was almost there…

“I think you can wait just a little bit longer…” Emily whispered in her head.

Diana ignored her, grinding against her fingers. Tonight, any orgasm would do. Her wrist was starting to ache, and she was so tired. So goddamn tired. “Just finish already,” she muttered to herself, frustrated as she switched to her left hand. She rubbed and rubbed, but she could feel herself losing steam now.

Her arousal plateaued as her frustration grew. She was starting to get sore, and yet her orgasm remained frustratingly out of reach. With a groan, she flopped onto her back in defeat. Her core still ached for release. She was out of breath, her muscles coiled even tighter than they had been before she started.

Fuck. Me.

That night, she slept worse than ever, arriving at the inn on Monday morning sleep-deprived and grumpy. As she entered through the back door, she bumped into Emily, who seemed to have also just arrived for work.

“Good morning.” Diana gave her a cheerful smile that in no way reflected her current mood.

“Morning.” Emily barely glanced at her.

“Got any fun plans this week?”

Emily looked vaguely annoyed that Diana was still talking to her. “Just working. Celeste, our events manager, is visiting her mom in Connecticut this week, which…obviously you know that, but she usually covers for me when I take lunch, so I’ve got a couple of extra-long shifts coming up.”

“Oh.” Diana had known that Celeste was out of town, but not that Emily wouldn’t have lunch coverage. “I’d be happy to cover for you. It would give me a good opportunity to get some experience with the front end of things.”

But Emily shook her head. “That’s not your job. It’s fine, really.”

Diana forced herself to keep smiling when she really wanted to groan in frustration. She hated this awkwardness between them. “Really, I want to.”

“You do?”

“Of course.” She was trying to win Emily over, but also, she did want to familiarize herself with running the inn from the ground up.

“Well, okay. Thanks.”

“No problem. Have a nice day, Emily.” She headed down the hall to her office, which Eva and Mary had vacated on Friday. Grateful for the privacy, Diana set up her laptop and got to work. She had a contractor coming that afternoon about the picnic tables, and she needed to get a job listing posted for the new general manager position.

She hoped to fill it by the end of the month so she had plenty of time to train the new manager on the day-to-day particulars of running the inn. Once everything was running smoothly, she could return to Boston, and right now, that moment couldn’t come soon enough. She felt like one of the wilted leaves she plucked from her plants, a brittle, dried-out husk of herself.

After a quick call with Carter, she turned her attention to finalizing the job description for the new general manager. To combat the fatigue that seemed to have infused every cell in her body, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot behind her desk.

By lunchtime, the job was posted, and the coffee pot was empty. Diana had had a surprisingly productive morning, all things considered. A routine call to the bakery that supplied the inn’s continental breakfast had turned into an hour-long conversation as the chatty woman on the other end of the line initiated a brainstorming session on ways to improve their breakfast service, ideas that Mary and Eva had apparently suggested she save for the future owner.

It was an extremely informative call. Diana had jotted several pages of notes on all the new options she wanted to implement, but for the past thirty minutes or so, she’d been ignoring increasingly urgent distress signals from her bladder after drinking so much coffee.

“Thank you so much, Vera. I’ll definitely be over to visit the bakery in person soon and talk more about this,” Diana said .

“Absolutely! I can’t wait to meet you. I’m here every morning.”

“Perfect. If I don’t make it over this week, next week for sure,” Diana told her.

She ended the call, shifting impatiently in her seat as she finished jotting down her notes, not wanting to forget anything. She’d learned long ago that it was worth the extra effort to write her thoughts down while they were fresh. Then she closed her notebook and stood, her knees wobbly from a combination of exhaustion and overcaffeination.

Tonight, she had to sleep, dammit. She strode toward the door, slamming straight into Emily, who had just crossed the threshold into Diana’s office. For a moment, nothing registered but the warm press of Emily’s body against hers, heat spreading like a flash fire through Diana’s system as her body reminded her of what she hadn’t finished last night. Just as quickly, she stepped backward, jaw clenched in irritation at herself.

Emily stared at her. “I, ah…”

Diana crossed her arms over her chest, resisting the urge to tap her foot against the floor. Now that her senses weren’t intoxicated by Emily’s body touching hers, she remembered how badly she had to pee.

She was also painfully aware of something else. In her single-minded determination to buy the inn and get her new business up and running, she’d failed to consider what it would be like to work with Emily after the night they’d shared. It hadn’t just been sex. It was really intimate sex. Diana had let herself be vulnerable that night. She’d begged .

And now she had to act as if it meant nothing. She had to stand here as if her armor wasn’t dented, as if it didn’t feel like Emily was poking at her weak spots every time she looked at Diana with those mistrustful eyes .

She reeled in her spiraling thoughts and cleared her throat. “Yes?”

“Um, there’s a disgruntled guest at the front desk demanding to see the manager.”

“Lovely,” Diana muttered. “And what is their grievance?”

“He swears he booked his room—one of the luxury suites upstairs—for $99 a night. Those rooms don’t ever go that cheap, certainly not in the fall. The rate on his booking is $259, and even that’s a pretty good deal for that room. The system isn’t wrong, but sometimes people try this, hoping they can convince me to give them some ridiculously cheap rate just because they said so.”

“I see, and he’s waiting at the front desk?”

“Yep. The reservation is up on the screen. You know how to use the system, right?”

“Of course.” And with that, Diana turned and strode toward the lobby.

Emily kept a polite smile in place as Diana dealt with the belligerent man at the desk, reluctantly impressed with her customer service skills, even if things had been weird for a moment there in her office. Diana had been nothing but friendly since she returned to Vermont, but she’d jumped away from Emily just now like she couldn’t stand touching her. Or was it that she was afraid to touch her, given their history?

Emily couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t sure of anything where Diana was concerned. The easy rapport they’d shared in June was long gone. Now, things between them were polite at best, and Emily knew it was her fault. She’d been throwing up barriers since Diana’s return, uncomfortable with her owning the inn and reluctant to trust that Diana knew what she was doing.

She seemed different now from the way Emily remembered her when they first met, polite and reserved and…tired. Emily couldn’t help noticing that Diana had looked exhausted ever since she arrived. Maybe this career change had been harder than she wanted to admit.

“As you see here, the rates on the room you booked vary from $159 to $399, depending on the season, so it’s not possible that you booked it for $99,” Diana told the belligerent customer with all the poise that had made Emily swoon for her in the first place. She was firm but charming, somehow convincing him that he’d made a mistake after all.

“I guess I might have been remembering a price I saw at the hotel down the street,” he finally admitted.

“That hotel does book more cheaply, but they don’t have our views or amenities,” Diana assured him, sounding as if she’d worked here for years. “Here’s a gift card for $50 off your next stay, to make up for the misunderstanding.”

“Oh,” the man’s wife said, eyes lighting up as she accepted the gift card. “Thank you.”

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Diana asked, hands clasped loosely behind her back, and Emily quickly yanked her gaze back to Diana’s face before she was tempted to stare at her rose-colored skirt or the shapely ass it covered.

“No.” The man still looked somewhat disgruntled, but his face had lost its ruddy color.

“I hope you have a safe and comfortable trip home,” Diana told him, her expression warm and gracious.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He turned and headed for the front door, his wife giving them an apologetic look over her shoulder as they left.

“That was impressive,” Emily blurted as soon as the door had closed behind them. “I was sure we’d have to end up giving him the lower rate just to get him out the door without causing more of a scene.”

Diana raised her eyebrows at Emily. “Still doubting my qualifications?”

“No,” Emily murmured, somewhat ashamed that Diana had called her out on her skepticism.

Diana touched her shoulder with a soft smile, then headed down the hall, heels clicking on the hardwood floors. Emily turned, not even fully aware she was watching Diana walk away until she noticed Diana had turned right at the end of the hall, away from her office. Toward the bathroom.

And now Emily remembered that Diana had already been on her way out of her office when Emily slammed into her in the doorway. Emily had terrible timing, as usual. But Diana hadn’t complained, not today or a single time since she’d bought the inn, although she was obviously under stress and Emily had inadvertently been making things harder for her.

Emily still didn’t trust her completely where the inn was concerned, but the truth was, she probably wouldn’t have trusted anyone to love this inn the way her grandmothers had. Her distrust was her own problem, though, not Diana’s, and Emily was going to try harder to be nice from here on out.

She glanced at her phone to check the time and noticed a Facebook notification from her mother. Emily flinched, discomfort squirming in her stomach. Still, she clicked on it to see a picture of her mom with her current boyfriend, posing for a selfie on the Vegas strip. She’d tagged Emily with her usual “Wish you were here!” followed by a bunch of random emojis.

Emily was never sure how to react. It was so awkward, so superficial. Eventually, she hit the Like button, her standard response. The phone at the desk began to ring, and Emily suppressed a sigh as she reached for it. “Front desk, this is Emily. How may I help you?”

“We need more towels in room 205,” a woman said. “Could you send some up?”

“Absolutely,” Emily said. “Someone from housekeeping will be right up with fresh towels for you.”

Emily dealt with that and then spent a relatively quiet final hour of her shift. As she handed the desk over to another employee, Jeremy, for the afternoon, Emily was craving the peace she found with a paintbrush in her hand. The black-eyed Susans were blooming in the field behind the inn, and she was going to take a canvas down there and see where her muse led her.

She gathered her things and began the walk home. As her cottage came into view, Emily saw a green Subaru Outback in her driveway, and her step quickened. Why was Alex here? And more importantly, why hadn’t she called to let Emily know she was here?

Since Alex didn’t have a key, Emily walked around back and found her friend on the porch, playing with Jack. “Hey,” Emily called. “Why didn’t you come up to the inn and say hi?”

Alex looked over, and Emily’s stomach dropped. Her eyes were red and swollen, and as Emily opened the screen door to join her, Alex released a shuddering breath, her diaphragm hitching with the aftereffects of tears. A lot of tears.

“Frankie and I had a fight.” She wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at her feet. “A stupid fight, but it was a big one.”

“Aww, sweetie, I’m sorry. Do you want to stay here tonight?”

“Maybe,” Alex whispered, releasing another shaky breath.

“I have a bottle of white wine in the fridge. Why don’t I bring it out here, and you can tell me everything?” Emily suggested. “And then we’ll put on a scary movie or something utterly non -romantic and eat ice cream.”

Alex’s shoulders slumped with what looked like relief, and she nodded. “That sounds good.”

“Okay. Give me one sec.” Emily headed toward the door to the house, pausing to whistle at Jack, who was fluttering insistently around her head, chirping at the top of his lungs. “Wine for the humans and a blueberry for you, okay?”

Behind her, Alex snorted with laughter.

Emily went inside and set down her bag, then uncorked the wine and grabbed two glasses plus a blueberry for Jack, and headed back to the porch. She sat beside Alex and filled both glasses nearly to the brim before handing one to her friend. “Vent away.”

Alex sighed. “We were at the store, and she saw me looking at job listings on my phone. There’s a bakery in Manchester that’s looking for a pastry chef, which I thought might be a good fit for me, but Frankie got so mad, said I was sneaking around looking for new jobs behind her back. She wants me to keep working with her at the store. Things are going so well, why would I want to ruin it? You know how she gets sometimes…”

Emily did. Alex and Frankie had been together for about five years, but they’d been off and on for most of that time, and they fought a lot . Sometimes, Emily thought they were in love, and sometimes she wondered why the hell they were still together. When they fought, Frankie would say things that made Emily want to throttle her because Alex was the sweetest human ever. Inevitably, things would blow over, and they’d go back to normal.

“So we yelled at each other, and someone came into the store while we were yelling, and then Frankie got even more mad because we’d made a scene in front of a customer. She managed to make the sale and then went back to yelling at me, and I just…walked out in the middle of my shift and came here.”

“Fuck, I’m so sorry.” Emily wrapped an arm around Alex, giving her an awkward half hug while they balanced their wineglasses.

“I hate when we fight.” Tears shone in Alex’s eyes, which were still red and puffy from all the crying she’d done before Emily got home.

“I’m super pissed that she got mad at you for looking at jobs. There’s nothing wrong with you pursuing your own career, Alex. I know you two have fun working together at the store, but you deserve more than that.”

Alex nodded, her bottom lip trembling. “Of all things to fight about! She’s always been supportive before, or at least I thought she was? I guess I haven’t actually looked for a culinary job since we got back together this last time.”

“Sounds like you need to have a serious conversation about it, once you’ve both calmed down.”

“Yeah.” Alex took another gulp of wine .

“In the meantime, girls’ night.” Emily tapped her glass against Alex’s, glad to be the one giving comfort this time. Alex had held her while she sobbed endlessly after Jenny—the woman Emily had thought was the love of her life—left her for a job in New York City a few years ago. Emily had been a wreck for weeks.

She and Jenny had been together for two years when Jenny was offered her dream job doing graphic design work for one of the television studios in Manhattan. Jenny had asked Emily to come with her, but when Emily refused to leave Crescent Falls, Jenny prioritized the new job over her girlfriend.

Emily was still friends with her on social media, and Jenny was thriving in the city, always posting stunning pictures of herself and her graphic design work. She’d also recently gotten married. She’d moved on while Emily was still spinning her wheels, wondering why her little hometown was never enough to satisfy the people in her life.

“Don’t suppose you have any chocolate ice cream in your freezer?” Alex asked, the hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

“You know me. I’ve always got an emergency stash.”

They finished the bottle of wine, then went inside and got out the ice cream. They were halfway through The Woman King —and the carton of ice cream—when Alex’s phone rang. From the look on her face, Emily knew it was Frankie. She paused the movie as Alex accepted the call.

“Hey,” she said in a subdued tone.

Emily got up to put away the ice cream, then dawdled in the kitchen for a few minutes to give Alex some privacy. When she returned to the living room, Alex was saying, “I’m sorry too.” A pause. “Yeah, okay. I’m at Emily’s.” She ended the call and gave Emily a sheepish look. “She’s going to come pick me up…since you got me pretty tipsy on wine.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night? Or at least for the rest of the movie?”

“I’ll come back and finish the movie, promise. But Frankie and I should probably talk things through now that we’ve both calmed down.”

Emily nodded. “I hope you get it all worked out, and if you’re still upset later, don’t hesitate to come back, ’kay? I’m always here for you.” She pulled Alex into a hug.

She hugged Emily back. “Always. What are best friends for, right?”

“Exactly. But, you know, fun stuff too.”

Alex laughed as she sat back. “Luckily, fun stuff more often than sob fests.”

They sat and chatted while they waited for Frankie, and fifteen minutes later, Alex was on her way home. Emily contemplated her choices for the rest of the evening. She was too tipsy to drive now too, not that she’d been planning to go anywhere tonight. Actually, she’d planned to paint, before she got home and found Alex on her back porch.

It wasn’t too late to do that. She wasn’t particularly hungry for dinner after all that ice cream, and there were still about two hours before sunset. Decision made, Emily gathered her portable easel, a canvas, and her painter’s bag and set out for the hill behind the inn.

In the distance, she could just make out the summit and its distinctive stone tower. A tug of longing hit Emily. Someday, she’d make it up there, hopefully someday soon. As she looked around for the perfect spot to set up her easel, she noticed that someone was in one of the lounge chairs near the tree line.

She didn’t want to disturb a guest—or have her painting solitude disturbed—so she started to head toward the other side of the lawn before she noticed a strand of distinctive golden hair. “Oh, hi?—”

Her words died on her lips as she rounded the chair and saw that Diana was fast asleep in the lounger. She’d curled on her side, one hand propped beneath her chin, and Emily’s heart gave a funny little double beat, because Diana looked equal parts adorable and gorgeous. This was the first time Emily had seen her relaxed since she’d returned to Crescent Falls.

And there was no way she was going to wake her. She’d noticed Diana’s exhaustion earlier today. She needed the sleep, however unconventional her current location. Emily wouldn’t disturb her, but she’d keep an eye on her while she slept, just to be safe.

Emily set up her easel a few feet away and sat down to paint.

What was so bright ? Diana squeezed her eyes more tightly shut as she drifted awake. Bright light glared on the other side of her lids, but where the hell was she? Her eyes popped open to the disorienting image of Emily painting in a grassy field as the setting sun blazed above the treetops.

What in the world…?

It was like something out of one of Diana’s most private fantasies. She’d had a dream like this once, where she’d come across Emily painting while she was on a hike, but this time, instead of Emily leading her to safety, they’d fucked on the mountainside.

But this didn’t feel like a dream. Diana was groggy with the aftereffects of sleep, which meant she was awake. She sat up, horrified to realize she’d nodded off in one of the loungers behind the inn. And if the position of the sun was any indication, she’d slept for hours.

And Emily was really sitting there a few feet from Diana’s chair, painting.

Diana must have made a sound, because Emily turned to smile at her.

“Hi,” she said brightly, which was even more disorienting, because Emily hadn’t been this friendly to Diana since she’d bought the inn.

Diana ran her hands over her clothes, trying to ascertain how much of a sleep-rumpled mess she was. Her skin pricked with discomfort for Emily to see her this way. Diana had been trying so hard to win her over, to convince Emily that she was going to elevate the inn—not harm it—and now she looked unprofessional and sloppy.

“I came out here to paint the black-eyed Susans.” Emily gestured to the canvas in front of her, where she’d painted a lush landscape with pretty orange flowers. “I didn’t want to disturb you since you looked like you needed the sleep, but I also didn’t want to leave you by yourself out here in case you slept until after dark or something.”

That was incredibly thoughtful of her. It caused a constant ache in Diana’s chest that this sweet, caring person no longer trusted her. “What time is it?” Diana managed to ask.

“Almost seven. I was going to wake you if you were still asleep when I finished painting.”

Seven. Diana had come outside after she’d finished work a little after five. She’d been asleep in full view of whatever guest happened to walk by for almost two hours. Heat rose in her cheeks. “Thank you for keeping an eye on me. ”

Emily beamed. “Any time.”

Diana turned to rest her feet on the ground, still gathering her wits. She felt almost drunk. After a week of sleep deprivation, she was deliriously tired, and she couldn’t tell yet whether this nap had helped or hurt her cause. Right now, she felt like her brain was operating at half speed.

“You seemed tired earlier.” Emily spoke cautiously, as if she were afraid of overstepping any bounds.

Diana stared at her, noticing the way the sun brought out golden highlights in her brown hair. Emily had on a pink-patterned dress that looked amazing against her tanned skin, and Diana’s defenses were low enough right now that she had to clench her fingers around the edge of the chair to keep from reaching out and touching Emily.

For a dizzying moment, Diana couldn’t think of anything except how much she wanted to kiss Emily. She wanted to fall asleep in Emily’s arms the way she had that night. She’d slept so well her first night in Vermont with Emily in her bed.

But that was in the past. Now, Diana’s longing was replaced with embarrassment that Emily had noticed how tired she was. “I’ve had trouble sleeping at my rental. It’s…too quiet. I’m used to the city, I guess.”

Emily nodded thoughtfully. “A lot different out here, I bet. Where are you staying?”

“A rental cabin on Shady Farm Road.”

“Oh yeah, it gets pretty remote out there.”

“It’s so dark at night,” Diana heard herself saying. “How do you sleep ?”

“Um.” Emily giggled. “You don’t like it to be dark when you sleep?”

“Not so dark that I feel like I’m in a tomb. I’m used to ambient light, I guess. ”

“Well, in that case, wait for the full moon. It’ll be nice and bright outside then.”

“Really?” Diana couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. “You can see by the light of the moon?”

“Oh yeah,” Emily said. “I can see clear across my yard when the moon’s full. It’s really cool looking too, like silver. You’ve got to see it.”

“Hmm.” Diana ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it into place. The sun was in her eyes as it neared sunset, causing her to squint at Emily. “I should really get home.”

“At this point, you should stay for the sunset,” Emily said. “I was planning to.”

Diana would love nothing more than to stay here and watch the sunset with Emily. God, how she wanted to. But that sounded romantic and…intimate. If she stayed, it would be torture not to kiss her, and while Emily was being unusually friendly right now, a kiss definitely couldn’t happen. Diana stood, wrapping her arms around herself. “I really need to go.”

“Okay. Suit yourself.”

“Bye, Emily.” Diana turned and started walking back up the path before she could talk herself out of it. She’d already locked up her office before she came outside, so she avoided the inn entirely now, circling around the building to the spot where she’d parked her rental car. She sat with a groan, wishing she didn’t feel even more tired now than she had before her nap. She cranked the radio for the drive home.

After a quick stop at the general store to pick up a sandwich for dinner, she pulled into her driveway just past seven thirty. This evening, she was going to treat herself to some self-care in hopes of setting herself up for a better night’s sleep, because God knew she needed it .

Although she was starving, she put her sandwich in the fridge and changed into athletic gear, determined to get in a quick run before it got too dark. Regular exercise had always been a great counterbalance to her anxiety. She headed out, jogging down the dirt road she lived on, which was heavily wooded. The canopy of branches overhead made it seem darker than it actually was.

A car approached, tires crunching over the small rocks covering the road. Its driver raised a hand as he passed, and Diana automatically waved back. The first time it had happened, she’d thought the driver must have mistaken her for someone they knew, but she’d been waved at enough times now to realize this was just something Vermonters did, a friendly gesture.

She completed the two-mile loop that had become her after-work routine and took a quick shower. Then, wearing her favorite blue robe over her silkiest pajamas—she loved the way they felt against her skin—she sat at the kitchen table to eat dinner. Afterward, she poured herself two fingers of whiskey, put on a soothing playlist, and wandered through the cabin to care for her plants. She watered them and misted their leaves, relieved that they all seemed to be getting enough sunlight, since her cabin was mostly shrouded by the surrounding forest.

With her plants tended to, Diana walked to the back window. Her mind drifted to the way she’d stood here last night and the frustrating experience that followed. It had been foolish not to bring a vibrator with her on a two-month trip, but she’d been so focused on work as she packed.

Well, this was an easily remedied problem, at least. She walked to the kitchen to get her cell phone, navigated to the website of her favorite brand, and started browsing. She quickly added a wand to her cart like the one she’d left at home, but then a clitoral suction device caught her eye. She’d been meaning to try one of those. So, she added that to the cart as well and selected expedited shipping during checkout, because she was in urgent need of a good orgasm, and since she couldn’t have Emily, she’d take the next best thing.