“Ariel, the movie we watched—when Mortimer couldn’t go through with signing the marriage license…” Caleb stopped and ran his hand through his hair. He’d gotten used to the clean-cut look, but he’d never get used to life without Ariel.
He dreaded trying to start.
His breath came shakily as he framed the words in his mind, determined not to hurt her.
“Ariel, I love you more than I’ve loved anyone, and I’d marry you tomorrow. Today. But I can’t.”
She lowered her gaze to the table. “It’s your conflict about your careers.”
“It’s both of our band jobs, if Drake will take me back. Plus this hotel.” What could he say that would make sense to her when it didn’t make sense to him?
“You mean the fact that we tour with different bands.” Her voice lowered to a near-whisper, he strained to hear her words.
“That’s not the main issue.” He glanced around at the unpruned lilacs, the weedy gardens. “Look at this place. I don’t have an innkeeper’s heart. It doesn’t come naturally to me.”
“It comes naturally to other people. And some of them want a job as an innkeeper.”
Her voice sounded so infused with hope of making the inn work—hope of makingthemwork—he could hardly form the words he had to say. “That would mean a Kennedy would no longer run the inn.”
Her confusion showed in her frown. “You don’t have to sell it. Just hire someone.”
But then the inn still wouldn’t have a Kennedy running it. She didn’t get it. At all.
“Last night, I decided where to hang the land grant. I’m putting it beside the front door, so everyone who visits the inn can see that my tenth great-grandmother risked her life to help our country earn its freedom. And received this land in return.”
“Caleb, why is this hotel so important to you that you’d give up your music career?” She hesitated, a tear gathering in her blue eyes. “That you’d give up love?”
How could he explain when he didn’t understand either? “It’s not that. I don’t know where I’ll work next week. Stay at the inn and fight the battle of the bugs? Go back to Drake and let this place either fall down or go bankrupt? Ask you to marry me and leave behind my family responsibilities?”
“I’m not sure you have as much family responsibility as you think.”
“Honestly, neither am I. But there’s a good chance I’ll always live here.” He spread out his hands, indicating the inn, the island. “Could you leave behind your music career and live as an innkeeper’s wife?”
Her faced paled, and he hated himself for laying it out so straightforwardly. But truth was truth.
“I don’t know. I’ve never known life outside the road, the studio.”
“So there’s no compromise? No way around this?”
At the sight of her damp, fast-blinking eyes, he stopped. Stopped the speculation. Stopped the debate. Pushed back hischair and stood, a stone landing in his heart. “The only thing I know is that I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Caleb, it doesn’t matter that I love you too, because we’re ending up just like Aunt Dahlia and Mr. Augo.”
A better man would choose love and clean up the mess later. Not Caleb. Because his choices—plus his inability to make actual choices—hurt people. Wrong choice the day Granddad wanted his help with the inn’s big celebration eighteen years ago. No choice when Stephanie wanted a commitment he couldn’t give.
Bad choice the night his parents died because Caleb couldn’t stand up for himself and tell Granddad he wanted a career in music.
Worst choice when Ariel stood and walked away.
Leaving him to sit alone, helpless, because, at the age of thirty, he had no more idea what to do with his life than he had the day of Granddad’s stroke.
Chapter Fifteen
Things got tricky when one fell in love with both a musician and his music; an innkeeper and his inn. Hadn’t Aunt Dahlia’s tragic romance taught Ariel better?
Three days later, she gazed out on Lake Huron from the Grand Hotel’s presidential suite balcony, commiserating with her aunt in a video call, missing Island House, missing Caleb. They’d filled her days and her life with comfort, warmth, and love. Now that nothing on Jonathon Island held her interest anymore, she wished the concert was over and she could get on the plane and go back to Nashville, back to her old, safe life.
Back to the bubble.
