Up to Me (Shore Secrets) by Christi Barth

seriousness with which they all took this unspoken social contract.
    “Yes, on dating. On everything. Everything big, anyway.”
    Gray slammed the journal shut with another snort. Pretty soon she’d have to offer him a tissue. “You actually listen to anonymous advice on big issues in your life? And follow it? And you’re freely admitting this to a guy you barely know? I thought we were hitting it off. Now it seems like you’re trying to scare me away.”
    Okay, she didn’t blame him for being skeptical. But if he’d stop interrupting, she could finish her explanation. Ella stood. This part of the story definitely called for pacing. “You see, I’ve made a couple of really, truly bad decisions. Bad enough to convince me that I should leave all the serious decision-making up to somebody else.”
    “Hang on. What could be so bad?” His voice now lacked both the lilt of teasing and the less-than-faint hint of derision it had carried only moments before.
    Nope. Pacing didn’t work after all. Pacing was too peppy. Far too energetic for her maudlin tale of woe. Ella sank cross-legged onto the ground and began to run a long blade of grass between her fingers. “My career.”
    “What’s wrong with your career? I mean, that was one hell of an impassioned speech you gave the other day. Extolling the virtues of massage? It convinced me to put myself at your mercy.”
    “Nothing’s wrong with my career. Not now, that is. I love being a massage therapist.” Ella pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight. If he kept asking questions, she’d be in the full-on fetal position by the time she finished. “But my parents raised me to take over running Mayhew Manor. They sent me to college for a degree in hotel and restaurant management. I hated it. Just never wanted to do it, from the start. Mom and Dad wouldn’t listen. The hotel was my legacy, and I needed to learn how to handle it. My great-grandparents kept it going through the Depression. My grandparents kept it going through wars. For generations, my family worked hard to share the beauty of the Manor with the public. Apparently, if it didn’t pass down to me, their sacrifices, their work meant nothing.”
    “Bullshit.” His heated response snapped her head up. Gray’s full lips thinned into an incensed, bloodless line. After his laconic amusement so far, the change in his demeanor, the sudden rigidness to all his muscles, surprised her. Even though it was painful, it looked like she’d found a topic where they truly connected. “Those people made a choice. Why the hell shouldn’t you get to make your own choice? Your life’s not determined on the basis of shared DNA.”
    Even with all the years that had elapsed since Ella last waged that particular argument, it felt good to have someone in her corner. “That’s kind of what I said. It didn’t make any difference. We fought for the entire four years, it seemed.”
    He skimmed a gentle hand down her forearm. “What was that like?”
    “Horrible.” Ella’s stomach clenched, the same way it had during every circular, useless argument. “I’ll be the first to admit that I had a pretty idyllic childhood. I adored my parents. Fighting with them was never on my radar. I trailed them around Mayhew Manor and had fun.” She laughed at the disbelief that pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Yes, that’s right. Not every teenager is full of angst and rebellion.”
    “Speak for yourself,” he muttered down towards the grass.
    Okay. Gray clearly had family issues. But even though curiosity pinched at her with the tenacity of a tiny crab, Ella didn’t have the energy to ask him for details. It would take everything in her just to finish her own tale. “I honestly enjoyed spending time with my parents. Right up until college night at the start of my senior year of high school. The night they had to explain three times over—because I just didn’t get it—that they’d only send me to a college