Discovering Delilah

  HARBORSIDE NIGHTS

  Book Two

  #LGBT

  MELISSA FOSTER

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

  DISCOVERING DELILAH

  All Rights Reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 Melissa Foster

  V1.0

  This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Cover Design: Elizabeth Mackey

  WORLD LITERARY PRESS

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  A Note to Readers

  Delilah and Ashley stole my heart from the moment they first spoke to me. They were so real and so emotionally compelling that I knew I had to write their story. Their path to their forever love is not an easy one, but if you believe in true love, then I hope you enjoy Discovering Delilah as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Discovering Delilah is the second book in the Harborside Nights series. If you enjoy this series, you might enjoy my sizzling-hot contemporary romance series, Love in Bloom, featuring the Snow Sisters, the Bradens, the Remingtons, and the Seaside Summers group of friends. While each of my series books may be read as stand-alone novels, for even more enjoyment, you may want to read them in series order.

  For those who know

  Love is a gift

  For those who let love flourish

  Without judgment

  Without guilt

  PRAISE FOR MELISSA FOSTER

  “Contemporary romance at its hottest. Each Braden sibling left me craving the next. Sensual, sexy, and satisfying, the Braden series is a captivating blend of the dance between lust, love, and life.”

  —Bestselling author Keri Nola, LMHC

  (on The Bradens)

  “[LOVERS AT HEART] Foster’s tale of stubborn yet persistent love takes us on a heartbreaking and soul-searing journey.”

  —Reader’s Favorite

  “Smart, uplifting, and beautifully layered.

  I couldn’t put it down!”

  —National bestselling author Jane Porter

  (on SISTERS IN LOVE)

  “Steamy love scenes, emotionally charged drama, and a family-driven story make this the perfect story for any romance reader.”

  —Midwest Book Review (on SISTERS IN BLOOM)

  “HAVE NO SHAME is a powerful testimony to love and the progressive, logical evolution of social consciousness, with an outcome that readers will find engrossing, unexpected, and ultimately eye-opening.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “TRACES OF KARA is psychological suspense at its best, weaving a tight-knit plot, unrelenting action, and tense moments that don’t let up and ending in a fiery, unpredictable revelation.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “[MEGAN’S WAY] A wonderful, warm, and thought-provoking story...a deep and moving book that speaks to men as well as women, and I urge you all to put it on your reading list.”

  —Mensa Bulletin

  “[CHASING AMANDA] Secrets make this tale outstanding.”

  —Hagerstown magazine

  “COME BACK TO ME is a hauntingly beautiful love story set against the backdrop of betrayal in a broken world.”

  —Bestselling author Sue Harrison

  Table of Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Game of Love Excerpt - Chapter One

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  ~Delilah~

  “COMING OUT OF grief is like coming out of a long, dark tunnel.” Meredith Garland folds her hands in her lap. Her feet are crossed at the ankles and tucked primly beneath her chair, one pointed toe touching the carpet. Her warm brown eyes slide around the room, slowing on each of the other four attendees of the grief-counseling session.

  I’ve been coming to a grief-counseling support group for the past month at the YMCA. My friend Brooke Baker brought me to my first session, having attended herself a few years back to get over her own grief. Only she didn’t lose her parents to the drunk driver of a tractor trailer like I did. She was merely getting over a bad breakup. Merely, because really. Can anything match the grief of losing your parents at twenty-two, on the evening of your college graduation, when you should be celebrating and making plans for your life?

  Meredith is talking about the stages of grief, all of which I know by heart: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. When we first moved here after our parents were killed, my twin brother, Wyatt, was also dealing with his new feelings for our best friend, Cassidy. I, on the other hand, was not dealing with anything. I was thoroughly entrenched in denial. One night a guy forced himself on Cassidy, and Wyatt beat the crap out of him—and scared the daylights out of me. Wyatt went straight to anger, skipping over denial altogether. I couldn’t watch Wyatt falling apart, so I moved in with Brooke, who has been a family friend for years. It’s been a little more than two months now, and I’ve finally made it past denial. Now that I’m living at our beach house again, I’m trying really hard to find a way to deal with my grief as well as the personal desires that I’ve spent a lifetime repressing—and hiding from everyone I know other than Wyatt and Cassidy.

  “You must learn to envision a future for yourself without those you have lost.” Having lost her husband a few years back, Meredith says this with the confidence of someone who’s achieved such a future. “Find ways to turn your memories into something you can live with and celebrate, rather than something that pulls you under.”

  Meredith smiles at me, but I’m unable to muster one in return because my toes are dipping in the anger pool. I’m not thinking about envisioning a future without grief. Although that would be nice, I’m pretty sure grief will be my partner for a very long time. Sometimes it hides in the shadows, waiting to swallow me whole, while other times it’s front and center, taking a bow for the way it’s laid me out flat.

  No, it’s not grief I’m thinking about coming out of, and I can’t return Meredith’s smile because my parents left me a legacy of fear and shame. The dark tunnel I’m thinking about coming out of feels even scarier than grief. I steal a glance at the other people in the group and envy the way they know who they are, even if they’re a little lost at the moment. I envy the way Michael eyes me and the other girls in the room and how Mark and Cathy hold hands during the entire hour. I try not to look at Janessa, because I can’t help but stare, and I know how rude that is.
She’s a little older than me, and I don’t have to look to know that her head is held higher than mine and her cocoa-brown eyes glisten with a surety that I can’t even imagine how to possess. She wears shorts and loose shirts that show her cleavage, and if I look at her, I know my eyes will be drawn to the swell of her breasts and the curve of her bare shoulder as her blouse slips down, which it always does.

  My attraction to Janessa is not because I want her. It’s not the same heart-pounding, palm-sweating, I-can’t-breathe attraction that I have to my friend Ashley Carver. It’s more of an appreciation of her beauty and her confidence, and for the first time in my life I have no one standing in my way of acting on my feelings toward girls. I am free to look at whomever I please and feel whatever my body wants to feel. I’m free to come out, but thanks to my parents’ disapproval, my desires are still tightly encased in shame, so I don’t lift my eyes to admire Janessa.

  Come out.

  Gosh, if that isn’t the stupidest phrase in the world, then I don’t know what is. Do straight people have to come out and announce they’re straight? For that matter, do they even think about their sexuality in terms of caring how others perceive them? I think the whole idea of coming out makes it ten times worse for someone like me, whose parents were ultraconservative and made no bones about their opinions against same-sex relationships. I was both elated and mortified when states began to debate same-sex marriages. Elated because, let’s face it, it’s a personal decision that others shouldn’t have a say in, and mortified because it meant that every time the issue was mentioned in the news, I’d have to sit through my parents’ lectures about why same-sex relationships are wrong. And weak little me never wanted to rock the boat, so I hid my attractions. All of them. My whole life. I even went so far as to hook up with a few guys to try to fit in and figure out if I was sure I liked girls. Well, I know I don’t get all fluttery inside like I have over the years when I’ve been attracted to girls, and I definitely don’t get wet between my legs over guys, like I do over Ashley. But then again, I’ve never been intimate with a woman, so my only validation is what I’ve felt toward women, and more specifically, what I feel when I’m with her.

  Ashley.

  Ashley. Ashley. Ashley.

  I even love her name. It’s feminine and confident, just like her.

  After our parents died, everything about our Connecticut house, from the conservative neighborhood to the house itself, felt repressive, stifling. When Wyatt suggested that we come to Harborside after the funeral, I practically ran to the car. I met Ashley the first night after we arrived, at a gathering at our house, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since. She came with Brandon, and I remember thinking that she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, then immediately pushing that thought away because I felt like, even dead, my parents could read my thoughts. Ashley and I clicked right away. When we decided to do shots, Jesse took everyone’s keys so no one would drink and drive. We have seven bedrooms, but that first night the downstairs beds weren’t made up yet, so Ashley slept on the futon in my bedroom. I think I spent the whole night staring at her.

  I think about her all the time, count down the hours until I’ll see her again, and I swear when she’s around, gravity doesn’t exist. It’s really hard to stay grounded and focused around her, because I spend my time admiring her and wanting to touch her. Not even make out with, just touch, like when you sit with someone who’s funny and warm and smart and you want to be closer to them. That’s me with Ashley—although I also want to make out with her. God, do I want to.

  My pulse quickens, and I shift in my seat. I can’t even think about her without getting all hot and bothered.

  I guess I zoned out because the counseling session is over and everyone’s leaving. It’s late summer, and when I step outside, the cool evening air stings my cheeks and clears my head. I head down the concrete steps and start my short walk home to our beach house. When my parents died, my twin brother, Wyatt, and I inherited everything—the house in Connecticut where we grew up, the beach house here in Harborside, Massachusetts, where we’ve spent summers since we were kids, and the Taproom, the best bar and grill in town. We’ve been living here and running the bar for a little more than two months, and Wyatt and I finally decided to sell the house in Connecticut this fall. Too many ghosts in that house.

  “Wait up.” Janessa jogs to catch up. “Are you okay? You seemed down tonight.”

  “I’m okay, thanks. Just thinking.” We walk down the dimly lit residential street toward the lights of the boardwalk. Harborside is small enough to walk most places but still big enough that the outskirts of town are more secluded and less commercialized.

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what this whole grief-counseling thing is supposed to do to us, right? Make us introspective and force us to deal with our feelings.”

  I know Janessa lost a family member, but she was already attending the group sessions when I started, and she’s never said exactly who it was that she lost. I’m not about to ask. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in group, it’s that when people want to talk about their grief, they’ll bring it up.

  “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Want to grab a cup of coffee at Brooke’s Bytes?”

  “Brooke’s is so crowded at night. How about someplace else?” I try to say it casually, but the truth is, counseling leaves me feeling uneasy, and the last place I want to be is near giddy teenagers in a boardwalk café. Not to mention that my friend Brooke owns the café, and I really just want to be away from people I know while I come down from group.

  Janessa’s eyes drop from mine, linger around my mouth, then lift to my eyes again. Her scrutiny makes me nervous, but it feels good at the same time, and I’m not sure how to handle it, so I tuck my hair behind my ear to distract myself.

  “Sure,” she says. “The Sandbar, over on Shab Row?”

  The Sandbar is a pub, so I know we won’t be drinking coffee. Ashley is working at the surf shop tonight, and my other friends are just hanging out at home, which means I have no plans, and looking at Janessa all night is not a hardship, so I agree.

  Shab Row is a quiet street with old-fashioned, bulbous streetlights on tall black poles, brick pavers, and only a handful of shops. Unlike the many commercial streets of Harborside, which boast bright signs and sidewalk displays, Shab Row is more subdued. The signs have muted colors of slate blue, maroon, and earth tones, and the most paraphernalia that I’ve ever seen outside are holiday lights on the wrought-iron railings lining the steps into the shops and pub.

  The bar is dimly lit and nearly empty. We sit at a booth in the back and order drinks from a tall, slim waiter who looks like he wants to be anywhere but here. My phone vibrates and my heart skips a beat when Ashley’s name appears on the screen.

  It’s kind of pathetic that I’m crushing on her so hard that I get excited over seeing her name on my phone.

  How was counseling? I smile as I read her text, loving that she cares enough to ask.

  “Boyfriend?” Janessa asks as the waiter returns with our drinks.

  I shake my head and laugh as I reply to Ashley. Fine. Having a drink with a girl from the session. Still on for sketching sunrise tomorrow? Ashley and I have been meeting at sunrise or sunset a few times each week. She paints landscapes, and I’m teaching her to sketch. It’s about the only hobby that I have, but I’m pretty good at it. The only problem is, I’m usually so busy looking at Ashley that I don’t get much sketching done when we’re together.

  “Why did you laugh?” Janessa sips her drink as I read Ashley’s confirmation for tomorrow, then set my phone aside.

  Ashley’s my first real girl crush ever—although it feels like a hell of a lot more than a crush. I have to stop lusting after her. Not knowing if Ash is straight or into girls leaves me longing for someone I’ll probably never have. Besides, having absolutely zero intimate experience with girls, I can’t even be sure that I’d enjoy the sexy side of being with her if she is int
o me. When Ashley and I are together, we don’t really talk about frivolous stuff like hooking up with people. It’s like we’re so in sync with each other that nothing else even exists. I guess between learning to run the Taproom and dealing with moving in and out of the beach house—which I know hurt Wyatt’s feelings—and trying to deal with the death of my parents, my focus has pretty much been on survival. And when Ash and I are together, I’m working so hard to ignore my burgeoning feelings for her that I avoid any topics having to do with dating or hooking up.

  “Hello? Delilah?” Janessa waves her hand in front of my eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I totally zoned out.”

  “Yeah, I noticed you did that at counseling, too. You sure you’re okay?” She tilts her head, and her long dark hair slips over her shoulder. She reminds me of Megan Fox, except Megan’s eyes look sharp and catlike, like she’s always either on the prowl or ready for the paparazzi. Janessa’s are a little larger, slightly rounder, and usually thoughtful or filled with compassion, as they are now.

  “Yes.” I down half of my drink.

  “So, are you going to tell me why you laughed when I asked if you had a boyfriend?” Her lips curl up in a smile, revealing a row of perfect pearly whites beneath.

  I run my finger over the rim of my glass to keep her from seeing what’s going through my mind. I was always so afraid of my parents finding out that I thought I liked girls that I admitted it only to Wyatt and Cassidy.

  “Okay, here’s the thing.” Janessa reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “I know you’re grieving for your parents, and my heart goes out to you. It’s going to take a really long time to deal with that, but I can see that something else is going through that pretty little mind of yours, and if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”