by Melody Grace
The sawing cut out, and a moment later, a man strolled out onto the deck. “What’s all the racket?” he demanded, safety goggles pushed up over his head and a power drill in his hands.
Hello.
Poppy stopped. Even through her sleep-deprived anger, she could still register cornflower-blue eyes, and a strong jaw, and chiseled arms straining under that plain white T-shirt . . .
“Well?” he asked again, scowling impatiently. “I’m kind of busy here.”
“I know, I heard,” Poppy recovered. “Every last hammer, in excruciating detail. Do you know what time it is?” she added, plaintive.
The man glanced at his watch. “Seven-oh-three,” he drawled.
“On a Sunday morning!” Poppy exclaimed. “Aren’t there rules or regulations about this kind of thing? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
“Oh yeah, late night was it?” The man arched an eyebrow and gave her a head-to-toe smirk that made Poppy flush. She knew she must look a mess, in sweatpants and an old ball shirt with a stain from where the flight attendant had spilled cheap red wine during a bumpy patch.
She smoothed down her tangled hair and straightened up. “I just got in on a red-eye. I’m staying at my aunt’s, right next door.”
“June said something about that.” He hoisted some wood over to the workbench. “But then, you always did like to boss everyone around, right pipsqueak?”
Hearing her old nickname triggered a sense of déjà vu. There was only one person who’d ever called her that, even when it drove her crazy. Especially when it drove her crazy.
“Wait, Cooper?” she asked, blinking in disbelief.
“The one and only.” He gave her a lazy grin, and even with stubble on his jaw and a smudge of sawdust on his cheek, that smile still wiped all her anger from her mind.
“The last time I saw you, you were . . . shorter.” She managed to recover in time. That was saying something. She remembered a gangly kid, constantly tormenting her with bugs and boogers and lord knows what else.
Now, Cooper Nicholson was all man.
“How have you been?” she asked, still stunned. “What are you doing these days?”
“I’m good. I stayed around town, started a business fixing up old houses,” he replied, then gave her a look. “At least, when I don’t have nosy neighbors interrupting me.”
“I’m sorry,” Poppy exhaled. “I’ve just been travelling all night, and I’m so tired I could cry. Is there any chance you could keep it down, just for a couple of hours?”
“OK, OK.” Cooper seemed to soften. “Wait here.”
He disappeared back into the house, and Poppy tried to catch her breath. Who knew Cooper, Spitball King of Sweetbriar Cove, would grow up to be so . . . so . . .
Delicious.
After a moment, Cooper emerged with something in his hand. “Sorry about the noise.” He flashed her a wide, easy smile. “This should take care of it.”
Poppy looked down.
Earplugs.
The man had kept her up, taunted her, and now presented her with two tiny knobs of bright orange foam like that was any help at all.
“You’re not going to keep the noise down?” she asked, exhausted.
“Sorry, pipsqueak,” he said, sounding anything but apologetic. “Just count yourself lucky you got a lie-in today. Usually my crew starts at six!”
Before she could say anything, he turned back to his saw. The high-pitched whine started up, and Poppy turned on her heel and fled.
So much for small-town neighbor charm. It looked like she was on her own.
Cooper Nicholson watched Poppy hightail it back across the yard. She was pissed, he could tell.
Pissed, and cute as hell.
He remembered her from the summer she’d spent at her aunt’s. Back then, she’d been a tiny thing, with bright red glasses almost bigger than her face. Not that you ever saw it, she was too busy with her nose stuck in a book. She could be out on the beach, surrounded by ballgames and playful dogs, and a dozen splashing kids, and nothing would ever shake her fascination with whatever she was reading that day. And to a mischievous ten-year-old like Cooper, that was like waving a red rag in front of a bull.
He chuckled, remembering all the ways he tried to distract her. Most of them involving spider crabs, seaweed, and spitballs. No wonder she gave him such an icy glare when he called her by her old nickname, “pipsqueak.” But what could he say? Something about Poppy Somerville made him want to get under her skin.
He turned back to the workbench and started sawing again, but this time, he felt a twinge of guilt. She looked like she hadn’t slept in a week—but he was on a schedule here. She couldn’t just come waltzing over and demand he put all his plans on hold for her to get some beauty sleep.
Not that she needed it. Even stressed, stained, and sleep-deprived, Poppy still looked effortlessly beautiful. She must have hit a growth spurt somewhere along the way, because she sure wasn’t a scrawny little girl anymore.
The saw hit the bracket with a screech.
Focus.
He was barely a few weeks into this project, and had another month left, at least. More if the dry weather didn’t hold and they got their usual spring rainstorms. He knew the house didn’t look like much now, but under the sawdust and rotting shingles, there were great bones, and he was determined to restore it to its former glory.
Renovating the historic houses along the Cape had started out a hobby, but it had grown into a thriving business for him. Most developers wanted to tear the older homes down and use the prime ocean-front plots to built new, modern mansions, but Cooper had always loved the history in buildings like this. He studied old craftsman techniques and researched the original materials, and soon the word spread about his skill and classic architectural designs. When a reporter from New England Quarterly had featured him in an article about historic preservation, his phone had started ringing off the hook and hadn’t stopped yet.
But this project was special. He’d had his eye on the house for years. When he was a kid, they’d always cut through the yard down to the beach, and as a teenager, he’d gotten up to all kinds of mischief in the woods backing onto the edge of the property, but it was the house itself that appealed to him now. A classic colonial saltbox, it was built in the 1800s and was one of a disappearing breed on the Cape. It had sat empty for years, falling into disrepair, until finally Cooper had finally been able to track down the owner’s family after digging through old land records in the dusty archive at the town hall. He’d sunk his life savings into the crumbling foundations and acre-plot of beachfront land, but once it was finished and sold to some lucky buyer, the proceeds would set him up right for a long time. The view alone was worth a million dollars: nothing like the gentle curve of the bay and the sparkling blue ocean stretching out to the horizon.
Yeah, the house would be spectacular when he was finished, it was just going to take a heck of a lot of elbow grease to get there. Which meant he was working weekends, up at dawn, and keeping on right through to sundown, no matter who was trying to get some sleep next door.
Still . . .
Cooper reluctantly shut off the saw. Poppy had looked exhausted, and besides, he’d been meaning to head into town to pick up supplies before the stores closed early. The noisy work could wait, for a couple of hours, at least.
Never say he wasn’t a generous guy.
He grabbed the keys to his truck and drove the winding lane back towards town. He was practically a resident at the hardware store these days, and Hank had everything he needed for once.
“They say there’ll be rain by next week,” the old owner warned him, as he totaled up Cooper’s supplies. “I’d get that roofing done sooner rather than later.”
“That’s the plan,” Cooper agreed.
“How are you finding the siding?” he asked. “Still think you should be using the original shingles?”
“Remember termites,” another regular, Larry, pitched in. He paused by the r
egister. “Those little bastards are lurking everywhere, especially older wood like that.”
It was always like this. You couldn’t stop by Hank’s without a debate about everything from wood to the weather.
“Your pop knew all about termites,” Larry added. “Didn’t he use to make up a special paint?”
Cooper nodded. “My dad knew all about a lot of things.” It’s how he learned most of the tricks of his trade—those summers in high school working right alongside his pops on contracting jobs. At the time, he’d wanted to be anyplace else, but looking back now, he wished he’d appreciated that time together when they still had it.
“Before I forget,” Hank added, “keep an eye out for June’s niece, won’t you? She said she’s arriving today.”
“Already here,” Cooper replied. “Came in off a red-eye and stormed straight over to ask me to keep it down.”
The men chuckled. “Sounds like she takes after her aunt,” Hank said, and Cooper would have sworn he saw a twinkle in his eye. “We’re under strict instructions to make the girl feel welcome.”
“Well, she’s more than welcome to come pitch in with construction,” Cooper joked. “Like you said, there’s rain coming.”
He headed back outside and loaded up the truck. There was a bigger chain hardware store just an hour away that stocked everything cheaper, but he always stayed loyal to Hank. He liked dropping by to hear the gossip from the regulars, and it made him feel closer to his father, in a way, spending time with all his old friends like this.
He’d never planned on sticking around in Sweetbriar Cove. He went to college over in Boston, studying engineering, and made plans after graduation to move out farther west. Chicago, maybe, or Dallas, some big city where your neighbor didn’t know everything about your business, and even the clerk at the grocery store hadn’t heard all about your date with that girl from Truro last Friday night. But he was finishing up his final semester when his dad had got sick. Stomach cancer. There had never been any question in Cooper’s mind about what to do. He’d finished up his classes and moved straight home, driving Bill to his appointments, making sure he took his meds on time. He even took over Bill’s contracting jobs to keep the money coming in, watching as his dad’s good days got further and fewer in between, until finally his legendary stubbornness was no match for the cancer in his gut.
After that, Cooper had thought about leaving again for a big city, but it never had the same appeal. The town had pulled together for them, looked out for them, sent casseroles and prayers, and sat with him through the worst of it. He would never admit it to anyone, but they were the only family he had left. So, he’d stuck around, and worked hard on the business, and built a reputation as the guy you could count on to come in on time and under budget, and soon enough he’d even started thinking about settling down and starting a family of his own.
And that’s when it had all gone to hell.
Cooper paused at the red light. He was so deep in memories that when he saw a flash of blonde hair up ahead, it felt like he was back there again.
He caught his breath. There was a familiar woman climbing out of her car, her face bent away from him.
A tide of regret slammed through Cooper, the same guilt and shame that hit whenever he was reminded about the biggest failure of his life. Then she lifted her head, and he realized it was a stranger he’d never seen before.
He exhaled. He was gripping the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles were white. Cooper yanked the wheel around and pulled over to park.
It looked like his new neighbor was getting her beauty sleep after all.
He needed a drink.
3
To her surprise—and relief—the earplugs actually worked. Or maybe she was just too tired to let a little light chainsaw action ruin her slumber, but Poppy barely heard a noise from next door. She slept all day, and by the time she’d enjoyed an epic hot shower and unpacked her things in the pretty guest bedroom, she felt just about human again.
And hungry. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten, her stomach had been tied up in knots during the flight, and before that . . . some chips from a vending machine, maybe?
Either way, she needed sustenance, and fast. She pulled on her jeans and a sweater, then headed off into town on foot. It was a bright, blue-skied afternoon, and even though it wasn’t quite summer yet, the sun was faint and warming and the breeze danced with a salty ocean tang.
Poppy finally felt herself start to relax. She’d been tense for months, it felt like—with the wedding plans hurtling towards the finish line, and her deadline too—but as she strolled the winding country lane with the ocean glinting on her right, and the leafy woods rising up the hill to Main Street square, for a moment all that stress felt a thousand miles away.
Sweetbriar Cove always had a way of making you feel right at home.
Set in a hollow, mid-way up the Cape, Sweetbriar had been settled by early English colonists—at least according to the town historical society. She hadn’t been back in twenty years, but Poppy was pleased to find everything exactly as she remembered. The winding country lanes lined with old Colonial buildings, the green of the town square, and the church spire rising from the top of the hill. She could even swear it was the same flyers advertising the Spring Fling Literary Festival peeling in the grocery store window, and the same calico cat perched on a fencepost outside the hardware store. On closer inspection, there were some new improvements—a chic art gallery tucked next to Franny’s Gift Shoppe, a new coffee shop she mentally bookmarked for her morning cup of joe—but the true spirit of Sweetbriar was still alive and well.
Poppy was tempted to stop and browse for a while, but the rumble in her stomach drove her on, until she found the tavern on the corner with a chalkboard outside promising the best fish and chips on the Cape.
Sold.
She ducked inside. It was a homey pub, with traditional wooden beams, old black-and-white nautical photographs on the walls, and a big fireplace across the room. She made a beeline for the bar, which was being tended by a scruffy, surfer-looking man with tousled blond hair. “Is it really the best on the cape?” she asked, nodding to the menu. He grinned.
“According to Big Pete,” he said. “And he’s the only authority we need.”
“He’s still around?” Poppy exclaimed. Even she remembered the town mayor, presiding over the Fourth of July fireworks with a flourish, decked out in a top and tails printed with the American flag.
“Still alive and kicking, although slower these days,” the man grinned. “They’ll have to bury him right here in the square. Really, I think the town hall voted on it last year.”
Poppy laughed, just as a familiar voice came from behind her.
“Flirting again, Riley? You should know, pipsqueak here doesn’t like boys. We’ve all got cooties.”
Poppy turned, and found herself staring into Cooper’s teasing blue eyes again. She felt a flush—then immediately scolded herself. “Only some of them,” she said with a glare. “And can you please stop calling me that?”
“Sleep well?” he asked, undaunted.
“No thanks to you.” She heard a chuckle, and when Poppy turned back, she found the bartender looking amused.
“Friend of yours?” he asked Cooper.
“She wouldn’t put it like that,” he said. “Poppy, this is Riley,” he introduced them. Riley gave her a wink, and Cooper let out a snort. “Don’t mind the smooth talk,” he told Poppy. “He flirts with everything that moves.”
“Excellent.” Poppy smiled, just to get a rise out of him. “I haven’t flirted with anyone in forever.”
Riley smirked. “I like this one. Food? Beer?” he asked her, and won her undying affection. At least someone had priorities.
“All of the above,” Poppy answered, and he gave a salute.
“Coming right up.”
Riley disappeared in to the back, and Cooper slid easily onto the stool beside Poppy. “So how’s life
as a big-shot romance author?” he asked.
“How do you—? Oh, June,” Poppy realized. “I should have guessed.” She remembered the time her aunt came to visit—and then proceeded to move all her books to the front section of the store, proudly telling everyone within earshot that her niece was the bestseller. Poppy loved her enthusiasm, just wished it wasn’t quite so . . . public. “Tell me she doesn’t brag too much,” she said, just imagining what the town must think of her.
Cooper gave her a sideways look. “It depends if you classify sending out a town newsletter about your new book ‘too much.’ She told everyone to keep an eye out for you this week. I’m surprised she didn’t make us roll out the ticker-tape and put on a parade.” He tossed another peanut up in a lazy arc and caught it in his mouth.
Poppy gulped. “So much for keeping a low profile.”
“In hiding, are you?”
“Something like that.” She changed the subject fast. “What about you? I can’t believe it’s been so long. The last time I saw you, you were running around dropping seaweed down everyone’s shirts.”
“Not everyone,” Cooper corrected her. “Just yours.”
“Gee, thanks.” Poppy gave him a sideways look. It was still a shock to see him all grown up, the teasing memory in her head replaced with someone so broad-shouldered and solid, with stubble on his jaw and worn cotton stretching over the muscles in his back—
Poppy dragged her gaze away. She shouldn’t be looking at anyone’s muscles, let alone the guy who’d made an art of tormenting her. “So, what’s new with you?” she asked instead. “Wife, kids, white picket fence?”
The smile slipped from Cooper’s face, and Poppy had a feeling she’d just said the wrong thing, but before he replied, Riley returned with her beer, and another for Cooper.
“Thanks.” She gave him a smile. “Although I probably shouldn’t drink this on an empty stomach.”
“Lightweight?” Riley asked.
“The worst,” Poppy admitted.
“Well, just so you know, my place is right upstairs. If you ever can’t make it home.” Riley gave her another wink.