by Melody Grace
A tap at the door breaks through my thoughts. I startle, splashing water as Delilah’s voice comes. “I know it’s a lady’s right to keep a man waiting, but he’s been cooling his heels out there ten minutes now.”
I pause. Not for the first time, I wish we’d been closer friends back in high-school. Delilah was a year ahead of me, so she never knew what happened with Finn. Nobody did – we kept it secret. I didn’t want the small-town gossip, and sneaking around only made things more fun – and more lonely when he left. I didn’t reconnect with Dee until I moved back here after college, and by then, I didn’t want to drag the past up all over again. Now, I wish she knew the whole story, instead of expecting me to swoon and drool right along with her.
I shut off the faucet and open the door. “How do I look?” I ask, reluctant.
Delilah doesn’t do tact, but I must look pretty pathetic because she gives me a big grin. “Perfect! Irresistible! Now go get him.” She sends me off with a slap on my ass.
As I head back out front, I feel more like a sacrifice getting tossed to the lions. You can do this. You’re not a kid anymore, I tell myself, trying to pump myself up again. You’re a grown woman with class, and style, and you’ve got moves he’s never seen.
Not that I’m going to use them. What kind of asshole leaves and never even picks up the phone? I dial back every missed call, even when it’s a timeshare scam in Albuquerque. You’d think he could have returned a message from the girl he swore he’d love forever.
But when I open the door, and step outside, and find Finn by the curb, leaning again a classic grey Mustang – a molten-whiskey look in his blue eyes– I take it all back.
Is it too late to pick the lions?
“So what kind of property are you looking for?” I ask brightly, approaching him. I clutch my file to my chest like it could possibly shield me from that seductive smile and piercing eyes.
Finn doesn’t answer. He just opens the passenger door for me. “You cut your hair,” he remarks as I duck into the car.
“You didn’t,” I say pointedly.
“Touché.” He laughs, closing the door behind me and circling around to the driver’s side. I watch him, déjà vu rushing through me like a wildfire, hot and insistent. I must have sat in the passenger seat of his car a hundred times or more, all those late nights we’d slip away to the creek or out past the shoreline drive. I would have said once that it was my favorite place in the world, sitting right there beside him with my feet up on the dashboard, humming along to whatever old country songs his beat-up AM radio could pull from the wire.
“Nice upgrade, huh?” Finn must be reading my mind as he settles behind the wheel. “That old thing took me as far as Georgia before the engine crapped out on me in the middle of highway seventy-five.”
Georgia. I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking if that’s where he went. Instead, I pull out the first listing. “It’s waterfront, new build. Just take the beach road out past the harbor.”
“Yes ma’am.” Finn doesn’t seem shaken by my cool tone. He cruises through the center of town, one hand on the wheel, the other resting out of the open window. “So, you’re a realtor now? Somehow I didn’t picture you behind a desk selling condos.”
I shrug. “It’s a job. I work the office, mainly. Admin, phones. I was lucky Delilah got me the gig. She’s the real mastermind there.”
“Now that, I can picture. How’s the acting?” he asks, looking over. “I always wondered if I’d see your name up in lights on Broadway one of these days.”
I feel a pang, remembering my life in New York City after high-school – the one he knows nothing about. “I’m not doing it anymore. It was just a hobby,” I answer briskly. “So what are you looking for in a house?” I change the subject. “A dock? Outside space? Room for big parties?”
“I’ll know it when I see it.”
Great.
We keep driving. Oak Harbor is a small coastal community near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, with a bustling waterfront, cute clapboard houses, and a few stores and restaurants leading back from the rocky shoreline. It used to be an old fishing town, but these days, tourism is the main draw. People come from all over to fish off the boardwalk, take the ferry out to see the old lighthouse, and visit the wide Atlantic beaches just across the sound.
“This place hasn’t changed at all,” Finn remarks, looking outside as we cruise slowly along the sleepy main street.
“Small town life,” I shrug. “We got a new pizza place that stays open past ten on the weekends.”
“Living life on the edge.” Finn laughs. Our eyes catch. Electricity crackles, straight from his clear blue eyes down the back of my spine, and I feel the rush everywhere: hot and sweet, pulling low between my thighs.
I look away.
“How are your folks?” he asks, gripping the steering wheel with both hands now.
“Good.” I take a breath, calming myself. “My dad got a promotion to the head office in Savannah, so they’ve moved out there for six months, to see how they like the place.”
“And Lottie? She’s, what, nineteen now? She must be off at college.”
“No,” I answer quietly. “She’s here in town too.” I quickly change the subject away from my little sister. “It’s this turning, just up ahead.”
Finn follows my directions up to the first property: a boxy chrome and glass condo set on the waterfront, with a balcony looking straight out across the bay. He peers up at it over the steering wheel and shakes his head. “Not for me.”
“But you haven’t even seen inside,” I protest. “The view’s amazing.”
“I told you, I’ll know it when I see it.”
Finn looks at me again, and the intensity in his gaze is enough to make me wonder, why he’s back here of all places? He could be off relaxing in the Caribbean, or sunning himself on a private yacht. Why did he come to our little mom and pop shop instead of one of the big, flashy realtors up the coast? Why, even after everything he did, does my heart race, and my blood pump faster? Just one look from him could make all my heartbreak melt away.
He clears his throat, and starts the engine again. “Where to next?”
We visit another five houses, but Finn doesn’t even make it inside to look at half of them.
“Fame’s changed you.” I’m only half-kidding as we drive away from a great beach-front mansion I would kill to live in. “I guess you’re jaded by all the fancy hotels and private jets.”
“Sounds like someone’s been reading the tabloids.” Finn grins.
I flush. “I’ve seen a couple of things around. You know, in passing,” I add carefully. “That stuff’s not true is it?”
He gives me a wink. “Every word, sweetheart.”
I know he’s only teasing, but I still can’t help thinking of all the things I’ve read over the years, stories of Finn dating Hollywood actresses and frolicking backstage with sexy models. I block those images and sneak a look at him instead, that familiar profile and easy posture. His free hand taps out a rhythm on the window frame. He always did have restless hands; he used to say it’s why he first picked up a guitar. He would play for me, just idly strumming as we killed time on those hot, late nights, sprawled out in the grass miles outside of town, watching fireflies spiral in the midnight sky.
I suddenly get an idea. “I know the place,” I declare. “Take the highway north, just past the bridge.”
Finn does as I say, and soon, we’re pulling up the winding driveway of an old house backing onto the creek. We came here once, years ago. We wandered the empty, run-down rooms before sitting down by the dock, our feet dunked in the cool water. Now the house sits under shady cypress trees, the paint fresh and the front path newly mown.
“The Thomas mansion?” Finn asks, slowly getting out of the car. I scramble out too. “This place was falling apart the last time I saw it.”
“They finally sold it, a few years back. Some developer took it back to the studs, but they did a rea
lly nice job. It still has all the original floors, and that great porch wrapping around the back.”
I lead him up to the front door and step inside. I can already see it on his face, that this is the place, but still, I take him through the warm living areas, furnished with classic, beachy furniture, and out back, to where rhododendron bushes and rolling grass lead all the way down to the wide expanse of slow-winding creek.
Finn breathes in the salty marsh air and looks out over the water, like he’s already home. “I’ll take it.”
“Don’t you want to know how much it is?” I ask.
He shrugs, his big-shot lifestyle peeking through. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Ask if they’ll lease it for a couple of months.”
I nod. It’s a big property to be rattling around all alone -- but maybe he won’t be. I realize that for all I know, he could have a gorgeous, sexy girlfriend just waiting back at the hotel. “So, just so I know what to tell the owners…will you be staying here alone?” I ask, trying to be casual. The grin he gives me says I failed, miserably.
“I should have someone out next week.”
My heart sinks.
“To hook up the cable. I can’t be without my TV.”
Finn’s eyes gleam with humor. He’s teasing me, dammit.
“Great!” I refuse to show I’m ruffled. “Then we’re all set.”
I turn on my heel to head back out front, but Finn pauses. “Wait a second. Don’t you want to show me the rest of the property? Upstairs, all the bedrooms?”
Me and Finn, alone in a room with a king-sized bed? I’ve had dreams like that, and I know exactly how things wind up: the both of us tangled up naked, sweaty, and gasping with pleasure. But there are consequences to the most perfect moment of release – and I learned that lesson the hard way. “Sorry,” I reply, my cheeks burning. “I can’t stay. I have to be somewhere. I’m already running late.”
“Sure thing.”
Finn drives us back to the office, still perfectly at ease. But as the miles pass, his nonchalance burns me. Since the moment he walked in he’s been behaving like everything’s fine between us, like it’s no big deal to just show up and act like nothing’s wrong. Or maybe it isn’t, to him. What happened between us may have made an indelible mark on my heart, but what if he barely gave it a second thought on his path to sold-out stadiums and number one hits?
My heart suddenly aches so much I want to cry. I need to get away, but I manage to hold it together until he pulls up outside the old carriage house, and I can climb out of the car on unsteady legs. “I’ll get the contract sent over right away,” I tell him.
“Don’t I get your number?”
I stare blankly.
Finn’s lips curl in a teasing smile. “For questions about the lease.”
“Oh. You can call the office. Delilah will be able to help you out. In fact, you probably won’t see me again. Like I said, I meanly deal with the admin.”
Finn gazes at me thoughtfully for a moment, so long I wonder if I still have frosting on my face. “I like it,” he says finally.
“Like what?”
“Your hair. You always used to hide behind it,” he says, his smile slipping through my defenses all over again. “Now I can see your eyes.”
I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.
Oh no. Not this time.
I turn away and hurry up the steps without looking back, but I feel his gaze on me with every step. This doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself. Finn McKay is back in town, as gorgeous and charming as ever. But I’ve learned my lesson the hard way.
For the sake of my heart, I’m steering clear.
To be continued…
What happens next? Eva and Finn’s story is only just beginning. HEARTBREAKER is available now!
Take a trip to Beachwood Bay: the small town where passion and romance are making waves…
Each book is a stand-alone romance following a new couple, but you’ll enjoy reading the whole series and seeing familiar faces return.
THE BEACHWOOD BAY SERIES:
BOOK 1: UNTOUCHED (Emerson & Juliet’s story begins - novella)
BOOK 2: UNBROKEN (Emerson & Juliet’s story)
BOOK 3: UNTAMED HEARTS (Brit & Hunter’s story begins - novella)
BOOK 4: UNAFRAID (Brit & Hunter’s story)
BOOK 5: UNWRAPPED (Lacey & Daniel’s holiday novella)
BOOK 6: UNCONDITIONAL (Garret & Carina)
BEACHWOOD BAY: THE CALLAHANS
BOOK 7: UNREQUITED (Dex & Alicia begin – novella)
BOOK 8: UNINHIBITED (Dex & Alicia)
BOOK 9: UNSTOPPABLE (Ryland & Tegan)
BOOK 10: UNEXPECTEDLY YOURS (holiday story)
BOOK 11: UNWRITTEN (Zoey & Blake)
BOOK 12: UNMASKED (Ash & Noelle begin — novella)
BOOK 13: UNFORGETTABLE (Ash & Noelle)
*
Discover the start of the epic love story. Unbroken is available now!
Prologue
My mom always said there are two kinds of love in this world: the steady breeze, and the hurricane.
The steady breeze is slow and patient. It fills the sails of the boats in the harbor, and lifts laundry on the line. It cools you on a hot summer’s day, brings the leaves of fall, like clockwork every year. You can count on a breeze, steady and sure and true.
But there’s nothing steady about a hurricane. It rips through town, reckless, sending the ocean foaming up the shore, felling trees and power lines and anyone dumb or fucked up enough to stand in its path. Sure, it’s a thrill like nothing you’ve ever known: your pulse kicks, your body calls to it, like a spirit possessed. It’s wild and breathless and all-consuming.
But what comes next?
“You see a hurricane coming, you run,” my mom told me the summer I turned eighteen. “You shut the doors, and you bar the windows. Because come morning, there’ll be nothing but the wreckage left behind.”
Emerson Ray was my hurricane.
Looking back, I wonder if Mom saw it in my eyes: the storm clouds gathering, the dry crackle of electricity in the air. But it was already too late. No warning sirens were going to save me. I guess you never really know the danger, not until you’re the one left, huddled on the ground, surrounded by the pieces of your broken heart.
It’s been four years now since that summer. Since Emerson. It took everything I had to pull myself back together, to crawl out of the empty wreckage of my life and build something new in its place. This time, I made it storm-proof. Strong. I barred shutters over my heart, and found myself a steady breeze to love. I swore nothing would ever destroy me like that summer again.
I was wrong.
That’s the thing about hurricanes. Once the storm touches down, all you can do is pray.
1.
I’m doing eighty on the highway with all the windows down, my dirty blonde hair whipping like crazy in the wind. I’ve got my Ray-Ban sunglasses on, and the radio playing country classics as loud as my beat-up old Camaro will go, trying to drown out the whispers of memory that started the minute I took the freeway exit onto the familiar coastal road.
45 miles to Beachwood Bay.
45 miles to Emerson.
I shake it off. We were coming here for years before I met him, I remind myself sternly. Every summer when I was a kid. Months filled with playing in the surf and reading out on our shady back porch. I should have other, better memories of this place without him.
But you haven’t been back here since.
I block out the treacherous voice in my mind, yelling along with the radio instead.
“Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday…”
The song is right, I decide. It’s gone. That summer is so far behind me, I couldn’t see it in my rearview mirror if I tried. I’m a different person from the screwed up, headstrong girl I was the last time I drove down this sandy road. I’m twenty-two now, just a month away from graduating college and starting out a whole new life. I’ve got a perfect boyfriend b
ack in the city, and a great career all lined up. Despite everything that happened here that summer, I made it out—made myself into the person I wanted to be—and even though coming here to Beachwood Bay makes me feel sick and dizzy, like I’m about to jump out of a plane in total free fall, this weekend won’t change any of that.
It can’t.
Besides, I tell myself, trying to calm the shiver of nerves in my stomach, I don’t even know if he’s still here. I don’t know anything about Emerson anymore. My idle midnight searches online always come up blank. He could be halfway around the world by now, trekking in the African jungle, or knocking back beers on some beach in Australia with a tall, stacked bikini model at his side.
Tucked under his arm, the place I used to be…
I crank the radio even louder, the country twang ringing so hard I don’t even hear my cellphone, I just see the screen light up from where I tucked it in the cupholder on my dashboard. Lacey. My best friend. I answer, struggling to turn the volume down and keep a hand on the steering wheel. I know I shouldn’t talk and drive, but way out of the city out here, I won’t see a cop for miles.
“Hey Lacey, what’s up?”
“Are you there yet?” she demands.
“Close.” I check the clock again. “About a half-hour away.”
“I still can’t believe Danny boy didn’t go with you.” There’s a muffled noise as she gets comfy, and when she speaks again, I can just picture her, curled up in our student apartment in Charlotte, looking out the window over the bustle of downtown. “Isn’t this the kind of thing future fiancés are legally obligated to do?” she asks. “Packing up the summer house you haven’t stepped foot in since…well, you know.” She trails off.
The silence sits in the air between us, heavy with grief. Emerson isn’t the only ghost lurking in this town. The pain he caused me was only half my broken heart.