The Giving Heart

by Toni Blake

  Spend a white Christmas on Summer Island, where the fires are warm and the romance is hotter

  Lila Sloan wonders why she ever thought house-sitting for her sister Meg on the remote Summer Island was a good idea. And to make matters worse, local real estate developer Beck Grainger is trying to cut down the beautiful trees that line the property. Lila can’t let this happen; Meg will never forgive her.

  Beck can understand Lila’s anger—sort of. The trees are actually on the neighboring property, and the land was zoned for development months ago, so his plans were no secret. But he dislikes being at odds with his friend’s sister, especially because Lila is appealing in every way: loyal, quick-witted and completely stunning.

  Lila hates that she’s so attracted to Beck, who seems like a genuinely good man, despite his tree-murdering tendencies. And their chemistry is off the charts. She just wishes he’d let this development go. As Summer Island counts down to a snowy Christmas, Lila and Beck will have to strike a compromise that seems impossible for them both—or risk losing the best thing either of them has ever had.

  Praise for Toni Blake

  “Toni Blake’s romances are so delicious, so intoxicating and addictive, a good night’s sleep isn’t even an option.... No one does it like Toni Blake.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr

  “The perfect small-town romance.”

  —Eloisa James, New York Times bestselling author of Born to Be Wilde, on One Reckless Summer

  “With sizzling sensuality and amazing depth, a book by Toni Blake is truly special.”

  —Lori Foster, New York Times bestselling author of Driven to Distraction

  “Toni Blake’s One Reckless Summer is one wild ride! This is just the book you want in your beach bag.”

  —Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of Between You and Me

  “Sexy and emotional.”

  —Carly Phillips, New York Times bestselling author of Dream, on Letters to a Secret Lover

  “A wonderful story of friendship, love and a surprise that will keep readers turning the pages of this well-written tale. Blake is a master of small-town romances.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Whisper Falls is the enemy of productivity. You start this novel, and nothing will stop you until you finish.”

  —USA TODAY

  “A sexy yet also sweet romance that beautifully celebrates friendship, family, and the true spirit of the holiday season.”

  —Booklist on Christmas in Destiny

  Also by Toni Blake

  Summer Island

  The One Who Stays

  A Summer to Remember (ebook novella)

  The Destiny Series

  One Reckless Summer

  Sugar Creek

  Whisper Falls

  Holly Lane

  Willow Springs

  Half Moon Hill

  Christmas in Destiny

  Coral Cove

  All I Want Is You

  Love Me If You Dare

  Take Me All the Way

  The Rose Brothers

  Brushstrokes

  Mistletoe

  Heartstrings

  Swept Away

  Tempt Me Tonight

  Letters to a Secret Lover

  The Red Diary

  Wildest Dreams

  For a complete list of books by Toni Blake, please visit www.toniblake.com.

  Toni Blake

  The Giving Heart

  To Lindsey

  for giving

  Contents

  PART 1

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  PART 2

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  PART 3

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  PART 1

  How dear the woods are! You beautiful trees!

  I love every one of you as a friend.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Anne of Avonlea

  CHAPTER ONE

  SNOW BEGAN FALLING on Summer Island the first Monday of December. It shouldn’t have surprised her—despite the name, winters here came early and often lasted into spring. But she hadn’t checked the forecast, and as she stood peering out the big picture window of the Summerbrook Inn while thick, heavy flakes dropped from the sky, Lila wondered if she’d made a mistake in coming.

  She’d never been good at looking ahead in life, even in the smallest of ways, like knowing if she should take a jacket when she left home—or in this case, a parka and mittens. Or in bigger ways—like failing to see the signs of imminent danger, the kind that were so easy to recognize in hindsight but you just didn’t put the pieces together before it was too late. She tugged a furry robe that belonged to her sister, Meg, tighter around her, hugging herself to ward off a chill—whether real, from the cold and snow outside, or imaginary.

  She’d always seen the trait as a sign of optimism—not worrying about the weather, or not expecting doom to strike. She liked being a live-in-the-moment woman. But since arriving two days ago at the family inn—run by Meg since their grandmother’s death when Lila was only a teenager—she’d realized that coming to house-sit for her sister hadn’t delivered the peace of mind she’d hoped for when she’d made the offer. Leaving Chicago for the blustery month of December had seemed appealing for more reasons than one—but it turned out weather and doom had followed her north.

  North. Why did I think the weather would be better in northern Michigan than in Chicago? She’d been flustered and emotional at the time, but still. This is why developing a weather-checking habit would be wise. If you’d checked the weather—and given this trip at least a modicum of thought—you’d have a parka, and a furry robe, and flannel PJs, and a pair of cozy slippers. More things she’d had to borrow from Meg’s closet: below Meg’s purple flannel pajamas, decorated with white snowflakes, Lila wore Meg’s fleece-lined slippers with cat faces on the top.

  Taking her cell phone from the robe’s deep pocket, she pulled up a weather app. No time like the present to build a habit that will make you a more responsible person.

  Her immediate future looked snowy. Light snow was expected on and off ’til nightfall, and tomorrow it would become heavier and more measurable. Each day in the extended forecast featured a snowflake. She chose not to dig any deeper beyond that, not sure she wanted the answers. This is why I don’t check the weather. Maybe she’d rather not know when bad things were coming. In case they didn’t. Maybe pure optimism could wish bad things away.

  Though that had been easier to believe two weeks ago.

  As it was, doom and danger had found her, and now so had snow. She should probably venture out to Koester’s Market today, stock up on some simple foods, and hunker down for the storm. Because even if she was a little sorry she’d come, it was too late to leave—she
’d promised Meg to feed the cat and take care of the big Victorian house their great-grandparents had built just after World War II while Meg and her boyfriend, Seth, spent time with his grandpa in Pennsylvania between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

  She’d promised. And she’d never been a very good sister. And she wanted to start being one now.

  And even if she threw Meg over and hopped the next ferry back to the mainland, where would she go? Back to Chicago? No, she’d left for a reason—and had no desire to return to the scene of the crime so soon. Or to her parents’ house in Ann Arbor? They’d all gathered there for Thanksgiving just last week, yet through no fault of her family’s, she’d suffered the strong desire to be alone.

  Well, Summer Island in winter was good for alone time. And given that no motor vehicles were permitted on the tiny island near the point where Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas met, she’d at least have the solitude. Maybe she’d curl up in the overstuffed easy chair in the little room they’d always called the nook and read some of the many books in the house. Maybe she’d meditate by watching the snow silently blanket the lawn and the trees that cocooned the inn. Maybe she’d even get together with Meg’s friends here, one of whom—Suzanne Quinlan—had kindly stopped by yesterday to welcome her. And maybe, somehow, through all that, she’d figure out how to start letting go of the doom that had sent her haring away from Chicago as quickly as she could pack a suitcase—minus a robe, slippers, and parka.

  And if nothing else, maybe she’d finally get some sleep. Somehow. A large yawn reminded her that sleep had been difficult to come by the last couple of weeks. She’d been sure that would change when she reached the winter solitude of the inn, but no such luck—at least not yet.

  That was when a loud clank jarred her from her thoughts, followed by an ominous rumbling noise.

  Her spine went rigid at the grating sounds. What were they from? Some kind of...big truck? Heavy machinery?

  But no, not possible here. This was Summer Island, land of no vehicles. And it was winter. If you discounted some whipping winds, no place could—or should, anyway—be quieter.

  Yet the clanking and rumbling sliced through the otherwise silent snowfall until Lila convinced herself she wasn’t hearing things and began trying to track its source. She stalked through the house, peering out windows, and startling the calico cat from a bookshelf in the library. “Sorry, Miss Kitty.” Across the street, nothing but choppy Lake Michigan and the South Point Lighthouse. To the east, the pastel shops and businesses lining Harbor Street, most of them closed for the season, their roofs all covered with a dusting of snow. Out the west-facing windows of the nook and sunroom, only the inn’s sprawling yard and gardens could be seen, and the thick woods that stretched beyond. Even while all but the evergreens stood bare of foliage just now, the woods to the west marked the spot where quaint Harbor Street narrowed to a wide bicycle trail and gave way to untouched hillsides and shorelines.

  Rumble, rumble, rumble, clank, clank, clank.

  And then a sharp, sudden crack, crash.

  Was that...the sound of falling trees?

  Heart beating fearfully, Lila rushed to look north out the kitchen window near the back door—and saw a bulldozer. A bulldozer! Ripping down the trees across the brook that gave the inn its name!

  Her heart froze in her chest. How could this be? It can’t be. That’s all. This can’t happen.

  She couldn’t make sense of it—and she wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes—but indeed a big yellow bulldozer violently mowed down the woods behind the house as she stared in horror. Every awful cracking noise as another tree broke and fell pierced her like a gunshot to her soul. What the hell was going on?

  Quit watching. Do something.

  Without another thought, she shoved through the back door, crossing the snow-covered patio, and trudging across the lawn, barely registering the cold and wetness seeping up through the bottoms of the cat face slippers. Heart pounding like a hammer against her chest, she glanced down at the stream, running a little more heavily than in some seasons. As a kid, she’d picked her away across easily on dry rocks that stuck up above the water. Right now, she spotted only one and it was risky—but she had to get across that creek, now, so she boldly made the leap, touched down on the flat ridge of the rock, and catapulted herself to the other side. She slipped on landing, her feet flying out from under her, but caught herself on her hands—stingingly cold in the snow—and soon marched forward again, up the hill, between the trees, toward that horrible rumbling, clanking, tree-murdering machine.

  She ran, to the best of her ability in the wet slippers, through the slick snow beginning to coat the ground between pines and oaks that had stood here her entire life. Wet, heavy snowflakes landed on her hair, shoulders, face, making her feel as if she were out in a cold drizzle. Nearing the loud bulldozer, she could see that the older man operating it—signature yellow hardhat perched on his head, gray hair peeking out from underneath—hadn’t noticed the woman running toward him in purple pajamas and a fluffy open robe fluttering in the wind. He looked serious, focused on his work—his tree-slaughtering. But Lila would be damned if one more tree was killed on her watch, so she didn’t hesitate to run right into the path of the dozer’s destructive bucket—which, she realized, actually bore something like teeth.

  Now the driver noticed her. The dozer came to a squeaking halt in the snow, the man staring down at her as if he feared he was imagining things. She intended to make clear that she was very real.

  His bushy gray brow furrowing, he turned off the machine—presumably only to enable conversation, but having the silence restored eased a little of the alarm inside her. He leaned out over the panel of levers before him to eye her critically. He’d probably never had a woman in pajamas throw herself in the path of his bulldozer before. But she’d never had anyone come mowing down the trees behind her family’s inn, either.

  “Miss,” he began in a slow and uncertain tone, “pardon my French, but just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” He sounded more perplexed than angry.

  “I’m stopping this travesty, that’s what,” she called up to him. “And I was about to ask you the same question.”

  The man blinked, looked tired.

  She didn’t care.

  “Well, I’m clearing this land.”

  She remained incredulous and shook her head. “But why? Why would you do that?”

  He blinked again, a couple of times.

  She stood her ground, adamant.

  “Well, they’re fixing to build some houses up here, miss—that’s why.”

  Now it was Lila who blinked. Houses? Here? Behind the inn? She shook her head. This didn’t make sense. It had to be a mistake. “This land belongs to Harvey Vanderkamp,” she informed him. It had belonged to Mr. Vanderkamp her whole life. He was a goat farmer. Occasionally brought Meg down some goat’s milk. A quiet but friendly neighbor up the hill from the inn.

  “Sorry to tell you, miss, but Mr. Vanderkamp died.”

  Her face fell, any shred of hope she’d harbored dropping away along with it. “He did?”

  The older man nodded. “Land was sold to a developer.”

  God. This was awful. Really awful. The woods behind the inn had always just...been here. A thing you didn’t question. A thing you never thought would change. And houses, here, right behind the inn—they would ruin the view. The idyllic sense of seclusion. The inn’s lovely, quiet, private backyard would be...someone else’s backyard now, too.

  Lila tried to think fast. Because developer or no developer, she refused to let this happen. “I’m still not moving,” she said. Simple as that.

  Mr. Bushy Brows was back to blinking. “You have to, miss. I have to clear this hillside.”

  She tried to do that thing she wasn’t great at—thinking ahead. “It’s winter. It’s snowing. Why
not just stop this now and give me some time to get it worked out with whoever bought the land?”

  The man sighed. She almost felt bad for him. But she felt worse for her if she couldn’t stop this from taking place. You had one job—take care of the inn. And she’d never done much to take care of Meg in any other way, even when Meg had needed it. She was not going to tell her sister that the one time she’d deigned to leave this place for more than a few days in fifteen years that Lila had allowed someone to come along and mow down the picturesque forest behind it.

  “That’s not how things work, miss,” the gray-haired man said.

  “It’s how they’re working now.”

  “I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “And I’m just trying to save my sister’s inn.” She pointed to the big yellow Victorian down the hill.

  More blinking. “We’re not going to hurt your house, miss.”

  “If you mow down all these trees, you’re hurting the house.”

  Still in his seat on the bulldozer, the agitated operator extracted an outdated cell phone from a pocket, flipped it open, and dialed a number. Lila tried not to look as cold as she felt as he explained to someone on the other end that a woman wearing pajamas was blocking his bulldozer. He had to say it twice. “No, you heard me right. A woman in pajamas is blocking the dozer.”

  When he disconnected, he told her, “That was my boss. He lives right up on West Bluff.”

  Hmm. Figured. Rich people territory. And at the moment, rich men who thought they owned the world and everyone in it were on her blacklist.

  “He’s coming right down.”

  She nodded. And tried like hell not to feel the cold permeating her bones. But her fleecy slippers were soaked through and her hair hung wet with snow. She wanted so badly to be back inside the inn, where it was warm and cozy. But she couldn’t leave. She couldn’t. Even if she looked like a crazy person.

  Five long, cold minutes later a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing a winter coat with blue jeans and some weird, worn, leathery sort of cowboy hat on his head came walking down from the direction of West Bluff. Despite herself, and for the first time ever in her life, she found herself envying work boots like the ones he had on because they appeared so sturdy and dry. She braced herself for a fight.