by Bria Quinlan
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”
Sugar.
“Of course not. Thank goodness you’re here. And…so quickly. What did you do, drive over the dunes?”
Noah ushered them out and sent Spence around to put the key back.
“I was heading back into town from some errands, so I was nearby.” Noah gave her a grin. “Lucky, right?”
“Yup. Lucky.”
The ride to her place was quieter than expected. Lyra couldn’t get the almost kiss out of her head and wondered if she was nuts for not grabbing him and kissing him or avoiding it because they were in a…something.
Business agreement? Scuttlebutt? War?
Okay, maybe not the last one.
Noah finally pulled up to her door and threw the truck in park.
“Thanks, Noah.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek before turning to hop out only to find Spence there, holding her door with a frown line between his eyes. “I’m so sorry I got you trapped in a centuries-old jail.”
She wasn’t sure what to do with that frown, but the longer he stared at her, the more it worried her.
“Best prison sentence ever.” He looked like he wanted to say more, to do more. But then he glanced at Noah and scowled. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He hopped in the truck and gave a wave as she backed away to her door.
As the dust settled from behind them, Lyra crossed her arms and watched the headlights disappear around the corner and realized she’d been left here alone with no idea what was going on.
Now she was the one scowling.
16
Noah threw the Land Cruiser into park, turned off the ignition, and glanced over at Spence.
"Go ahead," Spence said, knowing Noah had plenty of things he wanted to say and still wondering what was going on between him and Lyra.
He didn’t want to put anyone in that situation no matter how interested he was.
Spence stopped himself right there. He lived an entire day’s drive away. Last time he made the drive was the middle of the night, and even then it had been way too long with way too many trucks cutting him off for no reason.
So, he needed to let it go. Right?
Either way, he knew that there were things that were going to be spelled out for him. It might not hurt to listen and let himself hear it all from someone else as well.
"Might as well get it over with."
"You're not getting off that easy.” Noah hopped out of the older model Land Cruiser and headed toward the house, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Spence wasn't far behind. Inside, he tossed the keys on the counter and kept going shouting toward the rear of the house "We're back."
Well, that was ominous.
Spence had a feeling he wasn't allowed to just divert himself into his borrowed room or head out for a walk.
He didn’t even know who the people on the other end of Noah’s announcement were.
They stepped onto the deck where two guys stood around a grill. One flipped a steak and checked some potatoes in foil as the other leaned against the rail, giving him the once-over.
Three to one. There were worse odds.
Of course Noah wasn't just former army, but a former Ranger… And who knew what superpowers these other two had.
How far was it over the rail of the deck anyway? Between the height of the deck and the fact it was built into the side of a hill, it wasn't exactly a head dive he wanted to take.
"So, this is Spence." The one checking the steaks glanced over his shoulder and nodded at him.
He knew not to take that as a welcome but more of a yes, we see you. Not exactly a threat but definitely not not a threat.
The man leaning against the railing nodded at Spence. "I'm Cam. The buffoon at the grill is Jamie."
At least they were trying to keep the tone light. Of course, that just meant he wouldn't see it coming when they killed him and buried him at sea.
Jamie looked at him over his shoulder and gave a nod. "You earned some points by bringing the beer. You should definitely stick with that plan for now."
Noah glanced at the table and asked, “Where's mine?"
"Well, here's the thing. You told me and Cam to pick up the steaks and potatoes. So we picked up steaks and potatoes. You told us to let ourselves in. So we let ourselves in. You said to make ourselves at home. So we drank the beer."
Jamie flashed Noah a look that was completely unrepentant.
Spence started to relax. This wasn’t going to be as bad as he feared when he’d seen the three huge guys lined up on the deck. The more they chatted, the more he felt like he was just hanging out as a guest at a new friend’s house.
He tried to ignore any deeper implications.
It was bad enough that Noah could probably kill him with a paper straw before he knew anything was going on, but finding out Cam was a professional artesian who spent the day working wood with huge saws and Jamie basically ruled the Starlight Harbor version of the Seven Seas—diving over the railing if things went south was looking like a better option than he’d anticipated.
"Okay, enough shooting the bull. Time to get down to brass tacks."
Cam set his beer down and asked Jamie, "Could you fit a couple more clichés in there?"
"Just want to make sure we're on the same page." Jamie clapped his hands together with an evil grin. "Let's get down to this."
That did not bode well.
He might as well cut to the chase. They wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t about Lyra, so his suspicions must be right.
"I see how it is." Spence swept them all with the same glance. “Soften me up with steak and beer—beer I might add I bought—and then swoop in and finish me off."
"Here's the thing. Lyra's family, they’re a little …" Cam shrugged as if Spence should be able to fill in the word himself.
When he didn't say anything, Jamie jumped in. "Crazy. Her family is nuts. Absolutely insane. And that's saying a lot for a family from Starlight Harbor. I mean, you already met Miss Angie."
Spence let his gaze travel to Noah to try to read his thoughts. It was great that Lyra had all these guys willing to look out for her, but that job seemed to fall to one of them specifically.
Noah had pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest and watching with an interest that Spence could only describe as rampant.
“I'm just here to make things right. I may not have been the one who did the damage, and Lyra already realizes she can't get on the Internet and say whatever she wants if it's attached to her name. But we can repair that and make sure she's safe from anyone who stumbles across references to that article."
"After what I saw earlier this evening," Noah speared him with a hard gaze, before continuing, “taking care of the damage done is the least of what we're talking about.”
Yup. This is when he died.
Thirty was young, but he had lots of opportunities. It was his own fault for squandering them. He glanced at the railing again and shook it off.
He’d take it like a man.
Which, what did that even mean?
"Got it. Message received." Spence took a sip of his beer, shocked how disappointed he was that his suspicion was true.
Sure, he’d been talking himself out of his interest in Lyra all afternoon, but hearing that it was an absolute was a different thing. He ran through all the reasons why again—they were a bad match, he’d been her arch nemesis two days ago, he lived nowhere near here. Etcetera, etcetera.
But none of those seemed to matter as the gut punch he took when he looked at Noah.
"Wait a minute.” Cam stared him down for long moment before he started laughing. "Exactly what message do you think you're receiving?"
"About Noah and Lyra.” Spence gave Noah his full attention. "Listen. I know what it looked like today when you got there, but if I had realized you two have been involved…or whatever is going on. Well, I'm not that kind of guy. I wouldn't pul
l that crap."
There was dead silence around the table, and Spence was pretty sure that was it.
While trying to come up with the right thing to diffuse the situation, the guys all glanced at one another and then back at him.
And then burst out laughing.
"Not in a million years," Jamie said. “Noah could only be so lucky."
"What?" Spence asked.
He glanced at Noah only to find the man blushing. Like straight up actually blushing right across his cheekbones.
He knew better than to laugh at a man for blushing.
"Lyra’s like a little sister to me. To all of us, really.” Noah shrugged like, isn’t she to everyone, and continued. “We didn't date, we won't date, we aren't dating.”
The relief was overwhelming.
"But that brings us to the next question." Noah leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the table, his hands lightly clasped in front of him. "What exactly are your intentions toward our Lyra?"
Oh boy.
17
Vivian and Skye laughed at her, but Lyra loved the first day when people arrived for a Christmas.
They were so excited and happy. They were all together with loved ones they hadn't seen in who knows how long.
Not to mention the sugar cookies. It was really fun to decorate the holiday cookies. Knowing there were fourteen kids in this group… Lyra was in heaven.
But she was also really, really far behind what with all the shenanigans happening yesterday.
Not to mention, she was working on no sleep. The almost-kiss in the lighthouse had kept her up all night. She nearly walked her butt over to pound on the door and demand Spence kiss her right then so she could get some sleep.
That probably wouldn't have done it.
She glanced at the clock wondering when her help was getting there. She usually had the Proctor twins come in and they weren't known for being late. Of course, there was still ten minutes till their shift, but they were usually so early Lyra had to get there early just to be ahead of them.
The best part of summer was she had their help on the Christmas weekdays when families arrived. Plus, she had a 50th anniversary cake that had to be done and decorated for tomorrow evening, which meant starting in… She looked at her watch again.
Now they were late. What was going on? It was an hour before opening though, so she started doing the chores she typically gave to them.
It was kind of relaxing doing all the basics. And again, decorating the sugar cookies. One of the best parts of the day. She'd rolled out and baked enough of them last night to decorate the first several batches while she had other things going.
But if she ever needed more than one set of hands, it was today.
Not only did she have all her fresh stuff to make and yesterday’s cookies to frost, but she had a huge anniversary cake to bake.
It was so stinking exciting. The couple had met in Starlight Harbor fifty years ago when both families were celebrating the holiday—his because of his return, hers because of her brothers.
They’d become pen pals. Pen pals. So cute.
They wrote for three years before they finally realized that they needed to be together not apart.
And here’s where it got hard. He was black. She was white. Fifty years ago wasn’t one-hundred-and-fifty years ago, but it was still a challenge for some members in both families. She wished she could say today it wouldn’t be for anyone.
But their love overcame that crap. Although the returning bride admitted they lost people in the long run, none were those closest to them.
To honor them finding one another here, she wanted this to be perfect.
But she had no idea how she was going to do the normal baking, run the shop, and get that cake and mini desserts done for tomorrow night if she didn’t have help.
Dusting her hands off on her apron, she went in search of her personal cell phone to call the girls’ mom. While she was up here, she might as well unlock the door. Almost no one came in before eight. The fishermen grabbed their coffee from Noah or down on the docks from Jamie. She was probably safe for another thirty minutes.
She seriously needed to get an earpiece so she didn’t have to keep washing her hands, but she was unreasonably paranoid it would fall in to something.
Finally, a breathless Ms. Proctor answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mrs. Proctor. It’s Lyra. I was wondering if the girls are on their way.”
“Oh. I didn’t even think to call you.” She rushed on before Lyra could jump in. “The girls are with their father this week.”
“But…” Lyra wasn’t sure what to say that wasn’t blowing her already worried top. “They both confirmed they’d work today. We have a big order, and I need their hands.”
“Well, their father offered to bring them with him to Boston this weekend, and since it’s just your little cookie store, I let them so I don’t have to deal with his lawyer this week. They left this morning. Just walked out the door about twenty minutes ago.”
Lyra waited, because surely there was more to it than that.
When nothing came she took a deep breath and said, “I’m all alone here and shorthanded now. When will they be back?”
“I said they were gone for the weekend. Maybe you shouldn’t rely on high school girls to run your business.”
“Well, you can let them know that after being no-shows and their mother being rude and irresponsible, I won’t.”
Lyra hung up before she could get another word in.
Lyra had never liked that woman but had hired her daughters because she felt bad for them. This is what you get for having a soft heart, she told herself. Walked all over.
And yes, she knew she shouldn’t call any woman, especially one of her elders “that woman.” But, she totally was.
In her head, that is.
The twins have been upfront about the fact that they needed to make money for college because their parents kept fighting over who was going to pay for it. Of course, Mrs. Proctor would probably say that's what lawyers were for.
But when Lyra hadn't had an option, she took the twins. While what they told Spence was true—Starlight Harbor wasn’t a dying town—it was small, and did have its struggles.
With the twins, if you took one you took them both. And Lyra’s thinking had been that if one was sick, the other would be here.
Apparently, not so much.
The fact they'd chosen to go and didn't call was the death ring for their coffin. Forget the nails—that puppy was welded shut.
"Hey. These muffins look amazing."
Lyra nearly jumped out of her skin, barely holding onto the phone she was still glaring at.
"I didn't hear you come in.” She ran a hand down the front of her apron, dusting it off and making sure she wasn’t a complete mess already.
"I'm not surprised." Spence laughed and gave her a big smile. "You apparently had something to say to someone."
Lyra wasn't the type of person to tell someone off, so she definitely wasn't the type of person to get caught doing it.
“Her two daughters work for me on busy weeks. And they both decided to just not. And she doesn't seem to have a problem with that.”
Spence let out a low whistle. "My mother would kick my butt all the way up to the point and back again."
Lyra wasn't sure what her mother would do. Probably tell her to follow her bliss. Then again, Lyra wouldn't have left someone in the lurch like that.
“So you called in your backup?”
She started laughing because…well, she needed that.
“This is Starlight Harbor on a Christmas arrival day—there is no backup. All hands on deck, and all that.” She slid the muffin he’d been eyeing onto a plate and carried it to the counter. “Coffee?”
“Sure.”
She listed the day’s brews and grinned when she was done. “Or, regular?”
“That would be great.”
“Consider it an acceptable b
ribe for the new article. You can’t review what you haven’t tasted.”
He wanted to argue. Instead he dropped a ten in the tip jar when she wasn’t looking.
This small town business thing was a whole ‘nother world to him. It was kind of fascinating.
“What happens now?” he asked.
“Recover.” She glanced around behind the counter, taking a broad sweep of everything.
She could do this. It wasn’t like she was being judged—well, besides by the customers, the anniversary party, and Spence—but if she blocked that all out, she could totally do this. She grabbed her notebooks and a cup of tea, came around the counter, and sat down at the table closest to the kitchen door, unsurprised when Spence joined her.
Lyra opened her main notebook and pulled out the pages for today so she could look at them all at once. She had her laminated Christmas arrival day list, her catered party list, and her daily list.
"That's a lot of checkboxes,” Spence said as he glanced over her pages.
"Checkboxes make the world go ‘round." She flashed him a grin. “So now, Mr. How Do Small Town Businesses Run, we start sorting by necessity. I've already got sugar cookies baked but they need to be frosted."
She pulled out a notebook from the stack and flipped forward a couple pages.
"Here's the standard cookies we do for Christmas week. There are twenty-two different types of frosted sugar cookies.”
Yesterday she baked seven sheets.
The old handwritten directions she’d done when she first started stood out next to the photos. Each one was intricately decorated with balls and piping.
"Those are not cookies." Spence looked up at her, a deep appreciation she could see clearly in his eyes. "Those are works of art, and if I bought one I'd be afraid to eat it."
"Trust me, seven-year-olds have no qualms eating these cookies.” She glanced through the pages, wondering if she'd done enough. "I made enough for today and probably tomorrow, but frosting them is going to take time. That goes in the necessity column; baking more today goes in the review column."
Sorting the stickies went on opposite sides of the table as Spence gave her what she could only call a goofy grin.
