Rocky Coast Romance

by Mia Ross

  The allegory struck her like poetry, and she followed along with his portrayal of God guiding people through trying times. The only condition: they had to be humble enough to get down on their knees and ask for His help.

  Completely absorbed in the tale, Bree couldn’t shake the feeling that the preacher was speaking to her. Somehow he’d recognized that she was one of those struggling people, and he was showing her the path that would lead her to what she was missing.

  Shaken by the idea, she mentally pulled away and gazed out a nearby window, hoping to find something out there to reground her. They were so close to the ocean, she could hear the faint sound of crashing waves. Rolling in and receding, in an endless cycle that had gone on forever and would continue until the end of time. It made her feel tiny by comparison, until she noticed the lighthouse in the distance.

  Last Chance, she mused with a frown. For the first time she considered the possibility that it wasn’t a coincidence that she’d landed in Holiday Harbor. This assignment was her own last chance to get her career back on track. Like those ships headed for the rocks, she’d gone pretty far off course, totally unaware that she was steering herself into disaster.

  Her spectacular downfall was no accident, she finally admitted. Her former colleagues and editors hadn’t conspired to ruin her career out of jealousy or spite. Out of arrogance she’d done it to herself, and she’d gotten what she deserved. And now, sitting in this pretty church on a bright Sunday morning, an eerie calm came over her, like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She felt her bitterness recede a little, replaced with something she hadn’t felt much lately.

  Hope.

  Sammy whined, and she found him eyeing her, his forehead creased with canine worry. Smiling, she reached down and ruffled the thick fur on his neck so he’d know she was okay. Thumping his tail, he licked her hand, then pressed his head into her palm in a silent plea for some more love. Which, of course, she gave him without thinking twice.

  Mavis was right about animals, she thought with a little grin. They didn’t try to scam you, or tell you one thing when they meant the opposite. If only more people were like that, Bree would get along with them just fine.

  When the service was over, Cooper introduced her around the congregation, and she made mental notes. One man ran the marina, another the local movie theater. Two sisters—Georgia Bynes and Carolina Appleton—owned the bakery in town. In near unison they invited her to stop by Holiday Harbor Sweets tomorrow morning before the Fourth of July celebration for some fresh orange scones. For the life of her she couldn’t tell them apart, but they had syrupy Southern accents and struck her as being genuinely delightful.

  Dressed in their refined Sunday best, they were obviously on their good behavior now, but their less-than-subtle winks told her she’d stumbled on the town’s informal news network. She couldn’t wait to hear what they had to say about the contentious housing project Cooper had mentioned. She suspected these two would offer up a very different perspective than their pragmatic, even-keeled mayor.

  Once she and Sammy were settled in the car, Cooper stood inside her open door. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “Near the end of the sermon, you were staring out at the lighthouse, and you looked—I don’t know—sad.”

  “Pensive,” she corrected, intentionally using the word he’d cautioned her about. His faint grin told her she hadn’t quite managed to sound casual about it. She couldn’t believe he’d been watching her so closely, or that he cared enough about a near stranger to be worried about her. Apparently he and Sammy had quite a bit in common. “I’m fine, really. Thanks for asking, though.”

  He studied her for a few moments, then nodded in a way that said he knew that wasn’t the whole truth, but wouldn’t push her for more. Bree had met very few people who respected other people’s wishes so well. Just another mark in the pro column for Cooper Landry, she decided as they drove back to the lighthouse. One of these days some Holiday Harbor girl was going to land herself a real catch.

  After waving goodbye to the mayor and his dog, she declined a game of backgammon with Mavis and headed upstairs to get some work done. Small but neat, the tower room was decorated like an old ship’s stateroom, right down to the iron-railed widow’s walk. The door stuck, but with a good yank, it opened to allow the scent and sound of the ocean inside.

  Bree cautiously tested the floor of the small balcony, making sure it was still solid. When she was satisfied, she spread her hands wide and leaned on the railing to look out at the water. There were a few boats out, and she even noticed a couple of sailboarders braving the waves. It was pretty breezy, so they were flying across the water, their colorful sails flat-out.

  She heard the faint clanging of a bell somewhere over the horizon, and watched as a good-sized pleasure boat crested the waves and headed for the harbor. How many women had stood here over the centuries, watching and waiting, praying for their men to come home safely?

  Praying?

  Where had that come from? she wondered, shaking the errant thought from her head. The pastor’s sermon must have made more of an impression on her than she’d realized. Turning, she went back inside and started drafting her article. Staring at the pages of notes she’d accumulated, she sighed. “I’ve got enough here for a whole book about Holiday Harbor.”

  A quiet scratching at her door was a much-needed distraction, and she reached over to open it for Reggie. Placing his neatly trimmed hooves on the quilt, he gave her a look that clearly said, “I want up.”

  She wasn’t keen on having him for an assistant, but he was so cute she couldn’t resist. “Okay, but don’t mess with anything.”

  He grunted a reply, and jumped up on a chair before joining her on the bed. After she gave him a rubdown, he made himself comfortable and curled up for a nap. “Wish I could join you,” she grumbled with a yawn.

  Hoping for inspiration, she picked up her phone and started scrolling through the candid pictures she’d taken since arriving. Nothing sparked an idea until she got to the last one from Sandy Cove.

  Framed by the waterline, it showed Cooper sitting with Sammy, his arm around the filthy dog as if comforting him while they both stared out to sea. The quality wasn’t nearly what she’d get from her camera, but it really didn’t matter.

  While she was practical by nature, the raw emotion in that single picture actually made her heart ache. It was as if Cooper and Sammy were both waiting for someone to come back into their lives, even though they knew it was never going to happen.

  Blinking back tears, Bree started typing. She poured out Sammy’s story, ending with the scene that had touched her so deeply. Knowing Cooper would resent such an intrusion, she left him out but made it clear that the brave, loyal dog had found a home with someone who loved and appreciated him just the way he was.

  She monkeyed with several titles before settling on a phrase from the story: “Loyal and True.” Reading it centered at the top choked her up again, and since that was the reaction she wanted to evoke in her readers, she figured it was ideal.

  She prepared an email to Nick, but the wireless signal didn’t reach into the tower. Too lazy to go down all those stairs to the parlor, she dialed Nick’s number.

  “If you’re gonna be late, I don’t wanna hear it.”

  “How could I be late?” she asked sweetly. “It’s only July third.”

  “Right. Sorry. What did you need?”

  When she explained her disconnectedness, he laughed derisively. “Gotta love that place.”

  “It’s real short,” she pressed, trying to contain her excitement so he’d be surprised. “Do you have time to listen to it?”

  “Shoot.”

  “First I want to send you a picture.” She texted it to him and waited until he confirmed he’d gotten it.

  “Is that Coop
er hugging that mess of a dog?”

  “Yes, but keep that part to yourself. Now look at the photo while I read this to you.”

  “Man, you’re bossy all of a sudden,” he grumbled. “This better be good.”

  It took her about two minutes to recite the entire thing. When she was finished, the line was dead silent. She’d poured her heart into this piece, and she was desperate for his opinion, but she tamped down her anxiety and let him absorb it.

  “You wrote that?” he demanded. “Just now?”

  “Yes.”

  He muttered something she didn’t catch, then she heard his fingers clacking away on his keyboard. After a few seconds he said, “I’ve got just enough space for this tomorrow. I’ll bump one of the ongoing ads and double its size on Tuesday to keep the client happy.”

  Bree felt her eyes double in size, too. The alterations weren’t impossible, obviously, but unnecessary changes were strictly against Kaleidoscope policy. They cost money, and Nick hated losing money even more than he hated reporters missing their deadlines. “You want to run it tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll pay you the same rate, but it’s not much since the word count is so small.”

  “That’s okay,” she breathed, closing her eyes as relief washed over her. She’d taken a huge risk sharing such a personal story with him, and she really appreciated the reception he’d given it. “Thank you, Nick.”

  “Thank me, nothing. This is all you, Farrell. Nobody in this business ever doubted your talent, it was your attitude they had a problem with. Me, I don’t care if you’re not Miss Congeniality. I just want more stories like this. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “One more thing before the wind blows away your cell signal. Have you got a title for the larger article yet?”

  “I was thinking about ‘Fireworks at Holiday Harbor.’”

  “I like it.” More tapping told her he’d already dropped it into the layout. “If that article is anything like this one, we’ll be talking again real soon.”

  They both hung up, and Bree set her phone on the quilt, staring at it for a full minute while she tried to wrap her head around what had just happened. Sitting here in a creaky old lighthouse with a pig snoozing on her bed, she was on the verge of resurrecting the career she’d come within inches of losing.

  Still a little dazed, she went out on the widow’s walk for some fresh air. Gazing out at the ocean, she felt a sudden wave of gratitude.

  Thinking back to Pastor Allen’s sermon, she wondered if it was really possible that God had stripped away all the things she thought she wanted, shoving her on to a much better path than the one she’d chosen herself.

  A ray of sunlight fanned out on the shore below her, and she couldn’t help thinking it was meant for her.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Bree complained from her seat in Stargazer’s bow. “This is way faster than I thought we’d be going.”

  Laughing, Cooper stepped around her and angled the main sail to catch more of the wind. “It wasn’t me who talked you into running the regatta. It was him.”

  He nodded toward his furry navigator, who barked at them before turning his nose back into the wind. They were midpack, and Sammy kept up a steady stream of encouraging sounds. If he’d been able to speak canine, Cooper had no doubt the intelligent Newfie could direct him across the finish line in first place.

  A boa constrictor wouldn’t be wrapped around Bree as tightly as her life jacket was, but as they rounded the far buoy, he noticed she’d relinquished her stranglehold on the railing. A few minutes later she was comfortable enough to take out her camera and start snapping pictures of the other racers.

  “Is that George and Martha Washington?” she asked as she lined up a shot.

  “Sure is. Right behind them you’ve got Thomas Jefferson, and I think that’s Paul Revere on the jet ski.”

  Cooper tacked across the waves to slow down a bit. When she glared back at him, he knew she’d caught on to his strategy.

  “You’re not even trying to win this race,” she accused with narrowed eyes. “Why not?”

  “I’m the mayor. Besides, I won the trophy last year, so it’s someone else’s turn.”

  Amusement sparkled in her eyes. “Let me guess. It’s a big brass cup you need two people to lift.”

  “Actually it’s a pewter goblet Jeremiah Landry used on the Sarah Anne. They found it offshore after she sank, and it was passed down through my family. They donated it as the trophy years ago, when the race first started. Back then the real prize was the first slip at the dock for the rest of the season.”

  “Cool.” Bree took a few more pictures, then without looking up said, “All the history around here is really—”

  “Odd?”

  “Nice,” she corrected with a smile. “It gives the town a solid feeling I don’t get in very many places. Like it will always be here, no matter what.”

  The fondness in her tone told him they’d finally cracked through her tough exterior, and she’d fallen for the quirky charm of his hometown. Returning the smile, he said, “We’ve been here a long time, through blizzards and hurricanes, even a plague or two. We’re too stubborn to be taken down by a bunch of spreadsheets.”

  While they cruised past the final marker, she laughed. “That’s good to hear. But right now, you should be thinking up a good story about why you lost this race.”

  “I’ll just tell them you distracted me with an endless stream of questions,” he said with a wink. “They’ll believe that.”

  The sassy reporter actually stuck her tongue out at him, and he glided into his assigned slip, laughing like a maniac.

  Chapter Seven

  When the race was over, Bree watched Cooper expertly tack into his spot and toss a mooring line to Jack. No doubt about it: the man knew his way around a boat.

  A huge grin splitting his weathered features, the old fisherman chortled. “Got ya this time, boy. I been here five minutes.”

  “Nice run, Jack,” Cooper replied, reaching over to shake his gnarled hand. “You managed that crosswind a lot better than I did.”

  Cocking his head, the old salt regarded him with a skeptical eye. “Don’t be shoveling it on, son. We all know you dropped off and let us win. Course,” he added with a wicked grin at Bree, “my first mate’s Grover, not this pretty thing here. I reckon I wasn’t as distracted as you.”

  Cooper grinned and occupied himself with coiling up one of the countless ropes that seemed to sprout up in the sailboat all on their own. As Jack sauntered off, Bree followed Cooper and Sammy up onto the dock.

  “I guess you called that one,” she teased.

  Turning to face her, Cooper shrugged. “Folks think what they want to, and it’s pretty hard to change their minds.”

  “But there’s nothing going on here.” She motioned from herself to him and back. “I wish people wouldn’t just assume otherwise.”

  Folding his arms, he gave her a curious look. “Why?”

  “Because it’s not true.”

  The last few stragglers passed them, laughing and joking on their way up to The Crow’s Nest. For some reason, though, Cooper didn’t join them. Instead he took another step toward her, pinning Bree with a very intense look totally at odds with the laid-back demeanor she’d come to expect from him.

  He didn’t say a word, but something she couldn’t begin to define warmed his summer-sky eyes. Bree opened her mouth to say something, but her mind had gone completely to mush. There was hardly any space between them, and she could feel the sun warming his skin. For the first time she noticed the streaks of gold in his hair, and that he smelled like the ocean breeze swirling around them.

  Stepping back, she said, “I’m here on assignment, and I’m leaving tomorrow.
Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  But I could stay, she almost blurted before she caught herself. Despite her best efforts, she was falling for this very appealing guy. It wasn’t just his looks, although on their own they’d have been tempting enough. No, it was his agile wit and warm heart that had drawn her in and made her want to extend her visit.

  Her parents’ chaotic marriage and heart-wrenching divorce flooded into her mind, kicking back any thoughts of pursuing something with Cooper. This was a man for keeping, not for messing around with. And right now she had her hands full just taking care of herself.

  Hoping to keep things light, she said, “I have to get back to Richmond so Nick doesn’t forget about me.”

  An admiring male grin slowly spread across his tanned face. “Bree, I doubt there’s a man alive who could ever forget about you.”

  No one had ever spoken to her like that, and she felt a flattered blush creeping over her cheeks. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Although he sounded sincere, the light in his eyes had dimmed, and he gave her something between a smile and a frown. He turned and called for Sammy, stopping here and there to greet the latecomers as he strolled up the gangway. Watching him go, it took every ounce of her resolve to keep from running after him and telling him she’d changed her mind.

  * * *

  “Oh, man.” Bree laughed as the parade got underway. “Is that goat dressed like Uncle Sam?”

  Cooper followed the direction her zoom lens was pointed and nodded. “Looks pretty good, too. He just might win the costume contest.”

  “Does that actually happen?”

  “Last year a boat won for best-dressed.” Pulling her camera away, she cocked a dubious brow, and he held up his hand. “Honest. You never know what these judges will do.”