Read, Write, Love at Seaside

by Addison Cole

  “I didn’t even make it one night away from Savannah when we came back from the mountains after we first met,” Jack reminded Kurt. “Have you considered moving there? To the Cape?”

  “Sure. I’ve gone through all the options. I could move there, but you know my life is in New York. Our whole family is there, Jack, and my agent, my public relations rep, my friends.” Friends? More like acquaintances. “What would I do with my house? What about Mom and Dad? They’re getting older, and I’m the closest one to them. Since I work from home, I can be there in case of an emergency.” He’d been going over this in his head for hours, and there was something that he wasn’t admitting to Jack. He barely admitted it to himself. Kurt hated change. It was that simple. He lived his life in a methodical fashion, and that kept him focused and comfortable. Leanna had thrown his world off balance, and he’d found that it took him only opening his heart to her to find his balance once again, this time with Leanna by his side. But that was when she was coming into his world. Could he give up the safety net he’d created to be with her and leave his life behind?

  Give up New York, where he’d worked so hard to put down roots?

  Move away from his family?

  Jack opened his mouth to speak, and Hal settled a hand on his arm, silencing him.

  “You have a point, Kurt,” Hal began. “The question is, where is your heart? Is what makes you whole in here”—he patted his chest—“in New York, or is it in Cape Cod?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  JENNA LEFT EARLY Sunday morning with her car packed to the hilt. Leanna and Bella waved to Amy as she drove out of the complex two hours later.

  “I guess that just leaves you,” Leanna said to Bella.

  “Tony’s here.”

  “No. He went out surfing this morning, and he’s going to Nantucket for the week with friends. Once you leave, it’ll be just me and Pepper.” She crouched and pet Pepper. He panted up at her. “I’m going to miss you guys.”

  Bella had on a sundress and flip-flops. Her hair had lightened in the sun since she’d arrived earlier in the summer. She hugged Leanna and reassured her. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  “It feels like the absolute wrong thing. Everything that I was so excited about feels empty now. It’s like when Kurt left, he took a little—”

  “Piece of you with him? I know. I can see it in your eyes.” Bella hugged her again. “Listen, we women are like ice cream. We’re just fine without our freezers. Even melted, we still taste good. We’re still sweet and delicious, but somehow when we have that freezer wrapped around us, we bloom into something more. Something better.”

  Leanna rolled her eyes. “What is it with you and ice cream this summer?”

  Bella tapped her chin. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s a good analogy. Without Kurt, you’re still smart, fun, beautiful, capable, and…You’re you. And we love you. But with Kurt, you’re more.” She shrugged.

  “So why did you tell me to stay here? Why didn’t you push me to go to New York? Come on, Bella. Am I making the biggest mistake of my life?” It sure felt like it.

  “Because you need both. You need this business and you need Kurt.” They walked over to Bella’s car. “And I have faith in ice cream. I told you that. Get this business going. Ice cream fate will take care of the rest.” She kissed Leanna’s cheek and hugged her one more time. “I gotta run before traffic gets bad. I love you. Call me and text me. Let me know everything that happens.”

  “You know I will. Drive safely.”

  Bella pulled her car out of the driveway and waved. “Have faith in all things sweet, Leanna.”

  What does that even mean?

  Leanna’s phone vibrated with a text from Kurt on the way back to her cottage. FaceTime?

  A few seconds later Kurt’s face lit up the screen. She walked into her cottage, feeling the emptiness press in on her.

  “Hey, babe.” His low, gravelly voice raked a chill down her spine.

  “You sound tired.” His eyelids looked heavy, sleepy.

  “A little. I didn’t sleep much last night. How are you? How’s Pepper?”

  I love you. She crouched down and showed him Pepper.

  “Hey, Pep!”

  Pepper barked and whined. His tail wagged as he pressed his wet nose to Leanna’s phone. Kurt laughed, and it chased the chill right back up to her heart. She turned the phone back toward her.

  “I miss you so much.” She could fall into those blue eyes of his. She wanted to fall into them. There was no way she could do this. No way. Her friends were wrong. She had to go to New York. She had to be with him. There would be other contracts, or maybe there wouldn’t, but there could never be another Kurt.

  “Me too. I had to see you. What are your plans today? Are you going to the flea market?”

  “The girls just left, and I was considering skipping the last day at the flea market and taking Pepper to the beach. I haven’t gone much this summer and…” She couldn’t act like everything was okay. She couldn’t talk about her day like she wasn’t pining for him every second.

  “And I miss you like crazy, Kurt. I can’t help but feel like I’ve ruined everything. We had a plan, and you’re a planner. You live by your schedules, and when you left, we had a schedule that we were both happy with, and now…Now it’s all messed up because of me and my stupid business. And you know what? I’m just flighty enough to decide in two months that this business isn’t what I want.” That was a lie. That was who she thought she used to be, but Kurt helped her to see that she hadn’t been that person at all. She just hadn’t found her calling and there was nothing wrong with taking her time. After all, not settling had brought her to Kurt.

  “Stupid business?” He shook his head.

  “Wait. Don’t say anything. That’s not true. I won’t change my mind about the business, but I did mess everything up, and I’m sorry.”

  “Leanna?”

  She saw his lips move, but couldn’t hear past her need to get her feelings out once and for all. “You’re probably rethinking everything about us by now. I’m sorry I ruined our plans and upset your apple cart.”

  “Leanna. Take a deep breath. Please.”

  “Kurt—”

  “No. It’s my turn to talk.”

  His serious tone caught her off guard. She closed her mouth.

  “You are my apple cart.”

  He said it so seriously that she thought she misunderstood him. What was it with food analogies all of a sudden?

  “What?”

  “You are my apple cart. You haven’t ruined anything. You’ve made my life better in every way. I told you I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not.”

  “But being apart is hard.” So hard I can’t stand it.

  “Most things in life that are worth anything at all are hard.”

  She narrowed her eyes and couldn’t suppress the lascivious thought or the smile that accompanied it. “Well, I know at least one thing that is…”

  “There’s my dirty girl,” he said in a seductive voice.

  “Ugh! Not helping. Now I miss you even more. This is totally sucky.” She drank in everything she could see. His dark eyes, so full of want and love she could practically taste it, the peppering of stubble along his jaw and above the swell of his upper lip. The way his dark brows knitted together—just a little—when he spoke. She wanted to touch his face, to feel his lips on hers. She wanted to hug him and sit beside him while he wrote. She wanted to see him plotting and creating, too deep in thought to look away from his computer.

  “Leanna.”

  His voice pulled her from her thoughts.

  “Right this very second I can see your face. I can hear your voice.” His voice was sweet and patient. “This moment is anything but sucky. You know what’s sucky? Losing the person you love.”

  “Yeah, that would really suck. I guess perspective is everything.”

  “You know what else?”

  Pepper ran to the screen door and began p
awing at it and barking.

  “Pepper, shush.” Leanna turned her attention back to Kurt. “Sorry. He’s going bonkers. I don’t know how you got him to listen.” She turned her back to Pepper to try to hear Kurt better.

  Pepper whined, scratching at the door.

  “I’ve got to let him out. Pepp—” She spun around. Her eyes filled with tears at the sight of Kurt standing on the other side of the screen door, a bouquet of wild roses in one hand, the phone in the other.

  “Hey, babe,” he said casually, as if he’d just come back from walking Pepper and not just walked back into her life from halfway across the United States.

  She burst through the door, jumped into his arms, and wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re here. You’re rea—”

  He dropped the phone and the flowers, cupped the back of her head and took her in the sweetest kiss she’d ever tasted. Pepper ran around them in circles, barking and whining and pawing at Kurt’s legs.

  “You are my moment, Leanna. If you’re here, I want to be right here with you. Every minute of every day.”

  “Here?”

  He kissed her again. “Here.”

  “But New York?” She couldn’t believe he was there. He looked so tired, and he held her like she was light as air.

  “Would be torture without you.”

  AN HOUR LATER Kurt lay on his back in Leanna’s bed. Her head rested on his chest, her arm was draped over his stomach, and he’d never felt happier in all his life. A gentle breeze swept the curtains away from the window.

  “Uh-oh,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “We left the window open again.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “Tony’s not here. He went to Nantucket.” She leaned up on her elbow. “So we can be as loud as we want.”

  “Does that mean we can chunky-dunk, too?”

  “Only if you’re very…” She kissed Kurt’s chin. “Very.” She kissed his lips. “Good.”

  “That sounds like an invitation to me.” He touched his lips to hers again, intending to be far better than good. Again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  MONDAY MORNING GREETED them with sunshine, a warm breeze, and surety. Kurt felt invigorated. Alive. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d made the right decision coming back to the Cape. Coming back to Leanna. He’d thought writing was everything, and he’d been so wrong that it was almost embarrassing. He had a lot to learn about life, and he looked forward to experiencing and learning it all with Leanna.

  He called Jackie and scheduled a Skype meeting instead of a person-to-person meeting. Jackie told him he was the last of the holdouts, that she met with most of her clients via Skype, and not to worry about moving out of New York. It wouldn’t have mattered what she said. He’d made up his mind, and his life was with Leanna, wherever that may lead them, and at the moment it was leading them to his cottage.

  They walked along the dune overlooking the beach. Leanna had on a pair of cutoff jean shorts and a white tank top, and with the morning breeze blowing her hair off of her shoulders and the sun glistening against her silky skin, she couldn’t have looked more beautiful. Wow, he’d missed her. His heart swelled with love as he took her hand and gazed deeply into her eyes.

  “I want a life with you. A whole life, Leanna. Not just part-time, and not just when things are good. I want to experience your world, and I want you to experience mine. You’re my final chapter, Leanna. No revisions necessary. Live with me here, where we first met. Build a life with me.”

  Her forehead wrinkled and her lower lip trembled. She trapped it between her teeth and pressed her hands to his chest. “There’s no place on earth I’d rather be.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her softly; then, with Pepper at their heels, they crossed the lawn toward the studio.

  “I forgot you even had a studio.”

  “It’s not really a studio anymore. The renovations aren’t yet complete, but soon…” He unlocked the arched wooden door and pushed it open.

  Leanna took a step inside and drew in a deep breath. She reached for Kurt’s hand as her gaze slid along the wall of custom cabinetry to their right. Blue was right; the warm bronze, beiges, and golds of the granite brought warmth to the hickory cabinets. There were still a number of cabinets to be hung, but the project was taking shape and the studio already felt homier, more like Leanna. She looked up at the exposed-beam ceiling, and finally, her eyes came to rest on the four stainless-steel ovens and stovetops that had yet to be installed, but he knew she could visualize the end result.

  “Kurt,” she said barely above a whisper. “You did this for me?” She walked farther into the room, one slow step at a time.

  “We met on this property, so I thought you might want a place for your business that was meaningful.”

  Leanna ran her fingers along the granite countertop. She touched the fine wood finish of the cabinetry with both hands and turned damp eyes to Kurt.

  “You took a big chance on me.”

  He folded her in his arms. “Did I? You didn’t feel like a chance at all. You felt like fate.”

  “Fate,” she whispered. Leanna pressed her hands to his chest and gazed up at him with a dreamy, loving gaze. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I’ve spent years living in the minds of fictional characters and wrapped up in fictional worlds. I want to spend the rest of my life wrapped up in you, Leanna Bray, living in the very real world that we create together.”

  Please enjoy a preview of the next Sweet with Heat novel

  Dreaming at Seaside

  Now Available!

  Chapter One

  BELLA ABBASCIA STRUGGLED to keep her grip on a ceramic toilet as she crossed the gravel road in Seaside, the community where she spent her summers. It was one o’clock in the morning, and Bella had a prank in store for Theresa Ottoline, a straitlaced Seaside resident and the elected property manager for the community. Bella and two of her besties, Amy Maples and Jenna Ward, had polished off two bottles of Middle Sister wine while they waited for the other cottage owners to turn in for the night. Now, dressed in their nighties and a bit tipsy, they struggled to keep their grip on a toilet that Bella had spent two days painting bright blue, planting flowers in, and adorning with seashells. They were carrying the toilet to Theresa’s driveway to break rule number fourteen of the Community Homeowners Association Guidelines: No tacky displays allowed in the front of the cottages.

  “You’re sure she’s asleep?” Bella asked as they came to the grass in front of the cottage of their fourth bestie, Leanna Bray.

  “Yes. She turned off her lights at eleven. We should have hidden it someplace other than my backyard. It’s so far. Can we stop for a minute? This sucker is heavy.” Amy drew her thinly manicured brows together.

  “Oh, come on. Really? We only have a little ways to go.” Bella nodded toward Theresa’s driveway, which was across the road from her cottage, about a hundred feet away.

  Amy glanced at Jenna for support. Jenna nodded, and the two lowered their end to the ground, causing Bella to nearly drop hers.

  “That’s so much better.” Jenna tucked her stick-straight brown hair behind her ear and shook her arms out to her sides. “Not all of us lift weights for breakfast.”

  “Oh, please. The most exercise I get during the summer is lifting a bottle of wine,” Bella said. “Carrying around those boobs of yours is more of a workout.”

  Jenna was just under five feet tall with breasts the size of bowling balls and a tiny waist. She could have been the model for the modern-day Barbie doll, while Bella’s figure was more typical for an almost thirty-year-old woman. Although she was tall, strong, and relatively lean, she refused to give up her comfort foods, which left her a little soft in places, with a figure similar to Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lawrence.

  “I don’t carry them with my arms.” Jenna looked down at her chest and cupped a breast in each hand. “
But yeah, that would be great exercise.”

  Amy rolled her eyes. Pin-thin and nearly flat chested, Amy was the most modest of the group, and in her long T-shirt and underwear, she looked like a teenager next to curvy Jenna. “We only need a sec, Bella.”

  They turned at the sound of a passionate moan coming from Leanna’s cottage.

  “She forgot to close the window again,” Jenna whispered as she tiptoed around the side of Leanna’s cottage. “Typical Leanna. I’m just going to close it.”

  Leanna had fallen in love with bestselling author Kurt Remington the previous summer, and although they had a house on the bay, they often stayed in the two-bedroom cottage so Leanna could enjoy her summer friends. The Seaside cottages in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, had been in the girls’ families for years, and they had spent summers together since they were kids.

  “Wait, Jenna. Let’s get the toilet to Theresa’s first.” Bella placed her hands on her hips so they knew she meant business. Jenna stopped before she reached for the window, and Bella realized it would have been a futile effort anyway. Jenna would need a stepstool to pull that window down.

  “Oh…Kurt.” Leanna’s voice split the night air.

  Amy covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Fine, but let’s hurry. Poor Leanna will be mortified to find out she left the window open again.”

  “I’m the last one who wants to hear her having sex. I’m done with men, or at least with commitments, until my life is back on track.” Ever since last summer, when Leanna had met Kurt, started her own jam-making business, and moved to the Cape full-time, Bella had been thinking of making a change of her own. Leanna’s success had inspired her to finally go for it. Well, that and the fact that she’d made the mistake of dating a fellow teacher, Jay Cook. It had been months since they broke up, but they’d taught at the same Connecticut high school, and until she left for the summer, she couldn’t avoid running in to him on a daily basis. It was just the nudge she needed to take the plunge and finally quit her job and start over. New job, new life, new location. She just hadn’t told her friends yet. She’d thought she would tell them the minute she arrived at Seaside and they were all together, maybe over a bottle of wine or on the beach. But Leanna had been spending a lot of time with Kurt, and every time it was just the four of them, she hadn’t been ready to come clean. She knew they’d worry and ask questions, and she wanted to have some of the transition sorted out before answering them.