Love Reclaimed: (Clean Small-Town Romance) (Kings Grove Book 4)

by Delancey Stewart

  Mike sighed in the way a happy woman confident in what she had would, and I felt a little pang of jealousy. I didn’t want Chance Palmer—the traditionally good looking guy had never been my thing. I tended to like the oddballs, the underdogs. And the shiny corporate managers, evidently, but that had been a one-off for me. Cameron Turner was way more my speed. Not that I was in the market. At all.

  We hopped into a monstrous golf cart with huge tires and followed a rutted dirt road from the back of the Inn up the hill and out to where the outpost restaurant was rising impressively from the forest floor. The structure was two stories high, and appeared solid from the front, with stonework climbing one full story and huge windows on either side of the double doors. We drove around to the back, where the crew was hard at work on a massive deck. Mike began explaining how the walls retracted back here, and why managing the construction was complicated, but I only heard part of what she was saying.

  Up on the big wide deck, a tool belt hanging from his waist and a pair of thick work gloves over his hands, Cameron stood shirtless, inspecting something one of the other men was showing him near the railing. The sun kissed the skin that pulled taut over the firm smooth muscles of his back, and a thin sheen of sweat made it shine slightly, like a bronze beacon. The tattoo I’d seen on his neck was the top part of a tribal pattern that resembled a dragon, covering a large part of Cam’s back. I inhaled a sharp breath, trying not to appreciate the low-slung jeans, the edge of elastic that was visible just above the denim, or the bulging muscles of the arms that were now pointing at something high up the back wall as he talked to the other man. A warm buzz had filled my head and I had to force my gaze back to Mike’s face.

  “…So it’s going to be a challenge to get it all done by August. And even then the interiors might not be finished. Getting the electricity this far up the hill took an act of God, and the county is not in a hurry with permitting the well and septic. We’re right on the edge of the Park, so they’re dragging their feet, but I’ve been promised it will happen. Just maybe not in time for the wedding.”

  I tried to imagine one hundred people out here this far from the main building at a party—and no working plumbing. My face must have betrayed my concern, because Mike quickly said, “I’m sure it will be fine. But that’s why we need a plan B. Just in case.”

  “Got it.”

  Cameron turned then, and spotted us standing below the railing. His eyes found mine, and connected for a brief second with what felt like a physical force, before he winked and then moved his gaze to Mike. “Everything looking good, boss?” he called down. Cameron hadn’t struck me as the winking type, and honestly, he might as well have thrown a pebble and hit me right on the head. I reeled a bit, trying to regain my composure. Chance Palmer appeared from inside the structure and stepped to the railing, his wide smile focused entirely on his fiancée. He hadn’t changed a bit since the last time I’d seen him. Well, maybe a little—last time I’d seen him he’d been a ten-year old version of the man standing above me now.

  “Hey you,” he called down to Mike, who was grinning right back at him.

  “Hey yourself. You guys gonna get this all done for Maddie?”

  Cam leaned on forearms on the railing. “We’d better. You ever seen my sister when she’s pissed?”

  “I would rather not,” Mike said.

  “We’ll get it done,” Chance assured us.

  “Hey guys, this is Harper Lyles,” Mike said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “She’s going to be running events and helping manage things at the Inn.”

  Chance squinted at me, obviously recognizing me but probably struggling to place me. “Welcome to Kings Grove,” he said.

  Cam didn’t smile or welcome me, just watched me interact with Chance and Mike, leaning on his arms like he was at a sporting match or casually observing a deer out in the woods.

  “Welcome back,” I corrected. “We’ve met.”

  I explained to Chance how we knew each other, and his perfect smile appeared again. “Oh my gosh, little Harper! It’s good to see you back here. Your dad must be thrilled.”

  “I don’t think thrilled is in Dad’s repertoire,” I said. He’d been steady and calm when I was little, and his voice on the phone since then had always been careful, measured. “And I haven’t seen him yet. Just got here last week.”

  “She’s renting the house,” Cam said, and it was apparent that Chance knew what house he meant by the way he nodded.

  “Good to see you again, Harper.”

  Mike and I got back into the four wheel cart and headed back to the Inn. We said goodbye and I steeled myself for my next errand. Checking in with Dad.

  Chapter 5

  CAMERON

  Harper Lyles was on my mind, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

  Or maybe it wasn’t so much that I didn’t like it, it was just that I wasn’t sure it was a good thing.

  Maddie said I was busy being a martyr, that I wore the wound of losing my wife like a monk’s robe, keeping people away and sequestering myself emotionally (her words, not mine.) After Harper and Mike dropped by the job site, I wondered if that was changing. I think I’d felt myself wink at Harper without even planning to.

  Who winks? Besides weird old uncles and cheesy car salesmen, I guessed I did. Harper had made me a winker, and it felt different and strange. What did it mean when a woman you’d just met had the strange power to make you do things you normally wouldn’t do?

  “Not too hard to look at,” Chance commented to me as Harper and Mike disappeared in the rugged golf cart the Inn owned.

  “You mean Harper, I’m guessing,” I said, turning to face him, squinting against the midday sun.

  He shrugged. “You already know I think Mike’s got ‘em all beat,” he said. “But Harper’s always been cute—even when she was seven. I remember her.”

  “Yeah?” I pulled off a glove and wiped the moisture from my brow with the shirt hanging from my waist.

  “I mean, I’m not sure how discerning I was at ten,” he continued. “But she was one of those kids who just kind of popped into situations, never hung back, was never shy or anxious.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said, pooling my limited knowledge of the version of Harper I knew. “Not that I know much,” I added quickly, pulling my glove back on. “Just met her. She just seems…” I struggled to find a word that would cover it. “Comfortable,” I tried.

  Chance looked at me for a beat longer, like he was reading all the words I hadn’t said and could see right inside me to where I was thinking words like: sexy, fascinating, compelling.

  I felt an immediate wash of guilt and forced my traitorous mind to the constant movie I kept playing on a screen inside my head, a private viewing of every memory I had of Jess on constant loop in a dark theater built for one.

  “Better get back to it or my sister’ll kill us all,” I said, pulling my glove back on and turning away from Chance.

  The sound of a power saw came to life then, killing any opportunity for further discussion, and we each went back to our work—Chance no doubt thinking about Mike, or about whatever it was you thought about when your life was going exactly the way you wanted, and I forced my mind to stay locked on Jess, on her happy smile, on the way she’d looked before she’d been sick, on the way things had been when we first met. Even on the way they’d been going downhill before she got sick.

  Jess stayed on my mind the rest of that morning, and by the time we’d stopped for lunch, I was back in the same dark hole I’d inhabited for the past couple years.

  “Diner?” Dean asked me as he stuck his tools inside the structure and pulled off his gloves. Dean was just a kid, folks up here had expected him to head out to college and conquer the world, but he’d ended up back here sooner than expected, and I’d never gotten the story about why.

  “Sure,” I answered, following him down to his truck. A couple of the other guys on the crew were opening packed lunches, lounging on the ground in the s
hade behind the worksite or sitting on the fallen log near the trail head.

  We drove out the dirt road that connected the outpost to the Inn, and then pulled into the main Kings Grove parking lot. The town wasn’t really more than a wide spot in the road, but the part of me that saw everything as a movie appreciated the small town vibe, which had an almost western flair to it—all the storefronts facing the same way, everything oriented around this one spot. I thought—not for the first time since leaving my old life—that it would be a great setting for a movie.

  Maddie grinned when she saw us coming in the door of the diner, and Adele pursed her lips at us, probably thinking about how much silty mountain dust was accompanying us into the booth where Maddie put us.

  “How’s it going?” Maddie asked, the narrowed eyes indicating that she was not inquiring as to our health but as to the state of her desired reception site.

  “We’re doing our best, Ms. Turner,” Dean said, bobbing his head a bit.

  “Yeah, Ms. Turner. Please don’t complain to our boss. We’re just the crew.” I parroted, unable to help myself. That earned me a whack on the head with Maddie’s order pad.

  “Funny.” She rolled her eyes. “Hurry up and order so I can send you back to work. I’m having the reception there, even if we have to cart food up from the diner to do it.”

  Adele cleared her throat loudly at this, making me doubt very much that would be a workable solution. Plus, I didn’t think my previously socialite sister would be pleased with sliders as apps at her fancy wedding. There was a high-end restaurant at the Inn, with a chef who’d been hired away from some fancy job in San Francisco. If we didn’t get the outpost finished, we could still have good food—it would just have to be more portable than Maddie might have in mind.

  Dean and I had burgers in front of us within a few minutes, and we both settled in to eat. I was just finishing up when my thoughts were snapped immediately back to my new tenant, mostly because she had just come into the diner and was standing uncertainly inside the door. She wore the same work clothes she’d had on when she’d come out to the job site, along with a pair of heels that I couldn’t help but like, even though they were wildly inappropriate for the environment. She looked put together and gorgeous. And a little bit lost.

  I heard her tell Adele she was waiting for someone, and then watched with interest I tried to hide as Craig Pritchard—of grumpy Post Office fame—came in and the two took a table together across the open floor of the diner. It clicked as I watched them. She sat back, her arms across her chest, her face held still like she was afraid of betraying any emotion. Craig, on the other hand, leaned forward, everything in his posture reaching for her.

  Craig had to be Harper’s father. It made sense now, and I marveled at how little I actually knew about the guy. He’d been terse and sharp the few times I’d been into the Post Office. And I knew he rubbed my sister the wrong way, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

  “Is Craig getting himself a sugar baby?” Dean asked in a low voice. “Who is that girl? She’s hot.”

  I felt my blood thunder at his comment and had the ridiculous urge to pound the guy, but managed to suck in a few breaths instead. “My new renter,” I told him. “I think Craig’s her dad.”

  “What the…? Seriously?” Dean laughed. “That would mean someone once got close enough to that guy to—“

  “Right,” I cut him off, feeling peculiarly protective of Harper, of her past, her story.

  The conversation between Harper and Craig didn’t look comfortable. She was now holding her menu up in front of her face between them, and it was Craig’s turn to cross his arms as he stared at the back of the menu.

  Dean and I paid and stood to go, and I felt it the moment Harper’s eyes landed on me across the restaurant. I turned to look at her once more as we made our way out. She looked miserable, but offered me a half-smile and lifted a hand, and a little blossom of warmth opened in my chest. I ignored it and lifted a couple fingers at my side in a sad attempt at a wave as I followed Dean out the diner door.

  Whatever this was, this glow of interest, of misplaced hope, where Harper was concerned, I needed to quash it.

  I was not a guy who developed crushes on girls. I was a widower, and I was grieving. I wanted to keep my life simple from here on out—take care of my sister, mind my own business, and honor my wife’s memory. Plus, I was out of the business of forming close attachments to people. That’s the kind of guy I was.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon working with Dean on getting the channels set up for the retractable glass Chance had insisted we could make work. The idea was that the outpost would be wide open to the elements in the summer, but in the winter—or during a storm—there was a system of retractable walls and a ceiling that slid out and sealed. It was a cool idea. I just wasn’t sure it could actually be done, despite Sam and Chance Palmer insisting it could.

  “Shit,” Dean cursed from where he knelt behind me, bolting the channel hardware to the deck.

  “That doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence,” I told him, though it wasn’t like cursing was unusual on a construction site. Just not usual for him. Dean was a generally clean-cut kid. Where some of the other guys the Palmers hired were more standard construction variety—many of them traveling for jobs up here from the valley and driving all the way back down at night or at least for the weekends, Dean was clean cut and local. And his folks were still here. In a town this small, bad behavior didn’t go unnoticed or unremarked upon. I should know. There was plenty of whispering about my bad moods over the last couple years, which I’d never been great at hiding or handling.

  “Nah, it’s fine, it’s just…” Dean sat back on his heels, looking at the work he’d been doing.

  “It’s not straight,” I said.

  “Yeah, I got that.”

  The channel was made of a really thick rubber intended to create a seal once the walls were extended. There was a metal piece that fit inside the rubber to guide the walls into place, but the rubber went on first. And if it wasn’t completely straight, the walls wouldn’t extend.

  I stood, looking down at it, and rubbed a hand over the back of my neck as I looked around at the rest of the crew. Some of the guys were finishing up the front of the building, constructing the extended roof that would reach out over the front doors, others were closing in the area beneath the enormous deck, which would be storage once the place was finished. A few guys were handling electrical and the plumbers had been on site recently too. Everyone was dragging a bit as the sun began it’s slide back down the sky.

  We were getting closer to summer and the days were getting longer. It was tempting to keep the crew at work longer, but I knew a worn out crew wasn’t an effective one, and I wanted to make sure these guys showed up fresh every day or stupid mistakes would get made.

  “Let’s call it for the day,” I told them all in a loud voice. “See you in the morning.”

  I gathered my stuff as the rest of the men did the same, and stayed until everyone had cleared off, Dean hanging by my side.

  “Need a ride back?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.” The younger man didn’t have a car, and I didn’t mind helping him out.

  As I navigated my truck into the residential side of the village, taking it gently down the potholed streets where you were as likely to find a toddler playing as a deer standing in your way, Dean spoke.

  “How old would you say your renter is?” he asked, interest clear in his voice.

  “Too old for you,” I said, the words coming out more like a growl than I intended.

  “So like…twenty-three or so?” Dean was probably twenty, though I wasn’t sure exactly.

  “Closer to twenty-six, twenty-seven. Mike says she’s got a graduate degree and she had enough time to have a big job in New York.” I wasn’t sure why I felt like bragging on Harper’s behalf, but something in me pushed to make sure he knew she wasn’t just a Kings Grove local—she�
�d been out in the world, living, accomplishing things. Of course anyone who knew the Palmers would tell you you didn’t have to leave Kings Grove to be successful.

  “Yeah,” Dean replied, a dreamy edge to his voice.

  “Too old for you,” I repeated.

  “Maybe not for you though, huh?” Dean shot me a sideways glance as I pulled up in front of his house, and I turned to look at him, keeping my expression serious.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, my chest tightening in some kind of silly protest at my words. “I’m not really in the market.”

  He opened his car door and grabbed for the tool belt he’d laid at his feet, leaning back in and grinning at me. “Maybe you should be,” he said. “She’s pretty hot. Thanks for the ride.” He slammed the door shut before I could say anything else, and I drove home wishing I hadn’t gotten that outside verification of Harper’s appeal. I didn’t know why, but having Dean express his interest made me feel territorial. And that was ridiculous. I had no claims on my tenant beyond her rent money.

  I parked and took my time getting out of the truck. Harper’s car wasn’t in the driveway, and I forced myself to focus on other things. Where she was and what she did were none of my business.

  I was just making my way up the stairs to my front door when a mournful howl came from the hill on the other side of the small creek that ran below my property. I froze, listening. It wasn’t the same sound we’d heard before—the terrorizing yowl of what I was sure was a mountain lion. This was different—an animal in some kind of pain, maybe? Almost a cry for help. I shivered, listening for it to repeat, but the wilderness across the creek had taken on an almost unnatural silence in the wake of that sad cry.

  The low hum of an engine replaced the stillness, and I ducked inside just as Harper’s car pulled up the drive.

  Chapter 6