by Zoe York
Wild at Heart
A Kincaids of Pine Harbour Novel
Zoe York
Contents
About This Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
The Next Kincaid Book
Acknowledgements
Also by Zoe York
About the Author
Mom, I didn’t understand then. I get it now. Thank you for moving us closer and closer to your Pine Harbour. You keep teaching me new things, every day.
* * *
I miss you.
He’s the guy everyone loves, and she’s the outsider who knows better than to fall for the town’s favourite golden boy.
* * *
Everyone in Pine Harbour loves Will Kincaid—except the one person he cares about actually impressing. Can grown men have crushes on their frenemies? When Catie joins the small town’s Search and Rescue team, Will finds himself spending every Thursday night swapping glares with the hairdresser while they get in each other’s way.
* * *
Catie Berton has a long list of reasons why Will is an arrogant jerk. But the more time she spends with him, the more she’s forced to admit sometimes they make a good team. That doesn’t change the fact that Will has always been her right crush, wrong guy.
* * *
When the SRT goes on a road trip to a competition, she surprises herself by agreeing to ride shotgun in his truck. The long drive could be a chance to repair a shredded friendship, if Catie can get past her complicated feelings for the too-attractive-for-his-own-good school principal.
* * *
Because Catie knows all too well how cold a small town can be to an outsider who wants too much happiness from one of their own.
* * *
Return to Pine Harbour, in this frenemies to lovers small town romance about two people looking to find themselves in the shadow of community expectations.
Welcome to Pine Harbour
Tucked into a hollow half-way up the Bruce Peninsula, on the eastern shores of Lake Huron, Pine Harbour is a small town full of big families.
The Kincaids of Pine Harbour series
Reckless at Heart
Fierce at Heart
Wild at Heart
Fearless at Heart
Rebel at Heart
* * *
Also available
meet the Minellis and the Fosters in
The original Pine Harbour series
Love in a Small Town
Love in a Snowstorm
Love on a Spring Morning
Love on a Summer Night
Love on the Run
Love in a Sandstorm
Love on the Outskirts of Town
Love on the Edge of Reason
* * *
www.zoeyork.com
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Land Acknowledgement
Pine Harbour is a fictional town located in a real place, the Bruce Peninsula, which I want to acknowledge as the Territory of the Anishinabek Nation: The People of the Three Fires known as Ojibway, Odawa, and Pottawatomie Nations.
I also give thanks to the Chippewas of Saugeen, and the Chippewas of Nawash, known collectively as the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, as the traditional keepers of this land, a place where I grew up and return to with joy each summer.
I appreciate this resource (https://www.saugeenojibwaynation.ca/resources) from the Saugeen Ojibway Nation for providing guidance on how to acknowledge this land I’m writing on, and explaining why land acknowledgements are an important step in reconciliation. Specifically, “A land acknowledgement is a reflection process in which you build mindfulness and intention walking into whatever gathering you are having.”
I built a land acknowledgement into this story, in chapter nine, and I hope readers are encouraged to look into the Indigenous territory in which they might read this book.
For example, I now live and write in London, Ontario. This is the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabeg, the Wendat, Lenape, and Attawandaron people. At the same time I was writing this book, Indigenous nations across Canada were finally receiving confirmation of what they had known for a long time: children taken from their communities and placed at residential schools, who never returned, had died in those schools and were buried in unmarked graves. The last of those residential schools closed while I was in high school. I grieve the loss of those children, and am angered at the generational harm done to their communities on many levels.
May we all be more mindful of the history of how we came to be here and grateful for the sharing of this space today.
With thanks,
Zoe York
Chapter One
Pine Harbour was a place full of memories: good, bad, and confusing.
In the few years since Catie Berton moved back—her second time as a newcomer to the town—she’d devoted herself to leaning into the good. Trying to see what her mother had loved about the village nestled high on a hill above the glittering waters of Lake Huron. And whenever possible, she helped make it a better place.
She had allies in that project, too. Other newcomers, like Isla Peterson, who owned Bake Sale! across the street from Catie’s hair salon and real estate office. The bakery usually closed at mid-afternoon, but today it was open late, like all the businesses on Main Street, for a “Doors Open Pine Harbour” event leading up to the town meeting tonight.
Catie didn’t book any hair clients during the event, leaving herself free to talk to anyone who wandered in the door. And right now, while there was a lull, that meant she could dash across the street and grab a latte and a snack for later.
Also, a snack for right now. Double snacks were really the secret to surviving a fourteen-hour workday.
The Bake Sale! treat of the day was a cardamom chai cake, so she ordered two of those—one for breakfast tomorrow—and a raisin butter tart.
“Has it been busy?” she asked Isla as her friend efficiently made a perfect latte.
“Pretty steady. Lots of chatter about the town meeting.” Isla gave her a curious look over the gleaming chrome of the vintage-looking espresso machine. “Adam didn’t know what the big fuss was. He says Pine Harbour rarely has town meetings?”
“This will only be the third since I’ve moved back.” Catie paid for her treats, then leaned her hip against the counter so she could keep one eye on her shop across the road. “Nobody will give me a straight answer about what it’s really about, or why there’s so much whispering buzz. Just a lot of questions about who is going.”
“Which in turn means we need to go,” Isla teased.
“Of course we do.” Catie took a sip of her coffee. “If we leave the cottagers and the born-and-breds to their own devices, who knows what terrible decisions they might make.”
“They’re not all bad.” Isla was referring to her husband, of course. Adam Kincaid was a prince among men, to be sure. But he also focused on what mattered: keeping his wife happy, and doing his job as Pine Harbour’s newest firefighter.
“You sound like Bailey.”
“Bailey’s a genius.” Catie spotted someone slowing down outside her salon and grabbed her to-go bag. “See you in an hour! I’ll save you a seat.”
But when she arrived at the community centre fifty-five minutes later, it was already standing room only. Pine Harbour only had a population of six hundred people. Were they all in attendance tonight?
The town meeting notice had been vague. Community Information Night, it had been specifically called. Shocking lack of information on offer, though. Apparently, that fact hadn’t gotten past every other curious soul in town. She scanned the overflowing room, taking stock of who was in attendance. A few friendly faces were up front—like Olivia Minelli, who had fought hard to keep the Pine Harbour Library open. But Catie’s nosy neighbour across the road, Frances Schmidt, was also sitting in the front row, sure to have a half-formed opinion about whatever tonight’s topic might be.
And right behind her were two of the Kincaid brothers. Owen, the oldest, the EMT supervisor who had helped Olivia with a plan to save the library. Josh, the second youngest, sat next to him. The mechanic was a brash hothead, just as likely as Mrs. Schmidt to go off half-cocked, but his instincts were at least in the same direction as Catie’s, all for change and innovation. No sign of the second oldest Kincaid brother, though.
Will.
Mr. Kincaid, he would probably correct her, which would be yet another blow to the secret fact that she’d once had a crush on the guy. Two crushes, really, separated by fifteen years.
Catie’s first crush on Will lasted from when she was twelve years old to right before her fourteenth birthday. He’d recently left Pine Harbour to go to university, and brought a girl home his first weekend back for a visit. Even at fourteen, Catie knew better than to pine for unavailable men.
Her second crush bloomed on her return to Pine Harbour at the age of twenty-eight, and quietly hummed under her skin, a secret she liked enough when she was alone, but that made her a bit nervous if she thought about it too much—or ever considered acting upon it.
But the thing about crushes, she learned over the winter that she turned thirty, was that they weren’t real. They were one-sided, a figment of her imagination, and based entirely on the idea of a man.
And her idea of who Will Kincaid might be ran smack into the reality of who he kept showing her he was: an irritating rule-stickler with zero capacity for fun. The worst of the five Kincaid brothers by far, although she didn’t know Seth very well. The middle brother was a float plane pilot who lived north of Manitoulin Island, and flew home to have breakfast with his brothers at the diner once a month.
Or at least, that was Catie’s casual, outsider observation. She tried not to spend much time thinking about Will these days.
You scanned the room, looking for him as soon as you arrived.
Sure, but that had been unconscious. Conscious thoughts about him were limited to how annoying he was. The last time she’d had a real conversation with the community school principal, he’d basically told her to her face that he thought the best idea she’d had in a year was stupid.
Well, she thought his face was stupid. So there.
Ugh.
Why did he bring out the most childish responses in her? She hated that.
As she settled against the back wall, grateful to have her latte and butter tart to keep her company for the wait before the meeting started, she pulled out her phone to check her email.
Which pinged yet another subconscious thought about Mr. Kincaid. Email was the only way she communicated with Will these days.
It started last October, with a story posted online about her new vision to save the tired bachelor auction event to raise money for the Pine Harbour Animal Shelter—a vision Will had basically told her wouldn’t work, and then she’d gone and done it anyway.
From: Will Kincaid
To: Catie Berton
* * *
Catie,
Congratulations on your new position as the chair of the Pine Harbour Cares weekend fundraising event. It sounds like you’re taking the bachelor auction to the next level! I’ve been a bachelor on that stage before. Count me in.
The gall of him to just assume he was the type of bachelor she was looking for. And after he’d told her the Pine Harbour Cares pitch wouldn’t work. She’d replied, of course.
From: Catie Berton
To: Will Kincaid
* * *
Hi Will,
Thank you for your interest in the auction! At this time, I’m only looking to recruit one or two more eligible auction participants in a different demographic, and I’m not sure you’re the right fit. We could find something else for you to do. Maybe the Master of Ceremonies instead?
He, on the other hand, did not reply.
And then, in November, she had reason to email him about another matter.
From: Catie Berton
To: Will Kincaid
* * *
Mr. Kincaid,
It was quite the surprise for the Main Street businesses to have a wave of children descend on us today from Pine Harbour Community School, offering demanding willing to wash our windows with a lot of enthusiasm. There was some feedback from the business community that a cold day like today wasn’t the best…frozen bubbles all over the place, a bit streaky. In the future, please consider reaching out to discuss ideas like this before execution.
His reply was…brief. Curt, even.
From: Will Kincaid
To: Catie Berton
* * *
Ms. Berton,
Thank you for your feedback.
After that, it was easy to put Will Kincaid entirely out of her mind, so it was a surprise when she got a new email from him in February.
From: Will Kincaid
To: Catie Berton
* * *
Please be advised that PHCS students will be delivering Valentine’s Day singing telegrams today through the Main Street area.
That one felt like a shot across her bow. She fired back immediately.
From: Catie Berton
To: Will Kincaid
* * *
Noted. As you might be aware, the Pine Harbour Cares committee is doing the same thing to help promote the bachelor auction.
And he returned passive-aggressive fire.
From: Will Kincaid
To: Catie Berton
* * *
I was not aware. Room for us all.
She had been tempted to engage further. She refrained, of course, and bought herself a treat from Bake Sale! to reward herself for her decorum and professionalism.
In March, after the Pine Harbour Cares weekend was a roaring success, and everyone appreciated her new twist on the bachelor auction—everyone except Will, who didn’t attend, or even acknowledge that the event had happened—Catie decided she needed a new crush.
It wasn’t at the top of her to-do list. That was running her real estate business, alongside her hair salon business, and volunteering for a number of community organizations. But dating was definitely on there, and she thought about that a lot over March and April.
She didn’t think about Will in the slightest, having left him completely behind in the Winter of Unexpectedly Sharp Emails.
And now here they were, in the Mother of All Town Meetings. She glanced to the door. Still no Will.
“Thank you all for coming,” a voice said from somewhere, the words echoing out of speakers set up in the corners.
Catie craned her neck, but there wasn’t anyone at the podium yet. Her attention pivoted back to the doorway, and then Isla appeared. Catie waved from where she stood against the
wall. “Sorry, no seats.”
“Adam texted me as I was closing up the bakery. Apparently this is about parking. A memo came in to the station from the municipal government just a few minutes ago.”
Catie’s stomach fell. Ah, crap. That hadn’t occurred to her, because Pine Harbour didn’t have a significant parking problem—but they were one of the only towns on the peninsula that could say that.
They were also the only town on the peninsula without a tourism plan or much of a social media presence, Josh Kincaid’s TikTok account about car renovations notwithstanding. The only time of the year they had parking problems was the annual County Country Music Festival that shut down Main Street, but the town just waived parking limits on all the side streets and the residents good-naturedly—for the most part—made do for three days, because Nashville superstar Liana Hansen had married a local boy and was having his baby.
