by Linda Seed
She and the architect had disagreed about the open floor plan, but she’d let herself be talked into it because he’d insisted that the modern approach would be more practical for her family.
Screw the modern approach. The house had history, it had character. Part of her even thought it might have feelings. Jake’s rant about tract houses and purgatory had been just what she’d needed to help her trust her original instincts.
She left the house midmorning to help out at the Whispering Pines, feeling good about the place on Moonstone Beach. The house needed so much work—everything from the plumbing to the electrical system was badly out of date, and the roof looked like it was about to fall in. But Jake was going to fix what was wrong, keep what was right, and update everything that needed it.
She drove across town to Mrs. Granfield’s place fantasizing about how it would all look when it was done. The property had a surprisingly large lot considering its beachfront location; Breanna pictured herb gardens with winding gravel paths, drought-tolerant plants in bursts of color, Adirondack chairs positioned so she and her boys could watch the sunset over the water.
Until now, it had all seemed like a fantasy that might never come true. But Jake’s enthusiasm for the project and for her house made her feel that the ultimate realization of her dream was certain, inevitable.
She found herself humming on the way to Mrs. Granfield’s place.
The hum died on her lips as she walked into the Whispering Pines and found Mrs. Granfield wringing her hands anxiously, looking as though she’d aged five years since the day before.
She was about to ask why—but before she could say anything, the reason became clear.
From upstairs, Breanna heard a high, agitated yap—then another, followed by another. The barks at first had an interval between them—yap … yap … yap—but then began coming one right on top of the next: yap yap yap yap yap.
“The Johnsons’ Yorkie,” Mrs. Granfield said, sounding stressed and weary. “He’s been going like that all night.”
“All night?” Breanna was appalled. Cambria was a dog-friendly town, and the Whispering Pines was one of many places locally that accepted pets. Usually, the animals presented no problem, other than the occasional area rug that had to be sent out for cleaning. This was the first persistent barker Breanna had encountered since she’d begun helping Mrs. Granfield.
“I’m afraid so,” Mrs. Granfield confirmed. “I offered them one of those dog toys with the treats hidden inside, and that got us a quiet half hour. But other than that …”
Yap … yap … yap … yap.
“I offered to find a kennel that would take him overnight,” Mrs. Granfield went on, “but they wouldn’t have it. Their Little Pookums can’t be in a kennel, he’d be too stressed, he’s their baby.…” She raised her eyes to the heavens as though seeking strength.
“They call him their little pookums?” Breanna said.
“That’s his name. Little Pookums.”
They both looked at the spot on the ceiling from where the noise was coming.
“The other guests must be miserable,” Breanna observed.
“We only had one other guest last night, and they checked out at around ten p.m. because they couldn’t take the noise. I didn’t charge them, of course. I got them in over at the Squibb House.” As the yapping continued, Mrs. Granfield looked at her watch. “One more hour to checkout.”
Mrs. Granfield, who hadn’t fully embraced technology, had a notebook where she kept useful information about her guests—food allergies, what kind of breakfast food they preferred, sensitivities to down bedding, etc. She’d written in neat, capital letters, no little pookums—barker next to the Johnsons’ names.
That would address the issue for the future, but for now, they still had to endure an hour of yapping.
“Mrs. Granfield, why don’t you go out and get some coffee or something? Have a little peace and quiet? I can manage things until they’re gone,” Breanna offered.
The older woman nearly swooned with relief. “Thank you, dear. I believe I’ll do that. I won’t be gone long.”
“Take as long as you need. Really. You look like you could use the break.”
Mrs. Granfield grabbed her purse from behind the front desk and headed for the front door on her walker faster than Breanna usually saw her move. “Call me if you need anything,” she said over her shoulder before heading outside into the blessed silence.
The yapping continued, so Breanna hunted around in a plastic bin of odds and ends they kept for guests—disposable razors, toothbrushes, individually sealed two-packs of aspirin—until she found a packet of two foam earplugs. She opened the package, took out the little bullet-shaped earplugs, and inserted them, lowering the volume on the yapping sound to a more manageable level.
The earplugs—and the fact that Breanna was coming to work fresh—allowed her to pretty much tune out the noise while she went about her tasks. She cleaned the room the other guests had abandoned the night before, changing the linens, scrubbing the toilet, and polishing the bathroom mirrors.
She was back downstairs checking the coffee urn when the Johnsons and Little Pookums came downstairs to check out. Given the dog’s name, Breanna wasn’t surprised to see him being carried in a sparkly pink purse.
Once the Johnsons were gone and the place was empty, Breanna savored the quiet. The relief was so sweet that she was humming again—an upbeat tune about sunshine and love—until she went into the Johnsons’ room and saw the damage Little Pookums had left.
A bed pillow had been chewed up, and down feathers were scattered around the room. Well, it could have been worse—they had a supply of spare pillows, and at least feathers didn’t leave stains the way other canine messes had a tendency to do.
Breanna made a note to charge the Johnsons’ credit card for the pillow, then got to work cleaning up.
4
Mrs. Granfield came back around one p.m., and Breanna took a break for lunch. They had three guests on the books for today, but no one would be checking in for a couple of hours.
Breanna met her sister-in-law, Gen, for lunch, and the two of them sat outside under a shade umbrella at Linn’s Easy as Pie Café, a thick sandwich in front of Breanna, a big, leafy salad in front of Gen.
Gen owned an art gallery on Main Street, and she was wearing a skinny black dress and heels, her curly red hair up in a messy bun.
Breanna marveled at how Gen had gotten her figure back just a year after having her baby, remembering how she herself had struggled after her sons were born. Must be the salads, she thought, looking at Gen’s virtuous lunch, a stark contrast to her own towering meatloaf club sandwich.
“So, work’s supposed to start on the Moonstone Beach house today, right?” Gen asked, stabbing a forkful of lettuce.
“Yeah. I met with the contractor this morning. God, I’m so excited. The place is going to be great,” Breanna said.
“The contractor,” Gen said, drawing out the words in a way that was fraught with meaning.
“Yes …”
“I hear he’s a hottie in a burly mountain-man sort of way.” Gen wiggled her eyebrows, grinning.
Breanna stopped with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Where did you hear that?”
“You mean it’s not true?”
“Oh, it’s true. I was just wondering where you heard it.”
“He comes in for coffee at Jitters, and Lacy told me,” Gen said. Lacy Jordan, one of Gen’s best friends, was a barista at the coffeehouse on Main Street and had the inside scoop on caffeine lovers all over town.
Breanna wasn’t surprised that the women of Cambria were talking about Jake. It wasn’t every day that a newcomer to their little village was tall, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, and rugged, with a body sculpted by hard work and a face that made you think about how much you’d like to have it rubbed against your—
“Hello? Anybody in there?” Gen waved her fork in Breanna’s field of vision, interrupting her thoughts.
> “What?” Breanna blinked, coming back to the present. “Oh. I’m sorry. I was just thinking about … home renovations.”
“Sure you were.” Gen gave her a sly, knowing grin. “Listen. I think it’s great that your contractor’s a delicious beefcake of a man. You should give it some thought.”
Give it some thought? Hadn’t Breanna just been doing exactly that, before Gen had interrupted her? But if Gen was talking about Breanna actually pursuing anything with him …
“He’s probably married,” Breanna said.
“He’s not.” Gen wiggled the eyebrows again.
“How do you know?”
“Lacy scoped it out. He ordered a Guatemalan blend with cream and sugar, and before he’d taken the first sip, she had the basics. It’s a gift.”
Breanna was torn between wanting to pretend she wasn’t interested and wanting to pump Gen for information. If she could manage the pumping without seeming like she was doing it, that would be the best of both worlds.
“He’s probably got a girlfriend at least,” she said, picking at the crust of her sandwich.
“Nope,” Gen said. “At least, not that I know of. He’s recently divorced and lives alone with his giant dog.”
“Sam,” Breanna said. “The dog. His name is Sam.”
“I didn’t hear anything about a girlfriend, and neither did Lacy.” She did the eyebrow wiggle again.
“Is there something wrong with your face?” Breanna demanded. “Do you have some kind of twitch?”
Gen took a bite of salad, chewed, and then took a sip of her iced tea. “I’m just saying, you should think about going there. Or at least visiting there. Seeing some of the local sights.”
Breanna shook her head. “No. I mean … no. I couldn’t.”
“Sure, you could. Why not?” Gen put down her fork and gave Breanna her full attention. “You’ve been alone a long time, Bree. And you don’t have to be. You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re warm …”
“I’m a widowed mother with two kids to think about!” Breanna said.
“You are.” Gen reached out and put her hand on top of Breanna’s on the table. “You are those things. But you’re more than that, too. You’re more than a widow and a mother. You’re a woman. I think it’s been a while since you’ve made time for that part of you.”
Breanna wanted to protest, but the fact that she’d immediately rejected Gen’s suggestion that she “go there” probably proved the point. She didn’t tend to think of herself in those terms anymore. She thought of herself in terms of her roles—daughter, mother, grieving wife.
She’d been so wrapped up in her obligations and her pain—first over the loss of her husband, and then over the sudden death of her uncle Redmond—that it had been hard to think about anything else.
But, of course, she knew there was more to her than that, because the part of Breanna that was just her was the part that longed for the house to be finished so she could have something of her own, something wonderful and uncomplicated.
Breanna pulled a corner off of her sandwich and popped it into her mouth. She chewed carefully.
“He would never be interested in me, even if I did have the time for that kind of thing,” she said finally. “Which I don’t.”
“A, of course he would, unless he’s completely lacking in taste, in which case, who wants him?” Gen said. “And B, you have time. There’s always time for a hot contractor with a really big tool belt.” She said tool belt as though it were dirty—which was probably how she’d meant it.
“I’m not interested in his … his tool belt,” Breanna said.
“That’s a shame,” Gen said. “Because he’s going to be hammering somebody sooner or later. Why shouldn’t it be you?”
* * *
Jake wanted to be hammering something—he felt most comfortable when he was getting his hands dirty on a job—but there was a lot of work to be done before he got to that stage.
Breanna had selected him for her project, and had paid a deposit to secure his services. They’d had their initial meeting. But their business relationship wouldn’t truly get underway until he’d come up with a plan, a timeline, and a budget for the project and she’d signed off on it.
That meant calculating the amounts and costs of materials, scheduling subcontractors, estimating labor costs, and writing out a schedule and a targeted completion date—of course, allowing for the inevitable disasters and fuckups that were common to any job site.
He spent some time at the site taking measurements, investigating the current state of the two buildings, examining the architect’s drawings to make sure they jibed with the actual site he was looking at, taking notes, and getting the whole scope of the thing clear in his head.
But that last part wasn’t easy, because his head was still busy thinking about Breanna.
He told himself he wasn’t interested in a personal relationship—well, he was, but not right now. Not so soon after his divorce, and not while he was about to become immersed in a new project. He had work to think about. He had the challenge of settling into a new community.
Add to that the fact that getting involved with his client could potentially introduce an array of complications he needed like he needed a goddamned third eye.
But telling himself all of that was one thing. Believing it was another. He’d found Breanna intriguing from the time he’d first read about her and had seen her picture. Then the actual woman was in front of him, laughing about his dog, smacking him down for his arrogance, and agreeing with his suggestions for the house.
And looking so damned good doing it.
He scolded himself as he stood in the house’s ruined kitchen, a measuring tape in his hands.
Get it together, Jake.
Even if he were interested in getting something going with a woman right now, and even if he were open to dating a client, why the hell would Breanna Delaney be interested in him? She was a billionaire, for God’s sake. Well, maybe not a billionaire, but she had hundreds of millions, from what he’d read. He was a general contractor, a blue-collar man. He refilled his bottled water out of the tap to save money.
If that meant she thought he wasn’t good enough for her, then by God …
She didn’t say that, idiot. You’re the one thinking it. Get your head out of your ass.
He was deep inside his troubling and contradictory thoughts when Sam came into the kitchen from outside and dropped a pine cone at Jake’s feet.
Jake hadn’t thought to bring a ball for Sam to play with, but it seemed that the dog was finding a way to make do.
“Yeah, all right. I guess I’ve got a minute to throw the pine cone,” he told Sam.
He walked outside, waited until Sam was poised, trembling in anticipation, and then hurled the pine cone as far across the fenced yard as he could. Sam tore after it, pounced on it as though the thing posed a danger to the lives of his loved ones, and then plopped down onto the ground to begin the painstaking process of crunching the pine cone to dust in his mouth.
While Sam was very good at chasing the things Jake threw for him, he was crap at bringing them back.
Jake was just about finished for now, so he went back inside to gather his things. He closed his laptop, which was sitting on the kitchen counter, then went upstairs to retrieve some notes and tools he’d left up there.
Standing in the second-floor master bedroom, he gazed out the window toward dark blue water churning with white-tipped waves. The house was going to be a hell of a place when he was done with it, and Cambria was a hell of a place for him to start his new life.
The pine-covered hills, the mountains to the east, the ocean, the ragged bluffs, the wildflowers shifting in the salt-scented breeze.
He could have done worse for himself than choosing this town, he figured. There was a kind of peace here, a kind of quiet you could feel in your soul.
He could use that kind of quiet right now. He wasn’t about to ruin it by getting into something w
ith a woman who potentially meant trouble.
Jake had enough trouble just dealing with his damned dog.
5
Breanna knew it was going to take time to hear from Jake; the plan for the renovation—complete with budget, timeline, and a contract for her to sign—wasn’t something he could put together overnight.
She filled that time doing the things she normally did: working at the Whispering Pines, helping her mother around the house, and attending to the business of raising two rambunctious boys.
The first two were easy enough, even pleasant. It was the third item that required all of her wisdom and patience.
“I don’t want to go to school,” Michael told her one morning as he lay in bed, refusing to get up.
“Are you sick?” Breanna bent down to put her hand on his forehead.
“Yeah.” A hint of a groan in his voice, probably for effect.
She straightened and looked down at him, appraising. “You don’t have a fever.”
“I have a headache. And my stomach hurts. And I’m dizzy. I think I’m going to throw up.”
Ah, the magic triumvirate of symptoms that Michael saw as a foolproof get-out-of-school-free card: headache, upset stomach, dizziness. They were perfect, when you thought about it: They were not outwardly observable, so they could neither be proved nor disproved.
Whenever Michael claimed this particular collection of complaints, Breanna had the choice to believe him, allowing him to skip school possibly for no reason, or go hard-ass on him, taking the risk that she was forcing a sick child to go to school when she should have been providing motherly TLC.
“You saw Dr. De Luca last month for this same thing. She said there was nothing wrong,” Breanna reminded him.
“No, she didn’t,” Michael insisted. “She said she couldn’t find anything wrong. That’s not the same thing, Mom.”
And with that, he’d neatly summarized her dilemma. What if she treated this like a ploy to get out of school, and he really was sick?
“Michael …”
