by L. A. Fiore
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 L.A. Fiore
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477829295
ISBN-10: 1477829296
Cover design by Laura Klynstra
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014958170
To Jenni and Michelle, you’ve totally got this.
To Trish, my friend from Down Under, tough year but all’s well that ends well.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
I’m going to hell. I’m resigned to my fate and have been ever since I was ten and siphoned the holy water from the fonts at church, bottled it, and sold it, after convincing most of my neighbors that a coven of vampires had moved into town. The thing is, I really thought that vampires had moved into town and truly believed I was protecting everyone. My ten-year-old logic posited that it wasn’t technically stealing, since I did add extra money to the collection, but as an adult, I understand that my actions crossed a line and that my mortal soul now tap dances along that very fine edge. The church and I have gone our separate ways in the many years since, but I still do keep a bottle of holy water near my bed. You never know.
It is for this reason that I can sit on the beach as my best friend and her husband cuddle, the little green monster on my shoulder speaking words only I can hear. I’m not truly jealous of Gwen, but I am envious, since I haven’t had a date since man first discovered fire.
In truth, I don’t mind waiting, not if at the end of it I find the right person. Even if the wait is ridiculously, hopelessly long. He’s out there, somewhere, maybe trapped under a truck or surrounded by feral wolves, which is what’s taking him so long to get to me. I’m creeping up on thirty and not only haven’t I found the one, I’ve only had a handful of boyfriends.
In my defense, I do live in Harrington, Maine, whose staggering population of 862 contains mostly people age sixty-plus. It isn’t easy to find men my age to date—they are already married, or seriously dating, and the few remaining eligible bachelors are treated like the last piece of chocolate cake at a Chocoholics Anonymous meeting.
Leaving Harrington has never crossed my mind, because it’s home, but I need to get a more active social life. Currently it revolves around my three best friends. Gwen Drake has been my best friend since the third grade. Her parents run the one really nice restaurant in town. When Mitch Drake applied for the position of head chef, he not only landed the job, but he also won Gwen’s heart. Six years later they have two beautiful children: Michael James and Callie Saffron. I love Gwen but she has this whole other part of her life. That’s why I’m here now, dropping off the little cherubs to Mommy and Daddy after having filled them up on sugar.
And then there is Josh Taylor, whom I dated once upon a time, and who decided to come out while we were dating. We still hang out, but he’s getting rather involved with Derek Bennett, so sometimes being the third really is like that unwanted wheel. I tend bar in the evenings at Tucker’s, my third best friend Tommy Tucker’s bar. It wasn’t my intention to make a career out of it, but I love my job, love connecting with my neighbors. Glancing at my watch, I realize that if I don’t get a move on, I’ll be late for my dinner with Frank. Mr. Frank Dupree is a lovely older man I visit in the nursing home several times a week. He’s become family, in a sense, since my own family isn’t really much of one. No hostility or disappointment on my end, just indifference on theirs. The emotional distance became quite literal when my parents moved to Florida several years back.
Frank and I met when I was eight. Standing on the front stoop of his bait-and-tackle shop, I demanded he release all the minnows, claiming it was cruel and unusual punishment to keep them captive only to serve them up on the end of a fishing line. My concern did not extend to the bloodworms, because they were gross. As it turned out, Frank didn’t stock minnows. My intel was clearly not good. After that, I visited him every day. He listened to me, he cared about what I had to say, and he liked me being there. He gave me the love, support, and discipline that I didn’t receive at home. Even at the age of ninety-four, he’s still giving me all those things.
Leaving a happy Gwen, I climb into my car and head for home, a very small Cape situated near the banks of Harrington Bay. The cedar shakes have weathered to a dove gray, the shutters are dark green, and the one chimney sits centered on the roof. Inside, everything is very light and airy with hardwood floors and lots of natural fabrics in ivory and tans. I love my home.
Frank is expecting me at four for an early dinner. I am hoping to entice him afterward into the dancing that is held every week in one of the community rooms. Frank has lived most of his life in Harrington, though he never married or had children. In his golden years, he has only his friends at the home and me.
I slip on my little black jersey dress and step into my heeled sandals. Trying to tame the mass of unruly chestnut-brown curls can be daunting, but tonight I manage to whip it into a knot on the top of my head. Normally, I don’t bother with makeup, because not only do you have to apply it but you have to remove it. Who needs that? But because dinner with Frank is special, I go to the trouble: darkening my eyelids to make my cyan-colored eyes really stand out and tinting my lips pink. A glance at the clock makes me reach for my handbag.
Harrington Commons is the only full-time nursing facility in Harrington. Since we don’t have a large population—despite the average age of the population—there isn’t really a concern about running out of space there. I wheel Frank to our table in the large dining room before getting in line for our meatloaf specials, complete with mashed potatoes and peas. We are even splurging tonight by enjoying a glass of red wine.
“So what’s new, Frank?”
“Bob broke his hip.” Bob Cantor lives under the false belief that he is twenty years old. Not even I go mountain climbing and sky diving, and I’m twenty-nine.
“What was it this time?”
Frank looks up from his meatloaf and a grin cracks over his face. “He was doing the horizontal mambo with Claire Davis.”
I nearly choke on my peas. I can’t have heard him correctly. Perhaps the horizontal mambo means something else to his generation.
Leaning closer to Frank so no one else overhears, I ask, “Are you saying he was having sex and broke his hip?”
“Yup.”
I can’t help it, a visual of Bob and Claire pops into my head. Yep, there it is—the image forever burned on my brain.
“I don’t think I want to know the details,” I mutter.
“Makes you wonder what kind of force the man had to be exerting to break his hip.”
“Frank!”
He isn’t at all contrite as he laughs and scoops up some mashed potatoes. “I can’t help it. I know you won’t go there. Oh, and I took your suggestion and watched that show you recommended.”
“And?”
“I liked it.”
“Those Winchester boys are just about the coolest.”
“What’s new with you, Saffron?”
“I’m handling crowd control for the Swordfish Festival.”
“You hate swordfish.”
“I know, but Chastity asked, so how could I say no?”
Frank’s dark gaze spears me from across the table. “Easy: no.”
“Not easy. I’ve blown off every request in the last year and, as Chastity points out, we young folk have a responsibility to our community.”
Frank snorts. “Chastity Forrester is pushing sixty, she is not young folk.”
“Honestly, in this town, she pretty much is.”
He thinks on this for a minute, then shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah, I guess so.”
And then he sort of zones out, like he has a tendency to do, and I wonder what he’s thinking about. I’ve asked him about these odd silent spells, but he just dismisses the question.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when Shalee Barnes comes strutting over. Shalee has somehow managed to find four men, all under the age of sixty, to marry, though Billy Bob just barely makes it into this category at fifty-nine. It’s a mystery to me that she even attracts these men, since she looks down her nose at everyone. I know she does so because her parents are the richest folks in town. How they acquired their wealth, here in the land of swordfish, has always baffled me. Shalee is thirty-two and, outside of getting married and divorced all the time, she doesn’t have a job. I realize I work at a bar, but at least I’m working. She went from living with her parents to living with her various husbands, and yet she feels that she is a person that the town should look up to.
“Saffron, who’s your boyfriend?”
She stands there in her skin-tight red leather dress, her breasts practically spilling out of the indecently low neckline. This is dangerous, in a place like this, since the viewers of said dress could easily go into cardiac arrest. There is no getting out of the introductions, though.
“Frank Dupree, Shalee Barnes.”
Frank’s dark eyes rest on Shalee’s. “Ms. Barnes.”
I guess thinking he may be hard of hearing, she bends over and practically suffocates Frank with her bosoms.
“It’s my pleasure, Frank.”
I watch in disbelief. She’s not concerned about his hearing; she’s flirting with Frank—she who recently wed for the fourth time. Did she exhaust the dating pool in her preferred age bracket? Frank’s eyes find mine. He knows it too.
“Shalee, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Frank is penniless.”
“Oh good, that would have been gross.”
My face burns hot with my anger. Launching from my seat, I almost overturn my chair. “Apologize now, Shalee.”
She seems clueless for a minute.
“Now!”
“I do apologize, Frank.” And with that she saunters off.
“Bitch,” I hiss under my breath before returning to my seat. I am more than a little surprised to see Frank laughing.
“Why are you laughing?”
“You, Saffron, coming to my defense.”
“She was being insufferable and mean.”
He reaches his frail, pale hand over to cover mine. “She is insufferable and mean. You can’t change a leopard’s spots.”
“I suppose not.”
“But I do appreciate you looking out for me. It’s nice to know there is someone who cares.”
“Of course I care, Frank.”
We finish dinner without another incident, but when I try to get Frank interested in dancing, he declines. “I’m tired, but thank you very much for dining with me this evening.”
“My pleasure.”
Wheeling Frank to his room, I call for a nurse to help him prepare for bed. How tired he looks. The man is ninety-four, but I guess I never realized just how old he is.
Feeling the involuntary hitch in my heart, I force my unpleasant thoughts away. “Well, then I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“I look forward to it, Saffron.”
After a quick trip home to change, I drive to Tucker’s, Tommy’s bar, to start my shift. It isn’t much to look at, but it is the happening spot in town. That is, if a town consisting mostly of people rapidly approaching their midlife crisis has such a place. For me, though, Tucker’s is about hearing the tales from the fishermen who frequent the bar. I know a fisherman’s life is a hard one, but I still find it to be very romantic.
Tommy Tucker was a few years ahead of me in school. Like most people, his parents lived here forever and their parents before them. Mr. and Mrs. Tucker recently retired, turning the bar over to Tommy when they moved to Portland, Maine, and, according to Mrs. Tucker, back to civilization.
“Hey, Saffron, you’re early tonight.” Tommy’s rich tenor greets me as soon as I enter. The familiar scent of his famous buffalo wings makes my stomach growl. Placing my coat in the back, I join Tommy behind the bar. I had a crush on him in high school. Who didn’t, with his dark-blond hair and hazel-green eyes? Years later I learned that he had a crush on me too, but by then our relationship had evolved into that of siblings.
“Frank wasn’t in the mood to dance.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Good. He looks tired, though.”
“He’s ninety-four, Saffron. When ninety-four you become, look as good you will not.”
I stick my tongue out at the Yoda wannabe. He chuckles in response. “The specials today are the fish and chips and beef stew.”
At this moment the door opens and in walks Jake Matthews. He moved into town last year, taking over the auto body garage after Mr. Dickinson died. Now, Jake is considered the most eligible bachelor in town. Practically a child at the age of thirty-four, he’s hot—warm brown hair that looks as if a woman has run her fingers through it, and dark-blue eyes. He has that vulnerable-bad-boy thing down pat. Personally, I find him a bit shallow and self-absorbed, but since I am in the minority he has a smorgasbord of ladies to choose from. Even Hattie and Hilde Fletcher, seventy-one-year-old twins, are vying for Jake’s attention. Well, either that or they are finally losing their eyesight. Their car is in his shop all the time because they’re driving into something every other day. I hear Tommy’s voice just behind me.
“We’ll be busy tonight.”
He isn’t wrong. Practically every woman in town makes a showing at Tucker’s after a Jake sighting. I feel like I am watching the National Geographic Channel on mating rituals in the wild. I can hear the narrator in my head.
The female approaches, the sway of her hips a sign of her willingness to reproduce. Obviously in heat, her open blouse exposes her unnaturally large . . .
“Hey, Saffron, can you clear a few tables? Sarah’s swamped.”
“Sure.” Grabbing a tray, I move around the bar to the small dining area, collecting empties and dirty dishes. Someone laughs across the bar, distracting me, and that’s when I collide with a wall. In slow motion, the stacked glasses tilt over the edge of the tray. But they never fall, because a rather large hand wraps around them. A hand that my eyes follow up to the arm, shoulder, neck, until I land on the face. Logan MacGowan. I can feel my heart pounding in my throat, but whether that’s because of the near disaster or the fact that I’m standing this close to Logan, I can’t say. “Thanks. Nice reflexes, you’re like a cat.” Like a cat? What the hell is wrong with me? Yes, Logan, you’re like a small, furry animal. Well, he was furry, but not small. Definitely not small.
He smiles, a rare treat, and waits to make sure I’ve got my balance back before he walks to the bar and takes a seat.
I place the tray on
the counter in the kitchen and take a moment to berate myself over how cool I’m not. Logan MacGowan moved into town over six months ago. I assume he’s a fisherman, since he’s always dressed in flannel and jeans. Black whiskers cover his face completely; his hair, long and unruly, brushes his shoulders; and he’s tall, like several inches over six feet tall. He comes in several times a week for a drink. He’s quiet, but he’s not shy. He studies the bar scene with extraordinary focus. He fascinates me—he has from the first day he walked into Tucker’s. Trouble is, he’s never spoken to me, and it isn’t as if he doesn’t speak to people in general. He does and yet he has never said a word to me.
I don’t know what it is about me that repels Harrington’s seafaring yeti, but I am contrary enough to take his silence as a challenge. It has become a sort of unspoken battle of wills between us for him to remain silent and for me to attempt to break that silence. I have gotten grins and, on a rare occasion, an out-and-out smile, but so far his reign of silence is still intact.
Taking a few calming breaths, I return to my spot behind the bar, and Tommy calls to me. “Saffron, can you get Logan a Harp?”
“Sure.”
Grabbing a longneck of Harp, I pop the top before strolling down to the end of the bar. Logan watches me as I approach, and I know he’s waiting for the games to begin. I don’t disappoint. “Hey, Logan, so I had my date with Frank,” I say as soon as I place the frosty bottle before him. Frank knows of the battle of wills between Logan and me so he often helps me with ridiculous things to say to try to force Logan to break his silence.
“We went to The Harbor for dinner, but he forgot his teeth so I had to chew his food for him, you know, sort of mush it up so he could gum and swallow it like a baby bird. It was so romantic.” Logan’s eyes light with humor, but no smile.
“Frank and I are planning on robbing the First Bank and Trust. We just need to pimp out his wheelchair for our getaway.”
He takes a pull from his beer.
“Tommy wants the place to go topless.”
He almost spits out his beer. I grin because he knows that I know that he almost laughed out loud.
