Authors: Kristan Higgins
“Congratulations,” Parker said. “It’s beautiful. I’m Parker. In town for the summer.”
Sorry I had dirty thoughts about your fiancé.
“Where are you staying?” Maggie asked.
“At my aunt’s house.”
“Oh.” Maggie gave a little grimace. “Um, that’s a beautiful spot. Welcome to Gideon’s Cove. Anything you need, stop by. I know everyone. So does this guy here. Oh, my God, Malone! Are you sure you want marry me? Given how much I talk?”
He nodded once. “I’m used to it.” Put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her temple.
Dang, they were cute.
“Hey, lovebirds,” Lavinia said. “You meet my cousin? Parker, the happy couple.”
“Yep, we met,” Parker said, gratefully taking the cup of coffee.
“So when’s the wedding?” Lavinia asked.
“Two weeks!” Maggie said. “Malone already got the license and everything, because he wanted Emory to be here, of course.”
“Way to go, Dad!” a young woman called amid the hum of conversation.
“Think you could do the flowers?” Maggie asked. “Even with such short notice?”
“’Course I’ll do the flowers,” Lavinia said. “I’ll do them for free if Malone sleeps with me, just one time.”
Malone grinned but didn’t answer.
Maggie laughed. “I guess we’ll pay. I’ll come by this week, okay? It was really nice meeting you, Parker.”
“Same here.”
The couple moved on, as everyone in the place clearly wanted to hug and congratulate them.
“Nice,” Parker said. “Very romantic.”
“Ayuh. So. Welcome to town. Nice to meetcha. You saw your inheritance. What’s the plan?” Lavinia asked. She took out a cigarette, lit it and took a drag.
“No smoking, Lavinia!” Maggie called.
“Damn.” Parker’s cousin stubbed the ciggie out on her
palm
and tossed the butt out the window.
“Didn’t that hurt?” Parker couldn’t help asking.
“Naw. My hands are tough.”
Parker took another sip of the surprisingly good coffee. “Well, my plan is to…I don’t know. I thought I’d slap on some paint and sell the place, but I didn’t know how bad it was.”
“It’s a shit-snarl.”
“Yes indeedy.”
“Got enough money to really spiff it up?” Lavinia asked.
Parker paused. “I have a little. I don’t know how far it’ll go.”
Lavinia pursed her lips together, causing a hundred wrinkles to radiate from her mouth like anemic rays from a sickly sun. “I heard about your problems.”
“Did you?”
“Oh, ayuh. News travels fast. Especially when it’s on CNN.”
“Right.”
“How many years did your father get?”
“Six. Time off for good behavior.”
Her cousin grunted. “Deserved it, from what I hear. Sorry for you, though.”
“Well, it’s not so bad.” Besides, even if it was bad, she’d been raised not to discuss money, sex or religion. “So, Lavinia—”
“Call me Vin,” she said.
“Okay, Vin, um, how exactly are we related?” Parker asked. “We’ve never met, have we?”
“Nope. Your mother’s my cousin on the Harrington side. Althea and I, we spent a little time together as kids some summers, back when my father still owned the Point.”
“What point is that?”
“Douglas Point. The big place north of yours.”
“That was yours? You lived there?”
“Ayuh. Till my mother and father divorced. Then my father sold it a few years later.”
“Wow.” Althea had never said anything about summers in Maine.
Lavinia looked out the window. “So how is your mother these days? We didn’t really stay in touch.”
“She’s…she’s fine.”
“She ever remarry after your folks split up?”
Parker couldn’t suppress a smile. “Oh, yeah. A few times.”
Lavinia smiled back. “Is that right? Well. Tell her hello from me.”
Parker knew that the Harringtons originally harkened from Maine, but her mom had grown up in Westchester County, New York. Back when her parents were still together, big family gatherings had only included the Coven. No second cousins from the Harrington side had ever been mentioned; only those few awkward visits to Great Aunt Julia up in Boston.
“Got any help for overhauling the house?” Lavinia asked, interrupting Parker’s thoughts.
She took a deep breath. “Um, yes. A family friend.”
“Well, you’ll need it. God knows how long it’s been since the place was cleaned out. Julia stopped coming here probably fifteen, twenty years ago.” She squinted at Parker. “You need a job this summer? Make a little extra cash? I could use the help with Maggie and Malone’s wedding. Usually hire a high school kid part-time in the summer, but the job’s yours if you want it.”
Heck yeah, she wanted it. “Sure. That’d be great. Thank you.” Her first real job. Holy halos.
“Great. I gotta grab a smoke. Come by Wednesday. Three doors down. You can’t miss it.”
Lavinia left, and Parker glanced at her watch. She should get back to the shack, bring James some sustenance. Help clear stuff out. But maybe she’d call Nicky first. She glanced at her watch. He might be up. It was five-thirty in California.
Parker’s chest constricted. Nicky felt so far away—he
was
so far away. The fact that she hadn’t heard his voice last night, didn’t know what he’d had for dinner, hadn’t toweled off his hair after his bath…dang. Crying in a crowded diner full of strangers—not fun.
Malone sat down across from her, and Parker jumped a little. “Hey there,” she said.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his voice a quiet rumble.
She was about to deny it and found herself telling the truth instead. “I miss my kid. He’s with his dad in California for a few weeks.”
Malone gave a brief nod. “My daughter lives most of the year in Oregon with her mother.”
“Is that your daughter over there?”
Malone looked, his face softening a bit. “Ayuh.”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“Don’t talk about it.” He smiled a little. “How old’s your boy?”
“Five and a half.”
“Tough to be apart when they’re small.”
She tried a smile. “Yeah. Well, he’ll actually be coming up when they get back. So. Three weeks to go.”
Malone nodded again. “Hang in there.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” she lied. “But thanks, Malone. And congratulations again.”
She got up from the booth and waited at the counter as the gap-toothed cook made a ham-and-egg sandwich to go. He refused payment, telling her everything was on the house today.
Nice to be in a place where she was anonymous. Not one mention of the Holy Rollers, or Harry—except from Lavinia.
The sun was shining, a brisk wind coming in off the water, the waves slapping sharply against the wooden pier. The lobster boats bobbed merrily at their moorings, and a seagull strutted down the sidewalk in front of her, the breeze ruffling its feathers but not its composure.
Upon further inspection, Gideon’s Cove had a bit more to it than at first glance. There was a lovely brick town hall, the police station, a bar called Dewey’s and Lavinia’s flower shop—called Lavinia’s Flower Shoppe. Parker peered in the window and saw that it was crowded with little souvenirs and fake flower arrangements. A half inch of dust was on the sill. Well. She’d make herself useful.
After that, the town became mostly residential. There were some beautiful old houses in the Federal style with handsome front doors and widow’s walks, rhododendron and lilies blooming in the yards. But the town quickly gave way to blue-collar, with two-family homes and small bungalows as the hills rose around the cove. At the top of one street, Parker could see Douglas Point. Hard to believe that had been in her family and her mother never mentioned it. Then again, Althea was hazy with details.
Aunt Julia’s place wasn’t visible. Maybe, given Thing One’s extra weight, it had fallen into the sea.
Either way, she should probably go back home. To the hovel.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
F
OUR
DAYS
LATER
, as James ripped shingles off the roof, he had to admit he’d been wrong in thinking Parker would be a wuss when it came to hard physical labor. Grayhurst had had a cleaning crew, a gardening service, a handyman on call 24/7 and a personal chef who delivered meals daily. But there was Parker, hacking down the weeds along the stairway to the dock like a member of a chain gang. Cut-off jeans that showed her long, gorgeous legs. The jeans were the ones the mouse had run into, and she’d said there was no way in hell she was giving the rodent another chance. A shirt from Joe’s Diner; apparently, Miss Welles hadn’t packed—or didn’t own—a proper T-shirt. A Yankees hat, the only thing marring her golden beauty. Well, she couldn’t help it. Had spent most of her childhood in New York.
Nope, Parker had dug right in, shoveling the remainder of her aunt’s belongings into trash bags, sorting through what could go to the Salvation Army—not a lot—and what was recyclable. If she had to ask him how to change the head of the sponge mop, well, it was kind of appealing.
She talked to her kid probably four times a day, which James thought was a lot. Then again, he probably talked to his parents four times a year, so what did he know?
She whacked at the weeds again, swinging the scythe like a golf club, then stopped to throw Beauty a stick. She glanced up at James, saw him looking and gave a quick wave, then looked away.
Yeah. Even though they’d been together for five solid days, there was little change in their relationship. She was polite. She was a good worker and listened when he told her how to do something. She had a decent sense of humor. Still called him Thing One occasionally. Didn’t seem to be moping about her lost fortune, though she got quiet sometimes, maybe missing her kid.
In other words, she was as out of reach as ever. They talked about the house. The dog. The town. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation a day. She spent more time than that by far on the phone with her kid. And the Paragon. And Mrs. Paragon.
Whatever. He had his own work to do, ripping the decaying shingles off the roof. Sweat dampened his hair, and he wiped his face on the sleeve of his T-shirt. Gideon’s Cove was experiencing a rare heat wave the past day or so, with temperatures into the nineties. Humid, too. And the blackflies…he’d forgotten about those bloodthirsty little suckers.
He turned as a truck slowed in front of the house. Probably one of Parker’s fan club, the old guys from the hardware store, who’d been dropping by daily to check on her progress. She had those three wrapped, that was for sure. Called them the Three Musketeers, which made the old guys shuffle and blush as if she’d knighted them.
It wasn’t one of the Musketeers. It was his oldest brother, Tom, a good twenty pounds heavier than he’d been two Christmases ago when James had last seen him. Red-faced, and not from the sun.
“Hey,” James said, shading his eyes to be sure. Ayuh. That was Tom, all right.
“Hey, James. How you doing, bud?”
“I’m good. You?”
“Can’t complain. Talked to Dewey last week. He said you were here for the summer.”
James climbed down from the roof, wariness prickling at the back of his neck. He was the only one of the five Cahill kids who’d graduated college, let alone gone on for a law degree. The only one who’d made it out of Maine, too. His brothers didn’t drop by or give him a call for the hell of it.
“Kids are good?” James asked. He hesitated, then shook his brother’s hand. From down by the water, he could hear Parker’s scythe hacking into the long grass. He hoped she stayed there.
“Kids are great. Maybe you can swing by and visit this summer.”
“Uh, yeah. That’d be nice.” Except Tom had never once invited James to his house before. “So what brings you up here, Tom?”
“Oh, I had to do something in Machias. Figured I’d swing by.” Machias was an hour south, but James didn’t point that out. Tom leaned back against his truck door, all casual interest, and nodded at the house. “Got your work cut out for you, huh?”
“Yeah. Just trying to get it up to code, pretty much.”
“You gonna reshingle the sides next?” Like their father, Tom was a carpenter.
“Yep. Rebuild those steps, too.”
Tom nodded sagely. “So listen. I have a proposition for you.”
Ah. That made more sense. Tom was here for money.
His brother folded his arms across his chest and stared out at the harbor. “There’s this very cool opportunity to be a part owner in the old lumber mill. Remember that place? Down by the river?”
“I remember,” James said.
“So me and my buddies, we were thinking we’d buy it, renovate it, put in some really nice shops on the first floor, right? Cheese shop, wine, upscale shit. Then up above, we’d have luxury condos.”
“Sounds great.” It sounded idiotic. Dresner was a dying city. There was more call for a soup kitchen than luxury condos overlooking a river polluted by forty years of industrial waste. Cheese shop? Come on.
“So I’m looking for a little capital to get started.” He paused. “I’d pay you back with interest and all.”
James took a slow breath. “I’d love to help you out, Tom—”
“No one’s asking for help. This is an investment opportunity. Thought you liked that shit.” There was already an edge in Tom’s voice.
“I wish I could help you,” James said. “I really don’t have the money.”
Tom pushed off his truck, his face growing even redder. “Yes, you do, you little prick. You’ve been working for that rich asshole for years now—”
“In case you didn’t hear, my boss is in jail.”
“—and don’t tell me you didn’t get a king’s ransom for burrowing up that guy’s butt.”
Nice. “I did. But it’s all tied up, and you know it, Tom.”
His older brother glared. “Fuck you.”
“Tom, look, even if it was a great idea—”
“Oh, now it’s a crap idea?”
“—I honestly don’t have the money. It all went to Beckham.”
“And we wouldn’t have needed Beckham if it wasn’t for you! You fucked everyone over, didn’t you? When your own family needs something, forget it. But here you are, playing house with your boss’s daughter, aren’t you? Having fun living off her money?”
“Tom, look at this place. Does it seem like she’s got money?”
“Thanks for nothing. I should’ve known. And don’t show your face in Dresner. Mom’s enough of a mess without you. Asshole.”
Ten seconds later, Tom screeched out of the driveway. He gave James the bird as he gunned the motor. Then he was gone.
Forget the roof. There was a crowbar; there was the long side of the house. James grabbed the heavy metal tool, jammed its wedged end under some shingles and began ripping them off with a vengeance. Sweat poured off his body, soaked his hair, stung his eyes. The wood screamed in protest, but he didn’t stop. Just ripped the shingles off the side, no matter that they’d been petrifying there for two generations, just shoved the pry bar underneath and jerked up and ripped them off like scabs.
He didn’t even notice Parker come up from the beach until she walked right past him, her dog as always tight against her calves.
“Hello, sweaty day laborer,” she said with a grin.
“Hey,” he grunted.
“Was someone here? Thought I heard voices.”
“Nope.”
“You hungry?”
“Nope.”
She gave him a look, but he kept ripping shingles. “Okay, Thing One. I’m going for a swim.”
“Fine.”
She went blithely into the house. James continued jamming the crowbar under the shingles, relishing the screech as they tore off.
Then her words sank in.
She couldn’t swim in Maine water. It was practically ice-cold. Fifty-two, fifty-five degrees? Maybe? It was high tide, too, so it’d be even colder. He tossed down the pry bar and stomped inside, folded his arms across his sweaty T-shirt and stood outside her door, ready to lecture her.
Then the door opened, and he forgot what he was there for.
She was wearing a bikini.
“You want to come?” she asked.
His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Skin. There was a lot of skin. And…curves. Breasts. Shoulders. Legs. His mouth went dry. She gave him an odd look, then scooped up her hair and secured it with an elastic, and his eyes slid down to her rack, because my God, that was a fantastic—
“I know. Cellulite. I’ve gained eleven pounds this past year.” She stared down at her torso, then sighed. “Oh, well. Maybe I can swim some off. Come on, Beauty.” She grabbed a towel and headed through the kitchen.
Her ass was…well, he was unable to summon actual words at the moment, as there was no blood flowing upward. And that scrap of fabric—
red
fabric—thank you, Jesus. Hard to believe she’d kissed him once, and speaking of hard, she was so beautiful and perfect and
luscious,
bad enough that he’d had to listen to her shower every morning, and—
But wait, wait, wait.
She couldn’t swim in that water.
“Parker,” he croaked, but she was already halfway down the stairs, the long grass billowing in the breeze, the dog’s feathery tail in the air.
“Parker!” he called, banging out the back door. “That water’s really cold.”
“And I am really hot,” she said.
Tell me about it.
“I’ve been working like a dog. Right, Beauty?”
“It’s too cold for swimming,” he said, running down the stairs. “Hypothermia cold, Parker. Don’t go in.”
“Oh, come on. People swim in it all the time.”
“Not up here they don’t.” He reached the dock, which was bobbing vigorously, as the tide was coming in hard, slapping against the buoys that held the thing afloat. If he didn’t watch it, he’d fall right in.
“Well, I’m going swimming.” She draped her towel over one of the old wooden porch chairs she’d dragged down here. “Beauty, want to come? Come on, girl!” With that, Parker executed a perfect swimmer’s dive from the dock, the dog sailing in right behind her.
She didn’t surface. He could see her white skin under the water…but no, that was just sunlight. Where was she? Where the hell was she? “Parker!” James stripped off his shirt. “Parker!”
Then her blond head popped up, way too far away from the dock. She pushed her hair out of her face. “Oh, bugger!” she called. “You were right! It’s freezing!” She grinned at him, then saw her dog. “Beauty! Good girl! Good puppy!”
“Parker, get in here. You’ll freeze.”
“I do feel like I’m dying. But eleven pounds, Thing One!” With that, she began swimming in long, hard strokes away from the dock.
James bit his thumbnail. Yes, granted, she’d swum on the Harvard team. There’d been two pools at Grayhurst, one inside and one out. But there were no tides in swimming pools, and they weren’t fifty-two degrees, and they weren’t strewn with buoy lines. What if she got tangled on one? “Parker, don’t be an idiot,” he called, jamming his hands into his pockets.
She didn’t hear him. Kept swimming. Another yard. Another. She was an entire football field away now. No signs of slowing. Damn it all to hell. If he jumped in after her, could he catch her? Probably not. But once she went under, he’d be a lot closer—
Finally she stopped, and the dog swam right up to her. It had a stick, which Parker threw back toward the dock, and the dog zipped right around to find it.
“Time to come in, Parker,” James yelled, sounding like a parent. Then again, she was acting like an idiot child. Like—
“It’s really not bad once you get used to it,” she called.
“That’s what they all say, right before they freeze to death.”
She laughed. He was chewing his thumbnail again.
Finally, she turned in the right direction, diving under the surface of the water in a dolphinlike move, then popping up for breath a few yards closer. Swam efficiently, closer, closer. James didn’t take his eyes off her the entire time.
Then, as she was climbing back onto the dock, she slipped and fell back with a splash, and before he was quite aware of having moved, he had her by the arm and was hauling her up, slopping frigid water against himself, her skin as cold as if she were dead.
“Easy there, Mr. Lifeguard,” she said, stepping back and smoothing the hair off her face. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t make this a habit. It’s too cold. It’s stupid, Parker.”
“I think I
will
make it a habit, Thing One,” she said, squeezing the saltwater out of her hair. “I love to swim, I own a house on the water, and you’re not the boss of me.” Goose bumps covered her skin, and her nipples— Shit. Women were not fair, because a perfectly good case of righteous anger was turning into lust.
Without another word, he turned and stalked off the dock.
Time to rip some more shingles.