“Yup. You’re adorable,” Jules said, and then yelped. “Crapwaffle, I have a meeting. Talk soon, love you!”
“Love you back.”
Evie hung up and took another sip of coffee, looking around her new home. She hadn’t been exaggerating its charms to Jules. The town was just as quaint and picturesque as the photos she’d seen online, with quiet, tree-lined streets, a town square fringed with cute stores and cafes, and a meandering road leading down to the harbor. The sun was shining, birds chirped in the trees, and there was even a gazebo sitting in the middle of the green, with early-season tourists happily snapping photographs. It was a far cry from the bustle of Boston, where Evie’s fourth-floor apartment looked out over a busy intersection and the late-night college bar-crawls kept her up at all hours, drunken laughter echoing through the nights.
She never expected to wind up in a place like this. Glen had never been a fan of small-towns—or the beach. Sand always got in his laptop, and his fair skin burned if you looked at it wrong, so she was always slathering another layer of gloopy SPF on his shoulders and keeping watch for when he turned pink. Even on vacations, they loved to keep busy; they would hit the museums and art galleries and leave the lounging for somebody else. They’d spent their honeymoon in Italy: two glorious weeks touring every ancient ruin in Rome—and eating every bowl of pasta that crossed their path. They’d planned a trip to see all the museums in Paris for their first wedding anniversary, but then a drunk driver took a wrong turn through a red light one night, and just like that, everything changed.
Evie was a widow at twenty-seven, before she’d barely even had a chance to be a wife.
Widow.
It still didn’t sound real to her. Widows were wizened old ladies in black veils with a lifetime of happy memories to ease their pain. Evie and Glen had just been starting out. But instead of building a life together—moving into their first home, starting a family—she was burying him. That first, terrible year after he died had flown past in a grief-stricken blur; the second felt like it would never end. Coming home from work every day to the cozy apartment they’d shared, seeing his photographs on the wall and the empty space in his closet.
Feeling his absence beside her in their bed.
Evie knew something had to change—and it turned out to be more than just her old flannel bathrobe. Thanks to her online-shopping impulse click, she was starting over, away from those aching memories: building a new life in a town where she didn’t know a soul.
Except—
Evie startled, recognizing a familiar figure halfway across the town square.
“No!” she groaned. “No, no, no …!” She leapt up from the bench and ducked behind a tree, peeking out to see if Noah had spotted her yet.
She hoped she’d gotten it wrong, but it was him alright: Six foot two, broad shoulders, sandy blond hair, arrogant smile.
Distractingly handsome.
He was heading in her direction, so she turned on her heel and bolted into the nearest store. The bell over the door rang out with a friendly ding! as she hid behind a display and peered cautiously out the window.
“Can I help you?” a voice asked from behind her, sounding amused.
Evie whirled around, nearly knocking a massive ceramic pitcher off the display. She yelped, grabbing for it, and managed to catch the thing just in time before it crashed to the ground.
“Nice save,” the other woman said. “Jake could use you on the football team.”
Evie straightened up. “Sorry,” she said, letting out a sigh of relief. “I’m just … hiding,” she admitted.
“Really?” The woman quirked an eyebrow, looking curious. She had a friendly smile and a tangle of auburn curls and was wearing a paint-splattered canvas apron over her jeans. “From who?” She followed Evie’s eyeline out of the window and landed on the man himself. “Noah?”
“You know him?” Evie asked.
The woman smirked. “Something like that. I’m Mackenzie,” she added, taking the pitcher and setting it down safely again. “So, why are you keeping your distance: a mad fling gone bad?”
“I wish,” Evie sighed, then realized how it sounded. “I didn’t mean—I wasn’t, like that …” She stumbled over her words, still flustered. “I made a huge fool of myself the last time we met,” she explained. “I was drunk. Hysterical. And I thought he was a fisherman.”
The woman looked confused.
Evie shook her head. “Long story. This is a lovely pitcher,” she blurted, trying to drag her attention away from the man just outside the window. “It’s so cute, with all those … spiders?”
She peered closer. The jug was crawling with them, painted in perfect, creepy details.
“It comes in a set, with the ants,” Mackenzie said cheerfully. “And maggots and little worms, crawling out of a rotting apple.”
Evie took in the display and burst out laughing. “I thought you were legally bound to sell nothing but sailboats and seashells on Cape Cod,” she joked.
“Oh, I have plenty of those, too. But there are only so many sailboats a girl can paint before she loses her mind, just a little,” Mackenzie confided. “That’s when I switch to the creepy-crawlies. And the dragons. And the vengeful volcano gods. I do have normal stuff, though. If you’re looking for that kind of thing.” She waved to a shelf full of beautiful glazed dinnerware.
“Oh, they’re lovely!” Evie exclaimed, spotting a set of vivid blue bowls. “They’d be perfect for when I open. I just bought the Beachcomber Inn,” she explained. “I’m Evie Baxter-Jones.”
“Evelyn?” Mackenzie’s smile grew wider. “The spinster?”
Evie blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Nothing.” Mackenzie beamed. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
Evie glanced outside. The coast was clear: no sign of Noah. “I better get going, before he comes back.”
“You do that,” Mackenzie said, looking amused. “But I should warn you, it’s hard to avoid anyone in a small town like this. You find you run into someone when you’re least expecting it.”
Evie gulped and checked outside again before dashing back to her car and hightailing it back to the inn. She hoped Mackenzie was wrong. It wasn’t just her bad first impression that made Evie want to keep her distance from Noah; there was something about him she already knew spelled trouble.
Stomach-whirling, pulse-racing trouble.
She wasn’t looking for a complication like that. She already had plenty on her plate, thank you very much, starting with the fact she needed running water to make it through another night at the inn. It had been two years since Glen passed, but no matter how much her friends hinted, romance wasn’t in the cards for Evie, not anytime soon—and especially not with someone as stubborn, arrogant, and annoyingly handsome as Noah.
Her stomach would get the hint soon enough. A man like that was the last thing on her to-do list.
Noah Montgomery was a man in high demand. He couldn’t make it ten paces through the town square without being stopped by another person, wanting to chat.
Funny thing was, they were all women.
“I wanted to ask your advice on a new stereo system …”