Late to Love (Lucky In Love #3)

1. Darcy

Chapter 1

Darcy

D AMN, I’M GOOD.

I stand back and look at the lengths of trim, perfectly done. They’ll be gorgeous once I sand and stain them.

And, bonus, it’ll reduce my rent with Agatha by a little. Which, in this economy? Ya girl needs.

I push my safety goggles to the top of my head and pluck a relatively clean handkerchief from my overalls pocket to wipe the sawdust off my face. The molding cutter is a fantastic tool for my table saw, but it’s dirty as all get out.

Now that the trim is finished, I’ll get back to the one-of-a-kind dining table I’ve been working on. I don’t have any idea what I’ll do with it when I’m done, because my website isn’t even up and running yet, but at least I’ll have something to sell when the time comes.

“Yoohoo, Darcy!” Agatha’s voice carries through the Fleetwood Mac blaring from a speaker I have set up in the garage’s corner. I grin. My landlord’s here.

Using the remote to turn the seventies mix off, I give the old woman a smile. She is easily the grandmother I never had, and she’s not the worst bowler, either. “Hi, Agatha.”

She comes farther into the garage, taking in the random pieces of wood, the table saw, the lathe that’s almost always being used for one thing or another, and of course, the gorgeous trim I’ve just completed. To the untrained eye, it may simply look like a standard piece of wood that gets nailed up to the ceiling. But I know that hardly anyone makes their own trim, and this is as personalized and unique as it gets. “Oh, that’s lovely!” Her eyes light up as she takes it in.

I preen. See? Agatha knows what’s up, even if no one else does. I pull it off the table and hold it up for her inspection. “Thank you.”

She runs a hand softly over the unsanded wood. “Really well done, Darcy,” she insists. “You should be proud of yourself.”

“Aw, thank you, Agatha. I am,” I tell her. Too bad my own father isn’t as prone to making these types of declarations. I mean, sure, he’s proud of me, as well, but for one, he isn’t nearly as capable of a carpenter as I am, and for two, my work is rarely good enough for him. He’s always pushing me to be better, to do better. I appreciate it, but it’s nice to get a simple “good job” every now and then.

Reason number two thousand why I had to move out of the house.

That, and at age twenty-four, I should be living on my own. Not that adulting doesn’t suck, because it really does, but at least now I don’t have to work a full day with Dad and then be expected to cook while he sits in front of the television with a beer.

I sound ungrateful. Hell, for that matter, it sounds like my dad is some throwback from the 1950s, and it’s honestly not the case. He cleaned after I cooked, for one thing. But without another person in the house, the two of us fell into some pretty specific roles as I got older.

“Do you want any of the quiche I made for dinner before we go bowling tonight?” Agatha smooths her wrinkled hands over a teal apron covered in white and pink daisies. I’m obsessed with it and told her so when I moved into the cottage behind her house six months ago, and even though I know she owns more aprons than I do pairs of underwear, this is the one she wears the most.

I nod. “I’d love that. Let me clean up and I’ll be over shortly.”

She casts a wistful look over the garage as she turns to leave. “It’s so good to see this place get the kind of love it deserves.”

My heart twinges. She lost her husband when he was too young, only in his early sixties, and all his tools were back here—including the amazing molding cutter—when she allowed me to turn the garage into my personal workshop. I insisted on paying extra for the privilege, and she decided that payment would be made by sprucing up her place with things like the trim I’ve just finished.

After a hasty shower, I cross the backyard and let myself into the back door. “Here!”

“In the kitchen,” she answers.

We make quick work of the simple meal, which is the aforementioned quiche and a side salad tossed in the lightest oil and vinegar dressing imaginable. There’s more to the dressing than that, but she refuses to give me her secret. Says it’s the same recipe as the Dash In Diner, which I absolutely believe. The owner of the diner, Willa Dash, used to live in my cottage. Then her sister Goldie lived there, and now I do.

To hear Agatha tell it, she’s the reason they’ve both met their respective men, and she is more than happy to turn her attentions to me.

Yeah, no thank you. I adore her, but I won’t be trusting Agatha with my love life anytime soon. Not that there’s one to speak of, mind you, but still. No way.

After dinner, Agatha rides with me to Hall’s Balls, our little town’s equivalent of a pool-hall-slash-bowling-alley-slash-bar-slash-arcade. It sits just off the pier and is absolutely packed in the summer with beachgoers and tourists. Given that it’s early May, we’re mere weeks from being overrun for the season, but the owner is good about letting us keep our weekly slot.

The familiar smell of the place welcomes me as we step inside: a hint of lemon cleaner, followed by an odor I can only classify as the Hall’s Balls Special.

We head to the bar at the far end of the space, going past the welcome counter where Harrison usually stands. Someone else is working there instead, and since I don’t recognize them, I wave and keep moving.

And there he is.

Anthony Hall. Owner of Hall’s Balls and undoubtedly the grumpiest dude to ever grace our small beachside town.

Also the hottest.

He sports a near-constant scowl (hot), a neatly trimmed dark brown beard (very hot), and two delicious sleeves of tattoos (ridiculously hot) over a massive chest that won’t quit. He is a specimen of a man, huge in size, and more than once I’ve fantasized about him tossing me over his shoulder to have his way with me.

But he’d have to actually speak more than ten words a night for me to do anything more than just fantasize about it.

He clocks my and Agatha’s arrival and turns to make her usual drink without so much as cracking a smile. Standard.

I half wish I had some gum in my mouth I could snap like a bratty teenager, but alas, I don’t. Instead, I flash an overly enthusiastic smile at him when he shifts his attention to me. “Hi, Mr. Hall.”

“Anthony.” He practically growls it.

I shrug, pretending not to care and delighting in the way his scowl deepens in response.

“Drink?”

I pretend to think about it. Although my order changes constantly, I always decide beforehand. The delaying tactic is entirely so I can ogle Anthony. And besides, it’s fun to irritate him. “Rum and coke, please.”

He grunts and turns to make it without another word. I watch him as he works, enjoying the way the black T-shirt is tucked into the delightfully tight jeans he’s wearing. Should I be ogling him? Of course not. But he’s just so unattainable that somehow it feels okay.

Silently, he slides the drink across the bar, and I wink at him to see if it gets a reaction. Nothing. Well, at least I tried. “Can I start a tab?” I always start a tab, but I always ask.

He raises a brow.

Seriously. One day I’m going to get the man to have an actual conversation with me. I lift my glass. “That’s a yes. Thanks!” I wiggle my fingers at him and pivot, beelining for the lane closest to the bar and swapping out my sneakers for bowling shoes. They’re personalized, naturally, all black with sparkly red cherries on each side.

A few minutes later, my best friend Amanda shows up, and shortly after that, Devon Joseph appears, making our little team complete. We’ve been playing for a couple of months now, and while I wouldn’t say we’re the greatest things since sliced bread, I would say we’re not nearly as terrible as when we first started.

Progress.

Amanda knocks her glass against mine and sips. “Cheers!”

“Here’s to a good session.”

“Here’s to us finding some cute guys,” she corrects.

I laugh. Bowling is not where we’re going to find the guys, but whatever Amanda needs to keep this going is good with me. She and I are the single ladies in our little group of four; Devon is married and Agatha’s in her early seventies, putting her, and I quote, “so far past wanting another man in my life it’s not even funny.”

Amanda and I have been best friends since grade school, and she’s been the one to lure the guys in from the second we noticed them. I’m no shrug, but Amanda’s got confidence to match her curves, gorgeous smile, and the kindest, most mischievous brown eyes on the planet. She’s a knock-out.

Devon is a little older than Amanda and me, in her late thirties and married to a paramedic named Aaron. They moved here from Talladega a couple of years ago for Devon to take a job with the education department down here. I don’t know much about it, only that she’s a frequenter of the same haunts as me: coffee shop, diner, and Hall’s Balls. Of course she needs to be on the team.

With a deep breath, I launch into the spiel I’ve been working on for the past week. “I think we’re ready to participate in a competition. There’s one in Mobile, just half an hour away, and it’s in three months. If we hunker down and really practice, we can be competitive. What do you think?” I look at them expectantly.

Crickets.

They clearly aren’t as excited as me, but I can fix that.

“Dear,” Agatha starts gently.

“You’re serious?” Amanda asks.

“Let’s do it,” Devon says brightly.

My shoulders dip with relief. At least I’ve got one in my corner. “Really?”

Her shoulder-length blond hair bobs as she smiles. “Of course! It’ll be fun to have a challenge. Something to look forward to. Besides, we need something to keep us going, making us better, or I’ll never get that sweet pink bowling ball that Aaron promised me.”

Amanda rolls her eyes. “You and that damn ball.”

“It’s pretty!” Devon protests.

“Not as pretty as mine,” I say, brandishing the cherry-red ball that’s been my obsession since starting to bowl a year ago.

Amanda sighs. “Fine. But you’re paying the entry fee.”

Agatha tsks . “I’ll pay my portion and Stingy Amanda’s over there—but don’t think that this means my game will suddenly improve, because I’m not sure that’s even possible at my age.”

I pull all three of them into a hug, with Amanda protesting loudly. “I love you ladies.”

“Yeah, well, let’s see how much you love us after we get through ten frames,” Devon laughs.