4. Nolan
NOLAN
Mrs. Dawson’s overgrown hedges were trying to kill me.
Not literally, but the damn things had been neglected for so long that their branches had twisted into each other like they’d formed an alliance against anyone holding a pair of shears.
I’d been hacking away at them for three hours.
Sweat poured down my back, my arms ached, and I still had half the property line to go.
Normally, I liked jobs like this. The kind where I could put my headphones on, zone out, and let my hands work. My head wasn’t in it today, though.
Instead, it was stuck on the woman who’d showed up next door.
Rose.
My bear was no better. He’d been restless all morning. Every time I tried to focus on the hedge, he’d nudge me, pulling my attention back toward the image of Rose with her petite frame, reading glasses, and blue eyes standing on my steps, telling me to turn my music down like she had any right to.
The quiet police librarian.
I snorted and hacked through another branch.
She hadn’t even been here long, and already my routine was off.
Not because I’d changed anything—I hadn’t.
I still played my music. I still used the yard however I wanted.
There was just this awareness now, this constant buzz in the back of my skull that hadn’t been there before.
It was like my bear had his ears perked toward her even when I was across town.
I didn’t like it.
By the time I finished Mrs. Dawson’s hedges, loaded my truck, and headed toward the harbor, the sun was lower in the sky. My shoulders were stiff, and a cold beer with my buddies sounded better than it had all damn day.
Dock’s Tavern sat near the waterfront, the same as it had for as long as anyone could remember.
The wooden sign above the door was salt-worn and the windows were dark.
Though the place was always dimly lit, no matter the time of day.
Inside, it smelled the way it always did—of salt water, beer, and fried food.
Finn was behind the bar with a towel over his shoulder.
His face was set in that permanent expression of a man who’d seen too much to be surprised by anything.
A few fishermen sat at the bar nursing drinks, and a couple of locals had claimed the pool table in the back.
My buddies were already in our usual spot. I’d grown up with these guys, worked alongside them more than once, and trusted them the way you only trust people who’ve known you long enough to call you on your crap.
“You look like hell,” Omar said as I dropped into a chair.
“Mrs. Dawson’s hedges.” I signaled to Finn for my usual. “Took me over three hours to trim the things.”
“That’s been a disaster over there since her husband died,” Danny said.
“Yeah, I know it.” I nodded, feeling bad about how ticked I’d been at the hedges. After all, the woman’s husband had passed away. That was why her place was in such shambles. “Well, now it’s all trimmed up.”
“Did she pay you?” Omar asked before taking a swig of his beer.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I mean, she tried to give me some zucchini bread.”
“Did you take it?”
“Of course I took it.”
“She does make some good zucchini bread,” Omar said. “Don’t tell Bree I said that, though.”
We laughed at that. Bree was Omar’s fated mate. They found each other two summers ago when she was in town visiting family. Honestly, they’d been inseparable ever since.
Finn brought my beer over without a word and went back behind the bar. I took a long pull and leaned back against my chair.
“So what else is new?” Omar asked, taking another pull from his beer.
“Alister rented his unit out to some woman.”
Both of them looked at me.
“What?” Danny set his beer down. “While he’s gone?”
“Yep. Without telling me.”
“That’s cold,” Omar said.
“It gets better. She knocked on my door yesterday and told me I was being too loud.”
Danny snorted. “She’s not wrong. You’re always loud.”
I gave him a look. “She’d been there one day at that point. One day, and she’s already telling me to turn my music down like she owns the place. I’ve been there two years.”
“What’d you say?” Omar asked.
“I told her it wasn’t a library and to go be the quiet police librarian somewhere else.”
Danny winced. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“And she took that well, I’m guessing,” Omar said.
“She thought I was making fun of her glasses. Got all fired up about it. Then she told me she had a lease, she’d paid in full, and she wasn’t going anywhere.”
“She sounds fun,” Danny said, grinning into his beer.
“She’s not fun. She’s—” I took a swig from my beer. “She glares at me. Every time I see her, she’s glaring, like I’m the problem. I live there. She’s the guest.”
“What’s she doing there? Vacation?” Omar asked.
“I’m not sure. She said something about trying to write a book she was on a deadline for.”
Danny and Omar exchanged a look.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing,” Omar said.
“No, what was that look?”
“There was no look.”
“There was definitely a look. Danny, what was the look?”
Danny leaned back and took a slow swig from his beer. “You must really like this girl.”
“I don’t like her. Did you hear anything I just said?”
“Yeah, man. Every word. That’s the problem. You’ve been talking about her for five straight minutes.”
“Because she’s annoying.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She showed up out of nowhere, she’s living in my space, and she acts like I’m the one intruding.”
“And you can’t stop thinking about her,” Omar added with a shit-eating grin.
“That’s not what I said.” I shook my head and took another swig from my beer.
“You didn’t have to. Last time you talked this much about anything you liked, it was when you bought your truck and made us listen to all the engine specs for an hour.”
“This is nothing like the truck.” I frowned.
“It’s exactly like the truck,” Danny said. “You’re obsessed and you don’t want to admit it.”
They were both grinning now. Full-on, stupid grins that made me want to throw a pretzel at both of them.
“You’re wrong,” I said flatly.
“Sure we are,” Omar said.
“You are.”
“Okay, Nolan.”
I took another swig from my beer and changed the subject, but the damage was done. They’d planted something in my head I didn’t want planted, and my bear—the traitor—had perked up at their words like they’d confirmed a theory he’d already been working on.
The drive home took only a few minutes, but by the time I pulled into the driveway, the sky was turning orange and pink over the water, and the air had cooled enough that it felt good on my sun-baked skin.
Rose was outside.
She was sitting at the little patio table near Alister’s front door, laptop open in front of her, and a mug of something in her hands. She looked up when my truck rumbled in, and her expression shifted into that familiar look. It wasn’t hostile, but it wasn’t welcoming either.
I got out, grabbed my work bag from the truck bed, and headed for my door. I could have gone straight inside, probably should have, but I didn’t.
“Evening,” I said instead.
She gave me a short nod. “Hey.”
It was the kind of short reply someone gave when they wanted to be left alone.
My bear leaned toward her, that same pull from this morning, and I gritted my teeth against it.
“Your truck takes up most of the driveway,” she said, not looking at me. “I’ll probably have to start parking on the street.”
“It’s a truck. It’s big. That’s how trucks work.”
“There’s enough room for two cars if you parked more on your side.”
“I do park on my side.”
“You park in the middle.”
I turned to look at the driveway and frowned. She wasn’t wrong; my truck was sitting a little past center. Not by much, but enough. I wasn’t about to admit that, though.
“I’ve been parking there for two years,” I said. “Never been a problem before.”
“I’m sure it has. Your friend must just be too nice to say anything.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Her jaw tightened. “Your friend’s, apparently.”
Fair point. I didn’t say so.
We were squared off now in the kind of standoff that could go on all night if neither of us blinked first. It was stupid.
It was about a damn driveway and how I parked my truck.
Even so, my bear was eating it up. He was locked on her like she was the most interesting thing that had happened to him in years.
“Look,” I said, and I didn’t mean it to come out as loud and harsh sounding as it did. That was just how I talked sometimes. I had a big voice that carried. My volume knob was stuck at eight on a good day. “I’ll try to park more to the left, but I’m not—”
She flinched.
It wasn’t much, just a quick tightening around her eyes while her fingers gripped the mug she held a fraction harder.
If I’d blinked, I would have missed it. Instead, I’d noticed it, and so had my bear.
Instantly, he went still as we both realized that something had made this woman afraid of a raised voice.
No, not something—someone.
She blinked and recovered fast. “Thank you,” she said. Her voice was even, like nothing had happened.
But it had.
I’d seen it.
She picked up her laptop and mug and went inside. The door clicked shut behind her, and she was gone just like that. I stood in the driveway for a long minute after she was gone, seeing every interaction with her in a new light.
That flinch hadn’t been about me. It was muscle memory created from someone else. I didn’t know who, but I knew one thing for certain—whoever it was, they’d never get the chance to hurt her again.
That was something my bear and I could both agree on.