Chapter 4
Partly sunny after a friendly gesture
Dawn is only just creeping over the horizon, and I still can’t avoid St Helens’ premier real estate agent.
Kristen smirks at me from the For Lease sign stuck in the empty shop window beside the post office. She’s mocking me from outside the mansion on the way to the waterfront. And as if my morning can’t get any worse…
Kristen’s charging straight for me.
She marches down the middle of the sidewalk. A sleek pair of shield sunglasses masks her eyes, and her ponytail whips from side to side. Every step is a swish of lilac velour, but the sliver of her tiny waist visible above her impossibly low pants is burnt orange.
That has to be a fake tan…right?
I resist the urge to pinch my skin through my oversized knit sweater. I suppose I have abdominal muscles like Kristen’s hidden somewhere under the soft roll of my belly. My skin isn’t golden or bronze or any other word that describes a healthy glow—unless moonlight white is suddenly in fashion.
Um… I whip my head from side to side. Is she going to move?
There isn’t enough room on the sidewalk for both of us. My sweater and pinstriped pants match the dull gray of the pavement, but she has to see me—
“Ow!”
Pain rips through my arm when Kristen’s shoulder collides with mine. My feet tangle, and I stumble, clinging to the plate in my hands for dear life. I can’t let the cookies crash to the ground—not when this is the only batch I didn’t burn to a blackened crisp.
“Sorry.” Kristen lowers her sunglasses. “I didn’t see you under all…that…” Her lip curls as she scans my outfit from head to toe. “You didn’t have time to change out of your…pajamas?”
“I, um…”
“The thrift store next to the florist sells workout clothes, you know. Nothing luxury, of course. I got this”—she gestures to her tracksuit—“in Hawaii. But I’m sure you could find something less…” Her lips purse when her eyes fix on the hole in my sweater. “Old.”
My shoulders slump. The hole is new. A gift from my apartment when I climbed in the window last week because my front door was stuck shut. Again.
“I’ll try to stop in one day,” I say.
She smirks. The next target for her criticism is in my hands. “What’s that you’ve got there?”
Hesitantly, I admit, “Cookies.”
Well, they taste like chocolate chip cookies, even if they don’t look as good as the picture on the boxed mix. I grimace. I’ve never exactly excelled at baking.
Kristen’s eyebrow lifts. “Honey, I don’t think you understand fine dining. Luke is a celebrated chef. If you think you can win him over with those…well…”
“I don’t give a flying fig about Luke.”
“Then who are the cookies for? Another beau?” Her breathy laugh is anything but friendly. “Elsie, honey, let me give you some advice. Pace yourself. People might start talking about you.”
“But I’m not—that’s not—”
“I’d hate for you to be labelled a s-l-u-t.”
“The cookies aren’t for a beau.” I clutch the plate protectively to my chest. “They’re for Sawyer.”
“Sawyer?” Her lips flatten into a line.
Doesn’t she believe me?
There’s no competition between us. Luke is hers for the taking.
That’s what she wants, isn’t it? She can slither up to him and strangle him with her perfectly proportioned lilac velour tentacles.
He’ll love it. She’s at least an eight on most men’s metric—if they’re stupid and shallow enough to have one.
“Yes.” I lift my chin. “Sawyer. He was kind to me.”
“Kind? Honey, that man is nice to everyone.” Her smirk seems a little tight. “You’re not special.”
“He helped me. I wanted to say thank you.”
My heart sinks even though I avoid letting my eyes linger on the plate clutched in my hand.
Why didn’t I just buy Sawyer a gift—a book or maybe a nice card?
Baking on a whim at two in the morning when I couldn’t sleep has to be one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever had.
It’s not much of a thank-you to show up with the world’s most unappetizing cookies, is it?
Kristen flicks her ponytail off her shoulder and paints on the same smirk she wears in all her promo shots. “It’s a good thing you work at the clinic,” she says. “Poor Sawyer will need an emergency appointment if he can force himself to swallow a bite of one of those.”
“They taste good…”
“Do him a favor, honey. Toss them in the trash and go home. That man has been through enough.”
Her fake smile disappears into a sneer as her shoulder connects with mine, and she marches off.
My chest deflates with a relieved sigh.
Thank God.
I’ve never been so glad to watch someone leave.
Boats bob beside the wharf, and the gentle lap of the ocean keeps me company until another soul makes himself known with heavy footfalls on the gravel.
“Elsie Hoskins?”
I wasted so many nights waiting at the wharf.
I shouldn’t be the last person in the world Sawyer expects to see, but his tone certainly implies it.
That’s okay. I take a deep breath. This will be just like I rehearsed in the bathroom mirror at four this morning… but without the hyperventilating part.
“Hi!” I shove the tangles of hair out of my eyes. It’s hopeless. The wind sweeps even more wisps loose from my braid. “Good morning!”
“Mornin’?” Sawyer’s greeting sounds more like a question. He has no idea why I’m bothering him.
“A patient at the clinic once told me that the trawlers head out early,” I say. “I wanted to catch you before you left with all your crew.”
A blond eyebrow creeps up. “All…my…crew?”
He glances at the red boat moored closest to the shore. Maude’s Keeper. A behemoth of a man with dark hair pulled back in a messy bun thunders across the deck to grab a rope that never seems to end. Otherwise, the wharf is deserted.
“It’s just Cain and me,” Sawyer says.
“Oh, um…” I gurgle a nervous laugh. My cheeks heat up. I sound like a drunken frog. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Mr. Abernathy was already here.”
Both of Sawyer’s eyebrows are up now. “Can’t say I’ve heard anyone call Cain a mister before.”
“He’s my landlord.”
“Ah.” Sawyer flashes a smile that’s almost apologetic. “You rented his old place above the post office?”
“He didn’t mention it?”
“He only told me he rented the loft to ‘some young Sheila.’ I didn’t connect the dots.” Sighing, he shakes his head. “What are you doing rentin’ a place like that, Elsie Hoskins?”
“It’s not that bad.”
But I say it too quickly. A deep crease furrows between Sawyer’s eyebrows. This man is learning to analyze the way I bat away conflict too easily.
“Oh! I almost forgot.” I shove the plate at him. “I made these for you.”
Sawyer tears his gaze off my mouth—I’ve overcompensated and forced my smile too bright—and he stares at the cookies squashed under the layer of plastic wrap.
“They’re for you,” I hurry to explain. “To say thank you again for last night.”
“You… you baked cookies… for me?”
“Let’s use the term baked pretty loosely. Lightly toasted. Scorched. Both are perfectly acceptable synonyms.”
He chuckles. “I bet they taste good.”
“They certainly taste better than they look.”
“You tried one?”
“I may have sneaked a little nibble.”
“Is that right?” Sawyer’s gaze dips from my mouth to trace the lumpy lines of my oversized knit. “What are we goin’ to do with you, Elsie Hoskins?”
Why are his eyes lingering on me like that? He seems stuck on a spot near my waist.
Oh God…
The hole.
He probably thinks I’m a complete slob. Self-consciously, I hug my arm around my hip to cover the snag in the wool.
“So… How’d you, um…” Sawyer clears his throat. “Were you okay last night?”
“Did the late-night baking give me away?” I laugh and wave a hand to make sure he knows I’m joking. Well, half-joking. Baking was the perfect distraction, even if I did nearly set the kitchen on fire. “I’m fine.”
“You just sayin’ that?”
“No. You’ll be proud of me. I ran into Luke—”
“Shit.”
“—and I told him I never want to see him again.”
“Yeah?”
“It took me a few false starts, if you can believe it.”
“You? Havin’ trouble standin’ up for yourself? Nah. Who’d believe that?” He winks. “But you held your own in the end?”
I nod.
“How’d that feel?”
“Honestly?” Emotion tightens around my lungs, but I puff out a slow breath. A memory can’t hurt me, can it? “It didn’t feel great, but…”
“Oi! Sawyer!” Cain calls from the boat. “Quit yacking! We need to leave before midnight!”
Sawyer glares over his shoulder and flips up his middle finger. Cain is still roaring with laughter when Sawyer turns back to our conversation as if nothing happened.
“But?” he prompts me to finish.
I shrug. “I was kind of fierce.” Except for the crying part…
“I knew you had it in you.”
“You are possibly the only person who’s ever thought that about me.”
“Then everyone else is sellin’ you short. You’ll show ’em.”
“I was actually sort of hoping to avoid doing something like that ever again by just surrounding myself with amazing people who are, I don’t know… not backstabbing jerks?”
His chin dips in approval. “That sounds like a solid plan.”
“But unrealistic?”
“I’d say that’s the bare minimum.”
My cheeks flush. The gentle way Sawyer reminds me to expect more from people wraps around me like a big, warm hug. He’s such a teddy bear under all that red-checked flannel. Does he have a girlfriend? He must. Oh God. What if he does? And she finds out I baked him cookies? She’ll hate me! She’ll—
Sawyer’s hand settles on my shoulder. “I hope you find good people to fill up your life.”
I want to ask him, “Are you one of those people?” but, thankfully, I clamp my mouth shut.
My lonely heart latches on to people too quickly.
Sawyer’s a good man. He probably only stepped in last night out of a sense of duty.
He has plenty of friends—including the ogre impatiently shouting at him to “Hurry the hell up!”
“Yeah, yeah!” Sawyer calls over his shoulder. “We can all hear you!” He gives me an apologetic smile. “I’d better go. If his blood pressure spikes again, his missus will come after me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“I didn’t mean to keep you.”
“Hosko.”
I laugh. “You did not!”
“I might’ve.” His lips twitch with amusement. He’s teasing me again. “Don’t be a stranger, okay?”
I try—and fail miserably—not to grin like a fool.
Maybe he has a spot left to wedge me into his life after all.