Chapter One #2
“I’m over six feet tall,” he argued, and she arched her eyebrow. “Okay, I am six feet tall, though.”
She waited.
He crossed his arms. “I’m closer to six feet tall than you are.”
“I’ll take the couch, of course. I was trying to be funny, but I probably missed because I just drove three thousand miles for a hug and now—”
She waved her hand around the room where her grandmother should have been and clearly wasn’t, and then burst into tears.
* * *
Nick knew he should hug this woman he’d found in the living room.
She was crying. She’d driven three thousand miles for a hug. And, sure, she’d accused him of murdering Helen Griffin and hiding her body so he could squat in her cottage, but Lucy was clearly not having a good day.
Or a good week, more than likely, since she’d driven all the way across the country to get some comfort from her grandmother.
He took a step forward, but then stopped. “Do you want me to hug you?”
The good news was that the tears stopped. But he was a little insulted by the way her eyes widened as she took a step back. “No.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “You were saying you needed a hug. That’s all.”
“I appreciate the thought, but—” She stopped wiping tears from her face to wave a hand at him. “You’re definitely underdressed to be hugging women you don’t know.”
That was a valid point, so he shut his mouth, watching her while she walked over to pluck a few tissues from the box on an end table.
She didn’t look much like her grandmother.
Helen was shorter and more compact, with salt-and-pepper hair.
Lucy was tall and lithe, like a dancer maybe.
Black leggings and a tank top hugged curves in all the best places, and the long cardigan over them was so light, it didn’t do much to cover her.
It definitely wasn’t designed for warmth, and between it and the slip-on canvas shoes, she had to be freezing.
But what Nick couldn’t stop looking at was the cloud of red curls around the woman’s face. It looked as if it had one of those plastic claw clips in it, but her hair really didn’t want to be restrained. He couldn’t help wondering what it looked like free, glistening in the sunshine.
And her eyes were the blue of a summer sky.
Annoyed with himself, Nick snorted, which drew Lucy’s attention back to him. Since he didn’t want to confess he’d been waxing poetic to himself about how pretty she was, he had to come up with a distraction. “Do you have a bag?”
“A bag?”
“In the car. You know, a bag with clothes in it? Hairbrush. Phone charger.” He held up his hand. “Stuff for traveling. I can bring it in for you.”
“I don’t have a bag. I have bags—plural. And boxes.” She looked so forlorn he was afraid she might cry again. “Everything I own is in my car right now.”
Dread and disbelief battled to take up the most space in his head. “That was information I didn’t have when I agreed to let you crash on the couch.”
She blew out a breath, shoving some of the unruly curls away from her face. “Can we talk about this tomorrow?”
Nick didn’t really want to put off a conversation about whether or not this woman he’d known ten minutes actually intended to move in with him. But he also knew if he pushed, she was going to cry again. She was clearly out of gas, and maybe this would all make more sense after a good night’s sleep.
“Sure,” he agreed. “Do you need anything? Do you know where everything is?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
“Okay. Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
He went back into the bedroom and closed the door behind him before breathing out a sigh of relief.
His brothers weren’t going to believe this, Nick thought as he slid back into bed. And they’d hear about it, one way or another, because everybody heard about everything eventually in Wayward Harbor.
He heard the toilet flush and then water running. Thanks to old floorboards and good hearing, he could track her movement around the cottage, until he finally heard the springs creak as she settled onto the couch.
Then he heard a low curse, followed by more movement around the living room. Finally, the band of light shining under the door went dark, and after some shifting around on the couch again, the cottage fell silent.
When, what felt like only a few hours later, daylight broke through the split in the curtains, Nick crept into the kitchen and poured a mug of coffee from the machine he’d set to auto brew.
The woman—Lucy, he reminded himself—was still asleep under a pile of what looked like every crocheted and knit throw she could find in the cottage.
And Helen liked being cozy, so there were a lot of them to be found.
In a world where Nick had better luck, he’d be able to sneak out and deal with her later in the day. But her car was parked behind his truck in the dooryard and he’d returned the keys she’d thrown at him.
Before Lucy inevitably made her case for another night—or, Lord help him, more—in the cottage, he needed to call Helen.
And that was a phone call he didn’t want to make in front of Lucy.
He didn’t know Helen’s granddaughter, but he’d heard some pretty unflattering whispers about Helen’s daughter, Iris, over the years.
And Iris had been an only child, which meant she was Lucy’s mother.
Nick had no way of knowing how far that apple had fallen from the tree, but it was up to Helen to decide if she wanted Lucy in her home.
He was halfway through his first cup of coffee when the mountain of blankets on the couch began shifting. When a mass of curls popped out, like a bear emerging from hibernation, he had to bite back a laugh.
Lucy looked around, blinking. Then, with a groan, she swung her feet to the floor. Most of the blankets got pushed aside, though she did keep one knit throw wrapped around herself as she stumbled to the bathroom.
When she emerged a few minutes later with the blanket still wrapped around her, he took a mug out of the cabinet and slid it down the short counter so it came to rest next to the coffeepot.
She smiled her thanks and grabbed the pot, while he wondered if she was going to want cream and sugar.
But after pouring her coffee and replacing the carafe, she picked up her coffee and turned away.
Somehow she managed to get the mug to the table without tripping on the blanket, and then she wrapped it more tightly around herself before sitting down.
“Good morning,” she said after taking her first sip.
“Morning.”
She turned to look at him. “But not a good one?”
“What?”
“I said ‘good morning’ and you said ‘morning,’ so I’m wondering if it’s not a good one.”
He sighed from the depths of his soul. “Good morning, Lucy.”
She smiled before pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Is the furnace one of the things you’re working on?”
He shook his head. “The furnace is shut off because it’s not winter anymore. I slept with my window open a crack, actually.”
“Yay for you,” she muttered.
“You said you drove from the West Coast. Don’t you all live in air conditioning out there?”
“Yes, when it’s hot outside. That’s totally different than just letting the outside cold in. Also, air-conditioned air is not damp like this.”
Nick didn’t think it was damp at all, but he swallowed more coffee instead of arguing with her. He had a feeling he wouldn’t win with her, and he’d need the caffeine to get through the day.
“I really should eat something with this coffee,” she said suddenly. Before Nick could stop her, she was up and walking to the fridge with the blanket still clutched around her. “Gran used to make the most amazing blueberry pancakes.”
He knew she wasn’t going to find much in that refrigerator, and definitely not the ingredients for amazing blueberry pancakes.
Helen had cleaned out the fridge before she left, and it was mostly condiments now, with one open quart of milk.
He couldn’t remember when he bought it, though, so he considered it highly suspect at this point.
“There’s no actual food in here,” she said.
“There’s a package of bologna. And some tomatoes.”
“That’s weird.”