Chapter 1 #2
Cole’s mouth twitched again.
Rafe caught me looking. “That’s a full Cole laugh. We usually have to wait until Christmas.”
“Ignore him,” Cole said.
“I plan to rotate which one of you I ignore. Keeps things equitable.”
Gray, walking behind me, said, “Put Rafe on a heavier schedule.”
I looked over my shoulder. He was serious.
That made it funnier.
The spare room was on the second floor at the end of the hall.
It held a queen bed, a dresser, a small desk, and a window facing the ocean.
The furniture did not match, the quilt was clean but faded, and someone had removed what looked like six boxes of household overflow so quickly that a rectangular dust-free patch remained on the floor.
“We use it for actual guests,” Cole said. “Not storage, usually.”
Gray looked at the dust rectangle.
Cole corrected himself. “Not entirely storage.”
I stepped to the window. Late-afternoon light bounced off the water and flashed against the glass. My brain framed it before I could stop myself: pale curtain at the edge, bright line of horizon, room falling to shadow around it. Expose for the highlights. Let the rest go soft.
Nora appeared in the doorway.
“Do you take pictures when you’re not working?”
“Constantly. It’s a disease.”
“Can I see your camera?”
Cole glanced at her. “Nora.”
“I didn’t ask to touch it.”
I turned. She had that careful expression children wore when they had learned that wanting something too visibly gave adults the power to say no before the question was finished.
“You can see it after I unpack,” I said. “And if your dad says it’s okay, I’ll show you how the settings work.”
Her face brightened, then immediately tried to become neutral again.
“Okay.”
She disappeared down the hall.
Cole looked at me for a second too long.
“What?”
“Nothing. Thank you.”
“She’s interested. I like interested people.”
“She likes cameras. Hannah did too.”
The name came out simply. Not bait. Not a story he expected me to ask for.
I remembered from the email chain that Cole was widowed. Three years, if I had my facts straight. I also remembered that grief was not a networking opportunity.
“Then she probably already knows enough to tell me I’m doing it wrong,” I said.
His gaze softened. “There’s a chance.”
Rafe leaned into the doorway behind him. “Are we pretending this room does not have the best sunrise view because we want her to say yes?”
“Sunrise is a hostile event,” I said.
“Photographers love sunrise.”
“Photographers love what sunrise does to other people. We personally resent it.”
“I knew I liked you.”
There it was again, that shameless directness. Rafe did not flirt like a man testing whether he could get away with it. He flirted like a man commenting on the weather.
Heat climbed my neck anyway.
I turned toward the desk before he could enjoy the evidence.
“Wi-Fi?”
“Fast,” Gray said. “Hard line is possible if you need it for uploads. Desk circuit is separate from the window AC downstairs, so you won’t trip anything charging batteries.”
Of course that was what Gray contributed to seduction: electrical load information.
My body, traitor that it was, approved.
“And work boundaries,” I said. “I’m your photographer. I’m not automatically on call because I’m upstairs. If you think of a new deliverable at ten at night, email it and I’ll answer during work hours unless the building is on fire.”
Rafe nodded first. No joke.
“Fair.”
Cole said, “Agreed.”
Gray said, “That’s already how the contract works.”
“Good. Housing doesn’t change it.”
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
I folded my arms, partly because this mattered and partly because Rafe had started looking at my mouth.
“And I’m not free childcare. I like kids. That does not mean I’m the nearest available woman when somebody needs a sitter.”
Gray’s eyebrows rose.
Cole’s expression went still.
For half a second, panic flashed through me. Too much. Too blunt. They were my clients. I had just arrived. I could have phrased it more softly. I could have made it funny.
Then Rafe said, “Jesus, no.”
Gray looked almost offended. “They’re our children.”
Cole’s answer was quieter. “You won’t be asked to earn the room. We owe you housing because we contracted to provide it. This is us providing it badly until the cottage is fixed.”
Something inside my chest loosened so abruptly it hurt.
I covered it with a nod. “Great.”
Gray studied me for a moment, like he was measuring something that was not square.
Then he said, “I’ll write an addendum tonight.
Temporary room, no change to scope, no reduction in fee, and the cottage becomes available only after the remediation company clears it.
You choose whether to move when it does. ”
I blinked.
That was possibly the sexiest sentence anyone had said to me in months, which was evidence that betrayal had caused structural damage to my standards.
Or maybe not. Maybe competence had always been hot and I had simply spent too long confusing inconvenience with chemistry.
“Perfect,” I said.
Rafe looked between us. “Gray has finally found his audience.”
“I described a contract addendum.”
“Her pupils dilated.”
“They did not.”
“Photographer. You’ll have to settle this professionally.”
I looked at Gray. “Your friend is a lot.”
“Every day.”
From downstairs came a crash, followed by Nico yelling, “IT WASN’T THE BIRD!”
Mango immediately shouted, “Pants off!”
Cole exhaled through his nose. “That’s usually our cue.”
The three men moved at once, not in panic, just practiced response. Cole headed downstairs. Gray followed, already asking what broke. Rafe backed toward the hall, still facing me.
“For the record,” he said, “I vote that you stay. The house could use someone who insults me with fresh material.”
“Your standards for hospitality are strange.”
“You haven’t seen breakfast.”
He disappeared down the stairs.
I stood alone in the room and looked at the bed, the desk, the ocean, and my own reflection faintly caught in the window glass.
Curvy hips in travel-wrinkled denim. Hair escaping the knot on top of my head.
Mascara that had survived Georgia traffic through force of character.
Tired eyes. A woman who had given away too much of a business because the alternative was another six months of fighting with a man who could make betrayal sound like a scheduling conflict.
I had promised myself Cape Mercy would be simple.
Work. Get paid. Rebuild. Leave.
Living with three extremely attractive single fathers, three children, and a sexually aggressive parrot did not qualify as simple under any known accounting method.
But neither did spending my first week sleeping in my SUV with twenty thousand dollars of camera gear.
I went downstairs.
The crash had been a plastic container of clothespins, now scattered across the kitchen floor. Nico was collecting them. June had climbed onto a stool to prevent Mango from stealing the red ones. Nora sat at the table drawing the entire scene without helping anyone, which I respected artistically.
Cole was opening the fridge. “Decision?”
I looked at Rafe, leaning against the counter with a grin he had clearly prepared in advance.
I looked at Gray, who had crouched to gather clothespins and was making June get down from the stool with one hand steady at her waist. I looked at Cole, solid and watchful, waiting without selling me anything.
Then I looked at the ridiculous bird.
“I’ll take the room,” I said. “Temporarily.”
“Temporarily,” Cole agreed.
“Welcome to the madhouse,” Rafe said.
Gray stood with a fistful of clothespins. “Don’t encourage him.”
Mango flared his wings, cocked his head at me, and yelled, “Bad idea!”
Rafe looked offended. “I have never loved that bird more.”
I should have taken it as a warning.
Instead, for the first time in a month, I smiled without having to make myself do it.