Chapter 3
Chapter Three
To her surprise—and relief—the earplugs actually worked.
Or maybe she was just too tired to let a little light chainsaw action ruin her slumber, but Poppy barely heard a noise from next door.
She slept all day, and by the time she’d enjoyed an epic hot shower and unpacked her things in the pretty guest bedroom, she felt just about human again.
And hungry. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten, her stomach had been tied up in knots during the flight, and before that . . . some chips from a vending machine, maybe?
Either way, she needed sustenance, and fast. She pulled on her jeans and a sweater, then headed off into town on foot. It was a bright, blue-skied afternoon, and even though it wasn’t quite summer yet, the sun was faint and warming and the breeze danced with a salty ocean tang.
Poppy finally felt herself start to relax.
She’d been tense for months, it felt like—with the wedding plans hurtling towards the finish line, and her deadline too—but as she strolled the winding country lane with the ocean glinting on her right, and the leafy woods rising up the hill to Main Street square, for a moment all that stress felt a thousand miles away.
Sweetbriar Cove always had a way of making you feel right at home.
Set in a hollow, mid-way up the Cape, Sweetbriar had been settled by early English colonists—at least according to the town historical society.
She hadn’t been back in twenty years, but Poppy was pleased to find everything exactly as she remembered.
The winding country lanes lined with old Colonial buildings, the green of the town square, and the church spire rising from the top of the hill.
She could even swear it was the same flyers advertising the Spring Fling Literary Festival peeling in the grocery store window, and the same calico cat perched on a fencepost outside the hardware store.
On closer inspection, there were some new improvements—a chic art gallery tucked next to Franny’s Gift Shoppe, a new coffee shop she mentally bookmarked for her morning cup of joe—but the true spirit of Sweetbriar was still alive and well.
Poppy was tempted to stop and browse for a while, but the rumble in her stomach drove her on, until she found the pub on the corner with a chalkboard outside promising the best fish and chips on the Cape.
Sold.
She ducked inside. It was a homey place, with traditional wooden beams, old black-and-white nautical photographs on the walls, and a big fireplace across the room.
She made a beeline for the bar, which was being tended by a scruffy, surfer-looking man with tousled blond hair.
“Is it really the best on the Cape?” she asked, nodding to the menu. He grinned.
“According to Big Pete,” he said. “And he’s the only authority we need.”
“He’s still around?” Poppy exclaimed. Even she remembered the town mayor, presiding over the Fourth of July fireworks with a flourish, decked out in a top and tails printed with the American flag.
“Still alive and kicking, although slower these days,” the man grinned. “They’ll have to bury him right here in the square. Really, I think the town hall voted on it last year.”
Poppy laughed, just as a familiar voice came from behind her.
“Flirting again, Riley? You should know, Pipsqueak here doesn’t like boys. We’ve all got cooties.”
Poppy turned, and found herself staring into Cooper’s teasing blue eyes again.
He’d traded the sweaty T-shirt for a crew-necked pull-over, but it did nothing to dilute his rugged charm.
He looked like he’d just strolled out of the pages of a romance novel, except Poppy wrote those books, and men like that were as fictional as hunky blue aliens and brooding yet secretly-sensitive mafia dons.
She felt a flush—then immediately scolded herself.
“Only some of them,” she said with a glare.
“And can you please stop calling me that?”
“Sleep well?” he asked, undaunted.
“No thanks to you.” She heard a chuckle, and when Poppy turned back, she found the bartender looking amused.
“Friend of yours?” he asked Cooper.
“She wouldn’t put it like that,” he said. “Poppy, this is Riley,” he introduced them. Riley gave her a wink, and Cooper let out a snort. “Don’t mind the smooth talk,” he told Poppy. “He flirts with everything that moves.”
“Excellent.” Poppy smiled, just to get a rise out of him. “I haven’t flirted with anyone in forever.”
Riley smirked. “I like this one. Food? Beer?” he asked her, and won her undying affection. At least someone had priorities.
“All of the above,” Poppy answered, and he gave a salute.
“Coming right up.”
Riley disappeared in to the back, and Cooper slid easily onto the stool beside Poppy. “So how’s life as a big-shot romance author?” he asked.
“How do you—? Oh, June,” Poppy realized.
“I should have guessed.” She remembered the time her aunt came to visit—and then proceeded to move all her books to the front section of the store, proudly telling everyone within earshot that her niece was the bestseller.
Poppy loved her enthusiasm, just wished it wasn’t quite so .
. . public. “Tell me she doesn’t brag too much,” she said, just imagining what the town must think of her.
Cooper gave her a sideways look. “It depends if you classify sending out a town newsletter about your new book ‘too much.’ She told everyone to keep an eye out for you this week. I’m surprised she didn’t make us roll out the ticker-tape and put on a parade.
” He tossed another peanut up in a lazy arc and caught it in his mouth.
Poppy gulped. “So much for keeping a low profile.”
“In hiding, are you?”
“Something like that.” She changed the subject fast. “What about you? I can’t believe it’s been so long. The last time I saw you, you were running around dropping seaweed down everyone’s shirts.”
“Not everyone,” Cooper corrected her. “Just yours.”
“Gee, thanks.” Poppy gave him a sideways look. It was still a shock to see him all grown up, the teasing memory in her head replaced with someone so broad-shouldered and solid, with stubble on his jaw and worn cotton stretching over the muscles in his back—
Poppy dragged her gaze away. She shouldn’t be looking at anyone’s muscles, let alone the guy who’d made an art of tormenting her. “So, what’s new with you?” she asked instead. “Wife, kids, white picket fence?”
The smile slipped from Cooper’s face. Poppy had a feeling she’d just said the wrong thing, but before he replied, Riley returned with her beer, and another for Cooper.
“Thanks.” She gave him a smile. “Although I probably shouldn’t drink this on an empty stomach.”
“Lightweight?” Riley asked.
“The worst,” Poppy admitted.
“Well, just so you know, my place is right upstairs. If you ever can’t make it home.” Riley gave her another wink.
Cooper grumbled beside her. “C’mon. Now you’re just being desperate.”
“I like to think of it more as ‘charming’ and ‘irresistible,’ ” Riley corrected him, and Poppy couldn’t help but laugh.
“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be sleeping in my own bed,” she said firmly. “For the foreseeable future.”
“Our loss,” Riley said, unruffled, and headed back towards the kitchen and—Poppy hoped—her food.
“Interesting,” Cooper drawled. “The Queen of Happily Ever After hasn’t found her perfect soulmate yet.” His words were light enough, but there was a sarcastic note in his voice that made Poppy feel like he was mocking her.
“Not yet, no,” she replied, cooler this time.
“Yet you figure it’s your job to lecture everyone else on true love,” he said, and took a swig of his beer. “Huh. Don’t you think that’s kind of hypocritical?”
“I’m not lecturing anyone.” Poppy frowned, wondering how the conversation had suddenly taken a turn. “People are free to read whatever they want. I just write my stories.”
“Full of happy endings and lightning strikes,” Cooper challenged. “You ever think you’re setting them all up to fail? Chasing after some big happy ending that’s never going to come their way?”
Poppy paused. His words hit a nerve deep inside her, the same whispered doubts that kept her up at night, taunting her with the questions she wished she had an answer for.
He was wrong. He had to be. Otherwise everything she’d spent her life believing was a lie.
“What’s it to you?” she challenged him, trying to keep her cool. She felt weirdly vulnerable, her raw wounds open for everyone to see. “Have you even read one of my books?”
“I don’t need to,” Cooper shrugged. “It’s all the same.
Building up some fantasyland of love and forever so people can’t help but be let down with the real world.
You know, I feel sorry for the suckers who believe it, they don’t even realize what a scam they’re buying into.
No offense,” he added, like an afterthought.
No offense?
Poppy narrowed her eyes. “A man being snooty about romance novels? Gee, that’s original,” she said.
“What would you know about original?” Cooper shot back. “All those plots are the same. They meet, they fall in love, they all live happily ever after…”
“You’re right,” Poppy gasped, play-acting surprise. “And when you read a mystery novel, they - gasp - solve the crime! And, spoiler alert, but Jason Statham always beats the bad guys in the end.” Poppy got down from her stool.
“Where are you going?” Cooper asked, looking amused.
“Well, you’ve just insulted me, my life’s work, and every woman who’s ever bought one of my books, so I figure I better get out of your hair. Unless you want to start in on my mom?” Poppy demanded. “Insult Dolly Parton? No? Good.”
She turned on her heel and stalked across the bar. She would have walked out altogether if she hadn’t been so hungry, but as she sat down at a corner table, she was fuming.
What the hell was his problem?
So, he was infuriatingly handsome, but clearly, he had an ego to match. Cooper Nicholson was living proof that if Mr Darcy showed up in real life, he’d make you want to slap that arrogant smirk off his ruggedly-handsome face.
Stubborn? Check.
Know-it-All? Check.
She’d barely met the guy, and he thought he could just dismiss her career as some kind of elaborate con on the readers of America.
Poppy was used to dealing with snobbery—you didn’t get to write romance without people looking down their noses at you—but usually that was easy to brush off.
Literary elites scoffing at happy endings, like a book had to be five hundred pages of misery to be worth a read — but funnily enough, didn’t have a bad word to say about all those trashy crime books for men.
She’d stopped paying attention to those kinds of comments years ago, since she figured nothing would convince them that they were the ones missing out.
Sure, she wasn’t going to win any literary prizes, but that wasn’t the point.
Her readers didn’t come to her looking for the real world, they wanted an escape from it.
A place to disappear in between school pick-up runs and double shifts at the hospital; a place where fate wasn’t cruel, hope won out, and love was never in vain.
A place to believe.
So Poppy built that world for them—and for herself, too.
No matter what else was happening in her life, she could guarantee that everything would work out in the end.
At least, it did between the pages of her books.
And this year in particular, her writing had been her main escape, as the juggernaut of her wedding barreled on towards “I do.”
Until the day she looked at her own words and realized if she married Owen—if she settled for their life together—she would be giving up on everything she’d told her readers to fight for all these years.
“What did he do this time?”
Riley’s voice cut through her thoughts, and Poppy looked up to find him setting a plate of delicious-looking food in front of her. “Sorry, what?” she asked, her mouth already watering.
“Cooper,” he explained. “I just saw him go storming out with a face like thunder, although, that’s just a normal Sunday for him.”
Poppy pressed her lips together. “Just a small disagreement,” she said lightly, and Riley snorted.
“Why am I not surprised? Don’t take it personally,” he added with a sympathetic smile. “I love the guy like a brother, but he can be a grumpy asshole when he sets his mind to it.”
“I’ll remember that. Thanks, and for the food,” she said.
“My pleasure.” Riley turned to go, but then Poppy remembered something.
“Wait. Did I put my foot in it earlier? We were catching up earlier, and I asked Cooper if he was married.”
Riley looked uneasy. “You’ll have to talk to him about that,” he said, as some new customers came in. “I better go. Let me know if you need anything.”
Poppy watched him walk away. It sounded like she had touched a nerve with Cooper without even meaning to, but even so, it didn’t give him the right to tear her down like that. Maybe it wasn’t personal for him, but it sure felt that way.
Enough letting Cooper Nicholson get under her skin, she decided, and reached for a crisp, thick-cut fry. For some reason, he’d been in her face since the moment she’d arrived, but that didn’t mean she had to let him ruin her day. She was here for a reason, after all.
No drama. No conflict. Just the happily-ever-after her readers were waiting for.
Simple.
Right?