Chapter One Sophie #2
“No!” Sophie cried out, lunging after it.
But before she could reach it, strong hands were grabbing her under her armpits and hauling her out like she was nothing more than a soggy shopping bag.
She lay on the wooden boards for a moment, coughing and spluttering, while her rescuer calmly pulled off his sweater, leaving his dark hair attractively ruffled.
He jogged to a small jetty in front of the house next to hers, ran to the end, and with practiced ease, used his sweater to fish her bag from the lake.
He then calmly walked back and placed it on a table to dry in the morning sun, his body moving naturally with the dock’s gentle sway.
His very muscular body. She found herself wondering if all the men in Solace Springs looked like they’d stepped out of some high-end outdoor clothing catalog, or if she’d just got lucky with her rescuer.
Though “lucky” probably wasn’t the right word when she could practically feel him mentally filing her under “Problems I Didn’t Need This Morning. ”
And damn it! No to romance. No, no, no! she thought.
Sophie pulled herself up from the decking on shaky legs and wobbled toward a nearby chair.
Her rescuer’s tanned cheekbones colored slightly before he looked determinedly at a point somewhere over her left shoulder.
She looked down at herself to see her pastel blue sweater was completely transparent. Of course it was.
He opened a nearby box and pulled out a worn tartan blanket, throwing it at her with the kind of haste that suggested he was as uncomfortable with the situation as she was. She wrapped the soft wool around her shoulders, breathing in the faintest trace of woodsmoke and whiskey.
“Wanna check the letter’s okay?” Her rescuer’s voice was still gruff but there was something gentle in the way he asked this, like he knew exactly how precious last words could be.
Sophie reached into her wet bag. The letter was exactly where she’d left it, tucked in the inside pocket, but when she pulled it out, the paper was soaked through, her mum’s familiar handwriting beginning to blur.
The truth was, she couldn’t bear to open it.
It had been over a year since her mother’s death from cancer…
a year when Sophie had learned about the trajectory of grief.
Not the five phases of grief people talked about.
But two phases: pure raw shock followed by pure raw sorrow.
After her mother passed away, her dad had given her a letter she’d written.
That letter had stayed tucked up in Sophie’s drawer, like maybe if she opened it, a Pandora’s box of boss-level grief would strike her down.
She kept telling herself she’d read it at the right time.
But the right time never seemed to arrive.
“I better dry it on the heater inside,” Sophie said, gesturing to her new boathouse as she scrambled around her wet bag for the keys the real estate agency had airmailed to her.
The man gave her a cynical look. “You been inside yet?”
“Nope, I was delayed by my impromptu swimming lesson.”
“ ’Fraid the heater in there hasn’t worked since the Reagan administration. In fact, nothing in there has.”
Sophie’s eyes widened. He could not be serious.
She’d been hoping the exterior was just putting on a show and the inside would be as charming as it had looked in the carefully framed listing photos.
No one had mentioned the plumbing situation.
But then again, she hadn’t asked. She’d been too busy swooning over the idea of waking up to lake views and living out her bookshop-owner fantasy to think about boring essentials like, say, working showers or a loo that didn’t require divine intervention.
In hindsight, a few practical questions might have been wise.
Damn this new impulsive streak of hers!
But then she gave herself a talking to. “I can do this,” she said under her breath.
“And what exactly are you planning to do?” her rescuer asked, crossing his muscled arms across his chest as he looked down at her.
“Turn it into a bookshop,” Sophie said brightly.
He barked out a laugh, then seemed to realize she was serious. “A bookshop. Here?”
“Yes, here. Is there a problem with that?”
Flexing his jaw in obvious irritation, Harbor Hottie replied, “Lady, this place needs more than a few shelves and fairy lights for an outsider like you to make it habitable, let alone commercial. And judging by your accent and the way you just jumped into the lake this time of year, you know nothing about our ways, or American ways, period.”
Sophie bristled. “Well, lucky for me I’m not just some random Londoner with fairy lights.” She lifted her chin as she stared up at him. “I was actually born in America and have dual citizenship. Plus I’ve spent every waking hour researching boathouse renovations since I bought this place.”
“Research,” he scoffed. “Let me guess. That research involved reading blogs and social media posts?”
The cheek of this man!
“Actually, I’ve read every book on historical waterfront renovations I could find,” Sophie retorted. “Not all of us have the luxury of being born where we belong.”
“And what makes you so sure this is where you belong?”
“Because I need it to be,” she said, voice softening. “My mum died last year. The inheritance she left is what made this possible. I-I can’t have it come to nothing.”
Something shifted in her rescuer’s expression.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his gruffness dialing back. “About your mother.”
The man gave her a long, steady sigh then carefully picked the soaking letter up like it was a baby chick.
Sophie watched him stride down the dock with her mother’s letter cradled in his giant hands, expecting him to continue past the boathouse neighboring hers.
Instead, he stepped inside like he owned the place.
Which, apparently, he did.
Great. Her grumpy rescuer was her new neighbor, too.
The universe had clearly decided that nearly drowning wasn’t enough of a challenge.
Now she’d need to face those gorgeous blue eyes every morning across her morning coffee.
Not the distraction she needed when she had a whole boathouse to renovate and a new life to build.
She looked at the boathouse again. Her boathouse.
Well, hers and four thousand other investors.
Up close, the two-story stilted property did have a certain charm, with its faded pink paint and those cherry blossoms dusting the roof.
It was at the end of a row of boathouses, so she didn’t only have lake views to the front, but also to the side.
It looked mildly terrifying as well, though, with several windows boarded up and rotting wood that looked like it had enjoyed its best days sometime in the last century.
I can work with that, Sophie thought, already cataloging all the things she would need to do. Maybe her newfound spontaneity had got her into this mess, but it had also got her out of London and into…well, into a lake, technically.
She took a moment to watch the way the morning light painted everything in soft rose and gold.
To listen to the gentle lap of water against wood and the distant call of birds welcoming the day.
To smell the scents of cherry blossoms, of dewy grass and that indefinable something that made spring mornings feel full of possibility.
She looked down at her phone, still buzzing with encouragement from her unexpected army of bookish guardian angels: four thousand people who were counting on her to turn this wreck into the cozy bookshop of their dreams.
And Solace Springs’ resident storm cloud clearly thought she didn’t stand a chance.
She squared her shoulders. Well, she’d just have to prove him wrong.