Chapter 5
MAE
The bell above the door jingled as Jonah swung it open. He stepped to one side and held it wide enough for me to enter first, like a true gentleman.
‘After you.’
‘Thanks.’ I smiled sweetly, hoping my face didn’t betray the shock I felt at seeing him properly in the bright light of the bar.
It had been obvious on the pier that he was tall, broad-shouldered and just generally a lot bigger than me, but as he shrugged his jacket off and I saw how his black sweater clung to his biceps and shoulders, and the way his jeans hugged his thighs, I remembered Holly’s words.
‘Are you moving to that tiny, rustic town because you’re hoping some hunky, ripped woodsman will sweep you off your feet?’
Mind you, he didn’t look like a woodsman, or at least not the way I imagined a woodsman would look.
There was no plaid shirt in sight. Or ax, for that matter.
He did have a beard, but it was short and neatly kept.
He scratched it idly as he surveyed the room, and it sounded like sandpaper.
His eyes were dark and deep set, his hair thick and wavy.
Brown with sun-bleached highlights. High cheekbones, sharp, and a strong jaw.
He had the kind of face magazines would describe as rugged, broody and weathered, and an air of unbothered confidence.
‘There’s a table over there if you want to grab us a seat,’ he said, pointing to an empty booth over by the far wall. ‘I’ll get some menus and drinks. What do you feel like?’
I couldn’t help but notice how half the women in the room were sizing him up. ‘You weren’t meeting someone here, were you?’
One of his eyebrows arched. ‘Is that your subtle way of asking if I have a girlfriend?’
‘No.’ I pulled a face. ‘I just don’t fancy getting on the wrong side of anyone in the first five minutes of being in town.’
He held up his left hand and wriggled his fingers. ‘No wife, girlfriend or significant other,’ he confirmed.
‘Why not? What’s wrong with you?’
He looked taken aback. ‘What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?’
I gestured a hand up and down. He was good-looking. Devastatingly so. In fact, he looked like he could have been on a billboard in Times Square, looking moody and sultry, advertising cologne. ‘You’re not exactly hard on the eyes, are you.’
‘Thanks. I think.’
‘Come on. Don’t pretend you didn’t notice the attention you got when we walked in here.’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t notice stuff like that.’
‘Only someone extremely good-looking and self-confident would say something like that.’
‘You think I’m good-looking?’
I scoffed. ‘Even that eighty-year-old woman in the corner thinks you’re good-looking, judging by the way she’s been smiling and trying to catch your attention ever since we walked through the door.’
He looked around the room. ‘That one over there?’
I nodded.
He waved at the lady, who waved back. ‘That’s Sadie. She’s my friend Myles’s grandmother. Sort of like a surrogate grandmother to me, too.’
‘Oh.’
He looked me up and down. ‘How do you know it wasn’t you that people were looking at.’
‘Trust me, it was you.’
‘Maybe they’re jealous of your cute coat.’
‘Well obviously.’ I adjusted the tailored collar.
He grinned. ‘Grab a seat. That’s if you think you can bear my company.’
I sniffed the air, feeling my stomach rumble. Seeing Jonah’s eyes widen, I realized he’d heard it too. ‘For a plate of whatever that smell is,’ I told him, ‘I can put up with you for a bit longer.’
‘That,’ he informed me, ‘is The Cozy Catch’s world-famous lobster stew. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.’
‘No.’
‘It’s not why you’ve come to Pine Harbor today?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No. I didn’t move here from Chicago for the lobster stew.’
‘Huh. Why did you move here then?’
‘I don’t think we’re at the life-story-sharing stage just yet.’
If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it.
‘But,’ I continued, ‘get me a bowl of that stew and a cold beer and who knows, maybe you’ll get lucky.’
His eyebrows shot up.
‘Not like that,’ I added quickly. ‘I didn’t mean physically.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. I almost never put out on the first date.’
‘This isn’t a date.’
‘OK, you grab that booth before someone else does, and I’ll get us some stew and a couple of drinks. Are you a draft or bottled beer kind of woman?’
‘Guess.’
He looked me up and down shrewdly. ‘Draft?’
I was impressed. ‘Correct. How’d you know?’
‘You just seem uncomplicated.’
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not.
While he chatted to the man behind the bar, I slid into the booth, removing my coat and draping it on the seat beside me.
It was super warm and cozy, courtesy of a big roaring fire in one corner of the room.
Condensation coated the inside of the windows, but I could see that the snow was still falling outside.
The place was busy, the low of hum of many conversations punctuated occasionally by noisy laughter.
Families, couples, big groups that could have been workmates having a knock-off drink.
I thought of the little Irish bar near the hospital back in Chicago.
Grace O’Malley’s, it was called. Dark inside, with sticky floors and shadowy corners, it was a favorite haunt for hospital staff.
A place to drink off the horrors of a hard shift and catch up on hospital gossip.
There was always someone sleeping with someone they shouldn’t be.
I had a sudden longing to be back there, in familiar surroundings, with Holly nursing a glass of chardonnay and bitching about how useless the doctors were.
The yearning to see her face was so strong I reached for my phone in my coat pocket on the seat beside me, thinking I’d give her a quick video call.
‘You OK?’
I looked up at Jonah, who was standing next to the booth with two glasses of beer in his hands. His brow was furrowed.
I jerked my hand away from my coat, as if I’d been caught doing something wrong.
‘Yeah, why?’
He put the beers down on the table and slid onto the seat opposite me. ‘You just looked sad when I came over.’
‘I wasn’t sad.’
‘OK.’
‘I wasn’t,’ I insisted.
‘OK.’ He picked up his glass and took a sip, wiping the beer froth that stuck to the stubble above his top lip.
I sighed. ‘Maybe I was a little sad.’
‘Want to talk about it?’
I felt my lip start to wobble at the thought of it. ‘Not really.’
He gave me a knowing stare, then smiled. ‘Then we won’t. We’ll talk about other things instead.’
I took a sip of beer, realizing I was parched from my long journey. The last thing I’d had to drink had been a coffee from a roadside diner in New Hampshire, and that was hours ago.
‘Like what?’
He shrugged and leaned back against the red leather bench seat. ‘Whatever you want. As long as it’s not hotels or mothers.’