know you don’t,” she murmured. Freckles dotted Tyler’s nose. His sandy hair, neatly combed when they’d left the house, fell over his forehead, victim of the breeze that had blown in when she’d lowered his window to get a better look at the address on the roadside mailbox.
Nudging wisps back from his forehead, she smiled. “But we need one. And I need you to help me pick it out. It’s our adventure, remember?”
“Then can we go to the Christmas place?”
They had seen a banner for a holiday festival in nearby Port Orchard when they’d driven off the ferry. Tyler had been asking about it ever since.
Everything she’d read last night on the internet made the area around the shoreline community a few miles around the bend sound nearly idyllic. The part of her that didn’t want to get her hopes up knew that could simply have been good marketing by its chamber of commerce. The part that desperately needed this not to be a wild-goose chase focused on getting them moving.
“Not today, I’m afraid.” She hated to say no, but housing had to be their first priority. “We don’t have time.”
It was nine fifty-five. They were to meet the seller’s representative at ten o’clock.
Reminding Tyler of that, and agreeing that, yes, they were still “exploring,” she pulled his hood over his head and glanced to the structure surrounded by a few winter-bare trees, dead grass and a wet patch of gravel that, apparently, served as a parking lot.
The address on the mailbox matched the one on the card. The structure, however, bore no resemblance at all to a residence. The two-story flat-roofed rectangle of a building faced a partial view of a little marina two city blocks away and backed up to a forest of pines.
A long, narrow sign above the porch read Harbor Market & Sporting Goods. Signs by the screened door read Fresh Espresso and Worms and Closed Until Spring.
Mailboxes farther up the road indicated homes tucked back in the trees. The only vehicle to be seen, however, was hers. With no sign of life in either direction, she was about to pull out her cell phone to check the address with Phil Granger when she remembered what the woman had said.
She’d warned her to keep an open mind when she saw the place. To look for possibilities.
The potential goose chase was also, apparently, a scavenger hunt.
A narrow driveway curved around the back of the building and disappeared down a slight hill. Thinking there might be a house or cottage beyond the gate blocking it, she grabbed the shoulder bag that held everything from animal crackers to a Zen meditation manual and gamely told her little boy they were going to look around while they waited for the person they were to meet to show up.
The damp breeze whipped around them, scattering leaves in their path as they left the car. With a glance toward the threatening sky, she was about to reconsider her plan when the relative quiet gave way to a squeak and the hard slam of a door.
Tyler froze.
Across twenty feet of gravel, she watched six feet two inches of broad-shouldered, purely rugged masculinity in a fisherman’s sweater and worn jeans cross the store’s porch and jog down its three steps.
“Sorry about that.” His apology came quickly, his voice as deep as the undercurrents in the distant water. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I keep forgetting to fix the spring.”
The breeze blew a little harder, rearranging the otherwise neat cut of his slightly overlong dark hair. He didn’t seem to notice the wind. Or the cold bite that came with it. All lean, athletic muscle, he strode toward them, his glance shifting between her and the child who’d smashed himself against her leg.
That glance turned questioning as he stopped six feet from where she’d rooted herself in the driveway.
“Are you Mrs. Linfield?”
Surprise colored the deep tones of his voice. Or maybe what she heard was disbelief. His pewter-gray eyes ran from the wedge of auburn hair skimming her shoulders, over the camel peacoat covering her black turtleneck and jeans and up from the toes of her low-heeled boots. His perusal was quick, little more than an impassive flick of his glance. Yet she had the unnerving feeling he’d imagined her every curve in the brief moments before she realized he was waiting for her to speak.
“I didn’t think anyone was here.” The admission came in a rush. “I didn’t see a car, so we were just going to look around—”
“I flew over. Floatplane,” he explained, hitching his head in the direction of the water. “It’s down at the marina.
“I’m Erik Sullivan.” Stepping closer, he extended his hand. His rugged features held strength, a hint of fearlessness. Or maybe it was boldness. Despite its lingering shadow, the square line of his jaw appeared recently shaved. He looked hard and handsome and when he smiled, faint though the expression was, he radiated a positively lethal combination of quiet command and casual ease. “I’m handling the sale of this property for my grandparents.”
“You’re a Realtor?”
“Actually, I build boats. I’m just taking care of this for them.”
Her hand had disappeared in his.
She could feel calluses at the base of his fingers. He worked with his hands. Built boats with them, he’d said. What kind, she had no idea. The white-gold Rolex on his thick wrist seemed to indicate he was successful at it, though. The words capable and accomplished quickly flashed in her mind, only to succumb to less definable impressions as she became aware of the heat of his palm, the strength in his grip and the deliberate way he held that strength in check.
What she felt mostly, though, was a wholly unexpected sense of connection when her eyes met his.
Everything inside her seemed to go still.
She’d experienced that sensation only once before; the first time Curt had taken her hand. It had been a fleeting thing, little more than an odd combination of awareness and ease that had come out of nowhere, but it had dictated the direction of her life from that moment on.
As if she’d just touched lightning, she jerked back, curling her fingers into her palm, and took a step away. The void left in her heart by the loss of her husband already felt huge. It seemed to widen further as she instinctively rejected the thought of any sort of connection to this man, imagined or otherwise. Because of what she’d learned since Curt’s death, it was entirely possible that what she’d thought she’d had with her husband—the closeness, the love, the very rightness of the life they’d shared—hadn’t existed at all.
Having struggled with that awful possibility for over a year, she wasn’t about to trust what she’d felt now.
Conscious of the quick pinch of Erik’s brow, totally embarrassed by her abrupt reaction, she rested her hand on her son’s shoulder. Just as she would have introduced her little guy, the big man gave the child a cautious smile and motioned her toward the building.
“The main entrance to the living quarters is around back, but we can go through the market. Come on and I’ll show you around.”
Whatever he thought of her reaction to him, he seemed gentleman enough to ignore it.
