“I’m definitely adding building a fence to my to-do list,” Meredith told Oscar as she stood in the yard, waiting patiently for the dog to find just the perfect place to do his business.
Even though it was the middle of June, the morning was damp and chilly, and she regretted letting Oscar’s potty dance push her into going outside with nothing but a light cardigan thrown over her sleep shorts, cami and flip-flops.
But it was a new yard and Oscar wanted to make sure he’d sniffed every blade of grass before deciding on a good spot, so Meredith clutched her cardigan closed with her free hand and shivered.
“We definitely need a fence,” she said. “That way I can open the door and let you out, and you can take all the time you need.”
“Moving in and putting up a fence first thing, huh?” A deep male voice—his voice—spoke, and Meredith whirled to face it, wrapping Oscar’s leash around her legs.
Cam was standing on his back deck, thankfully wearing a shirt this time. The tight gray Henley did little to tone down his sex appeal, though, and she tried to ignore her growing awareness of just how little.
She hadn’t dated since Devin passed away, and at times she wondered if she ever would again. So feeling this buzz of sexual awareness was new, and she wasn’t entirely sure if it was welcome or not. It was a comfort to know she still had those feelings. But having them for Cam Maguire wasn’t ideal.
On the one hand, it was fairly safe to be attracted to a man who’d be leaving at the end of the summer. It was temporary. But on the other hand, one summer could feel like a long time when trying to ignore a very sexy man she was undoubtedly going to see every day since he lived next door. She wanted to savor the hot flush of physical desire, but not act on it because she had enough on her plate already—she’d just moved all the way across the country and had a little girl to get settled. Resisting Cam would be a lot easier if he wasn’t practically within arm’s reach.
He was holding a massive pink ceramic mug with a cat paw etched onto it, and steam drifted away from the rim. “Fences don’t seem very neighborly.”
“Then you can be neighborly and stand over here with my dog while he takes his sweet time,” she said, trying to ignore the fact she wasn’t really dressed for a conversation with her new neighbor.
Actually, she wasn’t really dressed to talk to anybody except her daughter and her dog, but especially not to the handsome guy next door. But when his gaze traveled down her legs before returning to her face, she lifted her chin and refused to feel embarrassed.
Hey, she had great legs.
“There are rules about building fences, you know. Property lines. Setbacks. All kinds of fun stuff.”
“I’m not talking about a stockade fence,” she told him as she stepped free from the tangle of Oscar’s leash. “He’s a tiny dog. It doesn’t take much to keep him inside.”
“Legalities don’t care if it’s six inches or six feet.” He shrugged. “A fence is a fence.”
Her neighbor was as annoying as he was attractive. “Obviously I’d look into the legalities before having one installed. And that’s an interesting mug for a guy who claims he doesn’t own the cat who lives in his house.”
He looked at the cat print as if he hadn’t noticed it before. “It’s not my cat. And it’s not my mug, either.”
She waited, but he didn’t add to the statement. He was a puzzle and the urge to try to figure him out was strong, but she had neither the time nor the patience to wheedle more pieces out of him.
Oscar started walking toward the house and, when he reached the end of his leash, gave her a questioning look. Though she had a pickup baggie in the pocket of her cardigan, she hadn’t been paying attention and she had no desire to go on a poop hunt in her pajamas with Cam watching her. She’d come back later when he wasn’t outside. Since he was staying for the summer and had mentioned spreadsheets, he was probably working remotely and would spend his days inside with his computer.
“I’ll leave you to somebody else’s mug, then,” she said and he lifted it in a brief salute before she followed Oscar up the steps to the deck and into the house.
Sophie was awake, curled up on the sofa in a light throw blanket. “It’s freezing here.”
“My little California baby.” She smiled at her daughter and then gave Oscar a treat because Devin had spoiled him rotten and rewarding him with fake bacon had been the only way to house-train him. “You’ll get used to it.”
They both would, she thought. While she might be from New Hampshire, she’d gone to California for college and stayed there. It had been a long time since she’d experienced a New England winter, and based on one June morning, she had some toughening up to do herself.
“Mommy, when is my stuff coming?”
“In a couple more days, sweetie. I didn’t know exactly how long the drive would take us and I didn’t want the truck to get here first.”
They’d each packed what they couldn’t live without, filling the back of the SUV with clothes, books, a few toys and the small box of Devin’s things she couldn’t part with or risk losing in the move. The rest, the moving company would bring. Thankfully she’d considered the downsizing in space and had done a rather brutal decluttering before the move so she and Sophie wouldn’t be too overwhelmed by boxes.
“What are we going to do today?”
Meredith considered the question as she put the last of the pastries she’d bought on the road on the table. Some orange juice bought at a convenience store before they got to town rounded out breakfast. She’d packed food and treats for Oscar and nonperishable snacks for her and Sophie, but day-old baked goods were getting old.
“We need to buy some food,” she said, setting her notebook on the table in front of her.
She used to have a huge fancy planner with every day broken down to the hour, but the hectic schedule that came with being Devin Price’s wife had died with him. As friends and social commitments had fallen away and Sophie had less and less interest in interaction with her classmates, the mostly empty planner pages had served as a depressing daily reminder of the loss in her life, so she’d tossed it.
Now she had a small hardcover notebook that was always close at hand or in her purse and she noted down things she needed to do and information she might want to reference again.
Using the tattered ribbon bookmark to open it to the current page, she added install a fence and then, after remembering her conversation—such as it was—with Cam, she added ask town hall about fence rules.
“I only have sixteen pages left in my book,” Sophie said in much the same tone as a person would announce an impending apocalypse.
“We’d better go to the library, then.” She added that to the list, along with grocery shopping. Sometimes she added obvious things just for the pleasure of crossing them off. “We’ll get library cards and some books, and maybe some movies, too, if they have any good ones.”
“Do you think they have a summer reading program?”
Meredith smiled at the question. While she knew her daughter just liked having fun charts to fill in with the many books she read, she hoped they had a program as much as Sophie did. It would be a perfect way for her to meet kids with similar interests.
“I don’t know, but they probably do.”
“You could ask Cam!” Sophie seemed delighted by her solution to her mother’s lack of a definitive answer.
“Mr. Maguire,” she corrected gently. “And I doubt he would know, honey. I haven’t seen any children next door and I don’t know if he has any.”
Sophie didn’t ask if she’d seen any other children in the immediate area. There was a large wooded area between their house and the neighbor on the other side, and most of the homes on their side of the bay seemed to be summer cottages—all as or more expensive-looking than hers, except for Cam’s—so she wasn’t sure any of them would be occupied during the week. If they were lucky, though, there might be a few families with young kids who’d spend more than weekends on the lake.
While Sophie had always been happy to amuse herself, she’d taken it to a new level after her dad passed away. Or maybe it was just Meredith’s perception of her daughter. Instead of seeming a little shy, she was withdrawn. Instead of enjoying her books, she seemed to be hiding in them. But when it became obvious Sophie had no interest in friendships anymore and preferred to be alone, Meredith and their family therapist had discussed how she and Sophie might both benefit from a clean break from the life that felt empty without Devin in it.
“When are Grandma and Grandpa coming?” Sophie asked, dragging Meredith away from her thoughts.
“Tomorrow.” Her parents had moved out of Blackberry Bay shortly after Meredith left for college, choosing to move into a condo in Concord for the second phase of their lives. It was only an hour away, and she considered that the perfect distance. Close enough so they could be an active part of Sophie’s life, but far enough away so she and her mother wouldn’t trip over each other and visits would be planned in advance. “Are you excited to see them?”
“Yes, even though it’s hard to remember them a little.”
The last time Meredith had visited her parents, Sophie had been too young to remember it. Her parents had flown to San Diego for Devin’s funeral and then almost a year ago, but even with the occasional FaceTime chat, it wasn’t easy for Sophie to bond with her grandparents. And since Devin’s mother had died before Meredith had met him and his father wasn’t a very warm or personable man, she wanted Sophie to have her maternal grandparents in her life on a more regular basis. It would be good for her.
After they ate breakfast, Sophie headed to her bedroom to get dressed with Oscar in her arms. Meredith had once told her she shouldn’t carry him everywhere or he’d get even more spoiled than he already was, but Sophie had argued that he was tiny and by carrying him, he was close enough she could tell him stories and secrets. She hadn’t had the heart to tell her to put Oscar down after that, and now she carried him everywhere.
Meredith got dressed and then went into the backyard to clean up after Oscar. It took her a few minutes to find the spot, and she’d just tied off the bag when she realized her neighbor hadn’t gone inside to work.
He was stretched out in a hammock by the water, his weight stretching the netting and making it conform to the curve of his body. Those feelings she hadn’t felt in a long time stirred inside her again, and heat climbed into her face.
Turning abruptly, she walked up the steps and hesitated a moment before setting the bag on the edge of the railing to deal with after she’d bought a small garbage can for under the deck.
We definitely need a fence, she thought, resisting the urge to glance back at the hammock. Preferably a very tall one she couldn’t see through.
Cam did a damn good job of pretending he didn’t notice the sexy mom next door was outside again, if he did say so himself.
He’d been tempted to tease her a little about her task, but she’d already shown him they weren’t on the same page when it came to humor and he didn’t want to make it any worse. Verbally sparring with his neighbor had been amusing to him until he realized she hadn’t caught that he was joking. The last thing he wanted to do was upset a woman who’d obviously been through enough in the last couple of years.
Turning his head, he looked out over the bay, trying to take in the tranquility of the view. He needed tranquility in his life. A lot of it, preferably. In the two weeks he’d been in Blackberry Bay, he’d already noticed the tension headaches that had been plaguing him for several years had abated and he slept better.
It was remarkable considering the circumstances that had brought him here. The letter had been on his desk with the rest of his mail and he could remember hesitating before slicing the envelope open, though he couldn’t say why.
A lawyer telling him his biological grandmother had passed away shouldn’t have affected him. He’d never met her. He wasn’t even supposed to know he had a “biological” side of the family. The miserably unhappy Maguire family never openly spoke about the time his mother had left his father and fallen for some random guy. They certainly never talked about how she’d discovered she was pregnant right around the same time she discovered she really missed her husband’s bank account, but Cam had pieced together the story on his own over the years.
Calvin III had needed a son to get his own father off his back and Melissa needed financial security. The random guy was given a check, papers were signed and nobody ever explained why Cam didn’t share the look of all the Maguire men, without looking like his mother, either. But he knew. People whispered. Veiled barbs flung at a spouse during an argument weren’t always very veiled. And his paternal grandmother had never forgiven her daughter-in-law, and Cam had overheard a heated argument about a check before he was really old enough to know what a check even was.
The secrets of his birth had never been a secret, but he’d never summoned the courage to ask the identity of his biological father. It had never seemed worth the fallout within the family, since apparently the man had walked away in exchange for money.
And so every time he looked in the mirror, Cam was reminded his presence in the Maguire family was tolerated because a fourth generation on the letterhead brought the illusion of stability to a business.
Then he got the letter. He hadn’t known about Carolina Archambault, but she’d known about him. And she’d left him her cottage at the lake because, according to the handwritten letter delivered with the legal notice, he was the only family she had left. Her son—Cam’s biological father—had died before her. The lawyer asked Cam to visit Blackberry Bay as soon as possible to assume management of the estate, which consisted of the cottage and his grandmother’s cat, which was waiting for him at the local shelter.
He had the staff and the money to make it all go away without any more effort on his part than delegating the tasks. But the lawyer had included her obituary and the photo had punched him in the gut. Even though the image was black-and-white, he could tell he had her eyes. And unlike his own, which probably gave away nothing but emotionless determination to care about his father’s business enough to keep showing up, hers shone with warmth and humor. The woman in the photograph would have loved him with her whole heart, he thought.
Cam lied to his parents about joining a prospective wife at her family’s summer home and, after assuring them he could work remotely, packed the necessities into his car and drove to Blackberry Bay.
Air left his body with a hard whoosh when a mass of black fur landed solidly on his stomach with no warning. Elinor knit his shirt and underlying skin for a few seconds—and he suffered the light claw pricks because he’d learned the hard way reacting made it so much more painful—before she settled on his chest, staring at him.
“Hi, cat.” She blinked. “Okay, I’m not very good at this. I’ve never had a pet, but I’m trying my best. So maybe you could do me a favor and not pick on the little dog next door, okay?”
She seemed disinterested and he chuckled, which was rewarded with her claws pricking at his skin again for a few seconds. He never would have imagined himself talking to an animal, never having had one around, but they were surprisingly good listeners. Sure, he had a feeling Elinor could be a little judgmental, but at least she couldn’t verbalize it.
“Mr. Maguire?”
The little voice was close and it startled Cam. His jerky movement, as small as it was, startled Elinor, and it took everything he had not to curse in front of the little girl as the cat launched herself off his chest.
“Hi, Sophie,” he said once the chaos subsided and he was on his feet.
“Can I ask you a question?” She was standing right around where the property line was and her anxiety was clear on her face.
“Of course you can.”
“Can you tell me where you bought that?” She nodded toward the hammock. “I want to ask my mom to buy me one, but I don’t know where they come from.”
“Unfortunately, it was here when I got here, so I don’t know.” He frowned at the hammock on the stand, with the sunshade attached over it. “I don’t think my grandmother was much of an online shopper, so it probably came from a local store.”
“Okay, thank you.” She started to walk away.
“Hey, Sophie. If you tell your mom you want one, I’m sure she’ll be able to find one. And they probably make smaller ones, too, so it would be easier to get in and out of.”
“I need a big one because it’s for me and Oscar and my books.”
“Ah. That makes sense. I’ll tell you what. If I’m not using my hammock, you and Oscar and your books can use it if it’s okay with your mom and she shows you how to get in and out of it without hurting yourself.”
Once she’d gone back in the house, he took a few minutes to adjust the metal stand, lowering the hammock as close to the ground as it would go. He might have to adjust it again when he used it so his butt didn’t rest on the ground, but he’d leave it this way when he wasn’t using it so Sophie wouldn’t get hurt.
Twenty minutes later, just as he was opening his laptop to get some work done, there was a knock on the door and he saw Meredith on the other side of the screen slider. His pulse quickened for a few seconds and he tried to tell himself it was just annoyance at being interrupted again. With a sigh, he closed the computer and walked over to open it.
“Good morning, neighbor,” he said, leaning against the jamb.
“Good morning. Sophie told me you offered her the use of your hammock and I just wanted to make sure it was really okay with you and not a misunderstanding.”
“It’s okay with me, but did she also tell you the part where you have to teach her how to get in and out of the thing without hurting herself or the dog?”
She smiled and brushed her hair away from her face. “She did. I’ll make sure she knows how to use it. And thank you. She loves to curl up with Oscar and read, and a hammock is more fun than a deck chair. I’m going to buy her one of her own as soon as I find one.”
“You should get matching ones so you have one for yourself. They’re surprisingly relaxing. You do know how to get in a hammock, right?”
She put her hand on her hip and arched a brow at him, which made him chuckle. “You forget, I’m the one from here. Of course I’ve used a hammock.”
“As an adult?” He laughed when she looked away, clearly not wanting to answer. He wasn’t much of a hammock expert since he’d owned one for only a couple of weeks—and thank goodness he hadn’t had an audience for his first few tries—but he suspected they were less intimidating to children.
“I’ll let you get back to what you were doing,” she said, taking a step back.
For some reason, he didn’t really want her to leave. “I wasn’t doing anything important.”
“I have to take Sophie into town. My parents are coming to visit tomorrow and I have so many errands to run today. And we desperately need food. But thanks again for the use of your hammock. Maybe I’ll show her how to use it later today, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“I’m sure.” As a matter of fact, he was looking forward to watching this woman practice her rusty hammock skills in his backyard. Maybe he’d even pour himself a drink and sit on his deck.
It wasn’t until Meredith was gone and he’d turned back to the chaotic clutter Carolina had surrounded herself with that the realization Meredith had grown up in Blackberry Bay really sunk in. And her parents were visiting tomorrow.
They might have all known his grandmother. Her parents might even have known his biological father. Feeling a bit shaky all of a sudden, he sat on the edge of the floral love seat and stared at his closed laptop.
Maybe watching his sexy neighbor wrestle with the hammock wouldn’t be the only benefit of her moving in next door.