“TIME TO CELEBRATE our freedom,” Gemma McWharter informed her elderly Chihuahua mix, Fang, tucking him more securely against her side. She put down her suitcase so she could ring her cousin’s doorbell. Then she stepped back and inhaled deeply.
February on the Chesapeake. Cold, but not the same kind of cold as she’d left behind in north-central Pennsylvania. The air smelled salty and felt a little balmy, and it took her back to childhood summers spent with the poorer—but happier—branch of her family.
She knocked on the door again. “Bisky? Are you there?” Did she have the wrong day? Her ex would’ve said it was just like her—always screwing up, spacing out, getting things wrong.
Fang gave two short yaps, and she kissed the top of his head and set him down. Only then did she see the note, a torn spot on top suggesting it had fallen down from the nail it had been hanging on.
Come on in, make yourself at home, you know where everything is. I’ll be home by six, with wine. We’ll have a blast.
Relieved, Gemma smiled and let herself in. Bisky was still Bisky, her favorite cousin. She’d been right to come.
Fang trotted ahead of her into the living room and then looked back, panting. His open mouth revealed his single tooth, the reason for his name. “Go ahead, explore,” she encouraged him, and he began sniffing the perimeter of the room.
Gemma kicked off her shoes and looked around Bisky’s big, comfortable home, its lived-in style a far cry from the McMansion Gemma had lived in with her husband, or her parents’ grand estate. A couple of boat paintings adorned the walls, but the house wasn’t overdecorated with nets and shells and fake crab pots, like the tourist places.
A month ago, during a phone conversation, Bisky had mentioned she wanted to redo her attic as a surprise for her teenage daughter, Sunny, while she was away on a school trip. Gemma had jumped at the opportunity to help. Bisky did okay with crabbing and oystering, but there wasn’t money for luxuries. Gemma could be useful for her strong, confident cousin, for once.
Besides, she needed practice at redoing spaces for an actual client, and the before-and-after photos would add to the meager collection on her new website.
Visiting the Eastern Shore would give her a break from her family while she decided on her next move. The week away would give Mom time to recover from the fact that Gemma—quiet, backward Gemma—had done what Mom couldn’t: leave a marriage to an unfaithful, unloving husband. It would also give her bullying brother, Ron, time to cool down about her divorcing his best friend.
Fang didn’t do stairs as well as he used to, so Gemma carried him up the two flights to the attic to get a preliminary look at the week’s project.
The scent of newly cut pine came through the open door, and dust particles danced in the slanting beam of late-afternoon light. A dormer looked out over the bay. This was going to be a gorgeous room for a teenager.
She set Fang down and he ran across the space, yapping. She followed him and then recognized all the hazards: sawdust, an open can of paint and even a couple of scattered nails. “Fang, come!” she ordered, but the indulged little dog trotted into the attached bathroom, ignoring her, still yapping.
She hurried after him and felt something sharp pierce the arch of her sock-clad foot. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” She hopped to the wall, watching her step this time, and reached down to disentangle the carpet tack strip that had attached itself to her wool sock and punctured her foot in what felt like several places. “Fang! Get back here!”
Of course, he didn’t listen.
She limped toward the bathroom to save him... And ran directly into an enormous, flannel-clad chest.
“Whoa!” She double-stepped back, her heart pounding.
The giant stepped back, too, and picked Fang up. Fang growled, and the man deposited him in her arms. “Sorry to startle you, ma’am.”
That voice was so familiar. She looked more closely at the man in front of her and felt her face heat. “Isaac?”
“Gemma?” he said at the same time. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Fang yapped madly at him from the safety of Gemma’s arms while Gemma tried to collect herself. What was Isaac doing here? How had he gotten even better looking than when they’d been friends in their teenage years?
Were he and Bisky an item?
Tucking Fang into the crook of one arm, she gestured toward her foot. “Stepped on some carpet tack,” she said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you...do you live here?”
“No!” He laughed like that was funny. “I’m just remodeling the bathroom and putting in a window seat, a few things like that,” he explained. “Bisky pulled out the carpet yesterday. I’m sorry I didn’t clean up—”
She waved a hand. “Not your fault. I’ll be fine.”
“That has to sting, though.” He frowned down at her foot, then looked at her face. “I didn’t know you were visiting Bisky.”
“I’m decorating,” she said. “Here from Pennsylvania for a week.” She stepped backward—she still felt too close to him with his considerable physical presence—and winced as her injured foot hit the ground.
“Come, let me take a look.” He gestured her toward the bathroom. “Sit on the edge of the tub and take your sock off. The least I can do is offer first aid.”
She did as he’d said and then wished she hadn’t. The bathroom was small, and Isaac... Wasn’t. She cuddled Fang, and the little dog alternately cowered close and then craned his neck to try to sniff Isaac.
Isaac knelt in front of her and lifted her foot to look underneath. “Those tacks got you a couple of places,” he said. “Nothing deep, and they’re bleeding pretty good, so you shouldn’t need a tetanus shot. Let me clean them up and put something on them.”
“It’s okay,” she said, but he was already wetting a clean white rag. He added hand soap and then gently lifted her foot.
Her heart thumped. “You don’t have to—”
“Gemma. I feel responsible.” He looked up at her and she sucked in a breath. Oh, those eyes. Soulful brown eyes that had romanced her into her first kiss—what was it—twenty years ago?
He washed her foot gently and then rinsed the washcloth and wiped the soap away. “Sit still while I grab my first aid kit,” he said, and walked out of the bathroom.
Gemma might not have been able to move, anyway. She felt a little limp from the shock of discovering Isaac here.
“Antibiotic and bandages.” He came back into the bathroom, knelt down and smeared ointment on her injuries.
“So,” he said as he fitted a square of gauze to her foot, then taped it into place, “what have you been doing for the past twenty years?” He looked up at her with a grin, and then she remembered his dimple. Warmth spread through her.
Oh man. She did not need to be thinking about how cute he was. This vacation was about her being free from men, not getting attracted to an inappropriate one just weeks after her divorce had finally gone through.
“This and that,” she said airily. Because, really, what had she accomplished? She’d gone to college, married a man preapproved by her parents and older brother, and lived miserably with him. They hadn’t been able to have children. He hadn’t wanted her to work. “I’m starting a redecorating service, and Bisky is one of my first clients. Well, I’m doing it for her for free, since she’s family. Plus, she’s putting me up for a week at the shore.”
“Fair enough.” He patted the bandage and then pulled her sock on again, carefully, as if she were a child. “There you go. All better.”
“Thank you.” She started to stand, and then he was too close and she sat down again.
Immediately, he backed out of the little bathroom. “I’m going to sweep this place up right now,” he said. “Hold on to your dog. I wasn’t expecting anyone else here, which is why it’s such a mess. Careless of me.”
“I’m surprised Bisky didn’t tell you I was coming.” She looked around, frowning. The room was finished, but bare bones. It needed a lot of work.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Did I hear my name?” Bisky asked, walking in from the hall. “Hey, girl, you’re here!” She opened her arms, smiling hugely.
Gemma’s shoulders relaxed, and she walked into her cousin’s arms for a big hug, Fang growling indignantly as he was squashed between them.
“Girl, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Bisky stepped back and studied her. “You let your hair grow! And you’ve got so much style.”
“Thanks.” Gemma glanced down at her floral dress, then back at her cousin, clad in a plain, long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Bisky was the definition of a natural beauty. “And you’re looking great, too. I thought you’d be coming from work.”
“Believe me, I wouldn’t smell this good just back from a day of oystering. Today I was off. Had to visit a friend and pick up wine.” She looked around the attic. “Are we really going to get this done by the time Sunny gets home?”
Gemma studied the room doubtfully. “Depends what you’re doing to the floor. If we have to restain it, then I don’t see how.”
Bisky shook her head. “She likes carpet,” she said. “So Isaac’s going to put that down, and finish the bathroom and the window seat. Right?” She looked at him. “Can you get away from the hardware store for that long?”
“I can work here every evening. We asked a couple of the part-timers to put in more hours, so I can squeeze in a couple full days as well.” Isaac gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’ll get ’er done.”
“Terrific. But what am I thinking? We don’t have to stand here.” Bisky backed out of the room, beckoning to them. “Come downstairs, and I’ll open the wine, and we can figure out how you two are going to get this project done in a week.”
Gemma tilted her head and glanced at Isaac, whose brow was furrowed. Obviously, he hadn’t known he’d be working with her, just as she hadn’t known she’d be working with him.
And how uncomfortable was that, working with the guy who’d given you your first kiss? They’d left things on a weird note all those years ago, and then Gemma had only been back to Pleasant Shores a couple of times—once when a distant relative had married, and once when Sunny was born—to help for a couple of weeks. She hadn’t seen Isaac either time. She had no idea of whether he was married or single, what he’d done, how he’d changed.
It was going to be an interesting week.