Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Not enough to send either of us packing, though.
We both felt safe here.
But only one of us never had to worry about being booted back to the US.
2. London
Ten minutes later, Nee was dealing with a guest, and I was giving the kitchen a once-over. Nee had worked with Cammie, the local interior designer, to restore the Victorian coastal look while bringing the place into the twenty-first century. The kitchen was like something out of a magazine and nothing like the commercial kitchens I’d worked in for most of my career as a sous chef. It had pale blue shaker-style cabinets and Victorian wallpaper with the same pale blues mixed with greens. The countertops were white and gold quartz, and the island took up most of the floor space, giving me an extra farmhouse sink, storage, and prep space.
My favorite thing was the eight-zone induction range cooker. It came with two ovens and a proving drawer, but Nee had foreseen the need for multiple ovens and added two more on the wall.
It was plenty for a small guest house where the kitchen was only used in the mornings and the few evenings a week—Nee gave me free run of the kitchen and I used the facilities to bake my pastries and cakes.
After calling goodbye to Nee, I ducked out of the elegant entrance that led to the guest parking. The guest house sat on a hill above Main Street and had amazing views toward the water, but not on the parking lot side. My feet crunched across the wet gravel as drizzle drifted down over my hair and clothes. I tugged my rain jacket closed against a chilly breeze as I walked down the hill.
A fork in the road at the bottom greeted me. Left led to Main Street and right led to an uphill climb past residential streets and the A-road that led around the island. Directly opposite me was another hill where streets branched off into commercial and residential, away from the village hub. A few streets back from the harbor in a quiet cul-de-sac was a modest, ordinary bungalow I rented from my friend Taran Macbeth.
When I’d first arrived on the island, Taran, a stranger to me and a new friend to Nee, had offered me a room in her home. She’d inherited the house from her mom who had sadly passed away only a few months before my arrival. Her mom’s passing had brought Taran back to the island after an eighteen-year estrangement from her then ex (now fiancé), Quinn. I’d moved in with her, and I guess you could say we trauma-bonded. There were times in the last eighteen months I felt closer to Taran than I did even to Nee.
It took over a year, but Quinn and Taran finally found their way back to each other, and they’d moved into his house together. Taran had given me the bungalow, but I insisted on paying rent.
Truthfully, it took me weeks to sleep after she left.
I feel lonely here … I let the thought loose.
I immediately chastised myself because it was that sort of thinking that had led me to allowing Nick’s suffocating control.
Back in New York, pre-Nick, I’d lived by myself, no problem. I’d enjoyed the alone time. So I refused to believe I was lonely now.
Then again, maybe that’s why I’d started dating too. Not just because I wanted to prove Nick’s damage wasn’t permanent, but because maybe I did want someone. It was difficult not to feel longing for a romantic relationship when I saw Nee with Ramsay and Taran with Quinn. Their love stories weren’t perfect—none were—but they were in loving, kind, passionate relationships.
I didn’t think I trusted any man the way they trusted theirs.
Well … that wasn’t true.
An aching pang flared across my chest as I decided against going home and turned toward Main Street.
There was one man who made me feel like I could trust him. One man who made my skin hum and my heart beat rapidly anytime he was near.
Murray Shaw.
I’d never been so hyperaware of a guy in my life. Not even Nefarious Nick.
That scared me too, though.
Because I’d been very wrong before.
But this man … he was … there was something different about him. Something gentle despite how physically large he was.
Looking out toward the harbor where a mishmash of boats swayed softly anchored on the water, I could almost visualize him with his crew, unloading today’s catch.
I’d thought about making a move at last New Year’s Eve party, but when we danced, he’d held me like I was made of crystal and was aloof in a way that told me I’d misinterpreted our previous interactions. I knew when a guy was into me and when a guy wasn’t.
I decided his disinterest was a good thing.
My emotions were still too tangled up to trust anyone.