Coming Home to Seashell Harbor (Seashell Harbor #1) - Miranda Liasson Page 0,19

she was in a pink dressing gown and a hospital bed? “You don’t have to like each other. You just have to shake.”

Hadley told herself she had to do this. Until she could really get a handle on how her grandmother truly felt. Over the next two months, she vowed to get the business into such tip-top shape, her grandmother would feel fantastic about it. Plus, her gut was telling her not to give up Pooch Palace. Not to anyone. Especially not to Cam.

Maybe he would soon move on to a more exciting challenge. Just as he’d left her.

People changed their minds all the time. Like Cooper, who’d said he’d love her forever. Turned out forever had only lasted as long as his next movie.

“May the best idea win,” Cam said.

“You bet,” she said in her most businesslike voice.

Hadley met his gaze, now impassive and unreadable compared to a few minutes ago, and stuck out her hand to get this whole thing over with.

Cam caught her hand in his big grip, his long fingers curling around her palm, warm and encompassing. His deep blue eyes met hers, confident and certain.

It must’ve been the muscle memory of holding that hand so many times, of strolling hand in hand through the sidewalks of their town, of that hand touching her cheek, of that hand being tender.

Against her will, something in her cracked. Maybe it was the sentimental girl in her, the remembrance of a first all-encompassing love.

They’d both moved away and become people with lives that were so different from how they’d grown up here, in this place, where everyone knew everyone else, for better or for worse. They’d experienced success, wealth, and celebrity. Big-city life.

Yet the way he held her hand was exactly the same. So was the tender, hungry way he looked at her. Just like when she was a girl, she seemed helpless under the power of his gaze.

She shook her head, forcing herself to break the connection. It was okay, she thought, talking herself down from the ledge—she’d grown past it, past him. Like everyone else who’d ever had a broken teenage heart, she’d moved on.

“It’s a deal,” he said softly, his voice sounding a little muffled and strangely soft.

“A deal,” she said back before snapping out of the haze. Yes, a deal. That was all it was. A competition. That she would win. Regardless of how much her hand was tingling.

Chapter 6

Hey, want to go to lunch?” Cam asked a few days later, sticking his head around the gray fabric partition dividing the customer part of his family’s renovation business office from the desks.

His sister, Lucy, jumped in her seat, where she was loading numbers into a spreadsheet on the computer. A hand flew to her chest as she gave Cam the stink eye. “Tony! Geez. Give a woman a heart attack!” Her black-and-white Border collie, Molly, who was lying in her bed next to Lucy’s desk, startled.

Cam chuckled in the way that only an older brother could, then shrugged innocently.

“Sorry about that.”

“You don’t sound sorry,” Lucy said. Molly stepped out of her bed and ambled over to greet Cam.

“Hey there, Mol.” He stooped to pet her, catching himself before he bent too far on his bad knee. “You want to go to lunch too?”

A desk chair rolled back into view from the next cubby. Not just any desk chair. A leather model with padded head- and armrests and wait—was that a cup holder? “I can be ready in five minutes,” his younger brother, Nick, said. He grabbed a pen from behind his ear and tossed it onto his desk.

“What are you doing here?” Cam asked. Usually his brother and dad were out and about in the town, renovating one of the many Victorian-era homes that were their specialty. Seeing him in an office chair—even if it was the Cadillac of office chairs—was a little strange, since Nick loved nothing better than drilling, pounding, sawing, and stomping around a construction site.

“Hey, I have brains as well as brawn, you know,” Nick said.

“Well,” Lucy said, a devilish look in her eyes, “why don’t you use your brains to get moving on that job on Gardenia Street? I need the paperwork by one if you want that special reproduction tile by next week.”

Cam laughed. “Guess you’re getting a doggie bag today, Nicky.”

Nick shot him a look. “Where are you two going?”

Cam looked to Lucy for the answer. “Let’s go sit outside at Mussels,” she said. “Sound good?”

“Perfect,” Cam said.

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