For God’s sake, I’m in love with the man, and even more so now, knowing what he wants to do for this community. I need to talk to him. I need to make this right somehow.
As my heart pounds hard in my chest, and exhaustion from a sleepless night pulling at me, I go to my room, flop down on my bed to consider how best to approach this, and the next thing I know, the sun is slanting in through my window. But that’s not what has me alarmed. No, it’s the sound of hooves and metal chains outside my window.
Is Eddie on the loose again?
I jump from the bed and pull back my curtains to see Doug climbing off the buggy. What is going on? Robe tied tight around my waist, I step into the hall, to find the others all coming from their rooms.
“What’s all the noise?” Cody asks and scrubs his tired eyes.
“Doug is here with his horse and buggy,” I explain.
Izzy’s head comes back with a start, and then a small smile touches her mouth as she glances at the guys. A knock sounds on the back door.
“We better go see what he wants,” Izzy says.
I go down first, and a gust of wind blows over me when I open the door. Doug takes his hat off.
“Miss Palmer,” he says. “Your chariot awaits.”
I look past his shoulder to see a snarling Eddie. “I didn’t book a ride,” I say. “I’m not even dressed. You must be mistaken.”
He pulls a piece of paper from his pocket, and his weathered face crinkles as he reads it. “Nope. Right here. Right address.”
My heart beats faster as my brain kicks into gear. “Who set this up?” I ask, a surge of hope welling up inside me. Is it possible that Nate’s behind this?
“Can’t say for sure,” he says. “Now run along and get dressed. It’s cold out there.”
I turn to the crew, and they’re making coffee and avoiding my glance. “Are you guys behind this?” Are they giving me a farewell send-off?
“You’d better get going,” Jason says.
“And dress warm,” Sam adds, as he scratches his…parts, and sits at the table.
Mumbling under my breath, I go dress. The crew sits around the table eating, and completely ignores me when I return.
Outside, Doug helps me onto the buggy. “He’s not going to take off with me in this thing, is he?” I ask as I settle myself. Doug hands me a big wool blanket, and I wrap it around me. It smells like horse.
“Can’t say for sure, Miss Palmer,” he says, offering zero comfort.
“Where are we going?”
He flicks his reins, and Eddie takes off, snorting at me before leaving the driveway. I glance around, take in the beauty of the place, the freshly fallen snow clinging to the trees. I have no idea what’s going on here, but after finding out Nate is staying in the Victorian home he purchased, I plan to go knocking on his door when we go by. I somehow need to make things right again. But I don’t even know if he’ll want to, and he could very well be gone from here now that he’s secured the land. He told me he was leaving at the end of the lobster season, so I can only assume he was here to attend to the business of buying, with no plans to hang around afterward.
We head to downtown, and instead of giving me a tour of the city, we go a little farther out, to a wide-open space near the ocean. Doug stops the horse, and I glance around.
“Why are we stopping?”
He nods toward the water, and I spot Nate coming out from around a tree and walking toward us. Tears fill my eyes, and I stumble trying to get off the buggy.
“Nate,” I say and meet him in the clearing. “I’m…I don’t know…I wasn’t sure you’d ever want to see me again.”
“You signed the papers,” he says, the warmth in his eyes pushing back the cold in my