Time After Time (Sweetbriar Cove #14) - Melody Grace Page 0,97

breakfast the next morning.”

Mac didn’t take the bait. “Come on, Noah. I know you’ve been getting over… things. But isn’t it time you got back on track? This isn’t your style.”

“I’m just having a good time,” he replied shortly. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

But suddenly, he wasn’t in the mood for drinking anymore.

Noah pushed his beer away, and stood. Mac softened. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I know.” Noah shrugged off her concern. Luckily, his phone buzzed on the table, offering him the perfect escape. Nine o’clock on a Friday night, and he already knew it could only be one person.

“Duty calls,” he said, checking the message. “I better go check on the spinster.”

“How do you know she’s a spinster?” Mac asked. “I thought you said you hadn’t met her yet.”

“Oh, I can just tell.” Noah sighed. “She sounds like a spinster, that’s for sure: all proper and tight-lipped. ‘What are the zoning requirements for a porch-set-back? Please provide me with the appropriate documentation as soon as possible.’” He read the message aloud, already picturing the grey hair and disapproving stare.

Mackenzie laughed. “She sounds a treat, alright. Good luck!”

Noah headed out, stopping on his way to get the blonde’s number first. Sure, he knew she was only interested in him because of the firefighter’s uniform, and his charming smile, but he wasn’t expecting a deep and meaningful connection, just a little fun. Mackenzie was right: he may have been a one-woman guy once upon a time…

But he wasn’t making that mistake again.

The town may be talking, but they hadn’t been through the year that he had, a year of pain so dark he hadn’t been sure he would ever see daylight again. He’d managed to pick himself up somehow; he’d moved back to Sweetbriar Cove to make a fresh start of things, but he still woke up in the mornings with that ache of loss, sharp in his chest. Whatever he could do to forget about it was fair game, as far as he was concerned. Gossip be damned. So, he arranged to meet the blonde for a late drink back at her place after he’d stopped by the Beachcomber Inn. It wouldn’t take him long, just a quick ‘hello’ to greet the spinster, and make sure she wasn’t about to demand her money back from Debra.

All one dollar of it.

He wasn’t sure who was crazier: his godmother for selling the place like that, or Ms. Baxter-Jones for buying it, sight un-seen. The old inn had been falling into disrepair for years. Debra had always talked about fixing it up, one day, but in the end, she’d decided to make it someone else’s problem.

And now it was Noah’s problem, too.

He pulled off the highway and took the winding road along the shore, bumping over potholes and pebbles before he pulled up outside the inn. The old Victorian house was nestled between the dunes, a stone’s throw from the beach. At least, it had been in its heyday, but now, the sand spread all the way to the front steps, and the famous rose garden was a tangle of weeds, devouring the rotting porch railings and snaking up the front wall. He couldn’t imagine someone living there in this state, but there was a light flickering somewhere inside, and an old station wagon parked out front, so Noah grabbed the welcome basket he’d picked up from the bakery that morning, and braced himself to meet the spinster herself.

But as he got out of his truck, he heard music drifting on the crisp spring breeze. He paused. It was a raucous rock song, playing loud enough to rattle the rafters, and drown out the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.

Not exactly a sedate soundtrack.

Noah approached the inn, curious now. There was no answer when he knocked on the front door, so he circled around the side of the house, until he found a pool of golden light spilling out of one of the back rooms.

He looked through the open French doors, and promptly forgot his own name.

There was a woman inside, dancing in her underwear. And she was no tight-lipped spinster, that was for sure. She had a glass of wine in one hand, and her eyes closed; throwing her body around in abandon as she moved by candlelight to the wild, insistent beat.

She was spectacular.

Noah stood there, captivated, as the woman spun, her brown hair flying out in a messy halo. She was tall and lithe, wearing