Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Maybe it was a little bit silly, but sometimes, when she arrived at her real estate office in the heart of Whale Harbor, Rhode Island, Lori Sims liked to picture herself in a movie montage. She imagined it like in a film from the ‘80s, where the jangling of phones and the clacking of keyboards heralded the start of a bright, new, productive day.

And yes, modern keyboards were a lot quieter, and everyone basically used cell phones these days, even for business… but her heels still made and intensely satisfying click-clack against the hardwood floors as she entered the building. That was half the reason she even wore heels.

The other half was that they made her look and feel incredible .

Gosh. She loved her job.

"Good morning!" she called cheerfully to Byron, her receptionist, as she entered the building. Byron was in his mid-forties and had been working with Lori for over a decade. In that time, he'd gradually lost more and more of his hair, something that didn't seem to bother him a bit. He tended to jokingly blame this on his three teenaged boys, who inspired the kind of stories that made Lori grateful she'd only had girls.

"Morning, Lor," he replied around his mug of coffee. "Good weekend?"

She nodded. "Had lunch with my girls." Even this was enough to make her smile. It had been several years since her older daughter, Darla, had moved back from New York City and made Whale Harbor her home once more, but Lori still felt a pang of gratitude at Darla's return—and that they had repaired their once-fractured relationship—every time she thought about it.

"How about you?" she asked.

Byron gave a mock scowl, the expression out of place on a face marked with laugh lines. "You want some free teenagers?" he joked.

She held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. "I did my time, By. Now mine are grown and I get to enjoy the fruits of my labors."

"And hopefully a grandbaby or two?" he added jokingly. Lori's position on her readiness for grandchildren was well-known.

"Or three or four or five," she added in the same tone, which made him laugh.

"Don't let your girls hear you talk like that, or they'll accuse you of meddling," he teased.

"Bah!" she said with teasing dismissiveness, waving a hand over her shoulder as she headed deeper into the building, making for her own office.

On the way she encountered the office's newest hire, Jane Radford, a woman in her late twenties that Lori had hired the previous year to serve as the office's finance officer. Jane was wonderful, sweet, and excellent at her job… and it still hit Lori like a ton of bricks every time she realized she had daughters older than the younger woman.

"Morning, Jane," she greeted.

"Oh, hey, Lori," Jane replied, stirring her coffee. "How was your weekend?"

"Really nice. And yours?"

Jane grimaced, putting a hand to her lower back. "You remember I play in that recreational softball league?" Lori nodded. "Well, we had a tournament this weekend and I am feeling it today."

"You know that only gets worse, right?" Lori teased. "You're still young. Wait until you're my age."

Jane shook her head, her long blonde ponytail swishing behind her. "Don't tell me that! And ‘your age' my foot. You're still young!"

"Uh huh," Lori said, her tone lightly sarcastic. "Buttering up the boss. I see how it is."

They laughed amiably as they retreated into their respective offices.

Lori sat down at her desk… and her day took off like a shot.

She never scheduled property showings for Mondays, and her inbox make the wisdom behind that decision clear. She had scores of emails to sort through, separating the urgent business from the things that didn't need to be minded right away, discarding the few spam emails that her filters hadn't automatically snagged. This work was interspersed with the occasional phone call, and by the time she'd worked her way through her inbox, it was already time for lunch.

She sighed, looking at the clock. Maybe this also dated her, but sometimes she felt nostalgic for the days before email was so ubiquitous, even if it usually did make her work a lot easier.

She took a quick break while she enjoyed a turkey club sandwich that she'd brought with her that morning, relishing the tangy crunch of the pickle she'd packed alongside it. The best way, in Lori's opinion, to get through a hectic workday was to have a really good lunch to break it up. While she munched, she thought back to the afternoon she'd spent with her daughters over the weekend.

Her daughters, Marty and Darla, were her pride and joy, and she considered their husbands, Wyatt and Rick, like her own kids too. It made her happier than she could say to see her beloved girls as happy as they were, even if it did sometimes give her a little twinge when she thought about how that part of her life was over. No, romance was strictly in Lori's past… though she did often wish that her late husband, Craig, could see how wonderfully their girls had grown into remarkable women.

She shook her head sharply. No sense getting maudlin, not when there was work to do.

She tucked away the remnants of her lunch, quickly ducking into the small office kitchen to wash her hands before returning to work. When she got back to her desk, she groaned. In the scant minutes she'd been away, one of her clients had emailed. They needed to move up a property viewing to today.

Well, there went her dedicated time to clear her desk. Now she would likely come back tomorrow morning to find a huge backlog of emails too.

Lori quickly shrugged off her annoyance and got to work preparing the paperwork for the property she was set to show. After all, maybe the impromptu viewing would result in a sale!

Lori had always been… well, strong-willed was perhaps the nicest way to put it, but she'd learned the value of flexibility after her beloved mother—known as Grandma Abby to Darla and Marty—had passed and Lori had reconnected with Darla following her elder daughter's return to Whale Harbor. And then she'd taken a cruise, the first thing she'd done exclusively for herself in she didn't know how long.

It had been a little scary, to put aside her work and her structured life, even for a short break. But the reward had been more than worth the risk. Ever since her time away, she'd felt more optimistic about life. She no longer felt like her best days were behind her… this was her next act, and she was determined to enjoy it.

Thus, despite the setback to her day, she was in a good mood as she walked down the streets of downtown Whale Harbor enjoying the early summer warmth, the heat of the sun cut by the cool breeze coming off the water. New England winters were long and frigid, but the summers more than made up for them, in Lori's opinion. She decided to take the perfect weather as a good omen for her upcoming viewing.

That was until she looked up the sidewalk and saw a very bad omen, indeed.

Her rival, Hudson Boone.

Hudson was the only other real estate agent in Whale Harbor, and he and Lori had been in competition for sales for years , since before Hudson's hair had gone silver, something that even Lori had to begrudgingly admit looked quite striking against the gleam of his blue eyes.

Even though she and Hudson were close in age, Lori's own hair was still its usual red waves—with, okay, maybe one or two strands of silver in it—and she was only the tiniest bit smug about that.

"Good afternoon, Hudson," she said with a distinctly chilly note, her nose in the air. This would have been, she reasoned, more effective if he weren't so dratted tall. And with broad shoulders. Why couldn't she have an enemy who was weak and frail?

Hudson casually tucked his hands in his pockets. "Well, hello there, Lori," he said lazily. She narrowed her eyes. He was baiting her. She didn't know how, but she knew he was doing it. "Where are you off to in such a hurry on a fine day like this?"

She pressed a hand to her chest in a gesture of surprise. "Why, I'm off to sell a house!" she exclaimed. "It's something real estate agents do… or the good ones do, at least."

"Oh, right," Hudson said. "Well, I already sold one this morning, but it's good to hustle when you're behind."

"You're fibbing," she accused. "There are no houses on the market this week."

This was true. She was headed out to see a commercial property. The glimmer in her rival's eyes showed she had made a mistake.

"Huh," Hudson said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "If there are no houses on the market this week, how are you off to sell one? You wouldn't be lying to me now, would you, Lori?"

Darn it!

"Oh, uh, no," she stammered. "I misspoke. I'm going to a storefront. You know, like the one I sold to Claire?"

Ha, that would show him. It had to stick in Hudson's craw that Lori had sold a property to his daughter, who ran Whale Harbor Blooms, the local florist's shop, which had opened earlier that year.

Alas, instead of looking annoyed though, Hudson merely looked pleased at the mention of his daughter.

"Okay, Lori, you got me," he admitted with a chuckle. "I'm actually off to see Claire. And as much fun as it is to spar with you, I have to go so I'm not late."

"Tell her I said hi," Lori grumbled. As much as Hudson got under her skin, she liked his daughter. She wouldn't let the rivalry affect the sweet young woman.

"I will," he said. "See you around, Lori."

And then he sauntered off, whistling as he went.

Lori only watched him go for a moment before she too, hurried off to her appointment.

Stepping into Whale Harbor Blooms was, for Hudson, like stepping back in time. His daughter, Claire, had gotten her penchant for gardening from her mother, Hudson's late wife, Stella. Claire strongly resembled her mother too. They both had that beautiful, long red hair. He idled by the door, watching her with pride in his eyes as she finished a transaction with a customer.

Look at our girl, Stella , he thought. Isn't she amazing ?

Claire's customer exited, Hudson giving the older woman a polite nod as she passed him. He approached his smiling daughter.

"Hey, Dad! What brings you in today?"

"Does a guy need an excuse to come visit his favorite daughter?" he asked, leaning over the counter to give her a peck on the cheek.

She pretended to think about it, tapping her cheek. This put Hudson in mind of his conversation with Lori, out on the street. He and his daughter had the same jokes, apparently.

"No, I guess not," she decided after a moment. "Is this just a quick stop or do you want to hold the ribbon while I cut?" She lifted an enormous spool of a wide ribbon with a cheerful gingham print.

"I'll help," he offered, taking the spool. "I have a little time. I figured I would grab a chat if you had a minute. I haven't seen you in a couple of days."

"Tourist season," she said by way of explanation. "I've been slammed. And business is good, of course."

"Of course," he agreed.

"But phew," Claire continued. "All these customers are wearing me out… and buying me out!" She gestured at the fridges that held cut flowers which were, now that he thought about it, a little less full than usual. But Hudson's mind caught more on her other comment.

"Regular wearing you out or the kind of wearing that we should worry about?" he asked. His daughter had lupus, and though she was very competent at managing her own health, he was her dad. He would always worry.

"Regular," she assured him. "I am taking care of myself and making sure I have time for breaks. And you know Liam is always checking in to make sure I'm not feeling overwhelmed," she added, referencing her boyfriend, firefighter Liam Hiller.

Hudson smiled. He liked Liam, liked how the man was solicitous of Claire's health and obviously loved her. You could see it in Liam's eyes every time he looked at Claire.

"I like that Liam," he told his daughter.

She beamed. "Me too. Although, oh my gosh, Dad, you won't believe what I learned recently. He's never seen Star Trek !"

Hudson grinned at the reference to the show he and Claire had watched together when she was a little girl, back when older versions of the show were in reruns on TV. It touched him that his daughter considered those memories as precious as he did.

He shook his head in mock sadness. "Well, I liked him, and I know he stayed in town to be with you and everything, but now I guess you're gonna have to kick him to the curb."

"Don't worry," she reassured him. "I'm making him watch. We've been having little TV marathons once a week or so when he's not on shift at the firehouse. I'm also making sure he has all the right opinions about the characters too," she added with a twinkle in her eye.

"Phew, I guess he can stay, then."

She laughed. "Yeah, we won't make him go back to Boston just yet."

Hudson held up lengths of ribbon for Claire to snip as she told him a silly anecdote about Liam's efforts to grow a plant… any plant.

"He has a black thumb," she said through her laughter. "I keep telling him I'm going to ban him from the shop."

"After he practically built it for you?" Hudson teased.

She gave a playful shrug. "Can't risk the wares. Who knows how far his plant-killing powers extend?"

She shone so bright with happiness when she talked about her boyfriend, Hudson noted with satisfaction. He'd worried, on and off over the years, that his reluctance to ever date again after they'd lost her mother would have stopped Claire from fully understanding the joy that love could bring into her life… he'd fretted that she would only see the potential for loss. Despite his fear, he hadn't been able to muster up any willingness to chase a second chance at love. For so long, he hadn't been ready.

But his Claire was resilient and had found her happiness even without him showing her the way.

And if he felt as though he might, maybe be ready now, well…

Well, he was too old now… right?