Page 19 of Chocolate Cherry Cabin

By whom?

“And after? Where will you go? To the city?” she asked, curious if hockey was the pulling force that brought him places, the way her family had drawn her back to Sweetheart Creek.

He shrugged. “We’ll see.” Then he sidestepped, heading toward the old upright piano located at the back of the barn near a short platform that served as a stage. Around it, a few square straw bales had been artfully placed as decorations, in case the wooden walls and rough plank flooring didn’t create enough ambiance.

“How are your parents?” he asked.

“Still the happiest married couple I’ve ever known.”

He chuckled as he tugged the bench away from the piano. “Why do you say that with disgust?”

“I did not. I’m happy for them.”

“No, there was definite disgust.”

“Okay, fine,” she admitted with a sigh. “Maybe. But seriously? Are they faking it? They make it look so easy.”

Louis hooked his hands around the piano and, before Hannah could jump in to help him, pulled it away from the wall. The wheels squealed and protested as he strong-armed it to the spot he wanted so he could step behind it to work. That man was strong. Yummy.

Hannah cleared her throat and examined the instrument. It looked older than she recalled. Dustier, too. She swiped a hand over the bench, then coughed as she dusted her hands, reminding herself to fill Wade with antihistamines before the concert so he didn’t sneeze the entire night.

Louis glanced over his shoulder as he lifted the lid protecting the piano keys, then experimentally pressed a few, proving the instrument did indeed sound awful. “Maybe if you find the right person itisthat easy,” he finally replied.

“And what would either of us know about that?” she asked with a laugh. The nice thing about Louis was that she never worried about hurting his feelings. She could be blunt and to the point with him.

“Maybe we just need to open our minds.” He opened the top of the piano, hinges creaking as he sent Hannah one of those carefree, casual smiles that were kind of sexy if she let herself think about it. Which she would not. Ever.

“Open our minds to what? Possibilities?”

“I’m sure there are lots of eligible, single men in Sweetheart Creek.”

“I’mnotgoing to date Henry Wylder.”

Louis laughed. “That guy’s still around? He must be in his hundreds by now.”

“He’s not as old as you’d think.” She wasn’t sure Henry had even hit eighty yet. “Anyway, even if I got over the age thing, he’s way too much of an old grump for me.”

“I thought you liked grumps?”

She placed her hands under her chin and batted her eyelashes. “He’d be the storm cloud to my sunny disposition. A true opposites-attract romance.”

Louis choked on a laugh and she smiled. Sometimes the two of them just…connected. Not always, but when they did it felt incredible. Like her heart was opening with joy, or something equally cheesy and very un-Louis-like.

The man was like one of those chocolate eggs her boys loved. You never knew what was hidden inside, sometimes a toy, sometimes a puzzle.

And Louis was often the puzzle when she’d been hoping for a toy. But sometimes he brought laughter when she was expecting a fight, kind of like right now, so she supposed it all evened out in the end.

The man prodded her and made her think even when she didn’t want to. But maybe it wasn’t for the reasons she’d always assumed.

He had a good sense of how far he could go, and often stopped just before she snapped.

It was infuriating, and she often found herself wishing he was more like Calvin—straightforward and easy to predict. Her ex was linear, like a marble rolling down a tube. Louis, on the other hand, was as predictable as a bouncy ball operating under zero gravity after a crazed preschooler gave it a good chucking.

Like now. Could he even tune a piano? And if he could, was there anything this mancouldn’tdo? How had he fit so much living into his thirty-one years?

Then again, she was fairly confident he was bluffing about his skills, because when they’d hopped into his truck she’d asked if he wanted to grab his tools for tuning the piano. He’d just patted his pocket and announced that he was all set. Every piano tuner she knew arrived with a duffel bag.

Hannah dropped down onto the dusty bench and started running her fingers up and down the keys. There was a vibration on Middle D that shouldn’t be there.

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