Page 3 of One Sweet Day I Found You

A few minutes later, coffee and bagel in hand, she found a seat against a wall. She could not possibly handle the rest of the morning without some food in her stomach.

She smothered the bagel with cream cheese and then downed it, scanning the latest news on her phone. She took a deep breath. It was time to face the music, and she’d better step on it.

With one hand on the rolling suitcase, her bags over her shoulders, and the other hand clutching her coffee cup, she started towards the door.

A text dinged and Courtney stopped to pull the phone from her purse. She read the message.

It was from her father, welcoming her back fromthe land down under. Oh, Dad. He thought that phrase was so clever.

She grinned and hurried onward as another message came in from him.

Did you see any wallabies?

Courtney laughed and looked up from the phone just in time to see a tall, handsome stranger with eyes as blue as the lake displaying a look of momentary panic. “Watch it!” he said.

He stopped quickly, directly in front of her, before an actual collision could happen.

But it was too late.

The lukewarm liquid in Courtney’s lidless paper cup was sloshing about violently. It splashed them both, all at once.

Courtney and the stranger stared at each other, mouths open.

As if in slow motion, Courtney’s eyes went wide and she looked down at her top.

He glanced at his green polo.

Both were speckled as if someone had used them as a canvas for a splatter painting, only with just one muddy color. Her phone had been hit as well.

“Oh, my gosh!” Courtney was horrified.

The stranger looked too surprised to speak and returned her stunned gaze, and for a short moment, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from that gorgeous pair of blues.

“I can’t believe I just did that,” she stammered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Moving quickly, Courtney set the coffee cup and her bags down on a nearby table. She grabbed a small stack of napkins from the dispenser and handed him some.

He took the napkins and dabbed at his shirt and khaki shorts, muttering under his breath. “Shoot, I have to go back to work.”

She grimaced, then dried the screen on her phone and stole a glance to study his features. Clean-cut, with close-cropped, sandy-brown hair, a little longer over the top. Broad-shouldered with a trim, athletic build. She guessed he was roughly her age. Probably about twenty-six or twenty-seven? Not bad looking. Atall.

She noticed a logo on his polo shirt that read Inlet Outfitters.

Shame she had worked him over like this. Talk about awkward.

Courtney dabbed some napkins at the coffee on her sleeveless, cream-colored top, the perfect shirt to make a coffee stain stand out. “Gosh, that was so careless of me.”

He nodded awkwardly.

She felt awful about his shirt. But how was she going to show up for her first day on the job looking like this?

She remembered the suitcase. She could change. “Listen, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been watching—”

“—Where you were going?” He tossed the napkins into a nearby trashcan and offered her a weak smile.

Courtney blushed. “I know. I’m really, really sorry.”

He ran a hand across one side of his jaw, calling attention to an alluring five-o’clock shadow. He brushed off the exchange. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. I’ll live.”

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