Page 66 of In Your Dreams, Holden Rhodes

The gnawing, empty ache in my chest expanded, and I blew a long breath out, tapping my fingers on the desk.

She was probably still in bed, dozing, or drinking her coffee downstairs. Or maybe she was painting. I thought about the painting she did of me and snorted.

Between endless meetings and emails and fires to put out at work and falling on my face trying to date, working at the inn had been solace. Now that I didn’t have a major project to get involved with, tiling bathrooms, hauling bathtubs out, and taking mirrors off walls had filled the need to work with my hands and turn my brain off for a couple hours a week.

And Sadie. I liked hanging out with her. Talking with her in the forest last weekend had been so easy, like I had known her for years. I guess I had, but I hadn’treallyknown her. Not like this.

Irritation pinched me in the chest. Why couldn’t I find someone here in Queen’s Cove who was easy to talk to? Whose eyes lit up when she listened to me talk about art or daydreamed about a treehouse bar in the woods?

I stared out the window at Main Street, thinking about her. The sky was overcast, gloomy and gray, and my office was the last place I wanted to spend the day.

The conversation I had with Emmett in this office replayed in my mind and my chest tightened with anxiety at the idea of handing half our company over to a stranger. The report I was working on could wait until Monday.

I jumped up and headed to my truck.

26

Holden

Her hair was rumpledwhen she opened the door at the inn twenty minutes later. She took a long sip of coffee. “You get fired or something?”

My chest warmed at the sight of her. “I felt like doing some demo with you today.”

She took the brown paper bag with grease and peered inside before she grinned at me. “Keep bringing me breakfast sandwiches and you can do whatever you like with me.”

Dirty images of us together in bed flooded my mind. My eyebrows shot up and her eyes went wide.

“That sounded different out loud.”

I snorted and she gestured for me to come in.

“So, I had an idea,” she said as we taped protective plastic sheeting to the floor around the wall we were going to knock down.

“Another singles event.” My lip curled with disgust at the idea of trying to get back out there to meet people.

She grinned as she ripped off another piece of blue painter’s tape. “No. Or, not exactly. When Avery and Hannah and Olivia were here, they helped me figure out your secret.”

My gut clenched. They knew from Emmett and Wyatt I had a crush on Sadie as a teenager, but Sadie didn’t, and I didn’t want her to know. We were finally getting along after all these years, and if she found out, it might ruin things.

The muscles in my chest pulled tight at the thought of not hanging out with Sadie anymore.

“Holden, I see it, now.” She sat back on her heels. “All you do is work and go to the gym and the bar. That’s why it’s so hard for you to make conversation on these dates. You have nothing to talk about.”

The bands around my chest relaxed, one by one. Everything was fine. She didn’t know.

“From here on out, I want every Sunday of your time. The whole day.”

I stared at her. The entire day, spent with Sadie while she smiled, teased me, flipped her hair around, and asked me about my favorite paintings.

“We’ll do a bunch of activities,” she continued. “We’ll use the excuse you’re showing me the island. I’ve already made a list.”

Every Sunday spent with a woman who had no intention of getting involved. A woman who snuck into every fantasy I’d had for the last month.

She widened her eyes at me, stood up, and put her hands on her hips. “Don’t give me that look. You want a partner? You need to get used to making time for people. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

This would be torture, and yet, I couldn’t wait.

“Fine.”

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