Page 2 of Lost Love Cove
“No problem at all.” The easy smile lit the woman’s blue eyes. “I’m Pam, by the way.”
“Oh, sorry, Pam, I’m half asleep,” Carrie apologized for her rudeness. “I’m Carrie, and that young lady bounding off with Luna is Maggie, my granddaughter.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” Pam said. “Lori explained that you’re here for the summer.”
“That’s right,” Carrie said, smiling back.
“Well, if you need me, my number is on a post-it on the refrigerator,” Pam told Carrie. “I’m also the local vet, should you need me.”
“Thank you, Pam.” Carrie walked the young woman back through the gate and watched her drive off.
Carrie turned to admire the cove glistening before her, taking a deep breath of the salty air and enjoying the peace that was settling over her. A smile tugged at her lips as the laughter from inside the house carried across the lawn, light and untroubled, but almost immediately the joyous sound and quiet were swallowed by a harsh, mechanical growl.
Carrie stiffened. The unmistakable bite of a power saw split the calm, followed by steady hammering. The peaceful hush of the neighborhood was shattered in an instant.
She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, her fists curling at her sides. Of course. The universe had handed her a postcard-perfect cove and then parked a construction site right next door. The steady thud of a hammer carried across the yard, too precise to be casual, too insistent to ignore. Carrie turned and walkedtoward the noise, her sandals crunching against gravel until she reached the property line.
The house next door was being renovated, its shutters had been removed, the paint stripped, and lumber stacked across the porch. A man stood among it all, broad-shouldered, shirt damp with sweat, focus trained on the plank balanced across his sawhorses. His movements were steady, methodical, confident in the way of someone who’d been doing this work for years. Carrie caught herself staring longer than she meant to. He looked like he belonged on the cover of some glossy “island handyman” calendar, all grit and muscle that strained as he worked.
The man didn’t look up until the weight of her glare pulled his attention. Hazel eyes met hers, startlingly direct, as if he had been expecting her to appear at any moment. The contact sent an unexpected jolt through her, causing heat to prick at the back of her neck. Without a word, Carrie raised her chin, making sure he knew she was irritated by the noise, before she broke the stare and turned on her heel and strode back inside with her head held high, determined to put a wall between herself and whatever that look had stirred.
By the time the last of the supper dishes were stacked and Maggie was tucked into bed, the steady rhythm of hammering still carried across the darkened yard. Carrie pulled her robe tighter, fatigue weighing on every step as she stepped out onto the porch. The night air was thick with salt and the hum of cicadas, but it was all drowned out by the ceaseless strike of wood and nail and some high-pitched sawing machine.
Carrie knew she should step back inside and close all the windows, but she craved the calm, quiet, and to be lulled to sleep by the distant whoosh of the sea. She’d also had a long drive withhardly any sleep in between, and her temples were starting to pound, made worse by the construction noise next door, which sparked her irritation.
Pulling her robe tightly around her, Carrie stormed toward the wall that separated the houses, where she found the man lining up a board with a saw.
“Excuse me!” Carrie called over the wall. “Are you planning on stopping anytime soon?” Her voice was sharper than she meant it to be. “You know it is eight pm?”
When the man straightened and glanced her way, she pressed on, lowering her tone but not her edge. “Look, I can see you have a lot of work to do, but I’ve just come off more than a full day’s drive. Could you at least stop for just tonight?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned against the sawhorse, wiping his brow with the back of his arm, his expression unreadable before he drawled, “Lori told me no one would be in her house until Friday.”
“I left a few days early,” Carrie bristled at having to explain herself to a stranger. “Lori didn’t mention that her neighbor was renovating his house.”
“I need to finish the porch before morning,” the man told her. “I shouldn’t be much longer.”
“How much longer?” Carrie persisted. “I need to get some sleep.”
The man stared at her for a long moment, his eyes narrow as if trying to see right through her. “Half an hour?”
Carrie’s jaw tightened, her irritation mixing with fatigue and making her want to demand he stop right then and there. But the law was on his side, and he was not technically breakingany rules yet. So she nodded and, without another word, spun around and walked back into the house, ignoring his words that floated over to her.
“Have a good rest,” he called after her. “But fair warning, I’ll be starting renovations at eight tomorrow morning.”
Carrie took a deep breath and closed the front door behind her, deciding to make herself some camomile tea before attempting to get some sleep through all the racket coming from next door.
At eight-thirty on the dot, the hammering next door had stopped, and the cove settled into a hushed silence, leaving only the sound of the waves brushing the shore. Inside, Carrie breathed a sigh of relief, finally slipping beneath the covers and settling in against the soft pillows. It was going to be a long summer if that man next door was going to be continuing that racket. Tomorrow, when she wasn’t so tired and could think straight, Carrie was going to have a word with her neighbor, laying down some ground rules about being a decent neighbor and not jackhammering people’s ears off before dawn and spoiling their planned peaceful summer vacation.
2
MATT
Matt Parker rose before the sun, the way he always did. The cove was quiet in those first moments of daybreak, the tide pulling against the rocks with a steady rhythm that never hurried. He stepped out onto the porch with a steaming mug of black coffee and let the breeze carry the salt to him. The air was still heavy with night, the horizon streaked with the faintest blush of pink.
He liked the mornings best. The gentle peach glow before the harsh Florida sun, the quiet before the hammering and sawdust, the peaceful emptiness before memory crept in with its razor edges, bringing Sherri’s laugh, her perfume, the way her hand had felt small but strong in his.
Sherri had loved sunrises. Four years had gone by since she’d passed away, and he still caught himself looking for her beside him at this hour, her robe trailing the steps, her hand brushing his. Grief no longer came like a flood, but in small, cutting waves. He sipped his coffee slowly, knowing he’d drown if he let himself linger too long.
