Ride Out The Storm

Margot Bellweather just inherited eleven bedrooms, six fireplaces, a turret, a spiteful will, and a raccoon named Dutch. The boiler grieves out loud. The floors are theoretical. The whole town says she can't open by December, and Margot has never once heard the word can't without taking it personally.

Next door: Tobias. Four years of glorious, committed silence - his shipyard, his boats, his rules - till the new innkeeper marches across the lawn in entirely the wrong shoes and his good sense files for retirement. Now he's fixing her porch railing at dawn and calling it liability. Sure. Liability. That's why he does it shirtless in October.

There's a gap in the fence between their yards. There's a storm on the radio with a name. And there's the promise he growled over her coffee and instantly regretted: "Then the next storm that puts us in the same room is going to answer for it."

The storm has excellent timing. The room has one fire lit.

Ride out the storm.

A steamy grumpy-sunshine standalone in the Hartley Cove series. Guaranteed happily-ever-after. Dutch saw everything. Dutch tells no one.