The Heartwood Sea, Chapter 2
*Beach reads *Carter's Cove *Enemies to lovers *Second chance romance *Family saga
Shawn Newman drank in the sight of Alissa Heartwood as she watched her sister march away. She wiped one hand down her face, effectively stopping the water from dripping off her chin.
He had no idea what to say, and his cheeks were starting to hurt from the incessant smiling. He consciously removed the grin from his face and hooked his thumb over his shoulder.
“She hasn’t changed.”
“Yeah, well, neither have you.” Alissa pushed past him and took a few strides over to a stainless steel counter, where she picked up a towel and buried her face in it.
Shawn twisted toward her, his pulse rapid-firing in the vein in his neck. He hadn’t expected a warm welcome, by any stretch of the imagination. But the cold shoulder?
He knew from experience that Lissa could give the iciest of looks—sometimes just a few seconds before she kissed him.
Licking his lips like that might actually happen, Shawn then swallowed. After all, he hadn’t returned to Carter’s Cove for a relaxing beach vacation. Or a new girlfriend. Oh, he had one of those back in Miami.
Well, sort of. Lauren would definitely say they were dating, as would Lauren’s father—the man who’d sent Shawn here to get the Heartwood land.
“What do you want, Shawn?” Lissa asked, turning and cocking her hip.
He was grateful he’d left the folder of contracts up in his hotel room. Everything he’d told Olympia Heartwood was true. He was in town for a couple of weeks. He was staying at the hotel.
But what she didn’t know—what no one knew—was that he was there to buy the hotel. And as much of the surrounding land as he could. All the way to the beach.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Then why did my sister say she’d text me the details of what you need?” Her aquamarine eyes shot lasers at him, and dang if Shawn didn’t want to get sliced right in half by her.
He knew exactly what that felt like, even though they’d broken up before they’d graduated. Before she went off to pastry school, and he went to the University of Miami.
He’d been down in Florida ever since, only coming back to the island where he’d grown up periodically to celebrate anniversaries, birthdays, or the holidays with his family.
“Are you deaf?” Lissa asked, and Shawn blinked.
“Not deaf,” he said. “Sorry, it was just a long flight this morning.”
“A long flight from Miami?” She scoffed and dunked her hands in a huge bowl of dough. “It’s less than two hours, Shawn.”
He shook his head. Of course he’d known running into Alissa Heartwood was a possibility. But he also knew Olympia managed the family business now, and he’d hoped he’d only have to deal with the oldest Heartwood.
But Olympia had barely given him the time of day, almost like she knew exactly why he’d come and booked a room without a check-out date. And now she’d passed him off to Alissa.
“I want a tour of the place,” he said, clearing his throat and trying to center his thoughts. “I want to see everything the public does, and everything they don’t.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t stop pulling the bread from the bowl. She picked up a knife that looked incredibly sharp, and Shawn fell back a step. She cocked her right eyebrow, as if she knew exactly why he’d moved.
“Why?”
“I’ve missed this place.” He put his closer smile on his face, but Lissa didn’t even flinch.
“You’re still not a great liar,” she said, sliding that knife through the dough easily, separating it into chunks she put on a scale before tossing them onto a tray.
“What time are you done?” Shawn asked.
“None of your business.”
A sigh moved through his whole body, but he didn’t let it out. “I’ll catch you later then.” He didn’t wait for another cutting remark, though part of him wanted to. He left the kitchen, noticing that everything inside the old mansion on the beach had been redone.
This inn was breathtaking on the inside and out, and it would be a real shame for it to be anything but what it was. The sigh did come out then, and he went out the exit and leaned against the railing. The beach in front of him felt tranquil, with all the perfect grains of sand. The waves chatted with him, and he loved the sound of them.
Miami had plenty of beaches too. Lots of waves. But somehow, everything here was different. More tranquil. Slower.
“Kind of exactly what you want,” he murmured to himself. He wasn’t sure what he wanted anymore. He knew if he closed this deal, he’d get the promotion he’d been working for the past five years to get. He did love his life in Miami, inside the big apartment on the twentieth floor. The views there were great, and the night life in the city and on the beaches was something to behold.
But Shawn didn’t usually leave the apartment after dark unless it was to check out a property he needed to see in action. A nightclub. A restaurant, a pub. Something like that. He was getting too old for such things, and this beach where he’d spent a lot of his childhood whispered to him that maybe it was time to settle down.
He turned away from the water, from his thoughts. To distract himself, he texted his brother, Bo. Made it to town. Can I stay with you?
I thought you had a room at your girlfriend’s hotel.
1. She’s not my girlfriend. We broke up almost twenty years ago. B. I think staying here is a bad idea.
Haha. Sure. You know where I live.
Without second-guessing himself, he went up to his room and collected his luggage and his dog. “Come on, Gentleman. We’re going to see Uncle Bo.” The golden retriever jumped down from the bed like he’d been waiting for Shawn to make this decision all along.
He did know where Bo lived, and he knew it was easy to get around the island in the summer. Taxis lined up outside of the hotels, and The Heartwood Inn was no different. His brother wasn’t there, as he ran one of the transportation businesses on the island, and they literally worked twenty hours a day during tourist season.
Shawn had hated the tourist season growing up. His family owned a golf course, and his father made everyone work the course from an early age. Shawn was the middle child of five, and he’d picked up more golf balls than a human being should ever have to.
His oldest sister Jen ran the golf course now, and Shannon had left the island with her husband. She lived in Washington D.C. with her family, and Shawn’s two younger brothers had stayed on the island, getting into tourism as well.
They had good lives, but only Shannon was married with kids. The rest of Shawn’s siblings—and himself—were married to their jobs.
Shawn had never minded the long hours he worked. Not having any time to date was just fine with him, especially after Rhiannon had cut out his heart and left the state of Florida with it in her back pocket.
He’d started “dating” the boss’s daughter, and he’d climbed quickly at work. And he just had one more step to take. He took a very big breath and re-centered his thoughts.
The Heartwood Inn. That was why he’d come.
He called them and asked for Alissa, and the receptionist said, “She’s not here, sir. She leaves at one.”
A smile formed on his face, and he said, “Thank you,” before hanging up. A new plan formed in his mind, and he’d need a cup of coffee with a lot of cream and a bag of chocolate chip cookies before he saw Lissa again.
Oh, and maybe a prayer that she still liked her coffee with a lot of cream, dogs, and could eat chocolate chip cookies for every meal. She couldn’t have changed that much, could she?
* * *
An hour later, Shawn feared the chocolate chip cookies had melted completely. He felt like he’d melted into the sand, and he still hadn’t seen the blonde he couldn’t get out of his head. He knew her family owned all the property along this beach. Maybe she’d seen him and disappeared inside whichever house she was currently living in.
Gentleman had swum out into the water every time Shawn threw the ball, but even now the dog simply walked at his side, his tongue lolling out.
A different dog barked, and Shawn turned toward the sound at the same time Gentleman talked back. A moment later, the beast came bounding down the sand a ways, back toward a beach cottage that had to belong to someone in the Heartwood family. Shawn had walked by it three times already on his fake quest to find the perfect spot of sand to spend the afternoon.
“Dodger!” a woman called after him as Shawn chuckled and bent down to pat the German shepherd as he and Gentleman started a sniffing war.
He knew that voice, besides. It was Lissa, and Shawn couldn’t believe his good luck in finally finding her. Of course, the heat burning into his bare shoulders testified that maybe he wasn’t as lucky as he thought. He had been wandering for an hour, after all.
He straightened as another dog approached, this one just as friendly as Dodger, but definitely smaller. He circled Shawn and Gentleman like he was herding them, and Dodger turned back the way he’d come as if to lead them all home. Unwilling to let the pups down, Shawn said, “Come on, Gentleman,” and went with the dogs.
Cresting a sandy hill, he caught sight of Lissa looking the wrong way down the beach. “Dodger!” she called now, twisting toward him. She saw them, turning fully toward him now. “Sorry,” she said, coming forward. “They’re a little—” She paused and muted, and she’d obviously realized who he was.
Her eyes hid behind a dark pair of sunglasses, but Shawn could still feel her gaze moving down to his bare feet and back to his face. “What are you doing here?”
“You’ve asked me that once already,” he said, lifting the white bakery bag that held her messy cookies. “I’m just spending an afternoon on the beach with my dog and a snack.” He wasn’t sure if she looked at the bag or not. “I guess your dogs like chocolate chip cookies as much as you do.”
She harrumphed and turned around. “Come on, guys,” she said, and the dogs trotted over to her as she moved toward that cottage.
Dodger turned back and barked, and Lissa said, “No, they’re not coming.” She could certainly glare through those shades, though she did look at Gentleman a little too long. So she definitely still loved dogs. Obviously, as she had two of them.
Shawn really wanted to go with her, and it had nothing to do with his job. “Maybe we could come in for a sec,” he said, walking toward her. “Gentleman needs a drink.” She opened her mouth to say something, but it closed as he sidled up to her and continued, all three dogs coming with him now.
Satisfaction dove through him, but his heart pulsed irregularly when Lissa didn’t catch up to them. He finally turned back to find her gazing out at the ocean, the indecision streaming from her in waves.
She turned and somehow their eyes met despite her sunglasses. “Fine,” she said, finally moving toward him. “But you have to put on a shirt.” Her glare sliced right through him as she approached and passed him, and wow, Shawn had been missing so much in his life because she wasn’t in it.