“Mrs. Griffith assured me it was available.” I try to be gentle, though honestly, I don’t want Margot taking it up with her.
Mrs. Griffith is a nice old lady, and she’s also the wrong side of seventy. Exactly the type you’d expect to deal with in a small town like this for a last-minute rental off the beaten path.
If she’s behind this mistake, it was an honest one.
“I didn’t tell her I was coming up. I forgot.” Margot frowns. “Guess I didn’t realize she was still actively renting the place out.”
“And I didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to be.”
We stare at each other in shared confusion.
“Look,” I say, shaking my head. “Obviously, there’s been a mix-up.”
“Yes. Obviously.”
“But this was theonlyplace available, Miss Blackthorn. That’s why I snapped it up in the first place, rather than staying down in Bar Harbor.”
All she does is blink at me. The silence, weighty and damn near suffocating.
She’s waiting for me to say something else incriminating or to justify our presence here. Or hell, maybe to say I’m going to pack up the kids and my bags this instant.
No chance.
If she’s going to evict us, she can ask properly.
Her name means nothing to me.
Margot Blackthorn can’t just sail in, snap her fingers, and throw us out when we had a legitimate agreement. And even if she can as New England royalty, I’m ready to put up a fight.
Her nostrils flare.
Her heart-shaped lips press together—dangerously seductive for a woman raking me over the coals.
She’s a tall woman, even without heels, and I’m sure she’s used to looking down on her problems.
Not today.
I’m not some cockroach she can step on, and neither are my kids.
I tower over her, and my eyes never flinch, locked on hers in a silent challenge.
Go ahead, rich girl. Make my day.
Make my whole damn year.
Then the front door whips open, startling everyone.
“What’s going on, Dad?” Dan calls, his arms full of more bags he’s pulled from the SUV I parked in the garage.
Odd that Miss Blackthorn must not have parked there or she would’ve realized she wasn’t alone.
My boy gawks at Margot, and her eyes flick from him back to Sophie again.
Familiar scene.
Most folks do a double take when they see them, like twins are a rare species. They’ve grown and developed into their genders as they’ve gotten older, yeah, but when they were little, they were almost identical.
Now, Sophie’s glasses and Daniel’s broad shoulders hide their similarities, along with the hair styles, but the resemblance is unmistakable.
