1
BREE
I’d never planned on coming back here. In fact, I’d sworn never to grace the town of Clover Hill Maine with my presence ever again.
Course a girl of twelve didn’t think much past escaping her mother’s death and finding some kind of solace.
I’d made that vow in the heat of the moment. Didn’t occur to me that Nana Maeve would eventually pass and I’d get sent a rather strict voicemail demanding I come back to hear about the will.
Standing outside the pub’s wooden door, I inhaled the cold, clean air and firmed my resolve. I’d do what Nana required of me, then I’d hightail it back to Boston and my real life.
Fifteen years. I’d managed to stay out of the small town of my birth for fifteen whole years before today.
My heart seized as I took in the hunter green frame around the door. I’d helped Nana paint it the year I turned ten. From the cracked paint, I’d say she never painted it again.
A single CLOSED sign hung in the window, but it took less than a minute to dig the key from the pot of dead flowers tucked into the corner. I unlocked the door and stepped into a world I thought I’d forgotten.
My eyes stung and my throat tightened. I cleared it, lifted my chin, and hauled my two suitcases toward the wooden staircase on my left.
Nana’s apartment above the pub had never been much, but it would be my home until I finished the unsavory business of listening to some lawyer read her will. Unlucky. That’s what I called it.
Right when I’d had a run of good too. The stairs creaked a familiar tune, and I skipped the third step from the top to avoid the warped board.
My suitcases clanked behind me, the racket almost comforting after the abhorrent quiet from downstairs.
O’Sullivan’s had always been lively, and I despised this new silence that settled in my bones.
There was no digging in pots of dead flowers for the key to the door at the top of the stairs.
I slid the key I’d taken with me fifteen years ago into the lock and twisted. It clicked and the door swung open.
Wooden floors. White walls. Potted plants in every available window soaked up the meager light threading through the clouds. “Nana, I’m sorry, but all those plants are as good as dead. I didn’t inherit your green thumb.” Black, more like.
I couldn’t keep a cactus alive much less the lush vegetation Nana loved.
My vision blurred as memories crashed in. God I’d loved living here with Mom and Nana.
“Oy, you can’t be in here.” A rich, masculine voice slammed into the cozy apartment and ripped me right out of my emotional spiral.
I whirled, both hands raised. “What the hell do you mean?” The remainder of my questions and protests died on my lips as the man took shape in front of me.
Tall. Broad shouldered. Holy shit. Blue eyes bright enough to make angels cry contrasted dark hair turning a delicious salt-and-pepper at the temples. Everything my dreams were made of.
I should be terrified at being face to face with a stranger barricading me in my own home, but this man’s tightly controlled presence caused a flutter of excitement in my belly.
Now that was uncalled for. I gave my body a mental smack, warning it to behave.
“Oh, shit.” It came out sounding more like shite, and I almost grinned. No one sounded quite so put out as a cursing Irishman. He shook his head and ran a hand across his chiseled jaw.
One second he looked at me like he’d be more than willing to toss me over his shoulder and haul me outside, and the next he offered a hint of a smile that put the butterflies in my stomach in full flight.
I narrowed my eyes when he took a step toward me. “What the hell are you doing?”
He halted. Blue eyes swept over me.
I resisted the urge to smooth my hands over my deep green peacoat. I looked fine. I’d made sure of it when I left the airport. Curvy but delicious.
The smirk turned into a frown. “You’re Shayla’s daughter.”
