The New Girl In Town

He smiled. “I enjoy studying people—and women are a particular interest of mine.”

“I don’t doubt that’s true,” she said dryly.

He wasn’t dissuaded by the comment or her tone. “You never did answer my question about why you bought this house.”

“It’s a beautiful house.”

“It might have been a dozen years ago,” he allowed. “Before Mrs. Hadfield got too old and too tight-fisted to pay for the repairs.”

“What happened to Mrs. Hadfield?” she asked, in what seemed to him a blatant attempt to change the subject.

“She passed away about eighteen months ago, left the house to a grandson who lives in California. He put it on the market right away, but there was only one early offer on the property and he refused to sell to a developer, insisting his grandmother wouldn’t have wanted the house torn down and the land divided.”

After that deal had fallen through, Mason had learned from the real estate agent that the grandson had some specific ideas about the type of person Beatrice Hadfield wanted living in her house after she was gone. But he’d refused to elaborate on the criteria, even to the agent, and she’d mostly given up on selling the house—until now, apparently.

“And you know about this unsuccessful sale because…” she prompted.

“Because there are no secrets in a small town.”

“Great,” she muttered. “And I hated feeling like my neighbors were on top of me in the city.”

She really wasn’t his type, but she was female and kind of cute, and he couldn’t resist teasing, “I’ll only be on top if that’s where you want me, darlin’.”

Her chocolate eyes narrowed as she drew herself up to her full height—which was about a foot shorter than his six feet two inches. “It won’t be,” she said coolly. “And don’t call me ‘darling.’”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I didn’t mean to offend you…” He paused, giving her the chance to offer her name.

“My name is Zoe,” she finally told him. “Zoe Kozlowski.”

It was an unusual name but pretty, and somehow it suited her. “Mason Sullivan.”

She eyed his outstretched hand for a moment before shaking it.

Rosie barked and held up a paw.

His new neighbor glanced down, the hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He found himself staring at that mouth, wondering if her lips were as soft and kissable as they looked.

Way too long without a woman.

“You didn’t tell me he could shake,” she said, removing her hand from his to take the paw Rosie offered.

“Another of his many talents,” he said, oddly perturbed that she seemed more interested in his dog than in him. Not that he was interested in her, but he did have a reputation in town for his success with the ladies, and never before had one thrown him over for an animal.

“Now if only you could teach him to respect the boundary line between our properties.”

“That might take some time,” he warned, as she released Rosie’s paw and straightened again. “He’s become accustomed to running through these woods over the past several months.”

“It won’t take any time at all if you keep him tied up,” she said.

Rosie whimpered as though he understood the threat, compelling Mason to protest on the animal’s behalf.

“He’s a free spirit,” he said, then smiled. “Like me.”

She tilted her head, studying him like she would a worrisome crack in a basement foundation. “Do the women in this town actually fall for such tired lines?”

It was an effort to keep the smile in place, but he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of letting it fade. “I haven’t had any complaints.”

“I worked at Images in New York City for six years,” she said, citing one of the industry’s leading fashion magazines. “I spent most of my days surrounded by men who made their living playing a part for the camera, so it’s going to take more than a smile to make me melt.”

Okay, so she was tougher than he’d expected. But he hadn’t yet met a woman who was immune to his charm—it was only a matter of finding the right buttons to push. “That sounds like a challenge.”

“Just a statement of fact,” she told him, bending to pick up a mug that he guessed Rosie had knocked from her hand with the exuberance of his greeting. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have things to do today.”

He stepped down off the porch, his hand still holding onto the dog’s collar, his eyes still on his new neighbor. “It was nice meeting you, Zoe.”

“It was certainly interesting,” she said, but with a half smile that allowed him to hope she wasn’t still annoyed at Rosie’s manner of introduction.

And as he turned toward his own home, he found himself already looking forward to his next encounter with his new neighbor.

Zoe walked into the house with a smile on her face and a positive outlook for the day despite—or maybe because of—the unexpected events of the morning. Though she couldn’t have anticipated meeting one of her neighbors in the backyard, and so early, she thought she’d handled the situation. She’d even managed to engage in a casual conversation without worrying too much about where he was looking or what he was thinking. It was a gloriously liberating experience.

Mason Sullivan was a stranger who knew nothing of her or her past, a dog owner simply apologizing for the affectionate nature of his pet. He was a man who’d looked at her like she was a woman—a completely normal interaction that followed a year and a half of wondering if anything would ever seem normal again.

In the past eighteen months, she’d lost everything that mattered: her husband, her job, her home, and—most devastating of all—her sense of self. She’d packed most of what she had left into a tiny storage unit, loaded a dozen boxes in the back of her car, then driven out of the city, determined to start her life over again somewhere new. What she really wanted was to go someplace where no one knew who she was, where no one would look at her with pitying glances or talk to her in sympathetic murmurs. Someplace where she could pretend she was still the woman she used to be.

What she’d found—on a visit to Claire, her best friend and confidante—was a charming Victorian house that caught her attention so completely she actually stopped her car right in the middle of the road to stare.

It was an impressive three stories of turrets and towers despite having been badly neglected and in desperate need of repair. The roof on the wraparound porch was sagging, the chimneys were crumbling, paint was peeling, and several of the windows were boarded up.

As Zoe studied the broken parts of the whole, she had to fight back tears. There was no doubt the house had once been strong and proud and beautiful. Now it was little more than a shadow of its former self—abandoned, neglected and alone.

Just as she was.

She almost didn’t see the For Sale sign that was mostly hidden by the weeds that had taken over the front garden, but when she did, she knew that it was meant to be hers. She’d pulled her car off the road and into a gravel driveway as overgrown with weeds as the yard, then picked up her cell phone and dialed the number on the sign.

For the past year and a half, she’d been looking for some direction and purpose, and here, at last, she’d found it.

Or maybe she really was crazy.

She acknowledged that possibility as she set her mug in the sink. But even if she was, she was committed now. The house was hers—along with the weighty mortgage she’d secured for the purchase and improvements. And though there was a part of her that was terrified to think she’d made a huge mistake, another—bigger—part of her was excited by the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead.

She was going to fix up this broken-down house and turn it into a successful bed-and-breakfast. Although there were several such establishments already in town, none were as majestic as the building that was now her home. Or as majestic as she knew it would be when she was finished with it.

She glanced at her watch, noted that it was almost eight o’clock. The architect—who happened to be the husband of the lawyer who’d helped her purchase the property—was due to arrive in a little more than half an hour.

She was excited about meeting him, anxious to get started. But she also felt the first niggle of doubt, a twinge of uncertainty. It was one thing to spin elaborate dreams inside her mind, and something else entirely to share these hopes with someone who could help her realize them—or destroy them.

As she made her way across the dusty floor, questions and doubts dogged her every step.