Chapter one
Weather Coming In
Thefakesnowwasmelting.
Margot Pine stood in the middle of the Evergreen Tide Resort lobby and watched three hundred dollars’ worth of artificial powder dissolve into a puddle on the marble floor. Outside, the North Carolina sun was doing what it always did in July. Burning through everything.
“We need more fans on the west entrance,” she said into her headset. “And somebody get a mop to the lobby before a guest slips and I have to explain to corporate why Santa’s village turned into a lawsuit.”
Static. Then Jimmy Buffett from the pool deck, which was the opposite of the holiday soundtrack she’d programmed.
She closed her eyes for two seconds. Two full seconds of darkness and salt-tinged air conditioning. Then she clicked her pen and moved on.
The main terrace was supposed to be a winter wonderland by now. It would be, once the garland stopped drooping and someone figured out why the twelve-foot Fraser fir smelled like it had been shipped inside a diesel truck.
The Atlantic spread out below the railing, blue-green and glittering, the kind of view that made tourists reach for their phones. A banner reading CHRISTMAS IN JULY: HARBOR’S HOPE EXPO stretched between two palm trees wrapped in white lights. One corner had come loose and flapped in the ocean breeze like a surrender flag.
Margot made a note on her clipboard. Item forty-seven.
“Margot!”
Caleb Henson was striding toward her with a roll of chicken wire under one arm and a grin wide enough to sell toothpaste.
“Tell me you’ve seen the ice sculpture molds.” He shifted the chicken wire to his other arm. “They were in storage C, and now storage C is full of someone’s folding chairs.”
“Check with the catering manager. She moved things around yesterday.”
He exhaled. “You know, I’ve done events in fourteen states. Never once had anyone answered that fast.”
“I keep a spreadsheet.”
“Of course you do.” He pointed the chicken wire at her like a sword. “You’re a lifesaver. Seriously.”
She watched him jog off toward the service corridor, still grinning. Caleb made chaos feel like a party. She liked him fine.
She just didn’t trust charm. Not anymore. David had been charming, too. He’d smiled his way through a couple of years of partnership and then smiled his way out the door when the money disappeared. Charm was a currency that bought goodwill on credit, and Margot had learned what happened when the bill came due.
By four o’clock, the florist and the baker were in a standoff over shared cooler space, and the terrace smelled like buttercream frosting and gardenia, which was either a candle waiting to happen or a disaster.
“I was promised a dedicated unit.” Dana, the florist, held up a printed email and jabbed the air with her reading glasses. “Dedicated. That means mine.”
Lou, the baker, folded his arms across his flour-dusted apron. “Lady, if your hydrangeas can survive next to my buttercream, I think we’ll all make it through the summer.”
“Don’t you ‘lady’ me.”
Margot stepped between them. “Dana, top two shelves. Lou, bottom two. Label your sections. If anything crosses the line, come to me, not each other.”
Dana opened her mouth.
“Nonnegotiable.” Margot clicked her pen. “Next.”
She was standing at the far end of the boardwalk, reviewing the fireworks permit for the third time, when she noticed the man on the dock.
Tall, broad through the shoulders. Faded T-shirt. He was crouched beside the cleat with a wrench in one hand, his movements slow and deliberate. His hair was the kind of brown the sun had been working on for years, lighter at the ends, long enough to push back and not much more.
The late sun caught the lines around his eyes, the kind men on the water earned from years of glare and weather. His forearms were brown from the sun, salt dried white along the hem of his shirt.
But the wear in his face looked like it came from something heavier.
