Page 20 of The Cherry Blossom Boathouse

“Three and a half years. Long enough that when he ended things, I thought my whole life was falling apart.” She began to draw patterns in the mud with a stick. “Turns out it was just the beginning of everything falling apart.”

“What do you mean?”

She met his eyes. “He dumped me on a Saturday night. Two days later, I got made redundant.”

That protective and unwelcome feeling surfaced again. Dumped and fired in the same week, like watching someone take on water from two different leaks.

He wanted to lump her in with all the other city types who breezed through, full of big ideas and zero staying power. Easier that way. But everything he’d seen and heard the past hour didn’t fit the mold he’d built for her.

“People are idiots,” he finally said. He wanted to say more. He wanted to say that anyone dumb enough to toss her aside didn’t deserve her anyway, but that felt too personal, too close to saying things he had no business saying. Instead, he got up and started busying himself with arranging the wood they’d collected, avoiding her eyes. Last thing he needed was to feel too sorry for someone who’d likely be gone by first frost. But the image of her getting hit with all that at once nagged at him like a splinter you couldn’t quite reach.

“So, that’s why you ended up here, then?” he asked.

She nodded. “Jobless, boyfriend-less, and apparently too boring to exist in modern London.” She continued to poke at the mud. “So I opened the wine and started googling places to escape to.”

“And found Solace Springs.”

Sophie nodded. “It seemed like the perfect place to…” She hesitated.

“To what?” he couldn’t help himself asking as he turned to watch her.

“To prove I could take risks. To show everyone, including myself, that I’m more than just the predictable, organized, boring girl who plans her grocery shopping weeks in advance.”

There was something about the way she held herself as she said that—shoulders back, chin lifted slightly—that made him think of maple trees. Bent by storms maybe, but not broken. The kind of strength folks overlooked till they needed something that wouldn’t snap under pressure.

“Boring? You?” he said, feeling the words come rough from his throat. “You packed up and moved across an ocean to buy a falling-down boathouse, didn’t you?”

“Technically, I moved across an ocean to buy what I thought was a quaint lakeside cottage,” she said with a small laugh. “The falling-down part was a bonus surprise.”

Luke couldn’t help but admire her guts. This woman had her heart stomped on, her job yanked away, and here she was, still standing. Still sassing him on his own turf. He found himself admiring that more than he wanted to admit.

“So, how about you tell me more about your plan to deal with that bonus surprise?” Luke asked.

“I’ve got a whole notebook full of ideas.”

Luke arched an eyebrow. “A notebook?”

“Two actually. Well, one and three-quarters. I had to start a new one last night because I ran out of pages in the first. I’ve mapped out room layouts, paint samples, storage options. I have a whole timeline, too.”

“Oh yeah?” He tried not to look too cynical. Fact was, though, as his grandpa always used to say, planning a boathouse renovation was like planning a wedding in hurricane season.

“I know it’s a mess now,” Sophie said, “but I’ve broken it down into stages. First up, plumbing.”

Luke nodded. “Like I said, I know someone who can help with that.”

“Fab. Next, window repair, especially the large arched window.”

Luke gave her a look. “You can’t just fix the holes in that window, Sophie. The whole frame’s warped and rotted through. You need a custom replacement. Might be able to salvage the original trim, but it’s not a simple patch job.”

“But I’ve seen panes replaced,” she said, frowning. “Surely you can just take the broken part out and—”

“Not when the wood’s more air than frame. Trust me. One good storm and that whole thing’s coming down.”

She sighed, shoulders sinking just a touch. “Fine. New window. Add that to page forty-three.”

Luke smirked, but the expression softened when Sophie pulled out a notebook from her bag and jotted it down.

He strolled over and sat beside her on the log, looking at the notepad. “You really have planned this out,” he said.