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“Why would I laugh at that?”
“A girl gets lost and buys a house in an unfamiliar state. Some people might find that strange.”
“More like going with your gut, if you ask me. Plus, it fits you perfectly.”
Most of the people she shared that story with called her crazy, but Quinn didn’t seem to think it sounded crazy at all. Warmth spread through her as she thought about how nice it was not only to be accepted for who she was, but to also be respected for following her instincts. She was amazed, yet again, to realize that he appealed to her both as a sexy man she wanted to be naughty with and also as a friend. She'd never met a man who could be both a lover and a friend. Not until Quinn. And, of course, it only made her want him more.
“So what happened after you got the house?”
“The coffee shop is around the corner from my bungalow, and I would walk there every morning and have coffee. I got to know the owner, this lovely old man named Gus McGentry.” She smiled with the memory of the gentle, smart-witted, grandfatherly man. “He’d run the business for forty years. Never made much of it other than the quaint shop on the corner, but he loved it, and it showed. Especially by how much he enjoyed getting to know the customers. He didn’t have family, and I guess we sort of became each other’s family.”
“Don’t you have family?”
“I do, but we’re not very close.” She deliberately shook that thought away as she continued with her story. “Gus and I used to spend hours talking about life and the dreams he’d had for the business but could never afford to make come true. Although I suspect it was more that he didn’t know the right way to go about it, because he picked my brain on a daily basis about what I’d do with the shop. Eventually customers came to expect seeing me, and I spent more and more time getting to know them. Long story short, he hired me, and we spent months working side by side. We’d often talk long after the shop was closed.”
She felt a tug of longing for the man who had given her such unexpected joy.
“Anyway, I expect he knew that he was nearing the end of his life, although he’d never said anything to me. He passed away in his sleep and he left the business to me. I’ll never forget the day he died. He used to open the doors at five a.m. sharp. He never missed a day during the months I knew him. But he missed that day. When I arrived at six and the shop was dark and the doors were locked, I knew.”
When her breath hitched in her chest at the pain of loss she still felt to this day, Quinn brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “It sounds like you made his life better. So much better, Shelley. You must miss him.”
“Yes.” She had to clear her throat to push past the lump in it. “We both really enjoyed each other’s company, and I miss him a lot. I’ve always believed that the day I got lost, I was supposed to find the bungalow, because Gus and I were supposed to meet.”
“I’m thinking you’re right,” he agreed in a gentle voice.
She looked up at him and smiled, loving the way he accepted who she was so easily. Her parents had scoffed when she’d taken over Gus’s business and had tried to talk her out of running some old man’s dying venture. She’d never thought they had much vision, and their comment had made her wonder if they had no hearts, either. The Creek Café hadn’t been anywhere close to a dying venture, and since she’d taken it over, it had become a huge success.
“Do you believe in fate?” Shelley suddenly asked Quinn.
He paused for a long moment, never once looking away from her face, before finally saying, “I’d like to.”
That was good enough for Shelley, so she didn’t push for more. But as she continued to walk hand in hand with him on the wet sand, she couldn’t help but wonder if fate had stepped in again with the intent of turning her solo honeymoon into something made for two instead.
The question had barely passed through her head when suddenly he was crouching and pulling her down to the sand beside him.
“See these marks? And see this hole?” He pointed to small indentations in the sand. “These are perfect spit marks, and that’s where the clam dug down, but this is old. See how the hole is dry and sunken around the top? This is what it looks like when the clam dug down too long ago. That clam is too deep by now and not worth digging for, but hopefully we’ll find another one pretty soon.”
