Playing By Heart Read online

“Yeah, I’m going to keep that in mind for the future. Or at least limit my goodwill gifts to substances that can’t double as accidental weapons.”

  “Especially not ones that are likely to backfire.”

  She chuckled, and her laugh was elegant and musical. Exactly like you’d expect it to be, he mused. The soft chuckle filled him with a powerful desire to hear what she’d sound like lost in a full-throated, head-thrown-back belly laugh, and he came to an immediate decision—making her laugh that hard one day was going to be his new goal.

  Right after learning her damn name.

  “So, I’m at a disadvantage here,” he said, leaning against the counter and resting his palms on the smooth surface.

  “Really? You’re not the walking wounded. I think you’d definitely have the edge in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “But who would I be fighting? That’s the question.” She turned quizzical eyes on him, and he continued. “Okay, let’s try this again. I’m Troy. Troy Valentine.”

  He put his hand out with a wink as he said it, and her eyes flashed understanding. “Oh! Got it. I’m Alison. Alison Bartholomew. It’s very nice to meet you.”

  She reached over and grasped his hand with her good one, creating an awkward shake that made them both smile.

  “It’s very nice to meet you, Alison Bartholomew.”

  “Likewise.”

  “So, what brings you to Valentine Bay?”

  “The search for a little peace and quiet. Which actually, come to think of it, brings me to the reason for my visit this morning.”

  “Which was?”

  “Here’s the thing… I was told the house next door would be unoccupied for the next couple of months while I was here.”

  Troy’s eyebrow shot up, and he couldn’t hide his interested smile. “You’re here for a couple of months?”

  A pretty rose color dusted her cheeks. “Yes. Like I said, just looking for a little peace and quiet. But that’s tough with the cacophony I woke up to this morning. Is there an ETA on when the work will be done?”

  He shook his head. Sincere regret filled his voice when he said, “No time soon, unfortunately. I’m the only man on the job, so it’s going to be months still.”

  Her brows drew together. “I’ve never heard of a one-man construction team. Maybe I should speak to the owner.”

  He spread his arms wide. “You already are, ma’am.”

  She tilted her head to one side. “Really?”

  “Scout’s honor.” He punctuated the promise by holding two of his fingers up in the classic scouting vow symbol.

  “Oh.”

  “That’s not the reaction I usually get.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “Okay, I’ll bite. What kind of reaction do you usually get?”

  He clasped his hands together in front of his chest and lifted his voice in a mock falsetto as he cast his eyes to the sky and threw himself into the impression. “Oh, Troy. You’re far too young and handsome to own a big ol’ piece of property like that! And fixing it up all by yourself? With the mornings you’ve managed to get away from your other jobsites? You must be the strongest, smartest, most determined man I’ve ever met!”

  Only partway through their first conversation, and Troy had already managed to achieve his goal. She threw her head back and surrendered herself to a deep laugh. The pure pride that coursed through him at the accomplishment rivaled what he felt when he’d hit a homerun back in his pro ball days.

  “Okay, fine,” she conceded when she could finally speak again, “I’ll amend my statement. Just put me on record as having said all of that.”

  He gestured with his chin, pointing at the streaming water. “How’s your hand?”

  She pulled it out, looking at it as if she was surprised at its sudden appearance. “Oh, wow. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore. I think the cold water must’ve done the trick.”

  “That’s great. So, look, I’ll make you a deal. Construction is a noisy business, there’s no way around that. And six a.m. to noon every day and all day on weekends—that’s the only time I have to work on my baby. I invested my life savings in her, and she’s gotta be ready before the tourist season kicks into high gear or I’m screwed. But I’m totally sympathetic to your situation. If I wanted quiet and isolation, the whir of buzzsaws is the last thing I’d want waking me up in the morning. So, I’ll do my very best to keep the noisiest stuff until, say, after nine a.m. How does that strike you?”

  “That’d be great. I appreciate it. Oh, and Troy?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You can go ahead and keep that coffee cup. We’ll call it a housewarming gift.”

  Chapter 4

  Alison unpacked kitchen supplies and groceries into cabinets and the fridge, marveling at the fact that she hadn’t been able to get even one of her normal brands at the small market in town. This was Valentine Bay, after all, not the upper west side. She knew, in this small Oregon coastal town, she couldn’t count on getting her favorite kind of local, small-batch roast coffee beans. Or the kind of cold pressed juice that she liked, from the little place on Columbus and 71st. That was a given.

  But the shock had set in when they hadn’t had any of the foods that she normally ate. Not her brand of pasta sauce, not her favorite gluten-free pasta. No granola to sprinkle over her Australian yogurt in the morning.

  Hell, no Australian yogurt.

  No Irish grass-fed butter for her bulletproof coffee.

  No 21-grain fresh-baked bread.

  No coconut milk-based gelato sweetened with agave.

  She surveyed the contents of the fridge and cabinets, eyeing the food she’d already unpacked.

  Blue Bonnet margarine, Oroweat bread. Oscar Mayer lunch meat. Hamburger Helper.

  Well, there was no other recourse. She was going to have to learn how to cook her own fresh, healthy foods starting with (gasp!) nothing but fresh meats, vegetables, herbs, and spices. Nothing pre-prepared. She wasn’t sure she had the capability. “Homemade” to her had always consisted of popping a pre-made meal from the gourmet grocery store into the oven and then plating it on Fiestaware as opposed to ordering take-out.

  But what the hell? What was this time for, if not developing new skills and exploring parts of herself that she’d never dived into before?

  As she continued to lift things out of the bags and onto the pantry and refrigerator shelves, she found herself humming. It just rose spontaneously out of her, and then soon after that blossomed into a full-fledged song.

  Singing as she worked was something she’d always done, ever since she was a little kid. It was an expression from deep inside of her. Whenever she felt particularly content with her life, lit up down to her very core by the beauty of the world and all the possibilities laid out in front of her, it came out in the form of a song.

  She hadn’t been doing a lot of spontaneous singing lately. In fact, it’d been years.

  She took that as a good sign. Already, the trip was serving its intended purpose, washing away the layers of protective armor she’d been forced to wear in a cutthroat industry and bringing her back to her core self again. And it hadn’t even been twenty-four hours yet.

  But is it the trip that’s doing that? The town? Or does it maybe have a little something to do with the construction hottie next door?

  She put that thought out of her mind. She didn’t accept that she was the kind of woman who could be kissed back to life by a handsome prince. It didn’t happen, poof, just like that. Not in the real world.

  “God, you have a beautiful voice.”

  The words from the back door startled her, and she whirled around, letting out a high-pitched squeak. The thin plastic bag of apples she’d been carrying across the kitchen went flying from her hands as she spun. The tenuous seams holding the produce bag together split wide open immediately when it hit the floor and apples rolled every which direction.

  “Oh, damn, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Alison couldn’t help
but laugh as she watched the apples roll toward all four corners of the kitchen. She felt like she was on stage in a French farce. She pressed her hands to her cheek to cover the hot blush that was creeping up her skin. “Wow, I can’t seem to keep anything in my hands when I’m around you. At least this time it wasn’t something breakable.”

  Troy stepped forward, holding something out to her as he spoke. “I really am sorry. In fact, that was the whole reason I stopped by. I glued your mug back together. I know you’d said to keep it, but I wanted to return it.”

  She took it from him and turned it around in her hands, inspecting it. Aside from one thin hairline break running down the side, there was no indication that it had ever suffered at all. “Wow, Troy. It’s good as new.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I’d be careful before putting any hot liquids back in it. But you can still use it to, I don’t know, hold pens or something.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled brightly and set the mug on the counter, then rose on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek. It wasn’t calculated. She was an artist, and she lived in an artistic community. Cheek kisses were a common currency there.

  She hadn’t thought about the fact that her soft lips would be coming in contact with his rough, stubbly cheek. She hadn’t thought about the fact that her fingers would rest lightly on his bulging arm muscles.

  She hadn’t thought about the lightning bolt that the physical contact would send through her, making her knees weak and causing her to stumble back a couple of steps, overcome by lightheadedness, and nearly tumble ass over teakettle when she stepped on a firm, round apple.

  “Don’t worry, I gotcha.”

  Alison heard Troy’s voice cutting through her brain-fog, and then his strong arm caught her firmly around the waist. Before she knew it, she was planted back on solid ground, but he didn’t take his arm from around her, and she made no move to walk away.

  The air around them seemed thick as she pulled it into her lungs, and time slowed to a crawl. She was aware of nothing aside from the deep brown of his eyes, so close to hers, and his raspy breath gently ruffling the hair at her temple. It sent shivers skittering over the top of her scalp and down her back.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alive, so in her skin, and in the moment.

  It was exhilarating. She didn’t want to break the magic spell by moving. Or speaking. Or even breathing.

  Finally, to her intense disappointment, Troy took a step back.

  “Watch out for apples,” she joked.

  He smiled. “Hey, at least you set the mug down before you almost took that fall. I don’t know if I could’ve brought it back to life twice in one day.”

  “I think you could’ve.” She kept her voice light as she said this, not wanting to reveal the true feelings her words hinted at, but rather keep the whole thing between them on the level of banter.

  For now, anyway.

  Troy, though, apparently had a different idea.

  “So, Alison. I have a confession.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I didn’t just come over here to return your mug.”

  “Oh, no?”

  “No. I was wondering, since you’re new in town, if you’d let me take you to dinner. Show you around a little.”

  She let a slow smile grow on her lips, mirroring the warm glow spreading through her body at his words. “Just since I’m new in town, huh? A welcoming committee sort of thing?” she teased.

  He chuckled. “Exactly. Call me the Welcome Wagon.”

  “Okay, Welcome Wagon. What time do you want to pick me up?”

  “Seven sharp.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  He gave a wave as he stepped out the back door. “See you then.”

  She watched him walk across the sandy, patchy grass expanse that separated the two homes and couldn’t help feeling like there might be a lot more song-filled afternoons in her future.

  Chapter 5

  “Thanks for bringing me down here, bro. It was a really cool thing to do.”

  Troy smiled at his little sister. “I kind of had to do something cool to make up for all the times that I’d been, in your words, ‘lame sauce.’”

  She rolled her eyes. “First off, although this is a nice thing to do, it definitely doesn’t make up for all the times that you were lametastic—which is what I say now, by the way. I haven’t said lame sauce in like, months.”

  Troy shook his head. “I can’t keep up.”

  She shook her head right back at him, moving it slowly from side to side and then punctuating the movement with a deep, disappointed sigh. “And that, my friend, is what makes your game weak,” she replied in a mock-pitying tone and Troy laughed. He couldn’t help it.

  Although she was only thirteen years old, Mila could make him smile like no one else. The things that came out of her mouth sometimes were so unexpected they completely surprised him. Being on the road with a pro ball team, he’d seen a lot of crazy behavior in his life, and the ability to catch him off guard was a rare one. He loved his little sister for a lot of reasons, but her consistently off-center take on the world was at the top.

  He gestured to the house next door with his chin. “So? Does it live up to your expectation now that you’ve seen it up close?”

  Mila craned her neck to look at the spectacular house out on the edge of the bluff. It had always been her dream house. Ever since she was a little girl, when Troy would take her walking along the beach below, she’d look up at the rambling mansion perched high above like a grand lady overseeing her domain and gazed longingly at the rickety-looking wooden steps built into the side of the cliff face, begging her brother to let her climb them and take a closer look at the home.

  Of course, he never let her. It was private property, and they weren’t the owners. But now that he was remodeling the small house that sat just a few hundred feet down inland, he knew it was the perfect opportunity to let Mila get, if not an up close and personal look, at least one that was way more up close and far more personal than she ever would’ve been able to otherwise.

  “So, someone’s living there, huh?”

  Her tone was far too casual to actually be casual. Troy may not have been able to keep up on whether lame sauce or lametastic was her preferred insult, but he knew her well enough to know when she was up to something.

  “Whatever it is that’s in that sneaky little brain, go ahead and get it out.”

  “What?” The exaggerated innocence on her face made him laugh out loud. He couldn’t help it. He knew she’d get all hotly indignant. After all, there was nothing thirteen-year-old girls loved less than being laughed at by their big brothers.

  But instead of puffing up with self-righteous anger like she normally would’ve, in his experience, she simply ignored his laughter and pressed forward.

  Wow, he mused. She’s switching up her toolbox. I’ve noticed her pull out the ignoring thing a couple of times now. And she’s pretty damn good at it.

  “All I was thinking is that, since I’m already so close, I could just, you know, walk on over and take a closer peek. But it’s no biggie. Whatever.”

  He smiled at her casual attitude, probably meant as some kind of Jedi mind trick to convince him, by osmosis, that it was no big deal. But she was still young and hadn’t quite mastered the trick yet.

  God help him when she was sixteen. But for now, he was still safe.

  “Oh, good. I’m glad it’s no biggie. Because it’s not happening.”

  She shot him a withering glance, full of the kind of derision that only tween girls can really deploy with full strength. But, because she was such a good-natured kid, the storm blew over quickly and she was back to her funny, self-deprecating default setting.

  He was going to be so glad when the turbulent drama of the teen years was over, but he had to admit, it was kind of fascinating to watch.

  “All right, fine, then,” she said with a grin. “You know I had to try.”

 
“Of course. That’s a given. But the new tenant moved in last night so I can’t have you peeking in her windows.”

  This perked Mila right up. He’d known it would. A mystery woman living in the grand house on the bluff? That kind of thing was right up Mila’s alley.

  “Oh, wow. Have you seen her? What’s she like?”

  “I’ve met her, actually.”

  Mila’s jaw dropped. “You’ve met her? How could you not lead with that?”

  “I guess I didn’t realize you’d be so interested,” he lied.

  “Interested? Interested?” she squealed. “You know I’m obsessed with that house. And now there’s some rich lady living alone in it, like a character in some tragic gothic novel, and you don’t think I’m going to be interested?”

  Troy shrugged and continued the lie, keeping his face completely neutral. She wasn’t the only actor in the family. “Never occurred to me” he said flatly. “Besides, how do you know she’s some rich lady living there alone? I think your imagination’s running away with you again.”

  She rolled her eyes. Another increasingly common occurrence. “More like my deductive reasoning’s running away with me, duh. First of all, you said ‘her windows.’ Not ‘his’ or ‘their.’ So it would have to be a lady living alone. And, secondly, she’d have to be rich to rent that place. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but for Valentine Bay, it’s pretty close.”

  He gave her shoulder an approving squeeze. “That’s my smart girl.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Don’t you wish brains ran in the family, bro?”

  He laughed and punched her arm. “Oh, man. If we weren’t in a house full of dangerous tools, you’d get it right now.”

  She laughed along with him. “Why do you think I chose now to mess with you?”

  He felt love well up in his chest as he looked at her sparkling eyes, so full of mischief as she teased her big brother. He loved her so much. He’d give up his life for her. In fact, in a lot of ways, he had. And he’d do it all over again in a hot second.

  “So, what does the rich lady look like? Is she old and frail and about to die mysteriously and leave a hotly contested inheritance? Or maybe a femme fatale?”