Chapter One

 

 

Harper Philips exited the cab she’d taken from Fort Lauderdale airport to her oceanfront hotel. A year and a month had passed since her husband Todd had died from cancer, and exactly one year had gone by since her tryst by the sea.

Nervous, stupidly, oddly nervous, Harper rolled her shoulders as she stood on the sidewalk, breathing in deep, yoga-style breaths—filling her body with fresh ocean air, tropical hibiscus and gardenia, and because it was Christmas in South Florida, sunscreen from happy vacationers.

“Ma’am?” The driver, early twenties with freckles and sandy blond hair, passed her the handle to her wheeled suitcase.

Not wanting to jinx anything, Harper had packed the same things in the same luggage, and reserved a room at the same hotel. Her holiday hopes were pinned on an intimate stranger who had fed her homemade coffee cake on Christmas morning.

Accepting her suitcase, she tipped the driver a five. The American money looked strange in her palm, not the pounds she was used to in London.

He stepped back with a nod. “Will you be all right?”

She hadn’t spoken except to give directions, too tense and brittle for polite chit-chat. What a sweetie to even notice, let alone care enough to ask. Her eyes burned. “I will be—I am.” And she was. Her heart would always remember Todd, but it was time to move out of the past.

With a sheepish grin, the driver saluted and hopped back in the car.

Cute. And too young for her. She was closer to forty than thirty and had seen her share of pain, which aged a person. Harper went inside the hotel. The beachy Christmas décor in silver and blue, with lots of sand and beige, was different than the red and gold lobby from last year. She swallowed her trepidation like a bitter pill.

It was ludicrous to think that nothing would change. Apprehension added to her nerves, layered with her lack of sleep to keep her on edge. She was being ridiculous. Strolling to the front desk, Harper returned the greeting of the check-in clerk, a middle-aged woman with jet-black hair and snowman earrings.

“I’m Harper Philips.”

The lady tapped Harper’s name into the computer. “Oh, yes. This will be your second visit with us. Just the two nights then?”

“Yes.” Exactly the same.

The woman frowned slightly. “I see you’ve requested room 212. We’ve had a late check-out in that suite. We can put you in another room, if you don’t mind?”

Bloody hell.

Her expression must have made her position clear and the clerk blushed. “Of course you mind, since you requested it.”

Calm down. “Thank you,” Harper said, hating the stiffly polite tone in her voice. “I’ll wait.”

“I’ll give you a bar credit so that you can have a glass of wine and some appetizers until the room is ready. Let me keep your bag for you.”

Harper put her winter coat inside the suitcase, feeling not at all holiday festive in her black dress and heels. “That will be fine.” She accepted the voucher and watched the clerk lock her luggage in an adjoining room.

A drink sounded like just the thing to settle her nerves.

To her right was a gorgeous bar enclosed with wall to ceiling windows—hurricane grade glass—and an outdoor patio shaded with woven palm fronds.

Just being this close to the beach soothed something knotted inside her chest. Outside, Harper took a seat at a round high-top table painted teal blue and covered in shellac. Along the bar counter, ceramic blue dolphins frolicked with Santa’s glass reindeer entwined with white Christmas lights.

The bartender was a man in his thirties with unnaturally white teeth and the requisite American tan. “I’m Jeff.” His uniform consisted of a teal blue polo shirt and beige knee-length shorts with teal blue dolphins. And flip-flops—couldn’t forget those!

This time around, Harper had gotten a pedicure…it was impossible for things to be exactly the same. What were the chances he’d even show up? The man with no name that she’d probably immortalized, to her detriment.

She ordered a margarita on the rocks with salt, and Jeff brought a dish of pretzels along with a menu.

“What do you recommend?” she asked, her oppressive mood lightening at the tropical pinks, blues, and greens. The salty ocean breeze was like a welcoming kiss from Mother Nature.

“The fried conch’s always good,” he said. “Coconut shrimp. Oysters?” His tone turned flirty, but she was too female to be his type. So, she wasn’t bothered.

“The coconut shrimp,” she decided.

“Excellent choice. Just give a shout if you need anything at all,” he said, heading back to the bar.

For a time, she watched the incoming ocean waves and the line of white surf, thanking Jeff for her drink when it arrived. Harper sipped with pleasure. “We need to keep these coming, Jeff.”

He grinned and retreated to the bar.

This night exactly one year ago, she’d been in a different frame of mind—Todd had been dead a month and there was no way she could stay at their home for another tear-filled holiday. So she decided to close her eyes, put her finger on a map, and ended up pointing at sunny South Florida.

She’d planned to drink scotch until she blacked out her pain. To dive so far into the ocean that she might never come out. Being a caregiver and watching a loved one die was like dying a little bit each day yourself.

They’d fought hard, her and Todd, against the disease in his body, but in the end it hadn’t been enough—she’d had nothing left to give.

If she’d ended up in Wales, or New York, or Mexico, even—it wouldn’t have mattered to her. She’d just wanted out of their house.

A year ago, she’d worn this same black dress. Same black heels. Her British stiff upper lip had demanded that she wear makeup and not show her tears.

She was an accountant for a prestigious investment firm, and the job had allowed her to keep her sanity while Todd was ill. They hadn’t questioned her taking three months’ leave to nurse her husband, toward the end. He’d died in November. The company closed for the week of Christmas to New Year’s and the idea of being alone had left her absolutely gutted.

Devastated enough to buy a last minute ticket to what turned out to be paradise.               Christmas Eve, there’d been a party here by the sea and she’d thrown back her share of shots, barely numbing her grief, dancing on the beach long after the band had gone home, and then HE had arrived, her handsome stranger.

He’d taken a drink from her bottle and then suggested they set it aside to dance some more.

Maybe she’d babbled her grief to him.

Maybe she’d sobbed her sadness to this stranger.

Maybe he’d asked where she was staying, but she hadn’t remembered the name of her hotel.

So he brought her back to his hotel on the beach, intending to sleep on the couch, but she definitely hadn’t let him. To be held in a man’s arms after a year of sleeping alone, frightened but not able to show it—needing to be the strong one. It had been a relief to know that she could feel something besides pain and grief.

Harper remembered he’d started to tell her his name, but she’d plugged her ears. She didn’t tell him hers, either. Suggesting instead that it be a magical night of fulfilling desire without guilt, or recrimination. Just feeling, being with another person. The night had been beyond fantastical as they’d pleased the other, each touch gentle or passionate by turn.

She’d awoken Christmas morning to him bringing her coffee cake and a latte with red and green sprinkles.

When he’d again tried to exchange names, she’d made him promise not to look her up. He hadn’t wanted to agree, but he’d been a gentleman. Then they’d concocted this ridiculous plan.

With hope that she’d be in a better place this year. Him, too. He’d lost his job, he’d said…and was at a crossroads himself.

They’d agreed to meet on the bench under the Welcome to Lauderdale by the Sea sign, if they wanted to meet again. For real.

At first, she hadn’t considered returning at all—survivor’s guilt had overcome the wonderful night when she hadn’t been Harper Philips, widow, but just a woman enjoying company with a man. Being alive.

Would he even show up? And if, after twelve long months apart, he was not sitting on that bench, what then would she do?

It had been such a blur for her, she’d been so overwhelmed that she’d flown back to London a day early, despite the cost, to escape what she’d felt.

With her husband not gone a month, what kind of woman did that make her?

She bit into the coconut shrimp, when her meal arrived, savoring the firm shrimp and sweet coconut flakes.

What kind of woman was she now that she’d come to do it again?

 

 

Jacob Orman looked at the calendar and the day marked with an X. Not because it was Christmas Eve, but because this was the day of truth.

If his beautiful angel didn’t show up, he’d promised his sister Jane that he would let her memory go.

Unbeknownst to the woman on the beach, she’d guided him through taking a chance after losing his job—to believe in opening his own business no matter the risk.

So brave of her to just close her eyes, put her finger on a map, and buy a plane ticket! Yes, she’d been grieving, that he understood. Hurt can make a person do strange things.              

That December hadn’t started out well for Jacob. He had lost his part-time girlfriend, then his full-time job as a tax accountant due to company downsizing. Reacting, he’d splurged on a nearby lavish hotel, so that he could wake up on Christmas to the sound of ocean waves. He’d never expected to find a blonde nymph dancing drunkenly beneath the stars.

They’d danced together, just the two of them, and she’d shared her sorrow, then her anger as she yelled at the moon. Tipsy but not trashed, she’d been wrung out more by spent emotion.

A year ago, Christmas morning, he’d thought he’d found his soulmate, snuggled up hip to hip in their big white hotel bed. He’d asked to stay in touch—she’d asked him to let her go without strings. It had been the hardest thing to not follow her back to her hotel or demand her number.

Over lattes and Aunt Nancy’s coffee cake, she’d challenged him to live fully—death was a reminder that any moment could be someone’s last. What footprints would he leave behind?

The pastry timer dinged, and Jacob took the baking tray of coffee cake from the oven and placed it on the counter to cool. Ten in the morning. He would close the coffee shop at three, go home to shower, take the steps to his new apartment above the shop—and then wait on the center canoe-shaped bench beneath the sign. They’d agreed on 6 p.m.

The lobby of his seaside café, smelling of nutmeg and cinnamon, rich finely ground coffee, was small, but there was room for five tables, and a bar along the window with three stools.

Would she even recognize him? Would she even come? He rinsed the dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher. His two customers were engrossed in their own worlds, coffee cups full.

Jacob’s Cuppa Joe used to be a French bakery, before the owner moved back to France. The day after Christmas, he’d seen the moving van and on impulse called the leasing office. By the end of the week, he and Jane had devised a business plan and he’d spent his savings on starting his own business.

He’d shared with his sister how he’d met the woman who had inspired him, and Jane now jokingly referred to her as the Christmas Hook-up Angel. She did it out of reach of his dishtowel, or risked getting snapped.

As if thinking about his sister had conjured her, the shop door opened and Jane and her two best friends strutted in on a wave of laughter. The three of them were just under thirty and ready for Christmas parties in their dazzling red sequined miniskirts and red and white striped bikini tops. Their boots, with faux white fur, added to their festive attire.

“You look like you should be singing holiday tunes as back-up singers,” Jacob said.

The young male customer looked up from his laptop with a grin, though the woman remained engrossed in her book.

Jane, dark-haired like him, giggled. Teresa, yellow-blonde, and Marissa, white-blonde, did a two-step in unison.

“We totally could,” Marissa said.

“Where are you off to?” Jacob asked. “Make sure that you have Uber fare, and stick together. Call me if you get into trouble.” He’d been bailing this particular trio out of jams for years.

“We’re not calling you,” Jane said. “Tonight’s the night.” She tapped the X on the calendar with a long red fingernail.

“It could be nothing,” he cautioned.

“She’ll be there,” Jane predicted.

“It’s so romantic,” Marissa said, shaking her jingle bell necklace. “I almost don’t want to go out tonight.”

Jacob looked at the three with horror. “You are going out—and don’t even think about spying on us. Promise?”

Jane didn’t look convinced, so he made them all pinky swear, and then fed them a slice of cake before their night of festive parties.

The encounter a year ago had left an indelible mark on Jacob’s heart, but that didn’t mean it had meant as much, or anything at all, to his secretive angel.