Chapter One
Chloe Somerset needed an idea. A big, wild, brilliant, jaw-dropper of an idea. But for a woman whose bread was buttered with creative concepts that transformed lackluster locations into tourist magnets, she was feeling kind of uninspired after one interminable Tourism Advisory Committee meeting.
The town of Bitter Bark, North Carolina, was in dire straits, and not one of the local business owners had given her anything to work with so she could help them. Usually in Chloe’s first meeting with a new tourism client, someone would say something that sparked a firestorm of promotional possibilities.
Nothing had sparked, except maybe a little chemistry between the egotistical undertaker and the spa owner with bright red hair.
Now that they’d all left, Chloe sat at the town hall conference room table, reaching absently for some hand sanitizer in her bag. While she rubbed it on her hands, she stared at the rows of business cards she’d lined up like little soldiers, trying to think of ways to remember all the names.
Ned, the newspaper editor. Nellie, the librarian. Jane, who owned the B&B, and Dave Ashland? Which one was he? Oh, the real estate broker who spent the whole meeting looking at his phone. And that man who owned the dog place—
“Whew, they’re gone.” Aunt Blanche swept back into the room and closed the door behind her, her sweet blue eyes glistening. “And you were magnificent, young lady.”
Chloe held up both hands to stop any compliments she didn’t deserve, and to let her hand sani dry. “All I did was listen,” she said. “And make promises I hope I can keep.”
“I hope so, too,” Blanche said, sliding into a chair next to Chloe. “You can see we’re in big trouble and, as mayor, I’m taking the brunt of it. I’m sure they all left here to go gossip about how much they want me to step down.”
Chloe searched her aunt’s face, marveling, certainly not for the first time, how sisters could be so different. Blanche Wilkins was warm, kind, caring, and accomplished. Doreen Somerset, Blanche’s sister and Chloe’s deceased mother, had been none of those things.
“I’ll come up with something,” Chloe assured her, realigning the cards again. “I need a few days to think and get familiar with the town.”
“I’d think after that info dump, you’d be familiar enough.”
Chloe smiled. “There was a lot, but the major takeaway I got was you want to be ‘the next Asheville.’”
“Did you hear that expression often enough?” Blanche asked on a snort.
“Let’s just say if it had been a drinking game, you’d have to call the ambulance.”
She didn’t laugh. In fact, Blanche’s expression grew serious. “We have to share ambulance service and trash pickup with the next town, Chloe. That’s how bad it is.” She dropped her head into her hands. “I feel like I let Frank down,” she whispered. “He was the best mayor this town ever had. And the best husband. I shouldn’t have run for mayor and taken the job after he died, but I knew that was what he wanted.”
Chloe offered a comforting touch. Blanche had always been Chloe’s lifesaver when things got really bad when she was a kid—which was often—and Chloe had longed to return that kindness. She couldn’t let this dear woman down.
“We’ll make Uncle Frank proud, I promise. I do this for a living, Aunt Blanche.”
“But we’re not even paying you.”
She waved it off. “You can pay me after the tourists pour into this town. I’m a tourism consultant and run my own business, which means I can dictate my schedule and pick my clients. I have a few weeks until I hear from some island in the Caribbean that I’m sure will hire me, and this is a perfect way for me to use my free time.”
“Your clients are islands in the Caribbean, and yet you’re taking on some two-bit town in North Carolina as a favor to me.” Her eyes welled up. “How can I thank you?”
“I’m thanking you, Aunt Blanche,” Chloe said softly. “You’re my godmother, and we both know that on more than one occasion, you were a savior to me.”
Blanche averted her eyes, keeping their unspoken agreement of never really talking about the literal mess that had been Chloe’s childhood. Her mother’s inability to throw anything away or organize her life into some semblance of sanity wasn’t exactly an elephant in the room. It was more of a black hole of shame that they both tiptoed around so they didn’t fall in.
But it bonded them. Blanche was the one person on earth who understood Chloe, and Chloe clung to Blanche’s “normalcy” as a way to remind her that those lovely genes were in her DNA, too.
“Just let me immerse myself in Bitter Bark for a few days,” Chloe added. “And I’ll dream up something that will knock their socks off and get tourists crawling all over this town.”
But Blanche still looked doubtful. “Frank put his heart and soul into the gentrification project. He got all those businesses to take a chance on his idea to turn the whole Bushrod Square area into something special.”
“And from what I saw when you drove me through town today, he did a great job. It’s quaint and inviting, all that red brick and scalloped awnings. There’s a nice theme with almost every business being called Bitter Bark Something, and that grassy common area with the fountains and walkways is small-town Central Park. Uncle Frank’s vision was brilliant.”
“But vision isn’t enough,” Blanche said on a sigh. “He knew how to pull strings, to get people to make deals and take chances. But it’s been two years without his leadership—”
“It’s not a leadership issue,” Chloe said. “You simply haven’t hit on a way to really position and promote the town. Once we do that, you’ll easily compete with places like Asheville and Blowing Rock and Boone.”
“Once you do that,” Blanche corrected. “We don’t have any ideas, and you are the tourism expert.”
“Then I better get to work.” She started lifting the cards one by one, glancing at the names of business owners. “Will they all really have to move out and go belly up if we don’t bring in more business?”
Blanche shrugged. “Some of them will. Maybe not Mitch Easterbrook. People will always die and need an undertaker. But the spa? The bed-and-breakfast? Yes. And we need the local newspaper on board, so I had to have Ned Chandler here. And I invited Nellie to the committee because she knows the history. Andi Rivers was one of the architects who worked on the design of Bushrod Square, and Daniel Kilcannon’s family has been here for more than fifty years.”
Chloe picked up the card of the handsome older gentleman. “Waterford Farm?”
“It’s a dog training facility on the outskirts of town.”
“What about Dave Ashland? The real estate guy? He seemed pretty disinterested.”
“He shouldn’t be, since his client is an old coot who lived here years ago and retired to Florida, but still owns that whole block of Bushrod Avenue along the square, and Dave manages the properties. Rent won’t get paid if those businesses go under.”
“But if real estate values go up, Dave could help him negotiate higher rents or even sell the land. He definitely has a lot to gain from tourism.”
Blanche gave in to a deep sigh. “It’s make-it-or-break-it time for Bitter Bark, and I don’t want to let Frank down.”
“And I don’t want to let you down, Aunt Blanche.”
She squeezed Chloe’s hand. “You’re a good girl for helping me. When I called, I only wanted an idea or two. I never expected you to leave your fancy apartment in Miami and your exciting life.”
But Chloe had heard the desperation in her aunt’s voice and known this was one thing she could do to help a woman who’d helped her so many times. “It’s not so exciting. My life is mostly one hotel room after another.”
“And here you’re staying in an old, empty house. I hope it’s clean enough for you. I know how you like things just so, not that I can blame you, what with the way…” Her voice trailed off.
The way you were raised.
Chloe could well imagine how that sentence should end. “It’s fine,” she promised her aunt. “I’m happy not to stay in a hotel for once, and it’s nice of your friend to let me live there while she’s traveling.”
“Taking care of an aging mother, not exactly a European tour. And she’s thrilled to have someone in the house,” Blanche said, glancing at her watch. “Oh God. I have the dreaded Finance Committee coming in here to make my life miserable, even though it’s already five o’clock.”
“Then let me leave and go wander the streets of Bitter Bark in search of an idea.”
Blanche gave a shaky smile. “Where do you find things like that, Chloe?”
“I have no clue,” she said with a wry laugh. “But if I find one, you’ll be the first to know.”
* * *
A few minutes later, Chloe walked down the wide stone stairs of town hall and took a good long look at Bushrod Square, which, she’d learned from Nellie, the librarian, had been named after the town’s founder, Captain Thaddeus Ambrose Bushrod.
Bushrod. Oh, the places she could go with that. None of them G-rated or tourist friendly.
Spreading out over the equivalent of several city blocks and anchored on four sides with stately brick columns, the square included a playground, benches, a fountain, gazebo, and a large statue next to a massive tree in the center. That would be Captain Thad, she guessed, and the famed bitter bark tree that gave the town its name.
Except that looked an awful lot like a hickory to her, not that she was a botanist. But she’d never heard of a bitter bark tree. Was there something there?
Come see the world’s only bitter bark tree? Strolling through the square, she snapped some pictures and stared at the tree and paused to read the plaque that described how Captain Bushrod founded the town after the Civil War, seeking a place of peace for his family.
The most peaceful town on earth?
Which would be the most boring tourism campaign ever.
She continued on to one of the four streets that ran the perimeter of the square. Along the avenue, there was an abundance of cutesy mom-and-pop stores, with green and white awnings over precious window displays. She wended around a few tables outside the Bitter Bark Bistro, meandered past window boxes full of pansies at Bitter Bark Books, and stopped to take a deep inhale of the buttery deliciousness of Bitter Bark Bakery mixed with an overpowering scent of honeysuckle from Bitter Bark Buds ‘n’ Blooms.
Maybe old Uncle Frank took this name thing a little too far. Or was there a certain kitschy quality that tourists might like? Bittersweet Days the Bitter Bark Way? Bitter is Better than Butter? Take a Bite of Bitter Bark and Die of Happiness?
Oh boy. She was tanking here.
She stopped in front of a pub-type place called, no surprise to anyone, the Bitter Bark Bar. A glass of wine to kick her creativity back to life, perhaps? She’d earned it after today.
Praying the place met her impossibly high cleanliness standards, she pulled open the door and blinked into darkness. Clean enough, with booths and tables and an expansive hardwood floor that looked scuffed from dancing.
She opted to sit at the mostly empty bar, and as she picked a stool, a man came out of the back room wiping his hands on a towel. “You’re all set back there, Billy,” he called to the bartender, who was at the register, counting bills. “I found the problem and fixed it.”
Chloe eyed the back-bar fixer in well-worn jeans and a filthy white T-shirt, inching back at the impact. Because…whoa. A shirt that dirty in the back of a restaurant ought to be…illegal. And one that fit like that? All tight around too many muscles? Also illegal, but for entirely different reasons. By the time she made it up and down over all six, no eight, of those abs outlined by the sweaty shirt, she reached his face and discovered his gaze locked right on her.
“You got a customer, Billy,” he said, staring right back at her. “I’ll take care of her for you.”
He took three slow steps closer, a hint of a smile pulling at his lips. Beautiful lips. Soft, sexy lips. Lips that were moving and she didn’t even hear what he said until she realized his broad, strong shoulders were shaking. In laughter. At her.
“Woman clearly needs something strong, Billy.” His voice was low, but still a little playful. “Let me buy it for her.”
“No, that’s…” Good God, her voice came out like a strangled goat’s. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to.” He wiped his hands on his shirt, which just made them—or the shirt—dirtier. “Newcomer’s special. We give one to all the tourists, right, Billy?”
Billy grunted while he counted, and Chloe nodded. “All right, then. A pinot grigio, preferably dry and crisp, please. And from a fresh bottle.”
He lifted both brows like she had to be kidding.
“Okay, anything white,” she relented. “Do you really give a free drink to all the tourists?” Because that was a decent hook.
He snagged a glass and pulled the cork out of some cheap Chardonnay that had probably been in the bar fridge for days. “Only the beautiful ones, right, Billy?”
Oh. He was flirting. Well, she had stared at him like he was wrapped in gold with a red ribbon and Godiva stamped on his abs.
“He doesn’t even work here,” Billy said, as if his friend needed an explanation.
“I just clean up the messes in the back,” the man shot back at the bartender. “And, whoa, that was a wreck.”
“I know, sorry.” Billy stuffed his bills in the cash register and slammed it shut. “Thanks, Shane.”
Shane. Dirty, unshaved, cocky Shane with short chestnut hair and a riveting gaze the color of oxidized copper. Not gold. Not green. Not bad.
“S’okay.” He looked right at Chloe and not the glass that he filled to the top. “I love a challenge.”
He put the drink in front of her, forgetting a napkin but not a smile. One that was sexy and sly enough that she failed to notice where his finger had touched the rim and now she’d have to put her mouth on him, er, it.
“So what brings you to Bitter Bark, gorgeous?”
The bartender, a husky older man, made his way over and gave his grimy pseudo-employee a poke. “Do your pickup work on the right side of the bar, Shane.”
He flipped the service bar up and stepped out. “Then gimme a Bud Light, Billy, and I’ll keep an eye on the tourists.”
“I’m not a…” Oh, let him think that. Maybe thinking like a tourist would help her figure out a plan to attract them.
He slipped onto the next barstool. She braced herself for a whiff of blue-collar sweat, but a surprisingly musky, masculine scent hit her, and she shivered involuntarily as his arm brushed hers when he settled in.
Because it was covered in dirt, of course.
“So, what’s your name, buttercup?”
She closed her eyes. “Chloe,” she said. “My name is Chloe. Not Gorgeous. Not Buttercup.”
Billy snorted as he put down a beer in front of Shane. “And not interested.”
Undaunted, Shane turned his barstool to face her. “Chloe.” He said it slow, drawing out the syllables like he wanted his mouth around each one. Then he gulped some beer, eyeing her over the bottle. “That’s perfect,” he said after he swallowed.
“The beer or the name?”
“Both.” He eyed her again, openly. “It’s the perfect name for you.”
Okay, now he was just yanking her chain. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she countered.
“It means what it says. It’s a perfect name for a perfect woman.”
She angled her head and met that mesmerizing gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m not from around here and may not speak your language. Was that sarcasm?”
He laughed. A sound that came from his chest and managed to roll right through Chloe from head to curling toes. “Do you have a hair out of place?” he asked.
She didn’t have to touch her long dark hair, still pulled back into a neat ponytail the way she wore it for meetings, to know the answer. “Of course not.”
He reached for her hand and took it in his, shocking her with the unexpected contact and the roughness of calluses. Examining a flawless French manicure she’d gotten the day before, he nodded. “Not a chip in sight.”
“I have standards.”
He lifted a brow. “I bet you do.”
She tugged her hand free and stared down at the manhandled wineglass. That drink looked awfully damn good right now and maybe the only way to manage the onslaught of Dirty Shame.
Oh hell. Alcohol kills germs, right? She gulped, a little shocked at the cold, light wine and how delicious it tasted.
“So, New York or DC or Boston?” he asked, studying her intently enough to cause a slow warm burn to slide up her chest.
“Miami,” she replied.
“Miami?” He sounded stunned. “Who leaves Miami to come to Bitter Bark?”
“Exactly what I’d like to know,” she replied. “So tell me five amazing things one would find in this town.”
“Other than me?”
She had to laugh. “Then just the other four.”
“Okay.” He took another sip and thought about that. “This new section around Bushrod Square is pretty. Weather is perfect, and you can see the Blue Ridge Mountains from anywhere you stand.”
The “mountains” that had been called the “Appalachian Highlands” when she grew up on the other side of them in Kentucky. Proving that a simple and marvelous name change could transform a place from dull to desirable.
“We have water sports and hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter,” he continued. “And a whole bunch of cute little stores. Was that four?”
“It was standard.” She let out a sigh and shook her head. “None of that makes this place different or even remotely competitive with Asheville.”
He rolled his eyes. “What is everyone’s obsession with Asheville?”
“It’s on the map,” Billy chimed in. “That’s the obsession. The bars are packed, the stores are crowded, and streets are lined with gold.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Shane replied. “You can’t move in this bar on a Saturday night, crowded stores means long lines, and our streets are lined with…”
“Dog poop,” Billy said, cracking himself up. “Yours are, anyway.”
Shane glared at him. “What my esteemed colleague is trying to say is that we also have a world-class dog training and rescue business that brings in people from around the country.”
“Oh yeah.” She nodded, remembering they’d talked about it in the meeting. “The dog place that old guy owned. Daniel something.”
“Kilcannon,” he supplied, lifting his glass to his mouth, but not hiding a smile. “That old guy?”
Billy gave a soft hoot and walked away to serve a new customer. But Chloe frowned, looking down at her wine as an invisible thread tugged at her brain. A tendril of possibility. A direction. The very first cloudy fog of an idea. What was it?
“Yeah,” she said absently, digging deeper into her subconscious like a dog rooting for a bone that he’d once left. Yes, exactly like a…dog. “They talked about some farm with lots and lots of dogs,” she said.
“Waterford Farm,” he supplied. “It’s not really a farm as much as an elite canine facility.”
But she forgot the man next to her for a moment as something completely different, and wonderfully familiar, rose a few thousand chills on her skin. It was the blissful, delicious sensation of a brilliant idea about to hatch.
“If you like dogs,” he said, “I’ll take you there.”
She curled a lip, not really thinking about her response, because all of her brain power was hard at work on something much more important: exploding with a solution to her problem.
“Was that face because you don’t like dogs?”
She just shook her head as the idea took shape in her brain. Still…she didn’t have to like them. “But…”
“Because if you don’t like dogs, we don’t have a chance, darlin’. I mean, Chloe.”
“Dogs.” She barely heard the comment and ignored the pet name, because a concept was crystallizing, taking shape, and growing. And that made her whole head buzz. “Something like…” She snapped her fingers, closing her eyes, words popping into her head. “The Town That Went to the Dogs? Who Let the Tourists Out? Get a Better Bark in…”
And there it was. Wham, a flashing light snapped on in her brain, shining nothing but brightness on an absolutely glorious idea.
Better Bark.
“Oh my God, that’s it. That’s it! That is an absolutely on-the-money freaking fantastic idea!” She pushed back from the bar, standing from the sheer power of the concept. He was right next to her in a second and, without thinking, she clamped both hands on his broad shoulders. “Oh, I could kiss you!”
He smiled. “Now that is a good idea.”
“Yes, yes, it is!” Still holding on to him, she squeezed, realizing the very genius of the idea had made her a little lightheaded. Or maybe it was the wine.
Or maybe it was this man.
Stupidly, she tightened her grip, looking up at him. “Really, I can’t thank you enough.”
He let that gorgeous green-gold gaze drop down her face and settle on her mouth. “Sure you can,” he whispered. “That kiss you just mentioned, for example.”
She opened her mouth to suck in a shocked breath, but he lowered his head like he was about to make good on the suggestion.
“Just one,” he whispered, “really quick, but unforgettable, kiss.” A little closer. “It’s our newcomer’s special.”
Chloe Somerset didn’t kiss strangers. She didn’t kiss filthy strangers with hard muscles and soft whispers. She didn’t tilt her head, close her eyes, and…
And then she did all that and more.
His arms slipped around her, pulling her into his powerful, masculine chest. And his lips landed on hers, taking ownership of her openmouthed gasp with his soft, skilled lips. Everything spun, so of course she reached up to steady herself by holding on to…those shoulders.
She forgot where she was. Forgot who she was. Forgot the idea, the bar, the world around her. Everything disappeared except the searing warmth of this stranger’s lips that made her stomach flip around like a helpless fish hanging on a hook. Her chest grew warm. Her legs grew weak. And, God help her, she opened her mouth and let their tongues touch so that she could taste beer and mint and something dangerous and thrilling.
When it ended, she stayed right where she was, eyes closed, reeling.
He let her go very slowly, as if he knew she was unsteady. As if he didn’t want to let go.
What the hell was wrong with her? “We’re square now,” she said breathlessly. “And I have to go home and work.”
“Where’s home? I’ll take you.”
Not a chance. She’d never come out alive. “I can walk there.” She hoped. She managed to let go of him, peeling away, praying for steadiness but ready to blame the wine if she stumbled. “Thanks. And, bye…Dirty Shame.”
He grinned at the name. “See ya around, Perfect Chloe.”
But he wouldn’t. She didn’t know his last name. Or where he lived. Or what his deal was, except that he was a back-bar fixer and a damn good kisser. And she’d sucked up his inspiration and tongue like a woman who’d lost every shred of self-control.
The one thing Chloe Somerset never gave up.
She took off like a scared cat, still tasting him on her lips.