Dahlia followed Ocean Avenue almost to the top of the hill, high above town. A block before her destination, she turned down a side street and ducked into the alley that led to Aunt Ruth’s house. The two-story Craftsman cottage stood at the crest of the hill, offering commanding views of the town and ocean below it from almost every room. Aunt Ruth had often quipped that she could watch over the town like a queen in her castle. There was some truth to that statement as Aunt Ruth had been a cherished and respected pillar of the community. Until her cancer had reached an advanced stage, she’d been a member of the town council for as long as Dahlia could recall.

She parked her car next to the detached garage facing the alley. She assumed when Gretchen arrived after checking on her dog that they would meet at the front door. To save herself a trip back to the car, she grabbed a laundry basket piled high with clean laundry. Balancing it precariously with one arm, she pulled out her lone rolling suitcase, which was stuffed with even more clothes. She shut the trunk of the car one-handed and dragged her suitcase over the loose gravel alley space.

The white wooden back gate stood ajar. Aunt Ruth had preferred for the gate to remain closed when not in use, and Dahlia couldn’t remember ever seeing it left open before. To close the gate, she repeated the same awkward one-handed maneuver and latched the gate with a practiced touch. She glanced down the oyster shell path before she walked toward the front door with the laundry basket blocking her view.

About four feet from the front gate, her right foot caught on an obstruction and she pitched forward. The laundry basket flew from her grasp and lodged itself into a lavender-colored hydrangea bush at the side of the path. Much to her surprise, instead of the sharp oyster shells she’d expected to land on, she found herself pressed against a solid object. A warm, muscular, and blue, solid object.

“Are you okay?” The object spoke, and Dahlia edged her head up to see her rescuer. She’d landed flat out on top of the man she’d seen at the overlook. Garrett, Gretchen had called him.

“I think so.” She wiggled her extremities and, finding no injuries, rolled off of him onto the ground. He turned to his side, and pushed himself off the pathway with an athletic bounce, then held out his hand. She grasped it and a feeling of electricity traveled from his hand to hers. She stared into his eyes and heat crept up her neck. Their hands remained joined for a moment longer than necessary before she released her grip.

What had that been about? She’d never felt such an immediate physical attraction to any man before, much less one who couldn’t care less about her. She turned to survey the path behind her. Next to her toppled rolling suitcase, the white handle of a rake stuck out over the garden path.

“You tripped me,” she said to Garrett. Her ankle hurt and she leaned forward to rub it with one hand. It must have twisted in the fall.

“To be fair, you tripped yourself. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here. Are you sure you’re okay?”

She nodded yes. “I think I sprained it slightly, but it’ll be better by the end of the night.”

“Okay. Let me know if you need any help walking.” His eyes rested on her rolling suitcase. “Where were you going anyways?”

“I own this house. I’m staying here tonight.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who are you and why are you here?” She wasn’t the intruder, he was.

“You’re Ruth’s great-niece? Dahlia?” His eyebrows shot up. “I hadn’t heard you were in town.” He held his hand out to her. “Let’s start over. I’m Garrett. Ruth was a friend of mine and I’ve been taking care of her garden for her. I’m renting a house down the hill.” He nodded behind him to a small seafoam-green cottage with cheery white trim a block away. Even from here, his gardening skills were evident in the colorful flower beds surrounding the cottage’s front door.

The remnants of his cheeseburger and fries to-go meal rested in a white paper carton on the garden bench. He must have come straight here to work in the garden after picking up his order at the Bluebonnet Café. And judging by the sweat ringing the neck of his blue t-shirt, he’d been working hard before she arrived.

“Yes, I’m Dahlia,” she said, shaking his hand. His grip was firm, but not overbearing. He was much friendlier than she’d expected based on their earlier encounter. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he hadn’t really seen her properly when they met at the overlook.

He plucked a pair of lacy pink underpants off a hydrangea bloom and held them up to her. “I believe these are yours?”

She looked at him in horror. Her laundry basket had scattered its contents across the bushes. She frantically grabbed for the most intimate items and hugged them to her chest, blushing furiously.

Garrett diplomatically picked up a few socks and put them in the laundry basket before handing it back to her. A zing passed from his fingers to hers as they touched on the handoff. There it was again! What was going on?

“Can we start over again?” Her face burned with embarrassment over the contents of the laundry basket.

He grinned an impish smile that promised a keen sense of humor. “Sure. Are we going to re-enact the falling on me thing again too?”

She tried to glare at him, but failed and started laughing instead. There might be hope for this guy yet. “I think we can skip that part.” She corralled the other clothing items and placed the laundry basket on the ground.

“Do Agnes and the other Ladies know you’ve arrived? They’ve been anxious for you to move here,” he said.

“I’m sure Agnes wasn’t anxious for me to live here, probably the opposite. I met Marsha at the bookstore and I saw Agnes when I was in the Bluebonnet Café earlier, so I think the word is out,” she said. “And I’m not here to live permanently; I’m only here for the weekend. I need to find a manager for the bookstore and check on the condition of the house.”

“But Ruth said you’d be moving here after she passed.” He had a quizzical expression on his face.

“No, this kind of life isn’t really for me.” Or at least she didn’t think this was what she wanted.

Garrett’s face twisted with a smile he hid unsuccessfully. “What exactly is ‘this kind of life’?”

“You know, for anyone who wants to see the world. Candle Beach doesn’t have much going for it in terms of culture and excitement.” Garrett’s face darkened with her words, and she tried to backpedal. “I mean, it’s fine for some people. Candle Beach is a great place to um… relax, or raise a family, or…”

“You know, Ruth thought the world of you. She talked about you all the time.” He propped the rake against the house. “It was her last wish for you to move here and run the bookstore. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“I can’t move here just because my great-aunt thought it was a good idea. My life isn’t here. I promised myself a long time ago that I’d never again do something solely for the sake of someone else’s plans. Aunt Ruth knew that.” Dahlia felt a pang of sadness and hoped what she’d said was true.

“The bookstore is an important part of the community. Have you seen what the economy is like around here? Having the proprietor of a business operate the business themselves is an essential part of what makes the Candle Beach downtown prosperous. Do you think some random person you hire off the street is going to care as much about To Be Read as you would?” Garrett crossed his arms and leaned against a fence post.

“Well, no, but it doesn’t matter. To Be Read was Aunt Ruth’s dream, not mine.” The man was exasperating. She had a sinking feeling that she’d been right about him all along.

“I get it. You think Candle Beach is a place for people with dull lives and you have no interest in finding out if your assumptions are true or if you might have a future here.” He picked up his gloves and the almost empty hamburger box. “Life can’t be exciting a hundred percent of the time. At some point, it’s necessary to be responsible.” He strode off without another glance, the garden gate slamming behind him.

Dahlia watched him go, her mouth agape. He’d seemed so nice, but then something had struck a nerve and he’d turned into someone else. Candle Beach may be a small town, but with any luck, she wouldn’t run into Garrett Callahan again.

* * *

Dahlia was still reeling from the roller coaster of emotions she’d experienced when she gathered her belongings and trudged up the path to the front door. The day had gone from bad to worse and she fervently hoped she could get to bed soon. Tomorrow she would start afresh and figure things out.

As she rounded the corner and caught her first glimpse of the front of the house, her heart sank. Like the bookstore, the house was in much worse condition than she’d anticipated. Cracked paint and dirt caked the once white picket fence. Aunt Ruth’s prize rosebushes and other flowers had been well cared for, but the wooden arbor they hung over had seen better days.

A wicker outdoor set took up half of the wide front porch. The cushions were missing, and without them the porch swing looked uncomfortable, so she sat on the steps to wait for Gretchen to arrive.

Five minutes later, Gretchen jogged up the hill. She leaned against one of the front porch pillars to catch her breath. “Whew. That’s quite a climb. Sorry it took me so long. Reilly, my dog, had pulled a bag of flour off the counter and I wanted to get it cleaned up before I had white paw prints all over my house. Have you been waiting long?”

Dahlia got up off the steps. “No, not too long. I had a run-in with my neighbor Garrett in the garden. Correction, I ran into Garrett in the garden. He’d been weeding Aunt Ruth’s flower bed and I tripped on a rake and flung myself into him.” She didn’t mention the minute she’d spent lying on his muscular chest.

“Ooh, tell me more.” Gretchen opened the front door. “He’s been quite a mystery man since he arrived in town a few months ago. He tends to keep to himself, although some of the Ladies know him through the garden club.”

“There’s not much to tell. We started talking about my reasons for coming back to Candle Beach and he got upset with me and left. He seems like an odd duck.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think he’ll be coming around here anymore.”

“Hmm,” Gretchen said. “I wonder what happened.” She reached inside the door and flipped the light switch on. They entered Aunt Ruth’s living room and Dahlia was transported back in time. The room hadn’t changed since she’d been there last. Aunt Ruth’s recliner sat in one corner next to a comfortably overstuffed sofa. In front of the seating was a maple coffee table that Dahlia had cut her head on when she was four. Aunt Ruth had wiped her tears, bandaged her wound, and given her cookies and tea. It was hard to believe she’d never see her again.

Although dated, the interior of the house seemed in better repair than the exterior. In the kitchen, rose-covered wallpaper provided the perfect backdrop for a Formica table and a seventies avocado green stove and mismatched white refrigerator. Ruth hadn’t cared what things looked like, always claiming function trumped form.

They took the stairs up to the small second bathroom and the house’s three bedrooms.

A peek into the bathroom revealed fixtures in the same avocado green as the kitchen, an aging ceiling light and more dreadful wallpaper. As a kid, Dahlia hadn’t given a second thought to the interior decor. Now, with an eye to selling the house, she could see it would take quite an investment of time and money to modernize.

“This is what I wanted to show you,” Gretchen said, as they entered the room Aunt Ruth had used as a craft room. “When I checked the house last week, I noticed a possible leak in the roof. I called the law firm handling Ruth’s estate, but they weren’t able to authorize any repairs until you got here.” A water stain had formed on the ceiling and there was evidence of water rings on the hardwood floors below. A bucket had been placed under the leak to stop any further damage.

“If you’d like, I can give you the contact info for a local roofing company. They can give you a repair estimate. I have to warn you though, all the contractors in town are going to be booked out for at least a few weeks with the upcoming tourist rental season.”

The water had soaked the bottom of the basket where Aunt Ruth kept the yarn she’d used in her most recent crocheting project. Dahlia pulled the dry yarn out of the basket and placed it gently on the sewing desk. Aunt Ruth had been crocheting a turquoise and white blanket before she died. The crochet hook was still attached to the loop in the unfinished blanket. She blinked back tears. Aunt Ruth had been so full of life. It was unfair that breast cancer had taken her when she was only in her mid-seventies.

“Dahlia?” Gretchen’s voice sounded far away. Dahlia looked up from the half-completed blanket.

“I’m so sorry, but there’s more,” Gretchen said, leading the way out of the room.

What now? Dahlia thought. Gretchen took her down to the basement and pointed out several spots where water had breached the cracked foundation, forming puddles on the concrete floor.

“This should be taken care of before you try to sell the house. It would never pass a prospective buyer’s home inspection. I’m not sure how much it will cost, but here’s the number of the contractor we use, Donald’s Home Repair. Don might be able to fix the roof as well—you’d have to call him to find out.” She handed her a business card.

“Anything else you’d like to throw at me?” Dahlia asked, half joking.

Gretchen regarded her old friend. “No, we can talk more tomorrow. You should get some rest.”

Dahlia waved goodbye to her from the wide front porch, then retrieved the rest of her belongings from the car. After she had dumped everything in the middle of the living room, she stopped to think about where she was going to sleep. She walked up the stairs and stood in the entrance to the large master bedroom where Aunt Ruth had slept.

On the dresser, an antique hand mirror lay between numerous crystal perfume bottles, all on a crocheted lace runner. She picked up the hand mirror, remembering all the times she’d used it to pretend to be the witch from Snow White. The open curtains highlighted the magnificent ocean view. Under the window, a hope chest occupied most of the floor space. Blankets and linens were folded neatly at the end of the bed, but even though waking up to that view would be amazing, she couldn’t bear to sleep in Aunt Ruth’s bedroom among her prized belongings.

She turned and walked along the carpeted hallway to the room that had been hers when she came to stay in the summers. A double bed took up half of the room, but a window seat in the upstairs bay window made the room feel spacious. Dahlia had fond memories of sitting on the seat and gazing out the window with its view of town and peekaboo view of the ocean. A few newer romance novels sat on the bedside table, evidence that her mother had slept in there during her visits. Vanessa could never resist a good romance.

After opening the window to let in the cool evening breeze, she lay down on the bed, atop the crocheted coverlet. Her eyes closed as her head hit the soft down pillow, and she told herself she would bring her suitcases up in a few minutes.