Every lot was large, the houses set back from the street, with space in between for driveways that often had more than one vehicle in it. A truck, a car, and on the second block, she saw two snowmobiles, too.
When she reached the outskirts of town, she looped back to the main drag and turned toward the lake. A hill separated the bulk of the town from the harbour. Main Street ended in a T-junction at the road that ringed the harbour. There was a sign advertising a marina, shuttered for the winter. Closer to her, across from the marina on the town side of the intersection, sat an abandoned gas station, nestled back into the pine trees climbing down the hill. To her right, across the road from the gas station was an empty lot covered in weeds. It lacked the sweet picturesque nature of the rest of the town, but the view of the harbor was stunning—and Kerry had it all to herself at this particular moment.
Wind whipped across the lake, churning the dark grey water into terrifying white caps, which bounced into the substantial ice and snow crests on the shore.
Kerry fell in love immediately. She crossed the road and turned right, following the sidewalk all the way around the harbour until the road curved away from the water again. There she found an entrance to a hiking path which was closed for the season.
Apparently the hiking trails went all the way from town to the provincial park. She took a picture with her phone so she wouldn’t forget to look it up online, and then turned back toward the water. Pine Harbour was full of unexpected treats and delightful secrets.
As she got closer to the T-junction, and the hill at the bottom of Main Street, she realized the empty lot was no longer empty—there was a car parked on a diagonal in the middle of it, the driver’s door hanging wide open and the front hood propped up. A big ol’ beater of a car, something straight out of a seventies buddy cop TV show. On the other side of it was a pickup truck, and it looked like three guys were trying to boost the car off the truck’s battery.
“How’s that? Still nothing?” called out one of the men working on it.
“Nothing. Might need to get it towed back to your place. I told you not to take it for a drive.”
“It was running just fine,” the first guy said.
The third guy popped out from beneath the hood, and Kerry recognized her mover, Adam. And because there was nobody else around, her movement caught his eye. He waved, then gestured to the others. With a sinking feeling, she realized the tallest one, with his back to her, must be Becca’s father.
The one Adam had tried to introduce her to last night, because her new town was just that small. Picturesque, perfect in many ways, but there was Owen Kincaid—glowering at her two days in a row.
* * *
Owen pivotedaround when Adam gestured across the road, but immediately turned back on his heel.
“What are you doing?” he muttered to his brother.
“Being friendly.”
He made a face, then glanced over his shoulder. Becca’s midwife—Kerry, she has a name—had stopped. She was coming over. Great.
“Leave her alone,” he muttered at his brother, then picked up the pliers. “Let’s get this shit-box working again.”
Adam ignored him and slid out of the way, so when Kerry stopped in front of them, Owen was closest to her.
His brother wasn’t subtle about it, either.
She gave him a polite smile. “Hi.”
All the perfectly normal greetings Owen could usually produce died in his throat. “Yeah,” he barked out.
Kerry’s eyebrows jolted upwards.
He sighed and turned back to the car.
“Car trouble?” Kerry tried again, this time to Adam.
“More like a trouble car,” he said easily, then gestured to their other brother. “This is Will. It’s his disaster on wheels.”
Owen ignored the rest of the introductions. He tried to ignore the conversation about the car, too, although it was hard not to notice the way she leaned in, the way she used her smile to get more information as she asked a few more questions.
It was hard to ignoreher,bundled up in her bright white parka like she’d just walked off the pages of the Canada Goose catalogue. Owen didn’t breathe properly until she said goodbye and headed up the hill towards town.
When his brothers returned their attention to the car, Adam was frowning. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.” Owen squinted at the connection between the battery and the carburetor. He could feel Adam’s suspicious gaze lingering as he tightened the wires. “Try that again.”
It didn’t work.
