“He didn’t say anything to you?”
“No, definitely not,” Sam said, shaking his head vigorously, mouth set in a stern line. “If he had, I would have told him he was crazy. Who would walk away from a family like that?”
Stella felt a pang of something akin to jealousy, but she ignored it. “They all seem great. I’ve met Drew and Tasha, and they are both so lovely. Georgia, too, obviously. She has been a wonderful host.”
Sam nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything specific. Nothing to let Stella know whether he had any particular soft spots for Georgia.
“Drew was a professional baseball player, but he recently had a career change,” he said. “He crash-landed back here, so I offered him a job at the shop for something to do. The extra help has been nice, but I don’t suspect he’ll be there long. He is off to bigger and better things, I’m sure.”
“From what I can tell, you have a very nice shop here.”
“Well, thanks. I think so, too, but Drew is bigger than the shop and me. Someone as charming, handsome, and talented as him can’t be hidden away underneath a car all day. He was born to do something big.”
Stella wanted to tell Sam that he was just as charming, handsome, and, from what she had seen, talented as Drew, but it felt like an overstep. They didn’t know each other well enough for compliments like that.
“You’re very proud of him.” It was a statement, not a question, but Sam nodded.
“I am. I always wanted kids, but it never happened for me. When Richard and Georgia started having their kids, they called me Uncle Sam.”
“Very patriotic,” Stella quipped.
Sam rolled his eyes, no doubt having heard the same joke many times before. “I’ve loved them since they were tiny little things, and I can’t help but feel like I have some right to be proud of them. I don’t, of course. I didn’t raise them or anything. But that doesn’t stop me.”
“They seem to be proud of you, too. I mean, Tasha asked you to help out with her play. She must trust you.”
“I don’t know about that. I mean, she asked you to help, and she barely knows you.” He winced as soon as the words were out of his mouth. “That came out wrong. I just mean—”
“I get it,” Stella laughed. “You’re right. Tasha doesn’t exactly seem shy. So maybe that isn’t a good metric. But I know Drew is very fond of you. He had nothing but good things to say when he gave me a ride last night. Georgia, too, for that matter.”
He shrugged. “Georgia is nice to everyone. She can’t help herself. She has always been one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.”
Again, jealousy scratched at the back door of Stella’s mind, like a feral cat begging to be let inside. She did her best to keep the door firmly closed.
“I think you may underestimate yourself. You skipped dinner to save a stranger stranded on the highway, you’re building sets for a local play for free, and you are expediting the repairs on my car to see that my vacation isn’t totally ruined. I’d say those things make you a nice person in your own respect.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” Stella insisted. “Very few men in my life have been as warm or welcoming as you have been. Genuine selflessness is hard to find, so I recognize it when I see it.”
He seemed uncomfortable with the compliments, turning away and taking a large bite of his sandwich, and Stella worried she’d overstepped. Maybe Sam’s niceness was part of the problem. It had been so long since Stella flirted with a man that she could no longer tell the difference between flirting and common courtesy. Was she making Sam uncomfortable? The thought alone made her face flush bright red, and she lowered her head as she continued eating, hoping to hide her discomfort.
After they finished eating, Sam sent Stella inside while he cleaned up, and Stella was almost relieved to be excused. After her compliment, Sam’s brow was perpetually creased, and he seemed troubled. They talked about nothing—when the summer humidity would finally abate and which towns in Maine Stella had created websites for—and it felt as though they were both blindly navigating a field of landmines.
Stella painted the rest of the afternoon, but Sam kept his distance. When he did finally leave, he didn’t tell her goodbye, and she tried to pretend the slight didn’t sting.
9
Stella’s pants were splattered with paint despite her efforts to be careful, and her back was sore. It had been a long time since she’d done so many hours of manual labor in a row. She was desperate for a hot shower. The walk back up to the inn didn’t help, either. She considered calling for a car, but Drew had said the day before there was only one ride-share driver in the whole town, and Stella didn’t want to use up the person’s time for what would be a relatively short walk.
That might’ve been a mistake. As she walked up the rocky path to the inn’s wide front stairs, knees aching, Stella had numerous regrets and was counting them out for posterity when a small creature launched an attack.
The yapping caught her by surprise. Stella pressed a hand to her heart and jumped back. Suddenly, her aches were gone as adrenaline flooded her system, her fight-or-flight instinct telling her to turn and run for the hills immediately. Then, she got a solid look at the creature and realized the bark had to be worse than its bite.
The dog was scruffy, some kind of terrier with flopping ears and a gray
