Soldier, Handyman, Family Man. Lynne Marshall

Chapter One

      The attractive brunette juggling a cardboard box and a plastic trash bag filled with who knew what needed help. Mark Delaney had first noticed her yesterday when her bobbing ponytail had proved to be very distracting. Now, seeing disaster about to happen, he sprang from the ladder, where he painted the underside of The Drumcliffe Hotel roof trim, nearly rolling an ankle. Then he jogged across the street attempting to hide the limp.

      “Need help?”

      “Oh.” She tossed him a flustered glance, the box precariously slipping from her grasp. “Yes, please.”

      He rushed in and grabbed it, surprised how light it was.

      “My favorite English tea set’s in there.” She used her head to signal the delicate nature of the contents. “Should’ve thought this through more.” She stopped, took a breath and made an obligatory smile. “I’m Laurel Prescott, by the way, and you are?”

      “Mark Delaney.” With his free hand, he gestured across the street. “My family owns The Drumcliffe.”

      Her honey-brown brows, a few shades lighter than her hair, lifted. “Ah, so we’re neighbors.”

      He deposited the box on the porch as she came up beside him, then noticed the eyes that were light hazel and shaped like large almonds. He liked that. “Guess so. When are you planning to open the B&B?”

      Another inhale, this one deeper. “Good question. My goal is next week, but there are so many last-minute things I need to do, and of course hadn’t even thought of.” She shook her head rapidly. “Don’t know what I was thinking doing this final move the week school started.” She hoisted the trash bag over her shoulder. Something clanked inside. “Oh, yes, I do—I’d finally have a few hours to myself!”

      He couldn’t help but laugh with her even if it was over impending hysteria. “Anything else you need carried in?”

      Her downright attractive eyes sparkled, signaling he may as well have been sent from heaven. Which felt good for a change.

      “Are you sure you have the time? I mean it’s obvious you’re in the middle of painting.”

      He glanced down at his black T-shirt and jeans, both splattered with the eggshell paint his mother had meticulously picked for the trim. “I was ready for a break anyway.” Then he looked across the road where he’d left the lid off the paint can. “Just give me a second, okay?”

      “Of course!” She continued up the steps to the grand Queen Anne‒styled Victorian house, which had been sitting empty, according to his mother, for ages. Some nice old couple used to live there when he was a kid, right up to the time he’d left home. He remembered once having the best apple pie he’d ever eaten in that kitchen.

      He crossed the street heading back to the hotel. For the last several months, he’d seen crews inside and out bringing the gem back to its original beauty and then some. By the extensive upgrades, he knew his mother had been right about the old home being turned into a bed-and-breakfast. The workers had finished a few weeks back, making the steeply pitched roof with the dominant front gable and oddly shaped porch look picture-book perfect. Once a blah blue with ho-hum white trim, chipped and peeling from years of neglect, now the house was sage green with cream trim and forest green detailing between the cornices, and Mark had to admit it looked classy. Like her. That had been his first impression of his new neighbor last week when she’d stopped by to check on the finishing touches.

      The lady was way out of his league, so today, when she was dressed in work clothes—faded straight-legged jeans with slip-in rubber-soled shoes, and a stretched-out polo shirt that’d seen better days—it made him smile. She fit right in with his style. And for the second day in a row she’d worn a ponytail. Not that he was keeping tabs or anything, but man, the ponytail was distracting.

      Mark replaced the lid on the paint can.

      “Little early for a break isn’t it?” Padraig Delaney chided his middle grandson, while he had no doubt just finished a Monday morning round at the city course judging by his loud patterned golf slacks and a salmon-colored shirt. His daily routine at eighty-five kept his craggy face tanned and his blue eyes bright, not to mention the notorious toothy grin pasted in place. Which he was currently flashing since noticing where Mark had come from and the lady across the street waiting for him.

      Mark smiled at his grandda with the Guinness-soaked voice and tendency toward magical thinking. They had an understanding since both had known how it felt to be young, far away from home, frightened and lonely—though one in peacetime and the other, well, in that hot mess known as the Middle East. Yet that was their unspoken bond, and nothing would break it.

      Everyone knew Padraig Delaney’s history. As a young Irish immigrant in the 1950s, he’d been brought over to work the new and lush golf courses along the central California coast. Cheap labor for sure, but he’d also had the foresight to scrimp and save money and buy the small patch of land in Sandpiper Beach. As his jobs and responsibility advanced, he saved more and worked like the devil to build the humble hotel back in the late sixties and early seventies. If it weren’t for that hardworking dreamer’s spirit, who knew what the Delaney clan would be up to now? So he’d cut him some slack over playing golf every morning. The man had earned it.

      As Mark always did, he also tolerated the supernosy man’s inclinations. “I’ll get ’er done. All of it. By the end of the day. Have a good game?”

      “Every game’s a good game, Marky my boy, ’cuz I’m alive.”

      Mark had heard a similar statement from his grandfather at some point every single day since he’d returned from Afghanistan last year. He understood it was a less-than-subtle message, but most of the time he couldn’t relate to it. Though today, glancing across the street to the lady with the ponytail, his personal outlook struck him as somewhat optimistic. “That it is, Grandda. That it is.” He stood, ready to set off again for the B&B and the woman who needed some serious help.

      “Fraternizing with the competition are ye?” Ah, he wasn’t going to let this slip by.

      Mark laughed, knowing Grandda was making a joke. His mother was the one and only person in the family fretting about the B&B opening. Padraig Delaney understood different types stayed at a place like that than their modestly priced hotel. The B&B wasn’t about competition, it was about revitalizing the town, which would be good for everyone. “Just helping out a neighbor.”

      “A mighty attractive neighbor I might add.” The old man winked.

      Mark returned a let’s-not-go-there stare, though Grandda already had.

      “Have you thought more about taking over the hotel?” So he’d gotten Mark’s hint and changed the subject.

      “You know I’m not ready to do that.” He placed the paint can next to the hotel wall, then folded the ladder and put that next to it. “Besides, Mom and Dad really don’t want to retire yet.” At least he hoped so.

      “Could fool me, the way they talk about it mornin’ till night. Besides, you’re the only one who loves this hotel the same way I do.”

      Mark couldn’t deny that he was the logical person to pick up where his parents left off, if they retired like they kept threatening to. With Daniel being a doctor with his own practice and Conor a deputy sheriff for the county with plans for advancement, neither brother showed the slightest interest in running the place. But since being honorably discharged from the army last year, he’d wanted nothing to do with responsibility. For now, being a handyman every morning and surfing every afternoon was about all he thought he could handle. Still he did have a vision for The Drumcliffe, which he’d talked to his parents about under the condition that they would give him time, and postpone any immediate plans to retire. If Grandda caught on, he might insist Mark take on more responsibility right away. But he flat out wasn’t ready. Yet.

      Mark kept his head down, rather than pursue the pointed conversation about