Sweetheart Cottage (Cranberry Bay #1) by Mindy Hardwick Page A

afraid to speak and reveal her emotions.
    “Are you interested in a job?”
    Rylee swallowed hard, forcing herself to concentrate. “I would love a job. Who do I contact?”
    “Me.” Bryan’s eyes glowed. “Is that okay?”
    “You?” Rylee stared beyond Bryan into the small office. He couldn’t expect her to work with him, could he? She’d never be able to be so close to him in his office and maintain an emotional and physical distance.
    “I’ve just landed a listing. The owner would like it staged to sell. Is this something you could do?”
    “Of course.” Rylee straightened and thought she saw emotion cross Bryan’s face. But before she could be sure she’d seen anything, it was gone. “I stage property. I did an entire condo building in Vegas. It was beautiful. My business partner and I worked for weeks on it. We used beautiful draperies and high-end furniture.” She paused and laughed. “I wanted to buy one by the time we finished.”
    She flushed. Why had she gushed on to Bryan? He wasn’t asking her for a job history. He was giving her a job without any references or previous work experience. Rylee slipped her left hand into her pocket and stepped back.
    Bryan cleared his throat and shifted. “I was just going to look at the property now. You could come along?”
    “Where is it?” Rylee nodded to Raisin. “I can drop him off at home on the way.”
    “We can walk. It’s on the other side of the park, near the west bank of the river.”
    “A riverfront property?” Rylee frowned. “Is it one of the businesses near the marina?”
    “Not exactly.” Bryan cleared his throat. “It’s the river cottages.”
    Rylee swallowed hard as heat filled her face. “The river cottages?” Grateful for the poorly lit stairwell, she lowered her eyes to the dirty doormat. On her twenty-first birthday, Bryan had brought her to the cottage. He’d set a small kitchen table with real china place settings borrowed from his mother. He’d cooked a wonderful meal of lasagna and thick French bread and made her a chocolate cake. Afterward, he proposed to her. That night, she believed she could marry him. She believed she could move to Cranberry Bay. She believed she’d find a way to keep her father out of harm’s way in Vegas while she lived in Cranberry Bay. She believed it was possible to have her life in Cranberry Bay without telling the secret of his gambling addiction. She believed her world would come together perfectly. But everything changed the next day with one phone call from the Vegas police. Quietly, she packed her bags, knowing she’d never be able to marry Bryan and live in Cranberry Bay without betraying her long-held family secret. She’d never be able to leave her father without someone to take care of him.
    Bryan stared into her eyes and sent her heart racing. “Will the location be a problem?”
    “No.” Rylee shook her head firmly. This was a business deal. She needed the job, and there wasn’t time for sentimentality over the past. “It’s not a problem for me. Is it a problem for you?”
    Bryan’s ears turned slightly pink, but he shook his head. “Not a problem for me. We should be able to attract a good buyer once the cottages are staged.”
    Rylee nodded. It didn’t matter how she once felt about Bryan. That was in the past. Today all that mattered for both of them was getting the job done.
    “Let me get my jacket.” Bryan stepped into the room and grabbed his coat off a tall chair sitting in front of a desk. “We’ll walk over to the cottages.”
    Rylee turned and headed down the narrow staircase. It was just business, she reminded herself. The job would give her the necessary means to secure the home equity line of credit, finish the work on her grandmother’s house, and leave.
    Outside, Rylee took a deep breath of the crisp night air. Cranberry Bay always smelled like a Christmas tree farm with the towering evergreen trees that surrounded it. She led Raisin to a small