The Celebrity At Cottage Seven

The driver’s door opened. A man stepped out wearing a charcoal coat, dark jeans, and boots too clean for Sweetwater Harbor in January. He was tall without seeming to know it, his shoulders held in a way that suggested he was used to people looking at him. A knit cap covered most of his hair. He stood with one hand on the door and studied the path.

Then he looked at Mia.

“Is this the way to Cottage Seven?” he asked.

His voice was low, roughened slightly by the cold. Not a local voice. Not one that belonged to somebody who had spent the morning wrestling a wheelbarrow through standing water.

Mia pointed at the cottage. “Unless you’re planning to swim.”

His mouth shifted, almost a smile. “I was hoping the water was decorative.”

“It’s mud.”

“That explains the lack of lilies.”

She should not have noticed the warmth in his eyes. She noticed anyway.

He shut the SUV door and lifted a suitcase from the back. The wheels sank into the path before he had taken three steps.

Mia watched him tug once. The suitcase did not move.

“Leave it,” she said.

“I can manage.”

“That path has swallowed two bags of mulch and half a wheelbarrow this morning. It’ll take your suitcase too.”

He looked down at the trapped wheels, then back at her. “You sound personally offended.”

“I am personally offended. I designed this garden.”

His attention shifted from the mud to the beds. The sharpness in his expression eased.

“You designed it?”

“I’m building it.”

“That sounds more difficult.”

“It is when people arrive in the middle of it.”

The words came out harder than she intended. The man’s gaze lingered on her face, not offended exactly. Measuring. Mia disliked the feeling and bent to retrieve her spade.

“I’m Adam Vale,” he said.

She straightened. “Mia Torres.”

He offered his hand.

His glove was black, his grip careful rather than weak. When he released her, the cold seemed to return between them.

“Are you with the inn?” he asked.

“I’m the groundskeeper.”

“And the designer?”

“When I can convince people to let me be both.”

His eyes moved over the garden again. “What happens if you don’t finish on schedule?”

“The inn loses its spring package. Natalie loses money. I lose the chance to use the completed project in my portfolio.”

“So, nothing serious.”

Mia gave him a flat look.

Adam’s almost-smile appeared again, this time with an apology behind it. “That was poorly judged.”

“Accurate, though.”

He glanced toward the porch. “Where do I put the suitcase?”

“On the boards. Not the soil.”

He pulled the suitcase free with both hands. The effort tightened his jaw. Mia stepped forward before she could stop herself, caught the handle, and lifted one side.

“I said I can manage,” he said.

“And I said not on the soil.”

For a second, they stood with the suitcase between them, close enough that she smelled cedar on his coat and something clean beneath it. His eyes dropped to her muddy glove gripping the handle, then returned to hers.

“Right,” he said. “The soil.”

Together they carried it to the narrow plank Natalie had laid from the path to the porch. The board bowed under their weight. Mia stepped off first. Adam followed, boots landing inches from a tray of young thyme.

He caught the tray before it tipped.

“Careful,” Mia said.

“I’m beginning to understand that’s the theme here.”

“You’re beginning to understand that this is a worksite.”

His gaze flicked to the splattered knees of her trousers, the mud on her jacket, the loose strand of hair stuck to her cheek. He reached toward it.

Mia went still.

Adam stopped before touching her. His hand lowered.

“There’s mud,” he said.

“I know.”

“I wasn’t going to - ”

“I know.”

The pause held more than the moment required. Mia took the tray from him and set it farther from the path.

Behind them, the SUV’s rear tires spun. The engine whined, then fell silent.

Adam looked toward it. “I may have parked badly.”

“You parked in the only dry patch.”

“That was dry?”

“It was dry before you arrived.”

He turned back to her. “I’m collecting apologies.”

“You’ll need a larger suitcase.”

That earned a quiet laugh. It changed his face. Without the guarded set of his mouth, he looked younger than thirty-five, though Mia had no reason to know his age. More tired, too.

She picked up the spade. “You can leave the car. Natalie will have someone move it.”

“Natalie said the cottage was private.”

“It is. Private doesn’t mean accessible.”

“Good distinction.”

“You’ll learn more of them if you stay here.”

His expression tightened at the word stay. A small change, but she saw it. He looked toward the inn, where white trim gleamed beneath the gray sky and smoke curled from the kitchen chimney.

“I’m only here for a few weeks,” he said.

“A few weeks is long enough to trample something.”

“I’ll try to limit myself to the path.”

“The path is the problem.”

Rain began again, fine and cold against Mia’s cheek. She turned toward the bundles of lavender. The burlap had loosened, and water pooled inside the folds.

“I need those moved under the porch before they rot,” she said. “Then the stone. Then the compost. If I can clear this side today, I can finish the drainage trench tomorrow.”

Adam removed his gloves.

Mia looked at his bare hands. “You don’t have to help.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

He stepped toward the lavender.

She blocked him with the spade. “Those aren’t luggage.”

“What are they?”

“Plants.”

“I had gathered that.”

“They’re dormant, not dead. Lift from underneath.”

He crouched, slid both hands below the first bundle, and stood with more ease than she expected. The muscles in his forearms shifted beneath his sweater. Mia looked away, irritated by the fact that she had noticed.

“Where?” he asked.

“Under the porch. Against the wall, but not touching it.”

He carried the bundle through the mud, placing each foot with cautious precision. The path sucked at his boots. On the third trip, he slipped.

Mia caught his elbow.

His free hand closed around her wrist.

Neither of them moved.

Rain ticked against the porch roof. His fingers were warm despite the weather, firm around the narrow bones of her wrist. His gaze dropped to where he held her, then lifted.

“Sorry,” he said, and released her at once.

“Don’t apologize for gravity.”

“I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for.”

Mia felt the answer in the space between them and hated that he might feel it too.

She took the next bundle. “Carry the other end.”

They moved in silence after that, but it was not an empty silence. Their shoulders brushed once. Then again. Each time, Adam gave her room so quickly that the courtesy felt almost like retreat.

When the last lavender bundle was safe, Mia pointed to the stones. “Those go beside the porch.”

Adam looked at the stack. “One at a time?”

“Unless you’ve developed a method for bending physics.”

“I’ve been told I’m persuasive.”

“Not with rocks.”

He crouched and lifted two. Mia took one from the top. They crossed the path together, slower now. The stone was cold through her gloves, its rough edge catching the wool.

“Why this garden?” he asked.

“Because Cottage Seven gets the worst runoff. If I can make this work, the other beds will be easy.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Mia set the stone down. “You asked why this garden?”

“You’re trying to make something beautiful in the worst place.”

She studied him. “You say that like you understand it.”

His face closed.

The answer had touched something she had not intended to reach. Mia picked up another stone, but he did not move.

“Forget it,” she said.

“No.” He looked across the muddy path at the unfinished beds. “I understand what it’s like to need a place where nobody expects anything from you.”

The rain thickened. Water slid from the brim of his cap.

Mia rested both hands on the handle of her spade. “Then you chose the wrong inn. Natalie expects guests to pay and not destroy the property.”

“That’s manageable.”

“And I expect them not to walk through my garden.”

“That may be harder.”

“Why?”

He looked toward the road, where a delivery truck rolled past the inn and sent a sheet of water over the ditch. “Because people recognize things.”

Mia waited.

“Faces,” he said. “Names. They decide they know you before you’ve said anything worth knowing.”

His voice had lost its teasing edge. The man who had joked about decorative water was gone, replaced by someone watching the road as if it might bring trouble.

Mia understood the instinct. She had spent years trying to earn attention for her work without becoming a story people told over coffee. Praise could turn invasive quickly. A photograph of a garden became a photograph of the woman who planted it. A compliment became a question about her life.

She lowered her gaze to the mud. “People recognize me when they need a hedge trimmed.”

“That sounds preferable.”

“Sometimes.”

Adam picked up the next stone. “You can call me Adam.”

“I was planning to.”

“Not Adrian.”

The name landed oddly. Not because it meant anything to her, but because he said it like a door he wanted kept shut.

Mia looked at him. “I wasn’t planning to call you anything else.”

“I know.” He carried the stone to the porch. “I’m asking anyway.”

The garden remained unfinished. The path remained a narrow brown trap. Her schedule had not improved so much as shifted a few feet forward.

But the supplies were under cover now, the stones were stacked where she needed them, and Adam Vale stood beside her with mud on his boots and rain darkening his coat.

“You helped,” she said.

“I noticed.”

“Don’t become unbearable.”

“I’ll add it to the list.”

She almost smiled. The impulse frightened her more than his hand around her wrist had.

Adam reached for his suitcase. Mia caught the handle first.

“I’ll take that to the cottage.”

“I can - ”

“You’ve done enough to earn the right to stop arguing.”

He let go. “That sounds dangerously close to trust.”

“It isn’t.”

His eyes held hers. “What is it?”

Mia pulled the suitcase onto the porch. “A temporary arrangement.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Then keep the arrangement private.”

The words tightened something in her chest.

“Your stay?”

“My name. The reason I’m here. All of it.”

“You’re asking me to lie?”

“No.” He looked toward the inn, where Natalie’s silhouette passed behind a lit window. “I’m asking you not to make me into something I’m trying not to be.”

Mia studied the man in front of her - the clean boots ruined by mud, the careful hands, the guarded face that softened only when he forgot to protect it.

“What are you trying not to be?” she asked.

Adam’s jaw shifted.

Then he gave her the name he had refused to use.

“Adrian,” he said quietly. “But only to everyone who thinks they already know me.”

Mia did not answer. She opened the cottage door, and warm air scented with cedar drifted over them.

Behind her, the garden waited in the rain. Ahead, Adam - or Adrian - stood at the threshold, asking for privacy before he had given her a reason to offer it.

She moved aside to let him enter.

“Adam,” she said, making the choice aloud, though not yet forgiving the question behind it. “For now.”

His gaze held hers a moment longer.

“For now,” he agreed.

End of chapter one. 7 more chapters in the full book.