Page 3 of A Lesson for Laurel

A GOOD HANDLE ON IT

Nine Months Later

Life was going just great.

Seriously, it was.

No sarcasm there in her thoughts either when for months many said she was nothing but snarky and sarcastic.

When she heard a noise in the backyard, Laurel got up with her cup and looked out the kitchen window to see her neighbor with a baseball hat on his head pushing a wheel barrel full of paving stones.

Oh, hello, neighbor!

She hadn’t seen him much since she’d lived here. Just coming and going in his Cooke Landscaping truck. She supposed there wasn’t much work for him to do in the winter months, but now things were warming up and it looked like he was doing some work around his house.

She continued to watch him from afar. She wouldn’t feel guilty that maybe she was nosy either. It’s not as if she had much of a life since she moved just outside of Mystic for this job.

The area was stunning, but she’d been here before, having grown up in New Haven about an hour away.

She didn’t think she’d like the slower paced living and had to admit it was boring at times. But she was too busy as the new plant manager for Blossoms to care.

What she wasn’t too busy with right now was watching the body on the dude next door as he dumped the paving stones. She wondered if he needed some help.

He’d probably laugh if she offered, but it’d beat sitting here gawking at him, no matter how sexy he was.

The long-sleeved shirt he had on was fitted to his body and one of those thermal materials that would keep you warm but not get in the way.

His long legs in his faded jeans looked to have some muscle to them too. You could tell he worked with his hands.

Yuuuummy.

She needed that in her life over the suit-and-tie-wearing guy.

Had that and it didn’t turn out so well.

But it’s not like she’d had any man since she kicked Philip to the curb.

When the doorbell rang, she frowned and moved to the front of the house. She couldn’t imagine who it could be as she didn’t know anyone other than her coworkers.

The last person she expected was her ex-fiancé standing there with his designer sunglasses on, the slight wind blowing through his hair and a big smile plastered to his face.

“What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.

“I thought we could talk.”

“I don’t have anything to say to you,” she said. “I said it all when I dropped your ring on your plate.”

“You never let me explain,” Philip whined. He was a champion whiner and she wasn’t sure why she never noticed itbefore. Maybe because it was always targeted toward his parents and not her.

Talk aboutnotsexy!

“There is no explanation,” she said, crossing her arms. She wished she still had her coffee in her hand, but she’d left it in the kitchen. It’d look good on his crisp white jacket. Who the hell wore a white jacket? She’d get it dirty just looking at it.

Not Philip. Everything of his was always pristine.

“You didn’t let me apologize,” Philip said. “Can I come in and we can talk?”

“Nope,” she said firmly. “You can keep your ass right here on the front porch. I’m not even sure how you found me, why you did, or what took you so long. It’s been nine months.”

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