Page 40 of Falling for the Grumpy Stranger

She turned it over and read the headline as I took off my coat. Her eyes were round as she looked up from the paper. “‘Tragedy at Grimstone Manor.’ Wow, Ella will be so excited to see this. And it looks—” she stared at the photo. “Is that a chandelier?”

“To you and me, it’s a chandelier. To Agatha Haverton, former owner of the manor, it was an executioner.”

“Oh, wow, Ella will be thrilled. I mean, RIP Agatha, of course.” She shrugged as she handed me the paper. “Rather than tell her to come inside, why don’t you head out there? Surprise her.” She added an encouraging smile.

“I guess surprises can be good or bad.”

“I think this one will be good. Just through that sliding door.”

I stopped at the door, took a deep breath and opened it. Ella was sitting on a chair at an outdoor table. A quilt was draped over her head as she hunched forward, her fingers feverishly moving across the keyboard.

“I’ve got dibs on that last piece of pizza, so keep your paws off, Ava,” Ella said without looking up from her laptop. Whenthere was no reply, she finally stopped typing and peered out from under the quilt tent she’d made for herself. “Rhett. It’s you.”

“Didn’t mean to intrude but I found something, and I think you’re going to want to read it.” She was still staring at me with those big brown eyes as I walked toward her, but I couldn’t read her thoughts. It seemed there was a flurry of them. “I can leave it with you. Let’s just say—it’s easy to see how the curse rumors started.”

She finally pulled her gaze away from me as she took the paper. “Wow, it’s as brittle as thin ice.”

“Hope this helps,” I said and turned to leave.

“So that’s it?” she said tersely.

I turned around.

“You’re just going to step out here, hand me the paper, drop the curse-is-real bomb and leave?”

“Figured you wouldn’t want me to stick around.”

“You’re right.”

I nodded. “Right. I can show myself out.”

I heard the chair scrape the deck behind me. Her small hand grabbed mine. I spun around and pulled her into my arms for a kiss. It wasn’t a gentle, polite kiss. It was the one that had been building inside my heart almost since Ella walked into my life. After the long kiss, she peered up, still tucked against me. “Guess this means you’re going to add me to the baggage in your life.”

“You’re not baggage, Ella. You’re my ticket to something better.”

She giggled. “Did you just come up with that literary nugget?”

I laughed. “It sounded better in my head.” I thought about it again. “No, I’m wrong. Even cheesy in my head.”

She snuggled against me. “Well, you’re in luck because I just happen to like cheesy. And speaking of cheesy—I’ll split that last piece of pizza with you.”

“What about your sister?”

“She can find her own hottie to split pizza with.”

“Hottie, eh? I can live with that.”

Chapter Thirty

ELLA

The cottage had filled up with sisters, so Rhett and I drove to hiscursedmanor for some peace and quiet. We sat for an hour nibbling popcorn and musing about a giant chandelier falling from the ceiling in the middle of the front parlor. It was a terrible tragedy, but it was hard not to be somewhat entertained by such a wild and weird way to die.

I stretched my arms up over my head and yawned. Rhett had filled the hearth in the smaller parlor with a roaring fire, and we’d sat ourselves on the couch in front of the warmth. I rested my head against his shoulder. “This is the best way to spend a lazy afternoon.”

He took hold of my hand. The feathery ends of his scar poked out from his sleeve. I stared down at our clasped hands and rubbed my thumb over the ridges of the scar on the heel of his thumb. “Right after our mom died, Nonna used to tell us that catastrophes built character. She insisted the only way to grow in strength and integrity and humanity was to experience hardship. She’d grown up on a small farm in an Irish village. For the longest time her father, Sean, had been the most important man in the village. People came to him for help with their problems, whether it was mending a fishing net, solving an issuewith a herd of sheep or learning how to plant a certain crop. Maeve, that was Nonna’s name, was so proud of her father. She thought the world revolved around him and that he was the most invincible man in the world. He was walking in from the fields one day, where a lamb had gotten tangled up in fence wire. The rain was pouring down in sheets. Nonna was in the kitchen making stew with her mother, and the family was looking forward to a nice, hearty meal and some music afterward. Nonna glanced out the window and saw her dad walking through the inner gate. She waved and he waved back. She turned to pick up a carrot that had rolled on the floor. When she swung back to the sink to wash the carrot, she saw her dad clutch his chest and fall to his knees. He died three days later—a heart attack. She said she didn’t eat or sleep for days and stayed inside the house, not wanting to see the sadness on her neighbors’ faces. Six months later, a funny thing happened. The villagers started coming to her to solve problems. You see, Maeve had spent so much time with her dad, she’d learned everything. She was devastated by her loss, but she also took on a new role—most important woman in the village.”

“Great story,” Rhett said. “Made even greater by the storyteller.”

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