One of These Nights by Kendra Leigh Castle

last part.”
    â€œDo you want me to beat you with my purse? This isn’t real. I’m not sleeping with Treebeard!”
    â€œDoesn’t mean you can’t appreciate the view,” Sam pointed out. “And don’t even pretend you haven’t noticed it’s a nice one. I’ve seen you looking after he’s stomped out of here.”
    Zoe rolled her eyes. “I’m not
blind
. Hey, call me if Marlis Pritchard comes in, will you? I had a talk with Aaron about doing a commission for her, and he had some questions.”
    â€œYou want me to just have her call him directly?”
    â€œNo, not until she figures out he doesn’t bite.”
    Sam laughed softly. “Oh, you want me to lie to her, then.”
    â€œYes, please. He’s domesticated now, remember? He hardly ever bites at all anymore.” Which reminded her, she was going to owe him a phone call tonight as well. Aaron and Sam were about the only people she went out of her way to sit down and gossip with on a regular basis, and they all checked up on one another. Not that he was needing to be checked on quite as much lately, since he’d gotten awfully cozy with Ryan Weston, one of Jake’s friends.
    She was happy for him and just a little sad for herself. She’d aspired to be many things in Harvest Cove, but “third wheel” wasn’t one of them. And the two men were, as Aaron loved to point out when they were all together, disgustingly adorable. Though Ryan was as apt to roll his eyes over that description as she was.
    â€œHardly ever isn’t never,” Sam said. “And he and Marlis are like oil and water.”
    â€œJust have her call me,” Zoe said. “I’m sure I can take time out from . . . whatever.”
    â€œI want a full report on the whatever.” Sam’s smile was more than a little evil.
    â€œMaybe there won’t be anything to report.”
    â€œMaybe. She might have mellowed,” Sam agreed. She didn’t look any more convinced than Zoe felt, however, and Zoe wondered, not for the first time, whether she’d finally managed to bite off more than she could chew. Only time would tell.
    Sam struck a reasonable facsimile of a kung-fu fighting stance, and Zoe knew that was her cue to get going. “Okay, okay. I’m leaving.” She walked out into a September day just shy of being crisp, with the sun just breaking through the clouds. It was beginning to feel like fall in earnest now. The wild storm they’d had, the one that Jason had been caught in, seemed to have been summer’s last hurrah. Temps had been on a downward swing ever since, and it looked like there would be a definite nip in the air by the end of the coming week.
    Zoe welcomed it, just as she did every year since she’d come to Harvest Cove. She was into her fourth year here, having chased a dream all the way from a little town in Georgia. Her parents still doubted her sanity, but this was the time of year, every year, when she was sure she’d made the right decision.
    She took a deep breath, loving the way the air was scented with cooling earth, turning leaves, and ocean—here, you could always smell the ocean. Then she headed down the short path that led through a knee-high wrought-iron fence to the sidewalk, hanging a right to where her car was waiting. As Zoe pulled out her key chain to unlock the navy blue and white Mini crossover she’d bought herself as a present last year, she turned her head to look down Hawthorne toward where it became the Cove’s historic square. She’d opened the gallery on a day a lot like this, she realized. That day, the world had seemed full of possibility, her future like a flower with petals only just beginning to unfurl.
    That was when she realized why she was thinking of that first day. The feeling of possibility, or life just waiting to happen, was in the air again. And this time, instead of