Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📕

a game of Can You Spot the Difference? A dark shape in the water swans away from the kraken.

Is that a sea snake?

The Loch Ness Monster, he says. She’s real and she’s out there.

I’m about to respond when I get a grip on myself and turn off my phone before temptation destroys the shred of self-control I’m clinging to. Distance. Space. Eyes on the prize. If I want to ward off a crush, it’s the only way.

I’m not so strong that I don’t duck into the ballroom a few hours later and paint a small island in the lagoon, complete with a palm tree and a tiny man laying out for a tan. When I check it again on Thursday, Wesley’s given the tiny man sunglasses and a sunburned nose. I also find two miniature people, a man on board the kraken-caged Felled Star and a woman waving a handkerchief at him from the deck of My May Belle.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •

I STRAIN TO IGNORE the mural all day Thursday, but on Friday I’m swept away by a marathon of Hallmark movies and it punctures a hole in my already flimsy self-discipline. I take pity on the pirate, about to be sent to the ocean floor courtesy of an enormous sea monster. My May Belle throws a life preserver out. I dot all the trees with tiny silver stars, even the palms.

Wesley notices immediately, adding ornaments and lights. We take turns sneaking into the ballroom to add more and more, until it doesn’t resemble your average waterfall-lagoon mural so much as Neverland. I have a sickness. I’m communicating with Wesley more now than I was when we were verbally talking.

We’ve both fully moved into the manor, he into my old bedroom and me right below in a guest room. I hear his footsteps above at night as he paces out of his room down the hall, then it falls quiet, then he’s pacing again. I can’t fall asleep until he’s completely still, not because the noise bothers me but because I get caught up in visualizing him, wondering what he’s doing, what he’s thinking about.

He texts on Friday night. Want to head out at 9 am tomorrow? Or 10, if 9 is too early?

This is the part where I should cancel the treasure hunt, apologies to Aunt Violet. She’ll understand if we don’t carry out this wish.

I reply: All packed and ready to go at 8:30. Just filling some virtual shopping carts with all the decorative rugs I’m going to buy with the solid gold bars you’re digging up tomorrow!

I’m about to turn off my phone, to be on the safe side, but he responds swiftly. My brother Casey built my landscaping website, and he’s making one for my animal sanctuary. He offered to make a website for the hotel if you want. Unless you’ve changed your mind and realized a hotel would be awful.

I sit up so fast that if there were water in this claw-foot tub I’m lounging fully clothed in, it would have gone sloshing all over the ballroom floor.

He’s told his brother about my hotel. His brother knows I exist. I wonder if Casey is the one who got married in that black-and-white photo of Wesley in a tuxedo, but I can’t pose this question without Wesley pressing the sensitive topic of my having seen that photo in the first place.

That would be fantastic!!! I say. What are his rates?

He replies so quickly, he had to have had the response typed up and ready to send. I’ve identified the font they used in your postcard as Fanal, in case you wanted to use it in brochures or advertising. Thought maybe you’d be interested, since you like the postcard so much. I tried my best to color-match the house. If you want to imitate sunset, we’ll need a few different colors. These ones are the closest match I could find. What do you think? He includes links to three shades of paint—Bermuda Breeze, Raspberry Mousse, and Oxford Gold.

Neither of the pinks he’s chosen is quite identical to the hotel in the postcard, but my heart has taken too many arrows for me to dream of doing anything other than enthusiastically agreeing. He went to the trouble of researching the font. Color-matching the house. This surly giant buttoned up in ten thousand buttons, who likes plants more than people, is going to paint his house pink because a woman he’s only known for a month mistakenly thought Falling Stars was supposed to be that color.

“You don’t like it?”

I jerk my head. Wesley’s in the ballroom.

I grip the sides of the bathtub and steel my spine, praying I don’t look anything close to how I feel. “Huh?”

“You didn’t reply.”

I glance at my phone. The time stamp on his message shows he sent it fourteen minutes ago. I’ve been staring moonily into space for fourteen minutes.

“Sorry, I got distracted. Those shades are perfect, thank you. And thanks for looking up the font, too. That’s a good idea, going old-fashioned nostalgia for advertising. Playing up the historical . . . ness.” My voice is squeaky, words rushed.

Lying in a bathtub in the middle of the room feels a great deal different when I’ve got a man towering above me. He tilts his head as he analyzes me, gesture revving my pulse. “What?” I ask lowly, nervous. Wesley’s gaze sweeps over me: my knees are bent, heels propped up on the lip of the tub. My sundress has slid down to midthigh, and while I wouldn’t think twice about showing this amount of leg on any ordinary day, the position I’m in leaves me feeling exposed as well as uncharacteristically lewd.

His lips press together. I used to think that was a sign of annoyance, but now I’m not so sure.

I cross my legs in a stab at modesty, but the action makes my hem slip down even farther and I hurriedly smooth the material back up my legs. Wesley revolves to face the wall, rubbing his