A Design to Die For (A Hamptons Home & Garden Mystery Book 5) by Kathleen Bridge

Author:Kathleen Bridge
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Beyond The Page
Published: 2020-07-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

It seemed very irresponsible that I hadn’t run up to my cottage to get my phone. I’d been too giddy from the fact that I would finally see the interior of Patrick’s cottage. On my nightly beach strolls, I couldn’t count all the times I’d looked up and pictured him sitting at a desk behind the lamp with the green-glass lampshade that glowed like a beacon in the twilight, while woodsmoke rose from his stone chimney, mixing with the salty evening air. Or other times, when there was only a faint glow in the front downstairs window, and I imagined him in front of a cozy fire, reading a worn book of classical poetry by Keats or Lord Byron—or some other dead or live poet.

I even knew how many wooden steps there were leading up to his cottage. Twenty-eight.

Did that make me a stalker?

Maybe.

“Grab my hand,” Patrick shouted over the gale-force wind coming from the north. It whistled in and out of my hearing aids like the sound you got when holding a conch shell to your ear, only amplified by a hundred. I extended my arm, and when his hand grasped mine, it sent shock waves up my spine.

We walked west toward his cottage, and even when boulders turned to rocks, then small stones, and finally pure white sand, he still held tight to my hand.

I wasn’t complaining.

Had I stepped onto the pages of a Nicholas Sparks book? All the components were there—two lonely people who meet by chance, one with a tragic past, one deceived by the person she loved, or thought she loved. Then throw in a romantic setting like the tremulous, whitecapped Atlantic to our left and there you had it—a possible recipe for disaster, especially if Patrick was already in a relationship with his publicist, Ashley.

When we passed the bluff where at one time my old four-room rental cottage stood, I paused.

“Sad, isn’t it,” Patrick said, following my gaze.

“Extremely,” I answered. A huge modern beach house in the last stages of construction had replaced my former rental. After I’d fled Manhattan and a cheating fiancé, the tiny cottage had been my refuge and safe port in the storm. There it was again. A cheating male. But in all fairness, Cole and I had already broken up before he’d left for Portugal. But as my father always told me, if there’s even a wisp of smoke, you can be sure a flame will follow. My father had been referring to one of his murder cases, but I was sure his maxim could also be a reference to my love life. Cheated on once, shame on them. Cheated on twice, shame on me.

We continued on, passing in front of the nature preserve, where I’d first found Patrick’s writing in the sand. Charlie waited for us at the bottom of Patrick’s steps, yelping a few short barks to hurry us along.

When we reached Charlie, Patrick let go of my hand and patted the dog on top of her pale gray head.

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