Shake Down by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

Author:Jill Elizabeth Nelson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

TEN

Janice struggled up the steep ascent from the beach toward the front yard of her property. It had been two weeks now since Shane and she had begun switching places at night, and she was still breathing harder from the uphill effort than she would have liked. Since her brief stint in the hospital a couple of months ago, recuperating from the attack in Denver, she hadn’t found time or energy to go to the gym. Then she received notice about the inheritance and jumped at the chance to get away for a while.

Maybe she should change her mind and look into a fitness club in the area. Her arm was better. A reinforced soft cast now encased her wrist and hand with a Velcro closure. But she still didn’t trust her arm strength to ride a bike, and she was precious little good to Shane in the renovation work. Then again, she could continue to settle for the exercise of long walks along the beach with Atlas. She and Shane were taking turns keeping him overnight. At least the dog was better company than Mr. Grumpy.

What had gotten into Shane? Didn’t he like the cessation of funky incidents? Since the freakish scare-tactic at the window of the cabin, the past couple of weeks had gone smoothly. Well, except for the persistent delay in the arrival of those plumbing parts. Hopefully, that happy event would occur this morning when the ferry docked from the mainland.

At last Janice reached the top of the ridge and stopped to let her heart rate slow while she contemplated the cottage. Except for the new porch, the outside showed little progress for two weeks of work. Shane had kept the sparse lawn around the cottage mowed with a rented push mower, but that was about it. The clapboard siding cried out for paint, but all in good time.

At least the exterior was more presentable than the mess happening on the inside from the activities of the plumber and the electrician. Even though the power worked throughout the building, the wiring and outlets were old and needed to be brought up to current code to satisfy the type of moneyed buyer Janice wanted to attract.

Ultimately she’d had to postpone refinishing the freshly buffed floors until after the professionals were done creating dust. But Shane had swept the chimney and then ripped out those hideous countertops in the kitchen.

Now the two of them made their noontime sandwiches on a card table brought over from his place and ate them perched in two of a foursome of folding chairs on the new porch, watching the ceaseless movement of the ocean. Ships and boats of all sizes and shapes regularly passed beneath their viewpoint, and the gulls wheeled and squawked in the pale blue sky. The weather had been gorgeous these past weeks, except for the storm cloud that constantly shadowed Shane’s expression.

Maybe he was put out that he was still sleeping on the blow-up mattress and

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