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of her. Registering her now, when she looks as limp as an old boutonniere, seems almost cruel.” He swept his gaze back to Lexi and smiled. “The lady at the town office told me you’ve just come back from grad school—London, was it?”
    “Yes, the Royal Academy. And someone told me you’re a writer.”
    Someone
. Lexi felt foolish saying it that way. Like she’d heard it on the playground.
    “I am.” He grinned, deep dimples sinking into his cheeks. “All those years of coming to the dinner table with my face buried in a book and driving my mother nuts finally paid off.”
    Lexi smiled, searching his gaze for evidence of what he remembered from the last time they’d seen each other, but he gave no clues to any discomfort or regret, just a warm and steady interest. She chastised herself for thinking he’d given their kiss a second thought. All the kisses that had surely decorated his memory in the years since that night. Who was she kidding to imagine theirs had stood the test of time?
    Relief settled over her, burying a flicker of disappointment she chose to ignore.
    Cooper gestured to the house. “Why don’t we get started?”
    •   •   •
    O f all the times Lexi had entered the cottage, she could count on one hand the times she
hadn’t
come through the kitchen. At first she’d been so sure her direction to the service door was to minimize her presence on the property; then in time she’d come to think it was more because Hudson was always ravenous, but eventually Lexi came to see that the real reason was Florence. Hudson and Cooper’s rigid mother was notorious for her decree that all guests under the age of twenty-four—who, in her opinion, had a preternatural inclination for slamming doors—use the service entrance exclusively.
    “After you.” At the door, Cooper stepped back to let her enter first. All at once, the familiar smell of old wood baking in a relentless summer sun filled her lungs. She took in the space, the empty stretches of stainless steel, the wall of tall cabinets, the breakfast booth built into the window. Sunlight trickled in. If memory served her, by eleven the linoleum would be burnished gold, and nearly as hot underfoot as beach sand.
    “I wish I had something to offer you,” Cooper said as they walked by the counter. “I got in too late to go to the store. I don’t even have any coffee.”
    “That’s fine; I’ve had plenty.” Lexi followed him past the nook of the butler’s pantry, the dry, musty scent of old shelf paper tickling her throat, reminding her of stolen moments with Hudson there. His lust had been reckless and immediate, as unpredictable as heat lightning. She never knew when he’d pull her behind a door, or press her against a wall or a shaggy-barked tree. It had excited her beyond words.
    Stepping now through the doorway and into the great room at last, Lexi took in a sharp breath. She had wondered whether the enormous space might lose some of its majesty without any furnishings, without its plush Oriental carpets, its fat leather couches, its standing lamps. It hadn’t. Her eyes lifted to the vaulted ceiling, resting a while at the peak where the massive beams intersected before her gaze drifted to the room’s huge stone fireplace. Behind them, a stretch of windows with stained-glass bays in their upper sashes offered an impressive view of the lawn and the water beyond it.
    “How soon are you putting it on the market?” Lexi asked.
    “That depends,” said Cooper. “I’m hoping we can take our time. I’d like one more summer here.”
    Lexi glanced around the empty room. “You’re
staying
here?”
    He smiled. “It’s not as grim as it sounds. Everything still works. And a few of the guest bedrooms have mattresses. And just between you and me,” he confessed as he walked over to the fireplace, “I’m overdue to deliver a manuscript to my editor. I thought this might be the perfect place to hunker down and just get it done.” He