“Ah, no, actually. Well, maybe.” He cleared his throat. “What I mean is, I’m here to see one of your employees. Noelle Meyer.”
Her brows moved slightly, but her smile remained. “Noelle? Oh. Sure. Let me call her and tell her you’re here. Your name?”
He hesitated, worried that she’d decline to see him. It was why he’d taken a flight here to South Carolina after he’d made the effort to locate her and find where she’d been living for the last seven years. He tried to convince himself it wasn’t overkill that he hadn’t just called her. He tried to convince himself that once he’d gotten it in his head to see her, he simply couldn’t shrug off the yearning. The slight desperation he felt wasn’t the same as it’d been. It was merely a want now. The need to see her. To make sure she was doing well. To reconnect in some small way, even if that simply meant getting some closure. But he couldn’t force her to see him, even if it had taken him half a day to get here. “Evan Sinclair,” he said.
The woman nodded, picking up the phone and dialing. After a minute, she set it down. “I’m sorry, she’s not answering. She’s probably making the evening rounds to the cottages and should be done in an hour or so. Do you want to wait?” She gestured to a small grouping of red upholstered furniture to her right.
He was far too antsy for that. “I think I’ll take a walk to the shore and come back.”
“Sure.”
Evan left the house, descended the steps, and turned toward the shaded path, where he saw the side of a smaller building around the main house. The cottages? According to the website, there were ten cottages of various sizes and guest capacity, stretching out behind the main house, where the owner of the property still lived, a Mrs. Chantilly Calhoun.
Instead of heading to the shore, he took the path that led around the house, passing a sign that said COQUINA and had an arrow pointing toward a quaint bungalow that he could partially see through the foliage. Several paths lay before him, and he stopped, simply curious about the layout of the property.
He heard a little girl’s voice saying something excitedly and then the sound of a woman responding. The child laughed, and then he heard the scamper of little feet as she ran down one of the paths nearby, her white dress flashing through the trees and bushes as she passed him.
Lured by the sound of that second voice, Evan moved through the trees, another larger cottage rising on his right. There were towels flung over the railing of that one and sand toys sitting on the porch. What a beautiful, serene place. Each of the cottages was tucked away among trees and foliage just off the meandering main path that he assumed stretched quite a way back.
He rounded a flowering bush, lush with pink blossoms, stopping as his heart rose in his throat and then dropped quickly. Noelle.
She was standing next to a cart with a long pull handle, jotting something on a small pad of paper. Evan stared. She was her but . . . a different person entirely. Her hair was swept up in a high ponytail; tendrils glinting with caramel had fallen out, framing her face and trailing over her neck. She was wearing a similar outfit to the woman who’d greeted him at the front desk, a white gauzy blouse and navy-blue shorts with white tennis shoes. Her skin was golden, cheeks flushed with the heat of the day, and a small smile curved her lips before she finished writing and stuck the pad and pencil in her pocket.
He couldn’t speak. He was incapable of even moving.
She began to reach for the handle of the cart but stopped, her brow dipping right before she turned toward him, as though she’d sensed his presence.
She froze, eyes widening as they stared at each other across the span of space.
“Evan?” she breathed.
He stepped from the shade of the foliage, the sunlight falling over him as he moved toward her. “Hi,” he said when he’d almost reached her.
Hi. What a stupid word. It didn’t encompass even one of the hundred emotions he was feeling in that moment. She gave her head a slight shake, as though she didn’t believe her own eyes, and when he’d made it to where she stood, she blinked before asking, “How . . . what are you doing here?”
“It’s nice to see you.” Better, but still woefully inadequate.
She let out a breath. “It’s nice to see you too. It’s just . . . unexpected. Wow. I . . .” She glanced back over her shoulder. “I . . . wow.”
Hi. Wow. He almost laughed. Almost.
“I know you’re working,” he said. “And I’m sorry just to show up like this, but I’m here for a reason.” He shifted awkwardly. God, this was weird. And after all these years. Without a phone call.