Lady's Man Read Free Page A

the cracked and sprouting roadway, but not the shoreline.
    She watched two children hurry behind their parents, hopping along the hot sand and tried to imagine her grandmother as a carefree child on the beach, but couldn’t quite reconcile that image with the grown-up woman who had given up so much of her life to care for her only grandchild … especially when her own son refused to do his part.
    “Do as I say,” her grandmother would insist. “Not as I do.”
    Annie sucked in a breath and walked away, setting the curtain free to dance in the breeze. She couldn’t wait to feel actual sand between her toes—not the sort you bought from Home Depot in bags for some kid’s designer sandbox, but honest-to-goodness beach sand, warmed by the sun and bleached by the sea.
    With Lady still at her heels, she made her way to the back deck to survey the vista. Off to the right, beyond the saltwater marshes, she spotted a Lighthouse. Although she couldn’t actually see the channel it guarded, or the salt marsh itself, she knew it was there. She didn’t need Lady’s keen sense of smell to scent water all around her. They were literally surrounded by it, from the Atlantic to the Folly River. On Google maps, Folly Beach appeared nothing more than a spit of sand attached by filaments of earth and it was easy to see why it was hailed as the Edge of America—both geographically and culturally. Crossing the bridge into Folly, you immediately shaved off fifty years of progress. Center Street, the single commercial strip in town, consisted of one and two story buildings that reminded Annie of postcards from 1950s America.
    Her grandmother had truly loved this place and up until the day she died, she’d had stories to tell of her childhood on Folly. It was high time Annie saw it all for herself … before all Gram’s stories faded away—like the river apparently had.
    Nipping at the inside of her lip, Annie contemplating the waterway that didn’t appear to be.
    According to the map, she knew the Folly River was supposed to be right there but at the back end of the yard, alongside a weathered dock, a small boat sat anchored, nearly grounded by the low tide.
    She couldn’t imagine throwing her grandmother into that trickle of water and just letting her float there in the muck.
    That was a potential problem.
    Considering the necessity of a Plan B, she made her way back inside, took off her shoes and placed them side by side at the foot of her bed. Uncertain whether to unpack before Mr. Heywood returned, she grabbed one of the books she’d brought and settled into one of the deep, comfy chairs on the landing to wait.
    Lady sat dutifully at her feet and Annie opened her book with a contented sigh and began to read while she massaged Lady’s back with her bare toes.
    She was thirty-two pages into her book with her dog stretched out at her feet when Mr. Heywood returned. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she heard the knock below but the sound didn’t register until he was already climbing the stairs.
    Damn. She’d forgotten to lock the door.
    “Hello?”
    A dirty blond head emerged above the landing.
    The weight of Annie’s feet prevented Lady from rising to greet him, but her golden head shot up.
    James Heywood’s brows rose as he eyed Lady and belatedly, Annie realized it probably appeared she was using her dog as a footstool—and so she was—sort of. Embarrassed, she slid her feet off Lady’s back and Lady jumped up to greet him, tail wagging furiously.
    “She doesn’t usually take to strangers so well,” Annie said, eyeing her dog with a bit of annoyance. She slumped down further into her chair and mentally sent out roots. If she had anything at all to say about any of this, she wasn’t budging from this chair or from this house.
    He winked at her, a playful gesture that seemed to come far too easily to him. “Technically, we’re no longer strangers,” he pointed out. “It’s not just any dog who gets to see me in