Саманта Сильвер - Lipstick On A Pig

“Angela!” the voice said. I turned and looked down to see the local real estate kingpin in town, Leanne Chu, looking up at me. Leanne was in her late forties, around four feet tall, with short black hair and a better sense for sales than anyone I’d ever met in my life.

“Oh, hi Leanne,” I said brightly. I’d never bought or sold any property, since my parents had left us the house we lived in when they died, but Leanne made sure she knew everyone in town just in case.

“Listen, your landlord is a client of mine, and I was going to start making this known after the festival ended, but the other party wants to move faster than that. The building your vet clinic is being leased from is being sold.”

“What?” I said, my mouth dropping open. Leanne nodded.

“Yes. My client was approached a few weeks ago by a man looking to add to his investment portfolio. He has decided to sell. Of course, this likely won’t make much of a difference to your business. Commercial real estate investment is very much a behind-the-scenes business. Most likely the only thing that will change is the number of the account you pay your rent into every month.”

“Let me guess,” I said darkly. “The man buying the property is named Matt Smith.”

Leanne nodded. “You have good information sources.”

I had run into Matt Smith—literally—a couple of months ago in this very coffee shop. He had tried to flirt with me, and I immediately wasn’t a fan. Call it witches’ intuition. Betty had told me he was one of those big hotshot real estate developers from Portland. Another one of those Donald Trump wannabes who saw Willow Bay and thought they could make their millions by buying up property here and modernizing it. Of course, people like that didn’t realize two things: first of all, the rustic charm of Willow Bay was half of what brought so many people here in the first place. And second, the people who lived here were very good at preserving the heart and soul of the town. Most of these investor types gave up pretty quickly on Willow Bay. I really hoped Matt Smith would be one of those. Unfortunately, it looked like he might be my new landlord.

“When is the deal supposed to happen?” I asked Leanne, a million thoughts running through my head.

“The negotiations are almost finished. I’d say they will give an offer that will be accepted within the next seventy-two hours, and then a few weeks for closing.”

Great. In a few weeks I was going to have some hotshot from Portland as my new landlord, instead of the kindly old man who had owned the building Healthy Paws’ Vet Clinic, and the small kitchenwares shop next to it, for over forty years.

“And you’re totally sure this deal is going to go through?” I asked. Leanne patted me kindly on the arm.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will change. You re-signed your lease last year, remember? You’ve got your current price locked in for at least six years.”

I nodded glumly as Betty called out Leanne’s name. She grabbed her coffee.

“I have to run. Don’t worry Angela, it won’t really mean much of a change for you.”

I wasn’t so much worried about me as I was worried about my town. We had soul. We had charm. And every time someone came in and tried to turn us into some modern-looking resort like in Hawaii, I worried. Tourism was all this town had; we had to make sure the soul stayed the same.

A minute later I grabbed my coffee, and left the shop, the conversation with Leanne leaving a sour taste in my mouth as I continued down the street toward the beach where most of the action was happening.

As I walked further down Main Street, the infectious happiness of the festival began to get to me, however, and I quickly put Matt Smith and his plan to modernize Willow Bay behind me. Hordes of children ran around in circles screaming and laughing, helium-filled balloons trailing behind them and tangling together. The aroma of grilling meat from the barbeques mingled with the smell of popcorn from the stalls selling their various foods. A man standing behind a wooden cart took money and made freshly-squeezed lemonade. A woman, next to him dressed like a clown scooped up fluffy cotton candy for excited kids.

I walked past all of them with my coffee, and made my way toward the beach. It was a gorgeous day for swimming and for surfing. The sun shone down on perfect waves—large, but evenly sized and spaced apart. The water wasn’t choppy at all. An announcer somewhere blasted out names from a loudspeaker, but the ambient noise around was so loud that I had no idea what was going on. I took off my shoes and left them in a quiet corner, hoping they wouldn’t disappear, and let the warm sand envelop my feet as I made my way closer to the edge of the water.

I shaded my eyes with my hand and watched a surfer manage to do a 360 on top of a wave. It was so impressive; these guys and girls could do things on their surfboards that I could barely manage to do on my own two feet on dry land. Suddenly, I felt someone wrapping their arms around my waist from behind.

Instantly, I began to panic. I was being attacked! I struggled, dropping my half-drunk coffee onto the ground and spilling it onto my foot. I let out a yelp as I leapt backward and threw my elbow back into whoever was assaulting me. I heard a grunt behind me as the hands let go, and I spun around angrily to see who it was.

What I saw was Jason, looking as sexy as always, laughing while holding his shoulder, which was evidently where my elbow had gotten him.

“Oh my God!” I said, completely mortified. “Jason, I’m so sorry!” I ran over to him, my hand covering my mouth. I really hoped I hadn’t hurt him too badly.

“I came over here to surprise you, but it looks like I’m the one who got a surprise,” Jason laughed, his eyes twinkling. Thank goodness he wasn’t mad.

“I didn’t realize it was you! I thought someone was attacking me!” Oh boy. I felt like the least sexy person in the world right then. I knew some people around were watching us, amused, but I forced myself to put them out of my head. Had it really been so long since I’d had a romantic relationship that the instant someone put their arm around me my instinct was to hit them? Great.

“Well, I’m glad to know my girl can defend herself, at least,” he replied, rolling his shoulder in the joint a few times. “Sorry about your coffee.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. My face was beet red. I couldn’t believe my boyfriend had come up to be all romantic and nice and I’d attacked him.

“Rule number one to dating Angela Martin: always approach her from the front,” Jason said. “You know, I think that’s what they tell you to do with cheetahs and grizzly bears, too.”

My face flushed an even deeper red. “I thought we weren’t meeting until this afternoon,” I said lamely. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you.”

Jason grinned. “Well, there isn’t too much going on today compared to the other days, so when I saw you coming onto the beach I figured I’d come and surprise you.”

“Well, you succeeded at that,” I replied.

“I noticed.”

“You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?” I asked, and Jason shook his head, a smile still beaming across his face.

“Nope!”

“What if I bribe you? Maybe buy you a lemonade and some popcorn?” I asked, fluttering my eyelashes, trying to make up for the decidedly un-romantic way I’d reacted to my boyfriend’s greeting.

“That’ll certainly help,” Jason replied, and we made our way toward the stalls. On the way I told him about my conversation with Leanne. Jason’s face darkened.

“I’m not surprised. I’ve been hearing from a few people, apparently he has more than one deal in the works.”