Page 7 of Goalie and the Girl Next Door (Love in Maple Falls #5)

MARCY

I clutch my coffee mug like it’s the only thing tethering me to the earth. I’ve spent the entire day combing through old documents, physical and electronic, looking for some kind of solution for Maple Falls.

My back has fused with the chair. I’ve started talking to my highlighters like they’re coworkers and I’m nearly cross-eyed, so a moment gazing at the horizon does me good.

I didn’t expect to love this place when I first arrived. Now I can’t imagine leaving.

Scotty’s in the barn. I hear him hammering, then there’s some kind of metal clang followed by a long goat bleat.

Angel and the kids emerge from the ranch house that is across a field from my cabin.

When I first moved in, I paid a minimal rent in exchange for occasional babysitting of her and Scotty’s kids.

Back then, Lisette was just a dream. Andy and Lily were twelve years old, and already were far more responsible, worldly, and polite than most kids their age.

They watch over their little sister like guardians .

They’ve matured into great teenagers, the kinds of kids you’re thankful will one day take over the world. Though they do love the occasional practical joke.

This is exactly why I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours buried in Washington state property laws.

If I can prove that MacDonald’s legal claim violates the town’s comprehensive planning process, or if I can document even one undisclosed transfer in the last twenty years that conflicts with Maple Falls’ zoning protections, I might be able to freeze his filings. Even temporarily.

That might be enough for the mayor to get things back on track, especially with Ashlyn at his side. She seems like a woman who gets things done. I like her already.

I drain my mug and wince. Cold. Time to reheat, re-caffeinate, and settle back in at my desk to continue.

Just as I hit enter on a search for RCW 84.40.040 unexplained land acquisition loopholes , the screen gives me the buffering swirl of death.

Then everything but my laptop screen goes dark.

I sit in the sudden silence and jab the switch on my desk lamp. Nothing. I unplug and replug like an optimistic maniac. Still nothing.

From the barn, I hear Scotty yell, “Did Edgar chew the breaker again?”

Of course he did.

“That’s it, we’re going old school,” I say to no one and go rummaging in the kitchen for the candlesticks I keep for these situations.

The binders from the town hall archives have been waiting on my nightstand for this very moment.

Time is ticking if we’re going to stop Maple Falls from becoming an outlet mall.

I’m hunched over a binder whose label says Maple Falls Historical Property Registry, 1980–2001 , and the handwriting is so bad I initially read it as Historical Prophecy Register .

My eyes are twitching from squinting. The desk feels too low and the candle too high, and I think I inhaled a paperclip during a yawn.

But then I see it. On page 117, jammed between a permit for a 1986 miniature golf expansion and an order form for twenty-two commemorative ashtrays.

The clause.

An easement clause so specific, so technical, so mind-blowingly obscure, it might actually be the silver bullet to get Jeremy Hunt off our back.

It references a change in ownership filing that predates the real estate bundling process and puts a non-commercial use cap on the parcel MacDonald is trying to claim.

My heart stutters. I reread it three times.

Oh. My. Spreadsheet. This is it, this is the thing.

I lurch upright so fast I knock over the candle…

Which lands on my skirt.

My pencil skirt—rayon-poly blend, because breathable fabric shouldn’t cost my entire paycheck—curls and singes like a marshmallow that got too close to the campfire.

“NOPE, NOPE, NOPE!”

I grab my cold coffee mug and throw it directly at my thigh. The singe dies in a pathetic hiss and a puff of steam. My leg is soaked. My skirt is part melted and smells like barbecued office supplies.

But I’m fine . I have the clause. And I have to get to Ashlyn Thompkins as fast as possible.

Slipping into my nearest shoes—which technically are running sneakers from the time I thought I might exercise, but we’re not being picky—I bolt out the door like the building’s on fire. Thankfully, it’s not .

I’m hooting. A real, unfiltered woot.

“YES! ACCOUNTANCY, BABY!”

I jog down the gravel driveway, binder under one arm, coat half-on, one sleeve flapping in the breeze.

Scotty sees me from the barn and freezes, screwdriver in hand. Angel joins him.

“Marcy? Did you hit your head in the dark?”

“No,” I gasp, grinning like I’ve finally cracked the universe. “I won ! I found it! I found the…” It’s a secret, Marcy . “The thing I needed!”

He blinks. “What’s wrong with your skirt?”

“It’s fine! I’m fine! Everything is fine! ” I yell, flipping the binder up like a trophy. “Zoning loopholes and tax code to the rescue! ”

Scotty looks to Angel for help. She just shrugs. “Let her have this one.”

I keep jogging, powered by adrenaline and sheer nerdiness. I’ve completely forgotten that I hate running. I hit the edge of town before my lungs remember I’m not a triathlete.

I double over, hands on knees, gasping.

My thighs are burning. My binder is heavy. My skirt is singed up one side, coffee-soaked, and sticking to my leg in a way I don’t want to think too hard about.

But I’m grinning like a lunatic. Because this time I get to be the hero.

I’m halfway through mentally composing my acceptance speech for “Best Use of RCW in a Crisis” when I look up and see a light.

It’s in the window of the supposedly abandoned house at the edge of town. The one with the warped porch and the reputation for drafty ghosts and aggressive squirrels. Someone’s in there. Standing on a ladder. Moving.

A ghost ?

I blink once. Twice. Nope. Still there.

The glare of the nearby streetlight makes it hard to see clearly, but I squint through the afterimages. My eyes adjust.

And then I freeze.

It’s him.

Clément Rivière. Consummate Frenchman, human distraction, and apparently shirt-optional contractor.

He’s balancing one foot on a rung of a ladder like gravity is merely a suggestion. A hammer hangs from one hand. The other is braced on the window frame, backlit by a crooked pendant light he’s clearly just installed.

He has stubble now.

And his chest— okay , not that I’m looking, but hypothetically if I were —is glistening in a way that should not be allowed outside of a streaming romance adaptation. Everything about him forms a perfect V from his shoulders down to the waistband of his sweatpants.

I am still panting from my victorious run and my lungs are staging a coup.

And he’s looking right at me.

He cocks his head slightly. Then he raises a hand and makes a small gesture, pointing at himself and then at me. His meaning is clear.

Want me to come out there?

That’s what he says with his gesture, but also with his eyes and his stupid cheekbones and his absolutely criminal abs.

I lift my hand and wave like I’m the picture of nonchalance and a dignified businesswoman. Like I didn’t just sprint from home, using up all the oxygen in my body.

My body picks that exact moment to cramp.

A lightning bolt of pain arcs through my side, and I double over again with a choked noise that is not the sound of a dignified anything .

“Ahh-hehh–nnnope,” I mutter to myself, but when I look up, he is gone from the window.

Then I hear the front door slam open. He’s running. Full sprint with bare chest and long legs.

“Oh, no. No no no—don’t you dare go neighborly on me now,” I whisper. “I’m fine,” I call, gasping a little.

He doesn’t look convinced. “You’re folded like a lawn chair.”

“I just—it’s a cramp,” I say through clenched teeth. “Not the end of the world. It’s probably gratitude-related. High emotional output. Heroic adrenaline. Classic stuff.”

“You should come inside,” he says, gesturing toward the house behind him.

“I don’t go into strangers’ homes.”

I try to straighten, but my side chooses that exact moment to stab me like I just insulted its mother. I double over again with a wheeze.

“ Mince, ” Clément mutters, already scanning the street like he expects paparazzi or wild dogs. “Okay. No. You’re done.”

“What are you?—”

Before I can finish, he sweeps me up. I’m suddenly in his arms, binder jostling against my ribs and coffee-soggy skirt clinging to my leg.

“I can walk,” I protest, which is a lie, and we both know it.

“You were mostly horizontal,” he says.

“I—this is—completely unnecessary.”

He tightens his grip, warm and careful. “And yet, here we are.”

It’s surreal. He’s surprisingly gentle for a man made mostly of forearms and pectoral muscles. I should be fighting harder, but his arms are strong, and I can smell cedar and whatever soap makes French men smell like a concept instead of a person .

“What happened?” he asks, stepping through the doorway like he carries strange women in distress across thresholds every day.

“I ran.”

“You ran,” he repeats.

“Yes. For a cause.”

“Like a 10k for charity?”

I try to keep my head upright. “No, for the mayor.”

“Ah. And I get the sense that running isn’t something you do often.” He gestures to my pristine running shoes.

I don’t know why I’m suddenly self-conscious. “I run approximately never. Except when Edgar steals my paperwork.”

“Edgar sounds like a jerk,” he says.

“He’s a goat.”

A beat passes. “A paperwork stealing goat?”

“You have no idea,” I add.

He huffs and it sounds dangerously close to a laugh. “Okay. If you never run, and now you’ve sprinted across town, you might’ve strained your obliques or popped a muscle fascia—all non-life-threatening but extremely unwise.”

“Unwise sounds about right.”

He carries me into what I think used to be a foyer, but currently looks more like a construction-themed escape room. One wall is missing. The ceiling has exposed insulation hanging down like damp cotton candy. The floor creaks underfoot in a way that inspires no confidence.

There are tools everywhere. Drop cloths. A saw. A half-eaten protein bar balanced on a level.

And in the center of it all: one solitary folding chair.

He lowers me into it like it’s a throne.

“Home sweet home?” I ask, trying not to look directly at his chest. Which is glowing. Gleaming, actually. There’s a streak of sawdust across one pectoral like someone whittled him for a very niche calendar.

“Do you live here?” I was aiming for “casual and unimpressed,” but landed squarely in “mildly confused.”

He opens his mouth to answer and our eyes lock. For longer than is socially acceptable. I cannot tear myself away, and it seems he can’t either.

Time is suspended as we look deep into each other, the intimacy of it getting to be too much. I pull myself away as heat crawls up my neck and my eyes land right in the middle of his perfectly sculpted abs.

He follows my gaze and his face goes red.

Red.

He grabs a wrinkled T-shirt from a sawhorse and yanks it on in one smooth, mortified motion. “Sorry. I was just working.”

“I see that,” I say quickly, now the one blushing. “You’re very efficient.”

“Right. Merci .” He clears his throat. “For noticing. I mean, not for—uh?—”

“I wasn’t noticing.”

“You were absolutely not.”

We both nod. Silence.

Then, at the same time:

“So, what were you doing running?—”

“How long have you had this place?”

We look at each other.

“I was working,” I say, gripping the binder like a flotation device. “Research. I discovered… I mean… I was running because it was important. Not because I enjoy exercise.”

He laughs softly. “Good to know. I’ll cancel the marathon I was planning for us. ”

I narrow my eyes, but it’s half-hearted. My cramp is easing. The heat in my face is not.

“This chair is not structurally sound,” I note.

“Neither is the ceiling,” he says. “So, you know. Equal risk.”

I allow myself a small smile. Just one. Then I take a breath and ask, “Do you always rescue collapsing women on your construction site, or is this a special thing?”

He shrugs. “Depends. Do you always show up smelling like coffee and victory, or is that seasonal?”

And just like that, I’m smiling again. I wish I weren’t.

“I thought this place was empty,” I say, “and I thought it was a shame. A place like this has good bones.”

“I know, right?” He lights up. “I just bought it, the first thing I did when I landed from Paris. I need the permit to continue the major works, but in the meantime I’m enjoying learning bricolage . I think you call it DIY.” He holds up his hands where there are at least six band-aids.

“You quit Paris for Maple Falls, of all places?” I shrug. “I mean, you’re not wrong. This town is wonderful. That’s why I’m…” Trying to save it. Secret, Marcy. Secret. “That’s why I stayed.”

He scratches the back of his head, showing off a perfectly formed giant bicep. One that had held me just a few moments ago. “When the offer came, it seemed too good to refuse. I’d always wanted to join a newly created team…”

I nearly choke on air.

No. He didn’t just say “team.”

“And small town America has been on my bucket list since I learned English in primary school, so…”

Not a hockey player. Anything but a hockey player.

“So,” I cross my fingers, hoping he doesn’t see. “You mean you joined the Maple Fest organizing team, right? ”

Let it be that he’s responsible for procuring pies and syrup and extra-large bundles of hay.

“Maple Fest? What’s that? No, I’m the goalie for?—”

Noooooooo…

“The Ice Breakers.”