Haven Creek by Rochelle Alers Read Free Book Online

didn’t want to talk about herself because it conjured up the memories she’d locked away in the farthest recesses of her mind. She wanted to know more about Nate. He’d come back to Haven Creek around Thanksgiving and had kept to himself. When she and Francine went on their early morning bike rides, they rode past the structure that had housed Shaw Woodworking for nearly a century. When she did see Nate, he was working on the roof of the barn, which was still under construction.
    “If you weren’t running away from Cavanaugh Island, then why didn’t you come back?” Morgan knew she’d caught him off guard with her query when she heard his intake of breath.
    The seconds ticked by, and after a full minute Nate said, “At that time in my life, living in California suited my temperament.”
    “Now that you’re back, do you plan to stay?”
    Pulling his hands from his pockets, Nate folded his arms over his chest. “What’s this all about, Morgan? Why all the questions?”
    Morgan knew that what she intended to propose to Nate would change his life as much as hers had changed when Kara Newell commissioned her to oversee the restoration of Angels Landing Plantation. “I just need to know if you plan to live here for the next three to five years.”
    “What if I say no?”
    “Then we have nothing to talk about,” Morgan said, turning and walking back the way they’d come.
    Moving quickly, Nate caught her upper arm. “I give you an answer you don’t want to hear and you walk away,” he whispered in her ear. He dropped his hand and took a step until they were facing each other. “Did you ask me to meet you to talk about a project or did you need me to…”
    “Need you to do what, Nate?” she asked when he didn’t finish his statement.
    “Run interference between you and your male admirers?”
    Her jaw dropped, no words coming from her gaping mouth. Then she laughed, the sound shattering the stillness of the afternoon. “You’ve got to be kidding!”
    “What am I to think?” he countered. “You claim you left two messages—”
    “I did leave messages, but not to ask you to go out with me. I have as much interest in you romantically as I have in coming down with a case of poison ivy.”
    “Damn, Mo. That’s cold.”
    “I’m not saying I would never go out with you, but I try not to mix business with pleasure.”
    Morgan hadn’t lied. She wasn’t that thirteen-year-old girl hoping, praying, fantasizing that Nate would fall in love with her and they would live happily ever after. Every year she’d wait for him to come back, to show him that she’d grown up. But when he didn’t, her feelings changed and she was resigned to the fact that there would never be anything more between them than friendship. When the news of his engagement to a supermodel was splashed across the pages of entertainment magazines, Morgan felt nothing, and it was then she knew she had matured not only physically but mentally as well.
    She tilted her chin in a defiant gesture. “I’ve been commissioned to oversee the preservation of Angels Landing Plantation, and that includes the house and construction of outbuildings. Artisans from the Creek will be given priority over those in the Cove, the Landing, and the mainland. Shaw Woodworking is at the top of my list as a source for skilled carpenters to recreate the slave village. I would’ve spoken to your father, but I’ve heard that he’s semiretired.” Morgan knew that Nate was the best there was for this project and hoped he would accept the job.
      
    If Nate had had one wish, it would be to retract his words. There was no doubt he’d come down with a lethal case of foot-in-mouth disease. He ran a hand over his head, cursing to himself. Perhaps he should’ve waited to hear her out before he opened his mouth.
    “I’m sorry, Mo. I don’t know why I said that.”
    She waved a hand in dismissal. “Forget about it.”
    “I can’t. I was out of line.”
    “If