Fisher's Light(48)

Moving my hand in front of her, I hold it out for a handshake, wanting to see if her hand is as soft and smooth as the skin on her flushed cheeks looks. “Name’s Fisher.”

She stares down at my hand for a second before rolling her eyes and pushing herself up from the table. “Yeah, I know who you are. Not interested.”

I don’t even have time to be shocked before she grabs her backpack from the bench, slings it over her shoulder and walks away from me without another word. I can’t help staring at her ass as she leaves and I also can’t stop the smile that takes over my face. I’m not really used to rejection when it comes to girls. Sure, my father rejected every f*cking idea I’ve ever had, but girls? Never happens. All I have to do is turn on the charm and I could have any girl in this room riding my dick in a matter of seconds.

Lucy Butler is an anomaly and right now, that makes me respect her more than any f*cking person on this entire island. It also makes her a thousand times more appealing. I might have to put in a little work to get close to Lucy. Oh, this is going to be so much fun.





Chapter 20




Lucy

Present Day


I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened in town two weeks ago. Fisher’s father’s words keep popping up in my head every time I turn around. Am I in over my head? Am I just living in a fantasy where I think I can actually make this place work and keep it forever? I’m drowning in bills and I’ve been late entirely too often on the mortgage recently. When my parents took over this place, they thought it was an affordable mortgage and it was at the time, until the repairs and the cost of upkeep multiplied month after month. The only thing saving me right now is an inn full of guests and the steady income peak season rates provides.

Flopping down on the bed in one of the guest rooms at the cottage, I stare around the room with a heavy heart. With a different lighthouse theme in every guest room, the Fisher’s Lighthouse room has always been my favorite. Decorated in several shades of blue to represent the ocean you can see from the two large windows against the main wall, it’s filled with framed photos I took over the years of the lighthouse here on the south end of the island, as well as a couple of replica sculptures I’ve collected over the years. This room feels like home. This room is home. Pushing myself up from the bed, I walk over to the window and run my hand over the two-foot tall wood carving of the lighthouse that sits on the floor in between the two windows. It’s a near perfect replica of the lighthouse that you can just barely see in the distance out the windows it sits in front of. I don’t remember where it came from, but it’s always been my favorite decoration in the house. Maybe because when I look at it, it reminds me of better times…happier times. So many good memories happened for me out at that lighthouse and all of them involve Fisher.

As I make my way out of the bedroom, I slowly walk through the rest of the inn. With eleven oversized guestrooms, it was the largest place for guest accommodations when my grandparents built it. Now that the town has grown, there are several hotels with special amenities like in-ground pools and twenty-four-hour gyms that Butler House can’t compete with. That has always been what I loved about this place, though. It’s not a copycat of every other hotel all over the world with the same décor on every floor and people shouting and running up and down the halls. When you come to Butler House, you come to relax and enjoy the peace and tranquility that only an ocean town can bring. You come for the old world-style design that takes you back to a time when life was simpler.

Butler House is a traditional, wooden, Georgian double house with a center stairway and two large rooms on either side – a sprawling sitting room and the registration area on one side, and a library with a side bar on the other. The entire back of the house on the first floor is taken up by the kitchen and dining area, as well as a small laundry room. In the tradition of Georgian double houses, there is a fireplace at either end of the house, one in the sitting room and one in the library. Most of the house still has the original floors, aside from the areas that had to be redone after the damn pipe burst upstairs last year, ruining some of the pine planking.

Making my way through the kitchen and dining area to the sliding glass door at the back of the house, I pull it open and step out onto Butler House’s most popular feature. The veranda stretches along the entire length of the back of the house and faces the ocean. It’s lined with rocking chairs, all handmade by Fisher, but I take a seat in my personal favorite, the one with lighthouses carved into the headrest. Staring out at the water, I watch as the sky around it grows darker as the sun sets.