Melodies of the Heart: A Pinewood Grove Sweet Romance Read Online Free

about it. She was starting to realise that he must get recognised everywhere he went and he probably thought she was dumb for not knowing his name when she first saw him. At least he hadn’t made her feel stupid about it, because she was doing enough of that for the both of them.
    “Okay ladies,” Levi said as he handed back the last iPod of the bunch. “I should get going. If you could keep it between us that I’m here, I would really appreciate it, okay?”
    “No problem,” Addison said, and Kayla nodded in agreement, but it was Gillian who spoke up.
    “You know,” she said as she twirled her fiery red hair around her fingertip. “We could always show you around town if you’d like. We could give you the full tour and show you all the fun stuff to do while you’re in Pinewood Grove.”
    She knew it was wrong, jealous, and completely immature, but Kassidy’s blush turned to a flush of anger at Gillian’s suggestion. It was obvious what she was trying to do, and it had been obvious that Kassidy had already volunteered for the job. Still, she kept her mouth shut. There was no point in sinking to Gillian’s level, especially not in front of Levi.
    “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’m good,” Levi said and Kassidy had to hide her sigh of relief. Then Levi added, “Kassidy here has already been a big help, and I’m sure she can handle being my tour guide,” and her blush came back in full force. She could feel the heat of it in her cheeks, and she knew everyone could see it. Being quick to flush red with almost any emotion was a curse that came along with the gift of her shiny strawberry blonde hair and freckled shoulders.
    “Oh,” Gillian sighed, the dejection obvious on her face. “Well, if you change your mind, I live over on Ash Street, number three-fifteen. Come say hi if you’re ever bored.”
    “Thanks, I’ll think about it,” Levi said, though his tone said otherwise. “Come on, Kassidy, shall we keep going?”
    “Sure,” she said with a nod. “Um, I’ll text you later,” she told Addison before they parted ways.
    “You better,” Addison mouthed at her, but waved them off while Kayla looked on in shock and Gillian stared in thick, green jealousy.
    Neither Kassidy nor Levi had said aloud where they were going and without being told to do as such, she led her new friend down a second side street before they ended up on Poplar Boulevard. She trusted her friends not to follow them, but not enough to make it totally obvious where they were going. It put an extra twenty minutes on their walk, but she didn’t mind. Every extra moment she got to spend with Levi was a blessing and if she could have gotten away with it, she would have walked him around town twice before they arrived at their destination.

Chapter Four
     

     
    Their destination wasn’t a hotel or even some scummy motel. Pinewood Grove didn’t have either of those. The town simply wasn’t big enough to need one. There had been several proposals and someone had once bought some land to build one on, but the only tourists who came through town were doing it for the wilderness and camping, neither of which could be done from inside a motel room.
    What the town did have to offer was Mary Alice Patterson and her boarding house over on Poplar Boulevard. It wasn’t anything like a hotel, and Kassidy couldn’t promise that the elderly woman wouldn’t put Levi to work like she did all the men who passed through those doors, but it was a place to stay that came with three squares a day and a bed to sleep on.
    She was nervous about taking him there. Not that Mary Alice wasn’t a wonderful person – the woman was in her seventies, but she volunteered at Shady Pines and despite a hip replacement a few years back, she still ran the women’s lawn bowling league during the warmer months.
    No, she was nervous about it because it wasn’t a five star hotel. Five minutes earlier she had no problem with taking him to Mary Alice’s, but