Snowflake Bay Read Online Free Page A

which she’s done herself. She’s not afraid to swing a hammer.”
    He chuckled. “No, I bet not. Honestly, though, I didn’t think I’d live to see this place restored to its former glory. Was worth the trip out here just for that.” He made one last visual scan of the room, then looked back at her, his smile remaining easy and light, as did his voice when he added, “And now I hear another McCrae is set to walk down the aisle.”
    His casual mention of Hannah’s impending nuptials shouldn’t be surprising; it had been ages ago now since he’d had his eyes on her older sister. Fiona was also quite certain that Ben had been so busy chasing after her big sister that he’d never been aware of Fiona’s feelings for him. Truth be told, Fiona knew even if he’d never given Hannah the time of day, Ben Campbell still wouldn’t have ever looked at Fireplug Fi or thought of her as anything other than Logan and Hannah’s nuisance kid sister.
    To Fiona’s mind, her younger sister, Kerry, had actually been the nuisance kid sister. Fi had been the family mediator, the natural born mender of fences, whereas Kerry had been a wild child since birth. And yet, something about her baby sister’s devil-may-care, mischievous demeanor had sparked a kind of kindred spark in Ben, who’d teased her and ruffled her hair, but always in an affectionate, sort of admiring, you-go-girl kind of way. It had been bad enough to feel jealousy over his feelings for Hannah, whom Fi had always admired and looked up to, but for Kerry? That had stung.
    No, he’d definitely never known how she’d felt about him. No one had. Because she’d never told a soul. Not even Hannah, whom she’d normally confided everything to, but, for obvious reasons, couldn’t in that case. Instead, she’d spent a pathetic amount of time imagining very detailed, exceedingly dramatic, very adolescent scenarios in which she’d profess her love to him. Even then, she’d known that, at best, he’d have chucked her under the chin like the big brother he thought himself to be, and laughed himself silly.
    At worst . . . well, she hadn’t seen any point in imagining the worst. After all, it had all been quite humiliating enough as it was, watching him pine for the willowy and ethereally beautiful Hannah, and bounce erry on his proverbial knee . . . while he called her Fireplug and teased her mercilessly about everything from her crazy curly hair to her always pink-cheeked face. Always around him, anyway. While her young heart pined for him, in her own private misery.
    Fiona had never, even for a moment, felt ill will toward her older sister for being the object of Ben’s affection, though. If anything, she’d been ashamed at how envious she’d been, pissed off, even, that Hannah was too stupid to see the gift that was being handed right to her. Fi could feel her cheeks warm even now as she remembered how, in her adolescent logic, she’d convinced herself that since his crush on Hannah had gone as unrequited as Fiona’s crush on him, their shared misery could only be seen as something that would eventually bond them even more deeply to each other.
    â€œI didn’t even know she’d moved back to the Cove,” he was saying, mercifully jarring Fiona from that painful blast from the past. “And now here she is, already engaged to be married?” His smile was one of sincere happiness. “I was in town earlier, and chatted briefly with Owen at Hartley’s Hardware Store. He mentioned she’s marrying one of the Blue clan, which—” He broke off, shook his head even as he chuckled. “I shouldn’t laugh. I haven’t been around really, so I don’t know who turned into what, but the Blue cousins Logan and I knew growing up were a pretty rough bunch, not to mention a lot older, neither of which ever struck me as being