Sunflower Cottage on Heart Lake

Book 0: Heart Lake

by Sarah Robinson

Genres: Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

From a bestselling author, a dating novice falls for the retired athlete next door in this romance novel that's perfect for fans of Sheila Roberts and Debbie Mason.

On the outside, Amanda Riverswood has it all: a fun career in interior design, a lakeside cottage in her Michigan hometown, and a close-knit group of friends. But she's thirty-two-years old and has never had a boyfriend. So this summer, Amanda decides she's going to go on a bunch of blind dates. 

Dominic Gage was a star baseball pitcher—until a detached retina sent him into early retirement. Not long afterward, his wife walked out of their marriage. Now, at an all-time low, he’s learning to settle into his new life in the small town of Heart Lake. 

When Dom accidentally damages Amanda's dock and offers to fix it, he gets into a habit of eavesdropping on her hilarious series of dates. As they bond over late night laughter and conversations, it's not long before there's more than friendship between them. Could a casual fling between neighbors be what they both need to get over their issues–or will it only risk their hearts?

Release date: December 10, 2024

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

You left a toilet in his yard?” her cousin and best friend since childhood, Nola Bennett-Dean, asked as she stood with her arms crossed and her eyes wide.

“Three toilets,” Amanda clarified, lifting her gaze from the Adirondack chair that she had been sanding down enough to be able to put on a darker stain later. She’d scored the two of them at a garage sale of a neighbor down the road who clearly had no idea the value of these things. They were timeless and, when handcrafted correctly by a skilled artisan, they cost a good buck. She’d gotten them for five dollars each, but after a quick touch-up, she was pretty sure she’d be able to get at least two hundred per chair. Or she could use them as an add-on item for an outdoor living concept that she was selling as part of her next design project. The art of the upsell was a tactic she was still working on at her job, and her boss was adamant that she always had at least two or three add-ons for every design sold. “All used, but empty. I even put them in a cute circle, like a toilet party. Don’t worry. I’m not a monster.”

Nola blinked slowly, like she was trying to put her words in order or something. “You can’t just leave toilets in people’s yards.”

Amanda stood up straight and feigned innocence. “He left me in a pile of crap, so I left a pile of crap on his lawn. Fair is fair.”

Nola was clearly unconvinced by the way she tilted her head at Amanda and turned on her mom voice. “He backed out of the Heart Lake Boat Parade. That’s hardly toilet worthy.”

“It is when he’s the one who started the entire thing two years ago and then left me holding all the responsibility at the last minute,” she countered.

Nola finally let the smallest of grins slip. “The poor boy only started the Boat Parade to have an excuse to work with you on something. You know he likes you.”

“Well, at least he’s finally given up on that goal, because the answer is still going to be no.” Blake was a nice guy, but one of those nice guys who wants to make sure that every woman knows he’s a nice guy and that if they don’t appreciate that… well, then he’s not so nice.

It was transactional at best, and Amanda had no interest in dating him or anyone like that.

“At some point, you know, you’re going to have to actually get out there and date. You never open yourself up to anyone,” Nola started, and Amanda immediately began to tune her out.

Dating was not on the agenda for her right now. At least, she couldn’t imagine getting out there and trying to date given where she was at in her life right now. It was nice to think about coming home to someone or having company for once, but that also came with a lot of strings attached that she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for.

“Or I can keep focusing on my work and get out from under Clayton’s thumb soon.” Being a designer was her whole life’s passion, and it drove her crazy that she was still working under a senior designer at a local firm rather than being out on her own. But she just didn’t have the client reach herself yet to start her own firm, so until then, she ran around and completed Clayton’s grunt work and made his designs come to life instead of her own. “He did say he might let me work solo on a project this summer.”

“Really?” Nola’s concerned look vanished and was replaced by a wide smile. “That’s amazing! Did he say which project?”

Amanda shook her head. “No, but he’s bidding on the remodel of the old Culver farmhouse at the end of Main Street. I’ve been dropping not-so-subtle hints about all the ideas I have for turning it into an event space and venue.”

“Ooh, can you imagine having a wedding there or something? Once it’s fixed up, it could be absolutely magical.” Nola reached out and gave Amanda’s arm a squeeze. “Well, keep me updated. That’s so exciting. I’m glad Clayton is finally putting you out there, because it’s insane how he’s been hiding your talent. Anyway, I have to go grab Kate from her jazz class.”

Nola had her four-year-old in a different activity every day during the summer, and Amanda didn’t blame her one bit. She loved her goddaughter with all her heart, but Kate was the embodiment of energy. If she wasn’t busy doing something at all times, it was just a chance for her to get in trouble—or, more often, give her parents a hard time.

“And it looks like you have company,” Nola added as she was walking away.

Amanda glanced in the direction that Nola was gesturing and saw a large pickup truck making its way down the driveway that she shared with the neighboring property. It paused slightly at the fork between her house and the old Murphy place, then made its way up toward Amanda’s.

“Have fun!” Nola waved goodbye and wiggled her brows, which was definitely code for There’s a hot man in that truck. She got in her giant SUV that she insisted was imperative for parenthood and was off before the truck came to a full stop. Sure enough, a very handsome, tall gentleman with thick, dark brown hair and a trimmed beard stepped out of the cab. He had on a black T-shirt that was snug around his biceps and jeans that hugged his hips in a way that felt purposeful.

Keep your eyes north, Amanda, she reminded herself. Why am I even noticing this in the first place? I am not that type of person!

“This place looks nothing like the picture,” he said in a gruff voice that was almost a growl as he stared up at the front of Amanda’s house. “Why the hell is it so yellow?”

Her hands rested squarely on her hips as she marched over to him. “Excuse me?”

He gestured up at her house, not even giving a moment of eye contact. “It’s yellow. Like, bright yellow.”

“Congratulations on having eyeballs,” she replied. “Yes, my house is yellow. Is that a problem?”

The man seemed to finally realize that she was standing there and turned his gaze away from the bright yellow house—which matched the rows of sunflowers Amanda had carefully planted in front, very proudly—to look down at her. “This is your house?”

She waved her hands in front of his face. “Are you lost or are you on something? Of course it’s my house. Did you think it was yours or something?”

The corner of his lip twitched only slightly into a smile, but he quickly removed it and the deadpan expression of utter disgust toward her yellow house returned. “Yeah. I just bought 33 Lakeside Court from Carl Murphy, and I’m moving in today. The movers are only a few minutes behind me, and Carl said nothing about a yellow house.”

“That’s because 33 Lakeside Court is next door,” Amanda said, pointing toward the house at the other end of the split driveway that he’d driven right past. Luckily for him, that house was a perfect shade of brick and bland. “Carl’s house is over there. Or, I guess, your house now.”

She hadn’t even realized that Carl was selling, but he spent most of the year in Boca Raton, Florida, these days, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. He’d been the best kind of neighbor recently—one that is never there. That was much more preferable than when Carl and his wife had been living next door and she’d had to deal with them daily.

And now she had to deal with an entirely new neighbor? Ugh.

Tall, dark, and grumpy just stared at her. “Oh. That’s 33 Lakeside Court. Not this one.”

She stared back.

“Sorry about that,” he finally continued. He slowly gestured back toward her house. “It’s not bad. It’s just… yellow.”

Amanda didn’t lighten her stare. “I like sunflowers. And I don’t like unsolicited opinions.”

He chuckled then and put his hand out toward her. “Clearly, we got off on the wrong foot. I’ve been driving for hours and was moving boxes and furniture before that. It’s been a hell of a day, but let’s start over. I’m Dominic Gage.”

She glanced down at his open palm wearily for a moment before finally loosening her stance and allowing him the pleasure of shaking her hand. “Amanda Riverswood.”

“Have you lived here long?” Dominic let go of her hand and stretched his neck from side to side in a way that showed off the definition in his trap muscles.

Honestly, he was a good-looking man. A complete jerk, she’d already decided. But still… a good-looking man. Admittedly, that was a little strange to be thinking about at all because Amanda rarely found herself noticing men—or anyone. Something in the way her skin felt prickly when his eyes were on her just felt unfamiliar, but she wasn’t about to let Dominic see that he’d gotten to her.

She made sure to stand straighter, crossing her arms over her chest. “I grew up in Heart Lake, but I moved into the Sunflower Cottage about five years ago.”

“Sunflower Cottage?” He lifted one brow. “That’s an appropriate name for it.”

The row of sunflowers that dominated the garden lining the front of her house was a landscape designer’s dream, and clearly, he had no taste.

“Do you hate flowers or something?” she shot back. “Where are you moving here from? Some industrial city that never has any sun or greenery?”

He smirked, and it somehow made him even more appealing, and Amanda hated that. “Detroit.”

“Oh.” Her hands dropped to her sides. “So, yes, then.”

“Detroit’s got a lot of urban agriculture, to be honest, but this…” he said, gesturing to the small cove of Heart Lake that jutted up behind both houses. “It’s like something out of a storybook.”

Amanda felt a little bit of hometown pride at the beauty of her town. Heart Lake was all greenery and water and quirky people. There was always something exciting about someone discovering the truth for the first time and witnessing that. Even if it was through this jerk’s lens.

“Wait a couple months until the fall. This place is basically a postcard once the leaves start changing colors,” she commented.

The sound of a rumbling vehicle caught her attention, and she glanced behind Dominic to see a large moving van making its way up their driveway.

“Looks like your stuff is here,” she said, pointing toward the van. “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

He didn’t respond, but rather tipped his chin to her before getting back in his truck and reversing down Amanda’s drive to get to his own.

She stood there for a moment longer, just watching as the moving van followed him up to the front of the old Murphy place. The van pulled onto the grass beside the house, and Dominic was immediately out of his truck and yelling at them to get off the grass. The drivers quickly reversed, but it didn’t matter because there were already two giant tire tracks in his lawn.

Thank goodness that wasn’t on the side of the lawn he shared with her.

“Good lord,” she muttered under her breath as she walked back toward the Adirondack chairs she’d been working on.

Amanda generally considered herself a pretty nice person—spicy around the edges, especially when pushed—but still, anyone would be lucky to have her as a neighbor. And yet, somehow, she seemed to only attract neighbors that were awful in one way or another. Carl, for example, used to have wild parties all the time until his wife died last year. Amanda was very sorry for his loss, but not at all sorry that he was now never in the state. Before she’d lived in the Sunflower Cottage, she’d lived in a small town house off Main Street, and the neighbors on both sides of her were in a feud over whose dog was louder. Spoiler alert: both dogs were loud as hell, and she was caught in the middle of them.

And now, she had Oscar the Grouch moving in next door.

She picked up the sander, but then had to put it right back down as she felt her cell phone vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out and clicked on the screen to see her boss calling. Reluctantly, Amanda hit the button to answer his video call and held the phone up in front of her.

“Hi, Clayton,” she greeted him.

“Amanda, I’m going out of town.” No hello, no niceties, just straight to the point. “Adam booked us a cruise to the Bahamas for our anniversary.”

Her brows lifted slightly. “Wow. Uh, well, congratulations.”

His husband’s face suddenly appeared on the screen. “Amanda, please assure him that you can handle things while we’re gone. He’s got his anxious pants on, and I need my husband to be present on this trip.”

Clayton pushed Adam away and returned to the screen. “For Christ’s sake, I’m not anxious. I just want to make sure things are done right because I don’t know how much cell service I’ll have down there.”

“How long will you be gone?” she asked, not trying to sound too excited.

Clayton was a bad guy. He was… he was okay. He was just territorial, and never gave her a chance to prove herself. She understood to an extent—he’d built this firm from the ground up, and it was his name on the door. But still. There was no reason to keep good talent down instead of fostering it and allowing it to grow for both his sake and hers.

“I told Brenda to forward my calls to you during the time I’m gone,” Clayton continued, referencing the administrative assistant and bookkeeper who really kept the entire operation going. Without her, the firm would come to a crashing halt, and Amanda was glad that she’d managed to get on her good side from the start, thanks to a plate of Marvel’s cookies she’d brought in on her first day. “But I need you to only handle emergencies that can’t wait until I get back. Don’t accept any new projects. Just tell them that I’ll get back to them when I return.”

“If someone needs something sooner, I could take the project on solo,” Amanda interjected. “I’m totally fine with that.”

“Absolutely not,” Clayton replied. “You’re going to be busy enough with the home stagings for the open houses on the schedule. I wouldn’t want to put all that on you right now.”

Home staging was beginner’s work, and she tried to stifle her groan at her disinterest for the task.

“Anything else can wait until I get back,” Clayton continued, again pushing Adam off the screen as he started fussing with Clayton’s collar. “Do you feel up to that?”

Did she feel up to staging a few houses for the sole realtor in the area? Yeah, obviously.

“Sure,” she said instead. “But, um, what if the Culver farmhouse gets back to us about our bid?”

“Just let them know we are honored to accept and that we will staff the project with the best designer we have,” he replied. “So I’ll take it over when I get back.”

Subtle.

“Okay,” Amanda agreed, though every part of her wanted to yell up at the sky and throw her phone into the lake. “I’ll make sure things are taken care of. Have a great vacation.”

“Thanks, doll. I have every faith in you—you’ve got this!” Clayton cooed in his phony sweet voice before hanging up.

She pushed the phone back into her pocket and picked up the sander, taking her frustration out on the innocent Adirondack chairs. She really needed to get out on her own at some point, but a lot of sacrifices would come with that. Money being the biggest one. Clayton wasn’t necessarily her favorite person—hell, few people were—but he paid well, and his reputation meant that business was always steady.

It also meant that she was often constructing his visions, not her own.

But the paycheck had bought her the Sunflower Cottage and a lifestyle that she really loved. Even more than that, the stability was something she had always craved. Growing up with divorced parents, she had always spent half the week with her dad and half with her mom. She had two of everything, and while at first, she’d thought that was amazing, it got old really quick. When her father got remarried and began having children with his new wife, the funds and attention completely stopped coming her way. He ended up missing most of his scheduled time with her, and Amanda’s mother became the de facto primary parent overnight. Given that her mother worked three jobs to support them and was never around, this basically made Amanda feel like she’d been on her own since her preteen years.

Having a place, having a single home that she could make exactly the way that she wanted… it meant a lot to her. It was something no one could take away from her, and something she’d earned all on her own.

She gazed up at the front of Sunflower Cottage and smiled, grateful to be in this place. Screw the neighbor’s opinion on her sunflowers—this home was perfect.

“Amanda!”

A jarringly loud call pulled at her attention, and she turned to look over to where Dominic was still trying to negotiate with the moving van.

“Was that your mailbox?” He pointed toward the back of the moving van.

She tilted her head to see the yellow mailbox lying on the ground behind the van. “Uh… yeah.”

Dominic looked ready to go off on someone, and she immediately felt sorry for the drivers who were about to experience his wrath.

“I’ll submit a claim to the insurance company to get them to pay for a new one,” he promised as he walked over to her. “I swear it’s impossible to trust the online reviews of any business these days.”

“I can fix the mailbox myself,” Amanda assured him. “It’s really fine.”

He looked too surprised, and she instantly felt annoyed at his lack of faith in her abilities. “You can fix it?”

She lifted one brow and put her hands back on her hips. “Is that really so hard to believe?”

Now Dominic was the one who looked flustered. “I didn’t say that. I just meant I wouldn’t know how to fix it. I’m surprised that you would.”

She found herself wishing Nola were here to hear this, because this was at least a partial explanation for why she had no interest in dating. She didn’t need anyone. She didn’t need Dominic’s help. She was fine on her own, and anyone else was going to get in the way. “I’ll just replace the post. It’s not that hard. Looks like it wasn’t that damaged, just knocked over. That’s an easy fix, as long as they don’t run it over entirely.”

“Okay, I’ll let them know,” Dominic said. “Thanks for… being understanding, I guess.”

She shrugged her shoulders, because his ego was the least of her problems right now. “Welcome to Heart Lake, Dominic. We take care of our own here.”

Well, that was embarrassing.

Dominic walked into the front door of his new empty brick house with the deflated ego of a man who’d just been served his ass on a rustic platter by his handywoman neighbor.

A neighbor who’d been wearing only a neon green bikini top under jean overalls with the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen that somehow matched the perfect shade of brown ringlets that fell out of her ponytail. He might be partially blind, but not blind enough not to notice the way her curves hugged her outfit or the blush on her cheeks when she’d first seen him.

He had a detached retina to thank for the increasing partial blindness and his early retirement from the Detroit Tigers. But he couldn’t blame a baseball to the face for his inability to hold a normal conversation with… literally anyone. As he’d just proven with his brand-new neighbor who clearly already hated him.

Not that he cared.

Well, not that he wanted to care. Ever since his wife left him after she’d decided he wasn’t as fun in retirement as he’d been when he was actively playing baseball, he’d promised himself that he wasn’t going to let anyone else’s opinions dictate who he was. When he’d said his marriage vows, he’d meant forever. Apparently, his soon-to-be-ex-wife had only meant until one of them had a depressive episode. Then she was completely out.

And this depressive episode appeared to be more of a lifestyle choice now.

That wasn’t a fair thought, and he knew that. His marriage and the circumstances surrounding his divorce were a lot more complicated than that, but he wanted to sit in self-pity today.

The mover stepped out of the back of the moving van and looked up at the house Dominic had just purchased. “This is it?”

Dominic nodded. “Yeah. Try not to break anything.”

“Man, I don’t get it,” the mover said, this time leaning his weight against the liftgate on the back of the moving truck. “This place is small and out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“It’s not that small.” He wasn’t even sure why he felt the need to defend himself to this complete stranger who he was paying by the hour. “It’s almost two thousand square feet inside if you include the back porch. You can’t beat the view of the lake.”

“I’ll give you that,” the mover agreed as he motioned for the other men on his team to start grabbing boxes. “It’s just that penthouse we moved you out of this morning was a thing of beauty. Never seen that much glass that high in the sky before in my life. How did you even find this place all the way out here?”

“My grandfather used to rent a place here for at least two weeks every summer.” Dominic wasn’t sure how his grandfather had found it to begin with, but he did know that every memory he had here was warm and positive. It wasn’t even just the vacation part of it—what kid wouldn’t love swimming in the lake, taking the rowboat or canoe out, or going h. . .