If the letter—the one that could change everything—didn't arrive today, she'd stop hoping.

Autumn tucked a runaway strand of auburn hair behind her ear and crept across the Kingsley Inn's rooftop on all fours, the dirty black slate tile smudging the knees of her jeans. Sun warmed the tile under her palms despite the late November chill and a lakeside breeze whispering over her face.

Tarping the roof's leaky spot probably would've been a job better saved for someone less queasy about heights. But she'd had to lay off their handyman months ago, which left her playing amateur fix-it girl. She probably looked ridiculous crawling across the roof, but hey, she'd gotten the job done.

Except ... Wait. Autumn scanned the edges of the roof. Where was her ladder?

Gone. And it didn't take a genius to pinpoint the culprit. "I don't have time for this, Harry." Despite her muttered words, a smile tugged at her cheeks as she fished into her pocket for her phone. Twenty-eight wasn't too old to still appreciate a good prank.

Phone pressed to her ear, she took in her rooftop view while waiting for Harry to pick up. Beyond a span of parking lot and lawn, browning grass faded to a pale ribbon of beach, where the turquoise waters of Lake Michigan tussled with the shore.

She was getting impatient for word about the potential career move of a lifetime, but pretty Whisper Shore wasn't such a horrible place to linger.

If only she didn't feel as if she'd been lingering her whole life.

"Thank you for calling the Kingsley Inn. My name is Harrison. How may I—"

"Can it, Harry." Her focus snapped back to where her ladder should've been. "You can help me by returning my ladder." Her tone flat-lined, but she had to hand it to the deskman. He'd one-upped her but good.

"Ladder? Whatever are you talking about, Miss Kingsley?"

Ooh, she could just picture him two floors below, leaning against the lobby's mahogany check-in desk, all smug-like. Weasel. "Very funny. You should be on that show with the senior citizens who pull pranks."

"Are you calling me old?"

He did have twelve years on her. "Well, if the sweater vest fits ... "

"And now you're making fun of my wardrobe. I hope you're prepared to sleep on that roof tonight."

Phone balanced between her ear and shoulder, she started crawling again ... and reached the edge of the sloping roof just as the sound of car tires crackling over gravel carried upward. Uh-oh. Had her bride and groom arrived early for their appointment?

She swallowed, chalky dread clenching her throat. She'd been steeling herself for this meeting all week long. Dylan Porter. Suddenly the idea of staying up on the roof was all sorts of appealing.

It's been three years. This doesn't have to be awkward.

Yeah, then why the Tilt-A-Whirl case of nerves? "Come on, Harry, let me down. Pretty please?"

"Nineteen years you've known me, and you still can't get it right. Har-ri-son."

On another day she'd have thrown out a few more Harrys just to hear the man whine and threaten to quit like always. Of course, he'd never actually go through with it. Harry had been a fixture at the inn since Autumn's preteen years, landing in Whisper Shore when he'd decided to take a year off college. Sometime in the last decade and a half, he'd stopped talking about going back. His love for the inn nearly matched her own.

As, too, she suspected, did his fears about its future.

But the sound of a car door clinking shut kept her from teasing. Her fiancé awaited.

Scratch that. Ex-fiancé.

"All right. Harrison, Harrison, Harrison. Is that better?"

"Yes, Jan Brady, much better. Give me a sec, the other line is ringing."

"But—"

The phone clicked before she could finish. She squinted against cascading sunlight, its brightness along with the front lawn's massive cottonwood blocking her view of the parking lot's newest car. If that was Dylan and his replacement bride arriving early, no way did she want to be caught on the rooftop—windblown and in clothes too dingy for the Goodwill pile.

Autumn sucked in a cold breath and inched over to where the porch roof jutted out from the first floor. The drop wasn't so far. Maybe ...

But the rattling of the metal ladder against the rain gutter conveniently interrupted that questionable plan.

"It's about time, Harry." Autumn dangled one foot over the edge, found her footing on the ladder rung, then the other.

"Can you stall them while I change?" Moments later, her feet thudded to the ground and she turned.

Only it wasn't Harry standing to the side, steadying the ladder while a lawyerly tan trench coat whipped in the wind behind him.

"H-hey, Dylan." The greeting choked up her throat. Really, if ever there would've been a day to call in sick. "The ladder ... you ... thank you."

"Autumn Kingsley." Dylan's smile was as GQ-devastating as ever, and between the perfectly styled blond hair and his chiseled-as-a-statue's jaw, it certainly wasn't a surprise he'd found a new fiancée—only that it'd taken so long.

Look who's talking. She hadn't been on a date since Zach Dawson coaxed her into sharing his blanket at the Fourth of July picnic last summer, then proceeded to spill the entire contents of his paper plate on her. She'd sat there watching fireworks that were supposed to signal freedom, thinking surely the potato salad in her lap was just one more sign she needed to stop wasting time waiting for her life to start in Whisper Shore.

Dylan coughed.

"Um, sorry I'm dressed like this." She glanced at her tattered jeans. Easier than eye contact. "Figured I'd have enough time to change before you got here, but Harry thought it'd be funny to trap me on the roof."

Dylan's baritone chuckle poked at the tension hovering between them. "I thought you two would've run out of pranks by now."

"Well, apparently my creativity is waning. I went old school this morning—salted his tea."

"What were you doing on the roof anyway?"

Autumn plunged her hands into the pockets of her fleece jacket. It wouldn't do to get into the Kingsley Inn's current financial predicament. Dylan didn't need to know that with tourist season over they now had more empty rooms than full—that Autumn had already dipped into her own measly savings once this fall to pay the mortgage. And next month was looking even more dire. The whole thing was embarrassing.

Owning and managing the family inn may never have been her dream job, but even so ... who wanted to fail? It's why booking this wedding reception was so important.

And why she held her breath every day when she checked the mailbox, yearning for the letter from the hotel in France. The one that could breathe life into the hope still lurking along under the surface, the hope that eventually life might hold something more. Travel. Excitement. Adventure.

"Autumn?"

"Sorry, yes?" She blinked, finally allowing herself to meet Dylan's eyes.

Oh, how she used to gush over those jade irises. But her fascination with Whisper Shore's most eligible bachelor had worn thin the longer they'd been together. The more he'd talked about settling down for the long haul, the more she'd ached for life outside the confines of her hometown.

Ironic, really. She was the one who longed to escape, but Dylan was the one who had gone off to...