The idea had been Maggie’s. Apparently the old woman had been inspired by a rerun of Gilmore Girls.

“Did you ever watch that show, Lou?” Maggie had asked her as she shoveled a spoonful of coleslaw into her mouth.

“’Course I did,” Louisa told her.

“Then you’ll agree my idea is a winner.”

In the end, Louisa did agree, but she wasn’t about to say so. Instead, they spent another two hours brainstorming possibilities, and all she could think was Cody isn’t going to go for any of these.

Now she parked her teal Vespa outside the Coast Guard station at Brant Point and inhaled a sharp breath. Before she could remove her helmet, she glanced up and saw McKenzie Palmer standing outside the building—and at her side, Cody Boggs.

Louisa wanted to run for cover, but it wasn’t like her Vespa was easy to hide. Did these sweet little motorbikes come in camouflage?

She watched with a little too much curiosity for a long moment as McKenzie tossed her head back, flipping her perfectly styled long blonde waves and resting a hand on Cody’s bicep.

Gross. How obvious could she be?

But even as she had the thought, it occurred to her that Cody was smiling. At McKenzie Palmer. And they looked really lovely together.

She got off the bike and pretended to be searching for something in her cross-body bag, purposely turned away from the scene playing out in front of her.

“Louisa Chambers, as I live and breathe.”

McKenzie had a Southern accent. It was curious because as far as Louisa knew, the woman was from Iowa, but who was she to judge? Though she thought if a person was going to fake an accent, it would be smarter to pretend to be British. That accent was simply delightful. But this put-on drawl of McKenzie’s? No thank you.

Yet the woman had influence in the community and especially online. Louisa couldn’t afford to make an enemy of her. Not that Louisa had enemies.

She turned to face McKenzie.

“Did you come down to thank your hero in person?” McKenzie’s smile spread across her face like cream cheese on a bagel.

Great, now I’m hungry.

“I’ve already thanked him,” Louisa said.

“He sure is hunky,” McKenzie said. “Single, too. I asked.” She raised her eyebrows. Unlike Maggie, McKenzie Palmer had invested in a pair of tweezers. Her neatly coiffed brows matched her perfectly groomed everything else. She looked like she’d just stepped off a magazine shoot. And judging by her blog, she most likely had. Sometimes Louisa wondered if McKenzie had hired a photographer to follow her around all day, snapping photos of her posing on the cobblestone streets of Nantucket. Seriously, who took those photos?

“Have you thought any more about my story idea?” McKenzie asked. “This whole damsel-in-distress thing won’t last forever.”