Measure Twice: A small-town grumpy sunshine romance

She came to sell the inn. He came with it.

Nora Bell has a plan: fly to Harrow Cove, Maine, sign whatever her late great-aunt left her, and be back at her Boston drafting table by Monday. Then the lawyer reads the will. Nora owns half of the Gull's Rest, a sagging 1890s seaside inn. The other half belongs to Cal Thorne, the town's most impossible contractor.

The terms are simple. Both of them live in the inn. Both of them fix it. Doors open by Memorial Day, or the whole place goes to a developer who wants to bulldoze it into condos.

Cal doesn't do city girls with paint swatches. Nora doesn't do men who answer questions with grunts. But a nor'easter, a roof at sunset, and a stack of letters Aunt Mae hid in the walls have other ideas.

The deadline is fixed. Their hearts are not. And the hardest thing either of them will ever build is a reason to stay.