“It was yer big Mick who called me. Shaunessy was a wee bit worried about you. Wanted someone to have your back for a couple days until he could get back here. He’s got a few leads he’s chasing down.”
“Look, I appreciate the thought, but I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Don’t ye now? Seems to me ye were shy a caddy this afternoon.”
“I could have done fine with any caddy.”
Ian raised his brows. “Fine. I’ll call Rhett and the Mick and let them both know.”
“Okay, fine. You can be my caddy.”
Ian placed a hand over his heart. “Thank ye. I’ll endeavor to make ye proud.”
“What’s going on out here?” Casey had come outside. “And why is your boss bowing?”
“His Scottish way of saying good night.”
Ian straightened with a jerk.
“Really?”
Ian scowled at Aidan. “If the lad says so.” He took Casey’s hand—careful to stay out of Aidan’s reach—and slowly placed a kiss on her knuckles. “Thank ye, lass. For yer delightful company at dinner.”
She beamed at the big Highlander. “You’re welcome, and thank you for dinner. Will we see you tomorrow?”
“Aye, ye will. The lad and I will need another round or two of golf together. I will at any rate.”
“I have to help Frank get the course ready,” Aidan said. “He’s behind after his mower problems.”
He could tell Ian wanted to offer to help, but billionaire yacht owners didn’t mow grass or rake traps. Aidan winced inwardly. Only the ones undercover did.
“I can play in the afternoon if it’s okay with my boss,” he said and glanced at Casey.
Ian chuckled, and Casey grinned. “Of course it is. You need all the practice you can get so you beat PJ.”
“Okay, fine. We have to go now.” Aidan grabbed Casey’s arm and turned her toward home. “Ian has to go back to the Smugglers Inn and rest.”
“Wait!” She dug in her heels. “Ian, would you like to—”
“No, he would not,” Aidan growled and pushed her along, Ian’s laughter echoing in his ears.
He hustled Casey along Ocean Boulevard until he heard Ian’s sedan start.
“You know,” Casey said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”
Aidan stopped dead and stared down at her. “I don’t get jealous.”
“Oh. Then maybe I can catch Ian to see if—”
Aidan pulled her hard against him and kissed away whatever she had intended to irk him with. No more Ian. He didn’t intend to let Casey go until she forgot all about the Highlander. Her arms slipped around his waist, and she softened against him.
More like it.
He smiled against her lips. She drew back and her mesmerizing emerald eyes locked onto his. He could stare into those eyes forever. They looked different every single time, he thought with an inward wince. Damn. Another street light. He could see her eyes because he’d stopped to kiss her under one of the few streetlights on this stretch. Too bad. Let the whole town look.
“I rest my case,” she whispered, a little too smug.
“Do you? Well, I was just saving you from a dangerous womanizer. Out of your league.”
Her smile vanished and she paled. “Really?”
Guilt jabbed at him. Maybe he was jealous. He couldn’t let her think that of Ian. The Scot was a good guy, one of the best men he knew, and Ian had come back to make sure Aidan was okay.
“Nah,” he said on a chuckle, and Casey smacked his arm.
“Not funny.”
“You’re right. Ian and I chased girls in college together, nothing more. He turned out well, and I didn’t.”
Her studied gaze made him nervous. “I disagree. I think you turned out just fine,” she said softly.
“How do you know?” he asked, more for something, anything to say. Her compliment embarrassed him. Somehow it meant so much more coming from her. Casey didn’t bestow her compliments lightly.
“Because you care.” She pulled free and held her arms out. “About everybody. You try to fix . . .” Her arms went back around him, the warmth restored. “. . . everybody.”
He frowned down at her. He couldn’t have her thinking he was some knight in shining armor. He would disappoint her, especially when she realized he was a fraud.
“No, I don’t.”
She hugged him. “You do. You call in favors from your friends to help people here in Cypress Key. People you don’t know, but you know they need help.”
He had to nip this little conversation in the bud. This would head to areas that caused questions, and the answers could give him away. He wasn’t ready for that. He had to prepare first.
“Come on. We’ve still got a long walk home.” He took her hand and started up Third Street. Oddly, the very same street he had run up carrying Casey just five days earlier. And in that amount of time, everything had changed, spun out of control.
“Tell me about your college days with Ian.”
“No more Ian,” he grumbled.
He’d almost stopped again, but they needed to get home. He could control things better there. He would have time to think. About being jealous for the first time in his life.
“Tell me about your college days instead,” he told her. “What did you study?”
He wondered what she’d tell him. She had always avoided talking about attending college. They walked another half-block, and he figured she wasn’t going to answer.
“I do have a degree,” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
“I believe you.”
She stopped. Under another damn streetlight. He waited to see why. She studied him again. That gaze that made him nervous like she searched for secrets. He let her look her fill.
“I have a degree in golf course maintenance. I just didn’t have real college days like you and Ian.”
He hated the sadness in her eyes when she admitted that.
Casey looked away. “I went to community college in Gainesville and did most of my last two years online from here.”
What the—
She said that like it was second rate or something. He tugged her chin back to face him. “I’ll bet you got all A’s.”
Her eyes widened with surprise, and then that wonderful Casey smile started slowly and stretched across her beautiful face. “I did actually. I graduated with a four point oh. I figured if I couldn’t actually be there in class, I had to be the best in the class.”
Her arms went around his neck, and she kissed him like she’d never let him go. Every now and then he got it right, and he let himself enjoy the taste and feel of her happiness that warmed a place deep in his gut. A place he hadn’t known existed.
Long, luscious moments later, she pulled free. Oh to hell with the streetlight, and he tugged her back for one more. “I haven’t said congratulations yet.”
A horn blared, and Aidan jerked up to see Byford Traynor wave on the way by, and danged if the sound of Casey’s laughter didn’t warm that odd place in his gut again.
“Come on.” He took her hand and they walked a while. “So golf course maintenance was your dream?”
She frowned. “Part of it.”
“What’s the rest?” Would she finally tell him?
“You’ll laugh.”
“No, I won’t.” He was glad Frank had told him. He wouldn’t even crack a smile.
“I want to design golf courses.”
She looked so serious, so determined.
“That’s a great dream.”
She let out the breath she must have been holding. No doubt she had been ribbed about her dream before. A female golf course designer? Not a common position. The only o
nes he could name had been championship golfers.
“Are you any good?”
“I think so.” She let go his hand uncertainly. “Uncle Frank says I am, but he’s my uncle so he doesn’t count. He did let me design or rather re-design all his greens and traps.”
“Really? They’re great.”
She beamed. “You mean it?”
“Of course I do.” He liked seeing her light up like a Christmas tree, and he decided at that moment, he’d do whatever he had to to help her secure that dream. Casey had struggled for everything she had. Reminded him of his friend Rhett in their youth.
Life had always come easy to Aidan, born into money and a prestigious family. Not so Rhett. Watching his friend struggle for everything he had in college had kept Aidan from being self-indulged and spoiled by his family’s money. Rhett used garage-sale golf clubs to compete on their Princeton golf team, and Aidan played with the best money could buy, presented to him by his father when he made the team. Rhett frequently beat Aidan’s score in tournaments with those same garage-sale clubs.
When Rhett’s putter broke in an unfortunate accident—a teammate broke it over his thigh after Rhett’s putt beat him in a tournament—Aidan had given Rhett one of his putters. He’d had three. And damned if Rhett didn’t still play with that same putter as though to remind himself of his prior struggles.
Here was Casey Stuart to remind Aidan again that the best folks often had to struggle for everything they had. Didn’t make them any less, they just had big dreams like his friend Rhett had. Did Casey want to design the big PGA tour courses? If so, he knew she wouldn’t give up. And he wouldn’t let her.
“I had to put my dream on hold,” she was saying.
“Why?”
“I can’t leave until I know my uncle—and the town—will be okay. Safe from Bartow.”
“Then we will,” he promised. “Make them safe, I mean.”
She went up on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “I believe you, Aidan Crosse. Thank you for helping us.”
He heard the silent but fraudulent e on the name Cross. Loud and clear. Better if he didn’t make any more wild promises, so he just kept silent.
A half-block later, she asked, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What is your dream? I know it’s not crewing on a yacht.”
He laughed. “No, it’s not. It wasn’t.”
“Wasn’t?”
“It’s all in the past.”
“Dreams are always ahead of us, or they’re not dreams,” she insisted.
“Not always.” He picked up his stride. Time to get home.
“Tell me.”
He exhaled hard.
Give her this truth too. Can’t hurt.
“I had wanted to play on the PGA tour ever since I was a kid.”
This time Casey stopped, and he was three strides away before he noticed.
“Why didn’t you try?” she asked as though that were the only reason he hadn’t succeeded.
“I couldn’t afford it.” Short and sweet. Good answer and a form of the truth.
Casey cast him a skeptical glance, clearly visible in the light from the street lamp a few yards away. “That’s why they have sponsors.”
He sighed. More truth or she wouldn’t let up until she had everything.
“My father convinced me it was a dumb idea, and that I wasn’t good enough.”
Not completely true and not completely untrue. If she knew the truth, she’d make too big a deal of it.
She rounded on him, not with the pity he expected and didn’t want, but with rage. “That’s horrible! Parents are supposed to be supportive. So, what did you do?”
He smiled ruefully. “I took off when he pushed too hard.”
Aidan had done just that. He’d graduated Princeton and bummed around Europe for a year before his dad guilted him into coming home.
“You ran off for a life at sea?”
“Um, yeah.”
You could say he was at sea that year. He suddenly felt that long-ago gut-ache he got every time he thought of his dream of playing in the PGA.
“You’ll never settle down.”
Wait! What did she mean by that? The thought of never settling down made his chest ache too. Only in a different way.
She stopped. They had reached Frank’s driveway. How had they gotten here so fast?
Casey tried to sidestep him and go inside, but he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her in tight. She stiffened at first, so he nuzzled the spot below her left ear that always made her moan, then moved to her lips until she softened against him. The feel of her lithe, supple body tight against his revved his engine as it always did, and he fought to keep his kiss gentle.
He nuzzled along her lips, fighting the urge to take her mouth, to devour her like his less-intelligent head insisted. He enticed her to give him access, lightly running the tip of his tongue along her lower lip. She sighed and gave in. Tasting the sweet moistness of her mouth, he let loose a satisfied growl, and her fingertips dug into his shoulders.
Mine. Mine alone. No Ian. No anyone. Only me.
He turned his head to deepen the kiss and give in to the need clawing at him. He tried to pull her closer though it was physically impossible. Thank God no streetlights here and the porchlight too far away, but he needed to get her to his sleeper sofa in the game room.
Damn, but his green-eyed beauty made him want. Like no other woman had. Ever.
Want more kisses. Want more everything.
His hand slid up her back and under her breast. She gasped and he pressed his tongue against hers as his blood exploded through his veins at the feel of her breast in his palm.
“Second base,” she whispered against his lips.
Yup, he wanted more second bases.
Third bases too.
Hell, made him crazy for the fireworks that came with a home run.
“Casey,” he breathed, his voice hoarse with want and desire, “we need to go inside before I steal third.”
Those big emerald eyes stared up at him in the bleak cast-off light at the back door. Shadowed, yes, but he’d memorized their color.
“What if I’m no good at it?” she whispered.
Awareness clocked him hard like an errant drive on the fairway, only no one had called, “Fore!”
He would be her first. At everything.
Him.
His heart wheeled a sharp right against his chest and back again.
Being first comes with responsibilities.
Yes, he cared deeply for his green-eyed beauty—wanted her like he wanted his next breath—but he couldn’t be her first as a fraud.
She reached up and tried to smooth his frown with her fingertips. “Aidan?” she whispered.
Oh, damn. She wanted an answer. He could barely catch his breath between the want and the weight of responsibility.
Responsibility that shouted, “No triples or home runs until Casey knows who you are. No frauds for Casey Stuart’s first.”
That meant corner Bartow.
That meant fix this town and make it healthy again.
That meant convince Casey he pretended to be a yacht boy for her own good.
All that came first, before he became her first.
He took her cheeks in his palms. “You will be awesome when we do,” he said softly. Her timid smile almost undid him. “But not yet.”
The hardest words he’d ever spoken.
This time she frowned.
Responsibility, he reminded himself. Do not succumb.
“When you trust me completely,” he whispered against her lips. “Then it will be perfect. For both of us.”
Chapter 19
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A late spring storm had blown through town the night before and left the air muggy and damp with the kind of humidity only Florida could slather out. Casey wiped her forehead with a golf towel as she dragged another cart out of the barn and into the lineup for golfers to take out onto the course. Monday was one of their busiest days with several of the local condo associations holding weekly men’s club events.
Today she worked the cart barn while Mamie ran both the snack bar and pro shop. Frank had needed Aidan to help get the course ready for the grudge match with PJ tomorrow and the possibility of residents showing up to watch. She’d seen little of Aidan after he’d packed her off to bed the night before with a kiss on her nose and a promise of later.
Breakfast had been early for all of them with so much work to do, and this morning was Aidan’s turn to cook. Entering the kitchen shortly after dawn, she found him looking rather proud of his plate of Talley’s specialties.
She just had to tease him. “Donuts again?”
Affronted, Aidan had been swift to point out, “No, those are muffins. Banana-nut and apple-cinnamon muffins and six other kinds. Not donuts.”
He’d looked so offended and so adorable, she had rolled her eyes and laughed. He had swooped her into his arms and kissed the teasing right out of her. Aidan’s kisses were no laughing matter. Just the thought of them created flutters in her belly.
She had fallen head over heels for Aidan Crosse. She loved him. She did. Loved his arrogance and his fire and his need to fix everything and everybody and make it all better. But she wanted her home run now, not later. She knew her heart was ready, but he suddenly wanted to wait. Until she trusted him. She did, didn’t she? But completely, like he had said?
“Trust comes with love,” Aunt Belle always said.
She knew Aidan wanted her—could tell from his eyes and the way he held her that he was holding his desire on a tight leash—but she had wanted to set her own desire free last night. Maybe he was right to wait. But that had left her frustrated and a bit cranky this morning, so when Rory sailed in a half-hour late, he took the brunt of her ire.
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