Beach Reads Box Set

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  I watch his subtle reflection in the window as his head jerks sideways, like he doesn’t want to look at me naked.

  Who’s uncomfortable now?

  “Beck didn’t mention you’d be here,” he tells the wall. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you. I thought—I thought one of his old flings had moved in.”

  I’m fully aware Beck didn’t mention me to Wyatt, because he didn’t mention Wyatt to me either. I love my brother, but he’s obtuse at best and mischievous at worst. “Sounds about right.”

  There. That was dignified and aloof without being a total asshole.

  “Tucker’s never been to the Pirate Festival,” he adds.

  I look past the trees to Shipwreck, nestled amongst more trees in the valley below.

  We’re 250 miles inland in the Blue Ridge Mountains in southern Virginia, an hour outside the booming metropolis of Copper Valley, overlooking a pirate town called Shipwreck, named thus because of the legend of Thorny Rock.

  Thorny Rock, the pirate. Not Thorny Rock, the mountain named after him and which this house is built on. Which is a crucial distinction, since mountains can’t smuggle pirate treasure in wagons, nor could they in the eighteenth century when Thorny Rock founded Shipwreck and supposedly buried all his gold here to hide it from the authorities who were on his trail.

  “I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time,” I tell Wyatt while I tighten my robe ties.

  I love the Pirate Festival.

  Adore it, even.

  But I’m not here for the pirates this week. Or to help dig up the town square—again—in search of Thorny Rock’s treasure. Or even to hunt for the peg leg hidden somewhere around town.

  Not for myself, I mean. I’m here to be maid of honor while my ex-boyfriend plays best man in my best friend’s pirate wedding, since she’s marrying his brother.

  Apparently while Wyatt gets to dig for treasure and hunt for the peg leg and drink his heart out at The Grog.

  Or maybe not the drinking part.

  Not when he’s here with his son.

  That would be a mistake. And Wyatt Morgan doesn’t make mistakes.

  Not twice, anyway.

  An uncomfortable silence settles between us. I want to squirm, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s getting to me.

  “You looked like you needed help,” he says. “In the bathtub.”

  I bite my tongue, because my pre-teen years were basically me telling Wyatt I’ll tell you when I need help, now back off, followed by my early teen years where he grew a foot, discovered weights, got hot, and finally left me to my own devices while he did everything with Lydia.

  Pretty, perfect, helpless-without-Wyatt Lydia.

  Who is none of my business.

  Although I’d rather think about Lydia than think about the last time I saw Wyatt.

  “Thank you for trying,” I say, politely, because it would make my mother proud, and my mother thinks Wyatt hung the damn moon. And I don’t want to argue with him right now. I have to save my energy for tonight. And tomorrow. And the next day. All the way until Friday, when Monica and Jason are getting married in the biggest pirate wedding ever seen in Shipwreck.

  “Are you…sticking around for a while?” he asks.

  “All week.” I study the furniture again, looking for the sparkly cover of my doodle pad, but no luck.

  He clears his throat like he’s eaten a bad banana pepper.

  “But I won’t be here much,” I add “so…”

  “Yeah. Us either.”

  Wyatt and Ellie, sitting in a tree. A-W-K-W-aaaarrrr-ding!

  “Great. I’m actually leaving in…” Shit.

  My phone.

  I don’t have a phone.

  I can drive. I’ve been driving again for two months. In a new hybrid car with more airbags than a bagpipe convention and sensors everywhere because other than refusing to drive a gas-guzzling tank, I didn’t have it in me to argue when Beck decided it was his job to make sure I had every safety feature known to man, including the freaking color of car least likely to be in a car accident.

  Except the one feature none of us thought I’d need—internal satellite phone support.

  I’ll always have my phone, which has a voice assistant, and that’s plenty good enough, we all agreed.

  I don’t drive without a phone.

  And I can’t call Monica—or Grady, my date for the week—because I don’t have a phone.

  Dammit.

  If I don’t show up for dinner and the parade tonight, she’ll send someone up here to find me, because that’s exactly what I’d do if she was my maid of honor and she didn’t show up for a planned event on my itinerary when I knew she was still a little jumpy driving and that she had to come down off a mountain to get there because she desperately needed space from a certain other member of the bridal party and therefore wasn’t doing the easy thing and spending the week at the Inn.

  I didn’t tell her I was bringing Grady as my plus-one, just that I was bringing a date, so she won’t know she can go to a local for help.

  And the only person in the wedding party other than Monica who knows the backroads up the mountain is Patrick.

  I flinch at the thought of his name, because while Wyatt was happy to tell me we shouldn’t have done that, at least he didn’t proclaim to love me with all his heart first.

  And at least he didn’t bring his smart, skinny, beautiful new girlfriend along for the week.

  That would be even better.

  Look, Ellie, everyone but you is worthy of love. You couldn’t even get a fake date without asking four guys first.

  I need to get off this mountain.

  And get to that dinner.

  I turn to head to the kitchen—Beck might have a spare phone in his junk drawer, not because he thinks of things like spare phones, but because he’s unpredictable and just when you think he’s completely irresponsible, he pulls out a spare cell phone—and for a moment, I forget that my hip doesn’t like to move that fast.

  My knee buckles, but I catch myself on the end table before I go all the way down.

  Wyatt’s crossing the room before I can think boo, but I hold a hand up. “Foot fell asleep,” I lie.

  Those gray eyes bore into me, and his full lips go flat. Between the military haircut, the square jaw, the broad shoulders, and that glare, I feel like I should offer to drop and give him twenty.

  And no, I don’t want to talk about what the combination is doing to my libido. My body doesn’t get a vote in this.

  It did last time, and that didn’t end so well.

  And I’m not talking about the accident.

  I straighten myself and make my way more slowly to the kitchen.

  If he notices the limp, he doesn’t comment.

  If he notices the go away message I’m trying to send him telepathically, he also doesn’t comment.

  Or go away.

  “What do you need?” he asks, and I get another shiver, like he’s not asking what I’m looking for in the drawer, but what my soul needs.

  I jerk my head toward the island, where my phone is in a bag of rice.

  “Ah. Did you take the SIM card out?”

  “Yes, Wyatt, I know enough to know to take the SIM card out.”

  “Right. Of course you do,” he mutters. “You need to call someone?”

  I instantly feel like a jerk, because we’re not kids fighting over the right way to shoot a free throw or kick a soccer ball anymore, and we’re not whoever the hell we were six months ago when he was home for Christmas and Patrick had just dumped me and he’d just gotten a horrific divorce settlement and we were both miserable enough to think we could drown ourselves in meaningless sex between two people who hated each other.

  A lot’s changed since then.

  Mostly me.

  “I’m meeting friends in town.” I move aside a hand squeezer, fingernail clippers, a set of cards with Beck’s picture on them, condoms, and taco sauce packets, among other things, but
I’m not finding any spare phones.

  Beck changes his number on occasion, and because he’s Beck, I’m pretty sure he forgets to cancel his old contracts, but if he has any spare active cell phones, they aren’t in this drawer.

  I should keep a burner phone up here.

  “You lost your keys?” Wyatt says.

  “I need a phone.”

  There’s a pause, then a heavy, “Oh.”

  And now there’s also this gigantic guilt giraffe standing in the kitchen, leaning all up in my space.

  “Not that it matters, because I don’t know anyone’s number,” I mutter as I realize my other problem.

  “You want a lift?” he asks. “Tucker wants to see the parade.”

  I open my mouth to tell him that’s not necessary, except…it kinda is.

  I can either take his help, or I can scare my friend.

  Monica was right on my parents’ heels getting to the hospital. She’s gone out of her way to have girls’ nights—without Patrick’s new girlfriend—because just because I’m marrying the idiot’s brother doesn’t mean I’m giving up my best friend. And she begged to ride out here to Shipwreck with me because you are not driving that far alone right now, period.

  She doesn’t sugarcoat it.

  And I couldn’t be more grateful.

  And Grady is adorable and kind and well-loved in Shipwreck, and the perfect foil to Patrick and his wonderful new girlfriend, but he’s not the kind to panic over me, because he’s just a nice guy from town doing me a favor by pretending to be my boyfriend this week.

  He’s not actually interested.

  Wyatt’s watching me like he always has. Alert. Focused. Aware.

  He probably watches everyone like that. I wonder how many other women have had their hearts broken just because of those eyes.

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” I say.

  “We’re already heading that way.”

  “Right. Sure. Thanks.”

  “When do you need to leave?”

  “We have reservations at six.”

  One corner of his mouth hitches. “Crusty Nut?”

  I love Shipwreck. And I love that Monica loves it enough to get married here. “Not like The Grog takes reservations or has good seating for the parade.”

  “We’ll be ready at five-thirty.”

  “Thank you.”

  It’s just a ride. And I’m doing it for Monica.

  And I refuse to feel uncomfortable just because he’s seen me naked, played wild bucking stallion to my free-range cowgirl, and then decided to return me for a refund.

  If he wants to remember that night, that’s his problem.

  I am officially moving on.

  And I am officially not going to let him see that I care anymore.

  Because then maybe I can also convince myself.

  Chapter Four

  Wyatt

  While we wait for five-thirty, I introduce Tucker to the joy of Pac-Man in Beck’s basement haven. Because modeling underwear as a second career after being in a boy band for years pays well, Beck has money to burn, and he uses it outfitting his houses with enough games to keep a man busy for three lifetimes. In addition to the old-school Pac-Man arcade game console, he has Ms. Pac-Man and Frogger, plus foosball, table tennis, pool, air hockey, and two closets full to bursting with board games. And more.

  This whole house is a man cave, but the basement?

  The basement is the cherry on top. Half bar with TV viewing area, half game room, it’s where we always hang out when we’re here on those rare days we’re all in the area at the same time without other responsibilities to tackle, and some of my best adult memories have happened in this basement.

  Like the Frogger weekend.

  And I am never risking messing up that friendship again.

  Not for the houses and the games.

  But for the guys who are my only family left beyond my son.

  “Run away from the ghosts, bud,” I tell Tucker, who’s sitting on a red leather bar stool so he’s tall enough to man the controller. “You can eat them once you get the dot in the corner.”

  He shrieks with glee as he races the ghosts back and forth on the bottom row, until the blue ghost eats him.

  As Pac-Man falls off the screen, Tucker bursts into tears. “I died!” he wails.

  “Whoa, hey, it’s okay.”

  “I died,” he wails harder.

  I rub his back, because fuck, what else am I supposed to do? It seems like a silly thing to cry over, but then, he’s seven. He cried once on spring break because a worm dried out on the sidewalk.

  Kid has big feelings and a big heart. There’s no way I’m breaking that heart.

  The world needs more heart.

  “You want to play again?” I ask.

  He wipes his eyes, pushing his glasses crooked, and nods. “Uh-huh.”

  “You want help?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  His hair smells like a fruit pie when I lean over him, and his little body is just so little. Even after growing since I saw him last. I kiss his crown and restart the game, covering his small hand with mine. “We’re going to run away from the ghosts, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  We die twice more before my phone alarm goes off with my two-minute warning to get upstairs and get shoes on.

  Tucker heaves a grown-up sigh. “Really, Dad? The alarms again?”

  “They keep us on time.”

  “Sometimes you just have to live life.”

  And that’s his mother coming through. I do my best to keep my expression neutral. “And sometimes, people are counting on us. And other times, we want to get to the pirate parade before we miss it.”

  He pushes his hair out of his eyes and hops off the stool, dashing for the stairs and clutching his shorts, which are threatening to fall down his slender hips. “Pirate parade! Pirate parade!”

  “Tucker, you forgot your…” I trail off, because he’s gone, running past the basement bar and up the stairs. So I grab the little scrap of a security blanket he still carries with him and trail after him, also grabbing three dirty glasses from beside a glittery notebook on the high bar counter as I pass, though those aren’t our mess. I get to the top of the stairs just a few steps behind Tucker, who’s staring again.

  And when I look up, I realize why.

  “Not. One. Word,” Ellie says.

  “Daddy, a pirate girl came out of the bathtub,” Tucker whispers.

  Ellie’s eyes go soft as her dimple pops out when she smiles at Tucker. She’s in a pirate wench dress, with a fluffy white blouse hanging off her shoulders and covered with one of those leather-looking thingies that ties up from her waist to her chest and gives her good cleavage—a corsage? A coriander? A makes-a-man-speechless?—and a flowing gauzy maroon skirt with black stiletto heels coming up to her knees.

  I swallow hard and remind my dick that we’re here for my son to go to the Pirate Festival, not for me to lose my head. Again.

  Or one of my best friends.

  “You may call me Calamity Ellie, captain of the Golden Albatross,” she says to Tucker, ending on a fancy bow that has her wincing when she stands back up.

  I start to ask if those boots are a good idea—she looked like she was hurting earlier, and I know she busted her leg and hip bad in the accident—but then I remember who I’m talking to, and I clamp my mouth shut and move past her to put the glasses in the kitchen.

  Especially since she’s in full makeup with her hair curled special and hanging down to the tops of her bare shoulders.

  She doesn’t look like she’s meeting friends.

  She looks like she’s headed for a pirate battle that will be followed with a dance.

  Not a care in the world.

  Just time to party with the pirates.

  “Girls can’t be captains,” Tucker announces as I step out of the kitchen.

  I wince and angle back to put a hand on his shoulder. “Never, ever tell a woman she can’t be so
mething. Especially Miss—Captain Ellie.”

  “But boys are pirate captains.”

  Ellie gives me a look that suggests this is my fault—of course she does—while she puts her fists to her hips. “Is that so, you scurvy dog? You keep talkin’, you’ll be swabbing the poop deck!”

  Tucker giggles. “Ew, I don’t want to swap poop on the deck!”

  “Then don’t be sayin’ there ain’t girl pirates, sonny boy.”

  Ellie winks at him, then sashays past us.

  With a limp that puts a rock in my gut.

  I’ve never wanted to protect someone so badly while simultaneously being so irritated with her that I want to tie her to a chair and make her promise she’ll quit—quit—hell.

  I don’t know what I want her to quit, but I know it’s none of my business.

  Tucker falls in line behind her and also limps all the way out the door.

  Hell.

  Does it still hurt? Beck said they weren’t sure she’d walk again right after it happened.

  But I can’t ask.

  I don’t have the right.

  Not with our history. All of our history.

  “Set the alarm, please, powder monkey,” Ellie calls to me as though we’re kids again and she’s just trying to get my goat.

  Like our relationship isn’t way more complicated than that.

  Like we didn’t screw on her parents’ basement floor. Like she didn’t tear off out of the house right afterward. Like she didn’t ignore every last attempt I made to apologize.

  “Are you going to the pirate parade with us?” Tucker asks her while I set the alarm and lock up.

  “Nay, laddie, I be off to pillage and plunder whilst you all be watching the lesser pirates distract you.”

  “I’m going to dig for pirate treasure this week.”

  “Only the luckiest pirates who believe in girl pirate captains will find any gold.”

  “I know all the pirate stories, and none of them are about girl pirates.”

  “That’s because men pirates write all the books.”

  “Where did you hear all the pirate stories?” I ask Tucker, and not just to distract him from sticking his foot further down his throat, which of course he doesn’t realize he’s doing, since he’s seven. I talk to him most every night before bed, generally read a story on video chat, and I’ve never read him a pirate story.