Almost Paradise (Book 4)

by Christie Ridgway

  “What are you looking at?” Griffin said, sounding suspicious.

  “Nothing.” He grabbed up his bottle of beer. “I’m just recalling I have a best-man duty to fulfill. What are we going to do about a bachelor party? I could throw a classic, you know, martinis, poker and trash talk at No. 9. Or could you fit in a quick guys’ getaway to Vegas?”

  Damn, he thought, instantly regretting the suggestion. Las Vegas would mean leaving Skye. Their final goodbye was coming soon enough.

  “Nah,” his brother answered. “When Dad gets here, why don’t we just take him and David out for drinks one night? They can tell us both about the joys of married life.”

  Gage groaned. “What, bamboo sticks under the fingernails too tame for you?”

  “Don’t let Mom hear you disparage marriage.”

  “I don’t disparage. I think marriage is just great for Mom and Dad. And for Tess and David. There’s people all over the world who make it work.”

  “Including, now, me and Jane.”

  “Yeah.” He studied his brother, noting the ease of his body and the faint, satisfied smile he wore. “It’s really what you want.”

  “It’s really what I want. She’s really what I want.”

  “That’s sappy enough to make me want to hurl right into this planter,” Gage said, “but I admit liking you looking so contented. I guess Jane will have to be the sacrifice for your happiness.”

  Griffin shook his head. “Dumb-ass.”

  “But you say it with such affection.” Their eyes met again and a dozen unspoken messages passed between them, all condensable to one single idea: I’ll always have your back.

  “So,” Gage finally said, “Dad, David and drinks. We’ll find a good night for it.”

  “Hope you’re not too disappointed about skipping strippers and titty bars.”

  He waved that away. “Not disappointed at all.”

  Going suddenly still, Griffin narrowed his gaze at him. “You’re getting regular sex.”

  “What?”

  “Gage Gorge sex just makes you restless. Antsy, like you’ve eaten too many candy bars.” His brother pointed a finger at him. “You’re calm. Serene, I’d even say, which means you’re getting the real thing now, the libido-sating kind of sex.”

  “My libido is not the least bit sated,” he scoffed. “Jesus. You writers have overactive imaginations.”

  “I can tell what I can tell,” Griffin said.

  “You can tell shit. For your information, I’m calm because...because I like the cove. It’s a good place to rest. I’m in recharge mode.” He took another draw on his beer and studiously avoided looking toward the last place he’d seen Skye.

  Then a flicker of color drew his eye, and his gaze shot to the fluttering hem of a blue-green skirt. Skye’s skirt. He couldn’t help staring at her legs, then her slender hips, then her—

  “Shit,” Griffin muttered.

  With a casual turn of his head, Gage looked to his brother, one eyebrow raised.

  “Don’t give me that.” Griffin huffed out a sigh. “You’re with Skye, aren’t you?”

  Gage didn’t consider it a true secret. He wasn’t ashamed to be with her, that was for sure. “If you weren’t so damn protective of her, I would have mentioned it sooner.”

  “You’re together,” Griffin said, as if requiring exact clarification. “Together together.”

  Impatient with the questioning, Gage glared at his twin. “Yes.”

  “And you’ve thought this through?”

  It wouldn’t be good form to deck the groom-to-be. “You want the truth? I’m doing my best not to think at all. How’s that? Some of us aren’t fucking navel-gazers, okay?” He’d had two weeks of no company but his own and what he could conjure up in his mind, and that was enough inward exploration to last a lifetime.

  When his brother just stared at him, Gage forced himself to lower his voice and relax his rigid spine. “It was a...a long, grueling stretch, that last assignment.”

  Griffin nodded. “Some of them are like that.”

  “Yeah, some are worse than others.” Gage took in a deep breath of fresh air. “So before I get back to the usual frustration, stress and bad food, I’m chilling at the cove, enjoying myself with a woman I really like. We have an...affection for each other, Skye and I. We know each other very well.”

  “Through your letters.”

  “Yeah. So it just seemed natural to take the relationship to this place.” Completely natural, which was why he didn’t have to overexamine it.

  “What happens when you go?”

  Gage shrugged. “I go. She knows that. But until then, it’s sunshine and sea breezes and...”

  “Your little love shack on the sand,” Griffin said.

  It made him grin. No. 9 had the power to make the past recede and fill the present—fill him—with contentment.

  “You’re looking a little happy there yourself,” his brother observed.

  Why deny it? Especially when he saw the siren of the cove heading in his direction. He aimed his grin at her. She wore earrings that were long strings of beach glass in alternating colors that matched her dress and her eyes.

  Now that the cat was out of the bag, he didn’t hesitate to slide off his perch and grab her hand to pull her close to him. “Hey,” he said softly, drawing her freshwater scent into his lungs. “How you doing?”

  Her green eyes slid to his brother.

  Gage squeezed her fingers. “Don’t pay attention to that ugly dude,” he told her.

  A smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Ugly,” she scolded.

  Griffin patted her shoulder. “Should I catalog all this guy’s vices for you, Skye?”

  “No need,” she said, and she reached up to touch his twin’s hand as if he were the one who needed comfort. “Stand down, friend.”

  Without comment, Gage plucked his brother’s fingers from her bare shoulder. “Having fun?” he asked, lowering his voice, his eyes only for her. Lifting his free hand, he let the back of his knuckles trace her cheek.

  Griffin made a sound, then walked away. Skye’s gaze flicked in his direction. “Uh-oh. Your twin does not approve.”

  “Forget about my twin.” His fingers stroked her throat. She shivered, and he saw her gaze focus on his mouth. A surge of satisfaction warmed his blood. “You want to be kissed?”

  “Not here,” she said quickly, glancing around.

  “Oh.” His smile was knowing. “You want that kind of kiss.”

  The blush that spread across her pretty face did him in. He slid both arms around her and drew her to him, spreading his legs so she was nestled close to his chest and they were half-hidden by the fortuitous palm fronds. Angling his head, he found her mouth with his, stroking in with hot demand. She seemed to have a second’s thought of pulling away, but then she melted against him, her fingernails curling into his chest like a kitten’s.

  “Dangerous,” he murmured, breaking the kiss, though he found himself bussing her forehead, her cheeks, her nose. It was impossible to get enough of her, he thought, then frowned. There would come a day when he’d board a plane and what he’d had already would have to be sufficient.

  “Let’s go back to the cove right now,” he said, feeling a pressing need to get them there, to the place where he’d banished the future. He and Skye could lie in bed, engage in some more blissing-out on the present.

  “Okay, but— Oh, I almost forgot. I ran into someone you know. You need to say hello to her first.”

  “Her?” Jesus, she hadn’t encountered some woman he’d previously hooked up with, had she? “Wait...”

  She started tugging him out of their semiconcealment. “I invited her to come to the cove day after tomorrow.”

  Now he let himself be moved, because he sincerely doubted she’d ask some former bed partner of his to their special place. “If you’re referring to my aunt Joanna, I already talked to her and please, let’s tell her we won’t be around then after all. She’ll
bring the peanut brittle she considers her specialty, and I can’t risk going halfway across the world with broken teeth.”

  Damn Aunt Joanna, for making him think of his looming departure.

  “Wipe that vicious frown off your face. It’s not your aunt Joanna. It’s Mara Butler. Griffin knew her Charlie, too, went to visit her last week, and she’s here tonight. She says she’d love to talk to you.”

  Mara Butler. Charlie.

  Charlie Butler. His war correspondent friend who’d been kidnapped. Killed.

  Gage slowed his footsteps. “She’s definitely coming to the beach? Day after tomorrow?”

  “Mmm-hmm. With her little boy, Charlie’s son, Anthony.”

  Damn. His friend’s widow was going to visit the cove. And, Gage thought, his chest filling with a painful, prescient regret, most likely bringing unpleasant reminders of his recent past with her.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  AS HE APPROACHED THE CRESCENT COVE beach at near dusk, Teague thought he should be sitting on top of the world. It was a given, right, because “friends with benefits” was right up there with “March Madness” and “nachos with extra jalapeños” in the Real Man’s Lexicon of Favorite Phrases. Instead, he felt as if something were sitting on top of him. This lousy mood had to go, however. Polly had almost kicked him out of her life a few days before, and he figured he’d really tick off his best pal if he showed up at tonight’s beach bonfire as surly as a singed bear.

  He didn’t want to chance losing her, with a desperation that he found a bit surprising. But hell, she’d always meant a lot to him.

  Maybe his mood was a belated hangover kicking in. Two evenings ago his booze of choice had been whiskey and he should have suffered from brain pain on waking. But after he’d left Polly’s bed—thought processes reeling from all that had happened and what she’d proposed—he’d swallowed pain reliever tablets and a quart of water before falling onto his own mattress. In the morning he’d opened his eyes, feeling better than he had any right to.

  But now there was a grinding sense of something gone wrong churning in his belly, and he tried ignoring it by tightening his grip on the big spray of roses in his left hand. Having been called into work for a half-shift meant he’d been unable to attend the bridal shower or reach out immediately to Polly. It was time to rectify that. Hoping what he wore on his face looked like a smile and not rigor mortis, he used his other to knock on Polly’s front door.

  She opened it, her big blues rounding in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got a text from Skye. About the bonfire?”

  “Oh.”

  Polly looked flustered. And guilty. “Did you not want me to come?” he asked, his stomach chewing on the thought.

  “Of course not. No.” She waved a hand. “We’re all always happy to see you.”

  The bite of a thorn reminded Teague he’d brought flowers—and that his fingers were suddenly strangling them. “Here,” he said, thrusting them at her. “These are for you.”

  Polly automatically reached for the bouquet, but she looked at them as if they were stinkweed instead of her favorite romantic red roses. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “I wanted to.”

  She glanced up at his face. “No, I mean you really shouldn’t have. Did anyone see you bringing me flowers? People will talk.”

  He tried shrugging off the tight claws of his ill temper. Polly never annoyed him. They’d gotten along so well until recently...until those two confusing occasions, the first when she’d dropped her dress, the second when she’d made some angry but cryptic remark about him not nailing her. Christ, he’d taken care of that, hadn’t he?

  He rubbed at his aching forehead. “I bring you stuff all the time.”

  “Muffins. That kind of pen I like. Not...”

  “Fine,” he ground out. “Now I’m hoping Skye won’t be p.o.’d that I brought her the ingredients for s’mores. Do you think that sends a wrong message, too?”

  “If so, it will be Gage who delivers the news to you,” Polly said, heading for the kitchen. “Probably on the end of his fist.”

  That diverted him for a moment. “What?”

  Her place was so small that Teague could watch her put the roses in water from the doorway. She fussed with them, then threw him a look over her shoulder. “I warned her, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  He frowned. “You’re telling me they’re involved now? Physically?”

  “Mmm,” Polly said, still arranging and rearranging the flowers. She was wearing white denim jeans that were rolled at the ankles and an oversize sweatshirt that...that was his, he realized. His well-worn fleece from the firefighter academy, originally engine-red, now washed to a soft strawberry.

  It gave him the oddest satisfaction to see her in it, even though it covered up the incredible body he’d explored the other night. She was built like a gymnast, light but strong, and he’d marveled at her shape and texture, enjoying them with his hands and his mouth, even as one part of his mind couldn’t believe he was in bed with his best-friend-who-was-a-girl.

  How had it begun? There’d been her sympathetic tears, his affectionate kiss, and then, pow, it was mouth on mouth, hands on skin, full freaking penetration.

  He’d not taken her tenderly, he thought, replaying the event in his mind. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of it, but it was the first time he did a mental rerun when she was so near. Heat shot toward his groin. What would she do if he strode over to the sink and picked her up, then carried her caveman-style to the bedroom and the high mattress that was perfectly positioned for him to—

  He blinked, aware she was staring at him.

  “Uh, what?” he asked, hoping she didn’t notice that he was more than halfway to aroused.

  Polly tucked her golden hair behind her ears in a nervous gesture that wasn’t normal for her. “I said, Skye claims she and Gage are having a summer fling.”

  It took Teague a moment to remember who exactly Skye and Gage were. “Summer fling,” he murmured. It was another happy phrase from the Lexicon. Could he and Polly be heading for one of those?

  But she was looking at him with a hint of unease in her gaze, and he thought he better not take anything for granted. Especially, as he kept recalling, because he’d gone he-man on her in bed instead of taking the friendly, fond-and-gentle route. Shit. Had he been too rough? The stressful week had shaken him, and then when he’d started talking about it...well, it had bared something in him.

  He’d been raw in every sense of the word.

  “We should get out there,” Polly said, gesturing to the beach. “Especially if you’re the s’mores supplier.”

  Teague followed her lead. Next door to Polly’s tiny place was Skye’s much more substantial home. On the sand a few feet from her front door, a metal fire pit was already stoked and blazing. A dozen people were assembled around it in the almost dark, some standing, some in collapsible chairs. He greeted and was greeted in return, then obligingly took up the task of getting the music going via iPod and stereo dock. The music player’s owner had already created a playlist, and before long over the crackle of burning wood and the quiet rush of waves he could hear “Endless Summer” by Aaron Lewis followed by Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.”

  The summer cheer of the songs lifted his mood. He grabbed a can of beer from the ice chest on the porch, then grabbed a second, the light kind that Polly preferred, and looked around for her.

  Firelight caught in her bright hair and warmed her features as she sat in one of the gathered chairs. Her beauty didn’t scream look at me, but it was arresting all the same. During years of friendship, through late nights at parties and on early morning ski runs, somehow he’d managed to filter her looks and sexual appeal from their relationship.

  Until the other night.

  He caught her looking at him, and held up the light beer, an unspoken offer.

  She quickly shook her head and dove into conversation with the woman sitting in the chai
r beside hers. Skye sat on her other side, and Teague wondered if Polly had chosen that spot on purpose, flanking herself with girlfriends in order to avoid him.

  He remembered her worry that someone had seen him bring her flowers. “People will talk.”

  Annoyed all over again with the concern, he stalked toward her. Her eyes flashed to him and she jumped to her feet, taking a fast walk in the opposite direction. Shit. He’d really blown it the other night, apparently. All that filtering he’d managed over the past four and a half years had been to the very good purpose of not letting sex screw up the closest relationship he had with another person. Now that they’d gone there, she could hardly meet his eyes.

  Double shit.

  “You’re looking very ferocious,” a voice said at his elbow.

  He glanced down at Skye, another female friend of his. He’d known her longer than Polly, but somehow the cheerleader blonde was the one he called when he was in the mood for a bike ride. She was the woman he let pick out his new shirts and tsk over the ragged ones he refused to throw away.

  “Maybe I’m worried about you and Gage,” he said, glancing over her head to find the tall man laughing with his twin. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “Don’t you go Polly on me, too,” Skye said. “For two days she’s been dark looks and deep frowns.”

  His fault? Teague wondered. “You don’t suppose something else might be bothering her?”

  Skye shrugged. “She’s doing her ‘I’m good. I’m always good’ thing again. There’s a reason I call her Very Private Polly. It’s hard to know what’s going on inside her head.”

  Teague’s shoulders tensed. He could guess all too well what was spinning beneath that bright blond hair: second thoughts about taking their relationship to the physical level. Damn it! Glancing around, he tried to make Polly out in the darkness. Light from the fire flickered over faces, but none were hers.

  Gage joined them and Teague talked with the couple without absorbing anything that was said. Instead, he kept a sharp eye out for the absent Polly, his mood only dipping lower as he listened to the songs drifting across the sand.