Bodyguard, Not Boyfriend

by Elana Johnson

  She knew he liked to bake, and she wondered if she could show up at his beach house with a perfect apple tart, an apology, and a plea for him to forgive her. But her skills with pastry probably wouldn’t pass kindergarten, and she thought she should probably just take him a footlong and call it good.

  The more that idea existed in her mind, the better it sounded. But she’d want the food to be hot and delicious, and she had no idea if Gage would even be home right now. A Sunday afternoon date was probably high on Lisa’s list of things to do to convince her ex she’d moved on. Sheryl didn’t want to be left sitting on Gage’s steps, waiting for him to come home from a date with another woman.

  Even if it wasn’t a real date.

  So she wadded up her tin foil wrapper, got up, and threw her trash away. After a quick stop at the grocery store, she rummaged through her cupboards until she found an apron. An Internet search brought up an apple tart recipe, and Sheryl washed her hands with a great deal of hope in her heart.

  Two hours later, she admitted defeat when the second tart came out of the oven looking like charred soup. How such a thing was possible, she didn’t know. But flour dusted every surface in the kitchen, her sink held a ton of apple skins and cores, and she hadn’t been able to get the first tart out of the pan. So she’d thrown it away.

  “That one was too dense,” she said, wiping her hair off her sweaty face. “This one is runny. I don’t get it.” She’d used the same recipe both times and gotten wildly different results.

  So baking wasn’t going to cut it. She heaved a sigh and dumped the sloppy tart into the trashcan. At least her house smelled like pie crust and cinnamon, even if she didn’t have anything edible to show for it.

  She wouldn’t be getting Gage back through her baking. What could she do instead?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Gage rolled up to The Heartwood Inn as he’d done countless times before. This time, though, trepidation had his heart skipping in his chest the way small children did. He wasn’t there to see Sheryl, but he could very easily run into her while on the premises. If he’d have called her before this interview, he probably wouldn’t have to even go through with it.

  He’d never met Alissa face-to-face, though he had spoken to her on the phone about the full-time position in the bakery. He already got up before dawn to work on the ferry, and he figured he’d rather get up and bake than get up and stroll around a boat, looking angry all the time.

  He stowed his helmet and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. He wore slacks and a button-up; the same type of thing he’d worn to that upscale bonfire weeks ago. Inside the lobby, he saw a small sign that said Bakery interviews: floor 3, and he stepped over to the elevator with relief. Sheryl would have no reason to be on the third floor. Still, he couldn’t help thinking of her down on the lower level, probably in her office if she wasn’t out on the grounds somewhere.

  On the third floor, he followed the signs to a suite in the corner and checked in with a woman sitting at a desk there. She sported dark hair, so he knew she wasn’t a Heartwood sister. He sat on the couch, early for his interview and glad of it, because it had taken a few minutes to get to the right place.

  “Thanks for coming,” a woman said, causing him to glance up. For one terrible moment, he thought he’d heard Sheryl. But it had been another blonde, this one definitely related to the woman he couldn’t stop thinking about.

  “You must be Gage,” she said, approaching him. “I’m Alissa Heartwood.”

  “Gage Sanders.” He stood and shook her hand, watching her for any sign of recognition. He saw none, and another wave of relief hit him.

  She started for the door that led into the bedroom. “Nice to finally meet you, Gage.”

  “Finally?” he asked, following her. An alarm went off in his mind, but he couldn’t figure out where to place it.

  “We’ll be starting with a taste test,” Alissa said, ducking into the room.

  Gage strode after her, because she’d practically ran away from him. He went through the doorway and paused, assessing everything he could see before he committed to staying in this room.

  There was no bed in the room. Just a big table with several desserts on it. If they could even be classified as desserts. They looked like science experiments gone bad, and he frowned. Looking around the room, he couldn’t see anyone else.

  “Alissa?” Two other doors led out of this room, besides the closet, and another alarm went off. He took a step backward, thinking these Heartwoods might be a brand of crazy he didn’t want to deal with.

  “Hello, Gage.”

  He stilled, because that was Sheryl’s voice. His attention jerked to his left, and sure enough, she stood there with her hair pulled up tight into that top ponytail, a pair of dangling earrings in her ears, and a fun, flirty sundress in pink and yellow.

  The breath left his body, and he couldn’t form words. Behind him, the clunk of the hotel room door closing registered in his mind, but it was still running pretty slow.

  “You look great,” she said, taking a couple of steps toward him.

  “Thanks.” He cleared the roughness from his voice. “So do you. What are you doing here?”

  “I was going to ask you that.” She smiled as she reached him. Only a couple of feet separated them, and he could easily take her into his arms and kiss her. Oh, how he wanted to do exactly that. Instead, he held very still.

  “I’m applying to be the head baker here,” he said. “Similar hours to the ferry.”

  “So you’d give up the ferry job?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And are you still Lisa’s pretend boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Are you looking to be someone’s boyfriend?”

  Gage shook his head. “Not particularly.”

  “Oh.” She side-stepped over to the table. “Alissa said I could do this interview.” She looked down at the dessert disasters. “You have to sample these and tell me what you think it is.”

  Gage walked over to the table, his stomach yelling at his mouth not to taste anything on this table. “This is…an interesting interview.”

  She handed him a fork, a sexy smile on her face that Gage wanted to kiss away. He took the fork and moved up and down the table, trying to find the tiniest piece of something that didn’t look raw or overbaked.

  “Who made these?” he asked. If it was the current head baker, no wonder the inn needed a new one.

  “That’s not important,” Sheryl said.

  Gage cocked one eyebrow at her and dug his fork into what he thought was a peach pie. He’d been born and raised in Georgia and knew what one should taste and look like. This had the right smell to it, even if it looked like it had been mixed with cream and then baked.

  “Peach pie,” he said, putting the tiny bite into his mouth. “Oh, yeah. It even tastes like it. There’s just some…charred notes I’m not used to.” He coughed slightly and put the fork down. This job wasn’t worth eating these desserts.

  He turned back to Sheryl. “It’s so good to see you,” he said, deciding to just say whatever came to his mind.

  “I made the desserts,” she said. “They’re all my horrible, failed attempts at baking.” She stepped closer to him. “See, I’ve been trying to get one decent thing made, so I could bring it to you and apologize.”

  She touched his chest, the heat from her hand like a brand. Her fingers moved up to his collar, and Gage fought against the raging river of desire moving through him.

  “I’m sorry, Gage. I’ve been terrible to you.” She looked up at him. “I went to South Port last weekend. That footlong is delicious, and the band playing was pretty fantastic.”

  “You went to South Port?”

  “My next idea was to bring you a footlong and beg you to take me back,” she whispered. “But every time I went by your house, your bike wasn’t there.” She looked like she was one breath away from crying, and her cheeks held a beautiful blush Gage wanted to see every day of
his life.

  “You want me to take you back?” He really needed to stop asking questions, but some of the things she’d said didn’t seem to make sense the first time.

  “I’m in love with you,” she said, and Gage blinked.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.” She laughed lightly. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  “A little, actually,” he said.

  Sheryl nodded, but she didn’t look away from him. “We’re not so different, you and I,” she said. “We just need to learn how to communicate.”

  He agreed with that assessment, and his hand came up to rest on her hip. She didn’t move away or flinch, and Gage finally caught up to what was happening here. “I’m not going to get the job, am I?” he asked, ducking his head so his mouth was closer to her ear.

  “Oh, you’ll get it if you want it,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” she said, leaning away from him slightly so she could look at him. “The real question is whether you can forgive me. And whether you want me or not.”

  “Neither of those are real questions,” Gage said. “Of course I want you.” He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “I’ve always wanted you, Sheryl. From the moment I laid eyes on you, I wanted you.”

  “Mm.”

  “And I can forgive you. Heaven knows I’m not perfect.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  He opened his eyes, and he saw the truth right there in hers. She was right, and she believed what she’d said. He didn’t have to be perfect to be with her.

  “I love you, too,” he said, leaning down and touching his lips to hers. He didn’t get to kiss her as long as he would’ve liked, because the door to the suite opened again. He didn’t let go of her though, when he looked to see who’d come in.

  “Oh, good,” Alissa said. “You two made up. Darcy.”

  The receptionist came forward, and she had two footlongs in her hands. Gage started laughing, so glad when Sheryl joined in with him.

  “Do you have time for lunch?” she asked, taking the hot dogs from Darcy.

  “I think I can clear my schedule,” Gage said.

  Sheryl started for the door, but Alissa put her hand on Gage’s arm. “You can bake, right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “But we should keep her as far from the kitchen as possible.”

  Alissa laughed, but Sheryl said, “I heard that,” from the doorway.

  Gage joined her with, “But I said it so quietly. How’d you hear that if I wasn’t barking it?”

  She shook her head, a smile on her face, and said, “Come on. I want to eat lunch with my boyfriend.”

  Gage reached over and picked up her tin foil wrapper before putting the last bite of his footlong in his mouth. This was his second one today, and it tasted amazing. The first he’d eaten in Sheryl’s office with her, and that had been great too.

  But South Port possessed something special, and he loved behind here with the woman he loved, eating the food he loved.

  “How’d you know I’d be at that interview?” he asked, balling up their trash.

  “Alissa called a family meeting last week,” she said, her hand in his absolutely perfection. “She wants to open a fish shop on Main Street. I guess she’s rented a space and everything. She said she wanted to quit the head baker position.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  “I told her you were a great baker, and then I may have started…crying.”

  Gage’s heart twisted in his chest. He didn’t know what to say, so he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “My sisters and I are close,” she said. “Even if I don’t see them every day.”

  “That’s nice. Michael left the island a week ago.”

  “I know. He texted me that I needed to go see you.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, but that’s the next story.”

  “Okay,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Anyway, Alissa put the job up, and you applied, and she texted me. We set everything up from there.”

  Gage let her words sink into his brain, and a rush of love for her filled him. She’d set everything up from there, because she loved him.

  She loved him.

  Britta barked, and Gage looked out at the ocean, the sight utterly beautiful. In the next moment, the dog took off, barking at the birds circling several yards away. Sheryl giggled in his arms, and Gage asked, “Michael texted you?”

  “He said you were miserable,” she said, tilting her head back to look at him. A teasing sparkle sat in her eyes.

  “I wasn’t miserable,” he said, boldly lying right to her.

  “I was,” she said. “And I couldn’t think of how to get you back. But then he texted, and you applied, and everything just came together.” She kissed him, and Gage had never been happier in his whole life.

  “And I think you were miserable,” she whispered against his lips. “Just admit it.” She traced her fingers through his hair and down the side of his face.

  “Fine,” he said, kissing her again. “I was miserable without you.” And he’d never thought he’d ever need someone the way he needed Sheryl. But he did, and he was glad he did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sheryl parked her new scooter about as close to the industrial door that led into the bottom level of the hotel as she could. She hung her helmet from the handlebars, because she didn’t have fancy saddlebags like Gage.

  One look to her left, and she found his motorcycle gleaming in the morning sunshine, though it was barely six o’clock in the morning.

  He started work earlier now than he had while working the ferry, but he was much happier. Sheryl could see it in his face, hear it in his softer bark, and feel it in his touch. The man loved to bake, and he’d only been at Heartwood as the head baker for a couple of weeks, so he was still learning all the ropes.

  But Sheryl could go upstairs to the bakery and find it fully stocked at this hour. They opened at six, so the cases would be full, and the line would be out the door. Gage didn’t man the bakery, but he worked closely with Harriett, the baker manager, to make sure everything was stocked, ready, and fulfilled.

  He got off at one in the afternoon now, and most days, Sheryl let him doze in her office while she finished her paperwork. Sometimes he simply went out to the beach and found a spot of sand to lie down on, and she’d find him lightly snoring while a family played several feet from him.

  He wasn’t working a second job, and they spent their afternoons napping and their evenings hand-in-hand on the beaches at South Port, or here at The Heartwood Inn. He’d worked security at a huge wedding here at the inn the last weekend before becoming the head baker, but Celeste kept asking him to take extra shifts for her events.

  He’d declined them all, and while Sheryl knew her sister was irked, she couldn’t get herself to care. Yes, she knew wedding crashing was a big deal, but Celeste could find her muscle somewhere else.

  Sheryl entered her office and switched on the light. Sometimes she’d find a pastry sitting on her desk, a love note from Gage that didn’t require any words. Today, her desk was empty, but that only reminded her that he was a man of mystery.

  Her phone chimed, and Sheryl looked at it while she put her purse in the filing cabinet behind her desk. The shop is open! Alissa had sent. Come get your fresh fish for dinner!

  A smile took up Sheryl’s whole face. Alissa had wanted to be a fishmonger from the time she was five years old, and the dream had finally come true.

  Dinner at the penthouse tonight, Olympia sent. I’m with Gwen, and we just convinced Teagan to cook for all of us. SOs included.

  SOs.

  Significant others. For once, Sheryl had one, and she wouldn’t be attending a party as an odd-numbered wheel.

  A sigh leaked from her lips as she sat down, happier than she’d been in a long time.

  I do need a final count, Gwen said. Within the next few minutes, as Teagan just left to get the fish.
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  Numbers started flashing up on Sheryl’s screen.

  2 from Alissa. 2 from Olympia. She added her own 2, and then got her fingers flying to invite Gage to a fish fry with her sisters and their boyfriends. He wouldn’t be able to answer right away, but she couldn’t think of a reason why he wouldn’t be in.

  Gwen didn’t answer, and Celeste was probably still in bed. She ran events that sometimes lasted well past midnight, and her office didn’t open until ten.

  Assume 2 for Celeste, Alissa said. I heard she was seeing Boyd again.

  I thought it was Ben, Olympia sent.

  At least it’s not Andre, Sheryl tapped out and sent just before Gwen said the exact same thing. She giggled at her phone, enjoying this sense of sisterhood though she was isolated on the bottom floor of this huge inn.

  It’s definitely not Ben, Alissa said.

  Sheryl had just opened her laptop when another message came in. It’s not Ben, and it’s six-freaking-AM! Celeste had said. I thought Grandma had fallen and broken another hip. Jeez.

  Just mute notifications, Olympia said, as if Celeste didn’t know how to use her phone. Sheryl opted to stay out of that conversation, because she’d surely hear all about it tonight at dinner.

  How many for you then? Gwen asked.

  Put me down for two, Celeste said. Since I’m up already.

  Who are you bringing? Alissa asked, and Sheryl could only assume the fish shop wasn’t terribly busy if she had so much time to text.

  I’ll surprise you, Celeste said, and Sheryl rolled her eyes. Her sister definitely had a flair for the dramatic, and she’d probably show up solo. Which was fine. Teagan wasn’t going to be angry about one wasted portion.

  Sheryl got her notes together as the back door opened and shut again. Javier poked his head in and said, “Morning, Sher.”