by Jill Shalvis
together enough to keep Sam from landing in foster care, to now, when Mark still didn’t have it together. “How much you need?” Sam asked.
“Uh . . .” His dad laughed again, guilt heavy in the sound. He’d spent a total of maybe ten minutes being a dad, so he’d never really gotten the hang of it. “That’s not why I called.”
Yeah, it was. Of course it was. They had a routine. Sam would call his dad to check in every week, never getting a return call until Mark ran out of money, which happened every few months or so. “It’s okay, Dad. Just tell me.”
“A grand.”
Sam opened his eyes and stared at the sign.
Smile.
Be friendly.
“A grand,” he repeated.
“Carrie needs to buy stuff for the baby, and—”
“Got it,” Sam said, not wanting to hear about the demands of Mark’s latest woman. Or the baby that’d be Sam’s half sister when it arrived in a few months.
A baby sister.
It didn’t defy the odds any more than picturing his dad trying to be a real dad . . . “Did you ask for the paternity test like we talked about?”
“Well . . .”
“Dad—”
“She’d kill me, son. You have no idea how touchy pregnant women are.”
Sam bit back anything he might have said because there was no point. His father had made a career out of getting ripped off by women. “You need to find a way to try,” Sam said.
“I will.”
Sam blew out a breath. He wouldn’t try. “So a grand, then. To the usual bank account?”
“Uh, no,” Mark said, back to sheepish. “I closed that one out.”
More likely, the bank had kicked him out for repeatedly overdrawing his funds.
“I’ll email you the new info,” his dad said. “Thanks, son. Love ya.”
The love ya was so rote that Sam wondered if Mark even realized he was saying it. Not that it mattered. Nor did his response, as his dad had already disconnected.
The phone immediately rang again. Resisting the urge to throw it out the window, he yanked it back up, wondering what his dad could have possibly forgotten. “Yeah?”
“Hi, um . . . is this Lucky Harbor Charters?” a female voice asked, sounding uncertain.
Shit. Sam glanced at the sign. He still didn’t have a smile in him so once again he attempted friendly. “Yes, you’ve reached LHC.”
“Oh, good. I’d like to book a deep-sea fishing trip for a family reunion. It’s our first big reunion in five years and we’re all so excited. There’s going to be my dad, my grandfather, my two brothers, my uncle—”
“Okay, great. Hold please,” Sam said, and punched the HOLD button. He took a deep breath and strode out of the warehouse and to their “yard.” This led to the waterfront. There they had a dock, where their fifty-foot Wright Sport was moored.
Hours ago, Tanner—their scuba diving instructor and communications expert—had texted Sam that he was working on their radio system.
“Hey,” Sam called out to him. “How about answering a damn phone call once in a while?”
“You’re the one inside,” Tanner said, not stopping what he was doing, which didn’t look to be work so much as sunbathing. Not that he needed it with the mocha skin he’d inherited from his mother’s Brazilian roots. He’d stripped to a pair of board shorts, a backward baseball cap, and reflective aviator sunglasses, and was sprawled out on his back, face tilted up to the sun.
“Busy, are you?” Sam asked drily.
“Cole and I chartered the midnight cruise last night and didn’t moor until three a.m.”
“And you slept until two p.m., so what’s your point?”
Tanner lifted a middle finger.
Sam gave up and strode up to the smaller building—a hut really—that they used as their front office and greeting area. The rolling door was up when they were open for business and shut when they weren’t.
It was up now, and Cole was sitting behind the front counter. He was their captain, chief navigator, and mechanic, and was currently hunt-and-pecking at the keyboard of his laptop. The fingers stopped when Sam reached into the bucket beside the counter and pulled out one of their water guns. The thing had been touted as a squirt gun, but the more apt term would have been cannon. Sam weighed it in his hands, decided it was loaded enough, and turned back to the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cole asked.
“Going to spray the hell out of Tanner.”
“Nice,” Cole said, fingers already back to hunt-and-pecking. “Carry on.”
Sam stopped in the doorway and stared at him in surprise. Cole was their resident techno-geek. He wore cargo pants with handy pockets and could fix just about anything at any time with the ingenuity of a modern-day MacGyver. And he always, always, objected to fighting among their ranks. “What’s up?” Sam asked him.
“Trying to work. Go away.”
“If you’re working so damn hard, why aren’t you answering the phones?”
Cole lifted his head and blinked innocently. “Phones? What phones? I didn’t hear any phones.”
Sam shook his head. “We need to get that damn ad in the paper.”
Cole’s fingers clicked one last key with dramatic flair. “Done,” he declared. “Ad placed.”
“What does it say?” Sam asked.
Cole hit a few more keys. “Looking for self-motivated admin to answer phones, work a schedule, greet customers with a friendly attitude, and be able to handle grumpy-ass bosses named Sam.”
Sam arched a brow. “You’d push the buttons of a guy holding a loaded water cannon?”
Not looking worried in the slightest, Cole smiled and reached down beneath the counter, coming up with his own loaded cannon, which he casually aimed at Sam. “You forget who bought these.”
“Shit.” He turned to go.
“You’re forgetting something else,” Cole said.
Sam looked back.
“Tanner’s ex-profession as a Navy SEAL.”
“Shit,” Sam said again, lowering the cannon. He was pissed, not stupid.
“Good choice.”
“Line one’s for you,” Sam said.
Becca wasn’t much for regrets so she decided not to stress over the fact that she’d rented a third of a dilapidated warehouse sight unseen. Thanks to Sexy Grumpy Surfer’s warning—I take it you haven’t seen it yet—she’d been braced.
But not braced enough.
The building was similar to Sam’s in that they were both converted warehouses, and had the same floor-to-rafter windows. But that’s where the similarities ended. Her warehouse hadn’t been nearly so well taken care of. According to the landlord—an old guy named Lyons—the place had once been a cannery. Then an arcade. Then a saltwater taffy manufacturer with a gift shop. And finally a boardinghouse, which had last been used for a bunch of carnies in town for a long-ago summer, and they hadn’t been kind.
At the moment the entire warehouse was a wide-open space divided into three units by questionably thin walls. Each apartment had a rudimentary galley kitchen and bathroom and was filled with a variety of leftover dust and crap from the previous renters—hence the furnished (sort of) part of the ad. In addition to beds and tables, this included some odd-looking carnival equipment and a saltwater taffy pull.
Or possibly a torture device . . .
Becca and Mr. Lyons walked through each of the apartments. The first unit was cheapest since it was the smallest, and also the coldest, as it got the least sun exposure.
Since cheap was right up her alley, and she didn’t have to worry about cold for another six months, she’d handed over her check.
“If you need anything,” Mr. Lyons said, “yell for the guys across the alley. Tanner’s almost always on the dock or their boat, but he’s a real tough nut to crack. Cole’s good for fixing just about anything. But Sam knows all there’s to know about these old warehouses. He’s your man if you need anything.”
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br /> Sam again. But she decided she’d need his help never. “Got it, thanks.”
“He’s not exactly shy, so don’t you be,” Lyons said. “Just don’t try to date any of them. They’re pretty much ex-hell-raisers these days, but still heartbreakers, each and every one of them.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Becca said, knowing she could and had handled just about anything a woman could face. She absolutely wouldn’t be needing help.
Not an hour later, she was in the bathroom washing her hands when she found a huge, black, hairy spider in her sink staring at her with eight beady eyes. She went screaming into the alley, jumping up and down, shaking out her hair, and jerking her limbs like a complete moron.
“You lost again?”
She let out another scream and whirled around to face—oh, perfect—Sexy Grumpy Surfer. He was in faded jeans, a white T-shirt, and mirrored glasses, looking movie-star cool and sexy hot.
He arched a single brow.
“There’s a spider in my bathroom sink,” she said, still gasping for breath.
“That explains the dance moves.”
Ignoring this and him, she checked herself over again, still not convinced she was spider-free.
“Need help?” he asked.
“No.”
He shrugged and turned to walk away.
“Okay, yes,” she admitted. Damn it. “I need help.” She pointed to the offending building. “First apartment, door’s wide open. The evil culprit is in the bathroom sink.”
With a salute, he vanished inside her building.
She did not follow. She couldn’t follow; her feet had turned into two concrete blocks. And if he came out without having caught the spider, she was going to have to move out. Immediately.
Two minutes later, Sexy Grumpy Surfer reappeared, the smirk still in place. She wasn’t going to ask. She refused to ask. But her brain didn’t get the message to her mouth. “You get it?” she demanded, and was rattled enough not to care that her voice shook a little bit.
“Got it,” he said.
“Sure?”
He gave her a head tilt. “Do you want me to swear on a stack of Bibles, or my mother’s grave?”
His mother was in a grave. That was sad and tragic, and she knew later she’d think about it and mourn for them. But for right now, she wanted assurances. “Your word will do.”
“I’m sure I got the spider.”
Whew. She sagged in relief. “Okay, then. Thank you.”
“I don’t suppose you’d do those moves again.”
Was he laughing at her? She narrowed her eyes at him because yeah, he was laughing at her. “I don’t suppose.”
“Shame,” he said, and then he was gone.
Becca went cautiously back inside. She glared at her bathroom mirror for a few minutes and told herself she was fine, move on.
She was really good at that, moving on. She stood in the center of the drafty space with her two suitcases, her portable piano keyboard, and her pride. There were a few other things, too. Fear. Nerves. Worry. But she’d done it, she’d made the move to reclaim her life, and at the realization a new feeling settled into her chest, pushing out some of the anxiety.
Hope.
Nightfall hit in earnest, and she had nothing to do with herself. No WiFi, no cable. Just her imagination. When it kicked in gear, picturing the relatives of the doomed spider creeping out of the woodwork to stalk her, she hurriedly pulled out her e-reader to distract herself. It was an older model, and she had to hold up a flashlight to read by. She could’ve left an overhead light on, but then she’d have to get out of bed later to turn it off. This wasn’t a new problem. She couldn’t have said how many times in the past she’d dropped the flashlight and e-reader on her face while trying to read in bed, and sure enough, twenty minutes in, she dropped the flashlight and e-reader on her face.
Giving up, she drove into town, found a local bar and grill named, of all things, the Love Shack. She ordered a pizza, took it back to her place, and ate alone staring out the huge windows.
The view was an inky black sky, a slice of equally inky black ocean, and the alley that ran perpendicular from the street between the other warehouses.
Three guys were carrying what looked like scuba gear into Sexy Grumpy Surfer’s warehouse. Three hot guys, one of them Sexy Grumpy Surfer himself. They were laughing and talking as they made several trips.
Interesting. Sexy Grumpy Surfer could laugh . . .
She watched while eating her pizza and thought maybe she didn’t need cable after all.
It was quiet when, an hour later, she walked outside with the empty pizza box, down the dark alley to the Dumpster. Real dark. There was no sign of a single soul now, and Becca hummed a little tune to herself to keep from freaking out, one of her own.
Not that it helped. A sound startled her, and she nearly jumped right out of her skin.
About five feet ahead, three sets of glowing eyes turned her way.
Raccoons.
They were sitting on the Dumpster, having a feast. She laughed at herself, but swallowed her amusement when the six eyes narrowed on her, all accusatory-like. “Sorry,” she said. “But I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be foraging around back here.”
The raccoon closest to her growled.
Yikes. Becca lifted her hands. “You know what? None of my business. Carry on.” Whirling to leave, she had taken one step when she suddenly found herself pinned against the wall by a big, hard, sculpted, warm body, two big hands at either side of her face. She gasped in shock, and at the sound, her captor went still as well. Then his thumbs were at her jaw, forcing her to look up at him.
“It’s you,” he said, and she recognized his voice. Sexy Grumpy Surfer. As fast as she’d been pinned, she was unpinned. “What are you doing?” he wanted to know.
Her mouth dropped open. “What am I doing? How about what are you doing? You scared me half to death.”
“I thought you were following me.”
“No.” But okay, she had been watching him earlier—two entirely different things, she told herself. “I was just talking to the raccoons—” She gestured to where they’d been rifling through the trash, but they were long gone, the traitors. Shakily she started to bend to pick up her fallen pizza box, but he retrieved it for her, tossing it into the Dumpster.
“You need to be careful,” he said.
She gaped at him, her fear turning to temper. “The only danger I was in came from you!”
“Lucky Harbor might be a small town,” he said, “but bad shit can happen anywhere.”
“I know that,” she said. And she did. She knew far more than she should.
He was in a pair of loose black sweats, battered athletic shoes, and a T-shirt that was plastered to his flat abs and broad chest with perspiration. She realized he’d been running, hard by the look of him, though he wasn’t breathing all that heavily. If she hadn’t been feeling so defensive, she might have thought about how sexy he looked. But she was feeling defensive, so she refused to notice.
Much.
“You okay?” he asked.
Well, now was a fine time for him to ask, after he’d nearly given her a heart attack. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she said. “I’m totally okay.” Because saying it twice made it so.
“It’s late,” he said. “You should go inside.”
Becca wasn’t real good at following nicely uttered requests, much less an out-and-out order. “Maybe I was going somewhere,” she said.
