by Jill Shalvis
sucking in big gulps of air, but when she looked up, Sam was standing close watching her.
He didn’t try to touch her, for which she was grateful. Touching her in the midst of a burgeoning anxiety attack only made it worse. “Whew,” she said with a fake smile. “It’s hot back there, right?”
He walked to the glass-fronted fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, which he uncapped and then handed to her.
She gulped it down, grateful he was going to let her have her little freak-out. “I’ll learn all this stuff real fast,” she promised.
He met her gaze. “You have nothing to prove here, you know that, right?”
Uncomfortable with the straightforward, brutally honest words that conflicted with his oddly gentle voice, she just nodded. “I know.”
“But if the guys and I are out on the boat and you get a customer, you’ve got to be able to go in there,” he said quietly.
“I know. I get it. I’ll be fine.” She held her breath, thinking he was either going to fire her on the spot, or push for details.
He did neither. “All right,” he said, apparently trusting her. He could have no idea how much that meant to her, and it took her a moment to swallow the lump in her throat.
He didn’t miss that, either. He simply gave her the moment she needed, watching her closely but not interfering as she got her shit together. “Hang on a second,” he said, and vanished into the equipment room for a moment. He came back with a tote slung over one broad shoulder.
He held out a hand, which she took without even thinking, and let him lead her down to the dock. The boat was gone, but he opened the tote and spread out some gear. “Consider this lesson number one,” he said.
“For what?”
“Life.”
She laughed. “What does snorkeling have to do with real life?”
“Teaches you how to live in the here and now, for one thing.” He looked up at her in the early dawn light to see if she got him.
She got him.
“Plus you need to know how this stuff works,” he said. “If you stick, we’ll have more lessons.”
“I’m sticking.”
He didn’t respond to this. Instead, he stripped out of his ball cap and T-shirt, rendering her mute.
He slid into the water and showed her how to work the snorkel gear.
She nodded a lot, and said “uh-huh” a lot, and tried not to drool. When he was done, he effortlessly hoisted himself out of the water and back onto the dock. He shook like a big, shaggy dog, spraying her with water.
“Hey,” she said.
He surprised her with a quick grin that short-circuited a few brain cells. Then he gathered the gear and carried it back to the hut and into the equipment room, dumping it into the sink to be cleaned. She watched from the doorway while he returned everything to its place and then moved aside for him to pass.
Instead, he stopped with her in the small space. “You okay?”
“Yes.” Even with him near, she was okay. Actually, she was more okay than usual—and she had no idea what to make of that.
His mouth smiled, but his eyes remained serious. And possibly a little bit sympathetic, which she didn’t want to see, so she moved into the front room. And because her knees were a little weak, she sank to the couch.
“Is it tight spaces?” he asked quietly, “or being in tight spaces with a man?”
She stilled, hating that she’d been so transparent. She studied her feet, and then picked at a nonexistent piece of lint on her sweatshirt.
“I see,” he said.
But he didn’t see. He couldn’t possibly see . . .
He pulled on his shirt again, and then his hat, and crouched in front of her, balancing with ease on the balls of his feet. “Customers aren’t allowed back there, period,” he said. “Now that you’re on board, none of the three of us needs to get into it, either. It’s all your domain during the hours you’re here. Got me?”
He was saying that she had no reason to feel anxious here. A warm feeling filled her stomach and started to spread. She smiled, and this time it was real again. “Got you.”
He studied her for a moment, and his mouth quirked. “You’re going to be good for us,” he said. “You smile like that at any of our customers, and they’ll be lining up for our services. Ready for more training?”
“Ready.”
Once again he moved behind the counter with her. They stood close and remained that way while he showed her how to check the equipment in and out. In doing so, they kept brushing against each other, and she began to heat up again. She pulled off yet another of her layers, leaving her in just the tank top that was now sticking to her like a second skin.
Sam closed his eyes, took off his baseball cap, shoved his fingers through his hair, and then replaced the cap. Everything about him said big, bad, frustrated testosterone overload. She met his gaze.
“You’re right,” he said. “We need a bigger hut.”
Chapter 12
That day Becca went to the rec center after work. Lucille had called and said they’d be waiting for her. Assuming she was going in for an interview, she changed into a cute sundress from Olivia’s store, added a denim jacket and wedge sandals, and made her way over there.
She was met by a really great-looking guy in navy-blue cargoes and a polo shirt with a firehouse insignia on the pec.
“Jack Harper,” he said, offering her a hand. “Fire marshal. How you doing?”
“Great.” She pulled her résumé from her bag. She’d doctored it up some. Okay, a lot. “I know I don’t have teaching experience, Mr. Harper, but I do have a four-year degree in music and—”
“Jack,” he said, and took her résumé, which he promptly scanned and then rolled up and shoved in his back pocket. “And you’re hired.” He gently nudged her down the hall and to a classroom, filled with at least twenty kids, all in the neighborhood of . . . young. “You’ve got an hour and a half with them. Good luck.”
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “Are you telling me I start now?”
“Actually,” he said, looking at his watch. “Five minutes ago. And between you and me, I wouldn’t dally. They’re good kids—until they get bored.”
Indeed, the natives were restless. She could see two girls, twins by the look of their matching wild red hair and toothless grins, climbing up on their desks to do God knew what. A couple of boys were throwing balled-up paper at each other. Two more were crawling beneath the desks on some mysterious errand.
Jack swore beneath his breath, leaned into the classroom, and gave a sharp whistle.
Everyone froze.
“Good,” Jack told them. “More of that. Pink and Kendra, get down. Alex, Tray, Jose, and Carlos, don’t make me come in there.” He paused while everyone got into their seats like little angels. “Now stay just like that,” he commanded, “until Ms. Thorpe says otherwise. She’s the boss, and what the boss says goes.”
“Impressive,” Becca muttered to him.
“Trust me, that’ll only work for a minute tops,” Jack said. “If all else fails, there’s a bag of candy in the teacher’s desk. Use sparingly. Sugar’s their crack.”
“But. . .” She stared at the kids. “I didn’t realize I’d be starting today. I don’t have a curriculum. Or instruments. Or—”
“We have some stuff that was donated.” He fished a key out of his pocket and set it in her palm. “In the storage closet.” He gave her a quick heart-fluttering smile. “Good luck.”
He’d handled the kids with a few quiet, authoritative words, no problem, and she hoped to do the same. Heart pounding, she walked into the room. “Hey, kids. So who likes music?”
Everyone’s hands shot straight up into the air like rockets.
Becca smiled in relief, walked over to the storage closet, and unlocked it. There was a pile of flutes and a string bass that had seen better days. There was also some percussion—and by that she meant two beat-up snare drums, a set of crash cymbals, and a xy
lophone. It all gave her a bad flashback to middle school band practice.
Turning from the closet, she pulled her iPad mini from her purse and brought up her keyboard app.
Immediately six of the twenty kids were able to do the same on their phones. “Look at that,” she said. “We’re halfway to a band already.”
The kids cheered. Laughing, Becca pushed her desk back, sat on the floor, gathered everyone around her, and did the only thing she knew how to do.
Plowed her way through.
The next day, Sam was at work in his warehouse. He’d sheathed the wood hull with a layer of fiberglass cloth for durability, both topsides and bottom. Now he was applying resin, making the weave of the cloth virtually transparent, bringing out the wood’s natural tone. The result was a stiff, strong, stable, watertight composite wood/epoxy/fiberglass hull that was virtually impervious to the effects of moisture. He was concentrating, his every muscle aching from the strain, so that he almost didn’t hear the door open and close.
Almost. Because here, in his shop, he heard and saw everything. He never invited anyone in here. Even Cole and Tanner rarely ventured in.
It was his place, his zone.
He didn’t turn to look at the door; he didn’t have to. He recognized the footsteps as Becca’s. Soft but not hesitant, her spontaneity and easy joy showing in every step despite whatever life had handed her—which clearly hadn’t been all rainbows and kittens. Boggling, And a little bit scary.
“Hey,” she said, coming up behind him. “Is it okay for me to enter the Man Cave or do I need to perform the secret handshake or something?”
He laughed. “Smart-ass.”
“Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry at all. “My mouth’s always been a problem.”
Yeah, a big problem. He remembered that mouth, and exactly what it felt like traveling the length of his body. Even now, in the light of day, her lips were full and shiny with gloss, and he had a hard time looking away from them. And then there was the fact that she smelled like peaches and cream.
He wanted to eat her alive.
“I’ve got a few messages for you.” She stepped to his side, taking in his work. “Pretty,” she said. “Is there a good profit in making boats?”
“Not really.”
She ran a hand over the sleek wood. “So you do it because . . . you’re good at it?”
“No.”
She looked up at him. “Okay, man of mystery. If not for the profit, or to show it off, then why do you build boats?”
“For myself.”
“For yourself?”
“Yeah,” he said, and because a slight frown had formed between her brows, he reached out and stroked a finger there to ease the tension. “You should try it sometime,” he suggested. “Doing something for yourself.”
“I moved across the country for myself.”
“That’s not why you moved,” he said.
Something flashed in her eyes and was gone. “You think you know why I moved?” she asked.
“You needed to get away from something,” he said.
She made a noncommittal kind of noise, not giving a thing away. Then she paused. “So what do you think I should do for myself then?”
“Whatever feels right.”
She stared at him for the longest beat, and then she surprised him. She stepped close, so close they were toe-to-toe and everything in between, and his only thought was Oh, Christ, this feels right. He let his hands go to her hips.
“Something for myself,” she murmured.
“Yeah.”
“Hmm.” Her hands rested on his chest, her fingers gripping the material of his shirt over his pecs. He wasn’t sure if she was holding on for courage or because she wanted to touch him.
“I haven’t been able to think of something to do for myself for a long time,” she said.
“And now?”
She stared at her hands on him. “I still might need help in that area.”
He tipped her face up to his and looked into her eyes, and he saw that she had courage in spades. “Several things come to mind,” he said.
“Are these things . . . good for me?” she asked.
“Not a single one.”
She both laughed and trembled against him, and damn but that shouldn’t send lust rocketing through his veins, and yet it totally did.
“Good’s overrated anyway,” she whispered.
He couldn’t believe how much he wanted her. Wanted to press her up against the boat. Or bend her over it. Both ways, he decided. All ways. “We said we weren’t doing this anymore,” he said, more than a little shocked at how gruff his own voice was and at the need coursing through him. “Not while you work for me.” And he’d meant it. He fucking one hundred percent had.
“No, you said that,” she reminded him. “I didn’t sign on for the not-doing-it program. And besides—” She made a big show of looking at the time on her phone. “I’m off the clock.” She smiled at him guilelessly. “Lunch break. And last I checked, it wasn’t an employer’s business what his or her employee does on their lunch break.”
Closing his eyes, Sam let out a long, admittedly shaky breath. He was in trouble here. Big trouble. “Becca—”
“Shh,” she said. “Or the boss’ll fire me. We have to be really quiet. Really, really quiet.” And then she rocked her hips into him.
And rocked his world. Because just like that, he was a dead man. He tightened his grip and groaned at the feel of her, and she murmured “Shh” again, softly, sexily.
Using the hand he had tangled in her hair, he drew her in closer. Meeting him halfway, she went up on her tiptoes and snagged an arm around his neck. He already knew she kissed like she appeared to do everything else: with her entire heart and soul.
In other words, amazing.
He was halfway to heaven, his tongue buried in her mouth, his hands full of warm, soft, curvy Becca, when a throat clearing had her jerking away from him.
Sam was much slower to lift his head, to let go of her sweet, hot body and register that Amelia stood there, smile in place, brows arched in that way mothers the planet over had nailed down.
“I brought you cookies,” she said, “but you look like you’re already having your dessert.”
Sam bit back his sigh. “Amelia—”
Amelia arched her brow further.
Years ago, maybe the second or third time he’d landed in her house, she’d tried bossing him into a curfew. He’d been a smart-ass and had called her Mom. He’d been joking, but she’d liked it, preferred it, and to this day she made him call her that. “Mom,” he corrected.
“Better. Now, don’t mind me,” she said, coming into his shop the way no one else ever did.
Well, except the woman who’d been in his arms only a few seconds ago, the woman now staring at Amelia, gaze confused, probably wondering at the “Mom” thing.
Amelia smiled a warm welcome at Becca as if she was the hostess at a tea party. “And you are. . .?”
“Becca.”
“Ah,” Amelia said, offering a hand. “The new hire.” She sent Sam a long, hard glare that wasn’t all that hard to interpret. It said: Why are you tangling tonsils with the new girl?
Sam scrubbed a hand over his face and took the container of cookies from Amelia. “Becca, Amelia is Cole’s mom and—”
“Just Cole’s mom?” Amelia interrupted, eyes flashing.
