by Jill Shalvis
Jase didn’t look impressed, nor did he take his eyes off Becca. “Let me help you—”
“No. No,” she repeated, more gently, reaching behind her to give Sam a shove. “I told you when I left. I’ll worry about me. You worry about you.”
“There was a time when we worried about each other,” he said sadly.
Becca shook her head. “I can’t do that anymore, Jase. You know that.”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know that. I miss you, Bex.”
“Jase—”
“No, I get it.” Jase’s face closed up, much as his sister’s had. “You have to worry about you.”
“Jase,” she said again, more softly now.
But the connection had ended. Becca went still for a minute, then pulled her heels up to her chair, hugging her bent legs and dropping her forehead to her knees.
Sam slid a hand down her back.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Yeah. That’s why you’re curled in a protective ball.”
Closing her eyes, she shivered at his touch, and hoping that meant he was doing the right thing, Sam curved his palm around the nape of her neck and crouched at her side. “Talk to me.”
“I’m fine.”
Amelia had long ago schooled him in the fine art of fine. He knew that if a woman used the word fine, it actually meant the polar opposite of fine.
“You made it sound like I was running the free universe, rather than basically being a gofer,” she said.
“You’re more than a gofer, Becca. But Jase is right. You should be doing something with your talent, your dream—”
She lifted her head and leveled him—slayed him—with her big, luminous eyes. “You firing me?”
“No, of course not.”
She drew in a deep breath and let it out again, purposefully, like she was releasing some tension. “You should know that, while I find your whole caveman thing really annoying, I realize you were just trying to protect me. For some reason, that’s . . . arousing, but I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself.”
“I know.” Sam paused. “Arousing?”
She snorted and turned her head to look at him. “Is that all you heard?”
“I’m a guy.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve noticed.”
Before Sam could even begin to interpret that statement, Cole strode in.
Looking like she’d been given a reprieve from her own execution, Becca jumped up. Sam snagged her wrist before she could move off and put his mouth to her ear. “We’re not done.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she muttered, giving him a shoulder nudge that didn’t need translation—she wanted space.
Cole, one of the most intuitive people Sam knew, took in both Sam and Becca and stopped short. “What did I interrupt?”
“Just a little show of Neanderthalism, that’s all,” Becca said.
Cole grinned. “He dragging his knuckles again?”
Becca slid Sam a look. “Just a little.”
Cole nodded. “Runs in the family, along with our good looks.”
“She knows we’re not real brothers,” Sam said.
“Hell if we’re not,” Cole said, losing his good humor. “When you first came to stay at my house—what were we, thirteen? You were a stick, half-starved and always sick, but you still beat the shit out of those assholes who kept jumping me after school. You said we were brothers, and no one messed with your brother.”
Damn. Cole was even touchier than Amelia about this family shit. “Listen, I just meant—”
“You said it, man.” Cole turned to Becca, who was probably soaking up this new information like a dry sponge. “And then our first year on the Gulf,” Cole went on, “that massive storm hit, remember?”
“I remember,” Sam said. “You don’t need to—”
“We huddled in that fucking tiny room the size of a postage stamp, the four of us,” Cole said. “And when that lantern fell and hit Gil on the head and sliced Tanner’s leg, I got cut trying to clear the glass. We were bleeding like stuck pigs. Tanner decided we were all going to die, and we were trying to keep him from bleeding out—”
“Jesus,” Sam said. “Dramatic much?”
“You kept your head,” Cole said. “Even when the blood was everywhere, even when you slashed open your hand trying to get the glass out of Gil. You got us through that night, and the next morning when we got outta that shithole, we all had each other’s blood on us and you”—He jabbed a finger at Sam like there might be any question of who he was talking to—“you said again that we were blood brothers. So go ahead, say we’re not.”
Cole had the patience of a saint, and a very long fuse to a nearly nonexistent temper. But one thing that pissed him off was whenever Sam brought up that they weren’t really family. Cole was Amelia’s son through and through. Sam shook his head and gave up. He met Becca’s gaze.
Hers had softened, and there was something new there. Like maybe she’d let him in just a little bit more than she had in the past.
Tanner came in and sank to the couch. As he always did after a trip, he immediately began stripping off his wet suit.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sam asked him.
Tanner had gotten the suit shoved down low on his waist. Bare-chested, he stared up at Sam. “Stripping,” he said. “What does it look like?” He went to shove the suit off the rest of him, and since Sam couldn’t be sure Tanner was actually wearing board shorts beneath—sometimes he went commando—Sam gave him a nudge with his foot. Actually, it was more of a kick. When Tanner looked up with a fight in his eyes, Sam jerked his head toward Becca.
Becca was watching every single movement with avid interest.
Tanner stopped stripping and grinned at her. “Hey, sweetness, how did your day go?”
“Good,” she said. “We made a killing today when a group of twenty stopped to kayak. Oh, and as for the Summer Bash, I’ve looked into some advertising, both online and print for your web presence. You could do better there. I’ve emailed each of you a suggested plan to up your visibility. I’m not as familiar with Lucky Harbor as I’d like to be, yet, but I’m pretty confident you could also do much better in print ads as well.”
Cole smiled. “Are we paying you enough?”
“For now,” she said sweetly.
Sam thought about how many different ways she could have answered that, and had to admit it impressed him. She impressed him. She was nosy and curious and frustrating. She was sweet and warm, and sometimes, when he was very lucky, she looked at him like he was the only man on her radar.
And thanks to the intriguing phone call with her brother, he knew she protected her secrets well.
Which only made him want to know all the more what they were.
Chapter 20
Becca found herself enjoying Lucky Harbor more every single day. Twice she’d realized she’d missed another call from Jase, and twice she’d tried to call him back but he’d ignored her return calls.
Not a good sign.
But she couldn’t try to live his life for him anymore. Instead, she immersed herself in life here. Lucky Harbor was different from any other place she’d ever lived. She was used to people keeping to themselves. She was used to passing someone on the street and, if accidental eye contact was made, you nodded or smiled briefly and kept moving.
That’s not how things worked in Lucky Harbor. People stopped her, wanted to know how her day was, how the jobs were going—and they really, genuinely wanted to know. They also wanted to know how she handled working for the three hottest single men in town.
And yes, that actually happened. But it’d been Lucille asking, so maybe it didn’t count.
She spent lots of hours at the rec center with the kids. Just yesterday they’d graduated to putting their five newly learned chords together to make a song.
Of sorts.
They were working on “God Bless America,” working being the key word. But the hours
spent in that classroom were some of her favorite hours ever.
“Think we can have a concert?” Pink asked one afternoon. Her front teeth were starting to grow in, while her twin Kendra’s were not, which made it easy to tell them apart. Well, that and the fact that Pink wore only pink.
The truth was, they were about as far from being able to handle a concert as Becca herself was, but who was she to dim their enthusiasm? “Who would we play for?” she asked instead.
“The whole town!” Pink yelled. She yelled almost everything; she couldn’t seem to contain her own energy.
“You want to play in front of everyone?” Becca asked, surprised.
Pink nodded vigorously.
Becca looked at Kendra. Kendra nodded vigorously.
Becca looked at the rest of the gang. They all nodded equally as vigorously.
They couldn’t play one line of “God Bless America” without breaking up into giggles or a fight, not to mention they had no real skills, and yet they wanted to play in front of the entire town. It was the most awesome show of confidence Becca had ever seen, and suddenly she wished she were a kid again. “Well, I—”
Someone cleared his throat behind her. She turned and caught Sam, Jack, and Jack’s cousin Ben standing in the doorway, each wearing a badass smile. Becca knew that Ben taught “craft hour.” He’d been the one to bring in Jack and Sam. The kids raved about them all the time.
Becca didn’t know much about Jack or Ben, but the sight of Sam standing there all sexy-cool in jeans and a T-shirt advertising Lance’s ice cream shop altered her heart rate. She decided she had to just not look at him anymore. Mature, she knew, but this was not a time to visit Lustville.
“How about us?” Jack asked. “Maybe you guys can play for us.”
“Oh,” Becca said. “I don’t think—”
But the kids had all burst out with hopeful “Yays!” and “Yes!” and “Oh, please, Ms. Teacher!”
Becca sneaked a peek at Sam, who gave her a two-hundred-watt grin, damn him.
“Let’s hear a few songs,” Jack said.
“We only know one,” Pink said, and flung herself at the big, bad, silent Ben, wrapping her arms around his waist, giving him a bear hug. Kendra did the same. Ben surprised her by gathering them in and hoisting them up so that their feet dangled above the ground—much to their squealed delight.
Jack ran his fingers along the classroom’s xylophone, making a racket that had the rest of the kids giggling.
“Can they play with us, Ms. Teacher?” Pink asked, still hanging from Ben’s arm.
“If they want,” Becca said, unable to imagine that they did.
But the guys made themselves at home. Pink divvied up the instruments, thrusting a marching drum at Sam.
Shocking her, Sam sat down with the drum. The seats were made for kids, and as a big guy, he should’ve looked ridiculous stuffed into one. But he didn’t look anything close to ridiculous. Actually, he looked pretty damn fine, not to mention sexy-adorable, and she wanted to gobble him up.
He caught her staring at him. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, not looking bothered by that fact one little bit. It probably never occurred to him to worry about feeling ridiculous or making a fool of himself.
“That’s okay,” Pink told him. “Ms. Teacher will teach you.”
“Yeah?” Sam turned to Becca with mock seriousness, his eyes laughing.
“Can you keep a beat?” she asked with as much teacher-like seriousness as she could muster.
“I don’t know,” her newest student said softly. “You tell me.”
Oh, boy. The kids had given both Ben and Jack cymbals. Everyone was in place and ready, so Becca gave the count. They began playing—out of sync, of course, and off key. Nowhere even close to a beat.
But at the end of the song, when they all burst into applause, Becca took in the sea of happy faces and had to laugh. “Good,” she said.
“It was great,” Pink corrected.
When the class was over, Becca looked for Sam, and found him standing with Jack and Ben. Her heart skipped a beat at all the male gorgeousness in such close range.
“Holy crap,” said a female voice from behind Becca. It was Mitzy Gale, the woman who ran the kids’ programs at the rec center, and also the principal of the elementary school. She visibly shook herself. “Those three really shouldn’t stand together; they’re going to blow all the female brain circuits in the building.” She looked at Becca. “That was great, by the way.”
“It was?” Becca asked.
“Yes. You do so well with the kids. I’d love to hire you to run the after-school music program, both here at the rec center and also at the elementary school.”
“You don’t have a music program,” Becca said.
Mitzy laughed. “Exactly. You’re going to create one.”
“Me?”
“Yes, please.”
Becca’s heart started beating faster in excitement. Hope. Thrill.
“Now, I should warn you, don’t quit your day job yet. The hours are only part-time until our budget kicks in, which might happen for fall, and it might not. It’s not a great offer. Frankly, it’s a terrible offer, but you’re so desperately needed and wanted, Becca, if that counts for anything.”
“That counts for everything,” Becca said.
She marveled over it for a few days.
Only a few weeks ago, she’d have described herself as an introvert. But here, in Lucky Harbor, working at the charter company, she’d come to realize that she was actually an extrovert. The job demanded it, really, and so did Music Hour with the kids, but . . . she liked it.
She liked the kids. She liked the guys, too. She liked all of it. Everything. Here, she didn’t obsess so much over her career—or lack thereof. Here she got out and met new people every day.
Lived for the moment.
She had Sam to thank for that.
One afternoon, he showed up just as she was closing up the hut. The pattern was that one of the guys was always there at closing. They were there anyway, cleaning up the boat, the gear, whatever, but one of them would grab their cash from the day and get it to Sam. Or Sam would come get it himself.
Today he stuck his head in the door. His hair was windblown, his face tanned, his eyes crinkled to go along with the rare smile on his face as he crooked his finger at her.
She looked behind her.
No one.
“Me?” she asked.
“You.”
“Is this going to be lesson number four?” she asked, unable to keep from sounding hopeful.
He met her gaze. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and maybe not the morning before, either. His unruly hair had been finger-combed at best. He looked like maybe he had questionable motives. He looked like he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He looked hot.
“Becca, when I give you lesson number four, you’ll know it.”
Her entire body reacted. But she was beginning to think that he talked the talk of a badass, and walked the walk, but he didn’t have the true heart of a badass or he’d have taken advantage of her by now.
Damn it.
Against her better judgment, she followed him outside and down the dock to where a gorgeous, sleek boat was moored. “Wow,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
“I made it for a client a few years back,” he said. “He’s gone
