“Everything revolved around children,” Kimberly points out.
I look back at the Inn and start unpacking the motherload. Literally. How much did Mom think we could eat? “Yeah, I hadn’t noticed that. I guess because they couldn’t have any of their own, every child in town became theirs.”
Kimberly picks up a sandwich, but she doesn’t unwrap it. Instead, she looks back at the Inn. “I’m going to work really hard and the Inn is going to be a success once again. I think I’ve already fallen in love with it,” she says pensively.
I believe she really thinks that. But she won’t last long. I predict she’ll be long gone before summer.
“Do you have a plan B?” I ask, because I can’t tell her that even if she spends the time and money into refurbishing the Inn, she still won’t have a clientele. Nobody comes to Faire Island anymore. There isn’t any real reason to.
My eyes meet her confused gaze. “Why would I need a plan B?”
Hope shines from her face and I can’t be the one to dash her dreams. She’ll learn soon enough.
A strong wave rocks the boat tipping Kimberly into me. I grab her upper arms to steady her and make the mistake of looking into her eyes again. Even with the sun beating down, I can tell she’s feeling the same arousal. Her eyes go to my lips and just like before, I want to kiss her. Bad idea.
Kissing won’t be enough; I know I won’t be able to stop until I have her naked and I’m buried deep inside her. She would feel amazing, I already know. Against my cock’s opinion, I release her arms and move back. I want to come up with some witty response, but I can’t. “Let’s finish eating so I can get you back home.”
She doesn’t respond, but she takes a healthy gulp of lemonade to cool off. I do too.
Kimberly is quiet on the ride back to the marina. Thankfully, the asshole crowd has dispersed. We pick up her groceries with only a quick hello to my folks before driving her home. I carry her bags inside and take note of the condition of the Inn.
The porch is treacherous and needs to be the first thing fixed. It’s dangerous and would be too easy for Kimberly to get hurt. The window in the kitchen needs to be fixed ASAP. And I smell rotted wood; I only hope there are no termites. That could be an astronomical cost.
She walks me back to the front door and leans on the doorframe. “Well, thank you again. I really enjoyed spending the day with you.”
Those blue eyes hold mine. “I enjoyed it as well. About the landscaping, when were you wanting to start?”
She chuckles and her eyes seem to sparkle. “As soon as possible.”
I give a nod and know I don’t have time without doing some major reassignments. I’m as surprised as she is when I say, “Okay, let me check my schedule and I’ll get back with you.”
I should go, but I can’t make my feet leave. Instead, my eyes find her lips once again. It would be wrong to kiss her. A flyaway hair lands on her face and I reach up and touch her cheek with my thumb to brush it away. I linger on her smooth, warm skin too long, but I don’t care. She shudders, gasps, and leans into me. I move my gaze upward and find her eyes closed and her lips expectant. Kissing her would give off all types of wrong messages. I clear my throat and mutter, “You had a hair on your cheek.”
Her eyes flash open and that pretty pink flush reappears, this time tinged with embarrassment. “Oh, right. Sure,” she mumbles.
With nothing left to do, I tip my cap and walk down the rotting porch and don’t stop until I’m sitting in my truck with the door closed. She is too tempting and it confuses me why I’m letting her get to me.
It’s no surprise to me where I end up. Right back at the marina. I didn’t see my mom’s car, but I know my dad will still be around. In his early fifties, Blake Murphy is a tall, broad shouldered man who hasn’t lost his handsome looks. If anything, the touch of salt at his temples makes him even more striking. Years of loading and unloading cargo gave him work tough muscles and a salty disposition. There was never any doubt that he loved his wife and sons. There’s also no denying mine or my brother’s parentage because it’s been said more than once that we take after our father. I only hope that one day I can be as good a father to my children.
I put the truck in park and wonder where that thought came from because I’ve already decided a wife and kids aren’t for me. I tried it and it was an epic fail. I’m never going there again.
I find my father covering a boat and join in to help him strap down the vinyl. “Hey, Dad.”
Looking up from his task with a smile, he asks, “Son, did you forget something? It’s no wonder, the way you barreled out of here.”
Yeah, I notice the humor on his face. Pulling a strap tight, I move on to the next. “No, I didn’t forget anything. I just wanted to check on my boat.”
He knows that’s an excuse, but he’s been at this dad thing long enough to know to wait until I get my thoughts unjumbled.
“Want to crack open a couple of beers and sit on the dock?” he offers.
“Yeah, that sounds good. I won’t even tell Mom.” I nod and follow behind him up the dock.
He snorts. “Wouldn’t matter if you did. She’ll smell it on me as soon as I walk in the door. That woman has a sensitive nose. She’s like a bloodhound zeroed in on a scent.”
I laugh and take a seat on a bench under a covered roof to get out of the sun. Dad ducks into his office and comes back out with two ice cold longnecks. He hands me one and we clink bottles before we each take a long draw.
I enjoy the taste and coldness and let it slide down my parched throat. My shoulders relax and now I feel crazy for making a big deal out of nothing. Why was I here anyway?
We both look out over the ocean and live in the moment until my dad says, “Kimberly is a beautiful woman. She seems nice too.”
Right. That’s why I’m here. “She is both of those,” I agree.
We take a few more sips in comfortable quiet while looking out over the water. “You change your mind about putting your hat in the running?”
I slide my gaze to his and frown. “No. I haven’t changed my mind. And you know good and well why.”
Dad shrugs and holds the bottle to his lips for another sip. “Doesn’t mean things would end the same with her. All I’m saying is there’s nothing wrong if you did change your mind. I mean if you found yourself attracted to her. You did spend a lot of time with her today. David said you were very territorial when he stopped to introduce himself to her.”
Had I really been that bad? “David is an asshole. You know how he is with women. I was just trying to keep her from being hurt.” The fact that my MO is the same fails to register. Almost.
Of course, my dad doesn’t let it go. “Hmmm, some would say you and David are similar in a lot of things.”
I know what my dad is hinting at. David and I don’t do relationships. We have a tried-and-true system that has worked for years. We don’t fuck anyone that lives on the island. We don’t spend the night. And we never promise more than a night filled with orgasms. We learned these lessons early. I just forgot it for a few years, almost two, to be exact.
To two horny teens, the summer vacationers were like an assortment of delicious candy and much too easily available. Luckily we wised up, hopefully matured, and now we never fuck on the island. There are too many complications that come with living in a small town. Well, the most obvious being there are no women in our age group. Even if there were, the town is too small. Everyone would be all up in our business and expectations would be a complication.
Now David and I have a few regulars over on the mainland that know the score, but definitely nothing serious. Maybe I need to call Emily and schedule a therapeutic fuck session to get Kimberly out of my head.
My dad chuckles and takes a drink before commenting, “Trust me. It won’t work.”
Confused, I pull my brows together and ask, “What?”
Dad grins and finishes his beer. “I know that look. You can’t screw someone else to forget about K
imberly.”
My bottom jaw drops. Dad has this uncanny ability of seeing through the crap. “How did you…”
Dad leans back and crosses his ankles. “Oh, please. You don’t think I’ve been around the block a time or two? Besides, I can read you boys like a book.”
I shake my head. “But you and Mom have been together forever.”
Looking out over the ocean waters, my dad’s expression turns thoughtful. “No, not forever. There was a time when I turned into an asshole and let her get away.”
“Wait. What? Why have I never heard this?”
“It was a stupid, painful time for both of us. Your mom wanted to go to college and I didn’t want her to. I was such an egotistical dumbass that I told her if she went, I wouldn’t wait on her to return and I’d sleep with every girl that even looked my way.”
Realizing your parents were once young and going through shit is unsettling. “Dad. You gave Mom an ultimatum like that?”
“Not my proudest moment. What made it even worse is I made good on that promise. She’d been gone six months. I was miserable without her. In my mind, she didn’t love me like I loved her. I could just imagine her going on dates with preppy college guys and it made me raving mad. Then one night at a bonfire on the beach, I had too much to drink and you can guess what happened.”
I find it hard to conceive that my father made such an asshole move. “But it must have turned out okay. You’ve been married for over thirty years.”
“It took a long time to gain your mother’s trust and forgiveness. It could have easily gone the other way and I would have had nobody but myself to blame.”
I never knew my parents went through something so emotional. I’d just always assumed they had the fairytale ending you read about in romance books. Well, that other people read about. I don’t touch them. “Wait a minute. Mom didn’t finish college until years later and Adan is thirty-three, which means…”
Dad pushes to his feet and grabs his half empty bottle. “Well, that’s enough reminiscing today. I need to get home; your mother will have dinner waiting.”
I can’t keep the sly smile from pulling at my lips. You dog, you. “Yeah, good talk, Dad.” He knocked my mom up when she was still in college.
I don’t think we ever knew more than that Mom didn’t finish college until we were all in elementary school. Evidently Mom didn’t make Dad grovel for long since she got pregnant with Adan when she was probably a junior.
“Hey, Dad,” I call out. My dad turns back reluctantly. “I don’t think it’s fair that the town stuck Kimberly with the Inn when it needs so much work to even make it habitable. The front porch alone is a health hazard.”
My dad nods. “Leave it to me.”
That’s all he says and I know he will make something happen.
I push to my feet, with nothing resolved, and head to my truck. Once I get home, I call James Campbell. He’s married and older than my dad and owns the only greenhouse slash landscaping business on the island. James maintains a business on both the island, where he does most of his plant growing, and on the mainland, where most of his customers are located. But he has what I need to borrow.
Chapter 8
Kimberly
After spending most of the day with Bode, I put away the groceries and change into a new pair of shorts and tank top to fix the kitchen faucet. I was right. I don’t have a full-length mirror, but I can feel the bottom of the shorts in the back and my butt hanging out. These are definitely working around the house all by myself shorts and they are amazingly comfortable.
I do what I can to make repairs, but the hot water valve still leaks. However, the cold water works like a champ. I should be happy with half a success.
I fill a bucket with hot water from the bathroom and pour in a good cupful of cleaner and go to town scrubbing down the kitchen. I empty the dirty water in the bucket and refill ten times. Two times just to mop and scrub the dirt from the floor. I find a piece of cardboard and tape it over the broken window as a quick fix until I can figure out how to replace the broken pane.
I am a cleaning ninja. Walls, counters, appliances, and I even empty the cabinets and scrub the insides—which leads to me washing all the dishes and glasses before putting them back in the cabinets. And through all the scrubbing and washing and sweating, I can’t get the almost kiss with Bode out of my mind. He makes me hot and I want his kisses and more. Kimmie would have taken what she wanted.
I like sex and I’ve always been confident in my sexuality. After watching Lili fall in love with Milo in a meaningful relationship, though, I realized the difference and I want what they have. I want that closeness. That’s why Kimberly needs to know and like the person before getting her orgasms. Bode could be that guy.
By nine that night, I hold my weary and sore body up and survey my beautiful kitchen. Lili would never believe I did it myself. This is what I’ve needed. I can do this on my own. I don’t need to follow in someone’s footsteps to be successful. I can make my own success with my own two hands. Was this how my father felt when he took over from my grandfather and turned the business around?
I hear a knock at the door and I can see through the glass that it isn’t Bode. There are three feminine shapes. I open the door and I’m greeted with, “Hi, Kimberly. We haven’t met before, but we are going to be your new friends. I’m Brandy, the one with big boobs is Suzie, and the tiny one is Melissa.”
“We come bearing gifts,” Melissa says, and all three women hold up a bottle of wine. Ah, they speak my language.
The three couldn’t be more different. Brandy is fashionable with her sun-streaked blonde hair pulled up and back from her face in a modern style. She’s maybe two inches shorter than I am and has a warmth to her eyes that makes you want to be her friend.
Suzie indeed does have big boobs. G-cups if I had to guess. She’s around my height, but carries a little extra weight in her butt. I’m sure the boys love that. Her hair is auburn and twisted up into a ponytail on top of her head.
Melissa is the tallest of the group. She’s boyishly thin and has that runway model look. Her dark brown hair is cut into a sharp chin level bob and when she smiles it shows in her eyes.
I can’t help but chuckle at their welcoming eagerness. I pull the door wide open, my exhaustion from earlier forgotten. “Well, come on in, ladies. It’s nice to meet new friends. Especially when they bring my favorite beverage.”
I grab some glasses from the kitchen. Water glasses are all I have and I make a mental note to get wine glasses. I should probably run upstairs and change but I don’t. “Come on, let’s go out back and sit by the fire pit.”
“Wow, you’ve done a lot of work in here,” Suzie says as she peeks into the kitchen. It makes me proud of what I accomplished on my own.
Melissa sticks her head in the dining room. “I see the potential.”
“I’ve not started in there yet. I have plans; it’s just there’s so much to do. But I’m having fun and learning new things.”
We step out onto the back deck to the sound of the waves breaking on shore. “I forgot how beautiful it is out here,” Brandy says.
“It’s my favorite place.” I hand the glasses off and throw a few logs in the fire pit and add some tinder before striking a match. In only a few minutes, I have a fire going. Another thing I’ve learned. All those episodes of Survivor I’ve watched came in handy.
Suzie doesn’t mess around when she pours us a full glass of wine. We each take a seat in one of the Adirondack chairs and the small talk starts. I can tell the women are close and it makes me miss Lili. “How long have you known each other?” I ask.
Brandy takes a drink. “It’s one of the things about living in a small town. We’ve known each other forever. We didn’t all go to the same college, but we all moved back home afterwards.”
I learn that Brandy owns the Cut n Curl beauty shop in town and her husband is a fisherman. Suzie works from home making jewelry that she sells online and her husba
nd works on the mainland and only comes home on the weekends. Melissa has a teaching degree and used to teach at the school in town before it closed and now she helps out at the pharmacy a few days a week. Melissa’s husband also works on the mainland as a chef at a fancy hotel.
“Now, give us the Kimberly story,” Brandy says as Suzie tops our glasses with the second bottle of wine.
How much do I want to tell them? “My best friend Lili and I went into business together right out of college. We started the Helping Hands non-profit organization.”
Suzie gasps dramatically. Possibly from too much wine. “Oh, my gosh! I’ve heard of them.”
“Me too. That’s impressive, Kimberly.” Brandy raises her glass to my accomplishment. But it wasn’t mine. It was Lili’s.
Melissa’s brows pull together in question. “So why are you here and not still doing that?”
I take another drink before I reply. The wine is really good. It’s like nothing I’ve ever had before. There’s a tone to it I can’t identify. I look up and find three attentive faces waiting for my answer. “Because Lili married and moved overseas. She was the driving force behind our company. I didn’t want to run things by myself and she couldn’t with her new baby. Helping Hands is now run by a committee and based in Tanistan. Unofficially, Lili still has her hands in the decision making.”
A log falls in the fire, causing sparks to fly into the air. “And you didn’t want to stay and help?” Suzie asks.
I watch the sparks disappear into the night. It’s almost like they fly to the moon and blend in with the moonlight. “No. I love Lili, but she has a new life now. We’ve been together since we were young kids and Helping Hands was her baby. I just came along for the ride. My degree is in business and marketing and I always wanted to build something of my own. Ya know?”
Going All Inn (Faire Island Bride Series Book 1) Page 6
