****
The next night, I stood with the small staff and watched my aunt and uncle get ready to roll out of The Gull’s parking lot. Rita and I were flanked by the two full-time maids, Maria and LeeAnn. Skip came over for the occasion, too, as an emeritus employee and friend.
“We’re so glad you’re here to watch over the place,” Carol whispered to me as she hugged me goodbye. “Barefoot Key isn’t the place it used to be.”
I wanted to ask what she meant, but she moved quickly to her long-time employees to dispense goodbye hugs.
“You take good care of our Gull, Savvy,” Mike said. He motioned me over to the trunk of their car where he fiddled with arranging their luggage. In a low voice, he said, “I hope we’re only gone a week at the most. I’d like to be back for the next chamber of commerce meeting. Businesses here in the Key are dropping like flies.” He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him. “Now’s the time we all gotta stick together.”
“Don’t worry about The Gull,” I said lightly. “I’ll only sell it off if I get enough cash to open the bait shop I’ve always dreamed of.”
“I hope to bail the old gal out and be back before anyone notices we’re gone,” he said, shutting the trunk. He put one arm around my shoulders and gave me a quick squeeze. “And I won’t worry knowing I have the smartest person in the family in charge down here.”
They climbed in, we caught one last glimpse of big blond hair in the passenger side window, and Aunt Carol and Uncle Mike were gone. Tulip leaned against my leg, watching the departure along with us. She licked my ankle and gave me sad eyes.
“We need a drink,” Maria said. “My mother-in-law’s putting the kids to bed tonight because I figured it would be a late one.”
LeeAnn looked at her watch.
“It’s gonna be a late one, right?” Maria said. “I need a break from those kids.”
Maria had four kids under the age of ten. Her husband drove a semi and only stayed home long enough to get his wife pregnant and his tires changed. The kids who weren’t old enough for the joy of public education spent the day tailing their mother’s housekeeping cart, torturing Tulip, or turning the swimming pool into a wave pool.
“Hell yeah,” LeeAnn said. “I had a date with some fish tacos, but they’ll wait.”
“I found the owner’s manual for the margarita machine and I think I can pull it off,” I said. I thought this was a good time to show confidence in front of my staff.
“We could get started with the hooch while LeeAnn runs home and cooks for us,” Skip offered.
“Bite me,” LeeAnn said.
Divorced, thirty, and no kids, LeeAnn had a grouchy side that flirted with bitter. If there were honeymooners in the motel, she always got special assignment in some other area. Only one thing made her happy—cooking. And her fish tacos made other people happy, so it balanced out.
“Have they ever gone on vacation before?” I asked. My whole life, it had never occurred to me to wonder. Living in a beach motel in Florida seemed like a permanent vacation, but I wondered for the first time if they’d ever actually gone away. They didn’t come to my college graduation because they had a full house and a fishing tournament in town. I told them they weren’t missing anything because college ceremonies were notoriously dull.
“Not that I know of,” Rita said. “Carol’s gone home a few times. They’ve been on a few overnighters or weekenders I can think of. But leaving for a week, both of them? Can’t remember a time. Guess they figure they can do it this time because you’re here.”
“They trust all of you,” I said. “You’re like family.”
“But you are family,” LeeAnn said. “They know you won’t lock the doors and have an orgy.”
Everyone turned and stared at LeeAnn.
“Not that we would,” she said.
Their taillights were long gone down the access road The Gull shared with the Sunshine Souvenir Stand on one side and Skip’s bar on the other side. Not technically a street, the two lanes of blacktop leading to our three businesses were owned by the Sunshine and ran across a chunk of its property.
Although my aunt and uncle were out of sight, I still stared in the direction they’d gone, feeling like a little girl entrusted with playing house for real. How bad could I screw up? They’d be home before I even had to order more toilet paper. And maybe this would be a good opportunity for me to bolster my resume and improve my chance of getting into the trainee program. The experience columns on my application were emptier than a beach with a shark sighting. Probably the reason for my wait-list status on the program.
“I’ve got a good feeling about their trip,” Maria said. “They’ll get the old bat straightened out and have fun seeing the trees turning colors up north. We should drink to them.”
“A feeling, huh?” LeeAnn asked.
Maria nodded seriously. LeeAnn sighed like a sibling who was tired of her little sister. Although not remotely related, the two housekeepers had been a team for at least a decade. I used to call them Miss Maria and Miss LeeAnn until they told me to knock it off sometime during my first year of college.
“Got some stuff in the cooler next door,” Skip offered. “Be right back.”
We all checked out his ass as he swung across the parking lot.
“That’s one fine package,” LeeAnn said.
“Shit,” Rita said, grinning.
“We could share him,” Maria said. “He likes kids and tacos.”
Rita glanced over at me but didn’t say anything. Whatever she suspected about my relationship with Skip, she was keeping it under her highlights for now.
“I bet he likes tacos more,” LeeAnn said.
“All men do,” Rita said.
Chapter Three
The shed full of pool equipment might as well have been part of the launch pad for the space shuttle. I faced a large cylinder, a whole series of pipes and hoses, and several sealed containers with hazardous materials labels on them.
I wrinkled my nose at the clean chemical chlorine smell, crossed my arms over my chest, and faced the giant pool pump. It probably smelled better than I did in my sweaty T-shirt, shorts, ancient sneakers, and sticky ponytail. It was hot in the shed, the afternoon sun abusing its metal roof. Still, I wanted to appear brave, not flinching in the face of a whole room full of equipment I couldn’t tell from a garbage disposal.
Day four of what I had planned as a Gulf Coast vacation had me perspiring in the pool shed and wondering what I should do.
“Need any help?”
I whipped around, blood rushing from surprise and something else. Of course I knew the voice. Skip McComber leaned against the frame of the open shed door. Shirtless. Wearing low slung jeans and a grin that registered somewhere between caution and amusement.
He looked like a man who knew how to run a pool pump. From experience, I knew he could handle a lot more than that.
“I’m fine,” I said, trying for cheerful dismissal in my tone. “Just taking a look around.”
“Taking stock of your new property.”
“Temporary property.”
“Since it’s your place now and all,” he said, disregarding my comment, “looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”
A mild earthquake rolled under my sternum and sent shockwaves from its epicenter. Maybe I’d have better luck with the space shuttle launch pad configuration than I would handling Skip.
“Temporary,” I repeated.
He nodded, continuing to appraise me with his look. Perhaps appraisal was too glamorous a word. He was looking at me like a cat who’d just opened the bird cage and was wondering how much fun he could have with the bird.
Skip had been rattling my cage since we were sixteen. Every time I came to visit my aunt and uncle for a vacation, an added perk had been the endorphin boost from their local boy turned maintenance man. A skinny handsome kid, he had matured every time I came back to The Gull until he was the full-blown man standing in front of me.
“I know a lot about fixing things,” he said.
Of course he did. He had the benefit of owning a penis, a wonderful device imparting knowledge about cars, computers, pool pumps, and probably the space shuttle. I also was acquainted first hand with Skip’s expertise in using his member—a fact reminding me why I had to get out of the overheated shed.
“I’ll keep that in mind just in case,” I said. “I have to go check on the…um…air-conditioning units.”
He smiled, not giving up his post blocking the exit. “Planning to recharge the condensers?”
I know a challenge when I see one. I also know enough not to swing around a sword with my eyes closed. Recharge a condenser? If Skip thought he was going to exact some masculine advantage over me by testing my mechanical knowledge, he had a surprise coming.
He was going to discover how humiliatingly easy that would be.
But I hadn’t gutted my way through college to be vanquished by an air conditioner or a pool pump. Or the sexy male renovating the bar next door. He’d have to go push buttons on his power equipment because my buttons were off limits.
“There are plenty of things that I should consider recharging around here,” I said, side stepping through the doorway and taking care not to touch any part of Skip’s delicious body. He did not make that easy for me. Somehow, his scent—man soap mixed with sawdust—erased the chlorine smell and took me back to spring break before I could put on the brakes.
“I hope I’m one of them,” he said, filling the doorway with his broad shoulders.
“Not on the books,” I said. “Got plenty of other things that need attention.”
It’s true I was shutting him down before he even got going, but it was the only way. I couldn’t be rational in my relationship with Skip. After last spring’s foolish step into the land beyond friendship, I didn’t have the credentials in the romance department to handle a casual relationship. He had to stay next door or I would lose my grip on myself and The Gull.
“Savvy,” he said, his tone stopping me. I turned to face him, not wanting to be rude, not knowing what to do about him next door, not knowing if air conditioners even had condensers.
“Come over sometime. I’ll buy you a beer.”
“Not a huge offer from a man who owns a bar,” I said.
He grinned. “Doesn’t mean it’s not a good offer.”
“I’m not on spring break,” I said. And that was six months ago. We’d exchanged cell phone numbers at dawn and never used them once. “And I have to get to work.”
“Have to check the circuit boards on the shower heads?” he asked, the corners of his mouth inching up.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. Of course I know shower heads and electronics don’t mix. Maybe some fancy ones in the fancy catalogs, but I knew we didn’t have anything like that around The Gull. At least, I was pretty sure. And I was already getting tired of his mechanical superiority. I’m savvy about a lot of things he probably doesn’t know the first thing about.
“I’m working on a business plan for The Gull while I’m managing it. Projecting ROI. Spreadsheets. Metrics. Stuff like that.”
Skip studied me for a moment, making me believe I had the upper hand.
“Hard to imagine what your return on investment is gonna be when you haven’t had to sink anything in an investment,” he said. “You want to talk ROI sometime, I’ll show you the pile of debts I’ve racked up redoing the Pirate Emporium.”
I’d been inside the Pirate Emporium plenty of times, none of which would have inspired me to pay much for the place or sink any gold doubloons into it. On the scale of tackiness, it was a few notches lower than The Gull. Or at least in the same neighborhood.
“Maybe sinking a bunch of money in a renovation isn’t your best choice,” I said, feeling a hitch in my craw. I should be directing guests to the concierge desk in a five-star hotel, not discussing metrics in shorts and flip-flops. Especially not with a shirtless man who made me wish we were both naked.
“Think I should leave it in its tacky 1950s Florida condition?”
I shrugged, trying to appear cool and remember what we were talking about. “Lots of people like that.” I gestured at The Gull. “This place seems to be doing fine.”
“You’re in for some surprises if you think things are fine here in Barefoot Key,” he said, his tone suggesting—again—he knew something I didn’t. Maybe it was his penis. He couldn’t help himself. But I still didn’t have to play his game.
“Why are you here?” I asked. I wanted him to go away before I sweated through my T-shirt.
“Just saying hello.”
“And?”
Skip blew out a breath and hitched his tool belt a little higher. The muscles in his chest and arms rippled with the movement.
“Maybe I just wanted to see—” his words trailed off as he looked over the pool deck and the back patio. Tulip was dutifully prowling the perimeter of the deck, the sunshine reflecting off her yellow fur. She edged closer to the inviting blue pool, her long tongue reaching down to lap some water. The dog looked around and I knew what she was going to do a split second before it happened.
Tulip jumped in, happily dog paddling in the cool water. The lone guest in the pool, a young boy supervised by his mom lounging in a chair, laughed and tossed Tulip the ball he was playing with. His mother looked up from her novel and shaded her eyes, watching the giant wet animal circling her son and nosing the ball through the water.
“Tulip,” I yelled, jumping over a low hedge. The dog was in heaven, intoxicated by the midday cooldown. She ignored me like a penguin ignores ice.
“Tulip! Get out!” I pointed to the pool deck and gave her the official you’re in big trouble look.
Right behind me, I felt Skip’s presence. It wasn’t just the Florida sun. There were actual heat waves emanating from his bare chest—tanned with a light covering of caramel colored hair—and whisking over me. I turned and caught his look. He was laughing, the clean muscles of his abdomen contracting with the effort.
“Tulip,” I scolded. “Get out now.” I gestured authoritatively again, but the usually obedient dog was wrapped up in the siren song of the water.
Skip picked the pool net off its hook on the back fence, scooped up the ball, and flipped it onto the sand. Tulip heaved herself over the side of the pool, leaving a river of water on the deck. She didn’t even take time to shake off before she barreled after the ball and caught it in her teeth, rolling in the sand until she was completely caked, a living sand sculpture.
“Thank you,” I said to Skip, “That was very helpful.”
He shrugged. “Got her out before those bastards from the health department found out about it.”
“Much appreciated.”
Skip tapped his head and smiled at me. “I can be savvy, too,” he said. He turned and sauntered across the deck, forcing me to share the view of his backside with the lounging mom by the pool. She abandoned her book completely and feasted her eyes on the man-candy heading next door.
“I hope she follows you home,” I shouted after him, consoling myself by imagining Tulip shaking a maelstrom of sand and water all over my hot but troublesome neighbor’s bar.
****
Several nights later, I was holed up in room twenty-four. Ever since high school when my parents decided I was old enough for my own room, my aunt and uncle had been reserving this room for me. It was at the top of the open staircase on the far end of the motel. As an end room, it had a window overlooking the bar next door. The interior had not changed in decades—an aqua bedspread and curtains with a tile floor and a no-frills bathroom. I’d changed a lot in the last decade, celebrating graduations from high school and college with many vacations and spring breaks in between. And last spring, I’d shared the bed in this room for the first time.
The only nod to modernization room twenty-four could boast was a newish flatscreen TV over the dresser. It was small, but I only needed enough screen to view my favorite
nightly quiz show. I pulled shredded cheese from the mini-fridge, dumped it on a plate of nachos, and popped it into the motel-sized microwave. With a cold beer for good measure, I’d just settled in for my guilty pleasure when someone knocked on my door. I ignored it, wanting some solitude and a chance to feel smart. It was my way to recharge. And I needed it. Aunt Carol and Uncle Mike’s emails indicated I might be in for a long tenure as The Gull’s guardian.
Tonight’s game show categories were just being revealed when the knocking went into round two. Louder. I slapped to the door in bare feet and pulled aside the aqua curtains to peek out. Big mistake. There was no pretending I wasn’t in my room when more than six feet of man lounged against my door and watched me through the window. As the motel’s former and sometimes maintenance man, he probably still had a key to my room anyway.
One shoulder on the door, eyes on me, Skip was a walking temptation. I opened the door.
“Just stopped by to see if you could use any help,” Skip said.
With the game show, no. I know all those answers. With running The Gull? Maybe. But I wasn’t admitting that.
I composed my expression into front desk neutral. “Everything’s under control,” I said.
“Everything?”
“Unless smoke’s rolling from one of the rooms and there’s a naked dog in the pool. Then yes. Under control.”
Skip nodded. “Guess I should have figured.”
I thought he might turn on his workbooted heel and walk the open hallway down to the aqua-railed concrete stairs. But he didn’t. I heard laughter and applause from the television behind me. The TV host was probably being witty and charming, making guests on the show feel at home and smart. And I was missing it. Right then, I didn’t feel at home or particularly smart.
“How long have they been gone?” he asked. He didn’t have to say who he meant.
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 114
