by Leigh Duncan
Jess wiped the corner of one eye and wasn’t a bit surprised when her fingers came away damp. “I can’t imagine…” Her voice died.
“It worked out,” he said, focusing on her once more. “Turned out, she was right about the new family. I still have dinner with Glen and Maddy most Sunday afternoons.” He smiled softly. “You should come with me sometime,” he said. “Bring Adam. Does he like basketball?”
“He’s a boy. Anything that involves running around and making noise is right up his alley.”
“He’d like these guys, then. They love sports. So, you’ll come?”
Jess knew one of them was going to lose the battle over Phelps Cove and the smartest thing she could do was to walk away. But when Dan’s brown eyes searched hers for an answer, she let her heart do the talking. “Sure,” she whispered. “I’d like that.”
He edged forward until all she could see was the soft gray plaid covering his chest. The space between them filled with his unique woodsy scent. A hunger to taste him flared, and she swiped her tongue past her lips. When she tipped her head back, his eyes drew her into their depths. Reason sent up one final warning flare that fizzled. She inhaled another breath and her being filled with Dan’s presence.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered his lips to hers. She knew he was giving her ample opportunity to back away. As much as she appreciated it, now that she’d committed to the kiss, she had no intention of going anywhere. She meant to stand her ground, but her feet betrayed her and shifted forward, letting him know she couldn’t wait another second.
As she rose on tiptoe to meet him, his lips grazed hers and she gasped, closing her eyes and relishing sensations she’d locked away for too long. His tongue teased her lips with warm touches until she opened to let him in. Warmth turned to white heat. His mouth fused to hers. Their tongues danced, each move sending tiny flames of desire arcing to her core.
His hand found her waist and drew her ever closer. Pressed against him, she wanted more and ran one palm over the bunched muscles of his shoulders to thread her fingers through his hair. She longed to follow the curve of his ribs and skim her hand along the narrowness of his waist.
But she couldn’t. Not unless she let the fly rod she was still holding clatter to the ground. She slanted one eye open, hoping for a soft spot to let it fall. One glimpse of navy graphite was all it took to ruin the moment. She stared, realizing the rod she’d grabbed was one of Tom’s old favorites. With a half gasp, she stepped out of Dan’s arms.
Dan backed away. “I didn’t mean—” he began.
“It’s all right,” she rushed to assure him. “I just… I just need to take things slow.” Slower than her heart, which was belting out a jazz beat against her rib cage.
“That okay with you?”
“Look, Jess, I don’t want to push it. We’re attracted to each other. That may be all it is. Not that that’s a bad thing,” he said with an understanding grin that lightened the mood and put her at ease. “But if there’s something more, we have time to figure it out.”
“Okay, then.” She backed away. Thinking was not an option with six-plus-feet of Dan Hamilton anywhere in the vicinity. “I’ll see you Saturday,” she said, intending to use the intervening time to clear her head.
Chapter Nine
Sunshine, blue skies and the better part of a day off—what else could a man ask for?
Not a whole lot. Dan grinned as he pulled to a stop at the foot of a wooden staircase that ran along the backside of On The Fly. Thanks to a few referrals from his new business associates, his already-thriving practice was doing even better. Word around the poker table at Bryce’s last week had assured him that plans for the surgical center were moving forward. And though he’d initially seen the sport only as a means to impress his partners, he’d even developed a fondness for fly fishing. Not that he could overlook the way some aspects of the hobby complicated matters.
Thirty days ago, having a child hadn’t been a priority. But now, looking at the little boy who practically flew down the steps from Jess’s apartment, he had to wonder why.
“Hi, Dr. Hamilton. Mom says we’re going on a scavenger hunt. That’s like a treasure hunt.”
One glimpse of the ear-to-ear grin Adam wore with his T-shirt and basketball shorts poked a hole in Dan’s stoic facade just above his heart. The kid was too fast for him, jerking open the Beamer’s passenger door and bouncing into the car almost before he had a chance to shift into Park. A machine gun volley of words rose from the back seat.
“Do you like treasure hunts? I do. Do you think we’ll see pirates? I asked Mom and she said no, but don’t you think we’ll see a pirate if we hunt for buried treasure?”
“Whoa, tiger. That’s a lot of questions all at once,” he interrupted. “Let’s wait and see what your mom has to say.”
Jess, the source of his conflicting emotions, sped down the stairs nearly as quickly as her child. Watching the way her curls sparkled in the midmorning sun, he gave his head a rueful shake. He’d done some serious thinking after their last fishing lesson and the kiss that still kept him awake at night. Jess wasn’t the polished, sophisticated woman his business associates would approve of, but his heart argued that she was exactly the kind of woman he wanted.
Unfortunately, their opposing interests in Phelps Cove made a romantic relationship impossible. He felt a pang of regret for what might have been as she reached into her pickup truck for Adam’s booster seat. Once Dan completed his fishing lessons, he and Jess would go their separate ways. Hopefully, not as bitter enemies, although his involvement with The Aegean might lead to that. In the meantime, or until his business partners finalized their purchase of the land she treated as her own, couldn’t they at least be friends?
And friends helped one another, didn’t they?
While Adam mashed buttons on his armrest, Dan slipped from behind the wheel.
“Here, let me get that for you.” He leaned in, brushing his lips across Jess’s cheek in the kind of greeting one friend would give another. Light danced in her dark eyes. She smelled of orange blossoms…
Behind him, the Beamer’s back window glided down.
“C’mon, Mom,” Adam called. “C’mon, Dr. Hamilton. Let’s go.”
Dan stepped back quickly. Trying to convince his heart to listen to his mind, he took the car seat from Jess and followed her instructions for installing it.
“Let’s go see the pirates,” Adam commanded before he was finished.
“No pirates,” Jess said to the boy’s obvious displeasure. Squatting, she settled a hand on his knee. “But we might see some animals. If you behave yourself, you’ll get to pet them.”
Adam peered up through dark eyes that were very much like his mother’s. “I like dogs, not cats.” His small face lifted. “I know lots of knock-knock jokes. Do you, Dr. Hamilton?”
“I did once upon a time,” Dan admitted. Two, maybe three decades had passed since he told his last one.
Adam grinned. “Okay, you first.”
There was a trick in there somewhere, but it had been too long to remember. Dan glanced at Jess for help, but she shrugged, smiling, and stepped away from the car. He was on his own. “Knock, knock,” he said slowly.
“Who’s there?” The child didn’t wait for an answer but started laughing immediately.
“You got me.” He messed with Adam’s hair and laughed along with the boy.
“Get it?” Adam piped. “I said, ‘You start,’ and you didn’t know what to say.”
“Yep. Now, hold on a sec. Let me get directions from your mom, or we’ll never get where we’re going.
“Where are we headed?” Dan turned to Jess without having to pretend he was enjoying himself. He hadn’t had a chance to really look at her, but with an antsy Adam calling the shots, he settled for a quick study of the soft white T-shirt she wore over snug jeans. His perusal dropped to tanned and shapely ankles. In deference to the warm weather, Jess wore flip-flops, her pink toenails glistening.
“Yeah, Mom. Where are we going? How long will it take? Will we be there soon?” Adam asked.
“It’s still a secret.” Jess gave them a mischievous smile before settling into the Beamer’s passenger seat.
Content to have her company and Adam’s wherever they were headed, Dan followed piecemeal directions across the causeway, through quaint Cocoa Village and northbound onto I-95. While Florida’s never-ending flatness streamed past the car, he and Jess swapped stories about work and life. Meanwhile, Adam pulled action characters from a bag and filled the holes in their conversation with the noise of swooping bat wings and knockout punches. Jess was in the middle of a story about one of her biology professors when the child interrupted.
“Mom, next time we go fishing, I wanna use worms.”
A silence so profound descended on the car that Dan risked a glance away from his intense study of the road ahead. He was just in time to catch the look of disgust Jess quickly masked before she swung to face her son.
“Fly fishers never use bait,” she said the way someone might quote from a rule book.
“Well, Tommy D. said his dad took him fishing and they used worms and it was neat. I want to fish with worms, too.” More swooping noises ensued as Adam returned to his game.
Jess faced forward and moaned into her hands. “Not even six years old, and he’s ruined. What kind of fly fishing guide lets her son use bait? I won’t be able to walk down Main Street unless I put a bag over my head.” She clutched her heart. “What will Sam say?”
“Maybe it’s just a phase,” Dan offered. Fly fishers were a strange bunch. They’d sooner toss a bait fisher overboard than let him contaminate their boat. “Adam, didn’t I hear you turned up your nose at chicken nuggets last week?”
“Yep,” the boy quipped proudly. “I like sandwiches now. Tommy D. says chicken nuggets are for babies.”
Dan suppressed a growl. “Who is this Tommy D. kid?”
“Best friend,” Jess whispered. “Don’t get too wrapped up in what he says. Kids this age change their minds twice a week. Not that I wouldn’t mind the occasional burger now and then.” She sighed. Pointing, she directed, “Turn off at the next exit.”
A bad feeling rumbled through him when he read the familiar highway sign. With every turn, hope that he’d guessed wrong about their ultimate destination faded, and his stomach sank lower. It was practically rolling around on the floorboards by the time he drove onto the dirt-and-grass lot and parked beneath the sign for the Daytona Beach Flea Market.
“Surprised?” The expectant look of a kid walking into a candy store with five bucks in her pocket glowed on Jess’s face. Adam had already unsnapped his seat belt and was bouncing on his booster chair.
Dan didn’t share their excitement, and he had the churning stomach to prove it. “That’s one way to put it. Why are we here?”
“To get you the rods for your class, of course,” she answered as if he should already possess that bit of information.
The woman who owned a fly shop had brought him here? “I can afford better,” he protested.
“I know, but c’mon. It’ll be fun. You’ll see.” She was halfway out the door, but stopped to swivel a questioning look over her shoulder. “Haven’t you been to a flea market before?”
“Far too often,” he said through clenched teeth. He’d been to this particular one so often he could name the rows of tin-covered booths where women with big hair and chaw-chewing men sold factory thirds and fourths, clothes that wouldn’t last through the first wash and dry. He’d left his days of shopping at big-box stores and the Daytona freaking flea market behind long ago, along with all the other anxieties that came with being a ward of the state.
Jess’s eyes turned thoughtful. “There’s a guy here, sells fly rods cheap. If you have a better solution to your equipment problem, I’m listening.” She spared a look at Adam. “Besides, I promised him we’d stop at the petting zoo.”
When she put it that way, he didn’t have much choice. Acting like a spoiled child in front of Adam was not part of his image. And if he was going to come through for Sean and Regina, to say nothing of Chris and Jose and whoever else joined their merry little band next week, he had to grit his teeth and go along with the plan. He opened his car door, wincing at the unforgettable smell of overripe fruit.
So much for any hope that things had changed in the twenty years since his last visit.
He squared his shoulders and pulled down his game face while Jess took the lead. Holding tightly to Adam’s hand, she disappeared behind a curtain of long plastic strips designed to keep flies and bugs outside the cooler, darker produce section. He matched her steps, and with Adam between them, they moved down clothing aisles crowded with too many familiar-looking families. Kids clustered around tables where a dollar bought a pair of jeans with blown-out knees. There wasn’t enough soap in the world to purge the smell of someone else’s sweat from shirts that sold for fifty cents.
He shuddered and kept his feet moving, his emotions under tight control until she led them down a side aisle he’d never seen before. Once they were out of the main traffic flow, his tension eased and, in short order, they walked into a jumbled mess of a tackle store housed in an enormous wooden crate. Adam ran ahead to the sales counter where lures and barbed hooks overflowed from large plastic tubs perched on rickety folding tables. He started sorting through them, barely looking up when Jess gestured to car-size fans on either side of the entry.
“They’re for air boats,” she explained in answer to Dan’s questioning gaze.
“Adam,” she called, “you can look around, but don’t go past the blowers.”
“Okay,” he answered as he busily sorted lures by color.
She gestured toward fishing poles that sprouted from an old rain barrel and suggested Dan take a look. Several fly rods stood among them. Once they’d selected a few, she reached for the one he liked best and placed her smaller hands on his.
“Feel the bounce?” she asked. “Choosing a rod is all about personal preference. Is it as limber or as stiff as you’d like?”
He chuckled low in his chest. “It’ll do,” he said with a knowing smile and watched her cheeks warm.
The teasing grin she shot him as she fanned her face nearly made him laugh out loud. Not wanting to explain the joke to their three-foot chaperone, he stifled the urge.
Jess nodded toward the rods he’d set aside. “How about a couple more? They don’t cost much, and buying them now will save you a trip back.”
“Doesn’t sound like my teacher has faith in my ability to teach. What does that say about her?”
“It says she understands the sport. Now go on.” She pushed him lightly. “Two more, and we’ll check out. Next stop, the petting zoo. Then, you can treat Adam and me to supper.”
His pulse had ramped up when Jess’s hand lingered on his chest longer than necessary, but the frown that slipped over his face was as unintended as he was powerless to stop it.
“Here?” he asked. The idea of eating at the food court didn’t work for him.
“I had my heart set on a funnel cake,” she answered, looking sheepish.
“For you, anything.” With a gentle hand, he lifted her chin until her eyes met his. “But after that, how about a restaurant? I know several near here.”
She brightened. “Might as well take advantage of Adam’s new and improved menu choices.”
Dan turned to Adam. “Hey, kiddo, you still hankering to see those pirates?”
The servers at Peg Leg’s dressed in pantaloons and tricorn hats. Captain Kidd adorned the menu. Adam would love it, and casting a look between Jess and her son, Dan had the feeling he would, too.
“What do you say to Dr. Hamilton, Adam?” Jess asked at the end of a day her son had enjoyed as much as she had. When Adam didn’t answer, she swung a look into the back seat. The streetlamps around On The Fly bathed the child in bluish light.
Adam slumped against the car door. His mouth g
aped open, and his limbs had gone loose and liquid—he was sound asleep. The tricorn hat Dan had made from the kiddie menu at dinner listed precariously to one side.
“He’s out,” she whispered. When had that happened? She’d have sworn he was still cracking one-liners as they crossed the causeway and made the final turn for home.
“’Bout time he wound down.” Dan grinned. “I thought he was going to outlast me.”
“You were good with him,” she said with a grateful smile. Not many men could deal with an active five-year-old, but Dan was a natural. The two guys had talked virtually nonstop from the minute a one-eyed pirate had guided them to their seats in “the galley” of Peg Leg’s, until an appropriately garbed “serving wench” slid burgers and fries onto the table. The hungry boy had stopped eating only long enough to listen, wide-eyed, as the staff gathered around a nearby table and yo-ho-ho’d their way through the restaurant’s version of the birthday song.
Dan shifted to face her. “He’s an easy kid to be around. I had fun.” He leaned forward and batted the red-and-black lure that hung from the rearview mirror. “Thanks for that,” he said with a soft smile.
Jess swore she’d seen tears shimmer in the man’s eyes when Adam had given him their gift in the pause between dinner and dessert. “You ever think of having a child of your own?” she asked. “You’d make a good dad.” It didn’t take an empath to recognize Dan’s aversion to flea markets, but whatever demons the man fought, he’d overcome them to make the day enjoyable for Adam’s sake, as well as hers.
“I like to take things in order. Love and marriage are still pretty far down on my To-Do list.”
“I hear ya.” She nodded. It wasn’t easy, being both mom and dad to her little guy. Mostly, they made it work, but nights like tonight were tough. Especially when seeing Dan and her son together reminded her of all the things her little boy was missing out on by not having his own father around.
She hoped Adam wouldn’t get attached to Dan too quickly. “Be careful, or you’ll replace Tommy D. as Adam’s best friend,” she warned, trying to keep things light.
