Forbidden Fling (Wildwood Book 1)

by Skye Jordan

  “I’m not wrong. You just don’t want to admit I’m right. Observation, Ethan. Everything you want to know is there if you look for it. All you have to do is really watch people. Humans are creatures of habit, patterns are developed for a reason, and character is built over time. People don’t change overnight.

  “That’s how I knew about you and Delaney. I read you both well. Which is why I’m disappointed in your behavior—not because you slept with Delaney, not even because you didn’t tell her who you were, but why you didn’t. That is the crack in your character concerning me.”

  Ethan’s irritation flared. “Everyone has character flaws, Phoebe. I never claimed to be perfect.”

  “But not all flaws cause pain. We both know the minute your daddy or your uncle catch you looking Delaney’s way, there will be hell to pay. And family has been the bane of her existence, yours and her own. I’m trying to retie some of those connections for her so that when I’m gone, she’s not left floating in this big world alone. So if you really care about her—beyond the bedroom—let the girl be. Let her heal the way she needs to so she can move on.”

  A mix of anger and sadness tangled inside him. “I plan to do what I can to keep my family from interfering in her life. And I’m also doing my best to leave her alone, because she’s as concerned about the problems that would come of us being seen together as you are. But I really do like her, and whether she’s willing to admit it or not, she really likes me, too. And for what it’s worth, I think Delaney needs more than healing. I think she needs a few wins in her life right now, too. Especially in this town and where that bar is concerned, which is why I know renovating it would be a big mistake.”

  Phoebe’s eyes narrowed, and she studied him a long, tense moment. “I do love that steel streak of yours, Ethan. It reminds me so much of Delaney’s. She is your equal—or better. Remember that when trouble comes knocking. Her foundation won’t be swayed by a handsome smile or a flash of charm. She’s not just the kind of woman who weathers storms; she weathers hurricanes, and she’s learned a little about the best way to do that over the years. Don’t underestimate her.” Phoebe straightened and collected her papers. “Colleen’s space is in the southwest corner. I don’t think she needs help anymore seeing as Delaney’s in there now, but I suppose that’s not going to keep you from going back there, is it?”

  Ethan’s body flicked on like a light. The strange sensation of fluttering wings brushed his chest. “No, ma’am.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Phoebe turned for the office door behind the counter, and Ethan started toward the southwest corner of the building. He might be relieved to be walking away from that awkward situation, but he had mixed feelings over the one he was headed toward. Far too much excitement bubbled through his body over the prospect of seeing Delaney again after he’d been reaffirming his decision to stay away from her no more than fifteen minutes before.

  He glanced in the various spaces as he walked through the four-thousand-square-foot main level. Each area was rented out to different artists, where they designed, decorated, and stocked their own handmade crafts. Even in the middle of the week, well past tourist season, dozens of shoppers strolled through the beautifully restored building.

  As he passed gorgeous watercolors, intricate oil paintings, stunning pottery, jewelry, soaps, candles, dolls, bath bubbles, puzzles—the variety of fine arts and handmade crafts was endless—he struggled with emotions he hadn’t felt in decades. Conflicting emotions he had no outlet for and no idea what to do with.

  As he neared Colleen’s corner space, he heard Delaney’s smooth, feminine voice. “Is this a good height?”

  “Maybe a little to the left?” an older woman answered.

  As he listened to her back-and-forth with Colleen over placement, Ethan sighed, remembering her voice in bed that night. Sultry in his ear. Teasing and laughing. Whispering. Begging.

  He let his eyes fall closed and soaked in the comfort her voice brought without judgment. The last week without Delaney felt like it took a month to pass. The only good part about that week was that she hadn’t shown up on his schedule.

  “A little higher, I think,” Colleen said.

  He forced himself to take the last few steps to the space’s doorway and glanced around one of the walls, where he found hand-painted knickknacks for the home. Mailboxes with sparrows, cutting boards with cows and pigs, benches with morning glories.

  And a ladder against one wall.

  He scanned upward and found the woman he’d been craving for days standing on the fifth rung. His gaze floated over her from the toes up, and he drank in her cute little feet in rhinestone-encrusted flip-flops; the long, smooth, curvy length of gorgeous, bare tanned legs; her tight ass covered in denim cutoffs; and her slim torso hidden behind a heather-blue fitted tee. All in all, an ordinary, no frills, nothing-to-write-home-about outfit. Yet the way her body filled the clothes made Ethan’s mouth water and his heart beat faster.

  Her hair was in one long braid down the middle of her back. She held a birdhouse with lilies painted on three sides above several other birdhouses.

  “Or would you rather have them offset, like this?” she asked, moving the birdhouse a little to the right.

  Misty was sitting on one of her mother’s pieces scrolling on her phone. The wooden rocking chair beneath her had been painted with an incredible sunset over the ocean that covered the back and spilled over the arms.

  Misty glanced toward him as he stepped into the space, and her face lit up. “Well, hey, Ethan. Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

  “Hi, Misty.”

  She was a very pretty brunette with big dark-brown eyes. Tall and girl-next-door fresh, she’d cut her long hair into a sleek, sexy bob when her fiancé had broken off their engagement to pursue his affair with a cougar he’d been seeing on the side in Sundance, the town next door. They’d only been broken up a couple of months, but Misty had been on a serious manhunt ever since. And for a reason Ethan didn’t care to understand, she had her scope zeroed in on him.

  “You look great.” She surveyed him, her eyes sultry and approving as she stuffed her phone into her back pocket and gave him her full attention. “I hear you’re working a lot.”

  “I am.” He offered Colleen a smile. “In fact I’m on my way to an appointment, but my mom called and asked me to stop by to give you a hand.” He lifted his gaze to meet Delaney’s. She wore a little smirk, as if she already knew exactly why Ethan had been summoned and found it amusing. “Phoebe told me you’d found some help, but I wanted to make sure.”

  “How sweet of you,” Misty said.

  Colleen gushed over Ethan taking time out of his day to come by, but he didn’t look away from Delaney. And she never looked away from him.

  “Have you heard about Drew’s grand opening party for Black Jack’s?” Misty asked.

  Ethan forced his gaze from Delaney’s and focused on Misty. She had her legs crossed, one foot swinging. She was also dressed for the warm weather, something he only noticed as an afterthought even though she could be considered just as physically beautiful as Delaney.

  With her elbow on the arm of the chair, her chin in her hand, and those eyes staring up at Ethan, he realized he knew two dozen guys in town who’d shove him off a cliff to take his place right now. Yet it was all he could do not to look back at Delaney.

  “Saturday night,” Misty said. “Everyone’s going.”

  “I’ve heard.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “I’m supplying the beer.”

  Misty laughed, the sound low and sexy. “Oh, boy, you do get around, don’t you? Why don’t we go together? Just swing by and pick me up around seven thirty.”

  He could see how easily men could get swept away by her smooth, take-charge ways. She’d just set her sights on the wrong man. “Thanks, but my work schedule has been—”

  Bang, bang, bang interrupted him as Delaney pounded a nail into the wall in an obnoxious attempt to interrupt. Now
Ethan was officially amused, too.

  He waited until the banging stopped. “I’m sure I’ll see you there.”

  Misty had been propositioning him from the first week of her split with the ex, and she was a perfect example of why he didn’t date women in Wildwood—complications, rumors, ties, and manipulation.

  Mrs. Woodly, a lively seventysomething-year-old, appeared in the opening to the space. “Hi there, Ethan. Sorry to interrupt. Colleen, do you mind watching the store while I run to the ladies’?”

  “Of course not.”

  As Colleen wandered away, Misty’s phone pinged, and she pulled it from her back pocket. Her eyes lit up, and she stuffed it away again, already pushing from the chair. “Cody Stoker joined the crowd at Scrub-a-Pup,” she said, starting toward the door. “Since Ethan’s not going to take me to the party, I’ll take my chances elsewhere. See you across the street, Delaney.”

  Ethan chuckled at how quickly the woman jumped at another opportunity. That was another reason he didn’t do ties—women were entirely too fickle for his taste.

  “Okay . . .” Delaney said, then trailed off when she turned and found Misty gone, disappeared into the maze of spaces that made up the floor. “Sure,” she pretended to call, as if someone was listening. “No problem. Just here working in a space that’s not mine for people who aren’t even here.”

  She sighed. Her shoulders slumped. And she met Ethan’s gaze with an annoyed, what-can-you-do expression.

  “Yeah. I get that a lot, too.”

  Her mouth lifted into a grin. Then she looked away and positioned another nail. “You’re free to go, Inspector Hayes. I can handle a few birdhouses. I promise.”

  Bang, bang, bang.

  “I’m surprised you told Phoebe about us. I’m pretty sure I’ve just been moved to her blacklist.”

  “I didn’t tell her. She just knew.” She shrugged. “You get used to it. I lived there as a teen. Just bring her flowers or open her car door for her, and you’ll pop right back over to the golden list.”

  He made a sound of doubt. “I don’t think so.”

  “Just be glad she can’t read you as well as she can me.” She turned her attention back to another nail. “You’d better go before she gets to know you too well.”

  Bang, bang, bang.

  But Ethan didn’t want to go. In fact, he didn’t want to do anything but stand around and talk to her, tease her, see her smile, look at her legs in those cutoffs.

  “Is that a sixteen-penny nail, Miz Hart? You know the city of Wildwood only allows sixteen-penny nails to hang anything weighing less than twelve pounds.” When she gave him a yeah-right look, he narrowed his eyes. “And is that on center? Because that looks a little too far right to me. You most definitely have to be dead center in a stud, or it won’t be cleared by that asshole of an inspector in this town.”

  He turned an openly direct gaze on her, lifted an elbow to the top of a cabinet nearby, and leaned in, lowering his voice. “Now, I know for a fact that you are exquisitely gifted at nailing a stud. But it is my sworn duty to the citizens of Wildwood to make sure you are nailing said stud adequately. And I’m afraid to tell you”—he sucked air between his teeth and gave a small shake of his head—“I believe we need to have a serious talk about arranging some more stud-nailing sessions to make sure you are an absolute expert at this crucial art.”

  She was grinning, and when she grinned, her skin glowed and her eyes sparkled. And she was the most gorgeous thing on the planet.

  “The art of nailing a stud.” Her laugh bubbled through the air and seemed to untie knots inside Ethan he hadn’t realized were gnarled. “You are a dirty little flirt.”

  “It’s actually more of a suggestion, less of a flirtation.”

  She gave him a what-in-the-hell-are-you-thinking look. Turning on the ladder, she faced him, crossed her arms, and propped one foot on the rung above. Her ease of movement five feet above the ground, in sandals, and without ever looking down told Ethan just how much time she’d spent on ladders. Something he still wanted to know all about.

  “No,” she said, her voice lowered to match his. “Just a hookup—remember? The other night . . .” She looked away and lifted a shoulder. “We just got carried away. And what happened with Caleb should have given you a good enough scare to stay ten miles away from me.”

  She was right. And the fact that he was standing here trying to convince her they needed to spend more time together created a weird buzz of panic in his gut. It was like a repressed side of him was suddenly emerging and fighting for control.

  “Yeah, well, we might not be able to escape them all, but I’ve really tried to outgrow as many should-haves as humanly possible.” Damn, he was going to have to go out on another limb here, or he wasn’t going to get through that shell of hers. “And I’m definitely ignoring this one, because as much as I might agree with you logically, every other part of me flat-out refuses to jump on board. Emotionally, physically, mentally, I only want to be with you. The last week has been miserable without you in it.”

  That softened her. Her whole face loosened, and for all of two seconds, Ethan got a quick glimpse of the woman underneath that hard surface. The woman he’d shared his bed with a week ago—her sweetness, her heart, her warmth. Then, in a flash, she caught herself and closed off again. She straightened her spine and tossed out an aloof, “Sorry. Not an option.”

  Anger flashed. “Delaney—”

  “For one,” she said, pulling her voice down to an almost whisper, “if your family found out, you’d be dead meat. For two, it could be misconstrued as a conflict of interest on a professional level.”

  His frustration pushed to the front. “Granted, my family is a nuisance, but they don’t run my life. As for work, you would have to be doing something with the bar that required my involvement to make anything between us a conflict of interest. Which makes this a great time to ask why you had Trace Hutton at the bar. Because if you’re going to demolish, then there’s no conflict. And if there’s no conflict, and you’re still brushing me off, then it’s me, not the situation. So which is it, Delaney? Has your hunger been sated, or are you planning more problems?”

  She frowned. “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “And you answer almost none.”

  She lowered her gaze to the floor and didn’t answer.

  “Your aunt seems to think you can weather hurricanes with no damage. I’m beginning to see how you do that—with lots of shutters, all bolted down to make sure nothing gets in. But I don’t think she understands that the act of surviving those storms has damaged you in a whole different way.”

  She lifted her eyes to his again, and something floated there that he couldn’t read. She was thinking, he knew that. Conflicted, he could see that, too. But there was more. Something soft. Something he wanted to draw out but didn’t know how.

  She hopped off the ladder, landing smoothly and squarely, then folded the metal in one swift motion. “I’m sorry. I’m . . . struggling here. I’m trying to look at all sides of this. Trying to make the best decision for everyone when there isn’t one.”

  He took one step toward her before he stopped himself still a foot away. He reached across the space between them and ran one finger down her forearm. God, her skin was so soft. And when she didn’t pull away, he linked his finger with her pinkie.

  Her gaze lowered to where their hands barely connected.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  “I can’t.” She pulled her hand from his and rubbed her face. “Conflict of interest, remember?”

  “Okay, fine. Don’t talk to me about it, but at least talk to me. How about dinner? I’ll take you to Santa Rosa where the rumors won’t be an issue.”

  She gave him that would-you-stop look. “No, Ethan.”

  “Then why don’t you come by the warehouse tonight? We can talk while I work. I’d love to hear about your job at Pacific Coast. About Avery and Chloe. About what you plan to do next.”

&nbs
p; “You’re kidding yourself if you think we can pretend to be friends.”

  “We’re already friends.”

  “If you believe in friends with benefits maybe, which I don’t.”

  “That’s not what I meant. We have common interests, we get along, we like each other. Those are elements for the basis of every friendship. And you know if my job and my family were taken out of the loop, we’d be a hundred and fifty percent into this thing between us.”

  “But you can’t take your job or your family out of the loop. And you can’t take the bar or our past out of the loop.” She heaved a troubled breath, propped her shoulder against the ladder, and crossed her arms. “Look, I realize there is some weird, crazy . . . chemistry or something . . . here, but that doesn’t mean we should act on it.”

  “Again, you mean.”

  “Jesus, Ethan,” she muttered with a roll of her eyes.

  Her aggravation helped him relax, because it was obvious she still wanted him. And she was having as much trouble fighting their attraction as he was.

  He leaned in and lowered his voice, but he met her eyes with all the heat bubbling inside him. “We are fucking nuclear together, and we both want the same thing. You’re not going to be in town long, and I don’t give a shit what my family thinks of—”

  “Stop. Just stop.”

  “I don’t, Delaney. I—”

  “God, you’re such a liar. Or you’re delusional. Either way, you’re full of shit.” She opened her eyes, but they were still heavy-lidded, and her rebuttal was weak. “You know it. I know it. So just stop denying it, Ethan.”

  His inflated hope took a hit.

  “Just . . . God. Just come over to the warehouse tonight. It doesn’t have to be for sex,” he said, even though the thought speared his gut with disappointment. “You were there less than twenty minutes last week and you made one suggestion on my layout that streamlined my brewing process. I can’t imagine what would happen if you actually hung out and looked around. And if you’d trust me as much with your thoughts on the bar as you do with your body, I may even be able to help you, too.”