by Jill Sanders
Her body began to shake as she looked around for something, anything, to protect herself with. There was no way she was going to let Jenny get the upper hand with her again. This time, she was going to fight back.
Picking up a large can of hair spray, she tiptoed towards the door and glanced through the crack.
She held in a gasp as a shadow passed across the light from the window. With the towel securely wrapped around her body, she jumped out of the bathroom, screaming at the top of her lungs as she threw the can of hairspray towards the dark shadow standing in front of the window.
The heavy can hit Levi square in the chest. He jumped back and knocked over a lamp on her sister’s desk.
Instead of being angry, he laughed at her as he rubbed the spot where the can had connected. Then, at that very moment, her towel slipped from her body and landed on the floor at her feet.
Levi’s laughter died away as his eyes moved over her body.
“Damn, if this is how you treat all people you suspect as burglars, we may have to change the locks on the house. I may have to sneak into your room more often.” His voice was a little hoarse.
She picked up the towel and wrapped it around her body again. “I thought…” She noticed his bag sitting on her sister’s bed and took a deep breath and tried to settle her heart. “This is my sister’s room. Mine is next door.” She nodded towards the bathroom door.
“Oh?” he said, not taking his eyes from her as he slowly moved forward. He almost tripped on the can of hair spray as he practically stalked her. “I think you missed a spot,” he said as he reached for her.
She held her breath as his fingers ran over the edge of the towel. Closing her eyes, she swayed as he ran his hands over her skin.
“Sassy.” He sighed and nudged the towel to the floor again. “My god,” he groaned as he looked at her. Hunger filled his eyes as took a step closer.
“You have too many clothes on,” she complained, reaching for his shirt. As she pulled it over his head, she watched those muscles bunch and move and felt her knees grow weak. “Levi.” She licked her lips, wanting a taste of him, already daydreaming about exploring every inch of him. “I don’t think I can wait…” She leaned up on her toes and kissed him.
“Me either.” He hoisted her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his hips as he walked towards the bed.
“No, not in here.” She nodded towards the door. “My sister would kill us.” She chuckled as she took his earlobe into her mouth and sucked on it.
“I don’t think I can make it…” he growled as she slid her tongue into his ear. Then he practically ran into her bedroom. When her body hit the mattress she laughed.
“Told you that you could make it.” She sighed and watched him slide his jeans off his hips, pulling on a condom as he kicked the denim aside.
When he slid into her this time, it felt as if she’d returned home. She couldn’t explain it, but for the first time in her life, everything felt… perfect.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Who did you think I was?” Levi asked Scarlett as they lay naked on top of her bedspread. The midday sun was streaming in the window as their breathing leveled off.
She shrugged and then answered. “It doesn’t matter, but I wasn’t going to let anyone push me around this time without a fight.”
He smiled against her skin and brushed a hand down her hip, enjoying the sound of her breath catching as he did so. “That’s my Sassy.”
“How did you get in?” she asked, shifting so she could look down at him.
“I saw you take out the hide-a-key last time.” He shrugged.
She stiffened and then glanced towards the bedroom door.
“I locked the door behind me,” he supplied. “The key is on the kitchen table.” He felt her relax.
“Thanks.” She sighed.
“What’s going on?” he asked, knowing instantly that there was something she wasn’t telling him.
“Jenny didn’t go home,” she said.
He sat up slightly.
“She is renting a place a few miles from here.”
“What?” He sat up fully and looked down at her. “How did you find that out?”
“I ran into Rose,” She reached for her shirt, but instead, picked his up and threw it over her head. “Her cousin is the one who rented the place to Jenny.” She pulled on a pair of shorts. “She rented the place for a year.”
He was silent as he thought, all the terrible possibilities rushing through his mind. “I think we should head back—”
“No.” She shook her head and laid a hand on his shoulder, holding him in place. “Don’t you dare say we should head back to the camp. There is no way she knows where I am. Besides, I’m not letting some crazy woman dictate my days off.”
He opened his mouth to argue with her, but the determined look on Scarlett’s face had him shutting it instead.
“Okay, what do you suggest we do instead?” he asked after a moment.
She smiled. “Well, I went to the store earlier and bought us a few steaks. I thought we could cook out and enjoy the beautiful day. We have a wonderful backyard here.” She smiled as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “There’s a large hammock that is big enough for two in the shade of the trees. There might even be some margarita mix left over from last week.” She kissed him. “Then, when we’ve had our fun in the sun…” She ran her mouth over his ear, and he felt himself growing hard again. “We can come back in and…” She kissed him slowly. “Play Scrabble.” He chuckled as he pulled her back down onto the bed.
A little over an hour later, they sat out on the patio furniture while their steaks finished cooking on the small grill. Scarlett had put together a quick salad and toasted some bread. Since she claimed she’d been too upset upon hearing the news about Jenny to purchase any vegetables, they made do with chips and salsa that she found in the pantry.
“Do you think she’s staying in town to torture us?” Scarlett asked after he’d pulled the steaks off the heat.
“No,” he answered automatically. He’d thought about it while he’d cooked the steaks and had come up with an idea. “I think she’s staying because she’s afraid of her husband’s family.”
“What do you mean?” Scarlett asked before taking a bite of her steak.
He shrugged. “It’s one of the reasons I went to see my gran.” He took a bite of his own steak and smiled. “Great choice.” He waved the next bite on his fork and shoved it in his mouth.
“Levi, what does your gran have to do with Jenny.”
He set his fork down. “My gran is friends with her grandmother. It’s funny, but I didn’t even know that until she mentioned it the other day. Anyway, she told me that Jenny and her husband have been having issues. It’s true what we heard. His son now runs the family business, and Jenny did empty out her husband’s bank accounts. Well, for the most part. It’s been a huge conflict between the old man and the rest of his family. Gran heard that the family has set up legal action to block Jenny from getting another dime of his. The word divorce was mentioned several times.” He shrugged. “I think she took this last trip knowing she wouldn’t return with her husband.”
“That makes sense,” Scarlett agreed. “We’d wondered why she chose now to come here. I mean, we’ve been open for two years now.”
They ate in silence for a few minutes. “That explains why she was flirting with so many men at the pool. She was probably looking for husband number two,” Scarlett said with a frown.
“There is no better place than around here to look for a rich husband?” He sighed. “Trust me, there are a lot of gold diggers around this area.”
“Oh?” Her eyebrows shot up as she leaned slightly across the table. “And you would know this… how?”
He chuckled. “Because over the past few years, I’ve gone out with more than a handful. When they see my old Jeep pull up, they usually find some reason to call the date off.”
She frowned. “Bit
ches.” He chuckled. “I like your Jeep. It’s perfect for around here. You can drive with the top and doors off most of the year. You don’t have to worry if it rains, because it won’t ruin your seats. You can drive in the sand.” She ticked each item off on her fingers, then shrugged. “I’m building a list of possibilities, since I’m thinking of getting a Jeep for myself.”
He laughed. “See, you get it, all my reasons for keeping the old gal around.”
“You must not have been trying to date the right kind of women,” she added.
He reached over and took her hand. “No, I wasn’t.” He lifted it to his lips and kissed her fingers. “I believe you mentioned something about a hammock?” he said once he was done eating.
“Yes.” She motioned across the yard. There were several low live oak trees filling the backyard and, through their branches, he could see a blue hammock swaying in the breeze.
“Perfect.” He stood up to take their empty dishes back into the house. “You make the drinks, I’ll clean up.”
They worked around one another in the kitchen, Scarlett mixing the cold drinks while he rinsed the dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher.
They followed the small stone pathway out to the hanging hammock, and he helped her get in.
“Don’t spill the drinks.” She laughed as he sat on the edge of the hammock, holding both drinks. “Have you done this before?” she asked.
He laughed and almost tipped them both over, but finally got in. “Once,” he answered and shifted until she settled in the crook of his arm. Handing her one of the drinks, he tapped his glass to hers. “To days off together.”
She smiled. “This is nice,” she said after taking a sip. “Normally I spend all my time inside, by myself, reading.”
He sighed and relaxed back. “My gran has a list of things I try to fix each time I have a free day.” He chuckled. “I could be cleaning out her gutters right now.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Thank you for that.”
She smiled up at him as she took another sip. When he saw her smile slip, he knew she was thinking about Jenny again.
Instead, she surprised him by asking.
“Did you say anything to your gran about your dad?” she asked.
“Yes.” He sighed.
“And?”
“She was surprised. We Googled him together,” he admitted, remembering all the information they had found.
Scarlett sat up slightly. “And?”
“He was surprisingly easy to find, now that I know his name and where he’s from.” He thought about all the details he’d read about the man he’d been searching for all his life. “He’s from a powerful family in Copenhagen. He moved to the States with Leslie shortly after they were married. He took control of his family’s furniture business in Miami shortly after that.” He sent the hammock swaying by pushing his foot against a branch that hung over them.
“And?” she asked.
He chuckled and continued. “He and Leslie have no children. From an old article, I take it that they couldn’t have kids.” He frowned. “He actually said in the interview how he’d always wanted kids, but shortly after marrying Leslie they found out they couldn’t have any.”
She glanced up at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
He shook his head. “No.” He pulled her back down to his side. “Like I said, he’s heading up his family’s furniture business.”
“Which is?”
“Skrivbord Enterprises.”
She sat up again. “As in… the major supplier for Ikea?”
He shrugged. “I’d never heard of it before.”
“Levi, that’s huge.” She shook her head. “Yes, talk about a powerful family.” She leaned back down against him. “Wow.”
“Yeah, after reading up on things, I understand a little more.”
“How did he and your mother meet? I mean, did your mother ever go overseas?” she asked.
“No. Michael Stiles was a foreign exchange student. He came over and lived in town with a family during my mother’s sophomore year. When the year was up, he returned home. My guess is, it was after he found out about me and told my mother to…”
“Get rid of you,” Scarlett finished for him.
“Yeah.” He sighed.
“Then how did he and Leslie get together?”
“In another interview, he mentioned something about her traveling overseas to see him. Gran did some asking around about it. It appears that Leslie returned the favor and became a foreign exchange student, heading over to Denmark her senior year. My guess is they hooked up over there and, after she returned to the States for a few years, went back.”
Scarlett leaned over and set her glass down on the small table next to the hammock and then took his and put it down as well. When she was done, she wrapped her arms around him.
“Do we know if he is still in town?” she asked with a yawn.
“No.” He shook his head and realized he could enjoy a quick nap. It was so warm, but the breeze and the shade had cooled them off enough to be comfortable. The hammock was still swaying in the breeze and just feeling Scarlett against him had him relaxed.
“I’m sorry. That he was such a dick and you didn’t get to know him better.”
“So am I,” he said and felt her drift off to sleep.
He never really drifted into a deep sleep, since so much was running through his mind, but he did enjoy shutting down physically for an hour.
When Scarlett shifted and woke, he held onto her as she yawned.
“You awake?” she asked.
“Yes. How’d you sleep?”
“Wonderful.” She stretched. “I love sleeping outdoors. The fresh air is so… peaceful.”
He nodded. “I take it you like camping then?”
She leaned up and smiled down at him. “It depends on what you call camping. If you mean hiking for hours and pitching a tent in the middle of nowhere…” She shook her head. “But pitching a tent on the edge of the beach…” She smiled. “I could get behind that.”
“I’ll make a note of it.” He smiled and kissed her. “What do you want to do now?”
The way she was running her hands over his chest gave him plenty of ideas.
“How about a bike ride?” she suggested, sitting up. “There are bikes in the garage.” She smiled down at him. “We can ride to the beach for an hour or two?”
“That sounds wonderful.” He pulled her down again for a kiss, but overshifted and they both ended up on the grass underneath the hammock. He laughed as soon as his breath came back to him.
“That was smooth.” She smiled down at him.
He groaned when her knee brushed against him, shrinking any possibility of heading upstairs for some fun before they went on that bike ride.
“Sorry.” She gasped and moved quickly off him.
“It’s okay, no permanent damage. This time.” He sat up and brushed some grass from her shirt. “I’ll pack us some drinks and snacks for the beach while you get ready.”
“Thanks,” she said as he helped her up from the ground. “Are your… jewels, okay?”
He took a cleansing breath and nodded. “Bruised, but I will overcome.” He kissed her.
He found some cookies and sodas in the pantry and packed them in a beach bag that Scarlett gave him. Grabbing two beach towels from the laundry room, he opened the front door just as Scarlett came down the stairs.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Yes, the bikes are in the garage.” She smiled and set a sun hat on her head. She’d braided her hair and had changed into a swimsuit, shorts, and a large flowing tank top with flip flops.
Since he’d pulled on his board shorts before they’d come downstairs, he was already ready.
“Need anything else?” he asked as she stuffed a bottle of sunblock into the bag he carried.
“Nope, there are water bottles in the garage. We can grab two on our way out.”
She turned and locked the door and then fo
llowed him out to the garage.
She used a code to get the door opened and stood back as he pulled out two bikes. He set the beach bag in the basket on the front of the bike that he chose for himself.
“Lead the way.” He motioned ahead of them after she’d shut the garage door again.
They slowly rode their bikes to the entrance of the beach, which was less than a mile from the house. They had to pass the main part of town as they went, and he waved to several people he knew.
“You must know everyone in town,” she said as they parked their bikes at the entrance of the beach.
He chuckled. “I have lived here all of my life,” he pointed out.
“Right.”
He threw the bag over his shoulder and took her hand.
“What’s the farthest you’ve been from here?” she asked.
He thought about it. “Germany.”
Her eyebrows shot up and he laughed. “I’m kidding. I’ve been to New York City but never outside the US. One summer Gran and I went to visit her family up there when I was fifteen.”
“I haven’t been to New York City yet.” She frowned.
“We can go together. I still have an uncle and cousins up there.” He laid their towels on the white sand.
“I’d like that.” She pulled off her tank top and shorts, giving him a sexy view of her bright blue bikini. He felt his mouth water at the sight of her in the small suit.
Then he pulled his shirt off and saw her eyes heat.
“Here, let me.” She held up the sunblock. He turned and let her slather the lotion on his skin.
“Your scratches are gone. Gosh, you only have a small scar.” She moved her hands over him. “You’re so light skinned. How do you keep from burning?” she asked. Her fingers running over him was pure torture.
“I use a lot of sunblock, but I still tan though. Just slowly.” He shrugged. “Guess I know where I get the light Scandinavian skin from now. Gran and her family are Italian.” He chuckled. “I used to think it was all a joke. That somehow I’d been switched at the hospital after birth.” He sighed. “Now I know I just take after my father.”
