“I’ll call housekeeping and let them know I kept you longer.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She closed her computer and packed it into her bag. “You can make it up to me with dinner.”
Warmth curled through him, taking root deep in his gut. “Dinner, huh?”
“You eat, don’t you?” She scanned him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. “Yeah, you definitely look like you eat.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There’s this great place away from the tourists. The SOB.”
“SOB?”
“South of the Border. It’s Mexican. Very off the grid.”
He grinned, his curiosity over her life in LA rushing forward again. “You seem to like gridless things.”
“That I do.” She shouldered her bag as if she would leave. “So? You up for some local flair?”
“Always.”
She paused at the door and glanced back at him, almost a daring expression on her face. “You don’t need to go to the conference today?”
“Honestly, I think you know more about running a clinic than anyone over there.” He beamed down at her and slung his arm over her shoulder.
She laughed, but it held no mirth. “Another confessional: I have the degree, but I’ve never used it.”
“Ah, a soul mate.” He chuckled as he opened the door, but the sound died on his vocal chords when he came face-to-face with another maid. The same maid who’d practically shoved those salmon tartlets in his face last night.
“Etta,” Abby said, shrugging out from under his arm. “Did Mandy send you?”
“She’s wondering if you can work again tonight.” Her hazel eyes flickered to Noah before settling back on Abby. “There’s a bridal party coming in, and with the veterinarians…”
Noah tensed. He didn’t want to lose Abby’s companionship. Mandy, the owner of Mimosa Maids, had given him Abby’s time this morning but he’d had to pay for it personally.
Abby frowned at her phone. “She didn’t call. I’ll call her.” She met Noah’s eye, and he could read the same feelings in her face that he had tumbling through him. Or maybe she just didn’t want to work. Maybe she really wanted pork nachos. No matter what, she stepped back into the villa, leaving him alone with Etta, who moved in like a vulture after three-day-old road kill.
“She’ll take the hours, you know.”
Noah simply looked at her, at a loss for how to respond.
“She needs the money. She takes care of her aunt.”
“She told me,” Noah said though Abby hadn’t mentioned financial problems. She had spoken of her aunt last night, fondness on her face and in her voice. Still, Noah had thought her situation in her aunt’s house on the south side of the island was temporary. But maybe it wasn’t.
Before Etta could say anything else, Abby opened the door and stepped next to Noah. Farther than he would’ve liked. A casual distance, as if she barely knew him. “You ready?”
“You’re not going to work?” Etta asked, her surprise genuine enough for Noah to believe Abby did need the money.
“Not tonight. Mandy said she’d find someone else or come in herself.”
“You’re still picking up the soaps from Frankie, right?”
“Oh, I forgot about that.” Abby sighed and glanced at Noah. “Do you think we can swing by a goat farm on our way…out?” She cut a look at Etta. “Thanks for coming, Etta.” She moved down the pavers before the other woman could respond.
Noah put several steps of distance between them and Etta. “So I take it you two aren’t gal pals.”
She glared and gave half an eyeroll. “Not even close.”
“Goat farm?” he asked next.
“Frankie makes soap from goat milk we put in all our villas and rooms, as well as the spa. Sometimes the spa manager picks them up. Sometimes the maid service does. I said I’d get this week’s supply for the villas, because that’s where I’ve been assigned.”
“How far is this goat farm?”
“Not far at all.” She pointed due east. “Right by the baseball stadium.”
He followed her arm, sure he’d heard wrong. “There’s a baseball stadium on this island?” Then there was definitely room for a veterinary clinic. “How hungry are you?”
“Why? What have you got in mind?”
“Soap first. And then I want to stop by the animal shelter. Check the place out.”
“I thought we agreed to set up an appointment with Albert Hanks before we go into his clinic, guns blazing.”
“I don’t think I’ve actually ever held a gun.” He flashed her a sly smile she tossed right back at him.
She reached over and tapped his biceps. “You carry them around with you, Doctor.”
He groaned, and not only at her cheesy line. “Don’t call me Doctor.”
“You are a doctor.”
He sighed as she led him to a sedan that had seen better days and had surely been paid off a decade ago. “For the past eight years, I led the adventurous on back country snowboarding and skiing trips,” he said. “No one was calling me doctor.”
She grinned at him over the top of her car. “Well, things change.” She ducked into the vehicle, leaving him to rotate her words around and around in his head.
Things certainly did change. Sometimes in the blink of an eye. Sometimes just by opening the door and walking into a room where a woman was folded under a toilet, trying to get something she’d dropped.
6
Abby spun the diamond rings she’d gone back to Rockrose to get, the gem glinting in the overhead bedroom light she still hadn’t turned out though she had to be to work by six o’clock the following morning.
She should mail it back to Marcus. He’d asked about it at least a dozen times, always boiling it down to two options: Put the ring back on and come home, or send it back.
Come home.
The words kept her awake, spinning the diamond, when she should be asleep, dreaming of her near-perfect dinner with the near-perfect Dr. Noah Benson. They’d held hands, and shared easy childhood stories, and laughed until the sun went down and the restaurant closed.
He was going to attend the veterinary conference tomorrow, and Abby was going to clean bathrooms, vacuum floors, and freshen bed sheets in four of the villas at Casa Blanca, including the largest one. Usually a team of three worked to get Bay Laurel ready for a new guest, but it wasn’t booked tomorrow evening, so she didn’t need to rush.
She was glad Mandy had given her the villas to clean herself. Their side-by-side had to be rescheduled because of Noah’s request, and working with Etta was nearly unbearable, only exacerbated by the fact that Abby didn’t know what she’d done to make the other woman dislike her so much. At least Etta hadn’t said anything to Noah about Abby’s “engagement” to a baseball player in LA.
The way Noah had shown interest in the baseball stadium writhed in her stomach, which only made her twirl the ring faster.
A noise in the kitchen made her abandon the ring on her nightstand and pad out into the hall. Aunt Macey filled a teakettle with water and set it on the stove. Her dark hair was stringy and in need a good wash. Her shoulders were narrow in her bathrobe, but when she turned, Abby saw a glimpse of her mother behind her aunt’s blue eyes.
“Can’t sleep either?” Aunt Macey asked.
“Haven’t tried yet.” Abby sat at the bar, the rickety barstool reminding her that she needed to stop by the hardware store and get some wood glue.
“You should be tired, what with how much you worked today.”
“Yeah.” She didn’t mention that she’d only been paid for half the day. She didn’t mention a lot of things to Aunt Macey, sometimes the resulting conversation a little too heavy for Abby to bear.
Aunt Macey busied herself with getting out a package of cookies and the tea bags. Abby let herself get lulled toward sleep from the silence, the easiness of the company, the comfort she’d always felt in her aunt’s home.
> “Your mother called again.”
Abby jerked back to attention. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her to call you.”
“She knows I’m here.”
“Of course she does.” Aunt Macey placed a tea bag in a cup and poured in steaming water before nudging it closer to Abby.
“Will she come down here?”
“I hope not.” Aunt Macey opened the cookies and dipped the ginger snap in her tea. She hadn’t exactly run away to Mimosa Key the day she’d turned eighteen, but it depended on whose version of the story Abby believed.
And she hoped her mother wouldn’t feel the need to come to the island. The culture shock would probably be enough to deflate her Botox. Abby smiled at the same time a pinch of guilt cramped her throat. She gulped a hot mouthful of tea to get it to loosen. Most families dealt with complicated relationships, but she felt like hers was especially twisted.
She did miss her brother and sister, though they’d moved out to the suburbs and had managed to find a sense of normalcy in a place where so much abnormal existed. Abby couldn’t believe it had taken her so long to see it, realize how little she actually knew about herself.
“Well, I’m really going to be hurting in the morning. Thanks for the tea.” She gave her aunt a quick squeeze before heading back into her bedroom. She bypassed the ring without a second glance, without giving it any thought—because she’d made her decision.
LA wasn’t her home anymore, and she’d be mailing the ring back to Marcus the first chance she got.
She worked through the morning, the sun steadily moving past its zenith and marking the afternoon. Finally finished and on her way back to the laundry facilities in the main hotel, she heard a dog barking as she passed Rockrose. Both of Noah’s dogs sat with their noses pressed against the front window. The golden retriever simply smiled, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. But the black lab barked, and barked, and barked. He darted away from the window, only to spin back and nearly smash into it.
Abby hesitated. Maybe the dog needed to go out. Maybe he was just especially vocal, though he hadn’t made a peep yesterday morning and into the afternoon while Noah and Abby worked.
She wasn’t entirely sure what to do, so she pulled out her phone and texted Noah. Lord Pawton is barking his fool head off. Want me to go in and take him out or something?
His response came in only seconds and made a shiver skate down her spine, though it was plenty hot under the Gulf Coast sun.
No, I’m leaving the conference now. I’ll meet you at Rockrose.
They hadn’t made definite plans for today, and he hadn’t texted once. Maybe the sessions at the conference were so intriguing, he’d been busy taking notes for his new clinic.
“Hey, pretty girl.” He arrived in only a few moments and swept one arm around her, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. Warmth and acceptance flowed through her, something she wasn’t sure she’d ever felt in her relationships before.
He tugged her toward the villa. “You coming in?”
But her feet didn’t seem to want to move. Relationship? Was she in a relationship with Noah? What had happened to just helping him for four days?
He unlocked the villa door to the exuberance of his dogs. They licked his hands as he tried to pat them, chuckling as he did. Their tails wagged and wagged in excitement to see him, and Abby sort of understood how they felt.
“I called Albert Hanks today,” Noah said. “He’s expecting us in an hour.” He scanned her, a glint of heat entering his eye. “You can come with me, right?”
“I just need to take the towels and sheets to the laundry.” She hooked her thumb over her shoulder to the cart laden with linens. “And get home to shower and change.” She calculated how long that would take. “I could meet you there.”
He took a few steps toward the kitchen. “Or you could shower here.”
His words felt like an icy splash of water in her face.
In the kitchen, Noah picked up two leashes and clipped them to his dogs’ collars. He stopped with the animals between them. “I can see I’ve stumped you.” He grinned, nudging the dogs out of the way. “I gotta take them for a quick walk. You let me know what you decide to do.” He kept a tight grip on the leashes with one hand and used the other to bring her closer. He held her gaze as he drew closer, closer still.
The moment he touched his mouth to hers, fireworks popped behind her closed eyes, scattering through her entire body as he deepened the kiss and kept her against his rock-hard body.
“All right?” he breathed into her mouth, capturing it again before she could even form a coherent thought. Her whole body felt like roasted marshmallows, warm and soft and gooey. He ended the kiss and said, “C’mon, boys,” before leading his dogs out of the villa and snapping the door closed behind him.
Abby stayed in the silence for a few extra moments, examining her thoughts and feelings, trying to decide what to do. She always kept an extra set of clothes in her car; she could shower here. It would erase twenty minutes of driving—and a potentially frustrating conversation with her aunt.
She stepped out into the sunshine and got the laundry cart headed in the right direction, her decision still waiting to be made.
Noah fought the urge to look back to the villa and see if Abby had stayed or not. Of course she won’t stay, he chastised himself. She has to finish working first. But oh, how he wanted to return from his walk down the beach with the dogs to find her in his shower.
He might suddenly need to bathe too.
He shook the fantasies from his head and focused on the upcoming meeting with Albert. The phone call had gone well, and while Noah had mentioned he’d heard that Albert was selling his practice, he hadn’t had to divulge who had told him that. The older gentleman had seemed open to meeting with Noah too, and Noah had attended a session on veterinary retirement, and then one about taking over an established practice in the hopes that he’d get some tips on what to say during the meeting.
The sound of bleating caught his attention, and he glanced up the beach to see the goat farm that Abby had taken him to the previous day. It seemed out of place and exactly where it should be at the same time. He’d met Frankie and her husband, Becker. They both oozed warmth, and the love they had for each other was palpable. Noah had enjoyed her laid-back personality, the way she seemed so at home with the four-legged animals.
He’d always been that way too, and while he’d never used his veterinary degree, he thought he could be a good veterinarian.
Realizing how far he’d walked, he turned back. The sun glinted off the rooftops of the villas, but he didn’t have a problem picking out Rockrose from its position higher up the beach. From here, he couldn’t tell if Abby had returned or not. His phone hadn’t chirped, and with every step, his hopes lifted higher and higher.
He opened the front door and let the dogs run ahead of him to the kitchen. He filled water bowls for them and turned toward the master bedroom. The door stood closed, and he simply couldn’t tell if Abby was behind it or not.
“One way to find out,” he muttered to himself. He wiped his palms down his thighs, wondering when a woman had gotten under his skin so quickly. Not just any woman. Abby Thames.
He reached for the doorknob, half-expecting it to be locked. But the door opened easily, and the sound of the shower running across the room in the master bath met his ears.
Noah’s grin was instantaneous, as was the rush of blood southward. He couldn’t help the way he felt, and he was tired of fighting it. He also sensed something sad in Abby, and one glance at the clock told him he didn’t have time to do what he truly wanted to do with her right now. He didn’t want a quick tumble beneath the sheets. No, she’d require more than that, and he wanted the time to give it to her.
“You find everything okay?” he called from the doorway of the bathroom. The glass shower stall certainly wouldn’t give her any privacy, but she had left the door open…
“I�
�ve cleaned this villa for six months,” she called. “I know where everything is.”
“Dang.” He leaned into the doorjamb, his eyes focused on the vaulted ceiling. “I was hoping I’d have to come in there and help you with something.”
She laughed, the sound silencing after only a few beats. “I’ll be out in a minute. Did you need to shower?”
“No.” The word stuck in his throat, and it took every ounce of willpower he had to stay on the bedroom side of the door. Sure enough, the shower stopped only a minute later and he heard her humming to herself as she stepped out.
She appeared a few seconds later, wearing one of the villa’s white fluffy robes. One hand worked a towel through her short hair. “Loitering, I see.” She grinned at him, a playful, coy, flirtatious smile that made soft things hard.
“Hoping.” His eyes dropped to the neckline of her robe. It dipped into enough of a V for him to see the rounded edges of her breasts. His mouth went dry and need coiled deep in his chest.
He ran the tips of his fingers along the tie keeping the robe closed and in place, moving them up toward her feminine curves. “How much time do we have?” he asked, his voice hardly his own.
She stepped into his personal space, her eyes flicking over his shoulder to check the time. “Thirty-three minutes. And it’s at least a fifteen minute drive to the clinic.” She could’ve stepped back. Given him room to breathe. Space to think with his brain and not his groin.
She didn’t.
He slipped his fingers around the collar of the robe, sliding them down down down until they brushed her skin. Abby sucked in a breath and Noah lifted his eyes to hers. Their blue depths danced with desire, and Noah knew they weren’t leaving the villa without some sort of sexual resolution.
“Time enough, I think,” he said.
“Time for what?” she asked.
He didn’t answer with words. He kissed her, taking it beyond the sweet exchanges they’d already experienced. “Time for this,” he said, tracing his tongue along her upper lip and then touching it against hers.
She responded eagerly, her hands going to his shoulders, his hair. He turned her and moved her to the bed. Their eyes met again, and something passed between them. A quiet understanding that this thing between them wasn’t going away, and likely wouldn’t end when the veterinary conference did.
Barefoot Bay: Shelter Me (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 4
