“Just in case something goes squirrelly with the back gate or something. You never know. Just take it, okay?”
“I won’t use it,” she said.
“Then humor me. The code for the alarm is the same as the code to the gate I just texted you, and the password if the company calls is Jake. I changed it today so we would both remember. I’d forgotten what I’d set it at originally.”
She narrowed her gaze, and then relented. “You’re really okay giving me all this access?”
“Of course.”
She cracked the faintest of smiles. “Thanks. Where’s a good place for me to park?”
“Around the back by the gate’s fine. I don’t use that spot anyway. I come in through the garage.”
She nodded, and then headed that way. She let Jake off the leash and he sniffed around the yard, finding a place to mark his territory while she got the little house open. It was so nice to come home to one open space that she could see so clearly. She’d just have to check the shower and the closet each time…and maybe under the bed, too.
Chase’s footfalls sounded behind her. She couldn’t even see his face since he had all her clothes piled up in his arms. “Where do you want these?”
“On the bed, please. Thank you.”
He unloaded them and she followed him out. “I’ll get it,” he said. “You can go ahead and get started putting stuff where you want it.” She hesitated, uncomfortable with accepting his help, but reluctantly agreed. Her mother would tell her to graciously accept the help, and then do something nice for the person later. Her mother had always taught her that when people offered to help or do something nice that meant they wanted to. Let them and return the favor, especially when it’s their house. Her mother didn’t say that part, but Shayla figured she was safe adding it in.
The pool house had a small closet with a couple of boxes in the bottom. She wouldn’t mention it to him right now. She didn’t want him to think he had to move his stuff because of her. She went to work hanging her clothes up. It would be a tight squeeze, but God knew she wasn’t complaining.
Dropping off the last load, Chase glanced around. “What can I do next?”
“I think I’m good, but thanks.”
“All right then.” He turned to walk out, and she squeezed her eyes tightly.
“Um, can I do something for you?” He lifted his eyebrows, and she shook her head quickly. “Make dinner, maybe? Not tonight, actually. I’ve got dinner at my parents’ house. But tomorrow night?”
He scratched his neck. “I’m leaving to go out of town for a few days.”
“Oh,” she said, the idea striking her harder than she would have liked for it to. She wasn’t here because of him. She was here because of his fortress of security. But the idea of him being here as well didn’t hurt. “When are you coming back?”
“Thursday. I was going to talk to you about that. Would it be weird for you if I got a security guard for the nights I’ll be gone?”
“A security guard?” she asked. Great. Now he was thinking she was his responsibility.
“Female. I’ve worked with her before. She’s very professional. Just for nighttime.”
She stared at him, trying to gauge what he knew. He couldn’t know about Brian without her telling him. Scott was the only other person who knew. Chase and Scott didn’t even know each other existed.
“Mmm hmm,” she said, still trying to figure out what was going on.
“I’m not totally comfortable with this week’s renters across the street. That house rents for cheap and it looks like young kids.” He chuckled. “God, I sound like my dad.”
She scratched her head. “Yeah, of course it’s fine. But are you sure that’s the reason?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Should there be another reason?”
She swallowed, not wanting to give herself away. She had a feeling they were playing a game of chicken, and he was going to win this round. “Sounds good. I’ll be on the lookout for her.”
“Paula is her name. It’s her company anyway. I assume she’ll come herself. But if it’s not her, it’ll be another female. She’s an all-female company.”
“Really,” Shayla said, a little impressed that he chose to use them.
“Oh yeah. They’re great. I saw Paula take down a three-hundred-pound gorilla at an event in Destin once. Not a strand of hair out of place when she was done.”
“Impressive.”
“How about Thursday night, for the dinner?” he asked. “My flight gets in mid-afternoon, I think.”
“Yeah, great,” she said, turning to unpack her basket.
“Okay,” he said. “Do you want this open or closed?”
“Closed, please,” she said.
He closed the door behind him, and she shut her eyes tightly while pressing down on her shampoo bottle. She’d lost a piece of herself somewhere during her time with Brian. She was someone who she no longer recognized. Since when did she need a security guard to sleep at night? She had a baseball bat and a can of mace. She wouldn’t get a gun. It wasn’t her thing, though she’d been considering it. Brian had grown up with guns, made it to the shooting range every month or so. He was also fast when he wasn’t drinking, of course. She was afraid he would get a gun away from her, and she couldn’t run that risk.
She went about assembling her home. Thirty-six years old and living in a one-room pool house. This was not the path she thought her life would have taken. She didn’t necessarily expect to have a family—kids weren’t a requirement for her—but she did expect to be settled somewhere, whether Nashville or here.
She plopped down on the bed, pulling out the nightstand drawer. She’d left PCB for a clean slate when she broke up with Tony. What a joke. She’d broken up with him because she didn’t think he manned up enough, and she’d gone straight into the arms of his polar opposite. At the time, she’d thought Brian was everything she’d ever wanted in a man. Strong, responsible, sexy, kind-hearted and compassionate. That was her perception, and that was the persona he’d kept up for a long time. She’d known going in he didn’t drink, but she thought it was because he was into being healthy. She hadn’t dreamed it was because he had a problem. How stupid of her. She of all people should have known to be suspicious, given the way she grew up.
She cleaned out the drawer of the nightstand and put her bedside stuff in, including the condoms. She should have left them at Bo’s. Who did she think she was going to have sex with?
Lying back on the bed, propping her feet up, she took a minute to imagine Chase having sex in this bed. She wondered if he had. He was attractive, there was no question about that. What did he do in bed? What did he like? She absentmindedly twirled her ring around her finger, staring at the wall, thinking about his long body, so much to work with.
She bit her bottom lip as a sensation flowed through her belly that she hadn’t felt since she could remember. It was like turning on a light in a dark closet.
She snuck over to the window and peeked through the blinds. He wasn’t anywhere around. Jake was snoozing under his favorite tree. She locked the door and turned off the lights. Making herself comfortable on the bed, she unbuttoned her shorts and ventured downward. She hadn’t touched herself in six months, probably. She’d become practically asexual, dressing in baggy clothing, not fixing up her hair. When she looked like that, Brian couldn’t accuse her of wanting to find someone else. It just made things easier.
She found herself wet, which made her huff a laugh. She didn’t even know she was capable of getting wet anymore, but thinking about Chase’s big hands on her thighs, pulling her legs apart had definitely helped. She closed her eyes as the sensations roared inside of her like an old truck starting back up for the first time in years. She pressed down on the mattress as she brought herself alive again, gritting her teeth as she let herself go with a throaty noise she didn’t recognize. She relaxed back on the bed, resting her hand on her belly, almost smiling at the ceiling.
The sound of something hittin
g the pool with a splash woke her back to reality. She walked over to the window to find Chase in the pool shaking out his hair. He pulled himself onto a float shaped like a giant piece of bacon and relaxed back, splashing water onto himself.
He let his leg drag in the pool, the black hair sticking to it. She wondered what his mother’s nationality was. She was a beautiful woman with straight, dark hair, not dissimilar to her own. But his mother had a dark complexion that was indicative of something other than Caucasian, which she had passed down to him.
She cleaned up, putting herself back together as if she hadn’t just gotten herself off on the bed moments earlier. She got a large cup of water and headed outside. She poured the water into Jake’s bowl so it looked like she had a purpose coming out there, other than to gawk at him. She walked over to him. “How are you getting to the airport?”
“I just drive and park.”
“I can take you. Are you flying out of the PCB airport?”
He looked up at her through water-sprinkled aviator glasses. “Yep.”
“I’m going over there to my mom’s house for dinner. I’ll take you. What time’s your flight?”
“Five-forty, I think.”
“That’s perfect timing.”
He moved his hand through the water to turn his float to face her. He was in a lot better shape than showed through his big clothes. She had to look away, so she averted her gaze to Jake who was doing nothing.
“Your rent includes use of the pool, by the way,” Chase said.
“I need to get back inside.”
“That stuff will be there later, you know.”
“I don’t even know where my bathing suit is.” It was a lie. She’d unpacked it earlier. She just wasn’t sure that was a good idea at the moment. Especially with her feeling a little empowered from her self-induced orgasm.
“Bathing suits are optional, of course.”
She gave him a look and headed back to the pool house. “I’ll meet you back out here at three, okay?”
“Works for me.”
Chase hauled his garment bag over his shoulder and headed down the stairs. Shayla sat at a table by the pool, flipping through her phone. He really didn’t want to go on this trip for a variety of reasons. First of all, he still didn’t know what had her so freaked out these past few days. Given, she seemed way more relaxed this afternoon than he’d seen her since he first met her a few days ago. Secondly, he really liked hanging around her. Just her presence nearby gave him a comfort he hadn’t known in years.
When he opened the door, she looked up at him and he lost his breath for a second. She was fixed up, her eyelids brushed with makeup, but not too much. Her lips shined with gloss, and her hair hung around her neck and chest in long, soft curls. “Wow,” he said without thinking.
She averted her gaze, glancing over at Jake. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” he said.
She held out her hands. “Can I carry something?”
He couldn’t help a smile. “No, I got it.”
Jake, seeing they were headed to the gate, stood and flopped his way over to them. Shayla pulled something out of her pocket and tossed it across the yard, and he went for it. She nodded at the gate. “We’ve got about five seconds before that munchie stick is gone.” They hustled to the gate and he shut it behind him. She eyed it. “It locks automatically?”
“Yeah. That’s another reason I gave you that house key.” He opened up the back door of Bo’s truck and hauled his luggage inside.
“Did you lock the front door?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think.”
She headed that way and pulled on the knob, a few times. He really hated to leave her like this. He supposed it was possible that she was always this paranoid, but there was no way of knowing that for sure without asking.
He stood outside the truck, waiting for her to come back. “Sorry,” she said.
“I’m in no rush.”
She scooted around the truck, and they both got in. He wanted to open her door for her, but that would feel too much like a date, which this was decidedly not. She made a four-point turnaround and headed up the driveway.
“So, has your ex quit bugging you?” he asked.
She frowned. “Yeah,” she said, but he didn’t believe it.
“Good. He’s still in Nashville?”
“Yeah, as far as I know.”
“How did you meet him?”
“We worked together.”
“How’d you get up to Nashville to begin with?” he asked.
“I was looking for a change. I’d been in a relationship for a few years, and it was time for it to end.” She hit her signal and they turned out onto 30A.
“And you needed to put Alabama between you and the guy?”
She tilted her head in concession. “Pretty much. He wasn’t a bad guy. It just wasn’t a good relationship.”
“What was wrong?” he asked, knowing he was prying, but curious.
She made a little humming noise like she was thinking about it. “It was me. It wasn’t him.”
“What’d you do?” he asked with a smile, but she didn’t return it.
“I was bored. Thought I needed someone exciting.” She huffed a laugh like it was a ridiculous thought.
“That’s understandable.”
She shook her head. “Stupid. He was a good guy.”
His heart took a little hit at the wistful look on her face. “Why don’t you look him up? Does he still live here?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably. I’m not interested in dating anyone.”
“Mmm,” he said, nodding, glancing out the window, catching a fly-by of his own ugly mug on a sign in front of one of his properties. “Me neither,” he said, unnecessarily, unasked.
She glanced over at him. “Where are you going?”
“Las Vegas.”
“For business?” she asked.
“Yeah. I’m meeting my investment group there. We have some meetings set up.”
She air quoted with her right hand. “Meetings in Vegas?”
He smiled. “All right, I’m sure there’ll be some drinking, some schmoozing.”
“On whose part? Yours or someone else’s?”
“I don’t know. Maybe mutual schmoozing. Depends on how the week goes.” She glanced at him curiously. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Something’s on your mind,” he said. She let a smile slip through, closed-mouth, of course. “You can’t have a look like that on your face and expect me to leave it alone. What?”
She shrugged. “It’s just an interesting life you live.”
“Going to Vegas?”
She glanced at him and then came to a stop for a couple on bikes at a crosswalk. “Living comfortably.”
That was an oxymoron. He hadn’t lived comfortably since the day his baby had been born. He’d loved Sam and cared for him more than he could ever have dreamed he would, which brought a vulnerability to him that would one day prove to be ripped open like a zipper, his heart left dangling in the balance.
He looked out the window, Sam’s lifeless body engrained in his brain, always. “Who said I was comfortable?”
She drove up a side road to 98, turning up the radio, and neither of them spoke again until they got to the airport.
“You want to check that your flight’s on time?” she asked as they got closer.
“I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Okay,” she said, heading toward the departing flights lane.
He pulled out his phone and looked up his flight. How had she known? “It’s delayed.”
“Till when?”
“Eight.”
She glanced at him. “Wanna come to my parents’ house with me?”
“No, you can just drop me here.”
“You sure? We’re grilling.”
He lifted his eyebrow at her. “Steaks?”
“Some kind of meat.”
“Would you care?”
> “If I had a problem with it, I wouldn’t have asked.”
He pointed at her. “You know, I believe you.”
She gave him a curious smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He smiled back. “Grilling it is.”
Chapter Eight
Shayla had waited eight months before she brought Tony home to meet her parents. Brian had never met her parents. She’d known Chase exactly three days, and there they were.
But she wasn’t dating Chase. She was practically living with him, of course, just not dating.
Her heart shot up into her throat at the sight of her own car sitting in her parents’ driveway.
“You okay?” Chase asked.
She pointed at it. “That’s my car.”
“The one Bo has up in Indianapolis?”
“That’s the one.”
“So he’s here, huh?”
“Looks that way.” She parked the truck and stared at her car. She had loved that car for three years, but here it was, a representation of her time in Nashville, making her stomach a little sick.
“You want to go in?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, but she didn’t move.
“Are you rethinking inviting me over?”
“No, of course not. Let’s go.” She hopped down out of the truck and met him around the front where they headed to the door.
“I’d have brought a bottle of wine if I’d have known I was coming,” Chase said.
“I don’t even know if my family owns a corkscrew.”
“Really? They don’t drink?”
“Not anymore,” she said without looking at him. She opened the screen door and offered him inside. He stepped aside in the entryway while she walked in front of him, leading them both to the kitchen where she’d be sure to find her mother. “Hey, Mama.”
Her mother slid a pan of cut-up potatoes into the oven and then turned to meet her gaze. “Hey, sweetie.” She came in for a hug but stopped in her tracks when she saw Chase coming up behind Shayla. “Mama, this is Chase O’Neil. He’s a friend of mine and Bo’s.”
“Hello, Chase,” she said, doing a good job of not looking taken off guard.
“I apologize that I don’t have flowers for you or anything. This was a last-minute invite. Shayla was dropping me at the airport on her way over here but my flight got delayed.”
Seagrove Secrets Page 7
