Playing For Fun: Stewart Island Book 6

by Alvarez, Tracey

  Ford sipped at his coffee, leaning a hip against the counter. A small spider did spiderish things to its web high up in the corner of his kitchen. Holly would’ve fly-sprayed the living crap out of it if she’d spotted the spider first. He was more a keep off my person and I’ll let you live kind of guy when it came to creepy crawlies.

  “Are you listening?” Harley said.

  “To your girlish chatter? No, I tuned out. Say again?”

  Harley gave a huff of amusement. “Silent treatment might work on the other guys, but it won’t on me. We shared amniotic fluid, man, and blood knows blood.”

  A shudder rippled down Ford’s back. The spider crouched in the centre of its web, ready for a fly to bumble into a sticky trap. Blood knows blood. Pania, like a spider pulling sticky strands together. Endlessly spinning, catching, feeding…until she got pregnant at sixteen. She’d wanted to abort, but her older brother, Rob, talked her out of it.

  Blood knows blood.

  The spider retreated to the corner of its web. Ford pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut against the memories, but they came anyway.

  Pania wrenching him into the tiny, filth-encrusted bedroom he and Harley shared, her fingers like clamps around his skinny, four-year-old arm, digging into the bruises that were still turning yellow from the last time.

  “How can you be my blood?” Her breath had smelled yucky, her eyes bloodshot and scary.

  Ford had retreated, letting his long, tangled hair falling over his face, desperate to be invisible.

  “You’re like your father, a spineless jellyfish. You smart mouth me then run away and hide. Little coward.”

  A little coward whose only weapon was his smart mouth.

  And yeah, he ran and hid because Pania would hunt for him. If luck was on his side, she’d lose interest and return to the TV and colorful bottles of grown-up juice on the coffee table. If she found him, well, at least only he got the hiding, not Harley. That time.

  Blood knows blood.

  “Yo? Still breathing?” Real concern colored his brother’s voice now.

  Ford rolled the weight of memories off his shoulders, dumping them in the padlocked stronghold where they belonged. “I’m shattered, Harley. It’s three in the morning, and I haven’t had sex in months.”

  “And you’re not dead?” The concern in his brother’s tone evaporated into fraternal ball-busting mode.

  Better to have Harley bust Ford’s balls about a non-existent sex life than have him keep probing.

  Or Ford could switch things up and turn the questions one-eighty. “When are you coming home?”

  “No immediate plans.”

  “Uh-huh. Not avoiding your whānau, are you?”

  “No. Why the hell would I? Look, I gotta go. I’ll give Pania a call and sort her out; you smooth things with Dad.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “And think about Holly, man. Instead of playing that damn guitar, maybe you should be playing with her.”

  The line went dead.

  Ford grimaced. Did he believe Harley had never looked at Holly as anything but one of the local girls who’d hung around them? Far as Ford knew, his brother never had a woman in his life longer than a block of cheese’s use-by date. But unease still worked chilly fingers down his spine. The girl had picket fence and two-point-five-kids written all over her. And Holly sure as hell hadn’t been looking at him when those words were on display.

  Forget it. She’s out of the picture soon, anyway.

  Ford dumped the rest of his coffee in the sink. Wasn’t as if he’d get much sleep the rest of the night. Not with Harley putting the image of playing with Holly into his mind.

  Thanks, bro.

  Chapter 9

  Writteninthestars.com Daily Horoscope.

  Pisces.

  Listen with your ears and heart to things unsaid. Generosity and kindness shown to a stranger will reap rewards.

  Six days after Ford set her sensible boy-leg panties on fire with that smoking-hot kiss, Holly sat with him outside The Great Flat White Café, waiting for the lunchtime ferry. They finished up the last of their to-go espressos as the ferry headed toward the wharf.

  Déjà vu to the max.

  Except this time, Ford’s choice of date was all on her. She’d agreed to accompany him, to size up this Emily Peters. As his mate. Just like, as his mate, she’d followed through on her promise to find him a better-suited potential Ms. Perfect. Why? Because that one kiss had scared the hell out of her, making her want more with Ford than she could possibly have. It was much easier to live in the land of De-Ni-Al and pretend the kiss was an anomaly than to voice that want. Easier to convince herself she was still on track with Plan A of moving to Invercargill.

  So Holly had nearly given herself an aneurysm, searching through page after page of profiles of women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, but she’d eventually narrowed it down to three choices to show Ford.

  So they’d met in neutral territory at Erin’s for lunch earlier in the week. Time alone with Ford would equal unbearable awkwardness. So, laptop set up in the far corner table, Holly went through the profiles Ford had found. While she’d been hunting, he’d also scanned more Kiwi-Match profiles, coming up with two women he wanted her opinion on. She nixed the attractive red-head from Invercargill—recently divorced from her second husband at thirty-one…Uh, hello warning air-raid sirens—and also the Angelina Jolie lookalike from Nelson who, after the second flirty e-mail inquired if Ford would be open to adding to the mix a third party of her current male hook-ups, and should they come down to party for the weekend? Ford showed her the last e-mail with a very Ford-ish raised eyebrow and then hit delete.

  “I don’t share,” he said.

  And hadn’t that set off another flurry of girly tingles? She’d crossed her legs tight and gone through her own list of women with him, ignoring his biteable body poured into his usual black-jeans-black-tee-shirt combo, shedding testosterone like a giant, long-haired cat shed fur. A woman less strong-willed than Holly would’ve rubbed herself all over that feline hotness, marking her territory.

  That strong will was sorely tested today.

  Ford shoved up the coverall’s sleeves to the elbows, drawing attention to his corded and muscled forearms. Definite arm porn.

  He drummed his fingers on the bench seat between them and darted a glance at the approaching ferry. “Sure I shouldn’t have gone home for a change of clothes?”

  “You’re a mechanic.” Holly dragged her gaze from his arm and to her nearly empty coffee cup. “And you’re working. You can impress Emily with your masculine style at dinner tomorrow night.” The thought gave her a little twinge, so she added, “Wear the plaid shirt and green cabled sweater with the stone-colored pants.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Ford scrubbed a hand down his coveralls then sniffed his palm. “Damn. I smell like engine oil and heavy-duty hand cleaner.” He bumped her shoulder with his. “Go on, sniff me.”

  Sniff him? She wanted to bite him—right on the spot where his biceps ended and the bulge of shoulder muscle began. Holly shoved his arm, ordering her fingers not to close on those rock-solid biceps, and angled her upper body away. “Bugger off, Komeke.”

  And yeah, while he did have a hint of pungent oil and his usual hand cleaner as top notes, under that, his warm skin still gave off sexy-male-scents of leather and pine.

  He chuckled, lifting his opposite arm and ducking his head to armpit level. He sniffed exaggeratedly.

  “Quit it.” Holly nudged him again. “If she sees you doing that from the ferry, she’ll think you’re an idiot.”

  He cut her a shrewd glance. “If she’s half as wonderful as you think she is, she won’t think I’m an idiot.” Then his face creased into a familiar grin. “Not until I open my mouth and confirm it.”

  “You’re not an idiot,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  The smile dialled down a notch, giving her a glimpse of an emotio
n simmering below the surface she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Self-doubt? Nerves? His gaze dropped from her eyes to her mouth then flicked up again. Awareness? Heat?

  Although they’d been doing nothing more than their usual teasing, her heart worked double-time, sending a surge of super-heated blood into her cheeks. Was she the only one who couldn’t seem to get that kiss out of their mind? That one, bone-melting, ovary-exploding kiss that relegated every other first kiss to a smoking ash pile?

  Ford’s melted dark-chocolate eyes narrowed slightly, studying her face as if remembering his hands cupping her jaw, his lips flush against hers. “Yeah. I am. But not because I’m checking to see if my deodorant works.”

  She faced the ferry as it docked. Passengers began to spill onto the wharf. Whether he’d admitted to being an idiot for wanting to kiss her again or for kissing her in the first place, it didn’t matter. Regardless of what her traitorous body said, Ford was off limits.

  A wavy-haired brunette dressed in a puffa jacket with a pretty green infinity scarf wrapped around her neck leaned against the ferry’s railing—a smile leaping onto her face as she caught sight of Ford and waved.

  Beside Holly, Ford stood, and lifted his hand in a return greeting.

  “Photo didn’t do her justice,” he said.

  A note of appreciation deepened his voice, and it scraped along Holly’s nerves like fine-grained sandpaper. She’d heard that tone in his voice before, usually when he talked about his vehicular baby, the T-bird.

  Holly forced her fingers to relax around the disposable cup so as not to crush it. “Told you.”

  Ford’s gaze zipped from the ferry to Holly, shifting into a solar flare of pure heat. He wanted her, and it scared the living hell out of her because she wanted him back.

  “It’s not too late to admit I’ve made a mistake,” he said.

  Ignoring the lustful squeeze of her ovaries at the thought of every single delicious mistake she could make with him, Holly tossed her coffee cup into the trash. “The only mistake you’ll make is if you don’t give Emily a fair chance.”

  She couldn’t meet his eyes and lie at the same time, so she stood, smoothing her multi-colored tunic over her hips and moving slightly away from Ford.

  Silence, if you could call the ferry’s rumble and the raucous caws of two seagulls fighting over food scraps dropped by the trash silence, stretched between them, sticky and impenetrable.

  “All right, then.” Ford walked to the edge of the wharf to help Shaun with the dock lines.

  Ford offering Emily his hand to help her onto the wharf sent a cold little worm burrowing down to Holly’s toes. They smiled at each other, seemingly oblivious to the other passengers milling around. Emily laughed at something he said, and Ford grinned—not his I’m smiling so you won’t be embarrassed by my intense disinterest smile, but a genuine, knee-weakening grin. Emily lightly touched the sleeve of his coveralls but didn’t get grabby.

  Holly pinned the squirming green-eyed worm under the heel of her knee-high boots.

  This is what’s best for Ford, she told herself. A nice girl, a girl who ran a popular blog while designing websites and who could live anywhere—according to her Kiwi-Match profile. A girl who wasn’t weighted down with a small airport’s worth of baggage, confident enough to travel over three hundred kilometres from Oamaru to take a chance on a stranger. A girl like Emily wouldn’t have harboured a silly crush on a guy and not done anything about it…until it was too late.

  Accompanying Ford here was a stupendously dumb idea. What had she been thinking? Prove how mature and okay she was with him dating, while she stood on the side lines with a fake encouraging smile on her face? His female wingman. One of the guys.

  She edged out toward the corner of the café, but it was too late. Ford had drawn Emily away from the other passengers to meet Holly.

  His first impression of his new date was dead wrong—Emily wasn’t just better than her profile photo, she was gorgeous. Taller than she’d appeared from the distance on the ferry’s dock, her now-unzipped jacket exposed a body that curved in all the right places. Eyes as clear blue as Patterson Inlet on a summer’s day crinkled in the corners as Emily said hello, then she laughed as an errant wind gust flipped hair the color of old mahogany into her mouth.

  Emily blew a raspberry to spit out the strands. “Really nice to meet you,” she added. “Ford mentioned you were the one to find my profile—so it’s you I need to thank.” She slanted him a shy smile, a slight flush appearing beneath the sprinkling of freckles dusting her cheek.

  Freckles, too? Doubly unfair.

  “What are mates for, right?” Holly adopted her hey-ho-aren’t-we-all-having-fun-and-no-I-don’t-feel-like-a-third-wheel tone. At any moment, she’d break a molar from smiling so widely.

  “Absolutely,” Emily said. “But I’m buying you a huge glass of whatever-you-fancy later, just the same.”

  Gorgeous, not-stuck-up, and offering to buy Holly alcohol. Triple unfair because now she’d actually started to like the woman. Ford caught her eye, gave her the old raised eyebrow whaddya-think look. Holly smiled, silently communicating a she’s-great reply.

  “Oh, I nearly forgot.” Emily held out a gift bag to Ford. “This is for you.”

  Ford dragged a multi-colored striped scarf from the bag, his face splitting into a goofy grin.

  A Doctor Who scarf. Perfectly hand-knitted.

  Emily shrugged modestly. “As another Doctor Who fan, I knew you’d like it. I whipped it up this week.”

  Of course she had. Holly’s smile grew to cartoon-like proportions. The only thing Holly could whip up involving yarn was tying a length of it around a scrap of newspaper for Diablo to chase.

  Ford wound the scarf around his neck, and Emily straightened the ends.

  Turned out the little green-eyed worms? They had teeth.

  “I better get back to the store before my boss comes looking.” Holly stared down the wharf, now emptying out of people. He’d see, dammit, the moment she looked at him, the jealous little worms eating her from the inside out.

  “Walk with us. We’re all headed in the same direction.”

  Oh, he knew all right. Holly heard it in his voice.

  “Please,” Emily said. “I’d love to see where you both work.”

  Ford picked up Emily’s suitcase as if it weighed nothing. Of course.

  “Sorry about having to dump you at the hotel,” he said. “I’m replacing a radiator on a four-wheel-drive at the workshop.”

  Ford slipping in one of Holly’s suggested mini-tests, to see if Emily could entertain herself for a few hours without complaining.

  “No worries. I’m planning to explore Oban, which looks so pretty. Plus”—Emily patted the purse slung over her shoulder—“I’ve at least three hundred books and counting on my e-reader to keep me busy.”

  “Nice,” said Ford. “I’ll be free at about five once I’ve hit the shower and scrubbed off the smell of grease.”

  “Nothing wrong with the smell of grease. I spent years being my dad’s tool-monkey while he worked on his VW Beetle”

  “Wow. You guys have lots of stuff in common.” Teeth aching from constant clenching, Holly glanced desperately around. Spied salvation. “Well, gotta run! Promised my boss I’d pick up a muffin and latte for her lunch.”

  “Thought Caroline was on a carb-drought?” Ford asked, not buying her excuse.

  Since it would look weird to continue staring at the café instead of the man who’d spoken to her, Holly angled her face toward Ford. Behind the easy-going smirk simmered Scorpio intensity, watching, calculating, decimating her courage until the only thing she wanted to do was muppet-flail and run.

  “She’s fallen off the wagon. Don’t judge.”

  Emily continued to sneak little glances at the man beside her.

  “I’ll see you at the quiz night later, Emily,” Holly added. “You can join the Madame B'ovaries as an honorary member, since Ford’s so damn competitive.”
>
  Another Scorpio-intense stare. “A little competition makes winning that much sweeter.”

  Before she did something juvenile like shoot him the finger, Holly said, “With Emily on our side, we’ll be kicking your butt tonight. See ya.”

  Holly didn’t look back as she strode across the wharf and yanked open the café door.

  * * *

  After placing her order with Erin, Holly skulked to the corner farthest from the café door and glared at the bagged white chocolate chip and raspberry muffin. Guess who’d be snarfing that down on the way back to work? The brown paper bag folds resembled the smirk on Ford’s mouth, so she dumped it in her purse.

  “I know what you’re up to.”

  Holly jumped at Shaye’s voice behind her. Crap—had Ford let something slip about last week’s tongue tangling? Holly turned guilt laden eyes up at her friend, who stood with hands on her aproned hips giving off a don’t you dare lie to me vibe.

  Shaye stabbed a finger in the direction of Holly’s purse. “Cheating on me with Erin’s muffins.”

  Muffins. Oh-thank-gawd. “Sorry, sweet. They’re to-die-for.”

  Though maybe she’d drop the one in her purse off to Murray, who’d reimburse her double since his wife, Carolyn, had also forced him on a low carb diet. The thought of eating anything right now made her stomach curl up like a snail.

  With an indignant snort, Shaye sank into the chair across from Holly.

  “Why aren’t you on lunch service?” Holly asked, with a glance at her watch.

  “Del and I flipped a coin for a coffee run. He lost,” said Shaye. “So I got to wander down here and check out Ford’s date number two. I bumped into them walking toward the hotel.” Shaye cocked her head. “She seems nice.”

  Taking extra care to keep her voice smooth and easy, Holly said, “She is. Our kind of nice, even.”

  “Maybe too nice for us.” Shaye grinned. “We’ll put her to the test tonight.” Then her smile slipped, green eyes narrowing into long-lashed slits. “You’re handling Emily’s arrival in a Yoda-like fashion.”