by Teri Wilson
Jenna nearly fell off her log. Had he just offered to do something nice for one of her kids?
“Awesome!” Ally’s face split into a wide grin.
“Wow. That is pretty nice.” Jenna stared at Lucas. Was it her imagination, or did the firelight make his eyes dance?
He arched a brow. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m not surprised. I’m just…” She struggled for something to say because the word on the tip of her tongue was charmed. It was such an unexpectedly sweet offer, and Lucas was anything but sweet. Maybe the marshmallows were going to her head.
While she sat there, speechless, his gaze flicked over her shoulder. Jenna turned to see what had caught his attention and sure enough, three gorgeous, slender women were approaching the campfire. Was that Kayla, the camp counselor in the middle?
Of course it was, and she wasn’t wearing anything resembling a mom-cardigan.
Now this isn’t a bit surprising. Mr. Bachelor strikes again.
“Actually, I think we should get going,” Jenna said.
Lucas didn’t seem to hear.
“We should?” Nick inspected the marshmallow on the end of his skewer, still only half-melted.
“Yeah.” Jenna nodded. Help me out here, kid.
“Right. We should. ‘Cause I’m pretty wiped, and I’ve been working on a new swim technique. It’s pretty cool actually.” Nick grinned at Lucas.
Jenna didn’t know what he was talking about, and right that second, she didn’t care. She just wanted to get back to the beach house before she had to watch Lucas and Kayla engage in another adorable, carefree frolic.
“Oh, yeah?” Lucas said.
“Yeah.” Nick nodded. “And my mom likes to watch Real Housewives before…”
“Okay, we’re going.” Jenna flew to her feet. “Let’s go, please. Now.”
Nick thought she was suddenly eager to get home so she could watch bad reality television? Great. Now she sounded even more pathetic than she felt.
“What? You do.” Nick shrugged as she did her best to usher the kids back toward the beach house.
“Good night,” Lucas said, and the smile in his voice made her mortification all the more complete.
“Good night,” she muttered without meeting his gaze.
Ally saved her goodbyes for the dog. “Good night, Tank. See you in the morning.”
Tank’s eye opened and he peered after her. She practically floated as she headed toward the dune.
Jenna, on the other hand, felt like she was slinking away in humiliation.
Real Housewives? Really, Nick?
She pulled her sweater tighter around her frame, snuggling into it she snuck one last look at the scene around the bonfire. Big mistake.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Lucas said as Kayla sat beside him, right where Ally had been just moments before. He glanced up at one of Kayla’s pretty friends and patted the space recently vacated by Nick. “There’s room on this side.”
Jenna hastened her steps.
Real Housewives suddenly didn’t sound so bad. It was definitely preferable to the real-life version of The Bachelor starring Lucas McKinnon.
Chapter Six
Lucas was vaguely aware of a knocking sound on his front door the next morning, but he kept his eyes closed and burrowed deeper into his sofa.
The noise couldn’t be a visitor. Who got up this early at the beach? No one, that’s who. It had to be a something else—a confused pelican, maybe?
Knock, knock, knock.
There it was again, and to Lucas’s dismay, it indeed sounded like it was coming from regular human knuckles.
He cracked one eye open and looked at Tank stretched out beside him. “You want to get that, buddy?”
Tank didn’t budge.
Knock, knock, knock. Whoever was pounding on the door wasn’t giving up.
“All right, all right. I’m coming. I’m coming.” Lucas dragged himself off the couch and gave Tank a parting scratch behind his ears. “Some guard dog you are.”
He glanced out the window on the way to the door. Ally stood on his porch, waving at him with the kind of enthusiasm that only an extreme morning person could muster.
Why was he not surprised?
He swung the door open and yawned.
“You said morning.” She jammed one hand on her hip and held the other hand out, palm facing up. “Leash, please.”
He glanced past her to try to figure out how she’d managed to breach the perimeter of the fence Jenna had slapped up between their opposing sides of the patio.
Ally followed his gaze and shrugged. “You left your door open.”
He’d have to watch that next time he offered to let her walk his dog. Seriously, it was summertime. Weren’t kids supposed to be sleeping in?
He held up a finger, signaling she should wait. Then he scooped a very sleepy, very confused Tank into his arms and clipped a blue leash to the dog’s collar. Lucas couldn’t remember the last time he’d walked Tank on a leash. Usually, his pup trotted around faithfully at his heels. But Ally seemed determined to do this properly, so he carried Tank back to the patio and set him gently on the ground.
“All right, I don’t have any rules.” Lucas handed the leash over to Ally. “Just bring him back when you’re done.”
She stared blankly at him, probably because she’d never encountered a rules-free experience. Her hand came to rest on Tank’s head. “You sure you don’t want to come with us?”
Lucas arched an eyebrow. “That would defeat the purpose of you walking my dog.”
“Except you might have fun.”
He considered it for a moment, then came to his senses. What was with his sudden interest in hanging out with kids? “Nah. I’m good. I should get back to my nap.”
“Suit yourself.” She wagged a finger at him as if taking a nap was criminal. It didn’t take a genius to know where she’d learned that move.
Ally took a step, but Tank stayed put. He cast Lucas a glance, heavy on the puppy-dog eyes, as if he too expected Lucas to come along.
Not going to happen.
“Go on.” He pointed at the stairs.
Tank shuffled after Ally.
Lucas yawned, grabbed the latest copy of his favorite surfing magazine and plopped down on the porch swing. He flipped through the pages, only half-seeing the print. He needed coffee—or some serious, uninterrupted shut-eye.
But sleep wasn’t going to be possible because suddenly Ally’s little dog walk had become much louder than he’d anticipated.
“Hurry up, Tank,” she said from somewhere down below. “Tank, please.”
Then, more desperately, “Come on, Tank.”
The poor dog. Maybe Lucas should have gone along, after all. He tossed his magazine onto a nearby table and ambled over to the porch railing. A quick glance at the patch of sand at the foot of the stairs confirmed what he suspected—Ally’s walk was a structured affair. She’d take a few steps and then order Tank to sit or lie down, neither of which was in his repertoire of dog tricks.
Ally looked exasperated. Tank looked…amused. Happier than Lucas would have guessed, albeit thoroughly confused.
Lucas laughed to himself. “Sorry, buddy. She’s a task master.”
Ally came by it honestly, though.
“Just like her mama,” he muttered.
Ally returned from her walk with Tank brimming with excitement. She talked nonstop about the dog while she sat at the kitchen table and drew fanciful pictures of Tank with her favorite magic markers. His scruffy little face now peered at Jenna from the half dozen drawings Ally had tacked to the refrigerator with beach-themed magnets. All of a sudden, the kitchen looked like a canine art gallery.
As grateful as Jenna was to Lucas for letting her daughter borrow his dog, she needed to
somehow distract Ally from her Tank obsession. Drastic measures were necessary. It was probably only a matter of time before Ally began begging for a dog of her own. Again.
Only one thing could do the trick: a trip to Ally’s favorite island eatery, Ocean Burger.
Jenna piled the kids into the car and got to the popular restaurant early enough to snag a spot with a beautiful sea view. Ocean Burger was located right on the beach in a building painted bright pink with pretty lime-green and turquoise paper lanterns hanging from the rafters. From their table on the deck, they could see palm trees swaying in the breeze, the long stretch of Tybee’s white sand beach, and foamy waves tumbling onto the shore.
Plus, the burgers were outstanding. Jenna dipped one of her fries into a dollop of ketchup as Nick and Ally peppered her with questions about her manuscript.
“I don’t get it. She’s learning to sail, but only so she can get to the lost island?” Nick’s brow furrowed.
The lost island was a new idea for Jenna. It hadn’t appeared in her first book—hence Nick’s confusion. Hopefully, he’d have a better grasp of her plot once she was finished with her manuscript and he could read it. If not, she was in more trouble than she realized.
She popped the fry into her mouth. “That’s the idea. At least that’s how I’m writing the first draft.”
Ally took a sip of her lemonade, which was almost as pink as Ocean’s Burger eye-catching exterior, then giggled. “And she’s only eleven. So does that mean in two more years I can sail, too?”
Nice try. But there was no way in the world Jenna was going to let either one of her kids out on the open water alone. She wrote young adult fantasy novels—emphasis on fantasy. “It’s just fiction, sweetie. Besides, she comes from a long line of sailors. Your grandparents came from Chicago. Two very different scenarios.”
Nick’s gaze narrowed. “So how does it end?”
Jenna wished she knew. “That’s a good question.”
“I thought it was due like, really soon.” Ally looked at her like she was a kid who’d failed to do her part of a group project at school.
“Soon-ish.” She still had a few weeks. Granted, her word count was on the meager side. She had whole chapters left to write, plus a read-through of the manuscript…not to mention the ending that she still hadn’t quite figured out.
The anxious expressions on her kids’ faces weren’t helping matters.
Jenna forced a smile. “But I’m not worried, so you can’t be worried.”
Who was she kidding? She was definitely worried.
Why was she at Ocean Burger when she still had no clue how to finish her manuscript? The ending was a crucial part to any book. Some said it was the most crucial. Nothing ruined a good story like a bad ending.
Jenna’s ending wasn’t bad, it was non-existent.
“Great.” She reached for the bill. “Should we go home?”
Jenna was suddenly more than ready to get to back to her laptop. She just hoped that whatever activity Lucas and his carefree friends had going on was somewhat quiet. Or better yet, she hoped he was enjoying a nice, solitary afternoon.
Not that she cared if he was dating Kayla or any of the other slim, tanned, child-free twenty-somethings who had flocked to his bonfire the night before…
Except she sort of did care, which was nearly as worrisome as the unfinished ending to her manuscript.
“That’s it!” Lucas spiked a white ball over the net and fist-pumped as it landed in a spray of sand, just out of reach of the players on the other side.
After Ally returned Tank, he’d called a few friends and thrown together an impromptu beach volleyball game. He needed something to get his mind off the kids next door.
And their mother.
It wasn’t like him to get involved like this. Even Kayla had noticed, and his response to her teasing kept whirling through his thoughts.
It’s just one kid, just one time.
Suddenly one kid had become two, and he was starting to lose count of how many times he’d volunteered himself. He’d even managed to volunteer his dog. What was happening?
You like her. That’s what’s happening.
The ball sailed toward him and he pounded it with more force than was probably necessary. Being attracted to Jenna Turner was out of the question. She wasn’t interested. Plus she was leaving in just a few weeks and she had two children.
He wasn’t father-figure material. He’d pretty much organized his entire life to avoid that kind of responsibility.
The ball sailed past him, and when he turned to run after it, his gaze snagged on Jenna and her kids walking over the dune toward the beach house.
His favorite three complications.
Nick broke away from Jenna and Ally and ran toward him. Lucas gave him a wave. “Hey, bud.”
The boy grinned toward the group scattered about on the makeshift volleyball court they’d marked in the sand. “Lucas, do you need any more players?”
No, they didn’t. Certainly not a kid whose head probably didn’t reach the bottom of the net.
“I guess we could use another body.” What was he saying? “Why? You interested?”
Nick’s grin widened. “What about my mom?”
Wait. What?
Lucas snuck a glance at Jenna standing in the distance, facing the ocean. She was wearing her emerald swimsuit again, this time under a beige sweater and jean shorts. Hair tossed by the sea breeze, she looked like a mermaid on her way to the library.
Lucas rather liked the library. And mermaids. “What about her?”
“She used to play in college.” There was an unmistakable note of pride in Nick’s tone.
“Really?” Lucas tried to keep his jaw from dropping. It was a struggle.
He called out to Jenna. “Hey, you used to dig?”
She came toward him, eyeing him like he was speaking a foreign language. “What do you mean?”
The kid had to be mistaken. She wasn’t even familiar with basic volleyball jargon.
“I was just telling Lucas how you used to play volleyball in college,” Nick said.
Lucas waited for her to contradict him.
She didn’t. Not exactly, anyway. “That was like a hundred years ago.”
Nick shrugged. “You should play.”
“Right now?” She blinked.
Lucas bit back a smile. “Were you any good?”
Jenna crossed her arms and stood a little straighter. “Team captain.”
Things were getting more interesting by the second. He stared at her sweater—so prim, so beige. “I’m having a hard time picturing that.”
Her cheeks flared pink and she laughed. “Why? Because I’m wearing a cardigan?”
“That might be part of it.” Plus he just couldn’t picture her being into team sports, maybe because of the fence that divided his patio in half.
“You know what, let’s go.” She gathered her hair over one shoulder and started twisting it into a braid with nimble fingers. Clearly, she meant business.
Lucas tossed the ball back and forth from one hand to the other. “Let me guess. You want to be on my team?”
She rolled her eyes. “You and me. First to ten.”
Was she serious? She’d just admitted she hadn’t played in years.
“So this is a challenge?” He peered at her more closely.
A spark of defiance flashed in her gaze. “Oh yeah. And if I win, no music past nine o’ clock. If you win, I won’t complain about your little mid-week matches anymore.”
Lucas glanced at Nick. A wager this serious needed a witness.
Nick nodded. Off came Jenna’s cardigan.
So he wasn’t just imagining things. Jenna Turner had actually just challenged him to a one-on-one volleyball war.
“You’ve got yourself a bet.” H
e tossed the ball in the air and caught it in one hand without looking. “Show me what you’ve got.”
The other players formed a curious circle around them, clapping and cheering when they realized Jenna had just thrown down the gauntlet. Lucas almost felt sorry for her. If she truly hadn’t played ball in years, she didn’t stand a chance. But this whole spectacle had been her idea, hadn’t it?
He served the ball with a gentle smack, nice and easy. He didn’t want to embarrass her, but he wasn’t about to let her win. If a challenge was what she wanted, then that’s what she’d get.
Jenna returned the serve with surprising force and it zipped right past him, eliciting a cheer from Nick and Ally. When Lucas turned to grin at them, he spotted Tank nestled happily between them. The furry little traitor.
Lucas chased after the ball and pitched it to Jenna since it was her turn to serve. He moved up a few steps, expecting it to barely clear the net.
Wrong move.
The ball sailed past him again. He dove for it and missed by a mile. Jenna was now up by two, and all Lucas had to show for his efforts was a face coated in sand.
“Eaten by the sand shark,” she teased.
He couldn’t help but laugh. Jenna was good. She was really good, and to top it off, she could trash-talk, too. Who would have known?
He got up and dusted himself off. “Is that all you’ve got?”
She bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet and spread her arms out in the universal gesture for bring it on.
No more Mr. Nice Guy. Going easy on her had clearly been a mistake. The next time he hit the ball, he didn’t hold back. They volleyed back and forth, back and forth, until Jenna’s fingertips grazed the ball and it plunked to the ground. A very near miss, but Lucas was finally on the board.
The longer they played, the closer the score got. The advantage seemed to flip with every serve. As soon as Lucas was up, Jenna would win a point and vice versa.
The crowd surrounding the court multiplied and every time one of them missed a volley, they broke out into cheers. Lucas was pretty sure most of them were rooting for Jenna now.
