by Jill Sanders
Tucking the large folder his brother had given him under his arm, he grabbed his keys and jogged out the door. It was only a few blocks to the boardwalk and the evening air was warm enough, so he decided to walk instead of hunting for a parking spot.
When he got to the top of her stairs, he could tell that she wasn’t there, and all of the nerves and excitement that had built up from the thought of seeing her dissipated. He stood at the top of the steps in the now fading light and wondered what to do. Maybe he’d head over to Cassey’s place for a while and check back later? Just as he turned to go, he saw her start to climb the stairs, hidden behind three large grocery bags. She was talking to herself and he leaned back and enjoyed the show.
When she was halfway up the stairs, she spotted him and almost dropped the third bag, which was balanced between the other two.
“Oh!” She closed her eyes for a second and he could hear her breathing speed up.
“Sorry.” He chuckled. “Didn’t mean to scare you.” He raced down the stairs and took two of her bags before she dropped them.
“Thanks,” she said a little breathlessly as she reached out and took a hold of the railing to steady herself.
He noticed that she’d changed into a long cream-colored skirt with a rose-colored blouse. She’d piled her hair up while letting those soft strands fall around her face.
“I absolutely fell in love with the little grocery store two blocks away,” she said quickly. “I probably bought too much, though.” She frowned, looking at the three bags.
He chuckled. “I always do. That’s why Roman took over the shopping a year back.”
“Oh?” She turned slightly and looked at him as she unlocked her door.
“My brother and I moved in together right after school.” He shrugged his shoulders as he walked in behind her. “Guess we never saw any reason not to live together.” Until recently, he wanted to add, but didn’t.
“That’s nice. It must be wonderful to have someone who’s always there for you.” She set her bag down on the small countertop.
He could hear the loneliness in her voice. When he set the two bags down, he glanced at her.
“Are you sure you have enough room for all of this?” He stood back as she started pulling items out of the bags.
She laughed and shook her head. “No, not really. It’s a good thing I didn’t go overboard with cold items.” She leaned down to place a few items into the small refrigerator. “Have you eaten?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
He shook his head. “I was planning on swinging by Cassey’s place after I dropped these off to you.” He held up the folder.
“Oh?” She continued to put away her items.
“Roman finished the bid for you. I have a few design ideas in here as well.” He stood back and watched her quickly empty the bags.
“Why don’t you stay? We can go over everything after dinner. I was going to make some Chicken Alfredo.” She had her back to him so she couldn’t see the quick air pump he did behind her back.
“Sounds good.” He leaned against the counter. “Can I help?”
She glanced at him. “There’s a bottle of wine in here somewhere.” She looked into the last bag. “Here.” She handed it to him, then searched in a drawer for a corkscrew. “You can pour.” She smiled at him. “Glasses are there.” She pointed to her one and only cupboard next to the fridge.
Taking down two wine glasses, he shook his head as he opened the bottle. “Still don’t know where you plan on putting all that.”
She frowned at him. “I’m trying to figure that out myself.” She leaned back and sighed. “I suppose it’s going to be a while before everything starts feeling like a home around here.”
He nodded. “We could start up here first.”
She shook her head no. “I don’t mind roughing it for a while. I’d rather get started downstairs.” She turned and pulled out a large pan. “I met Wendy today.”
“Oh?” He chuckled. “And you still have both your ears I see.”
She smiled. “It was very nice of her to fill me in on all that goes on around here.”
“I’m sure she did.” He handed her a glass of wine.”
She stopped and took a sip. “For a moment, I thought she was trying to ward me off.”
“From?” He leaned against the counter and watched as she moved around the small kitchen. She looked like she knew what she was doing, so he guessed he wouldn’t have to fake liking her dinner.
“You,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder.
He’d just taken a sip of his wine, and he started choking it back up. She rushed over to him and started pounding on his back to help him.
Chapter Six
She didn’t know what had made her say that, but his response made her start questioning his relationship with the busty blonde all over again.
“My God!” he said, when he could finally breathe again. “That’s just rich.” When he started laughing, she could only sit back and watch. “And they call me the funny one.” He shook his head and quickly downed another large sip of wine.
“Sorry?” She turned and started working on dinner again. She hadn’t meant to pry, but it had been eating at her all day. If Wendy didn’t feel that way about Marcus, she wondered if Marcus felt that way about someone else. After all, she didn’t really know anything about him yet.
“No.” He shook his head. “Wendy and I are just friends. Actually, I kind of think of her as a sister. Not that I’ve known her that long, two or three years now, but…” He shrugged his shoulders. “We’re just very close friends.” He leaned closer to her and gave her a lopsidedness smile. “Now, I can’t say the same for my brother.” He chuckled.
“I’m curious to know which one. She mentioned she wished one of the Grayton men would take a… how did she put it? Long walk off a short pier?”
He laughed. “Yes, she and Cole just rub each other wrong. When he got into his motorcycle accident last year, she actually chewed him out in front of my father and aunt at the hospital.” He laughed. “Cole was hooked up to all these machines and covered in bandages, and she stood over him berating him about trying to kill himself.”
She frowned as she diced up the chicken and tossed it in the hot pan. “That couldn’t have been good for your family.”
He shook his head with a smile. “Oh, my family ate it up. Cole actually tried to grab her and kiss her to shut her up, which just made us all laugh even more. We all knew it was the drugs he was on at the time.”
“Really?” She turned and looked at him. She couldn’t imagine it. A family laughing at the hospital while someone was injured. Last year, when her nanna had been hospitalized, her parents had shown up with the standard flowers and well wishes and then had quickly left. She was the only one who’d stayed and looked after her. After all, she felt more for the old woman than she did for both of her parents combined.
What would life have been like growing up with a crazy family, like his? She sighed and thought about it as she cooked.
“Of course, that was after we knew he was out of any danger.” He shook his head and she saw his eyes go darker. “Sure scared the hell out of us that time.”
“That time?” She glanced over at him. “Were there more?”
He chuckled. “That damn kid has always been trying to kill himself. Ever since he showed up at the big house.” He walked over and sat at her makeshift kitchen table. “When he got out of Lilly’s car that day, it didn’t take him two days to climb up into the tree house Roman and I had built a couple months earlier and fall out.” He chuckled. “Course, we were egging him on. He was lucky it was only a sprained wrist that time. Then he started surfing.” He shook his head again.”
“About that.” She stopped stirring the sauce and turned to him. “Surfing? Around here? Do the waves get big enough?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Wake boarding and body boarding are common enough, and you can surf during a storm, but that’s
about it. The first time he surfed was when we had a tropical storm. It wasn’t a hurricane, but there were some big waves out there. That’s when everything changed for him. He was a junior in high school. Roman and I are just a year above him. After that, he did everything he could to bum rides to where the surf was better. Started saving up his money and would fly up to the Outer Banks in NorthCarolina. He’d take weekend trips up there as often as he could. It was his senior year when his sponsors signed him on and the rest is history.”
She smiled as she turned the burner down. “I looked him up after you told me about him.” She shook her head. “Sounds like he’s quite the celebrity.”
“He’s freaking David Beckham in water.” He chuckled.
“You’re pretty proud of him,” she said, pouring out the water from the noodles.”
“Who wouldn’t be? Course, Mark and Elizabeth always hoped he’d stop trying to kill himself.”
“Mark and Elizabeth?”
“Our parents.” He continued talking about his family. How Julie had been an older sister to them all. How they’d lost Elizabeth, their mother, a few years back. By the time her plate was empty in front of her, she knew all about his brothers and his sister Cassey. He’d told her funny story after funny story about them growing up together. She couldn’t remember ever having laughed so much, at least never during a dinner with such an attractive man.
When he talked about his family, his entire face changed. His eyes softened and even his voice grew warmer. She was mesmerized at how much he loved them.
They’d talked about family for the whole meal. She’d even opened up a little about her own parents. Well, not really, but she had mentioned that they hadn’t believed her when she’d told them she was moving here and opening a shop. She did tell him about Nanna, and how it was because of her eccentric grandmother that she was here.
“She was the only Harrison to ever do what she wanted in life. Of course, she had to wait until after her husband died in a boating accident before she could go on to fulfill her dreams of becoming an actress.” She smiled and rested her chin on her fist. The large windows were completely dark now, and since there were only two small bulbs in the room, the entire place looked very romantic. It had troubled her last night when she’d been sitting at the table trying to draw some sketches, but tonight, it was just perfect.
“An actress, huh?” He poured a little more wine into her glass. “Anybody I would know?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “She mainly worked on Broadway. She starred in over two dozen plays in thirty years. Of course my parents never talk about her in polite circles.” She frowned a little, remembering how embarrassed her mother had been about her own mother. She sighed. “My nanna could sure act. When I was seventeen, I snuck out to see her once. I told my parents I was staying at Whitney Jameson’s house for the weekend, but instead, I drove up to New York and watched her. She was magnificent. We spent the entire weekend together, shopping, going to night clubs, painting the town.” She chuckled and rested back, remembering the great time they’d had woman.
“I would have loved to meet her.” He leaned back and smiled at her.
She thought about what her grandmother would have thought of the hunk sitting before her. Her grandmother had always voiced her likes and dislikes in men. Marcus would have been on the like list. Then her mind turned to what kind of man her parents wanted for her and she frowned.
Why had she told him about her nanna? He’d shared his family with her and she’d wanted to share someone wonderful with him. As far as wonderful family members went, that was it. Her parents were off limits.
She shook her head. The wine was going to her head, so she pushed it aside.
“Tell me about that.” She pointed to the folder they had forgotten about.
He glanced over at it and then handed it to her. “It’s pretty cut and dried. If you don’t like the bid, I’m sure Roman can play with the numbers a little more. I can guarantee that we’re the best around. You might be able to find cheaper, but I’ll warn you away from anyone who comes in too cheap. There’s a serious lack of professionalism around here in contractors. I’ve got my hands on the best around. They will they show up when they say they will.” He smiled.
She held her breath as she scanned the bid for the final price and winced just a little at the amount.
“That includes the work up here, all permits and inspections that are needed, and a two-year guarantee with all work. If something doesn’t work, all you have to do is holler.”
She nodded and thought about moving a few financials around to make it work. It would cut into her inventory a little, but she could always build up the stock a little slower than she’d planned.
“I think this will work. How soon can you start and how long will it take?”
“Soonest we can get the permits handled is two weeks.” He frowned. “Although the city guy owes Roman a favor, so maybe that time could be cut in half. Materials and labor could be ready by then as well. Up here”—he nodded to her kitchen—“if you want anything fancy for cupboards, the time will depend on where we have to order them from. Some places take up to five weeks to deliver.”
“I’d want to start downstairs first.”
He nodded. “But you should pick out everything for up here, so we can have it ready by the time it’s needed.”
She nodded. “That’s reasonable.”
“Roman handles all that, so you’ll be meeting with him at the office.”
She arched her brows.
“He’ll walk you through our distributor’s website and show you all your options. I don’t really do computers.” He cleared his throat a little.
“Is that why you didn’t want to see my tablet?”
He nodded. “I’m not good with electronics. I could wire up a whole office building, but when it comes to computers, I guess you could say I’m illiterate.”
She smiled. “I bet you’d pick it up if you had someone to walk you through it. It’s not that hard.” She leaned back and looked at him. He really was handsome tonight all dressed up. She was thankful she had showered and changed before heading out to discover the area and hit the grocery store for supplies.
She loved nice things. She’d always had the best growing up, but it went beyond that. To her, it was the character of what she picked. More often than not, she veered towards the unique and less-expensive items. She’d never liked being a lemming in anything. Of course, when she lived at home, she’d had to dress as her parents had desired, which had driven her nuts.
She folded her legs under and enjoyed the way her ten-dollar skirt felt against her skin. She loved bargain hunting. Lived for it actually. Maybe that’s why she’d always dreamed of opening a boutique.
He leaned on the table and she couldn’t stop her eyes from traveling over his forearms. Strong, tan, and covered with a very light dusting of hair. She wondered if the rest of him would look as good.
“So, tell me something,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.
She pushed them away and nodded, feeling a little twitch of fear. She was okay with telling him about her nanna, but more personal questions were off limits, at least for now.
“You mentioned that you’d come here before.” She nodded, waiting for him to ask his question. “Why a boutique? I mean, it’s a great location and the boardwalk could sure use something like it, but what made you want to open a shop?”
She smiled and sighed. This question was easy enough.
“When I was eleven, my parents had to go to Europe for a week and decided that dragging their preteen daughter along wasn’t something they wanted to do. So they let me stay with my nanna, who was visiting an old friend in Emerald Isle, North Carolina at the time. My nanna and her friend took me shopping and it was the first time in my childhood I could remember walking into a store where something cost under a hundred dollars.” She smiled, remembering how she’d spent all of her loose change on little trinkets in the multi
ple stores along the shore. “For the first time in my life, I was allowed to spend my own money. I bought more useless junk that week than ten tourists.” He chuckled. “It was the most fun I’d had in years.”
His smile fell away. “You must not have had a very nice childhood then.”
She shook her head and reached for her wine again; she felt a little more leveled, but she sipped it slowly. “No, not really.” She looked at the dark windows. “So, when does the season officially start?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.
She was thankful when he followed along and answered, “Around Spring Break things start to really pick up. It runs all the way through the end of September if it’s a good year. Although, as you may have noticed, January can be busy too.”
She smiled. She loved the seasons up north but didn’t think she would mind the milder changes in the south. Honestly, she was looking forward to being fairly warm year-round from here on out.
“So, you mentioned that your nanna was the only Harrison to do what she wanted, but what about you?” She looked at him without speaking. He nodded around him. “What about all this?”
He reached towards her, and for the first time that evening, she realized just how close he was to her. When his fingers brushed back a strand of hair from her face, she held her breath.
“Isn’t this what you want?”
*******
Marcus watched Shelly’s pupils dilate. Her soft hazel eyes trapped him as he heard her breath hitch. He knew he was throwing her off, but she’d been throwing him off since he’d woken last night in his office to see her standing in his doorway.
“I…” she started but stopped when he ran a finger down the column of her throat. With her hair up, her slender neck had tempted him all evening. He’d daydreamed about what it would taste like if he ran his mouth over the dip at the base. His eyes traveled to her pouty lips and when her tongue darted out to them, he almost groaned out loud. “Yes, this is what I want.” It came out as a whisper and for a moment, he’d forgotten what he’d asked her.
