Somewhere With You (Windswept Bay Book 2)

by Debra Clopton

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Somewhere With You

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  More Books in the Windswept Bay Series

  About the Author

  Copyright

  SOMEWHERE WITH YOU

  Windswept Bay Book Two

  DEBRA CLOPTON

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  Somewhere With You:

  Sassy, opinionated Shar Sinclair is passionate about the sea turtles she rescues in the Windswept Bay area and as needful of her freedom as they are. She’s content with her life, helping run the family resort and looking out for the wildlife around her. But sometimes she wishes she had someone to share her passion, and passions with. But that might mean giving up some of her freedom and she’s not sure she could do that for anyone…

  Gage Lancaster is a self-made millionaire used to getting what he wants, but lately there’s an emptiness and a restlessness to his life that he can’t seem to fill. While visiting Windswept Bay, he spies a beautiful woman on the beach struggling to rescue a sea turtle tangled in fishing line and goes to help. Gage is captivated by the fire and passion that radiates from Shar and he knows instantly he wants her. But this may be one time when what he wants might not be an option.

  Sparks fly on the sunset beach and sparkling blue waters of the romantic Windswept Bay as Gage and Shar battle through their attraction. Gage is determined that this is one time he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he wants. But can Shar open her heart to him? Can he convince Shar that love doesn’t mean shackles…but a lifetime shared with the one you love?

  Chapter One

  Gage Lancaster strode out onto the deck of his rental, a three-story glass-and-wood monstrosity that Kym, his assistant, had rented for him on the spur of the moment. It sat on a semi-secluded beach on the tip of the small island of Windswept Beach. It was the perfect place for him to disappear.

  And he’d done just that; having arrived here two days ago, he’d done nothing but hole up inside the house with no phones on, no TV, no Internet. He hadn’t even opened the blinds during the day. Other than sitting in the dark on the deck at night and listening to the surf, he had for all intents and purposes gone off the grid.

  Now, he rubbed his grizzled jaw, breathed in the sea air and decided it was probably time to start venturing out at least a little. The misty morning shrouded the coastline, making it impossible to see all the way across the bay where the main hub of the island was. He’d go check that out today. Right now, he was going to take advantage of the secluded beach and go for a quick dip in the ocean before his shower.

  Going back inside, he cut the tags off a new pair of swim trunks with a knife from the kitchen, put them on and then strode back onto the deck. He pulled his shirt off over his head and dropped it in a lounge chair as he passed by and then he jogged down the steps and across the beach to the water’s edge. For a little while, he was free: no phones to answer, no deals to manage, no contracts to sign. At least for a few days, no one other than Kym knew where he was.

  And for now that suited him just fine.

  He jogged into the surf and dove over a shallow wave into the blue water. He’d have to go back to real life soon. But not yet.

  Not now.

  For now, he was here.

  He surfaced down the beach and turned to survey the coastline from the water. The exclusive homes on this stretch of shore were built for privacy and weren’t easily visible from the water. Something else that suited him. He started to swim toward shore when he spotted a woman jogging toward the beach. She had shoulder-length dark hair that caught in the wind as she jogged. She ran beside a large, slightly humped rock and then dropped to her knees and started doing something. Curious, Gage swam toward shore. His feet had just touched sand when he realized it was a sea turtle that she was on her knees beside. A huge one.

  She was struggling frantically with something on the turtle. Gage jogged out of the water; the shallow waves lapped at his legs as he headed toward the woman.

  The turtle was tangled in twine and rope and she was struggling to free it.

  A jolt of empathy washed over him and he jogged through the remaining waves toward her. “Hey,” he called when he was close enough for her to hear him.

  She lifted her head and slammed him with angry eyes full of passion and fire. Her gaze raked over him, taking in his dripping appearance. His pulse jolted as those eyes met his and he slowed his pace and then stopped near her.

  “Can you believe they just toss this overboard?” she snapped, then went back to work, so preoccupied it felt as though she hadn’t really noticed he was there.

  “Can I help? He looks like he’s in a bad way.”

  Her head shot back up and those eyes singed his skin with the fire flaming there. “Yes.” She stared at him. “It’s hurting him and I need a knife. Or something to cut it off,” she said, anxiously. “Look at his poor front foot. It’ll probably have to be amputated.”

  Gage cringed at the foot that was so wrapped in the line that it was damaged horribly. “I have a knife.” He reached for the pocket of his shorts for the pocketknife he always carried, the one his dad had given him many years ago. Only, he’d changed into the swim trunks, so he didn’t have his knife. “Hang on. I’ll be right back with a knife.”

  “Thank you. Hurry.”

  Gage raced across the sand to the rental, and not worrying whether he was dripping water on the tile, he went inside for a knife. He was running back across the beach in moments but it felt like hours. She was still struggling fruitlessly to remove the tangled mess, stopping to look up and see him jogging the last few feet.

  He knelt beside her.

  “Thank you.” She reached for the knife. “I’ll do it.” It was clear she was strung tight with her passion to free the turtle and he let her have the knife. She bent over the foot that had line cutting into its skin and looked like a disaster. Gently, she began cutting away the line.

  “People don’t know the damage they’re doing and the sea lives they are destroying when they are neglectful with trash and old lines.” Her voice shook with frustration.

  He saw that her hands shook too. “Here, let me.” He gently covered her hands with his, stopping her movements. Electric shockwaves tore through him as he held her hands; when she lifted her gaze to his, everything in him hummed with the electrical charge.

  She breathed in a short, shuddering breath and she nodded. “Okay. Just be careful. Be gentle.”

  He smiled. “I will be,” he assured her. When she relinquished the knife and pulled her hands from his, he started to cut.

  Working together, they soon had the line from the turtle and she inspected his wounds. “He’s in bad shape. Looks like infection has set in. Poor big Loggerhead. They’re protected because they were dying out a few years ago. And look at this poor thing—it’s suffering from people’s carelessness.”

  He heard her phone beep and she paused to tug it from her pocket. She read the message. Relief washed over her. “The ambulance is almost here. I can’t thank you enough.” As if on cue, a siren could be heard in the distance.

  “An ambulance
for the turtle?”

  “Yes. I called them the moment I saw him lying there in trouble. We’ll take him to the turtle hospital and they’ll give it the care it needs and hopefully it will survive.”

  An orange ambulance careened over the rise and onto the beach. It moved slowly toward them across the sand. On the side it said, Windswept Bay Sea Turtle Hospital. He’d never seen anything like it. Then again, he’d never spent much time near the beach. He’d been too busy being holed up inside glass-and-steel buildings, making money. Today had been one of the few times that he’d ever swam in the ocean.

  But not anymore. Today, he’d helped rescue a sea turtle, a Loggerhead, with a beautiful woman. He pushed the smile away. Too serious a moment to think about that.

  “Hang in there, buddy,” she urged the patient as she patted its shell, which rose a good twenty inches from the ground.

  The ambulance wheeled around in a wide circle and backed up toward them. Feeling way out of his element, Gage watched the woman guide the ambulance toward them and then signaled it to halt steps away from them. She acted as if she’d done this before.

  Immediately, a man hopped from the driver’s seat and jogged toward them. He wore tan shorts and a faded red T-shirt with the Windswept Bay Sea Turtle Hospital insignia on the front.

  “Shar,” he said, as if he was well acquainted with the turtle-rescuing beauty. “Wow, you must have been in the right spot at the right time. He looks bad.”

  “He is, Alex. His front flipper is a mess,” she said without preamble.

  Another guy had unloaded from the passenger’s side. He came around and opened the back doors of the ambulance.

  “Man, he’s a big one. Probably at least two hundred pounds, maybe two thirty. Let’s load him up and get him some attention. Good work, Shar.”

  “Thanks, John. Glad you and Alex got here fast.” Shar looked over at Gage. “Can you help?”

  “Yeah, sure. Just tell me what to do.”

  Lifting a two hundred plus pound sea turtle was a chore even with four of them. But working together, they moved him onto a lift that was attached to the back of the ambulance and then it raised the turtle up and into the ambulance.

  When it was loaded up, he was startled when Shar climbed into the ambulance with the turtle. “Thanks for your help. You were great out there.” She shot him a dazzling smile as she lifted her hand in good-bye and then pulled the doors shut.

  John and Alex thanked him again and then Gage watched the ambulance drive slowly over the sand. He could see Shar through the window as she focused on the turtle. The ambulance moved up the embankment and then disappeared, sirens blaring.

  Gage didn’t move. He watched the spot where the ambulance disappeared over the rise and wondered who Shar was.

  It hadn’t exactly been the opportune moment to ask for her name and phone number…but if she was that closely known by the guys at the hospital, then he knew where to find her.

  And he would find her. There was no way he was going to forget her.

  Chapter Two

  Shar Sinclair slammed her car door and hurried toward the resort. Her heart was still hurting for the sea turtle. The surgeon had to amputate a large portion of the front flipper and put the turtle on massive doses of antibiotics from all the infection that had set in. It was very lucky that it had made it to her beach. She hadn’t jogged in several days and hadn’t been out looking for turtle eggs because of a twisted ankle that was still giving her some trouble. But today she’d been determined to get some exercise and to see whether any mama turtles had crawled onto the beach during the night and laid their eggs. Finding the beached loggerhead had been unexpected but thank goodness she’d been there.

  Thank goodness he had been there.

  She’d been so desperate to free the turtle but had realized her work was futile without a knife. And then she’d looked up and like an answer to prayer, there he was, this gorgeous guy calling out to her as he jogged from the water. Her heart had lodged in her throat and her stomach had dropped to her toes.

  He was riveting…his muscles gleamed as he raked his hand through his short brown hair and getting water out of his pale-blue, Paul-Newman-eyes…he was that gorgeous.

  And he was asking whether he could help her.

  Heck yeah. And he’d jumped right in and been wonderful. She’d have to find him. Thank him. She’d been so zeroed in on the turtle that she’d half ignored him, and left without getting his name. But she’d been grateful that he’d been there. Grateful that he’d had the lean muscle of a man who might have been able to lift the turtle by himself if he’d tried.

  “Shar, you’re late,” Gracie Close called from behind the front desk. She grinned when Shar shot her an exasperated look. “What’s up?”

  “Turtle rescue.” Shar plopped her bag on the counter. “Store this suitcase for me, will ya? And where are they? I hope I didn’t miss anything…not that those two really need my input. They’ve got this renovation under control and we all know it.”

  Gracie had recently been hired as the manager of the hotel by Shar and her sisters. None of them wanted the actual job of the day-to-day running of the family resort that they had taken over together. The idea of being stuck behind that desk all day made Shar cringe every time the thought crossed her mind. Cali, who was getting married in five days, was already stretched to the limit with promotions and plans to travel with her soon-to-be husband, world-famous artist Grant Ellington. And Jillian’s head was on landscape and flowers outside, not indoors with the dealings of day-to-day resort business. And Shar’s third sister was busy off in movie land and had firmly turned down joining up with her three sisters to take over the running of the family resort. So that left Shar to step into the running of the place and everyone knew that would be an absolute disaster. Shar didn’t do confinement, schedules, and tied down anything. Nope, Gracie was a godsend and very wonderful at her job. She’d had glowing credentials and Shar could have kissed the woman the day she’d walked through the door after accepting the job.

  “They need you. Whether you think so or not, they do. They’ve headed to the renovation wing to meet with the contractor. If you hurry, you won’t miss much.”

  “Shoot, I should have stayed at the hospital longer.”

  Gracie laughed. “Hurry, they’re waiting.”

  Shar sighed and added unenthusiastically, “Thanks.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  Gracie’s chuckles followed Shar as she hurried toward the double doors at the back of the lobby. Shar loved the resort that her family had owned for all of her life and the thought of selling it when her parents had decided to retire had prompted her and her two sisters to take it on. Her five brothers hadn’t wanted the responsibility nor had Olivia and so, though Shar really couldn’t see herself fully invested in the project, she’d stepped up to help Jillian and Cali. But sometimes she felt as if she were failing them. Not that they ever even hinted at it. But she felt it.

  And yet, her heart was with her turtles and the volunteer hours she put in there. The job, however, didn’t pay, thus she needed a job, a career—and the family resort was perfect.

  She would do better. She would.

  Hurrying to the back of the property, she walked past the gorgeous landscaped courtyard, due to Jillian’s hands and planning. And then past the pool area with its fairly new mural painted by Grant Ellington, or McDreamboat as she called Cali’s fiancé. The very idea of murals for the resort was due to Cali’s marketing ideas. Shar loved the painting but she loved more the fact that McDreamboat had swept Cali off her feet. Shar had been all for the two of them getting together and had enjoyed watching their spark-filled romance—and doing a little egging on of it in her own big-mouthed way. But, she wasn’t looking for that. Her sister Jillian had said they were all of the age that they were looking for love, but she was wrong. Shar loved her life and she was far from ready to give up her freedom of choice to a man. But she was thrilled for Cali.
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br />   Sometimes she wondered where she got such strong feelings on the subject and she really wasn’t sure. All she knew was that like many of her five brothers, she was satisfied being single. But her sisters were meant for love and she’d give them a push when needed; it just wasn’t for her.

  Sexy Beach Guy popped into her thoughts. The man had nearly taken her breath away when he’d come out of that water, dripping wet and in nothing but his swim trunks.

  Goose bumps prickled across her skin even now—he had been something to behold with that gleaming, muscled chest and taut abs. But it had been the scruffy jaw and raw look in his pale-blue eyes that had her toes curling in the sand—even as worried for the turtle as she’d been.

  Shaking off the overwhelming walk down memory lane, she reached the open door of the room where renovations were set to begin. She peeked inside and instantly Cali saw her.

  “Shar, you made it—what happened to you?” Cali asked, as Shar moved into the room still wearing her jogging outfit that was dirty and a bit bloody from the turtle’s bleeding wounds.

  “I’m sorry, but I had a turtle rescue this morning while I was out on the beach. I had to call the ambulance and well, it set me back from changing and showering.” She caught a visual of herself in the mirror and grimaced. “Yikes, that’s bad. As you can tell, I did not look in a mirror.” Her hair looked like a mangled mess.

  Her expression rapt, Jillian hurried over to her. “It’s okay. You saved a sea turtle. That’s incredible. You are so dedicated it hurts.”

  Shar laughed. “Thanks. I’ll take saving a turtle over my appearance any day. So what’s going on?”

  “This is Abe Timmons, the contractor doing the renovation.”

  Abe Timmons was a handsome man of about thirty to thirty-five, with smoky brown eyes that had smile lines creasing around the edges as he smiled at her. “Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand.