The Love Shack

by Christie Ridgway

  Teague didn’t know what got into him, but he had his hands on her before the other guy could introduce himself. He immediately took her in his arms and sidestepped her away from her would-be partner, even as Polly’s clearly surprised face turned up to his. Yeah, he was a little flabbergasted himself.

  By how good it felt to hold her like this.

  Had they never danced together?

  He tried to remember as they swayed to the sultry rhythm of “At Last” by Etta James, and supposed not. They’d hiked together, skied, taken road trips with bicycles. Pal stuff, and often as part of a larger group of friends.

  “You’re small,” he said. He thought of her as athletic and energetic, but under his hands, he could feel her delicate bone structure. Her face was all female, of course, the clean lines of her features dressed up with the blond hair and blue eyes. But he’d never noticed how incredibly...feminine she was. He glanced down the space between their bodies. She wore some kind of filmy, hippy-style top with jeans. Strappy shoes, with a platform that elevated her height by several inches, revealed her slim, slightly tanned bare feet.

  She had adorable toes. Every nail was painted blue, yellow or a combination of the two, and each one was different from the other. A silver ring circled the second toe on her left foot, a tiny enameled butterfly poised atop it as if ready for flight.

  His gaze traveled back to her face. “You’re such a girl.” He knew it sounded as if he’d just discovered the fact, which wasn’t true. From the first he’d known she was female and hell, he’d been a little proud of himself for having such a close friendship with someone from the opposite sex.

  But he’d managed that by rarely thinking about her at the same time as...well, sex.

  Now that he’d taken in those painted toes, that butterfly, the absolute America’s Sweetheart-ness of her face... Shit.

  Her sandy eyebrows drew together and she frowned at him, the corners of her pink mouth turning down. “What’s this all about?” she asked.

  He didn’t know. He couldn’t explain it. But things just didn’t seem the same with her slim fingers in his and his palm molding the curve of her waist. “Uh...”

  She sighed. “Is this your chance to get close to Tess?” she whispered.

  Who? “Oh, Tess.”

  Rolling her eyes, Polly shifted so that he had a different view of the dance floor over her shoulder. “Get your fix,” she murmured. And there was the beautiful Tess in his line of sight, a smile on her face as she pressed her cheek to her husband’s shoulder.

  “Better now?” Polly asked.

  “Perfect,” Teague said, pulling her a little nearer and closing his eyes. “Exactly right.” He let himself enjoy her for another long minute.

  Then, to prove Griffin was onto something, Teague took a breath and eased Polly and her newly acknowledged femininity away. He imagined himself putting them on the highest mental shelf he had, where all disconcerting and disturbing memories and events belonged.

  * * *

  GAGE LIFTED HIS ARMS overhead and twisted from side to side as he and Skye walked up the beach. They’d decided on a visit to the tide pools, and had just passed Captain Crow’s in time to witness the five o’clock conch cell ceremony. Not thirty minutes ago, they’d completed her paint-and-rearrangement project after three days of joint effort.

  It was good to be outside, though they were among a throng—formed in large groups or gathered in small clusters—enjoying an afternoon on the sand. In August, as was fitting, summer brought its A game to Crescent Cove. The blue sky was tempura-paint bright and the sun smiled like a benign god from its place within it. The ocean’s waves raced each other to kiss the feet of little kids who dragged buckets of wet sand and beach treasure through the foam. The air tasted like a salty treat, and even the breeze was warm, coloring Skye’s cheeks pink and her mouth rosy.

  She glanced up, as if feeling his regard, and tucked an errant strand of hair back into the tight braid she wore down her back. “You should send me a bill.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I owe you for all the hours you put in,” Skye said.

  “It’s nothing—” he started, then had to grab her elbow and tug her back, saving her from being plowed over by a young man carrying his bikini-clad girl toward the surf. She shrieked, mock-beating at him, and they watched as he strode into the water. When he reached waist-height, he dropped her. A second later, he disappeared into the depths, too, either the victim of a sea monster or a sharp yank on the ankle.

  Skye laughed—a little wistful?—and moved forward again.

  Gage trailed behind, following her zigzagging movements as she avoided sunbathers, Frisbee tossers and sandcastles under construction. Her feet stuttered a little as she encountered a couple entwined on a blanket, clearly having forgotten their public surroundings.

  She gave Gage a quick glance and then sidestepped the lovers’ blanket. On his way to do the same, he managed to jiggle the Love God’s foot as he passed. The other man’s head jerked up and he glared over his shoulder. “Small children,” Gage reminded the guy. “Grandmas.”

  As they continued onward, Skye smiled at him and rocked her thumb toward her chest. “Grateful.”

  He grinned back. “No problem. But I don’t blame him. It’s easy to get carried away on a day like today.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” She came to a halt as they reached the first of the tide pools cut into the rock. Bending her knees, she squatted at the edge, moving easily in her usual baggy uniform, this time a pair of carpenter’s pants three sizes too big and a long-sleeved T-shirt that could have fit him.

  He hunkered beside her, taking in the little world created by the low tide. Sea stars, a scuttling hermit crab, little silver fish he couldn’t name. Colorful anemones were doing their thing, waving their tentacles as a way to draw their prey toward their mouths.

  “Oops! Watch out!” a voice called from behind them, and they both turned, just in time to avoid a collision with a bowlegged toddler chasing a rubber ball. The red orb landed in the tide pool with a splash, and Gage saved the kidlet from taking the same path by hooking an arm around the little boy’s waist.

  “Thank you,” said a woman, a mere breath behind him. Her hair was the same auburn as the child’s and she immediately plucked him from Gage’s hold. “Jamie! You need to listen to Mommy,” she scolded her son, who was practicing for teenhood by pretending she didn’t exist. “Thank you,” she repeated, then thanked Skye, too, who retrieved the ball from the water and handed it over.

  “Adorable,” Gage commented, watching as the young mother headed off, the little guy on her hip.

  “Which one?”

  He frowned at Skye, but she was back to perusing the tide pool. “I don’t look at every woman as possible...date material. I was talking about the boy.”

  “I guess I didn’t suspect you thought much about little kids.”

  “I’ve got three nephews and a niece. I like them a lot.”

  She glanced at him. “But you don’t want children of your own.”

  “I’d be a piss-poor parent, what with all the travel and the nature of the job,” Gage said. “What about you?”

  With careful footsteps, she picked her way over to the next pool. “I had the best childhood ever, here at the cove. Sure, I wanted to pass that on.”

  Wanted. Past tense. Gage walked up behind her, giving in to the urge to run his palm along the warm surface of her sleek, long braid. “But not now?”

  She crouched low, still looking into the water and not at him. “Maybe if I could make babies like sea anemones. Some of them just divide in half to reproduce.”

  “Well, shoot. That takes all the fun out of it.”

  “If you say so.” She ran her fingertips over the surface of the pool, then released a little sigh. “I wish...”

  He hunkered beside her again, and made another near-ghostly pass at her braid. She twitched a little but didn’t protest. “You wish?” he prompte
d.

  “I’d like to feel normal again,” she confessed under her breath. Then her already pink cheeks went red from embarrassment as she flicked him a glance. “Forget I said that, okay?”

  “Why? Of course you’d like to feel normal again.” He hesitated, wondering if now was the time to bring up a maybe-touchy subject. “Skye...I’d like to help.”

  “What?” She shot him a second glance.

  “I’d like to help you get over your...aversion.”

  Her color deepened. “I wasn’t begging for a volunteer.”

  “It’s an offer. An offer to see if I can help you past this.”

  “I don’t need your pity,” she said, shaking her head.

  “That’s not what I feel for you, Skye.” What he did feel was tenderness, consideration and...and an odd, almost vital need. Maybe it was arrogant of him, but he thought he could do something for her. He needed to try to do something for her.

  “What would you get out of it?” she grumbled.

  “I liked kissing you.”

  Now she stared straight into the tide pool as if it held the mysteries of the universe...or because it was a convenient way to avoid his eyes. “You told me you wouldn’t do that again.”

  “I said it would have to be your idea,” he corrected. “But let’s take kissing off the table for now. Just come back with me to No. 9. I have something there you should see.”

  “Is it porn? I never liked porn.”

  He laughed. “No, it’s not porn. Your opinion of me is very low, by the way. I don’t pull out the porn until the third, maybe fourth date.”

  When she rolled her eyes, he laughed again and then curled his fingers around her elbow to lift her to her feet. “What do you have to lose?”

  “My self-respect.”

  He bent close to her ears. “Or your self-restraint. Give yourself a chance to let go a little, Skye.” His fingers went to work on the band at the end of her braid.

  “What are you doing?”

  He sifted through the strands, releasing them from their tight binding. “Let the wind catch your hair, honey. You look so pretty with it a little wild.”

  It swirled around her shoulders as they walked to the opposite end of the cove. An awkward silence tried to wedge between them, but Gage wasn’t having it. He reached down and took her hand in a firm grip, though was unsurprised when she immediately tried slipping free. “Just relax,” he said.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered.

  “There’s no ‘doing’ to worry about,” he reassured her. “I told you that. I just want you to look at something I’ve been working on. It might make a difference.”

  “Gage—”

  “It’s worth a try, right? If it goes wrong, then it’s just me, good ol’ pen pal Gage.” And if it goes right? a voice whispered in his head. What then? How far would he let things go? He didn’t know.

  By the time they made it to the southern end of the cove, she appeared half relaxed, half resigned. “I won’t hold this against you,” she said. Then added, “Unless it’s porn.”

  He lifted a brow as he unlocked the sliding door leading into the living room from the deck. “You’re sure hung up on that.”

  “I am not!”

  With his fingertips at the small of her back, he ushered her inside. “There’s no shame in being visually stimulated.” He smiled as she glanced at him over his shoulder. “I’m sorta counting on it, honey.”

  “It is porn.”

  He laughed, and then grasped her by the shoulders and propelled her into the small room he used as an office. The space was shadowy, drapes over the windows to prevent a glare on the screen of his laptop, which sat on the desk. He pulled out the large office chair before it and pushed Skye onto its wide seat.

  Tapping a few keys brought the device to life and brought up the image he wanted to show her. When it appeared, she froze. “It’s me,” she said.

  It was. He’d started with a photo he’d taken of her at twilight, standing on the beach. The sky, the ocean, the sand were all different gradations of gray and Skye was silhouetted against them from behind. He had some mad photo-editing skills, if he did say so himself, and he’d whittled her out of the sloppy clothes so she was a womanly outline. While her head, hands and feet were an opaque black, she appeared to be dressed in a colorful, patchwork quilt catsuit. Except—

  “Oh.” She’d figured it out, already mousing over one of the small shapes of the “quilt.” It bloomed bigger as she hovered on it and there was the photograph of a seagull he’d caught in soaring flight.

  Her hand moved and another image went from tiny to large. It was part of one of her letters to him, the “Dear Gage” in her distinctive handwriting, the one that always sent a wash of warmth and anticipation through him when he saw it on a yet-unopened envelope.

  Her fingers traced over the mouse pad, opening new images: Captain Crow’s martini flag; covers of her favorite books, from Ian Stone to George R. R. Martin; a photo of one of her mother’s plein air paintings; a child leashed to a boogie board, emerging from the surf.

  “When did you do this?” she demanded. “You’ve been at my house helping me.”

  “I don’t sleep much.” No sense giving the nightmares time to take hold.

  “Oh, Gage.” She sat back, staring at the latest thumbnail she’d expanded. It was her house, looking cheerful and welcoming with its potted lemon tree and flower-covered trellis.

  “All those things are still inside you, Skye,” he said gently. “All the things that make you special. That make this place special. No one can take any of them away.”

  With a quick movement, she popped out of the chair. It swiveled and the seat bumped her forward, but she didn’t seem to need the encouragement to step near and give him a hug. It was friendly. Sisterly.

  He had no reason to expect more.

  But he wanted more. For her.

  Disentangling himself, he stepped around Skye and took the chair. “I did another for you.” All for you.

  He called up a second screen, a second image. Skye again. The twilight, the patchwork catsuit. But the thumbnails were of a different type. More personal. Intimate.

  As he hovered over one, glancing back to read her reaction, a realization seized him. This wasn’t just for her. It was for him, too.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SKYE STARED AT THIS NEW representation of herself. The other had been dressed in bright colors and she’d been delighted when she expanded the shapes to discover they were really cove flowers, cove people, cove comfort. She hadn’t viewed them all yet, but she knew they’d each bring a smile to her face. A grin, actually, because Gage had chosen them for her.

  But these, these were not strictly Gage’s choice—in the same sense.

  Because they were her. All her.

  He hovered over one thumbnail, and the photo enlarged. Flesh-toned, a soft-angled curve.

  Skye swallowed. “That’s my ankle bone.”

  “Pretty feet,” he said.

  The next, a slice of the small of her back. She must have been reaching, painting a high spot, probably, because the hem of her shirt was raised. The too-big pants hung low on her hips. And there was the curve of her waist, the scoop just above the dimples of her butt.

  That place prickled now. She moved from her spot behind Gage’s chair, surprisingly drawn though not one part of her body had brought her pleasure in months. Her breath drew in quick as he snaked an arm about her and tugged her down to his lap.

  She would have jumped away, if at the same moment he hadn’t expanded another thumbnail. There was her hand, with the yellow paint freckles, and it looked funny and oddly sweet and reminded her of how well they had worked together. How hard he had worked to make her comfortable with him.

  Her fingers stretched toward the mouse pad. He let her control the unveiling then, and she opened new photographs, all of herself. There was the feathery dark fringe of her eyelashes, the slender column of her neck
, the defenseless curve of her palm, her fingers half curled over it as if she cradled something precious inside.

  She frowned. “When did you take that?” The hand looked so...vulnerable.

  “When you had a little catnap yesterday after lunch.”

  Uneasiness trickled through her. That was the second time she’d fallen asleep when she was alone with him. It shouldn’t be possible—but it had been from the very first. Despite the anxiety she’d been suffering from for months, deep inside, below the defenses and the fears, she trusted him.

  Of course she trusted him. This was her friend. Her pen pal Gage.

  Still, she saw that her fingers shook a little as she hovered over yet another small rectangle. It bloomed, and there was her mouth, tender-looking, half parted. As if in expectation of a kiss.

  Skye’s chest tightened and heat washed over her skin. Her lips, the real ones, tingled. That low-belly clenching was back. Nerves—no, she knew what it was. She’d acknowledged it days ago.

  Desire.

  It raced through her blood, making her heart bang against her ribs like the clapper on a bell sending out tidings of...of gladness.

  She was so glad that she wanted to kiss. To kiss Gage.

  The air disappeared as she slowly turned her head to look at him. Even in the dim room, his incredible eyes smoldered with a soft heat and he studied her face with an intensity that made her shiver.

  Yet he didn’t make a move. She was still surrounded by him, his thighs hard beneath her, his chest rising and falling as it took in oxygen she couldn’t find. But he remained still as that burning, ardent want made its way through her system.

  “Gage...” she whispered. When she licked her lips, his gaze followed the movement. “I...”

  He touched her cheek with one fingertip. That tiny point of contact unspooled another ribbon of heat that rippled across her skin. “All for you,” he said, his voice quiet. “Whatever you want.”