CHAPTER FIVE
THEY DIDN’T GET to introductions right away. The moment she and Griffin appeared on the beach in front of the lovely brunette, the woman launched herself into his arms, causing him to let go of Jane. “You don’t know what I’ve been through!” the beauty said.
One of her young entourage was a girl who looked as if she’d just crossed into her teens. “I’m going to die of boredom here,” the teen said. “I can smell the lack of cell phone coverage.” She blinked lashes of beyond-natural length and thickness. “I’m probably going to get pregnant just for something to do.”
Though Jane was somewhat alarmed when the teen turned to peruse the beach as if seeking out potential baby daddies, no one else commented on her offhand remark. Perhaps no one else had heard it. Griffin and the woman were already walking down the beach in the direction of his cottage, she hanging on to his arm while still carrying the little guy, who looked to be nine or ten months old. One of the baby’s sandals slipped off his foot, and Jane swooped it up as she drifted behind them.
“Let’s go,” the teenager said to the remaining two. They were boys—five and six? Seven and eight?—and were poking at a clump of stinky kelp with a stick.
At the girl’s prompting, the smaller of the two ran ahead, brandishing the piece of wood, while the other threw sand at his back, yelling, “Your face looks like monkey poo!”
At that, the teenager tossed a glance at Jane. “My life,” she said in a theatrical tone.
“It seems adding an infant of your own to it would only complicate matters,” Jane pointed out. “Cute baby bump to monkey poo? A blip in time.”
Her extravagant eye-roll made Jane grin. It reminded her of—
Griffin. Good God, was the brunette his ex? This tribe his children?
“I’m Jane,” she said to the girl.
The teen slid her a sidelong look. “Of course you are.”
Griffin’s exact words! “What’s your name?”
“Rebecca.” She flung an arm in the direction of her presumed siblings. Four inches of braided string and rubber bracelets circled her wrist. “Those are my brothers, Duncan, Oliver and Russ.”
Before Jane could pry more out of her, they’d reached Beach House No. 9. The entire party assembled in the living room, the two boys dropping to the floor to wrestle, Rebecca slumping onto the couch in another dramatic move, her mother pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head and hitching the baby higher on her hip. Jane hung back, reluctant to enmesh herself until she knew more.
“Now, Tess,” Griffin said. “What’s this all about?”
Just like that, the woman burst into tears. The little one she was holding immediately followed suit.
Over the racket, Rebecca let out a gusty sigh. “Pregnant, I tell you. I’m definitely getting pregnant.”
Her mother responded by passing over the tearful little guy. Not a bad idea, Jane decided. Birth control by baby brother.
Griffin didn’t appear affected by the woman’s distress or the child’s. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Tess, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I’ve left him, Griff,” she said. “I’ve finally left my husband!”
At the outburst, he groaned, offering not an ounce of sympathy. His hands ran over his head. “Geez, Tessie. This matters to me how?”
Tess’s sobs redoubled. Jane could only hurt for the woman. Clearly she’d come to Crescent Cove without the expectation of rejection. Jane edged farther away, thinking she’d head to her own cottage.
Her movement caught Griffin’s eye, however, and in two strides he had her by the hand and was towing her toward the crier. “I can’t deal with this, Tess. And here’s why. I’ve got a new lover now.” He put his hands on Jane’s shoulders and pulled her back against his chest.
His body heat transferred to Jane and pooled low at the base of her spine. She glanced over her shoulder, and his hands tightened on her. He focused on her mouth, and she felt it like a touch, her lips warming too. The company, the room itself, seemed to drop away, leaving Griffin’s intense gaze and Jane’s unsteady heartbeat.
Then, jerking his gaze off her, he cleared his throat and pushed her forward a half step. It left inches of cooling air between them. “Meet Jane.”
The other woman sniffed, the back of her hand against her nose. She raised lovely, tear-drenched eyes to take in Jane, and then her gaze moved on to Griffin’s face. “You’ve met someone?”
The heartbreak in her voice told the story, Jane thought. And as someone who’d been supplanted by another woman in a man’s life, she didn’t want to play this scene again, even from the other side. “Look…”
Griffin’s hands found her shoulders again to squeeze a warning. “Honey-pie—”
“Chili-dog,” she said, turning to glare at him.
“Honey-pie!” The woman—Tess—cried out. “Chili-dog! You really found someone!”
“Isn’t that what you’re always telling me to do?”
“When I was married,” she started, sniffling back more tears, “it seemed like a good idea. But now that we’re heading for divorce…”
Jane couldn’t continue this way, deceiving this poor woman who’d apparently left her husband for Griffin, who in turn was exhibiting more than his usual detachment. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Jane.” An even clearer warning.
Breaking free of his hold, she turned to shoot him a look. “Listen—” But her next words got lost in a loud crash. The little boys had knocked over a small table by the window. The base of a lamp was on the ground, shattered against the hard wood. The shade lay crumpled beside it.
The baby started wailing again.
As if she’d reached the end of her rope, Tess clapped one hand over her eyes. The little boys began shoving each other anew, putting more furniture at risk. Rebecca mouthed something—likely another pregnancy threat—and jumped from the sofa to hand her smallest brother over to Griffin. As the teen stalked out of the room, he held the child at arm’s length, then turned to Jane in mute appeal.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Helpless with his own children! Surely that had to be the case, that they belonged to him, because each one had his dark hair, and at least some of them his distinctive blue eyes, not to mention his ability to be appealing and get on her nerves at the very same time. She took the baby from him and jiggled the child as she grabbed the back of one little boy’s shirt. It was a winning technique, because the other automatically followed as she led him down the hall. A small guest room had a TV and remote. She held it out to the larger of the two. “I assume you’re familiar with this device?”
In a blink, it was snatched out of her hand. In two, they were seated on the bed, their eyes glued to the screen. Private, the Labrador, appeared from somewhere and wiggled his way between them on the mattress. The show they chose wasn’t a cartoon, and she could only hope it wasn’t X-rated—a distinct possibility, she figured, in this house—but, given the kids’ snarled domestic arrangement, maybe they’d seen it all before.
The baby was now snuffling against her shoulder and gnawing on his fist, so she headed into the kitchen, where she found a cracker. He pounced on it with a show of great delight. As he munched away, she returned to the living room, a box of tissues under her arm.
It appeared as if all was not resolved. Tess had collapsed on the couch cushions, her face in her hands. Griffin, the callous monster, had retreated to the glass doors, his back turned to the woman, his gaze resting on the ceaseless rumble of the surf.
Jane could only hope Rebecca wasn’t out looking for a sperm donor.
Without a word, she took a seat on the couch and passed over the tissues. Tess accepted them with a grateful glance. Then she dried her face. Once it was done, she inhaled a long deep breath and took the now-content baby onto her lap. “Thank you,” she said, hugging her small son to her. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I had to get that out of my system.”
Then her gaze shifted to Griffin, and she raised her voice. “I want to stay here with the kids.”
He swung around, dismay—or panic?—written all over his face. “I didn’t even invite you to stay for dinner.”
“Griff—”
“Tess. I told you I have a lover. I’m with Jane now.”
Not even for the chance to get this job and regain her reputation was she going along with a lie of this magnitude a moment longer. “I’m not his anything,” she said, ignoring the fierce frown Griffin turned on her. “Believe me.”
“Oh.” Tess looked from her to the grim-faced man in the corner. “I don’t understand.”
“Though he said that we’re together,” Jane explained, “it’s not true.”
Tess blinked, and now that Tess’s eyes were dry, Jane realized they were the same distinctive and bright turquoise as Griffin’s. “That’s fabulous news,” the other woman replied.
Jane thought it was a little odd to be happy that your ex, the father of your children, had just been lying to you, but she figured Tess’s hopes of getting Griffin back had been renewed.
“Because love’s a crock and men are beasts,” Tess continued in loud tones, and Jane could see from whom Rebecca had inherited her dramatic presence. The brunette sent a pointed look at Griffin. “Even my brother.”
Brother?
Oh. Oh.
Now feeling stupid, Jane once again glared at the man in the room.
“What?” he asked with a look of aggrieved innocence.
But Tess snagged his attention by launching into her reasons for staying at Crescent Cove. “We need a break. The kids will love it here.”
He shook his head right away. “There’s no available cottage. Ask Skye.”
Tess flapped a hand. “There’s plenty of room in Beach House No. 9.”
He definitely looked panicked now. “I need my privacy.”
“You’ve been hiding from everyone for months,” his sister responded.
“No. No, I haven’t. Old Man Monroe jaws at me every day. And, uh, I have Jane here. We, uh, have a project to do.”
Jane perked up at that. Her spine straightening, she pinned him with her gaze. “So you’re committing to working on the book now?”
“As you’ve been telling me, I have a deadline to meet.” He turned to his sister. “See? I can’t have all of you underfoot.”
“But we won’t be any trouble,” Tess said. “The kids won’t get in your way.”
Jane was no longer listening to the other woman, her mind already on the project ahead. She didn’t rub her hands together, but she wanted to. “We’ll start first thing in the morning.”
“Griffin,” Tess pleaded. “We need Crescent Cove this summer. Me and the kids. We need it for just a few weeks.”
He looked from Tess to Jane, who had no trouble giving him the out he wanted this time. “You need to finish the book, Griffin. That’s why I’m here.”
His gaze shifted back to Tess, to her, to Tess again. Jane saw a calculating light enter his eyes. Uh-oh, she thought.
“All right, sis,” he finally said. “You and the kids can stay.”
She clapped her hands, and the baby did too. “Thank you.”
“You can stay in No. 8,” Griffin clarified.
What? Jane mouthed.
Tess frowned. “No. 8?”
“Yes,” Griffin answered. “In No. 8, with my assistant Jane, here. Though I’ll be busy with my memoir, I’m sure she’ll be happy to assist you at every opportunity.”
* * *
WORN PACK OF CARDS in hand, Private padding at his side, Griffin strolled into the small backyard of Beach House No. 9. Okay, skulked was a better term, because he couldn’t deny the furtiveness of his movements. He stayed close to the side of the house and craned his neck for any sign of the occupants of No. 8. His property provided a view of a slice of the smaller house’s rear patch of scruffy grass. When he didn’t spy any rowdy relatives or rigid-spined governesses, he picked up his pace toward the nearby picnic table painted sailor-blue.
Once seated on its bench, he tucked in earbuds and thumbed on his iPod. The crashing chords and heavy backbeat of classic Metallica poured into his head as he laid out yet another of his mindless games of solitaire. This was the second day in a row he’d managed to dodge his sister, her children and the woman he’d foisted them on. Or was it, he thought, frowning, the woman onto whom he’d foisted them?
He stared down at his cards for a moment, then cursed the stupid question circling in his head. Damn it! He’d always been lousy at the picky points of grammar and had accepted that fact. But now he was thinking like Jane. Or at least about Jane. Hadn’t he been doing a pretty good job of avoiding that too?
With the heel of his palm, he bumped the side of his skull, a little signal to his psyche to move on. For the past forty-eight hours he’d been in the best mood he could remember having in months—the kind of mood a prisoner might experience upon avoiding the electric chair—and though he was still behind bars of a sort, he planned on holding on to this good humor. After all, hadn’t he managed to escape his sister, her progeny and the librarian, all in one fell swoop?
Two hands of the card game later, he saw Private jump to his four furry feet. On a groan, Griffin tugged the buds from his ears and quickly scrutinized the vicinity. He groaned again when he realized the one invading his privacy was none other than his elderly neighbor. “What do you want, you old coot?”
Though he was certain he didn’t sound the least bit welcoming, Old Man Monroe sat down on the opposite bench.
Griffin returned his gaze to his game. “My dog was right here the whole time, and don’t try saying otherwise.”
“I’m not here about the dog.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not here to give you your daily senility check. Go home.”
“Hear from Gage? Skye said you had mail.”
At that, Griffin had to smile, even though he knew the postcard that had been delivered to the cove today—all correspondence addressed to the cottages went to Skye, who then distributed it to the residents—was more than a week old. Seeing his brother’s distinctive block lettering pleased him.
“It was one of his own photos.” For years, whenever Gage could manage it, he’d find a place that would put an image on card stock and send it across the country or across the world to Griffin. It had started as a friendly twin-to-twin taunt—photojournalist Gage bragging to his brother about the exotic places he found so thrilling. Now, when Griffin had nearly as many faraway locales and out-of-the-ordinary sights stored in his own memory banks, it was a tangible connection. Looking at an image his brother had found through his own viewfinder, touching paper that his brother had also touched, it was as if they were in the same room, at least for a brief moment.
“He’s well?” the old man asked.
“As good as he can get, in the kind of places that he goes.” Griffin thought about the child Gage had captured on that postcard, in apparent midgiggle. Dirty and thin, he’d still found something to laugh about.
Children had that gift. The thought gave him a guilty prod about his niece and nephews. Angry at himself for letting in the emotion, he slapped down a king in an empty space in the line-up.
Rex Monroe shifted, straightening out his bad leg. Griffin didn’t bother looking up. “Don’t you have a date with The Golden Girls about now?”
“My cable’s out. Entertain me.”
Instead, Griffin decided to ignore him.
“I have the patience of Job,” Rex cautioned after a few minutes had passed.
“You mean you’re a job. But not my job. Go harass somebody else.”
“Maybe I’ll find your sister, tell her you’re sitting outside with nothing to do. Looking morose.”
The threat put Griffin on his feet, startling Private, who let out a bark. He didn’t want Tess or anyone else checking on him, damn it. “I’m not morose.”
“You’re in a happy frame of mind, then?”
“Sure.” He strode to the yard’s narrow flower bed and bent over to yank at some weeds, as if he gave a shit about them. “For your information, I’m in a very happy frame of mind.”
“Huh,” the old guy said, slyness entering his voice. “Does this happiness have to do with Jane?”
Griffin grunted. Jane. She’d worn this silly hat the other day, lowered all the way to her eyebrows. For a few moments, on the deck of Captain Crow’s, he’d thought she was going to prove cooperative. She’d been close at his side as he’d approached Tess, all compliant and cuddly. That should have been the tip-off. How long could the librarian last like that? But hell, what was wrong with her, having a sudden attack of the truth?
“Jane bugs the crap out of me,” Griffin said, ripping a dandelion out by its roots. Its fluffy head reminded him of Jane’s fluffy hair. He liked her hair; it twisted and turned, making him want to bury his fingers in it and then… Gah! With a jerk, he tossed the stupid weed away. She was like that, rooting into his head where she didn’t belong and wasn’t wanted. Messing with his cool equilibrium.
“I guess your sister gets the credit for your good mood, then.”
“Oh, right,” Griffin said. “Like I want to get involved with her and her domestic dilemmas.”
“Looks like you won’t,” the ancient one said, his voice mild. “Since you’ve found a way to palm it all off on poor Jane.”
“What, you got a spy camera installed around here? And poor Jane, my ass. Poor Jane is actually Annoying Jane who does not follow instructions. If she’d stuck with the program and told my sister that we were…that we had a thing happening here, then Tess would have left me my privacy. She’s big on people falling in love.”
“Skye says she’s had a change of heart about that.”
Skye. So she was the codger’s source. He’d been nosy and meddlesome from the very beginning, and that hadn’t changed, even after all these years. “Did our friendly property manager drop off your monthly allotment of Metamucil today? Followed by a big dose of gossip?”
“Gossip or not, don’t you wonder what happened to Tess’s marriage?”
Private flopped onto his back on the grass beside Griffin, which required him to perform the obligatory belly rub. “Yeah, I…” he started, then heard himself. “No, I do not wonder what happened. It’s none of my business. That’s between her and her husband, Deadly Dull David, which right there probably says it all.”
“I met him at their wedding reception. He seemed very nice,” the old scold replied.
“Gage came up with the name,” Griffin mumbled. “You know Gage, he can’t imagine anyone enjoying the suburban nine-to-five.”
“People change. Grow up. Or down, as the case may be, like when they make their own sister someone else’s problem.”
Griffin threw up his hands. “Jane again! Why do you keep bringing her up?”
“I’m not the one keeping her around indefinitely. She’s a very pretty young woman. Is that why you don’t cut her loose?”
Griffin didn’t need to explain himself. And not just because the explanation wouldn’t put him in a very good light. On second thought, maybe if he disgusted his elderly neighbor he’d go home. “Think about it, old man. If I kicked Jane out of the cove, who would keep my sister out of my hair? This way, Jane is the gatekeeper. I tell her I’m working and she makes sure Tess and her tribe keep their distance.”
And it also meant he needn’t give his agent some excuse about why he’d gotten rid of her. Frank might legitimately object to that, since he was the one who’d engaged her services in the first place.
“You’ve kept your distance from Tess and her kids since you returned from overseas,” Monroe pressed. “She told Skye you’ve stayed away from them for months.”
“And Skye just had to go running to you with the news,” he said darkly. But he couldn’t deny the accusation. He looked down at his feet and then muttered the first thing that came into his head. “Russ smells like Afghanistan.”
“Eh?”
“The small one is Russ. The one still in diapers. He smells like Afghanistan, okay?” As stupid as it sounded, it was true. “It’s the baby wipes—you know those wet cloths people use to wipe a kid’s ass? That’s what we had between our too-seldom encounters with running water.” Upon his return to California, the first time he’d gotten close enough to get a whiff of his youngest nephew, he’d left Tess’s house and never been back. Being at her home, breathing in that smell, made it nauseatingly easy for him to imagine Russ—and his siblings—too soon grown. Too soon experiencing that intoxicating cocktail of danger and adrenaline that he’d sucked down with an eagerness that had both ashamed and enticed him. Those were thoughts he didn’t want in his head.
There was a moment’s silence, and he was sure he’d shut the old guy up, but then his neighbor waved a hand. “In World War Two, I once went seventy-two days without washing up. You ever get lice in your beard? Now, that’s deprivation.”
Annoyed by his dismissive tone, Griffin crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me call the waa-ambulance, old man. You know what was in the best care packages from home? Flea collars. Flea collars for dogs. We fought over ’em to wear around our necks and wind around our ankles.”
Monroe’s eyes narrowed under his beetled brows. “In my war, our meals came with fleas and we were glad for the extra protein.”
“Yeah?” Griffin said, scornful. “Well, I can beat that because—”
From the direction of No. 9’s back door came the sound of a throat clearing. “Pardon me for interrupting this illuminating pissing contest,” Jane said.
The crank ignored her intrusion. “I have two words for you, Griffin: trench foot.”
“I…” He wouldn’t have let the other man have the last word, except he glanced over and was distracted by the sight of her. She was wearing rhinestone-studded sandals, jeans cut off at the knees and a loose sleeveless top, the hem of which fluttered in the breeze. The wind caught her wavy hair too, setting the sandy tendrils dancing around her face. “You’re sunburned,” he said. Pink color splashed her nose, cheeks, the tops of her shoulders. Her mouth looked redder too.
That mouth. Every time he looked at the damn thing he got a jolt.
It pursed at him now, signaling she was in a mood. “That’s what happens when I spend the day entertaining kids on the beach. Make that two days.”
He knew he should feel both guilt and gratitude. But instead he was riveted by the duffel bag in her hand and the soft-sided laptop case that was slung across her chest. She was leaving. From the moment she’d first arrived on the scene that had been his goal—getting rid of her. So this outcome shouldn’t surprise him. And Tess or no Tess, it shouldn’t bother him in the least either.
He remembered the delicate frame of those shoulders under his hands. Their telltale tremor. Her rosebud mouth parting under his lips in surprise. Her taste heating him up. All that was leaving the cove.
Good. He didn’t need the complication…didn’t want the connection.
Pinning him with her gaze, she dropped the duffel and placed her hand on her hip. “I should have made something clear two days ago.”
“Made what clear?” Her skin had been silky under his hands. That he couldn’t forget.
“I’m not a babysitter. Nor am I an ‘assistant,’ in the way you spoke of me to your sister,” she said.
Now guilt did manage to give him a poke. “You said you’d do anything I needed,” he reminded her, hating his defensive tone.
She just stared at him, her clear eyes managing to send out a burn.
Oh, yeah, in a mood. He shuffled his feet, shoved his hands into his pockets, tried not to think how cute she looked with that pink nose and silvery glare. She’d kill him if he said that now.
Now that she was leaving.
He took a breath. “Hey, I am sorry about that, Jane. I was an ass.” She threw him a Gee, that wasn’t so bad sort of look. “I understand you’re a professional.”
“Thank you.”
He thought he could add even more to that, now that she was saying her goodbyes. “As a matter of fact, I picked up the phone when Frank called this morning. He was singing your praises.”
“That’s nice to hear. We go back a ways.”
“Yeah. Well, I’m sure he’s not wrong.”
A smile bloomed on her face. “So, an actual vote of confidence from you, chili-dog? Even better.”
He’d miss being chili-dog, just a little. The unexpected pang of sentiment convinced him to give her a bit more. “Frank is sending some packages. I said I’d accept them. A laptop, printer, other supplies. I’m actually planning to set up an office.” Not that he was going to do anything inside it, but he figured Jane would take the information as the friendly farewell gift it was. A sign of truce between two former combatants.
Except she wasn’t looking at him with gratification. “You don’t have a laptop here? No computer whatsoever?”
“Uh…”
She was glaring again. “I thought Ted was wrong, you know. I thought you must have something to write on over here or else you wouldn’t have told your sister you needed privacy two days ago because you’d be working.”
Oh, shit.
“While you were over here basking in slothful solitude, I was out there—” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the sand “—for two solid days building sand castles with your nephews, who might be adorable, but are definitely exhausting.”
Old Man Monroe cackled. “You’re in the doghouse, boy.”
Jane gathered up the bag at her feet, then spun on her flashy sandals, heading back inside his house. The last he’d ever see of her, Griffin thought, was her cute ass. Not a bad way to go, but he didn’t like the idea of her going away—forever—mad. “No goodbye?”
Her feet halted. She glanced over her shoulder. “Why? I’ll be back in a minute. I’m just going to put my things in one of the guest rooms.”
His jaw dropped. The coot started cackling again.
“Now that you’ll have a computer, you’re ready to work, Griffin. And since you claim you have confidence in my ability to do my job, it will be much easier for us with me living over here.”
“But…but…” Jesus. He couldn’t think. Living here? “What, uh, what about Tess and the kids?”
“They’ll have more room next door without me underfoot.” She started walking again, then took another look back. “Oh, and they’ll be coming over tonight for dinner.”
The coot’s cackling only got louder.
Jane smiled at him. “Why don’t you join us, Mr. Monroe? Griffin will be barbecuing.”
And the day had started out so happy, Griffin thought, when his reeling brain finally settled. But she’d once again upended him, and he was no longer confident he had the skills to either wait her out or keep her out.
Damn. The enemy had infiltrated, putting the heart of the camp at risk.
* * *
FROM HER PLACE beneath the shade of a tropical umbrella, Tess Quincy made a bargain with herself. Twenty more minutes. That’s how much longer she’d wait for her husband to meet her as she’d requested. She’d specified “lunchtime” and “on the beach” in her text to his phone, and had—wrongly—assumed he’d show up just minutes after noon. That had been two hours ago. If he didn’t appear before the big hand touched the six on her wristwatch—worn in an effort to teach Duncan and Oliver about analog time—she’d retreat back to her cottage. Waiting a second more than that would only be another blow to her ego. It had taken enough hits.
Closing her eyes, she settled more deeply into the old-fashioned beach chair she’d found in a closet at No. 8. A tripod of light wood strung with striped canvas, it didn’t lift her rear end off the sand, but it supported her back at the perfect angle for magazine-reading. As a girl, she’d spent hours just like this, paging through People and Us Weekly, imagining herself as one of the SoCal celebrities so often pictured on the glossy pages.
Nowadays, if she had time for any reading, it was for her moms’ book group. They read about tiger mothers and free-range mothers and mothers who managed to start up sexy small businesses. Tess wondered now if she should have been studying up on husbands and wives or how to survive a failed marriage.
A breeze blew her hair across her face. As she fingered it behind her ear, she became aware of someone’s gaze on her. At the weight of it, her heart stuttered, then kicked into a rapid beat. Him? Swallowing hard, she lifted her lashes and glanced right.
Her pulse decelerated like a motorboat brought to a sudden halt. It was a stranger who stared at her from his place eight feet away on the sand. A stranger staring at her, she realized now, with a look of blatant interest. Her heart gave another—though milder—kick. And she didn’t look away.
Before this week, Tess Quincy, mother of four and wife of more than thirteen years, would have ignored the man. But Tess Quincy, woman with a shambles—or was that a sham?—of a marriage, found herself unwilling to pretend she didn’t notice his speculative—and yes, admiring—gaze.
So sue her, it felt good.
The man appeared to be around thirty, which made him a little younger than Tess, and his faint smile topped lean muscles and knee-length swim trunks in bright green. “It is you, isn’t it?”
For a moment she was speechless, then words spilled easily from her own now-smiling lips. “It depends on who you think I am.” With a little thrill, she registered the flirtatious note in her voice and wasn’t ashamed of it. It had been months since she’d been noticed as a woman.
“The gum,” he said, certain enough now that he strolled closer to her. “Brand name, OM. The green tea gum. You’re her.”
You’re her. Another man had said those words to her once. She glanced down at the sleeping child beside her and fussed with the fish-patterned towel covering his napping body. The man who’d said those words originally had hardly looked at her since the precious ten-month-old was born.
The stranger came yet closer and took to one knee, holding out a hand. “Teague White.”
She didn’t linger on the handshake, but her smile stayed in place. “Tess Quincy. I was Tess Lowell when I made those commercials.”
“After all these years, they still play.”
Her shoulders lifted, expressing her own surprise over it. She’d filmed them at eighteen, and they’d hit the small screen as she turned nineteen, a long-legged girl in belly-baring yoga pants and a tiny tank, leading a class in meditation. The cause of the ad campaign’s sustained popularity wasn’t clear. It could have been her nubile teenage body, the gleam of mischief in her eyes when she told the camera that “OM will tame a wild mind,” or, more likely, the continued heavy airplay. Frequency plus reach had meant success for both OM and Tess. She still sank residuals into her kids’ college funds.
If she and David divorced, she supposed she’d be using those checks to help support herself.
Teague White’s appreciative expression took some of the sting out of the thought. “You look exactly the same.”
“I’ve had four kids since then.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
She felt her dimples dig deep in her cheeks. “Yes.” Maybe that last pregnancy hadn’t completely taken her out of the realm of attractiveness, after all. She plugged the Pilates DVD into the player twice a week and ran with Russ in the jogging stroller every other day. Night and morning, she brushed, she flossed, she glossed what she could gloss and she moisturized the rest.
Yet her husband, David, didn’t look at her the way this stranger did. Her husband, David, barely looked at her at all anymore. This unknown man recognized that eighteen-year-old girl in the wifely shell, and he seemed pretty pleased about it. She cocked her head, the moves not so hard to remember now. “What is it you do, Teague?”
“I’m with the fire department,” he said.
“Doing…?” Not that she couldn’t guess.
A grin popped out, as if he couldn’t hold it back. “I’m a firefighter.”
She figured then that he got his own share of appreciative glances with all those manly muscles and the studly occupation. “Day off?”
He nodded. “We wanted surf and sand. You’re an added bonus.”
It was heady stuff, the attention of an attractive member of the opposite sex. She had plenty of close encounters with males in her daily life, but mostly they wanted to wipe their noses on the tails of her shirt or use her limbs for climbing like a jungle gym at the park.
Down the beach, someone yelled the handsome stranger’s name. Both he and Tess looked toward the surf, where a handful of equally muscled men were tossing around a football. They gestured to him and one threw the ball, a perfect spiral that landed at Teague’s feet. With a show of reluctance, he picked it up, then clambered to a stand. “You going to be here awhile?”
“I…” If she agreed, she could tell herself she wasn’t staying put for David. She could pretend to herself that she was instead waiting for the handsome stranger to return and make her feel desirable again. “Maybe.”
His grin flashed on. “And later this week? My friends and I have some time off. We’ll be here again.”
“I…I have those four kids.” Her palm caressed the tuft of Russ’s dark hair that was the only part of him visible beneath the towel.
“So? I like kids. And I have a wild mind that maybe only you can tame.”
That little thrill buzzed through her veins again. Still… “Four kids and a husband.”
She liked him more for not losing the smile. “Lucky guy. Unlucky me.” Tossing the football up and down in one hand, he walked backward, his gaze still on her face. “Does that mean you won’t run away with me? We could go to Arizona.”
“I thought people ran away to Tahiti,” she said, laughing.
“The kids’ll like the Grand Canyon. Train ride’s not to be missed.”
Sudden tears pricked the corners of Tess’s eyes. Embarrassed, she glanced away. How sad was that? Choked up because a man pretended interest in her and her children. David had a lot to answer for. She waved a hand, acknowledging the faux offer.
“Tess?” he called out, prompting her to look at him again. He’d almost reached his pals. “I always had a crush on you.”
Faking another laugh, she waved a second time and watched him rejoin the other firefighters. “‘I always had a crush on you,’” she murmured, hearing the wistfulness in her voice.
“He did.”
Tess’s head whipped around. Skye Alexander dropped to the sand beside her. “You remember him, don’t you?”
“‘Him’?” She glanced down the beach and then back to Skye. “Should I?”
“Teague White. He used to tag along with your brothers every summer.”
Teague White. It didn’t ring any bells…then a memory surfaced. Little scrawny kid, around her brothers’ age but a head shorter than them. “They called him Tee-Wee. Tee-Wee White.” She put her hand over her mouth as a giggle bubbled up and turned her head to stare at the young stud now leaping into the surf. “That’s Tee-Wee White?”
“Things change. People change.”
Husbands. Marriages. Tess glanced at her watch. Two-thirty. But it would be rude to abruptly leave Skye, wouldn’t it? She could stay a few more minutes. Blowing out a breath, she forced herself to smile at the younger woman. “Mail from Gage today?”
The property manager wore an old fishing hat on top of her dark hair, a loose, long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy cargo pants. Still, Tess detected the blush crawling up her neck and onto her cheeks. “You know I, uh, correspond with your brother?”
“Griffin mentioned it.” Tess recalled what details she’d been given. “Something about wires crossed? He thought Griffin would be here at the cove and you wrote back that he wasn’t?”
“Nine months ago. Since then we’ve kept in touch regularly.”
“Nice.” Or, not nice, Tess thought, with a sudden pang. Skye wouldn’t meet her eyes now, and she had the unwelcome idea that the other woman fancied herself in love with Gage, who lived for thrills and chills. He had more hard edges—if less darkness of the soul—than Griffin, and she couldn’t imagine her daredevil sibling with this reserved, almost shy, young woman. Careful, Skye. He’ll break your heart.
She checked the time. Two thirty-five. Her mood went gloomier. There was no sense pretending David hadn’t stood her up. Her gaze shifted to Teague White, playing in the surf. As she watched, he dived dolphin-style into an oncoming wave. God, the guy had a body, long-boned and lithe, covered with wet skin that looked like sculpted bronze sprinkled with diamonds. The sad truth was, the mother in her still worried about all that sun exposure, but the woman she was appreciated the view.
He came up and shook his head, droplets dispersing like she wished her problems would. As if sensing her regard, he looked her way. His smile was white and maybe just the tiniest bit smug.
Careful, Tess. He’ll break your heart.
But of course Teague wouldn’t. That damage had already been done.