Chapter Two

 

* LUKE *

 

I had been on Driftwood Island for all of three days, and I was already beginning to think that it had been a bad idea to come here. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I loved the island. It was beautiful, and the locals had been friendly to me. And the wide open beaches were great for long walks to think through difficult plot problems, just as I thought they’d be. But despite two long walks already today, I hadn’t written a single word on my laptop. I let out a long sigh as I paced back and forth on the giant back porch of the beach house I was renting. My writing coach was going to be expecting an update from me in a few hours, and I was going to have to tell her that once again, the number of words I’d written today was a big fat zero.

Why had I hired that writing coach, anyway? My agent had pressured me into it, telling me that the woman was amazing and had pushed several of her clients past horrible bouts of writer’s block. But I didn’t like the writing coach’s drill sergeant style. I’d known even before I hired her that I was going to hate having someone checking up on me. But I’d been desperate to figure out a way past this slump I was in.

I might be Luke Foster—the world’s number one best-selling author, and the only author alive to have become a billionaire thanks to my work—but I was not immune to writer’s block.

I had a horrible case of it, and it only got worse as the deadline for my next book loomed nearer. I had one month left to send in a finished manuscript to my publisher, and so far I had written a total of two-hundred and fifty words on the damn thing. That meant I still had nearly a full ninety-thousand words to go.

Oh I had plenty of ideas, and outlines galore. But none of those ideas seemed to translate onto the screen of my laptop. Part of me had contemplated returning my advance money and giving up. It’s not like I needed any more money. Royalties from my first five books were more than enough to keep me comfortable for the rest of my life.

But my pride wouldn’t let me give up. I was Luke Foster. My fans loved me. They were rabid for another book from me, and I couldn’t let them down. Besides, what else would I do with my life if I gave up on writing? I had no backup career plan, and I certainly didn’t have a family to keep me busy. All I had was writing.

So why couldn’t I write?

I glanced at my watch, wincing when I saw it was already four o’clock. I had wasted nearly another whole day. I looked out at the ocean waves in the distance, watching for a few moments as they lapped against the sand in steady succession. The sun shone brightly, and part of me was tempted to go for a swim. It looked warm enough, but the local who had rented me this beach house for the month had warned me that the water was too cold to go into this time of year. I didn’t have an interest in dying by drowning when my arms and legs became too cold to move properly, so I decided to heed the man’s advice.

But I also didn’t have any interest in pacing back and forth on this porch anymore. It hadn’t helped me for the last three hours, so I doubted one more hour of pacing would make the words I desperately needed just fall into my mind.

One thing other than words that I desperately needed was food. I hadn’t been on a proper grocery shopping trip since I arrived on the island, and I didn’t want to keep eating out every night. The few restaurants I’d been to had been good, but if I continued eating so much delicious but greasy fish and chips, I was going to die of a heart attack before my month’s end writing deadline arrived. I guess that was one way to solve my writer’s block problem.

Death by grease-induced heart attack was not my preferred way to go, however, and so I grabbed the keys to my rental car and made my way through the house and into the garage. My rental “car” was actually a small pickup truck. It had been the only rental vehicle available the day I arrived. I guess the sports cars were already taken up by the other wealthy visitors to the island, all of whom were staying at the resort.

I hadn’t wanted to stay at the resort. I’d wanted something a little more writer friendly, like this somewhat secluded beach cottage. Not that the idyllic location was helping me write. With a frustrated grunt, I fired up the noisy engine on the pickup truck and started heading toward the local grocery store that I’d noticed off the main road on my first night here. I would pick up some snacks, and some food to make some actual dinners. And, of course, some wine and beer. Perhaps a bottle of whiskey, if the store had anything good. What kind of writing retreat was it if I didn’t have the proper drinks, after all?

As I drove, my mind started to wander again, ending up back where it had been wandering to all day: the girl at the bar last night. Not the second girl, Ruby, who had admittedly been beautiful and nice, and had gone out of her way to introduce me to some of the locals. No, the first girl.

The girl who had actually taken my breath away, and yet, I had somehow failed to get her name.

I hadn’t asked for her name on purpose. I wasn’t supposed to be here to go chasing after girls. I was supposed to be holing myself up in my beach cabin until my damn book was written. When I’d arrived at the bar and saw her, I’d told myself I could have permission to sit and have a few drinks with her, as long as I didn’t ask for her name or try to get to know her on any sort of deeply personal level.

How was I supposed to know that a simple question about what books she’d read lately—a question that usually elicited blank stares and mumbled responses—was going to set off one of the best literary conversations I’d had in a long time? That girl wasn’t just beautiful. She was smart. The combination had been more than I could bear, and I’d forced myself to look away and look at the new girl, Ruby, when Ruby arrived at the table. I’d needed to focus on someone else for a few minutes to regain my cool, and to keep myself from asking mystery girl to come home with me right then and there.

My plan had worked a little too well. I’d turned away for a few moments, and the girl disappeared. She took off out of the bar, not even saying goodbye. I forced myself to act like it hadn’t bothered me, and I spent another hour at the bar, meeting people and even attempting a country line dance on the dance floor. I blamed the whiskey for that. I was sure it wasn’t a pretty sight.

Eventually I’d gone home, and told myself that I just needed to sleep off the memory of the girl. But I woke up still thinking about her. I thought about her on my long beach runs, instead of thinking about the plot problems I was supposed to be contemplating. And I kept thinking about her now, as I drove toward the surprisingly crowded area near the grocery store. It had been almost deserted when I came in late at night, but apparently close to five p.m. on a Saturday was a popular time to go shopping around here. The store’s small parking lot was full, and the nearby street was crowded with a long line of cars that were parallel parked. Luckily for me, I saw someone pulling out of a spot in the parking lot just as I drove up. I pulled in quickly and parked, then walked toward the front door of the store, feeling smug as I watched others pull up on the side of the road and begin the process of parallel parking.

That’s when I noticed that one of the cars struggling to park was being driven by the mystery girl from last night. So I stopped and gawked at her, like the classy, cool guy that I was. Right there near a busy Driftwood Island store, I stood and stared while several locals walked by and gave me funny looks.

I didn’t care. All I cared about was that this girl was even more beautiful in the daylight than she’d been in the dim light of the bar. I watched as she backed up, tried unsuccessfully to straighten out, then pulled out to try again. Even from across the street, I could see that her face was red with frustration. She was also saying something out loud to her empty car, and I would have been willing to bet a fair amount of money that whatever she was saying involved curse words.

After watching her for a minute or two, I realized that this girl couldn’t parallel park to save her life. I also realized that this was my chance to step in as a knight in shining armor and save the day. I happened to be an excellent parallel parker. Living in a crowded city with little space for parking had forced me to become an expert at it over the last seven years.

I confidently strode across the street, ignoring the voice in my head that said I was only going to embarrass her. I also ignored the voice in my head that said if I wanted to forget about the girl and get some actual writing done any time this month, that I probably should have attempted to sneak into the store without her seeing me instead of going over to “save” her.

Too late now. She looked up as I approached, and her face went even redder than it already was. Before I could knock on the window glass, she’d rolled it down and was scowling at me.

“Can I help you?” she asked, not sounding at all pleased to see me. Well, this wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. I smiled warmly anyway, and pointed to the passenger seat.

“Wanna scoot over and let me try? I’m pretty good at this.”

She scowled, but then her face melted into a sheepish grin. “I guess I’m pretty awful at it. Sure. Give it a try. Otherwise I’m just going to drive home and come pay my property tax bill another day.”

She gestured toward a small city hall building a few yards ahead of her car and sighed. The exasperated look on her face was so cute that I was tempted to lean over and kiss her. Which would have been ridiculous considering I didn’t know her name and wasn’t looking for any sort of romance while on this island. But a man couldn’t be expected not to fantasize when sitting across from the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, right? Her beauty was exactly the understated kind of stunning that I liked. She wasn’t super skinny, but I liked that. I liked her athletic build. I also liked her sleek, straight brown hair, which complemented her dark brown eyes perfectly. She wasn’t wearing a lick of makeup, just like she hadn’t been at the bar last night, and I liked that too. Her face was gorgeous on its own. It didn’t need any paint to hide her splattering of freckles and naturally rosy cheekbones.

Today, she wore glasses, and they fit her personality perfectly. I knew from talking to her that she was smart. Now, she looked the part even more. She was dressed in a pair of skin tight jeans and an oversized crewneck sweater. The look made me think of a sexy librarian, which made my cock start to go hard. Banging a naughty librarian had always been a fantasy of mine.

As if on cue, I felt my phone buzzing in my back pocket, and I sighed. That would be my writing coach, calling to ask how much progress I’d made today. It’s like she’d called at that exact moment on purpose, to remind me that I was not here to fantasize about banging librarians or anyone else. Gritting my teeth together, I let the call go to voicemail and climbed into the driver’s seat of the mystery woman’s little sports car. I’d call my coach back later, and tell her I’d been caught up at the grocery store. I would conveniently leave out the part about parallel parking a pretty girl’s car for her.

“Ok, watch and learn,” I said, unable to resist looking over and winking. The girl raised an eyebrow at me but otherwise did not react, so I decided to go for it. I pulled the car out of the spot, adjusting it to a more ideal position, then quickly backed back in, spinning the wheel, to nestle the car perfectly in between the cars in front and back of it.

“Wow. That was fast. And you spaced me perfectly in the center.”

I smiled with satisfaction at the look of awe in her eyes, and made an overly exaggerated bow in her direction. “At your service, my lady.”

She rolled her eyes then, but she still looked pleased. She squinted at me, as if trying to place me. I knew that look well. She was thinking she knew me, because I looked familiar. But I only looked familiar because she’d seen my face on occasional interviews or author photos. That was the thing about being a famous author—your name might be easily recognizable, but your face wasn’t. It wasn’t like being a movie star, where someone was bound to recognize you if you stepped out in public too often. No, being a famous author was a lot more low-key, and I liked that. I wasn’t interested in being trailed by paparazzi all the time. But sometimes people did recognize me, and it didn’t surprise me much that this girl was one of them. I could tell from our conversation last night that she read a lot, so I was sure she’d at least heard of my books, if not read them. She’d probably know my name, too, if I gave her my full name. I decided to try to avoid that.

But I also decided to go ahead and give her my first name. I had given up pretending to myself that I could hang out on this island for a month and not be curious enough to figure out her name. I would do my best to keep things simple, but surely, I was allowed to make some friends, wasn’t I?

I knew my writing coach would be wringing my neck if she could see me right now. Luckily, she couldn’t see me. I stuck my hand out in an offered handshake.

“I’m Luke, by the way. I think I rudely neglected to properly introduce myself at the bar last night.”

“Luke,” she repeated slowly, still squinting at me as she took my offered handshake. “I’m Kelsey.”

I could see the wheels turning in her head as she put my name together with my face. I knew in that moment that it didn’t matter if I didn’t give her my last name. She was going to realize who I was. I braced myself for a fan girl reaction, cursing to myself the fact that I had become so damn well-known. My success made it impossible to ever have just a normal relationship with a woman. I’d never cared that much before, but right now, I realized that I’d never wanted a normal relationship with anyone as much as I wanted one with Kelsey.

It didn’t make sense. We barely knew each other, and besides, I was only here for a month and then I was heading home to San Francisco, where I lived most of the year. We were an entire country apart. Not only that, but I was supposed to be working while I was here. Not socializing.

But I knew all the reasons not to fall for her didn’t matter one bit. I was falling, and falling hard. There was no stopping it. I took a deep breath and told myself to just ask her to dinner and see where things went. If nothing else, someone as into reading as she was would be interested in talking to a famous author, right?

“Kelsey, look, if you’re not doing anything tonight—”

“Luke,” she said again, interrupting me. This time, I could tell from the way she said my name that she knew exactly who I was. “You’re Luke.”

She didn’t say “You’re Luke Foster.” But she might as well have. From the way her eyes were widening, I could tell she knew.

“Kelsey, please,” I tried again. “I’d like to take you to dinner if you—”

“I have to go,” she said, interrupting again. She reached for the door of her car and fumbled with the handle a moment before opening it and stumbling onto the street.

I sighed. This wasn’t quite the reaction I’d been hoping for. “Don’t you at least want your keys?”

She paused, then leaned into the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition, where they were still hanging. She didn’t look at me again as she shut the door behind her and quickly ran down the sidewalk toward the city hall building.

I sat in the drivers’ seat of her car, feeling completely lost. I wanted more than anything to get to know her better, but this had not been a good start. I got the feeling that she didn’t want to see anymore of me right now, and that she wouldn’t be happy if she got back to her car and I was still sitting in it.

I frowned as I opened the driver’s door and climbed out. I locked the doors for her, and then started walking back across the street. I was much less excited about my grocery shopping trip now, but I figured since I was out already I should at least pick up a few things.

My phone started buzzing again, and I rolled my eyes as I pulled it out of my pocket. Sure enough, when I looked down at the screen the caller I.D. was displaying my writing coach’s name. I groaned and picked up the call.

“Before you ask, my word count for today was zero.” I figured I might as well get this over with as quickly as possible. I braced myself for the lecture that I knew was coming, and immediately started looking for the liquor section of the grocery store I had just walked into.

I hoped with everything in me that this town had some good whiskey.