Laire heard Erik’s mother calling and walked back to her father’s boat as a mix of relief and disappointment flooded her heart. Relief, because no matter how he made her heart thunder, smart island girls didn’t go near summer dingbatters. And disappointed, because she didn’t feel like being smart. She felt like staring into Erik Rexford’s dark brown eyes forever.

Rexford. Erik . . . Rexford.

She’d almost fallen over when she realized whose kitchen she was standing in. It belonged to Brady Rexford. Governor Brady Rexford.

She’d had to sign something called a confidentiality agreement before stepping foot into the Rexford kitchen. Judith Sebastian, the catering manager, explained the gist of it: Laire was forbidden to take pictures while she was on the Rexfords’ property or post about the premises on social media, which really wasn’t a problem since Laire didn’t have a cell phone or a Facebook account anyway.

Scrambling to recall what she knew about the new governor’s oldest child, she came up mostly dry, except for a memory of Kyrstin exclaiming that he was hot, and a dim recollection that he attended Duke University, which made him at least two or three years older than she.

Older, and even more out of her league than he was when he was just a hot guy in a big house grinning at her from a balcony.

Erik Rexford was North Carolina royalty.

Grabbing the third cooler by the handles, she hefted it out of the boat and onto the dock with a thud. Stepping up onto the wood planks, she picked up the cooler and walked slowly and carefully along the boardwalk, her back aching and hands burning from the heavy load.

Let me get one of these fellas to help you!

No.

Absolutely not.

Cornishes did not accept help (or tips, for that matter) from summer folks.

We do our work. We do it proud. We keep to ourselves.

She could hear her father’s words in her head.

This was how, her mother had explained a long time ago, islanders were able to hold on to their dignity, despite the ups and downs of a life built within the sometimes-unreliable commercial fishing industry. They welcomed the summer folks, worked for them, fished for them, and sold to them, but they didn’t pander to them. They took money for a decent product or a job well done, but islanders looked to their friends and family when they ran into trouble and needed help. And we certainly don’t take no handouts from dingbatters.

Besides the physical barrier—ten nautical miles—that kept Corey separate from the other islands, and the Corey brogue, which, especially when laid on thick, was difficult for outsiders to understand, an insulated islander mentality kept the rest of the world at arm’s length.

And though Laire longed for more than island life, she wondered if she’d ever be able to unlearn such deeply ingrained ways. Until she experienced something substantially different about the world, what she knew would likely trump what she wanted.  

Still, she couldn’t help giving Erik Rexford a wistful glance as she trudged by, her cheeks growing instantly hot when he looked up at exactly the right moment to find her gawking at him, and winked.

Gyah! She snapped her neck away, facing forward. Make the delivery and get out of here!

When she reached the house, she found Ms. Sebastian waiting for her outside the kitchen door with a glass of ice-cold water.

“It’s just water,” said Ms. Sebastian, holding out the sweating glass. “Nothing special.”

Laire placed the cooler down inside the kitchen and accepted the glass gratefully, taking a huge gulp before backhanding her lips and handing the glass back.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“I’m guessing you’re sixth—no, seventh-generation Corey?”

“Tenth, ma’am.”

“Tenth! My goodness.”

Laire grinned. “You been to Corey?”

“Several times. I’m from New Bern.”

“Up the Neuse?” asked Laire, referring to the estuary that fed the Pamlico Sound, and identifying the placement of other human beings on God’s earth, as she always did, by the body of water closest to them.

“My husband was Marine Corps at Cherry Point.”

This told Laire two things about Ms. Sebastian: one, she was local, but a woodser; from the mainland, not the islands. And two, she was from a working family; she wasn’t a summer dingbatter.

“Was, ma’am?”

“He passed a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” Ms. Sebastian tilted her head to the side. “You’re a real hard worker.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You know, I meant what I said before about you comin’ to work for me. Any interest?”

She dropped Ms. Sebastian’s eyes. “I don’t—”

“Don’t say no. Think it over first,” she said, swirling the ice in the glass, which reminded Laire of Erik up on the balcony, and made her heart ache from the quick flash of memory. “I work at the Pamlico House restaurant here in Buxton. You know it?”

Laire nodded. They were sometime customers of King Triton Seafood.

“If you decide you want a job, come find me. I could use a hard worker this summer to bus tables, maybe work up to waitress. I’d pay you ten dollars an hour to start.”

She gasped quietly. Ten dollars an hour? If she worked from four until midnight at a party, that would be eighty dollars some nights. Almost one hundred dollars in one day.

Not to mention, the idea of being able to come and go freely in this world: to see the clothes that the ladies were wearing for their summer vacations at the inn and learn how people like Erik Rexford lived . . . it was the stuff of fantasy. Almost outlandish in its scope and possibilities.

“I’d have to ask my daddy, ma’am.”

“Then ask him.” Ms. Sebastian tilted her head to the side. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen just.”

“Good.” She tilted her head to the side, looking closely at Laire’s face. “You’re very pretty, Miss . . .”

“Cornish. Laire Cornish, ma’am.”

“Laire,” she repeated. She offered a small smile. “I hope your father says yes.” Then she turned and walked back into the kitchen.

A job.

A real job, in the real world.

Not like helping her daddy on the boat, or working behind the register for Uncle Fox in the shop. Not even like making clothes for the women on the island, but a job off Corey Island, with a real paycheck.

She worked out some figures in her head, wondering how much faster she could get to Parsons or RISD if she started working as a waitress during the busy summer season. It hadn’t really occurred to her before now—to seek out a proper job off Corey—but now it did, and as she walked back to the boat to get cooler number four, her head was spinning with the promise of it.

But my father.

Her heart sank. Her father would never allow it. He wouldn’t like her leaving Corey every day. He’d insist that she could work in one of the cafés or restaurants on their island, or, if she pushed him, over on Ocracoke. She took a deep breath as her boots hit the boardwalk. How could she convince him?

“Hey!”

This time, she didn’t stop. She kept walking. She had important matters to think about.

“Hey!”

His flip-flops thwacked against the planking as he caught up to her.

“I’m working,” she said, without sparing him a glance. If she looked at him, she’d get all moony and distracted again, and right now she had to finish up her delivery and figure out a way to convince her daddy to let her take a job with Ms. Sebastian so she could start earning more money.

“You’re makin’ me think you don’t like me, Freckles!”

Freckles.

Oh, my heart.

She stopped dead in her tracks and jerked her head to face him. “Not like you?” As if that was even a possibility. “No! I just . . .”

She had her back to the railing, and suddenly the boardwalk felt very narrow as he took two steps toward her, closing the distance between them and stopping directly opposite her. He leaned his elbows on the opposite railing, which pushed his chest out toward her and left no more than a few inches separating them.

“Just what?”

“I don’t know you,” she whispered, staring up into his black-coffee eyes.

They widened, flicking to her lips, as they had when he’d talked to her outside the kitchen a few minutes ago. “But we could remedy that.”

“Why?” she murmured, her chest rising and falling rapidly for reasons that had nothing to do with hauling coolers.

“Why not?” he asked, his perfect lips tilting up in a grin. “Unless you’re married. Are you married?”

Her lips twitched. “I’m only eighteen.”

“So . . . is that a yes or a no?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m not married.”

“Hmm.” His eyes dropped to her left hand. “No engagement ring either.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are we done here?”

“Not even close,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. “Are you about to enter a convent?”

“F-for nuns?” She chortled softly. “No!”

“Are you about to move away to a distant land where it would be impossible for me to find you?”

“No.”

“Not married. Not engaged. Not entering a convent. Not movin’ away.” His eyes narrowed, and he straightened up. “Boyfriend?”

She raised her chin, thinking of Brodie’s lies. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s my birthday tomorrow,” he said, his body relaxing. “Go out with me.”

“I . . . I can’t,” she said, sighing heavily and turning back to her father’s boat.

“Why not?”

She spoke over her shoulder. “Because there’s no point.”

“No point in hangin’ out with me? Wow. That’s rough.”

“You’re a dingbat—I mean . . .” She sighed, glancing back at his mansion before looking into his eyes. “You’re summer folks.” And the governor’s son.

“Ahhh,” he said. “Now I see. You’re a snob.”

They’d reached the dock, and Laire turned around to face him, her eyes burning with indignation. “What do you . . . No! No, I’m not a snob. You’re the . . . I mean . . .”

“You won’t go out with me because I’m only here for the summer, and you called me a dingbat.”

He looked so affronted, she couldn’t help giggling.

“I didn’t call you a dingbat,” she said, stepping onto her father’s boat. “I was about to call you a dingbatter.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

He put his hands on his hips, staring down at her, and she got the feeling he was feigning hurt feelings, but that in reality he was enjoying himself very much.

She lifted up the fourth cooler and plopped it inelegantly onto the decking, then swung her body up beside it. “A dingbatter is someone who’s not from the islands. Specifically not from Corey or Ocracoke. Don’t mean nothing bad. Even folks who’ve lived out there for fifty years are called a dingbatter if they weren’t born on the islands.”

“You know what? Your accent is wild,” he said, his lips twitching again, like a smile was about to break forth and there was nothing he could do about it if he tried.

“That’s what they tell us,” she said, reaching down for the cooler and turning her back to him as she started back up the boardwalk toward the house.

It was too narrow for him to walk beside her, but sure enough, he decided to keep up the chitchat from behind her after they’d walked several feet in silence.

“It’s like, uh, a little Scottish. Highlands Scottish.”

“Uh-huh. Some say Australian,” she said, her fingers hurting like hell. “First ones to Ocracoke and Corey were Scottish and Irish, English and Welsh. They say our accent got frozen in time for a spell before the woodsers come out from the mainland and started changing it with Southern-style speaking.”

“I hear a Southern accent in there too,” he said.

“But not like yours,” she answered.

His was dreamy, like the hero in a romance film. Like the boy in The Notebook who fell in love with the rich gal from Charleston. He sounded like a Southern gentleman. Like a movie star.

“What’s different about mine?” he asked, his footsteps heavy behind her.

“It’s posh.”

“You know who I am?” he asked. “Who my father is?”

She stepped off the boardwalk and onto the lawn, determined not to stop or she didn’t know how she’d lift this damn cooler again. Each one was heavier than the last.

“The governor’s son,” she said simply. “Erik Rexford.”

“Well, now, that means you have me at a disadvantage, Freckles, because all I know about you is that you’re a cute-as-hell island girl who delivers crabs and won’t go out with me.”

Cute as hell. She could die and go to heaven now.

“My name is Laire,” she said.

“Laire, like hair?”

She nodded.

“Laire what?” he asked.

She rounded the pool, relieved beyond belief that the side of the house was in sight now. Laire Who Shouldn’t Be Talking to You. “Laire Cornish.”

“Well . . . it’s sure nice to . . . meet you, Laire . . . Cornish.”

He sounded breathless behind her, which was fairly flattering, considering her name was pretty ordinary on Corey.

“You too, Erik Rexford.”

She rounded the corner of the house and almost ran to the kitchen entrance, dropping the heavy cooler just inside the door with a grunt of satisfaction. Resting her hands on her knees for a moment, she took big gulps of air.

“Ahem,” said Erik from behind her. “You mind?”

Straightening and putting her hands on her hips, she turned around to face him, and found him standing behind her, a huge grin on his way-too-beautiful face, and the last two coolers in his strong arms.

***

That was the moment Erik Rexford knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he couldn’t allow this to be their one and only meeting. Her eyes widened, her lips parted, and his dirty mind went straight to the gutter, wondering if that’s how Laire Cornish would look when he made her come with his cock or his tongue.

And I’d sooner die right here and now than never find out, he thought, grinning down at her.

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t ask for your help,” she said softly to his back as he brushed past her and placed the last two coolers on top of hers.

“I figured you wouldn’t. But, sometimes, Freckles? Sometimes you just lend a hand because you can, not because there’s a gun to your head.”

He wasn’t certain where that sentence had come from, because the filthy, fantastic images in his head were a lot less lofty than the words that came out of his mouth. But he found that he meant them—there was room to want her and to help her. Both objectives cohabited together in the front of his consciousness.

“These sumbitch coolers are heavy,” he said. “I don’t know how you did the first four.”

“For starters,” she said, “I didn’t carry two at once.”

“Impressed?” he asked, winking at her.

The half smile on her lips said she was, but the way she shook her head, like he was incorrigible, said that she wouldn’t allow herself to admit it.

“You could say thank you,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her, “if you wanted.”

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“You finished quick, Laire,” said an older woman. He was fairly certain she was the head catering lady, and she looked at Laire with admiration. “I guess that ties up our business for today, honey. I’d offer you a tip, but . . .”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

The woman nodded as though they had an understanding, but Erik, to save his life, couldn’t understand why they weren’t tipping the little mermaid for her work. In a world where everyone was tipped for everything, she’d actually sweated through a job, and she’d get nothing extra for it? Huh. Didn’t seem fair, but one look at Laire’s face told him that she didn’t share his feelings so he remained silent.

“You remember my offer, Laire?” asked the woman.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Hope to see you at the Pamlico House real soon now.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Get on home now before your father gets worried, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The woman nodded at Laire, her eyes warm, then turned to Erik, all business. “Can I help you with anything, Mr. Rexford?”

He frowned at her. Yes, he was accustomed to people working for his parents calling him “Mr.” but it sounded way too formal in front of Laire . . . which, he suspected, was partially the point.

Dismissed, Laire waved a hand at the woman, then turned, walking away from the kitchen with her hands in her back pockets, more of a stroll than the serious march she’d employed back and forth between the house and her father’s boat. He watched her go, enjoying the way the sun caught the gold and copper strands of her hair.

“Mr. Rexford?”

“Uhhh . . . no. No, thank you.”

“Mr. Rexford,” she said again, this time trying to get his attention with a bit more urgency in her tone. He turned away from Laire to face her, finding her eyes a lot less warm than they’d been a moment ago. “She’s an island girl.”

“Yes. I know.”

“You don’t have any business with an island girl, now, do you?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t especially appreciate the not-so-subtle warning in her voice. “What if I do?”

Her lips tightened, and he expected her tone when she next spoke to be harsh or judgmental. It surprised him that it wasn’t. In fact, it was soft and beseeching. “Let her go, son.”

She gave him a sad smile, then turned and walked back into the kitchen, letting the service door close slowly behind her.

Let her go.

Why? Why should he?

Let her go.

He turned back to watch Laire, who, with each step, moved farther and farther away from him.

Let her go.

She was at the lawn now. A few more steps and she’d be on the boardwalk.

Damn it. He couldn’t let her go.

He took off at a sprint, losing his flip-flops on the decorative footbridge between the pool deck and the lawn, and catching up with her halfway down the boardwalk.

“Hey!”

He heard her sigh before she slowed down and turned to face him. “You don’t give up easy.”

“No, miss, I don’t.”

“You should.”

“I won’t,” he said.

She kept walking, but he fell into step beside her, his arm occasionally brushing hers and sending lightning bolts up his arm every time.

He cleared his throat. Concentrate.

“Give me your number.”

“So you can call my house and start a ruckus? No way.”

“How about your cell?”

She glanced up at him just before stepping onto the dock. “Don’t have one.”

“How is that possible?”

“No need for it,” she said as she leaned down to uncleat the bow line.

Completely taken aback, he froze, staring at the back of her head as she bent down. He’d never met anyone who didn’t have a cell phone. It was beyond strange.

And totally fascinating.

She stood up and made her way to the stern line.

Shift gears, Erik. Figure out another way to find her or you’ll lose her.

“Your name’s Laire Cornish, and you’re from Corey Island.”

“That’s right.”

“So, even if you refuse to go out with me, I know where to find you.”

She was bending down to uncleat the rope at the back of her boat, but she jerked upright to look at him, all humor wiped clean from her face. “You wouldn’t!”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Wouldn’t I?”

“Please don’t come looking for me,” she said.

“Why not?”

She shook her head, looking exasperated as she reached down and unknotted the rope. “It’ll make trouble.”

“Trouble? I’m the governor’s son! I’m not allowed to get into trouble. You’ll be safe as a baby lamb with . . . with . . .”

“A wolf,” she muttered, tossing the line onto the boat and giving him a look as she walked around him and bent over the bow cleat.

“If you say no,” he said, the unfamiliar taste of desperation making his voice edgier than usual, “you’ll leave me no choice. I’ll be forced to come lookin’ for you.”

“Please don’t,” she said again, her eyes worried.

She frowned at him, then threw the line onto the bow and jumped onto the boat.

“I’ll start at the post office,” he said, stepping closer to her boat, “because they’ve got everyone’s address. And if they don’t have yours for some reason, I’ll go to the—”

“Don’t,” she said, plucking a key from a compartment by the wheel and turning over the engine.

He felt almost frantic. This cannot be the end. No. Absolutely not. He wanted to hear her voice again—the strange, lovely lilt of her unusual accent. He wanted to know more about her: who she was, what her life was like. He wanted to figure out why he felt so drawn to her. He wanted to touch her, make her smile, make her laugh. There was too much he wanted, and without her digits, how could he get in contact with her? Fuck! He couldn’t just let her go.

“I will find you!” he cried over the roar of the engine. “That’s a promise, Laire Cornish!”

“Damn it to hell and back!” she yelled. “Fine! You win!”

He stepped closer, reaching out to grab the salt-stained chrome railing on the side of the boat. “Wait, that’s a yes?”

“Tomorrow night,” she said, frowning at him. “I’ll be at the Pamlico House. Eight o’clock.”

“Ha! Yes!” he yelled, a triumphant fist raised high. “Okay, then!”

He couldn’t help the smile that widened his lips to the point of aching until he stood there chuckling. This wasn’t the last time he’d ever see her. The boat started leaning away, and he let go of the railing just before it pulled him into the water. He raised his hand to wave to her, excitement making him feel uncharacteristically giddy.

“See you tomorrow, Freckles!”

She nodded, her eyes both annoyed and troubled as she backed the boat away from the dock without waving good-bye.