Almost Paradise (Book 4) Read online

  “I hate that word,” Polly said, suddenly looking as if she’d swallowed something sour. “Cute. I think it’s preventing me from having a fulfilling love life.”

  “I thought it was the word perky that was to blame. At least that’s what you told me last week.”

  “I’ve rethought that. I’m a kindergarten teacher. Perky is part of the job description, so I can’t wish it away.”

  The barista was back. He placed Skye’s drink in front of her but was called over to attend another customer before he could strike up more conversation. She blew out a relieved breath that disturbed the froth of foam layered over her drink like coastal fog. “We both know your biggest stumbling block to a fulfilling love life is Teague.” Though she’d yet to admit to it, her best friend had it bad for a man who considered Polly his best friend, too.

  The other woman’s scowl made it clear she wouldn’t be confessing today, either, even as a telltale flush crawled up her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, then pinned Skye with a stare. “What’s yours?”

  She blinked. “My biggest stumbling block? Uh...how about that I’m not seeking a fulfilling love life?”

  “Well, you’re not seeking an unfulfilling one, either,” Polly grumbled. “Why is that? You haven’t been out with anyone since giving Dalton the boot, and that was months ago.”

  “He’s been calling again,” Skye confessed, sidestepping the subject. “What makes a man unable to take no for an answer?”

  “Maybe you just haven’t found the right man to ask the question. I get that you don’t want Dalton in your life. But what if some other guy—say some other guy named Gage Lowell who insisted on having that dance the other night—came on to you and—”

  “Gage would never come on to me.” That wasn’t what had happened this morning at the tide pools, was it? They’d been side by side, gazing into the water. and then they’d been gazing into each other’s eyes.

  She’d experienced another spurt of that hot, anxious panic that made her skin burn and her heart beat too hard in her chest. Flustered, she’d had the strange idea that he was about to kiss her and something low, somewhere below her belly button, had clenched—more panic, she supposed. And even as she struggled to stay calm and dignified, her nerves had sent her staggering back.

  Foolish Skye.

  This whole conversation was foolish. “Do we only have men to talk about?” she asked Polly. “I feel as if I’m at a seventh-grade slumber party.”

  “Did I put your bra in the freezer?” her friend demanded. “Have we divvied up which member of the latest boy band will take which of us to the prom?”

  “Ah.” Skye smiled, reminiscing. “I always wanted the devilish-looking one. All the rest of the girls went for the blond or the lead that looked like he should be class president.”

  “What band are we talking about?” Polly asked, lifting her cup for a sip.

  Skye did the same. “It doesn’t matter. They’re all made up of one of each type. And my favorite was always the guy who looked like trouble.”

  Polly slid her a sly glance. “He might not be in a band, but Gage looks like trouble to me.”

  “Why do you keep bringing him up? He is the most commitment-averse man I know. He doesn’t stay in one place long enough to have two-night stands.”

  “You don’t have to have a relationship with him. My God. It’s summer. He’s here for a few weeks. Have a fling.”

  A fling with Gage Lowell? Skye felt herself flush, thinking of his tall body, his wide chest, the intense turquoise-blue of his eyes. He’d held her hand, his fingers lean and sure, and now she thought of them working at buttons, undoing clasps, baring skin. That spot below her navel clenched again, just as it had by the tide pools.

  “Think about it,” Polly continued. “It’s been so long since you’ve had sex.”

  Gage. Sex. Skye pushed her latte away, not wanting to add caffeine to her already jittering insides and that low-belly clenching. How she wished Polly had not brought it up, not put those images in her head, not made her think about all she couldn’t have.

  With anyone.

  * * *

  “I’M REALLY HERE,” Gage said as he sat on Captain Crow’s deck beside his twin, watching the daily 5:00 p.m. ritual. A man in board shorts stood at the base of a ten-foot pole poked in the sand. He blew a long blast on a football-sized conch shell. Then it was the raising of the flag—a blue rectangle of cloth printed with the internationally recognized shape of a martini glass.

  Lifting his beer, Gage toasted the fluttering scrap of fabric. “To cocktail hour.” Then he clacked his bottle against Griffin’s. “Dogs bark but the caravan moves on.”

  Griffin ignored that bit of Arabic wisdom and narrowed his gaze at his brother. “You don’t have a camera.”

  “As usual, your powers of observation are staggering. No wonder you won that big hairy prize for your reporting.”

  “Why don’t you have a camera?” his brother persisted, paying no attention to the teasing.

  Gage shrugged. He couldn’t explain to himself his disinterest in having near what for years had been an extension of his own body.

  “Something’s wrong,” Griffin said flatly. “Damn it, I knew something was wrong. I’ve known it for weeks.”

  Gage took a slow swallow of beer. “Where’s your evidence? I’m here, I’m whole—”

  “You’re without a camera—”

  “I don’t have one with me all the time.”

  “Yes, you do, unless you’re having sex. And that’s only because you told me it inhibits naked women. They worry they might become the subject of your camera’s eye.”

  “And I don’t want to waste my time with inhibited women, that’s true. Life’s too short.” He took another swig of his beer, enjoying the warm air, the cool breeze off the ocean, the happy, drinking people around them.

  Griffin stayed silent, but Gage could feel his considering stare. “And why are you just sitting there—no drumming fingers, no fidgety knees?” his twin finally asked. “I’ve never seen you sit this still your whole life.”

  “Maybe I’ve learned some patience.” Cramped quarters and no way out of them could affect a man. When his brother made a scoffing sound, he pointed his bottle at him. “You’ve changed, too. Good God, you’re engaged.”

  Griffin narrowed his eyes. “You’re avoiding my questions.”

  “Ask one that makes some sense.”

  “Why Crescent Cove?”

  Gage blinked. He hadn’t seen that coming. “You’re getting married here at the end of the month.”

  “You didn’t know that when you booked No. 9 as Fenton Hardy.”

  “Does it really matter?” The notion had been seeded by Griffin, he supposed, when his brother had told him he’d decided to take three months at the cove to write his war memoir. But Gage had to admit that there’d been something else—someone else cementing the deal.

  Even before his two weeks in hell, he’d had this itch to visit Skye-with-the-unnecessary-e. He smiled, thinking about her.

  Across the table from him, Griffin groaned. “All right, who is she?”

  “Who is who?”

  “You’re thinking about some girl. You’re thinking about boning some girl.”

  Gage frowned. “Don’t say it like that.”

  “That’s how you always say it.”

  “You want me to talk that way about you making love with your Jane?”

  His brother hooted. “You’re calling it ‘making love’ now?” His two fingers put little scare quotes around the term. “And by the way, if you insult Jane in any way, shape or form, I’ll kick your ass. And then she’ll do it all over again, only harder. And with sexier shoes.”

  “Whoa,” Gage said, tilting his head. “You’ve really fallen for her.”

  Griffin’s expression softened. “Best thing that ever happened to me. I was...messed up when I got back. She helped me find my balance again. She is the balance
.”

  Gage nodded. Griffin’s yearlong experience embedded with the troops in Afghanistan had been harrowing, he’d known that.

  His brother hesitated, took another long swig of beer, hesitated again. “I’ve been seeing a counselor.”

  “Finally,” Gage said, faking relief without missing a beat. “Good to know you’re getting some professional assistance for that little premature ejaculation problem you’ve always had.”

  Griffin’s grin broke quick, felt sweet. “For PTSD, smart-ass.”

  Gage merely nodded, careful not to offer judgment or advice. “Helping?”

  “Yeah.” Then he grinned again. “Though regular sex isn’t bad for the cure, either.”

  “Which reminds me,” Gage said, frowning. “Did you have to tell Skye about the Gage Gorge? Jesus!”

  His brother laughed. “I don’t remember relating that odd little quirk of yours.”

  “It’s not a quirk. It’s a...it’s a...” He glared across the table. “You like sex, too.”

  “Yeah, and committed sex is the best there is,” his twin said, smug.

  “Oh, come on.” It was Gage’s turn to scoff.

  “Think about it. You get to know her magic switches and it’s a sure thing time after time after time.”

  “Sounds boring.”

  “Oh, it can be a fast bump or a slow ride and everything in between. I set up these little challenges for myself. Forty-five minutes of just kissing, say, or using only my index finger to get her off. My ultimate goal is to take her there by hot whispers and above-the-waist touches only.”

  “Now, that just sounds like work, bro.” Though he shifted in his chair, finally restless.

  “Not when you’re doing it with someone you really care about. It’s the one-night stands that sound like work after that.”

  Without Gage’s permission, images formed in his mind—not of Griff and Jane, thank God—but of dark hair and green-and-amber eyes, delicate breasts and a spectacular booty. Then he saw himself closing in for that kiss and the way Skye had leaped away from him—as if he were toxic.

  As if she was spooked.

  “There were some physical problems.”

  She’d said that, and he’d gone all caveman, ready to bust Dagwood’s chops if he’d hurt her—which she’d denied. So why had she said it?

  He turned to his brother, in sudden critical need of an answer. “What’s it mean when a woman claims she and a man had some ‘physical problems’?”

  And this time it was Griffin who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—reply. And Gage who felt in his gut that something was very, very wrong.

  * * *

  THE SUN WAS LOW IN THE SKY when Skye stepped outside her cottage to the miniature lemon tree planted in a pot near the side of her house. Fresh citrus slices would keep moist the piece of salmon she was planning to grill on a cedar plank. She wrapped her fingers around one of the ripe fruits, then yelped when a man suddenly came around the corner.

  “Dalton!” She clutched the lemon in both hands at chest level, over the startled beat of her heart. “What are you doing here?”

  He was handsome, well built if not tall, smooth-looking in a summer-weight suit, white shirt and gold-and-brown diamond-patterned tie that mirrored the dark honey of his hair and eyes. “A man can’t visit the beach on a summer evening?”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  His smile was white. A little rueful. “A man can’t visit the woman who unceremoniously dumped him on a summer evening?”

  “I didn’t—”

  Now he raised a brow.

  Skye pressed her lips together, wishing she could honestly deny it. Still, their relationship had been more of the casual dating kind, as opposed to steady and heading for something more. At least to her mind. It was only after she’d said she wouldn’t see him any longer that he’d appeared so seriously interested.

  He put a foot on the pathway to her front door, even as she pressed her shoulders against its pink-painted wood surface. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked.

  She’d not willingly allowed any man into her place in months. “I’m just getting ready to fix dinner,” she said.

  He waited as if he thought she’d extend an invitation, then shrugged. “I’ll take you out. We can go to that place in Laguna—”

  “Dalton, we’ve been through this.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense!” Frustration puckered his forehead. “We were going along just fine, seeing each other a couple of times a week. We were even talking about catching some spring season training games in Arizona.”

  Dalton took his Dodgers baseball very seriously.

  “I know. And I’m sorry that it seemed so...abrupt. You’re a very nice man—”

  “Then how come you gave me the big heave-ho?”

  Apparently Dalton had run across little rejection in his life. He didn’t take it very gracefully, that was certain. Though to be fair, her goodbye had come without warning.

  “I don’t know what else to say—”

  “Maybe it’s time to stop talking,” Dalton said, striding up the pathway toward her. “Maybe it’s time I reminded you of a few things.”

  Skye froze, even as an unnatural fear rose like bile in her throat. Dalton won’t hurt me, she told herself. Dalton would never hurt me. But he was still coming toward her, the light of sexual intent in his gaze. Even the briefest contact would be intolerable.

  When he reached for her, she let out a strangled cry. The tang of lemon filled the air and then Dalton was leaping back, cursing at the juice that had streamed onto his slacks and shoes.

  Looking down, Skye realized she’d throttled the innocent citrus, the skin and pulp crushed in her fingers.

  “What the hell, Skye?” Giving her a fulminating look, Dalton stepped forward again.

  “Is there a problem?” a new male voice asked.

  She whipped her head to the left. Gage was stepping across her side yard, a white sack in hand, dressed in those olive cargo pants he’d had on earlier, and a T-shirt so faded the words on it were undecipherable. “I... Please,” she said.

  Please, what? She didn’t know; she didn’t know anything beyond how glad she was for the interruption. Her stomach was queasy again, her brain dizzy from lack of oxygen.

  “Gage Lowell,” he said to the other man, one of his big feet coming between her and Dalton. It made her ex step back, though he took the outstretched hand.

  “Dalton Bradley.” He grimaced, like maybe Gage’s grip was a little too strong.

  But Gage’s smile was easy as he looked back at Skye. “I hope I’m not late.” At her blank stare, he added, “For dinner?” Then he swung the white bag at eye level. “I brought dessert.”

  “Oh. Um...”

  Gage snaked a long arm around her to turn the knob and open the door. She took an automatic step back and he followed her in, causing her to move farther along the entryway. “Nice to meet you,” he said to Dalton, and then shut the door on his surprised expression.

  Next, Gage turned, and his gaze ran over Skye, surveying her face, her hands that were filled with the pulverized lemon, her bare feet, their toes curled into the hardwood floor. “Relax, honey.”

  When she just stood there, he rattled the bag again. She blinked. “Breathe, Skye. Breathe, honey.”

  And she found she could. Even with a large, masculine presence standing so close. In her house.

  “Do you have any wine?”

  “You like wine?” she asked, dubious. “Aren’t you more a beer type of guy?”

  “I like both.” He shrugged. “But the wine’s for you. You look as if you need a little something to settle you down.”

  She couldn’t argue with that, so she led him farther into her home. Once they got to the kitchen, as she disposed of the lemon and washed her hands, he stowed his bag in the freezer. Then he rummaged around for glasses and found the three-quarters-full bottle of chilled sauvignon blanc in her refrigerator. Directing her to sit at o
ne of the two stools pulled up to the breakfast bar, he placed a glass in front of her.

  The one he held in his hand was clinked against the rim of hers. “If you deal in camels, ensure that your doorways are high.”

  That shook her out of her bemused stupor. Blinking, she tilted her head. “What?”

  “It’s an old Afghan proverb.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “How the hell do I know?” He grinned, then nudged her wine closer to her hand. “Maybe something about making sure an ex stays out of your life.”

  “I didn’t ask him to stay in it,” Skye protested.

  “The lemon was a good touch. He didn’t look pleased about having a trip to the dry cleaner’s in his future.”

  “He’s harmless.” Except that the confrontation had left her sick and shaking, because of the exaggerated fear she’d experienced for the past few months. Maybe she should have found some way to explain it to Dalton, but her violent dislike of a male touch humiliated her. Shamed her. Made her feel less than a woman.

  “So, are we really having sea lettuce salad for dinner?”

  She opened her mouth, about to tell Gage she’d been joking about the invitation at the tide pool. But why not let him stay? At least if Dalton took it in his mind to return again this evening, Gage would be available as bodyguard. “I have salmon steaks, too,” she said, “but we’ll need another lemon.”

  The aftereffects of the unpleasant encounter with Dalton lasted through dinner. Gage didn’t seem to mind her quiet mood, however. Instead, he kept his distance and moved efficiently about her kitchen, doing his half of the work to throw together the meal.

  Afterward, he ushered her into the living room and took one corner of the couch while she took the other. Another glass of wine was in each of their hands. “What did he want?” he asked, his voice casual.

  “Can we not talk about him?”

  “He’s got you twitchy.”

  She didn’t want to tell him every male had her twitchy. “I don’t understand why he seems to want me so much more now that I broke it off.”

  “He thinks you’re playing hard to get.”

  “Whoa.” Irritation burned off the residual of the day’s disquiet. “Then I’m actually starting to dislike him. He should know me better than that. I’m not into games.”