They both had dark brown hair and wide shoulders. Both wore cargo shorts that showed off strong calves dusted with dark hair. Brothers or cousins maybe, as the hard lines of their jaws were exact replicas, though one of the men was taller and had a dark tan that set him apart. The other wore cute wire-rimmed glasses and held his mouth in a far more serious line.
The tanned one turned his head in the direction of Chloe and Jenn, and he hesitated a bit over his next step, probably surprised to find he had an audience. Still, he didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable as he jogged up the steps to the porch, the movement smooth despite the big duffel bag thrown over his shoulder.
Before the men had even disappeared through the door, Jenn’s head whipped toward Chloe. “Holy smokes! Do you think it would be wrong to have a torrid affair with twins?”
“You think they’re twins?”
“Close enough that I could pretend.”
Chloe rolled her eyes, choking on laughter. “If you take both of them, who does that leave me with?”
Jenn sat up, dropping her bare feet to the floor as she took off her shades to meet Chloe’s gaze. “Are you interested? I’ll let you have both if you’re serious.”
“Why?”
“Because you need to cleanse Thomas from your palate.”
Blood rushed to Chloe’s face, though she didn’t know why she felt shy.
“You need to,” Jenn insisted.
“No one wants to date an infamous Bridezilla. I’m kryptonite to the male sex drive. After the first date, a man would expect to wake up and find me standing at the foot of the bed in a tattered wedding gown, rattling a pair of leg shackles.”
“So this is the perfect place. No one here knows who you are.”
Chloe shrugged and slipped her feet into her sandals. “Those guys aren’t from the island. For all we know they could be paparazzi.” She regretted her flip words when her friend’s eyes widened with alarm.
“You think they’re paparazzi?”
She glanced toward the cabin again, thinking of the healthy glow of the taller man. “No, I was just being rude. Those guys look way too healthy to be paparazzi. But as for dating…I just can’t do that.”
“So you’re never going to date again?”
Despite the humiliation burning through her chest, Chloe had to smile at the worry in Jenn’s voice. “It’s only been a month. I’ve got some new trust issues, Jenn. That’s what happens when your fiancé fakes his own death just to get away from you.”
“Thomas was obviously enormously screwed up.”
“Yeah, it seems so clear now.” Chloe let herself relax back into her wooden deck chair. “He was nice before though, right? That wasn’t my imagination.”
“Yes, he was nice, but—”
“So there’s another issue I’m trying to figure out. If he’d really been so nice, he would’ve at least called me after he faked his own death and humiliated me in front of the entire world, right? He’s never even called. Though his mom left me a couple of messages this week. Maybe he talked her into calling for him.”
Jenn cringed and swallowed hard, so Chloe forced a smile. “There’s no hope for me, Jenn. I can’t handle a pair of hot twins right now. You go on without me. Save yourself.”
Jenn opened her mouth as if to argue, but after a moment, she took a deep breath and shook her head. “So I can have them both?”
“You’re such a faker. You’ve only had sex with two guys in your whole life. Individually. I don’t think you’re ready for a threesome.”
“Shut up. You’re ruining my fantasy. And as you pointed out, fantasy is all I have most of the time.”
That was true. Jenn, who was willowy and beautiful and outgoing with her girlfriends, became a nervous wreck around men. A threesome was definitely not in her future. In fact, she was blushing already, just from talking about it.
Chloe rolled her shoulders and stood up, amazed that her neck had lost the ache that had resided there for the past month. “We’re both pitiful and hopeless, so we may as well have those cheeseburgers. The seagulls won’t give a damn what we look like in our bikinis.”
Jenn slipped on her flip-flops while Chloe grabbed her wallet, and they headed off across the sand, not bothering to pretend they weren’t trying to look into the men’s cabin as they passed. “They’re probably a couple,” Chloe murmured.
“I was serious about you going for it,” Jenn said. “Not with both of them, but at least one.”
“It’s not going to happen.”
“You need some fun, Chloe. I can’t stand seeing you this way. Screw Thomas. Live it up. Be Island Chloe!”
“Island Chloe, huh?” She shook her head in resolute denial. Her life was crazy enough as it was. “It’s not in me. Not right now.”
“Just…keep an open mind.”
Two minutes later they were standing in front of the rough gray walls of the bar, brushing sand off their feet.
“This place is great,” Jenn assured her. “It’s packed during tourist season. We used to swipe beers off tables and hang around on the deck.”
Nobody was on the seaside deck today, but the locals probably got tired of ocean views and sun.
When they finally walked in, the first thing Chloe noticed was the arctic air-conditioning. She was about to suggest that they sit outside when she noticed something else. A lot must have changed since Jenn had worked on the island ten years before. There were plasma-screen TVs in all four corners of the bar, and there was nothing static-y about the baseball games playing on any of them.
“Oh, no,” Jenn breathed.
Fields glowed in vivid green contrast to the bright white uniforms on the closest screen. “The wonders of satellite,” Chloe muttered, trying not to feel bitter, even as a familiar sense of panic boiled up in her chest.
“Chloe, I’m so sorry! I had no idea!”
“It’s not your fault, and it’s no big deal anyway. It’s just a sports bar. Nobody here cares about me.” And it was true, at least at the moment. There were only six customers in the place, and though heads turned in their direction, the games drew their attention again quickly enough.
Chloe let out a deep breath. Slowly. “Will you order while I grab a table on the deck?”
Jenn nodded and shooed her out as if there were a scrum of people at the door, all jostling for a seat outside.
Chloe spun and reached for the handle, but she froze with her hand wrapped around the cold metal. She didn’t like the fear creeping along her spine, didn’t like the panic making her fingers shake. Over the past
