Her plan: she was going to kiss Caleb again, and it was quite possible she wouldn’t even enjoy the kiss. Wouldn’t that be a relief?
THE HOTTEST WOMAN he’d ever seen in his life was poised on the diving board, in a red-and-white, polka-dot bikini. She was also his best friend’s twenty-eight-year-old “baby” sister. And considering said best friend was standing next to him, Caleb Martin tried not to drool. It wasn’t easy. Shay White had been winding him into a tight ball of lusty need for as long as he could remember.
In fact, if not for the way Shay had rattled his cage, and the secret—albeit ancient—history the two of them shared, Caleb might not have followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Army. Shay had been the ink on the dotted line, the final nudge.
Caleb watched as she bounced on the board, as if intentionally drawing him under a spell where nothing else mattered. There was only the moment, and her on the diving board and in a bikini that, while certainly appropriate for her parents’ backyard anniversary party, showed enough skin to entice his imagination to fill in the blanks.
Another graceful bounce and her long, lithe body curved into a delicate arch. Caleb’s hungry eyes followed every last glimpse of skin, from fingertips to her shoulder-length blond hair, down to those gorgeous, fantasy-inspiring legs and all the way to her toes, as she slipped into the blue depths of her parents’ pool. His heart thundered in his chest. Shay damn near made the water boil. She damn sure made his blood boil. The woman was hotter than the late-July, Austin, Texas, sun beaming through clusters of smoky clouds.
“Always liked to be the center of attention, didn’t she?”
Caleb blinked, bringing Shay’s brother, Kent, back into focus, along with the twenty-five or so guests mingling in various poolside areas.
“Yes,” Caleb agreed, turning the iced bottle of beer cooling his hand to his lips and savoring the much-needed chill as liquid slid down his throat. “Shay was always the center of attention.” And Kent had no idea how true that statement really was for him.
“Caleb!” The warm, friendly voice of Sharon White spun Caleb on his heels and into her hug.
“Happy anniversary, Sharon,” he said. “Forty is something to be proud of.”
“Thank you, son,” she said, still hugging him, holding on to him, before leaning back to give him a thorough inspection. “And now that we’ve both retired from our teaching jobs, we plan to enjoy ourselves a bit.”
“You deserve it,” he said, thinking of how dedicated they both had been to their high school students. He’d been fifteen, Kent’s best friend, and one of Sharon’s students, when his mother—who’d been struggling to raise him alone—had died of a heart attack. Years before, Caleb’s father had been lost in a military operation overseas.
A familiar scent brought back memories of those years, of when Sharon had become his second mom. “Do you smell like sugar cookies?” he asked. “Or am I having flashbacks of you baking on the weekends?”
“You were always begging me to bake sugar cookies,” Sharon said, smiling. “Which is exactly why I baked a batch and hid them in the pantry for you. I have to do something to get you to come around to see me.” She pursed her lips at him, her sleek silver hair coiled at her neck. “You’ve been out of the Army two full months, and I’ve seen you two times if you count today. Shame on you, Caleb Martin. That’s once a month.”
Caleb hung his head, shamed indeed. “I’m sorry,” he said, regretting that his fear of running into Shay had made him avoid both Sharon and her husband, Bob. Sharon, in particular. The woman had been his rock—seen him through some secret tears and a struggle for identity. He added, “You absolutely will see me more often.”
The delicate lines around Sharon’s too-keen light blue eyes crinkled in scrutiny. In a motherly gesture, she stretched her arm and touched his light brown hair, then his jaw, her brows dipping. “You look tired.” She let out a breath, and concern kicked into a parental lecture. “You and those friends of yours are working too much. I know you want to get that skydiving business of yours off the ground, but you can’t go jumping out of planes with no rest.”
Caleb figured she didn’t want to hear that as recently as two months earlier, sleep had been a luxury, and skydiving into the bowels of hell in some dangerous country was the norm. Instead he promised, “I’m careful. But I have to work hard and get the Hotzone making a profit if I plan to stay a civilian.” And he did plan to stay a civilian, a vow—silent or not—he would never have thought possible a year before.
“Plan to stay a civilian,” came a soft, silky voice from behind him.
Shay.
“Well,” she continued, “you haven’t bothered to come see me since you got back into town—two months ago.”
Tension rippled through Caleb’s body in tidal-wave proportions, pulling him under with such force he would have sworn he was drowning in those brief seconds before he turned.
Caleb brought her into focus. Shay—gorgeous, petite, feisty little Shay, with one towel wrapped around her slender figure, tucked under her arms. With a smaller towel, she dried her light blond hair spun with the color of snow-streaked wheat that accented equally light blue eyes brimming with mischief and challenge.
“Now, Shay,” Sharon scolded, “don’t be giving Caleb a hard time.” Sharon chuckled and elbowed Caleb. “Better yet. Please. Feel free. Does my heart good to see you three kids together, stirring up harmless trouble.”
Kids? Kent and Caleb were thirty-one. Shay was a mere three years younger. Hardly kids. And any jest between Shay and him was hardly harmless.
“Both you women need to behave.” The playful reprimand came compliments of Bob White as he joined them, proudly sporting khaki shorts and a T-shirt that read Forty is the New Thirty. With his blond hair now silvery gray, he remained tall and athletic—an older, wiser version of his son.
“Cut Caleb some slack,” Bob ordered. “He’s been getting a business started.” He kissed Sharon’s cheek and then raised a hand to Caleb. “Come ’ere, boy! Give the ol’ man a hug.”
Another bear hug ensued—in a manly kind of way, of course—before Shay asked, “Where’s my hug?”
Caleb’s gut clenched, thinking of how she felt in his arms…as she had the night of her eighteenth birthday. The night everything had changed. The night he’d forgotten himself and kissed her. And if not for an interruption, he might have done a whole lot more. No. No “might.” He would have. His attraction to Shay was that strong, an attraction that only seemed to age like fine wine—get richer and more irresistible. It was a hard lesson he’d learned on the few visits home that he’d dared while enlisted.
She was in front of him now, driving him insane with her nearness. “Unless you’re afraid I’ll get you wet?” she taunted softly, her gaze sliding over his jeans and T-shirt, a contrast to everyone else’s swim trunks, shorts and various summer attire. “You aren’t exactly dressed for the pool.” She leveled him with a stare. “You do know the meaning of pool party?”
He wanted nothing more than to dive into that pool with Shay, with nothing but swimsuits between them. Exactly why he’d dressed to avoid temptation.
Bracing himself for the impact, he decided to take charge of this unavoidable hug and then make a run for the other
