is not a good time for jokes.”
“Fine. No problem. Can I ask where we’re going?”
She stared out the window, bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“You said we need to talk.”
“Yes.”
“You want privacy for this discussion?”
She swallowed hard, nodded. “Yes.”
“Fine. My dad’s old boathouse is empty and I have the keys. You know where it is?”
She did. She passed it every day on her way to and from work. She didn’t bother to answer, just stepped on the gas and carried them out of town and down River Road in record time.
She parked the car in the lot and hopped out, crossing the rutted dirt and gravel in long strides, letting her anger build as she waited by the door. For a second she realized that if anyone were watching—and in Comeback Cove, that was more likely than not—then the gossip network would soon be buzzing with the news that she and J. T. Delaney had been alone together in a deserted building.
Well, that would be one way to get folks to stop calling her the Young Widow Brewster.
It took J.T. a minute to find the right key, another couple of tense seconds to convince it to work in the stubborn lock, but at last the door was open.
“Careful,” he said as she stepped inside. “I haven’t been in here yet. It might not be in the best shape.”
His warning was justified. Standing behind her in the half-open door, J.T. blocked a good deal of the sunshine from outside. Dust motes danced in the weak light of the sole unshuttered window, drifting slowly down to earth. Deep shadows hovered outside that small patch of light. The mingled scents of grease and gas and the sound of water lapping at boards reminded her that this was a boathouse—meaning one wrong step in the unfamiliar darkness could land her in even deeper water than she faced already.
“Hang on.” J.T.’s voice, low and subdued behind her, was oddly reassuring considering he was the reason for her misfortune. “I doubt there’s any electricity, but I’ll try the light—wait—no, nothing. There should be a flashlight up on the shelf. Just give me a...”
The door slammed closed, plunging them into darkness.
Lyddie yelped. J.T. cursed.
“Don’t move,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Let me get the door open again.” He moved slowly behind her. Something warm—a hand, probably—grazed the small of her back. And all of a sudden, it wasn’t nervousness about the dark and the water that was making Lyddie’s heart do double-time in her chest.
For the first time in four years, she was alone in the dark with a man. And all she could hear was Zoë’s voice, laughing on the phone, telling her to jump him.
Oh. Dear. God.
Four years of zero interest in anything sexual ended in the space of a breath. Every erogenous zone roared back to sudden, urgent, demanding life.
She must have made some sort of sound, for in an instant he stopped his slow walk.
“Mrs. Brewster? Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Except she kept remembering the way he had looked when he first walked into the shop, before she knew who he was. And the way he grinned. And the slight suggestion in his voice when she told him to get in the truck and he said he liked a woman who took charge.
Most of all she kept feeling that touch on her back, over and over. Heat pooled low in her belly. Her skin prickled with awareness. Even without contact she felt him moving. Every hesitant footfall echoed through her, pulling her focus back to that spot where she could still feel him. And each time it replayed in her mind her breath came a little faster.
“You’re sure you’re okay? You sound like you’re hyperventilating or something.”
Hyperventilating? More like panting with excitement. All she had to do was turn around and he would be there.... It could happen. It would be so easy. In less than a heartbeat she could be running her hands up that chest, pulling his shirt up to feel hot flesh against her, around her, maybe even in her....
“Lydia?”
“I’m fine. Really.” At least she would be, if ever there was some light to break this spell. “Can you find the door?”
“Hang on. It’s a little stiff. One good shove should—there!”
With a grunt from him and a squeal from the hinges, the door gave way. Light poured back in. Lyddie squinted against the brightness and saw J.T. outside, hunting on the ground, then propping a rock against the door.
“There.” He brushed off his hands and stepped back inside. “Sorry about that. Caught me by surprise.”
He wasn’t the only one.
“It should stay open now, but if you’d rather go someplace else, I wouldn’t blame you.”
“No, I...” Oh, great. She was so befuddled from the hormone surge that she could barely remember why she’d brought him here. Was this how it felt to be a man, left temporarily brain-dead when the blood headed south?
Breathe, Lyddie. You are not some idiot teenager in the middle of her first infatuation, you’re a grown woman with an adult job in front of you. Get with the program.
“It’s hot in the sun. Let’s stay here.”
“You’re sure? I don’t dare offer you a seat. I didn’t expect it to be so dusty. It’s not the way I remembered it.”
For a moment she forgot about the sale. This was the first time he’d been in his father’s boathouse since Roy’s death. Probably the first time he’d been here in twenty-five years.
Her heart ached for him. She knew all about those firsts.
“I’m sorry. We can leave if you’d rather.”
He shrugged, but without any of the cockiness she’d noticed in their earlier encounters. “I had to come back sometime.”
That he did. And that, too, she understood, all too well.
“So what was on your mind?”
She dragged her gaze away from his face—that way lay danger, which she could tell by the low current of warmth still humming through her when she looked at him—and focused on the patch of sunshine in the far corner.
“I called my lawyer today. I asked him to read over my lease and see if I had any rights of first refusal on the property.”
“You don’t. I already checked.”
Give the man credit. At least he wasn’t gloating.
“I know that
