Jane said, “it’s Wednesday.”
“Oh.” The bikini rubbed a spot between her brows. “I’ve lost track. Finals week, you know.”
Was testing required for the technicians at tanning salons? “You’re a student?”
“Graduate work. Marine biology.” Then she cracked up. “You should see your face! I’m kidding. I’m in beauty school.”
The young woman didn’t need to take classes for that, Jane thought. She was striking in that wide-mouthed, big-breasted way of women who were soap-opera actresses or models in Maxim magazine. “You visit Griffin often?”
“It’s Party Central, y’know? My girlfriend’s boyfriend surfs with him, so we’ve all been hanging out here. He doesn’t seem to mind.”
Which seemed to also verify he wasn’t hard at work on his manuscript. Figuring he’d had enough time to take care of the liquor delivery, Jane excused herself and went in search of him again. It took a few minutes to determine he wasn’t in the galley-style kitchen, any of the bedrooms, the bathrooms or even the garage that housed another gathering of partiers clustered around a table set up for beer pong. On her second search, she discovered that somehow he’d gotten past her and was now stretched out on a lounge in a corner of the deck, his eyes closed once again. His fingers were curled around a fresh bottle of beer.
He might as well have been alone.
Jane didn’t let that deter her. Instead, she dragged a molded plastic chair to his side and plunked herself onto its seat, tucking her wild hair behind her ears. Not a single male muscle twitched.
With a huff, she sent him a pointed look, but that didn’t appear to pierce the bubble he’d erected around himself either. Though she supposed waiting him out would give her the upper hand, she didn’t have that kind of patience. His deadline was at stake. Her reputation.
She huffed again. “Griffin.”
Only his lips moved. “Honey-pie.”
Her back teeth ground together. “Look, I’m here because you told your agent you were interested in someone helping you with your manuscript. That’s what I do.”
When Griffin didn’t respond, she raised her voice. “I’m a book doctor,” she said. “My name is Jane.”
That prodded him a little. His eyes opened a slit. They closed again as one corner of his mouth ticked up. “Of course it is.”
She ignored his amused tone. It wasn’t an unusual reaction, after all. She looked like a Jane. Her brother Byron—as serious and renowned a scientist as their father—had the wild and dramatic appearance corresponding to his literary namesake. Her other overachieving brother, Phillip Marlowe Pearson, could pass for a hard-boiled detective, though as a medical researcher he was much more interested in running DNA tests than running down criminals. Just like them, her name matched her exterior. Her dishwater-blond hair, her pleasant but unremarkable features, her plain gray eyes all said—in a restrained, ladylike hush—Jane.
If her mother hadn’t died when she was still an infant, Jane might have asked her why she hadn’t made a more exotic choice for her only daughter’s given name. Would she have looked different if she’d been called Daisy or Delilah?
However, Jane had an inkling that Griffin Lowell would be attempting to ignore her even if she looked like Scheherazade. And the one who had stories to tell was the man on her left. “About your book…” she started.
“I can’t talk about that at the moment,” he said.
“Why? You don’t look busy.”
His lashes remained resting on his cheeks. “I have guests.”
“Who have found their diet cherry cola,” she pointed out, inexplicably annoyed as she glimpsed that particular woman at the other end of the deck. When she bent over to brush some sand off her calf, her bountiful chest nearly escaped its triangular fabric confines.
“She doesn’t look like she needs to watch her weight, though, does she?” Eyes wide open now, he was looking in the same direction as Jane.
“I wouldn’t care to opine,” she said.
He snorted. “You even sound like a governess.”
She smiled at him. Thinly. “All the better to get the job done.”
“Yeah?” The picture of nonchalance, he folded his arms over his chest and crossed his legs at the ankle. “I think your luck would improve if you’d loosen up a little. Why don’t you go inside and track down a swimsuit. Pour yourself a drink. Then we’ll talk.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, willing, for the moment, to play along. “And you’ll be right here when I return? I have your word on that?”
His gaze slid off to the side. “Let’s make an appointment for next week.”
As if. After meeting him and seeing the setup he had here, she was only more determined not to allow him another inch of wiggle room. His agent was right. The man was in serious denial. “You’ve got to get to work immediately, Griffin, or you won’t make your deadline. The first half of the book is due at the end of the month.”
He ignored that, his gaze fastened on the label of the bottle in his hand. “Book doctor, huh? You know your way around vocabulary and grammar?”
“Yes, though I do more than—”
“So you really know your stuff?” he asked. “Can you spell humulus lupulus? Do you have a familiarity with Saccharomyces uvarum?”
She held on to her patience. “Unless you’re writing a treatise on beer, specifically lagers, I don’t think either of those terms will come up.”
He paused as if vaguely surprised, then he gave a slight shake of his head. “Fine. Let’s talk serial commas, then. Please state your views on their usage.”
Really, the man could make a woman start to consider serial murder—beginning with him. “The serial comma, also known as the Oxford or Harvard comma, refers to the punctuation mark used before the final item in a list of three or more. It’s the standard in American English—”
“According to who?” He bristled.
“Whom,” she corrected. “And it’s according to The Chicago Manual of Style.”
“But—”
“Though that’s for nonjournalistic writing,” she went on, ignoring his interruption. “I’m aware reporters like yourself follow the AP Stylebook, which recommends leaving out the comma before a coordinating conjunction.”
He was silent at that.
She waited a beat. “Did I pass the test?”
“Look.” He sounded exasperated. “I just want to be left alone.”
She gazed around her, taking in the half-dressed beautiful beach people who were drinking his booze and crowding his deck as the sun slid toward the horizon. “Your need for solitude
