clock had never gotten the message and was set for Annoyingly Early. Having spent a good number of years in Los Angeles, she never got tired of taking in the gorgeous landscape that was Lucky Harbor. The place was cradled between the Olympic Mountains and the gorgeous Pacific Northwest rocky coast, and she loved walking here. “It’s peaceful,” she said. “Safe.”
“Not so much on the dock this morning.”
“No,” she agreed, taking in the way he smiled and how it caused her to as well.
“You took jumping my bones to a whole new level,” Cole said.
Before this morning, she’d never had the occasion to speak to him directly, nor had she ever given him much thought. He was just a guy she occasionally caught glimpses of, in his company T-shirt and his low-slung cargo shorts with all the pockets, usually with tools sticking out of them.
Liar, the devil on her left shoulder said. He’s big and built, and when you watch him work on the boat in those shorts where all his goodies aren’t necessarily relegated to his pockets, you give him plenty of thought…
It’s okay, the angel on her right shoulder said. He’s a really great guy. All techno-geek with some alpha mixed in. It’s natural to think about him.
Naked? the devil asked. Can we think about him naked?
“If it helps, I think my rescuing days are over,” Olivia told him, shoving aside her inner voices.
“Nah. You’d jump in again if you had to,” he said, sounding confident.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because you took a flying leap for me, a perfect stranger,” he said. “Without even thinking about it.” He was staring into the pot of water like it couldn’t boil fast enough for him, and a whole new layer of emotion hit her.
Embarrassment.
Olivia had a lot of experience with not being wanted. Too much. Suddenly antsy to go, to get away from the boat and that horrible feeling of déjà vu, she started to get up.
But Cole’s gaze lifted and pinned her in place with the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. “Stay still a few more minutes,” he said.
“It’s you who has a bump on your head,” she said.
“Trust me, I’ve had a lot worse.”
“And your shoulder?”
He ignored this. “Can you feel your fingers and toes?”
With him studying her carefully, she could feel every single inch, thank you very much, not to mention certain erogenous zones. “I can feel irritation at your bossiness,” she said. “Does that count?”
He grinned. “That’s a good start.”
She didn’t bother to roll her eyes. “You seem pretty at ease with a woman’s irritation,” she noted, curious about him, which was unusual in itself. Since moving to Lucky Harbor, she’d done a lot of keeping to herself, and other than making a habit of staring at Cole every chance she got, very little noticing of the opposite sex.
“A woman’s irritation doesn’t scare me much,” he said. “I’ve got three sisters. I grew up in the House of Estrogen.” He shrugged a broad, bare shoulder. “I’m good at inspiring whole new levels of irritation.”
She couldn’t imagine that to be true. He was easygoing and laid-back, and he had a way about him that inspired confidence. Or at least the sense that with him around, everything was going to be okay.
“How about you?” he asked. “You have family around who are a pain in your ass, too?”
She nearly let out a laugh, but it’d have been a manic one so she kept it to herself. Besides, his statement had been made with a small, affectionate smile. He clearly loved his family, pain in the ass or no. Explaining her situation would be like trying to describe life on Mars. Easier to simplify. “No,” she said. “No family around at all.”
Which, for a big, fat lie, was pretty much also the truth.
His smile vanished, and she looked away before she could catch any sort of sympathy in his gaze. She didn’t want that. She didn’t deserve that.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “That sucks.”
Look at that, she needed to give herself a pedicure. Her pale purple toenails—complete with a few randomly placed white daisies—were peeking out from the blanket, and were chipped. The silver ring on her left second toe sparkled, though. Her agent had given it to her on her fifteenth birthday, only one year before Not Again, Hailey! had been canceled and everyone in Olivia’s—Sharlyn’s—life had deserted her. She pulled the blanket in tighter, suddenly feeling very naked. “You mentioned some spare clothes?”
“Yep.” Cole poured hot water from a pan into a mug. “How do you take your tea?”
“Laced.”
He smiled approvingly and bent low to a cabinet, coming up with a bottle of brandy. He doctored up her tea and brought it to her. “Hang tight.” He vanished through a door and came back a moment later. “Try these,” he said, dumping some clothing in her lap.
He still wore only the towel wrapped low on his hips. He had to be cold, but was seeing to her well-being first with the tea and clothing. It’d been a long time since anyone had catered to her needs before their own. A really long time. And even then it’d been because something was expected of her.
Not Cole. Not appearing to expect a damn thing, he hunkered down before her, hands on the bench on either side of her hips as he looked at her—not at her body, but right into her eyes. “Can you move your limbs now?” he asked. “Or are you still stiff with cold?”
She stared at him as she felt her hardened heart roll over in her chest and expose its tender underbelly, shocked at the way her throat tightened so that she couldn’t speak.
If she lost it now, she told herself, she’d…make herself run every morning for a week.
She hated to run. She put it just behind a root canal in the list of things she hated. A root canal without drugs.
But her body apparently didn’t care, because along with the tight throat her eyes burned. Well, crap.
Chapter 4
Olivia?”
She did her best to give Cole a reassuring I’m-peachy-perfect-all-is-well smile, but she had to settle for baring her teeth because she was an inch from breaking down and she had no idea why. Oh, wait, it was because a man had just put her well-being before his own. That’s how pathetic she was. She attempted another I’m-peachy smile, just for practice.
Clearly not buying what she was selling, Cole put a hand to her foot, gently squeezing as if testing her skin temperature. “Better,” he said, and pulled a pair of thick socks from the pile of clothes he’d handed her. While she stared at him crouched at her side, he bent his head to the task and put the socks on her feet for her.
As he slid the socks up her calves, she had a moment of panic.
Had she shaved her legs? And when? Two days ago, yes? No? God, please yes.
“Unfortunately,” he said, clueless to her internal debate, “my spare clothing stash doesn’t extend to a pair of really hot boots like the ones you were wearing, so we’re going to have to improvise.” He lifted a pair of running shoes for her inspection. “Best I can do.”
“No, they’re great, thank you,” she said, but she had to take a girl moment to mourn the boots. They’d been with her since her Hollywood days. She’d gotten them from her favorite set dresser, and once upon a time they’d meant the world to her. But that world no longer existed for her, and she was nothing if not pragmatic. She refused to waste any real time grieving something as ridiculously sentimental as a pair of boots.
Most likely not holding a boot funeral in his mind, Cole rose lithely, his entire body moving upward through her line of sight like a really great movie. Wide shoulders. Hard chest. And then mouthwatering abs that made her own stomach quiver a little bit.
Or a lot.
Now the towel was almost indecently low on his hips, and she stared at those cut muscles on his sides. She had no idea what they were actually called. “Muscles that make women stupid”?
At his soft laugh, her gaze jerked up to his face. “I’m just worried abou
t your shoulder.”
“Is that why you were staring at my abs?”
“Uh—” She broke off when he snorted and before she could come up with an excuse, he vanished into the other room again. Probably to give her privacy to dress. Standing up, she was happy to put that awkward, embarrassing moment behind her, and happier still to find that her limbs were indeed working again. She dropped the blankets and considered her options. A pair of sweat bottoms that were about a foot too long for her, and no underwear. Shrugging, she slid the sweats on.
Commando.
She rolled the excess material at her waist and cuffed them at her feet. Cole had provided a T-shirt advertising some dive shop in the Turks and Caicos and a thick Navy sweatshirt. Both smelled delicious as she pulled them on, like some sort of fresh, clean detergent, but there was also a hint of something she couldn’t put her finger on. Whatever it was made her want to bury her face in the material and inhale for about a month. She was doing just that when he walked back into the room.
He arched a brow.
“I like the smell of your detergent,” she said.
He smirked, and she barely resisted smacking herself in the forehead for being so lame.
Cole had pulled on another pair of cargo pants and a long sleeved T-shirt. He was still barefoot, his hair standing up on end like he hadn’t even bothered to brush his fingers over it after pulling on the shirt. He eyed her wearing what she presumed were his clothes and smiled, sexy as all get out.
“I feel like we’re going steady now,” he said.
He had no problem talking about his feelings, joking or not. She wasn’t anywhere close to as comfortable with her own emotions, and she drew an unsteady breath rather than admit she felt the odd sense of intimacy as well. “It takes more than clothes sharing to get me to go steady,” she said.
“You did see me naked,” he reminded her with a smile.
Yes, and the image of his naked body was burned in her brain in the best possible way, not that she was about to admit that either. It was much smarter, and much easier, to give him a smart-ass smile in return.
He groaned and shook his head. “Giving me a complex,” he said, but she knew he was just playing, because something warm had come into his eyes.
Uh-oh.
“You should know something,” he said.
“What?”
“I peeked too.”
She had long years of acting more hours a day than she’d actually lived her life, and from this, she’d developed a healthy cynicism. Nothing much surprised her or caught her off guard.
But Cole did both.
He grinned at the look on her face. “You’re cute,” he said.
Okay, back on familiar ground. She’d heard this. A lot. Child stars were inevitably “cute.”
Until they weren’t.
But she wasn’t a little kid anymore, and nothing about the responses he effortlessly coaxed from her made her feel juvenile. Before she could respond, the boat shifted as if someone had come on board, and then there were male voices.
Two someones.
“Fuck me,” Cole said conversationally. “Listen, you might want to brace yourself—”
Four feet and then four long legs appeared on the stairs. Cole turned to face them and Olivia started snatching up her clothing before sinking to the bench again, out of immediate view.
“What’s up?” one of the men said to Cole. “You were supposed to call me—” There was a pause and the sound of exaggerated sniffing. “You smell like a woman. A really great-smelling woman, which can’t be. You haven’t gotten laid since the Ice Age. What gives?”
“Nothing,” Cole said, standing in a way that clearly told her he was purposely blocking her from view. “You two go get a booth at Eat Me; I’ll meet you there for breakfast.”
“No can do,” the other guy said. “We’ve got clients coming— Why is there a pair of black panties on the floor?”
From her perch on the bench, Olivia cringed. Whoops.
Cole sighed. Or at least Olivia assumed it was Cole. She was doing her best to be invisible.
“Either you’re making a lifestyle change,” the first guy said, “or you’ve had a woman in here.”
“It’s got to be the lifestyle change,” the other guy said, “because we have the no-booty-call-on-the-boat policy, and the one who breaks it has to work a week in the buff as the walk of shame.”
Horrified, Olivia stood up, and still holding her clothes—minus her panties—she took a few steps forward, wanting to clear the air about this being a booty call.
As she suspected, the two men were Sam and Tanner, Cole’s partners. She’d interacted with Sam on a few occasions, since he was engaged to Olivia’s friend and next-door neighbor Becca. Tanner she’d seen but not spoken to. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and a way of holding his body that suggested he’d had a dark life as well.
Tanner’s gaze locked on Olivia, took in her appearance, and then reached out and gave Cole a shove.
“It’s not what it looks like,” Olivia said quickly. “He fell into the water, and I jumped in to help—”
Tanner shot Cole a look of disbelief. “You had to be rescued?”
“Oh, no,” Olivia interjected. “He was fine. I just didn’t know it, so I—”
Tanner finally grinned. “Yeah,” he said to Cole. “You had to be rescued.”
“Really,” Olivia said, “he didn’t. He wasn’t drowning at all. He just fell into the water, and it was really cold and—”
“He fell into the water,” Sam repeated, as if this didn’t compute. “And it was cold.”
Cole grimaced and ran a hand down his face. “It is cold.”
For some reason, this made Tanner grin.
“Yes, very cold,” Olivia said, feeling the urge to come to Cole’s defense. “I thought he was in trouble, so I jumped in to help, and then our clothes were all wet so…” She trailed off and realized from the look on Cole’s face that she’d only made things worse. So she shut up and bit her lower lip as Cole turned back to Tanner and Sam.
“Out,” he said.
“But I want to hear more about you getting scared,” Tanner said.
“Out. Now.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll go,” Olivia said, and still gripping her clothes, she shoved her feet into Cole’s athletic shoes. They were huge on her, and she had to work at not tripping as she moved past the guys, walking like a clown to keep the shoes on. “I’ve got to get moving anyway. I’m late—”
Cole caught her arm and very gently drew her around. The scowl that had appeared along with Sam and Tanner smoothed out as he ducked down a little to look into her eyes. “Give me a sec,” he said. “And I’ll walk you—”
“Not necessary.” She pulled free. “I’m…late,” she repeated.
Olivia wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong with her. She knew she was being rude as hell, but she had this overwhelming desire to get the hell out, to get away from Cole’s warm baby blues and his yummy man smell and the way his voice sounded like smooth whiskey.
She didn’t even know what smooth whiskey was supposed to sound like.
“You look familiar,” Tanner said.
She shifted her wet things to one arm and put a hand to her still damp hair, wondering how bad she must look if he wasn’t sure. “We’ve seen each other around,” she said.
“No, I know that,” he said. “You watch us surf.”
She did her best not to turn red. “I…” Well, hell. “Yeah,” she said on a sigh. “That’s me.”
“But that’s not it,” he said with a slow headshake. “It’s something else…You ever model or act or anything like that?”
Her heart picked up speed. This sometimes happened, people almost-but-not-quite recognized her from Not Again, Hailey! Luckily, enough time had passed that it rarely happened anymore, and it’d never happened here in Lucky Harbor. This was a good thing, as she was happy living anonymously. Not in the shadow of Sharlyn’s wild and crazy
charades, but as Olivia Bentley, sole proprietor. Law-abiding citizen. “I get that a lot,” she said as casually as she could. “I have that kind of face, I guess.”