Buck's Landing (A New England Seacoast Romance) (6 page)

“Charlotte? I’ll stop by to get you when I’m done.”

The young woman beamed. “I’ll be here.”

When the men were gone, Sofia went over the day’s sales with Charlotte. The snack bar did a brisk business in cones and sundaes, even with non-mini-golf customers.

Charlotte was a chatty girl, and Sofia had learned to filter out much of the gossipy prattle, but Silas’s name caught her attention as she was filing through the receipts.

“I think it’s really sweet that he likes to hang out with his sister.”

Sofia frowned. “What?”

“Oh, Silas, Mr. Wilde, was in here just before you got here. He hired Gavin to watch the store for a while so he and Theo—isn’t Theo cute? So they could go out to dinner with his sister Mallory. Theo’s from New Jersey. I think Gavin might be a little jealous of him, since he’s in college, and he’s all ripped from playing soccer.”

Sofia laughed, interrupting Charlotte’s monologue. “How do you know all this stuff?”

“I pay attention.”

Sofia grinned. “You certainly do. Keep that up, it’s a good life skill.”

Silas’s sister Mallory from New Jersey. She flushed slightly at her own jealousy.

Satisfied that Charlotte was handling the ice cream window fine on her own, she went to relieve Amy at the golf-course register. The dinner hours were sometimes slow, so she settled into her seat, picking up the novel Amy had been reading in her down time. It was about twenty years old, with a tall, dark, chiseled hero on the cover, and the title in gilded lettering. At the end of two hours, she was a good way through it.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a reader of bodice-rippers.” Silas was leaning on the chain link gate that separated the course from the sidewalk on that side. She was unreasonably glad to see him.

“I thought you had a date.” She hoped her reply sounded flip.

His eyes twinkled. “I did. Steamers and lobster down at the pound with my sister and my nephew.” He waved through to Charlotte, who’d seen him from her position at the snack bar window.

Sofia set the book down, bending its broken spine. “Do you flirt with everyone on the strip?”

Silas laughed, crossing to the cashier’s window and leaning in. “Just the pretty girls.”

“I’m sure.” She sat up a little straighter. “Are you going to make a habit of hanging out at my gate?”

“Maybe. I have another date tomorrow night,” he said with a sly grin.

“Oh?” She didn’t want to hear about it.

“I’m taking her to Blink’s for fried dough, and then I’m going to kick her ass at Skeeball down at the Funarama,” he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “But just so she doesn’t get mad at me, I’m going to win her a giant stuffed panda at the ring toss.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself,” she countered.

“Oh, I am.” He straightened, but reached out to push a stray lock of hair, gone curly in the humidity, from her cheek. “I’ll pick you up at ten-fifteen, after the course closes.”

He was gone before she even had a chance to reply.

FOUR

Silas was punctual. He knocked on her door at quarter after ten. The night was balmy, the heat soft like velvet. Sofia spent several minutes after her rinse-off in the shower stall debating whether to wear the fuchsia dress, but the threat of greasy boardwalk treats won the night.

He greeted her with a stem of gladiolus. “Hi.”

She took the flowers, lips bending up even as she fought appearing delighted. “Thank you. I’m just about ready.”

The stem was too big for any of her mother’s vases, but there was an iced tea pitcher on top of the fridge that would hold it.

Silas waited for her in the doorway, backlit by the glow of the boardwalk below. Sofia gave the flowers some water and turned to him. “Shall we?”

Ocean Boulevard was never quiet in the summer. They stepped out onto the street and were swept into the current. A pod of teenagers in band tee shirts drifted ahead of them, mugging for photos that would end up online in a heartbeat. A family passed them, the sunburnt father carrying a sleeping child while the mother pushed a baby in a stroller that looked like a spaceship. Silas reached for her hand at the fourth cross-street.

“I thought there was Blink’s Fry Doe on the agenda?” Sofia asked impishly, looking at their joined hands.

“Later,” Silas promised, leading her towards a loud neon sign. “First, a drink.”

The Salty Cod was as dark inside as the sign outside was bright. It was full, but not crowded. A four-piece cover band was crammed into one corner, a beautiful woman on lead vocals covering Bonnie Raitt. The ache in her delivery made Sofia wish she could sing. Silas waved at the bartender as they approached, then leaned in close. “What do you want?”

Sofia stretched up on her toes to look at the drafts. “Blue Moon.”

Up close, the bartender looked familiar. He caught her eye as he took their drink orders. “Sofia?”

She squinted a little as the past crept up on her again. “Decker?”

The bartender’s laugh nearly drowned out the band. “Sofia Buck back on the strip and in my bar! What are you doing back in town?”

“I…” Her glib response dried up on her tongue. Her father was dead and she was here to sell his legacy, possibly to some developer who would tear down her Grandfather’s piece of this scrap of coastline.

Decker saw the pause. “Hey, I heard about your Dad. I’m really sorry.”

“Thanks, Dex,” she said softly.

“So you two know each other?” Silas asked.

Sofia laughed. “Sorry. Silas Wilde, Dex Adams.”

Decker slid their glasses across the bar on cardboard coasters. “I know this clown. He hustled his way into a darts game a few months ago and we haven’t been able to shake him yet.”

“How you doing tonight?” Silas exchanged a twenty for the beers.

“Pretty good.” Decker mopped the wet streaks on the bar. “Can’t complain.”

“So,” Silas asked, “How do you guys know each other?”

Decker answered first. “Sofi here taught me how to kiss.” He waggled his eyebrows at her from under a worn Bruins cap. “Back when we were too young to know anything about anything.”

“Really?” Silas grinned. “Tell me more.”

“She busted my ass about having no finesse.” Decker poured a few drinks for other patrons. “Worked, too. Married a farmer’s daughter I met up at UVM. She’s a pediatrician now, and our little guy is three and a half.”

“That’s great, Dex.” Sofia had forgotten the couple of months in high school when she and Decker couldn’t keep their hands, or their mouths, off one another.

“In fact, seeing as you crafted me into the fine specimen of manhood I am today, the next round’s on me.”

Sofia blushed.

“It’s good to have you back in town, Sof.” Decker nodded at Silas. “Now, go teach this joker a thing or two, okay?”

“I think I’m jealous,” Silas whispered in her ear, “but it seems I have Dex’s blessing.”

Her flush deepened. “That’s not what that was,” she hissed.

“That’s exactly what it was.” Silas sipped the foam off his Sam Adams. “Can I get a lesson tonight?”

He was trying to get a rise out of her; she smirked. “If you win me that giant panda, you’re on.”

“I love a challenge.” Silas raised his glass. She clinked hers against it.

They left the bar after the second round, while the band was breaking. Someone was lighting Roman candles on the beach and Sofia watched the fireworks reflect over the small whitecaps at the edge of the water.

“You love this place, don’t you?” Silas’s question was gentle, but the punch of guilt and fear that rushed through was anything but.

“I loved this place,” she corrected, turning away from the pyrotechnics and moving forward. “Past tense. I had some good times, but that was a long time ago.”

She slowed on the corner of H Street, giving the orange awning at Blink’s a meaningful look, but Silas kept walking.

“Not yet. Fry Doe slows my reaction time down.” His lips grazed her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “And I have a panda to win.”

Sofia’s thoughts dried up en route from her brain to her lips. Instead, she let anticipation coast down her body, settling low in her belly.

The noise and the heat inside the Funarama were overwhelming after the cooler humidity of the boardwalk. Silas fed twenty dollars to a change machine like a professional. He scooped the quarters into his pocket. “You pick the machines, so we both know I didn’t cheat when I kick your butt.” He counted out half the quarters and handed them over to her.

Sofia picked the slightly older Skeeball machines at the end of the line. The smell of the raw plank floors drifted up as she dropped a quarter into her machine and pressed start. The balls clinked into place; the marquee lit up. Silas did the same. His smile was wolfish.

For the first few tosses, she lagged behind. She was more than ten years out of practice. True to his word, Silas was racking up forty- and fifty-point throws, tickets rolling out of his machine at a gleeful rate. She glared at his celebratory dance when his first two games bested her by well over five hundred points.

~~~

God, she’s gorgeous, Silas thought, watching her brow furrowed in concentration. He’d been paying attention and her scores were quietly improving. He’d have to step up his game; his pride was on the line. She bent to feed the machine, the long tail of her French braid trailing over her shoulder.

Her camisole hugged her breasts, teased the top of her hip-hugging denim capris. His sister would call those shoes slingbacks, or maybe wedges; Silas just appreciated the lean line of muscle and golden skin from ankle to knee. Her toenails were still painted shocking purple, and she wore a slightly tarnished ring around her pinky toe. Somehow, that dulling silver stoked the fire glowing hot and steady in his gut. She banked her first ball and squealed as it dropped cleanly into the coveted one-hundred point spot.

Sofia gave him an I-dare-you smile and picked up her second ball. Just as she tossed, he leaned over to kiss the spot behind her ear. The ball went wild, clattering into the ten-point hole.

“Cheater!” Indignity suited her. He wondered if the spots of color on her cheeks were embarrassment or arousal.

“All’s fair in war and Skeeball.” He dropped another quarter into his machine, focusing on the forty.

More than a few rounds later, Silas dropped his last quarter in. “Last round. Can you take another beating?”

Sofia tore off her strip of tickets. “Uncle. You win. For now.”

“For now?” The devilish twinkle in her eyes intrigued him. The digital calliope beckoned and he tossed three fifties in a row. Winding up for a fourth, he felt Sofia press up against him on his left side.

“I’m not that easily distracted,” he assured her.

“If you say so.” She bit his shoulder on the toss and the ball jumped two machines, rolling haplessly across the floor before coming to rest under Ms. Pac Man.

He circled her waist with one arm and hauled her close. “You fight dirty.” He’d only meant a quick contact, a little reminder of the simmering attraction between them, but Sofia held him there. She opened her lips against his, something between a moan and a purr rumbling in her throat, before rocking back on her heels. A Funarama employee was holding out Silas’s lost ball.

The boy’s eyes took an adolescent tour of Sofia’s curves. Silas took the ball with a sharp look, contemplating pinging it off the pimply kid’s skull.

Sofia missed the exchange. She was fiddling with her bundle of Skeeball tickets. “Are we turning them in now?” she asked, “Or can we play something else?”

“What’s your game?” She was surveying the game floor with the seriousness of an art collector in a gallery. There was a faint sheen of sweat at her hairline, and a stray hair that had fallen from her braid curled against her neck. Silas resisted the urge to tug the black band from her hair and let all those glossy dark brown curls tumble over her shoulders.

She chose the Wheel.

“I’m feeling lucky.” She fished in her pocket. “One last quarter. Think I can hit the jackpot?”

“Nope.” He loved watching the fight rise in her eyes, loved watching humor temper it.

“If I get it, I get all your Skeeball tickets, too. How’s that for a bet?”

“You’re on,” he said. “But if you miss, I get all of yours.”

“Done.”

When she dropped her coin into the machine and sent the light spinning along its path, Silas felt something slip into place in his heart. He wouldn’t have found her in New York, slaving away to the paper gods of justice. He wouldn’t have found her in the overpriced clubs or the dive bars his buddies favored. He wouldn’t have found her at his father’s country club in New Jersey.

She was here. And she didn’t even realize it.

“Holy shit!” Sofia jumped up and squeezed him, her giddy laughter in his ear. “I won!”