Calling Kupid (Kupid's Cove Book 1) (2 page)

“I can answer that question depending on the room you’re in - standard, queen, king, or penthouse?” He laughed and the sound went straight through my soul.

“Standard. I’m not a queen, I have no king, and I’m not a prostitute.”

He tossed his head to the side, running my words through his head. “I’m really glad you didn’t walk into the water and disappear, Penny. You have a terrific sense of humor. I would have missed it.”

He held out his hand and I laid mine in his while he helped me down the three steps to the sandy beach. He didn’t drop my hand as we walked towards the water. Instead, he held it tightly to his side, keeping me close. I started to tip into his shoulder and he bumped me back to a standing position.

I giggled. “Sorry about that, the sand is kind of hard to walk in with these shoes.”

He stopped and knelt down, pulling my heel out of the strap, first the left then the right. When he stood up again he held them out to me.

I accepted them with a grin. “Thanks, that’s not going to keep me from tipping over, but the sand is warm between my toes.”

He grabbed my other hand again and resumed the walk. “Hawaii is the best place to go barefoot. The sand is so fine it’s like walking on sugar. I’ve spent time on many tropical islands, but none are quite like Hawaii.”

“Are you a resort mogul?” I asked, the alcohol slurring my speech just a hint.

He laughed. “I wouldn’t say mogul. I have my hand in a few places here and there, but enough about me. What do you do?”

I stumbled and he righted me before I landed face first in the surf.

“Are you okay?” he asked and I nodded.

“Sorry, don’t know what happened there. I’m, ah, I’m ah, I work with books.”

“You sound unsure.”

“More like having difficulty trying to explain with all that alcohol running through my system and the beauty spread out before me.” I shook my head and the palm trees in front of me tilted at dizzying speeds “What did he put in that drink, anyway?”

“You did ask for it extra sexy.”

I groaned. “I did, didn’t I? No wonder I feel like I’m going to fall down.”

He pulled me into his arms and pointed towards the water. “Have you ever gone swimming in the dark?”

“In Hawaii?”

He winked. “We are in Honolulu.”

“Hmm, then the answer would be no.”

He took the sandals from my hand and tossed them to the sand, then kicked off his boating shoes and stepped out of his pants. I watched in fascination as his long legs slid from the material to reveal Speedos underneath. I tried to avert my eyes, but his package was blatantly obvious in the small garment.

I reached up and unbuttoned his silk shirt, one button at a time, painfully slowly. Not because I was so drunk I couldn’t make the buttons work, but because I was enjoying the sweet torture I could see in his eyes.

When the last button let the material fall open, I smoothed my hands against his muscled chest and pushed the garment down his shoulders. “Mmmm,” I hummed.

He captured my hands against his pecs. “Do you like what you see?”

“I love a man with no chest hair. It’s so….sexy.”

I tried to shake my head and get myself under control, but the alcohol had long since disarmed my common sense.

He brought his hands up into my hair and loosened the bun that held the hazel tresses in place. “And I love a woman with long hair I can tangle my fingers in.”

He did just that, wrapping my hair into his fists and gently tugging me towards him until our mouths were inches apart. He walked backwards into the surf and I had no choice but to follow. In what seemed like the blink of an eye my shorts were covered and the water hovered at the base of my breasts.

“What do you think about night swimming so far?” he asked.

“Oh, shut up and kiss me,” I moaned.

He didn’t hesitate, just crushed his lips to mine with the practiced precision of a modern day gigolo. I brought my hands up to his face and rubbed the laugh lines by his eyes, dripping water onto his glasses. He leaned back without ending the kiss and I had to grab him around the neck to keep from floating away from him. He took full advantage of my lips opening out of surprise and guided his tongue between them. I moaned when he traced the roof of my mouth. It was a long, low, I’m in need, kind of moan and I felt him go hard against my thigh.

The water lapped around us and he pulled back a hairsbreadth to speak. “Have you ever had sex on the beach?”

I shifted on his lap, causing a low groan to come from his lips. “No, the sand gets in places it shouldn’t. Besides, I’ve never actually had sex,” I giggled.

“You’re a virgin?” he ground out, his hand stilling on my thigh.

“Yes, is that bad?” I asked while rubbing his now hard trouser snake.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he moaned softly. “No, you just don’t strike me as a virgin.”

“I might be a virgin, but I’m not innocent.” I slid my hand into his Speedo to prove my point.

“Oh, sweet mother of Mary, no you aren’t.” He was almost holding his breath as he spoke. He lifted one arm from the water to point towards a grass style hut in the distance. It sat regally on tall stilts, daring the ocean to mess with it. There was a long set of glistening wooden stairs that led to the promises hidden beyond. Through the gauzy curtains, I could see a single light shining as it beckoned me toward it.

“I think that still qualifies as sex on the beach,” I breathed out as his head moved down to my chest, so his lips could kiss a pattern towards my hidden promises.

“It’s my private chalet. There’s just enough room for a king-sized bed, a whirlpool tub, and a fantastic view.”

His lips stopped at the V of my cleavage and his tongue slipped down between them making it clear just what the view would be.

“Single white female, 26…” My lip curled up and my hands hesitated on the keys. That’s such a cliché opening line for a personal ad. I could just hear my best friend’s voice in my ear, “You need to stand out amongst the other pathetic losers, Kate.” I always fussed at her when she used to call us that, but now that she’s married, and I’m not, I have to face facts. I am a pathetic loser.

Freddie thinks she’s an expert on love now. When I left her house earlier, I was secretly glad to get away from their happiness. It was suffocating me, not because I begrudged them their joy, but when you aren’t happy, it’s hard to pretend you are, even for your best friend. She said something at dinner that played through my mind on repeat.

“It’s been almost a year, Kate. You’ve got to stop thinking about what happened in Hawaii and start dating again. You were too good for him anyway.” Freddie had gone on a much longer tirade about why I had to ‘forget about that jerk in Hawaii’ and why I couldn’t ‘let him keep stealing your self-esteem’,’ but I tuned her out after the first thirty seconds. It was easy for her to say those things, but not so easy for me to do them.

Freddie resembles a Greek goddess. She’s over six feet tall, thin as a string bean and dark skinned, while I’m barely five feet tall, thick-waisted, according to that ‘jerk’ in Hawaii, and as pasty white as the snow outside my door. Frankly, that was just the tip of the iceberg of how different we are. Maybe that’s why we’ve stayed friends all these years.

My pinkie finger hit the backspace until the screen was empty and the cursor was flashing at me, scolding me for still thinking about that ‘jerk.’

I took a deep breath and started to type, again. “DUFF (designated ugly fat friend) looking for the love of her life in a personal ad because there are no good men left in Snowberry, Minnesota. Please, I beg you, call me.”

I set the laptop on the glass coffee table and lay over on the couch, my feet still touching the floor. I’m losing my mind at the ripe old age of twenty-seven; I’m sure of it. I was so desperate for a decent guy to date I had even tried speed dating, in costume. The one guy even remotely interesting fell in love with Freddie and that left me with the bald electrician or the boring accountant. I would rather be single.

I sat up and banged my head on the back of the couch a few times. I’m the youngest partner of a well-established law firm and I’m supposed to have it all together, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Other than Freddie, I have no family, no promising suitors, and no life. I feel trapped in this little town, but to leave it would be impossible.

I took a second to glance up at the small apartment and groaned. It looked like a tornado roared through it at an F5 rate. There were books, clothes, and dirty dishes strewn around the open concept kitchen and living area. I looked down at my chest and decided I didn’t look much better. I was in my sleep pants and nightshirt, but in my defense, it was eight o’clock on a Saturday night.  My shirt was a remnant from my college days at Brigham Young and had more holes than material. Actually, one of the holes now gave everyone a peep show of my left nipple.

Oh! There’s one thing I have going for me! My perky boobs. I straightened the ladies a little under my shirt, so my nipple stopped flashing the masses. I snorted into the empty room. What masses? I’m alone at eight o’clock on a Saturday night.

“Can you have a midlife crisis at twenty-seven?” I asked the only other living thing in the apartment, my cactus, King Noah, but it just stood there in silent defiance as if to say, ‘Your life sucks’.

Great. It’s official, my name is Katie P. Kupid, and I’m never going to find a guy. I’m going to be a DUFF, FA. Designated ugly fat friend, forever alone. Not that there was anything wrong with being forever alone, if that’s what you want to be, but I have a reputation to uphold. I guffawed at myself, slapped my hand on the couch a few times, and rolled my eyes.

The only person who still believed I had a ‘reputation’ was Winifred. I’ve talked about my epic ‘Netflix and chill’ college days for years. What that implied was I slept with any guy I brought back to my apartment. The whole story was a fabrication. A lie I told her to keep from thinking I was the biggest loser in the men department. Clearly, she didn’t know that in order to go to Brigham Young University you must abide by the honor code. That includes a college life of chastity. Since I didn’t live on campus, I was only loosely required to abide by it, but I’ve never been a one-night stand kind of girl. The few relationships I’ve had definitely lasted longer than that, but, in the end, didn’t leave me aching to break any code, implied or otherwise.

Once I graduated from law school and returned to Snowberry, I was far too busy with my career to worry about dating.  I was becoming a seasoned actress when it came to telling Winifred about my dates in Rochester. The truth was I usually never left my apartment. I just went to bed early and shut off all the lights. Yes, I was definitely a DUFF, a smart one, but one all the same.

I picked my laptop up in a moment of inspiration and began to type…

Gideon

“Graham!” I called from my office. “Graham, where in the hell are you?”

I knew he wouldn’t yell back, but sometimes it was amusing to try and rattle him. The man was the calmest person I’ve ever known, which is good, since I’m a ‘complete whirlwind of ‘bossitivity’, as Graham puts it.

“Don’t get your boxers in a bundle; I’m right here,” he called from the outer office. Finally, his bowtie clad body breezed through the door as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “What did you need, oh mighty one?”

I leaned on the desk and folded my hands. “I want to know who this Kate Kupid is.”

“Kate Kupid?”

I picked up a yellow slip of paper and waved it in the air. “It’s in your handwriting. It says, and I quote, ‘Call Kate Kupid.’ Who is Kate Kupid and why am I calling her?”

Graham came over and took the slip of paper from me, trying to pretend it was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on it. I knew better.

“Why are you dodging the question? Just tell me who she is.”

“She’s the junior partner in the Kadlec and Cagle Law Firm. Now it’s Kadlec, Cagle and Kupid. Well, actually Kadlec has officially retired so does that make it Cagle and Kupid Law Firm?”

I waved my hand at him. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that Kate Kupid is your mother’s lawyer.”

I shook my head. “There’s no way my father would hire a female lawyer.”

Graham leaned on my desk and looked at me from under the flap of hair that always hung over his eyebrows. “If you were paying attention during the reading of the will last week, instead of playing on your Blackberry...”

I blatantly rolled my eyes. “No one uses Blackberries anymore. What decade do you live in? It’s a Samsung Galaxy. What’s your point?”

“My point is that while you were playing on your giant Rice-A-Roni box of a phone, the probate officer was reading your mother’s will.”

“Which I helped her write, so I am fully aware of what it says.”

“Then you should know who Kate Kupid is.” He stood back up and turned to go.

“All right, all right, so I wasn’t paying attention during the reading, but I can promise you that you’ve got this all wrong. There is no way my father would trust his afterlife business to a woman.”

Graham sat back down in one of the most uncomfortable chairs in my office. I kept them there to make sure no one got too comfortable and hung around. He crossed his legs and waved his preppy black leather shoe at me.

“Your father didn’t. Your mother did.”

“My mother?”

Graham rubbed his thumbs against each other. “You know, that woman we just buried next to her husband of forty years, Gideon Armstrong Sr., leaving their only offspring, Gideon Armstrong Jr., to remain a pain in my derrière.”

“A pain in your derrière? Are you actually a woman in men’s clothing?”

He flicked his hand like he was dismissing me. I leaned back in my chair, making it rock a little bit. “So you’re telling me my mom is the one who changed the will and made this Kate Kupid the executor?”

“No, I’m telling you your mom changed the will to make Kate Kupid legal counsel for Armstrong Pharmacy in Snowberry. You remain the executor of the will.”

“My father would never allow that,” I insisted, shaking my head. “He will have a freak out attack when mom joins him in afterlife matrimony.”

Graham snorted, but tried to cover it with a cough. “He’ll be fine with it. Kate is Mormon.”

My eyebrows went up in surprise. “Seriously?”

“As serious as the bowtie around my neck.”

I took a gander at what he had on today. It was foxes wearing glasses while reading books. I shook my head at him and frowned.

“Mom worked with Kadlec since my father died; why the sudden change? Do you think it was just because she’s Mormon?”

“Kadlec was retiring, which meant your mom had to find a new lawyer. She said something to me not too long before she made the change that made me pause.”

I gave him the ‘out with it’ motion with my hand, as he gloated. He had knowledge I didn’t, and he was enjoying it.

“She said if she was ever going to get a grandchild she was going to have to prod you along in the dating department.”

“So she’s hooking me up from beyond the grave? What good does a grandchild do her now?”

He shrugged and picked some imaginary lint off his pants. “She told me all this before the cancer. I got the feeling she was going to arrange a way for the two of you to meet, but she got sick too quickly.”

I didn’t like the idea that my mom was trying to set me up with someone. Penny’s face flashed through my mind again and I knew she was why I didn’t like the idea. She was still haunting my dreams all these months later.

I leaned on my desk. “I’m going to Snowberry, aren’t I?” I finally asked.

“Once you call for an appointment with Kate Kupid, then yes, you’re going to Snowberry.”

I curled one lip up. “Do I have to? Can’t you call her and convince her to come here?”

He laughed and stood, doing that leaning thing on my desk again. “She’s not a minion at your beck and call. She’s a woman, a very beautiful woman, who happens to be incredibly smart, so don’t be your usual surly self when you call her.”

I mimicked his words with a surly look on my face when he strode towards the door. “If she’s so smart and beautiful, why don’t you go to Snowberry?”

He leaned against the doorjamb. “Because my name isn’t Gideon Armstrong Jr. and it’s not my parents’ pharmacy.” He motioned at my phone with his finger all pointy and judgy. “Call her, now.”

I picked up the phone, holding it in my hand while I waited for him to leave. When he disappeared, I opened the internet app, rather than the phone app, and typed in the law firm name. I brought the phone closer to my face turning it left then right before laying the phone upside down on my blotter. No, no, no.
That
cannot be Kate Kupid. I picked up the phone again and stared at the beautiful sienna eyes that still haunted my dreams to this day. There was no way I was calling Kate Kupid.