Editor's Choice Volume I - Slow summer Kisses, Kilts & kraken, Negotiating point (20 page)

“You okay?” Janet asked.

Maybe.
If he could fill the hole, yes, he’d be okay. Once again, he grabbed Janet’s arm, hauling her with him to the barn. When he’d walked out of that house with Roxann, the sight of Janet holding his iPod sent every emotion he possessed on a high-speed chase. She hadn’t just handed him the device, she understood his need to go inside himself and unwind. To relieve the stress and center himself.

Not only that, she
encouraged
it. How rare had it been to find a woman who had no expectation that he’d immediately talk about his feelings? Most times he
never
talked about his feelings. And women, at least the ones who had entered his realm, took issue with that.

But here stood quirky, dedicated Janet Fink who might be the person to fill that hollow place in his chest. If so, he’d have to step up and let her know.

Once inside the barn, he pulled the door closed and walked right up to her, his gaze steady on hers.
Step up.
“Yes. I saw that. Mike and Roxann. Yes, it was amazing.”

For years now he’d put his life on the line, trading places with hostages and jumping into mental battle with lunatics. Sure he’d saved lives, but at what cost? He’d lost a marriage to his job, not to mention a chunk of his own emotional freedom. If he continued on this path, in a few short years he’d be burned-out human flesh.

Not exactly something worth attaining. Beyond that, all he knew was Janet had been the first person he’d seen when he stepped out of the house.

She
was important. What she’d be in his life, he wasn’t sure, but he knew he wanted to experience it.

Step up.

He kissed her. A solid press of his lips as he gathered this tiny peanut of a woman into his arms, crushing her ribs, wanting to feel her heartbeat. Everyone was alive.
He
was alive. After facing a shotgun aimed at him, he’d figured out what was important.

Resisting the urge to strip her naked in this broken-down barn, he backed away from the kiss. “Here it is.” She blinked a couple of times, focused those big brown eyes on him and he decided he might just be driven to begging. “You don’t report to me. I’m in no way your superior. You report to Vic.”

“Exactly.”

He squeezed her arms. “Can you deal with the gossip? Because it’ll be raging.”

“I know. It scares the hell out of me.”

“Me too. But the gossip will die down and then it’ll be us figuring each other out. That’s what I want. I want to figure out my life with you in it. I think
that
will be amazing.”

Not a peep out of her. She stood there, her mouth partly open, her gaze leaving skid marks on his face.

He held his hands out. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’ve successfully turned stupid and it’s not so bad.”

He laughed.

“It’s not funny. Not for a second. I’ve spent years trying to be the unslut. The girl people took seriously because of her skills. I’ve been brutal to myself. And then this thing with Rox happened and I’m questioning everything.”

“Sometimes questioning is good. Is it good now?”

She hesitated, her eyes on his. “It
feels
good. Which scares me even more. I’ve always been the socially inept computer geek and you’re, well, you could talk a cow into a vacation at a slaughterhouse. In some crazy way, we balance out. So, I’m gonna say screw it and live a little. The witch twins can kiss my ass.”

Then she did that crazy monkeylike thing when she threw her arms around his neck, leaped up, wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him. Funny woman and he couldn’t help laughing, which turned out to be complicated. What with her
tongue
in his
mouth.

A squeak came from the direction of the barn door. Someone coming in.
Jig’s up.

“Ack!” the knuckle-dragger hollered.

Gavin broke away from the kiss.

“Oops,” Janet said.

“Get lost.” Gavin jerked his head toward the door. “We can handle this.”

But Vic already had his hands over his eyes. “Are you
shitting
me? Did I need to see that? I think I’m fucking blind!”

Janet grinned. “I told you his eyes would bleed.”

He shrugged. “I guess he’ll have to get used to it.”

She twisted to look at Vic. “Hear that, boss? The head-shrinker says you’ll have to get used to it. Go home to your family and leave us alone.” She turned back to Gavin, her lips curving into a wicked smile. “We might be here awhile.”

* * * * *

About the Author

Adrienne Giordano writes romantic suspense and women’s fiction. She is a Jersey girl at heart, but now lives in the Midwest with her workaholic husband, sports-obsessed son and Buddy the Wheaten Terrorist (Terrier). She is a cofounder of Romance University blog. For more information on Adrienne’s Private Protectors series please visit
www.AdrienneGiordano.com
. Adrienne can also be found on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/AdrienneGiordanoAuthor
and Twitter at
twitter.com/AdriennGiordano
.

Slow Summer Kisses
By Shannon Stacey

Anna Frazier is used to living life at 100 mph, but being downsized out of a job in the financial industry has her permanently stalled. With nowhere to
go, go, go,
Anna hails a cab to her grandparents’ neglected New Hampshire camp to plan her next move. It seems like a good idea—until she realizes there’s no takeout to be had and the boy next door has grown into a sexy but surly recluse.

Cameron Mayfield knows he can kiss his peace and quiet goodbye when Hurricane Anna blows in. She was loud and bossy as a ten-year-old—and besides developing some attractive curves, she hasn’t changed. Cam’s not looking for a relationship, especially not with a woman like Anna. He nearly broke down on that road once before. So why can’t he stop thinking about her?

It’s not long before their sizzling attraction leads to smoking-hot kisses. But as the days get shorter, Anna must decide if she’s found a new road to happiness, or just taken a detour.

25,000 words

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

About the Author

Chapter One

All it took was a minivan with a taxi sign stuck on the roof sitting in front of the camp next door to take the shine off Cameron Mayfield’s mood. He slowed his pick-up as he approached the driveway before his, which was the last on the dusty, beat-up dirt road, and cursed himself for forgetting the phone call from Jim Frazier two weeks before.

“My granddaughter, Anna—you remember her, right? She’s going to stay at the camp this summer. She’s had a tough year and she needs a little time to relax and get her head on straight. Keep an eye on her for me, wouldya?”

He didn’t want to keep an eye on Anna Frazier. He didn’t
like
Anna Frazier. Okay, so he hadn’t actually seen her since he was twelve and she was ten, but he hadn’t liked her then. She’d been uptight and bossy and really, really intense, even as a kid. He didn’t think she’d have mellowed any, and he knew for a fact he didn’t want her next door all summer.

But he considered Jim and Betty Frazier friends, despite the age difference, so he’d promised to keep an eye on their granddaughter. Then he’d promptly put the call out of his mind.

Until now.

As Cam passed by the Frazier’s camp, the minivan swung out behind him, executing a few messy turns to get turned around and headed back down the dirt road. Even if she took a bus from her grandparents’ house—where he assumed she’d started—to as far as Concord, the taxi must have cost her a wad of cash. But last he heard Anna had some fancy, high-dollar finance job in New York City, so she could probably afford it.

He pulled his truck in front of his place and killed the engine. When he looked over toward the Frazier place, he saw a mound of luggage and a smoking-hot brunette who looked like she belonged on one of those chick magazines they put next to the cash registers so normal women waiting in line would feel crappy about themselves and grab a candy bar or two. Anna had rich brown hair falling almost to her shoulders in a sleek, straight line. A tank top made of some shimmery, silky material draped really nicely over breasts he never would have guessed the scrawny ten-year-old would develop, and a pair of those things that were longer than shorts but shorter than pants hugged slim hips and showed off nicely sculpted calves. The shoes were an interesting choice, with the high wedge heel, but they did great things for her legs.

Annoying little Anna Frazier had grown up to be hot as hell. And she was going to break an ankle trying to haul in that luggage in those sandals.

Cam got out of his truck and the door slamming drowned out the curse he let loose. He wanted to sit on the dock and drink a beer, not play bellhop for a woman who didn’t have the sense to wear sneakers. But, since he’d promised Jim he’d look after her, he might as well introduce himself and take care of the suitcases at the same time.

A line of trees had been planted between the two camps decades before to give some semblance of privacy, but they were thin enough to see through and there was a well-worn path from one yard to the other. Rather than go out to the road and walk down to the driveway, he just cut through the trees and came at the Fraziers’ front porch from the side.

“You need some help?” Since she had her back to him and had been muttering under her breath, she must not have heard him coming because she jumped a foot and made a strangled squealing sound as she whirled around.

“Where the hell did you come from?” she demanded, her New England accent changed some and made a little sharper by her time in the city.

“Next door.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where I live.”

“What?” She put her hands on her hips, which did distracting things to the silky tank top. “No. Why did you sneak over here?”

“I didn’t sneak. I walked. And you really haven’t changed much, have you?”

She just looked at him a long time and he stood there and let her. He saw it on her face when she remembered him. “Cameron…something. Mayfield. You live here? Like, all the time?”

“Cam. And yes, I’m here year-round.” He walked past her and grabbed two of the four massive suitcases sitting on the walkway.

“What are you doing?”

“Stealing your clothes.” He went up the porch steps and set one case down to open the screen door. After setting them down in the middle of the small living room, he went back for the other two.

“Thank you,” she said when he walked out of the house and started past her.

“You’re welcome.” He was almost to the tree line when he remembered his promise to Jim, so he called over his shoulder, “If you have any problems, you know where I live.”

Cam walked into his house and went straight to the refrigerator for a beer. He’d spent the day helping his buddy Ron put a new roof on his garage and he was hot, thirsty and looking forward to jumping in the lake. Tomorrow was Sunday and he had a full day planned. Sleeping. Eating. Fishing. A beer or two. More eating. Sleeping.

After downing a quarter of the can in one shot, Cam flipped on the ceiling fans and turned the TV on to catch a few minutes of the evening news. It had cost him a pretty penny to have the digital cable run to their road but, unlike most of the other people around Askaskwi Lake, he lived in the house year-round and there were some things a man just couldn’t do without.

One thing he’d been doing without for a little while, though, was female company, which was probably why he was looking at a weather map on the television screen but seeing Anna Frazier’s shapely legs in those high Barbie shoes she’d probably break her neck in. The prickly personality and body that wouldn’t quit were a bad combination and Cam was afraid it was going to be a really long summer.

* * *

Anna stood in the middle of her grandparents’ camp and silently panicked. She was good at that. Anybody who happened to look in the windows would see an impeccably groomed, well-dressed woman calmly contemplating…something. But on the inside she was coming undone.

How had she ended up here, in this small camp decorated in what could kindly be described as well-worn L.L. Bean outlet circa 1978? She’d been valedictorian of her class. Excelled in college. Soared in the world of NYC finance, until it all came crashing down and she was downsized out of a job. Now she had nothing to show for fifteen years of drive and ambition but shot nerves, high blood pressure, a possible ulcer and throw pillows with forest animals embroidered on them. And some kind of fish mounted over the door.

Leaving the suitcases, she wandered through the house, strangely conflicted about the fact it didn’t look much different than it had the last time she saw it, when she was ten. The center of the camp was the living room and to the left was the bedroom and to the right were the eat-in kitchen and the bathroom. That was it.

Anna’s dad had worked in Boston and rarely gone to his parents’ camp in central New Hampshire, but Anna’s mother brought her often during the summer. The ugly, plaid couch folded out into a surprisingly comfortable bed where the two of them slept. They would eat and play and swim and then eat some more. Then came the divorce and, after that, a new stepfather who moved them to Connecticut. She’d seen her father a few times a year at his condo in Boston, but he was a busy man who didn’t make any more time for his daughter after the divorce than he had before. And she saw her grandparents in Boston, too, but had never gone back to the camp.

At least it was clean. Her grandmother had told her one of the local women cleaned it once a month so it wasn’t overly dusty or stale. And while it might be shabby and have entirely fit in the living room of the outrageously expensive apartment she’d had to give up after losing her job, it was also warm and welcoming and some of the burning in her gut cooled.

She had everything she needed here. Peace, quiet and a strong cell signal, which she’d confirmed with her grandmother before accepting their offer of the camp. She had resumes in with every major bank and investment firm in the northeast and she needed her phone and access to her email.

What she didn’t have was food. More importantly, she didn’t have any coffee. To make matters worse, she also didn’t have transportation or a strong idea of where the little general store was. Google Maps wasn’t really precise when it came to that area. She had no problem with walking into town for a few things here and there, but it was better done when it wasn’t getting dark and when she at least knew which way to start walking from the house.

She could ask her neighbor to point her toward the store and give her an idea of how long it would take to walk there and back. Her surly neighbor who’d sneered at her shoes at least twice and given her the once-over more than once.

It had been a long time, but she’d held on to the happy childhood memories of going to camp, so she remembered Cam Mayfield—the neighbor boy who’d been two years older than her. Being the only kids of that age on that side of the lake, they’d naturally spent a lot of time together, but he’d been a little mean. He was always telling her to slow down or to talk less or to sit still.

Even at ten, she hadn’t been oblivious to the fact Cam was a very cute boy. And, holy hell, he’d grown into a good-looking man. His dark hair was a couple months overdue for the barber’s chair and he was scruffy, as were his cargo shorts and T-shirt. He went well with the camp’s decor, actually—slightly scuffed outdoorsman.

A flash of movement caught her attention and Anna moved to the big sliding doors that opened onto the back deck just in time to watch her cranky neighbor walk down the dock in nothing but gray boxer briefs.

She should have turned away. He’d probably forgotten her already and the two camps were set off by themselves a little. Not being used to neighbors, he might swim in his underwear a lot. But she didn’t look away. Not while the weakening sunlight was glinting off a strong, tanned back with arms and legs that weren’t overtly muscular, but showed he didn’t sit around all day, either. He obviously worked hard for a living and, whatever he did, he did it without a shirt quite often.

For a few stolen moments, her body relaxed as she watched the gorgeous man move with long, confident strides down the wooden dock. Men weren’t something she’d had a lot of time for in recent years and her relationships tended to be with men living the same way she did, which meant sex was often as rushed as the rest of their lives. And, whether they had gym memberships or not, those men’s bodies paled in comparison to Cameron Mayfield’s.

Then Cam knifed into the lake with a perfect shallow dive and Anna snapped out of it as if the cold water had shocked her instead of him. She needed food, not sex. And if she was going to walk to get some, she needed to go soon, which meant not waiting around for him to be done with his swim and walk back to his house—with wet boxer briefs plastered to his body, which was almost too much to think about.

Anna was never one for waiting around, even in the best of times, so she opened the slider and started walking down toward the water. The camps each had their own yards and their own little stretch of pebbly beach but, as was the custom on small, rural lakes, they shared the dock.

Unfortunately, Anna was a quarter of the way down the dock when Cam slapped his hands on the edge of the wood and hoisted himself out of the water. He caught the deck with a knee and then he was standing there, dripping and mostly naked, but for the gray cotton molding itself to his body.

It took every ounce of willpower she could muster, but she didn’t let her gaze fall below his chest. It was as tan and broad as his back, of course, and keeping her eyes there was certainly no hardship.

“You need something?”

She watched him slick his hair back from his face, squeezing the water out. “I don’t have any food.”

“The whole bare-handed thing’s harder than it looks. Most people use a pole.”

“What?”

“Catching fish for your supper. It’s easier with a pole.”

Gross. As if she knew how to turn a fish plucked from the lake into a filet on a plate. “I came down here to talk to you. Get directions to the store.”

“You don’t have a car,” he pointed out as he walked past her, obviously heading back to his house.

The view from the back was so delicious Anna almost forgot what they were talking about. “I’m going to walk. I just don’t know which direction to walk in.”

“It’s three miles.” He stopped and turned back to face her. “One way. And in those shoes, I’m surprised you made it to the dock without breaking both your ankles.”

“I do have other shoes, you know. And a bathing suit, which doesn’t appear to be a staple in
your
wardrobe.”

He smiled at her for the first time and she suddenly felt a little wobbly inside. “Why make extra laundry? Strip down, take a dip, jump in the shower, then put on my sweats. Swim trunks are an unnecessary step.”

“If you call modesty or common decency unnecessary.” Was that her, sounding like a scandalized grandma? Too bad she wasn’t wearing her pearls so she could clutch them.

“You can take my truck,” Cam said, heading back up the slight incline of the yard.

“Thanks, but I can’t drive. I learned when I was a teenager, but then I went to college and discovered public transportation. I don’t have a license.”

“Of course not.” He said more, but he was mumbling and she was behind him trying to keep up, so she couldn’t make it out. “I’ll spot you some food and coffee. Make a list and I’ll drive you to the store tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“Since when?”

“You’re not very friendly.”

“And you talk too much.” He walked to his back door, then glared at her. “Stay here.”

She stood there, fuming in silence, until he returned with two plastic shopping bags, which he handed to her. “Coffee, sugar and milk. Couple of frozen pizzas and some doughnuts for morning.”

Not her usual fare, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Thank you.”

“Make sure everything you need’s on that list for tomorrow.”

“I can call a cab,” she said, because it was obvious doing her a favor was
really
putting him out.

He laughed and her fingers tightened around the handles of the bags. “Good luck with that.”