Feel the Heat: A Contemporary Romance Anthology (26 page)

G
rant stood
in the covered portico of the hotel’s circular drive, waiting for the rest of the group to arrive so they could take a taxi into Antigua’s capital city.

A shopping trip with Ava. This could be fun.

Okay, so shopping for clothes wasn’t Grant’s favorite thing in world. But at least it would mean time with Ava.

Time with Ava could mean a chance to regain the closeness they had shared once.

But not too close
.

No. She was Seth’s baby sister, and she deserved better than anything he could ever offer her. She deserved a real life, full of laughing children and a real home in Necessity, the town she had never wanted to leave, and a husband who could actually live in that home with her.

Not someone whose career meant he was practically a vagabond, living out of hotel rooms—or worse, travel trailers parked near drilling sites.

Grant spent his days surrounded by roughnecks and pumpers. He loved his job as a petroleum engineer, but it was no life for someone as beautiful and delicate as Ava.

She deserves better
.

The general lack of women and children on-site made it clear how unsuited it was for someone like Ava.

Well, other than the women who work there
, he admitted to himself.

The fact that he couldn’t imagine dragging her into his life didn’t mean he and Ava couldn’t be friends again, did it?

After all, they had been friends before.

Until he had ruined it all with one drunken New Year’s kiss—a kiss that had led to the most amazing night of his life.

Even now, he couldn’t say he wished he could take it back.

He did wish he could find a way to restore their easy camaraderie, though.

He heard her laugh from the hotel lobby before he saw her. As usual, the sound of her voice went right through him, like it had since she was thirteen and he was sixteen, and he had turned around and really noticed her for the first time.

She and Kristin moved out from behind a pillar just as the hotel shuttle pulled up, and then they were all piling into the van. Grant stood back to let the women climb in first, and found himself staring at Ava’s perfect ass as she stepped up onto the van’s running board. Her brightly colored sundress swirled around her calves, and it was all he could do to stop himself from reaching out to brush his hand against the soft skin of her legs.

Because that’s not creepy at all.

Get ahold of yourself, Porter.

Kristin and Seth settled into the first row, and Grant followed Ava to the back bench seat. As he sat down, the scent of her wafted across him, a mix of her apple shampoo and something sweet, a smell that was pure Ava. He would recognize it anywhere. Even here, covered as it was with the smell of sunscreen.

Glancing up, he caught Kristin watching him through narrowed eyes, her gaze speculative.

Great. Just what he needed—a wedding-crazed bride intent on matchmaking.

Time for a distraction.

“What do you two have to do to get the wedding license?” he asked Kristin.

“Apparently, we have to go to the Ministry of …” Kristin paused and closed her eyes as she tried to remember.”

“The Ministry of Justice and Legal Affairs in St. John’s,” Seth finished for her, and she nodded.

“Any idea how long that will take?” Ava asked. “What?” she continued when her brother made a face at her. “I want to know how long I have to find a new, perfect dress for the ceremony.”

“And a matching tie,” Grant added dryly. Having seen the way Kristin was watching him, he wasn’t sure that the whole matching-tie business wasn’t an excuse to make sure he and Ava spent plenty of time together.

“It’s not like we all have to take the shuttle back together.” Seth rolled his eyes. “Take as much time as you need. Just be back in time for the rehearsal tomorrow evening.”

Ava snorted. “I think I can find a dress without an overnight trip.”

“You sure?” her brother replied. “Remember taking her for that prom dress, Grant?” He turned to Kristin. “About half the time we were kids, the only way I could take the car out was if I took Ava to do something first. I’m pretty sure Grant and I hauled her over half of Texas looking for a dress. If camping out in a mall to keep looking had been an option, I’m pretty sure she would have done it.”

“That’s a lie, Seth Jordan,” Ava said, laughing as she batted at his arm. “I found a dress in record time. You just had to take me to Dallas to get to the dress shops. That’s what took so long.”

Kristin grinned as she watched the interplay between the siblings, and the oddity of Seth marrying
that
Kristin Rittman struck Grant anew. In high school, she had been the quintessential Mean Girl, leader of Necessity’s standard popular-kids clique and tormentor of everyone outside her circle.

Seth swore she had changed—that when he came back to Necessity after college, he had discovered the mean girl had a soft side.

She certainly seemed changed, Grant acknowledged.

But I’d be interested to hear Ava’s take on that.

Maybe later today.

Outside the van window, the landscape slipping by gave way to St. John’s. The paved streets were narrow, and the two- and three-story buildings were painted in pinks and blues and greens, some faded by the sun. Their doors stood open to catch the breezes, wooden signs hanging above the sidewalk advertising the store names.

“Oh, look,” Ava gasped, leaning forward and pointing out the front window as they turned a corner into Antigua’s downtown. Just a few blocks away, a giant, white cruise ship towered over the street from where it was docked in the bay.

“I need pictures of that. Are we stopping soon?” she asked the driver, digging her phone out of the bottom of the straw beach bag she was carrying as a purse.

Rather than answer, the driver pulled over.

“Oh, here.” Kristin pulled a sheet of paper out of her own bag and handed it to Ava. “This is the list of dress shops Rose gave me.” She peered out the window and gestured toward one of the shops. “Looks like that’s the first one.”

As Grant and Ava piled out of the van, she leaned back in to give her brother a kiss on the cheek. “You two have fun. See you back at the hotel.”

Grant pretended not to see as Seth slipped a credit card into Ava’s hand. She blinked, startled, but didn’t try to hand it back to him either.

Then the van was pulling away from the curb, and he was following Ava into a dress shop in probably the most romantic city either of them had been to.

No. Not romantic. Friends. We can be friends again.

If only he could think of a way to start moving them back toward friendship.

If only he could be certain that was even possible.

Or what he really wanted at all.

* * *

T
hree dress shops later
, Grant was willing to admit he had been wrong. Dress shopping with Ava was not his least favorite thing in the world.

In fact, he was enjoying himself.

“Oh, no.” Her voice echoed from inside one of the dressing rooms. He watched her sandaled feet underneath the curtain as she twirled around once in front of the mirror. “Are you ready for this?”

“I think I’m afraid.” He settled back on the low chair outside the room and stretched his legs out, crossing them at the ankle. “What’s our category for this one?”

“Hm. I think we can consider this one … Floral Floozy.”

With a flourish, she whipped open the dressing room curtain and stretched one arm up to lean against the wall, Hollywood-starlet style. Tilting her head to the side and fluttering her eyelashes, she spoke in a sultry voice. “What do you think?”

Grant’s sarcastic comment died in his throat and his mouth went dry.

I think I want you.

The dress was definitely inappropriate for a wedding. The strapless neckline plunged between Ava’s breasts, and the hemline barely covered the curve of her ass. What little fabric was in between was covered in a bright pink floral print and clung tightly to every curve of her perfect body.

“It beats the hell out of the Island Matron dress in the last shop,” he finally managed to choke out.

“I’m not sure better than a mu-mu is much of an endorsement.” Ava dropped her pose and stared down into her own cleavage. “I’d be terrified of

Apparently oblivious to the effect she was having on him, Ava moved back into the dressing room and glanced over her shoulder into the mirror, checking out the back of the dress. Tugging it down, she laughed. “I might as well wear my bikini to the ceremony.”

At the reminder of her that morning in the bright red suit, stretched out on a beach chair like a cat dozing in the sun, an arrow of heat flashed through him.

Yes, please. Wear the bikini.

No. He couldn’t say that.

“Okay. That’s everything here.” She pulled the curtain closed again, and Grant sat pinned to his seat as he watched the Floral Floozy dress pool around her ankles, suddenly deeply aware of being separated from her by only as thin fabric barrier as she undressed.

The heat that had shot through him a moment before turned into a throb of desire.

“We have two more shops to try, and then I’m afraid I’ll just have to go with the Island Matron look.” She stuck her head around the curtain, holding it closed around her neck and grinning mischievously. “We might have to go back through these dresses and take pictures to prove to Kristin that it was her best choice. Think I should put this one back on, just in case?”

Grant could only shake his head mutely, painfully aware of the raging erection that had sprung up at the thought of her naked in the dressing room.

As if he had never seen a naked woman before.

Hell, I’ve seen Ava naked before
.

The thought didn’t help.

No, it was if they were still teenagers, and he was once again fighting his inappropriate lust for his best friend’s sister.

This is insane
, he reminded himself.
You’re not an adolescent any longer. Quit acting like one
.

If only his body would listen to reason, to what his brain had to say about the entire issue of Ava Jordan, instead of insisting on acting on his …

Instead of acting on what my heart wants.

Grant froze.

Oh, shit.

I’m not just attracted to my best friend’s little sister.

I’m in love with her.

And I have been for years.

T
hat wasn’t very nice
.

But, oh, it was fun.

Ava grinned at her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her sundress over her head. There was a not-so-small part of her that had truly enjoyed torturing Grant with that wisp of a dress.

It was nice to know she still had an effect on him. After all, he had pretty much fled town after their one night together almost two years ago. For a long time—okay, until about an hour ago—she had been convinced that he had regretted it because he wasn’t really attracted to her.

Or worse, that he thought she wasn’t good enough for him.

After all, he was an engineer. She had decided to put off college for a year, just until Seth finished, so they could better afford it—and that year had stretched into five as she worked at the restaurant, unwilling to leave Necessity, to leave her elderly grandmother alone, or to leave a life she really did love, even if she did sometimes tire of the constant demands it made on her.

So how could someone like Grant—smart, successful, with an important job that took him all over the world—be interested in a small-town nobody like her?

The thought had been devastating at the time. And even though she was sure she had mostly recovered from it, the idea that he had tumbled into bed with her in a half-drunken haze and remembered only the next morning that she actually repulsed him had haunted her from time to time.

Okay. Every time I thought about it.

But she had resolved to put aside any residual feelings she had for Grant and be nice to him during this wedding trip.

But when she stepped out of the dressing room at the first shop to show him the horrible dress the attendant had brought her, his bright laughter reminded her that they had been friends first—and she missed that friendship.

Even more, though, she missed the spark underlying that friendship—the touch of heat that always flew back and forth between them, sparking to life when they accidentally brushed hands, or locked gazes, or even laughed at the same joke.

Or when he reacts to the sight of me in a skin-tight dress.

The realization that she missed him made her determined to discover if there was anything left of that heat.

And oh, is there ever.

Maybe Grant hadn’t noticed initially, but the dresses she had tried on from that point had gotten successively shorter and skimpier, until he had finally responded.

She had seen the heat flare up in his eyes, heard the crack in his voice.

He might not even be fully aware of it himself, but he still wanted her.

And I still want him.

She stared into her own eyes in the mirror.

He might not be interested in Ava for anything permanent, but Grant was attracted to her.

So what are you going to do about that?

She froze, her reflection wide-eyed as the answer came to her, as if it had been waiting in the back of her mind since Seth had invited her to be one of only two guests at his wedding.

I’m going to seduce Grant Porter.

* * *

A
t the next store
, Ava went back to trying on more reasonable bridesmaids’ dresses, all the while vacillating between planning the perfect island seduction and trying to talk herself out of the plan she was making.

This is only a vacation. It will be exactly like last time. You’ll have the most amazing night of your life, and the next morning, he’ll be gone.

Then again, it is a vacation.

“What about this one?” She opened the door of the dressing room and twirled in front of Grant so that the electric-blue chiffon skirt skirled around her calves. He nodded approvingly, but she kind of missed the gob-smacked expression the minidress had evoked.

She wanted to see that look again.

What happens in Antigua can stay in Antigua, right?

If she were frugal enough for the rest of the trip, she could buy the minidress, go snorkeling once, and still have enough cash to buy a wedding gift for Seth and Kristin. Something unique from the island. Something that carried more than just a monetary value.

More shopping.

Maybe she could get Grant to accompany her on that trip, as well.

She checked out the dress in the mirror one last time.

“I like it, I’m pretty sure Kristin will approve, and I think I saw a tie back at that last shop that would match it.” Crossing her fingers behind her back, she hoped she could find something there that would work, anyway. And that she could keep him distracted enough to make the purchase.

“Does that mean we’re almost done?”

She laughed. “You sound pretty hopeful about that.”

“Let’s find a tie and find someplace to eat. I’m starving.”

“After the tie,” she warned, handing the dress to the shopkeeper and moving to the counter to pay. “Don’t get distracted by the thought of food. I know how you are when you’re hungry.”

“Hangry,” he corrected, but his grin belied his claim. “I get very hangry.”

“Mm-hm. And I don’t want to see you when you’re hangry. Come on, Hulk. Let’s find you a tie so I can feed you and get back to my beach chair.”

While they were at it, she would pick up her own special seduction dress.

Then she could start figuring out how, precisely, she could seduce him into another one night stand.

Even if, on some deep level, she knew that she really wanted more.

She shook the thought away.

I’ll take what I can get.

And I know I can get Grant, at least for a night.

Somehow.

* * *

“
L
ook
, that café has outside seating.” Grant pointed at a bright green, corner building situated almost at the end of the street, underneath the looming cruise ship. Ava’s earlier excitement at its proximity hadn’t waned as they had moved through St. John’s downtown area, and he had taken every opportunity to move them closer to it.

“I love it here. I need to travel more.” She used her phone to take more pictures of the ship.

Her delight was infectious, and her wonder at every new thing she saw made him smile.

Oh, hell. I’m in trouble.

He should have realized it after their one-night stand. But he had been too panicked at the thought of Seth’s reaction to his best friend defiling his baby sister to consider the full implications of what had happened.

Since then, he had been too busy avoiding her to think about why they had ended up together that night.

Now, as he pulled out a café chair for Ava to take a seat, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as he carried on a superficial conversation about the giant cruise ship looming over them.

It’s not like I’m the one-night stand type, after all.

No. But he had pretended to be, primarily to avoid the realization that he actually cared about Ava as more than his best friend’s little sister.

After he ducked out on her the next morning, he had waited for an angry call from Seth. At the time, he’d been glad not to get one.

Now he almost wished he had. At least then he would have had to face up to what he’d done.

And what was that, exactly?

Been an absolute prick to the woman you’re in love with, just to avoid having to admit how you felt
.

If he’d been alone, he would have banged his forehead against the table.

I am going to have to find a way to talk to her about this.

But not now. Not at a table at an outdoor café in the Caribbean. Not while the sun was shining down on her face, its brightness matched by the happiness reflected in her smile.

Coward
, some inner voice chastised him.

I will do it
, he promised himself.
Before we leave this island, I will talk to her about what happened that New Year’s Eve, and I will do everything in my power to make things right with her.

With the woman I love.