It's in His Kiss (25 page)

Cole had the patience of a saint, and a very long fuse to a nearly nonexistent temper. But one thing that pissed him off was whenever Sam brought up that they weren’t really family. Cole was Amelia’s son through and through. Sam shook his head and gave up. He met Becca’s gaze.

Hers had softened, and there was something new there.
Like maybe she’d let him in just a little bit more than she had in the past.

Tanner came in and sank to the couch. As he always did after a trip, he immediately began stripping off his wet suit.

“What the hell are you doing?” Sam asked him.

Tanner had gotten the suit shoved down low on his waist. Bare-chested, he stared up at Sam. “Stripping,” he said. “What does it look like?” He went to shove the suit off the rest of him, and since Sam couldn’t be sure Tanner was actually wearing board shorts beneath—sometimes he went commando—Sam gave him a nudge with his foot. Actually, it was more of a kick. When Tanner looked up with a fight in his eyes, Sam jerked his head toward Becca.

Becca was watching every single movement with avid interest.

Tanner stopped stripping and grinned at her. “Hey, sweetness, how did your day go?”

“Good,” she said. “We made a killing today when a group of twenty stopped to kayak. Oh, and as for the Summer Bash, I’ve looked into some advertising, both online and print for your web presence. You could do better there. I’ve emailed each of you a suggested plan to up your visibility. I’m not as familiar with Lucky Harbor as I’d like to be, yet, but I’m pretty confident you could also do much better in print ads as well.”

Cole smiled. “Are we paying you enough?”

“For now,” she said sweetly.

Sam thought about how many different ways she could have answered that, and had to admit it impressed him. She impressed him. She was nosy and curious and frustrating.
She was sweet and warm, and sometimes, when he was very lucky, she looked at him like he was the only man on her radar.

And thanks to the intriguing phone call with her brother, he knew she protected her secrets well.

Which only made him want to know all the more what they were.

Becca found herself enjoying Lucky Harbor more every single day. Twice she’d realized she’d missed another call from Jase, and twice she’d tried to call him back but he’d ignored her return calls.

Not a good sign.

But she couldn’t try to live his life for him anymore. Instead, she immersed herself in life here. Lucky Harbor was different from any other place she’d ever lived. She was used to people keeping to themselves. She was used to passing someone on the street and, if accidental eye contact was made, you nodded or smiled briefly and kept moving.

That’s not how things worked in Lucky Harbor. People stopped her, wanted to know how her day was, how the jobs were going—and they really, genuinely wanted to know. They also wanted to know how she handled working for the three hottest single men in town.

And yes, that actually happened. But it’d been Lucille asking, so maybe it didn’t count.

She spent lots of hours at the rec center with the kids. Just yesterday they’d graduated to putting their five newly learned chords together to make a song.

Of sorts.

They were working on “God Bless America,”
working
being the key word. But the hours spent in that classroom were some of her favorite hours ever.

“Think we can have a concert?” Pink asked one afternoon. Her front teeth were starting to grow in, while her twin Kendra’s were not, which made it easy to tell them apart. Well, that and the fact that Pink wore only pink.

The truth was, they were about as far from being able to handle a concert as Becca herself was, but who was she to dim their enthusiasm? “Who would we play for?” she asked instead.

“The whole town!” Pink yelled. She yelled almost everything; she couldn’t seem to contain her own energy.

“You want to play in front of everyone?” Becca asked, surprised.

Pink nodded vigorously.

Becca looked at Kendra. Kendra nodded vigorously.

Becca looked at the rest of the gang. They all nodded equally as vigorously.

They couldn’t play one line of “God Bless America” without breaking up into giggles or a fight, not to mention they had no real skills, and yet they wanted to play in front of the entire town. It was the most awesome show of confidence Becca had ever seen, and suddenly she wished she were a kid again. “Well, I—”

Someone cleared his throat behind her. She turned and
caught Sam, Jack, and Jack’s cousin Ben standing in the doorway, each wearing a badass smile. Becca knew that Ben taught “craft hour.” He’d been the one to bring in Jack and Sam. The kids raved about them all the time.

Becca didn’t know much about Jack or Ben, but the sight of Sam standing there all sexy-cool in jeans and a T-shirt advertising Lance’s ice cream shop altered her heart rate. She decided she had to just
not
look at him anymore. Mature, she knew, but this was not a time to visit Lustville.

“How about us?” Jack asked. “Maybe you guys can play for us.”

“Oh,” Becca said. “I don’t think—”

But the kids had all burst out with hopeful “Yays!” and “Yes!” and “Oh, please, Ms. Teacher!”

Becca sneaked a peek at Sam, who gave her a two-hundred-watt grin, damn him.

“Let’s hear a few songs,” Jack said.

“We only know one,” Pink said, and flung herself at the big, bad, silent Ben, wrapping her arms around his waist, giving him a bear hug. Kendra did the same. Ben surprised her by gathering them in and hoisting them up so that their feet dangled above the ground—much to their squealed delight.

Jack ran his fingers along the classroom’s xylophone, making a racket that had the rest of the kids giggling.

“Can they play with us, Ms. Teacher?” Pink asked, still hanging from Ben’s arm.

“If they want,” Becca said, unable to imagine that they did.

But the guys made themselves at home. Pink divvied up the instruments, thrusting a marching drum at Sam.

Shocking her, Sam sat down with the drum. The seats were made for kids, and as a big guy, he should’ve looked ridiculous stuffed into one. But he didn’t look anything close to ridiculous. Actually, he looked pretty damn fine, not to mention sexy-adorable, and she wanted to gobble him up.

He caught her staring at him. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, not looking bothered by that fact one little bit. It probably never occurred to him to worry about feeling ridiculous or making a fool of himself.

“That’s okay,” Pink told him. “Ms. Teacher will teach you.”

“Yeah?” Sam turned to Becca with mock seriousness, his eyes laughing.

“Can you keep a beat?” she asked with as much teacher-like seriousness as she could muster.

“I don’t know,” her newest student said softly. “You tell me.”

Oh, boy. The kids had given both Ben and Jack cymbals. Everyone was in place and ready, so Becca gave the count. They began playing—out of sync, of course, and off key. Nowhere even close to a beat.

But at the end of the song, when they all burst into applause, Becca took in the sea of happy faces and had to laugh. “Good,” she said.

“It was
great
,” Pink corrected.

When the class was over, Becca looked for Sam, and found him standing with Jack and Ben. Her heart skipped a beat at all the male gorgeousness in such close range.

“Holy crap,” said a female voice from behind Becca. It was Mitzy Gale, the woman who ran the kids’ programs at the rec center, and also the principal of the elementary
school. She visibly shook herself. “Those three really shouldn’t stand together; they’re going to blow all the female brain circuits in the building.” She looked at Becca. “That was great, by the way.”

“It was?” Becca asked.

“Yes. You do so well with the kids. I’d love to hire you to run the after-school music program, both here at the rec center and also at the elementary school.”

“You don’t have a music program,” Becca said.

Mitzy laughed. “Exactly.
You’re
going to create one.”

“Me?”

“Yes, please.”

Becca’s heart started beating faster in excitement. Hope. Thrill.

“Now, I should warn you, don’t quit your day job yet. The hours are only part-time until our budget kicks in, which might happen for fall, and it might not. It’s not a great offer. Frankly, it’s a terrible offer, but you’re so desperately needed and wanted, Becca, if that counts for anything.”

“That counts for everything,” Becca said.

She marveled over it for a few days.

Only a few weeks ago, she’d have described herself as an introvert. But here, in Lucky Harbor, working at the charter company, she’d come to realize that she was actually an extrovert. The job demanded it, really, and so did Music Hour with the kids, but . . . she liked it.

She liked the kids. She liked the guys, too. She liked all of it. Everything. Here, she didn’t obsess so much over her career—or lack thereof. Here she got out and met new people every day.

Lived for the moment.

She had Sam to thank for that.

One afternoon, he showed up just as she was closing up the hut. The pattern was that one of the guys was always there at closing. They were there anyway, cleaning up the boat, the gear, whatever, but one of them would grab their cash from the day and get it to Sam. Or Sam would come get it himself.

Today he stuck his head in the door. His hair was windblown, his face tanned, his eyes crinkled to go along with the rare smile on his face as he crooked his finger at her.

She looked behind her.

No one.

“Me?” she asked.

“You.”

“Is this going to be lesson number four?” she asked, unable to keep from sounding hopeful.

He met her gaze. He hadn’t shaved that morning, and maybe not the morning before, either. His unruly hair had been finger-combed at best. He looked like maybe he had questionable motives. He looked like he didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He looked hot.

“Becca, when I give you lesson number four, you’ll know it.”

Her entire body reacted. But she was beginning to think that he talked the talk of a badass, and walked the walk, but he didn’t have the true heart of a badass or he’d have taken advantage of her by now.

Damn it.

Against her better judgment, she followed him outside and down the dock to where a gorgeous, sleek boat was moored. “Wow,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”

“I made it for a client a few years back,” he said. “He’s
gone into town to grab a drink with some friends. He wanted me to take it out and take a listen to the motor.”

“I thought Cole was your mechanic.”

“Yeah but he’s gone, and I’m good, too.” While he was speaking, he was giving her the bum’s rush down the ramp, his hand low on her back, then lifting her onto the boat with seemingly no effort at all. Before she could recover from the brief but very welcome feel of being held against his chest, he was tossing her a life vest.

She stared down at it. “You planning on dumping me in the water?”

“Only if you piss me off.” He came close, and then closer still, and she pressed her hands to his chest to keep her balance.

She wasn’t opposed to pissing him off if it would make him kiss her again. “We going now?”

“In a minute.” He ran his hands down her spine, over the backs of her thighs, and then up again, copping a feel of her bottom while he was at it.

“Sam.” She was having some trouble getting her cognitive skills to fire with his hands on her like that, roaming, his eyes all hot and liquidy, making his intentions more than clear. “You can’t be thinking—”

“About taking you on the galley table below? Yeah,” he said, voice whiskey-smooth. “That’s pretty much exactly what I’m thinking.”

She actually looked to the door that led belowdecks. “Really?” she asked breathlessly.

He laughed, low and sexy. “Yes. Later.”

She blew out a sigh. “You don’t mean it. You’re still just a tease.”

He checked the clasps on her vest and adjusted them.
There were several layers between his fingers and her skin, but her nipples got perky anyway.

“That good?” he asked, hands still on the vest, resting lightly against her breasts.

She had to clear her throat to answer. “Fine. But why—”

His gaze met hers. “I’m not taking any chances with you.”

A squishy feeling settled low in her belly. “Why are you taking me with you at all? You’ve been avoiding—”

“I need a second body on board.”

So much for the squishy feeling.

He walked through the cockpit to the bridge. He stood behind the controls, feet wide, the sexiest man she’d ever seen. “You need help?” she asked.

He flashed her a quick grin that affected her pulse.

No, he didn’t need help.

“Hang on,” he said.

Sam revved the engine, watching as Becca grabbed the oh-holy-shit hand bar in front of her with a cute little squeak of surprise as the boat leapt forward.

He loved that feeling, the power beneath him, the surge of the boat as it roared to life. The very first time he’d stood behind the controls of a boat and hit the gas, he’d felt free, and that had never lessened, not once in all these years.