One Summer (24 page)

And while the same problems had brought additional abandoned pets to the shelter, Charity would bring only ones she’d thoroughly behaviorally tested. As she had Gabe’s dog that first night it stayed with her.

“You may have noticed that I’ve brought a couple new people with me,” she said. “This is my mother, Amanda.” As she waved toward her mother, who gaily waved back, Charity decided that it was a good thing campers, staff, and volunteers all went solely by their first names. Because there was no way all her mother’s last names would fit on the “Hello” tag she was actually wearing on the front of her silk shirt.

“She’s going to be helping Camille, who runs the Cut Loose beauty salon and day spa, do makeovers.”

The gasp of surprise was audible. Looks between the girl campers were exchanged and faces lit up as bright as the rainbow that often shimmered above the falls that had given the lake its name.

“So you guys won’t feel left out, Gabe”—she gestured toward him—“has volunteered to do tattooing.” She held up a hand as a roar of approval rocked the room. They’re temporary, though still way cool.

“Gabe’s also a U.S. Marine photojournalist. He’s going to be teaching everyone how to take super photos so you can leave with pictures of memories of all the good times you’ll be having. And here’s the best news—you’ll be able to take the cameras you’ll be using home with you.”

That definitely proved popular. Charity knew that many of the kids could carry all their personal belongings in a pillowcase. And some actually did. Just watching the amazed expressions—as if suddenly Santa had arrived in their midst—made her eyes fill.

“Sounds as if you scored a home run,” Gabe said as Fred and Ethel began separating the campers into groups.

“That excitement wasn’t about me. We always have way more women volunteers than men. Plus, being a Marine has to increase your appeal level. I don’t know how to thank you.”

Pewter eyes darkened as they roamed her face with the intimate impact of a caress. “I have a few suggestions along those lines. After we have that official first date we missed at the Sea Mist. You know the one. Where you go too far.” His seductive Southern drawl slipped beneath her skin in a way that sent her nerves humming again.

“Maybe I’ll hold you to that.”

As they stood there, surrounded by the sea of excited campers, a now familiar awareness arced between them.

Gabe’s gaze drifted to her lips and lingered, as if he was remembering their taste. His slow, rakish smile was as dangerous as it was impossible to resist. “Plan on it.”

Damn, he wanted to kiss her. Right now, Gabe considered as desire curled in his gut and tension hovered between them like a live wire. He could just lower his head and take her mouth and—

What?

Nothing they could get away with here, in front of a bunch of homeless kids.

He tugged on a loose strand of hair that had escaped the confines of its clip, gave her the same hot smile more than one Marine groupie had assured him was irresistible, then turned and strolled over to the far side of the room where Fred had gathered all the boys next to a stone fireplace tall enough to stand in.

Camille had already given the older man the stick-on tattoos. He’d laid them out on a wooden trestle table. Among the more heavy-metal-type lightning bolts and skulls and the cartoon characters for the younger kids, Gabe recognized the same Marine anchor tattoo he wore on his chest.

The plan, as it was set up, was that he, Fred, and Bernard Douchett, Sax’s grandfather, would each set up shop in a different corner of the room while the girls all left to wherever they were going to have their makeovers.

The kids would choose a tattoo, then get in line. Watching the two older men’s obvious organizational skills, Gabe was not surprised to learn that Fred was former military—Army infantry—from the Vietnam era, while Bernard was a fellow jarhead who’d fought with the Fourth Marine Division in Korea.

The procedure went like clockwork. Gabe had inked half a dozen campers when a tall, gangly teenager, with dark-framed glasses and a shock of orange hair, stood in front of him.

“Where’s yours?” Gabe asked.

The kid held out both arms. He had
Angel
on one forearm,
Mom
on the other. They’d definitely not been professionally done.

“Nice.” Gabe nodded. “Did you ink them yourself?”

“Yeah. With a pen and a needle.”

“I’ll bet that hurt.”

“Nah.” The kid shrugged shoulders that looked like wire hangers. “Didn’t hurt at all. ’Cause I’m tough.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” Gabe said mildly. “I imagine the system isn’t for sissies.”

“Hell, no.”

Deciding this wasn’t the time to get into proper language, Gabe instead asked, “Is
Angel
your girlfriend?”

“My sister,” he mumbled.

“Guess she’s off getting a makeover.”

He shoved the carrot-colored hair that had fallen over his eyes out of the way and scowled at that idea. “She doesn’t need any stupid makeover. She’s only eight.”

“I’m no expert on the female of the species, but it’d be my guess that most of them like getting fancied up.”

“Maybe.” The kid, whose name tag read JOHNNY, shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his thin jeans, raised his chin to a stubborn level, and shot Gabe a skeptical look. “Are you really a Marine?”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not active service anymore. But there’s a saying in the corps that once a Marine, always a Marine.”

Gabe knew that the corps still clung to him, ingrained in the way he stood, the way he moved, the way his experiences had set him apart from civilians. The same way growing up with drunks had set him apart. He’d long ago come to the conclusion that some people were meant to fit in. He wasn’t one of them.

“Did you kill anyone?”

And why was it everyone always eventually got around to asking that? Gabe wondered wearily. Most of the time, when asking, the questioners would be looking at him as if they expected him to go Rambo at any minute.

“I was in my share of battles. But since I was a combat photographer, most of the time I was taking photos.”

“But did you kill anyone?”

Gabe had been lied to enough times that he’d always sworn he’d never lie himself unless his life, or the life of someone he cared about, was at risk. Which it wasn’t.

“Yeah.”

“Did you like it?”

“No.” Gabe considered blowing the kid off, but he recognized him all too well. Except for the difference in their coloring, he could have been looking in a mirror nineteen years ago. “You sure you don’t want a tattoo?”

Thin lips turned up in a sneer. “Stick-on ones are for little kids.”

Gabe shrugged. “Your choice.” He glanced at the long line forming behind the teen. “That about it?”

The kid flushed, his ears turning bright red. “Yeah.”

“Okay, then.” Gabe kept his tone casual, matter-of-fact. “Guess I’ll see you around for the photography class.”

Another shrug. “Maybe.”

The lost boy named Johnny turned and slunk away. With that false wall of bravado on the verge of crumbling, he reminded Gabe of a whipped dog. Of himself a very long time ago.

Johnny didn’t know why he’d even gotten in that fucking line in the first place. It wasn’t like he wanted one of those stupid sticker tattoos. Okay, maybe the dragon ones were kind of neat. And he would have liked the skull if he hadn’t known it would scare Angel. But part of him, the part that kept clinging to the idea that there really was a life after the system, had been thinking that maybe if he joined the military after graduation, then the state would consider him a responsible adult. Which would let him apply for custody of his sister.

Of course, if they sent him off to fight in some bumfuck war, he wouldn’t be able to take care of her himself while he was gone. But lots of Marines and soldiers were married and had kids. Which meant that maybe he could pay someone to be like a live-in nanny. It wasn’t that he’d need whatever salary the military would pay him. If they covered his room and board—which they had to do, didn’t they?—then he could just sign his paycheck over to Angel.

He’d wanted to ask that Marine how it worked. But as soon as he’d looked into those gray eyes, which outwardly seemed friendly enough, but looked as if they could see straight through him, all the questions he’d thought up while waiting for those other kids to get tattoos popped like a soap bubble.

He glanced back, watching as the Marine wiped a little kid’s arm with alcohol, patted it dry, then applied a tattoo of the cowboy from
Toy Story
. The kid was beaming and his chest was so puffed up with fucking pride, he looked like he was about to float all the way up to the wooden rafters.

Which, for some stupid reason, as his fingers curled around the stupid anchor tattoo he’d stuck in his pocket, made Johnny want to cry.

Since she hadn’t brought any animals today, Charity was drafted into doing makeovers. Which, although she wasn’t nearly as handy with curling irons and polish as her mother and Camille, she found herself thoroughly enjoying. Not so much for herself, but for the pleasure it obviously gave the girls.

One especially captured her heart. The little blonde had talked a mile a minute, her pale blond Orphan Annie curls bouncing like springs as she’d accented her words with nods and shakes of her head. Angel Harper had been in and out of the system since she was a toddler, but somehow it hadn’t seemed to leave any emotional scars on her. Yet.

And wasn’t that the key? Charity thought as she sat in the passenger seat on the way home, barely listening to her mother rattling on about her day to Gabe, who’d slant Charity a questioning look every so often. She knew he was wondering about her silence. Probably wondering if she’d changed her mind.

Which she hadn’t. In fact, one of the reasons she didn’t want to meet those all-seeing gray eyes was that he’d undoubtedly realize she was close to sitting on her hands to keep them from ripping open his shirt.

Which was why it was better not to think about it. At least not until later tonight.

But still, just the idea of him following through on his promise had her blood humming.

“Well,” he said, as he pulled up in front of the house, “what time do you want me to pick you up?”

“The Sea Mist tends to have a rush from about five to seven,” she said. “All the tourists and retirees like to eat early. How about seven thirty?”

“Works for me.”

He got out of the car. Charity hopped out of the Jeep and was on the sidewalk before he could open the passenger door, but Amanda, accustomed to men’s attention, waited, then climbed out, her hand laid lightly in his, with the grace of a princess exiting a royal coach.

“You’d be doing me a great favor if you let your sweet little dog stay with me again,” Amanda volunteered. “He has such a way of lifting my spirits.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Gabe said. He gave Charity a long look rife with sexual promise. “See you in a couple hours, then.”

“I’ll be ready.”

His grin was quick and wicked as sin. “I’m counting on it.”

 

This time she didn’t watch him leave. After checking with the fill-in vet and Amie, who were buttoning up after a fortunately uneventful day, and Janet, who reminded her that—damn—she’d scheduled a surgery for tomorrow morning, she raced up the stairs to the living quarters.

“I need something to wear,” she called out to her mother.

“You’re looking for a seduction dress. Something that will make Gabriel St. James swallow his tongue.”

“That’s a bit extreme. What I’m looking for is something besides jeans to wear to dinner.”

Though, admittedly, whatever she unearthed in her mother’s closet, she didn’t intend to wear that long.

“What happened to wanting a forever after?”Amanda asked, even as she began delving into the guest room closet.

“I still want that.” Charity yanked the T-shirt over her head. “I want a husband, kids, a house, and a dog. I’ve already got the house and the dog, so all I need is a husband to have kids with. But since I realize that I’m not likely to get that with Gabe, I’ve decided to settle for hot, no-strings, chandelier-swinging, mind-blowing sex.”

“Hot, mind-blowing sex isn’t exactly settling.” Amanda pulled out a handful of dresses and tossed them onto the antique four-poster bed. “And your Marine certainly looks capable of providing it. But you’ve never been a no-strings type of person.”

“Neither are you.”

“True enough. Which would have saved me a great deal of heartache.”

“Yet somehow you’ve managed to stay friends with all your exes.”

“I have.”

“So, looking at the bright side, you managed to enjoy the companionship, and probably hot, mind-blowing sex, with some really interesting, talented men.”

Amanda paused, her hand over the top of a quilted jewelry bag. “Again, that’s true.”

“So it hasn’t all been negative.” Charity picked up one of the dresses.

“That’s one of my personal favorites,” her mother volunteered. “The judge bought it for me at a little boutique during a trip to Santa Barbara.”

The watercolor silk halter dress was the color of the sea, with a handkerchief hem that would flow seductively around her calves. It was wispy and romantic. And made Charity wonder where on earth her mother thought she’d wear such a dress in Shelter Bay.

“It’s pretty. But so not me.”

“And isn’t that precisely the point? To push your boundaries?”

“Good point.” She put aside another, a silk sheath in a bold, eye-popping leopard print. She might be ready to jump off the sex cliff, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to live up to the wildcat billing the dress advertised.