Perfect for the Beach (31 page)

“You bet. If you hadn’t sent it, I wouldn’t have been able to force your hand and get you down here. Because I knew that sending those papers back with a nice little note would get you down here and quick. You’re stubborn that way.”

“Trey, I’m almost thirty. My biological clock is ticking. I needed some direction in my life … if it wasn’t going to be with you.”

“It will be with me. And I’m going to give you babies, sweetheart. Lots of them. Or at least I’ll die trying.”

Jenna bit her bottom lip. “Will you, now?”

“You have my word.”

“Mmmm.” Call her a fool, but she was getting turned on. “Sounds like you really want me to stay.” “You’re damn right I do.”

Jenna felt Trey’s growing erection against her bottom. “And I suppose you’d like to do some of that baby-making-trying now?”

“There’s no time like the present.”

Jenna laughed, genuinely happy for the first time since heading back here. “You have an appetite like no one I’ve ever known.”

“Hey, I need to keep up with you. Hopefully you won’t trade me in for a younger model in two years. I
will
be thirty-five then.”

“Not a chance.” Jenna framed his face and kissed him. “I love you, Trey. More than I could ever love anybody.”

He squeezed her tight. “God, I love you.”

A beat passed, then Jenna said, “What do you say we get to that baby-making-trying part?”

Desire flashed in Trey’s eyes as he rose from the chair, lifting Jenna as he did. Then he slung her over his shoulder.

“Trey!” she protested, even as she giggled. “Trey, put me down!”

“No can do,” he said. “You had a request. I’m here to fill it.”

“Oooh, I like the sound of that.”

“You’re gonna like what I do to you even more.”

“Am I now?”

“You bet.”

And she did.

MURPHY’S LAW

Morgan Leigh

Chapter One

Kat Murphy felt the spark of interest as she gazed at the fine specimen of a man that had just walked down to the shoreline of the beach where she lay tanning, trying to forget her troubles. The sun was high in the sky, and her shades did little to darken her vision enough to take in the details of the man, but what she could see, her rarely used erogenous zones responded to, much as she despised herself for noticing at all. What was the matter with her? She’d come down here to forget about men. Especially ones who were attractive and totally oblivious to the things going on around them.

Sam Parrish, her former boss at the law offices of McCauley, Parrish, and Hawke, was one of those men. She’d secretly been in love with him for almost the entire two years she’d worked at the firm. But his flirtatious comments and gestures were moments of weakness to him, and he didn’t seem to like letting himself feel anything for Kat. Because of that, she’d gone out of her way to make sure he never knew her feelings. If he’d shown more than a passing interest, she might have followed through on one of those hot, hungry looks, but he never did. And the surly attitude that followed those glances just hardened her resolve.

Circumstances beyond his control were the only reason she let him get away with it, but she’d finally had enough, and as of this past Monday, she was no longer employed there. She couldn’t stand feeling like she was a guilty pleasure to him. One that she suspected he did personal penance for when he went into his office and shut the door on temptation.

She tipped her head curiously and continued to watch the man as he stared out at the water as if he were struggling with demons of his own. The soft foam of the tide washed the sand around his feet, and he spread them wider, taking a firmer stance.

Not a single man had been able to turn her head since she’d first set eyes on her boss, except this one. Forcing herself to look away from him, she gnashed her teeth. The stranger by the water probably had a story to tell, but Sam’s story had been hard enough to cope with. She wasn’t interested in learning anyone else’s. From what she could see, this man was attractive, but men were scratched from her list for a long time. Her heart drummed a constant ache in her chest because of a man. She wasn’t up to dealing with another one for a while. Not Sam, not some unknown stranger. No one.

The only man she felt any generosity toward at the moment was Jonah McCauley, Sam’s partner and best friend. He was engaged to her best friend, and he went out of his way to shower Camelot with the love and respect she deserved. Well, she snickered to herself, that, and when she told Cam about her plans to quit her job and get away for a while, he’d offered the use of his beach house, no questions asked. She needed refuge and Jonah provided it. He was a good man.

Sam was a good man, too, she admitted grudgingly to herself. He just had more suffering in his life than any man ever should. His wife Patti had been killed in a horrid car crash two years before, and Kat had signed on with the firm just a few short months afterward. If Kat could’ve helped it, she’d never have fallen for a man carrying so much emotional baggage. But her heart hadn’t let her decide. She’d tumbled head over heels in love with him from the start.

She’d managed to protect her secret, though. His grief was so hard to watch, but she’d become one in his circle of friends who got him through the rough spots in his road to recovery. But when it was clear that he wasn’t ready to start any new relationship, she’d cultivated a reputation as a wild child and party girl. If he thought she was a free spirit, he wouldn’t have the added pressure of worrying about come-ons and advances. She’d sometimes wished she’d been brave enough to take that leap of faith, and tell Sam that she loved him to distraction and she wasn’t the loose woman he believed her to be. Kat feared few things, but he was a one-woman man, and she knew if he was aware of her true feelings, their work relationship would be intolerable. Sam telling her that Patti would always be his only love would crush her heart, and it was something Kat just didn’t have the guts to hear.

Her attention was drawn back to the present when the man turned to his right and walked away from her, parallel to the waves. She watched his retreating, shirtless back, and the muscles that rippled as he raked his hand through his dark brown hair, the way his bare feet sank into the eroding sand as the tide pulled it out from under him. He moved up onto the drier part of the beach and thrust his hands into the pockets of the khaki shorts that rode low on his narrow hips. If she wasn’t still so damned angry for letting herself fall so hard for Sam, Kat actually might have tried to draw his attention and bring him back up the beach so she could see what he looked like from the front. But she’d come here specifically to get
away
from opposite sex. To clear her head and make some solid life plans. Men could be stubborn and so clueless sometimes; she was through trying to figure them out. And they said women were the complicated ones?
Yeah, right,
she thought.

She was powerless to ignore him altogether, but she was hurting so much from Sam’s unwitting rejection that instead of desire or arousal for the masculine stranger, she felt resentment, and disgust with herself for noticing him. Besides that, the man appeared distracted, sorting out his own troubles by walking along the shore, letting it work its calming effects.

“I can
so
relate, pal,” she muttered under her breath.

The man stopped abruptly and his head snapped to the right, as if he’d heard her.

He hadn’t, had he?
“Get a grip, Kat,” she told herself, but her breath backed up in her throat when he did an about-face and started stalking back the way he’d come, only this time he cut across the sand, his feet kicking it up like spray as he closed the distance between them. As he got closer and closer, her eyes went to his hard chest, covered with light brown hair that tapered to his narrow waist and disappeared into those low-slung shorts. Kat was shocked that she actually licked her lips when her gaze followed the path down. What
was
the matter with her?

“If you were a man, Katrissa Murphy, I’d say you had some huge balls to leave me the way you did.”

Kat’s eyes froze on the fly of his shorts. No, it couldn’t be! His voice was so low, it hissed through clenched teeth that only she and the few others near them heard.

She squinted from the sun in her eyes, not quite behind him. She turned her head a fraction until it was completely blocked by his broad shoulders and she could see him clearly through her sunglasses.

No, no, no!
The words drummed in her head as she realized that it was Sam towering over her. And
he
sounded pissed at
her.
Who did he think he was? The nerve of the man! She glanced at the other sunbathers and beachcombers as he looked down at her like he could throttle her.

How many times did she have to have her heart broken? It was hard enough leaving her resignation on his desk. And she’d made sure he wasn’t in the office. She wouldn’t have been able to stand the awkwardness if he demanded an explanation and she had to give her reasons just then. She’d needed time to pull herself together when they finally had that confrontation. And now she was going to have to make the break all over again? Damn, why didn’t he just accept it and move on, like she was trying to do? Her nerves were raw, and bitterness curled her lip.

“I quit my job, Sam. Period. We’d have to have personal contact for me to leave you,” she muttered derisively. “And there are children running around within earshot. Leave the vulgarities for your clients.” Her stomach was tight with dread, but she tried to keep her voice low and succinct, letting him know that his sudden appearance wasn’t welcome. “You shouldn’t have come here,” she said, standing her ground.
While lying flat on your back,
she thought ironically. A twist she certainly hadn’t anticipated.

She assumed that when she finally had to go home and face Sam’s wrath, she’d be toe-to-toe with him. “How did you find me, anyway?” she asked. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, from surprise or dread, she wasn’t sure which. She just needed a minute to shore up that weak spot—the one that Sam could get through. She had to tell herself that this man was the enemy. Well, not the enemy exactly, but definitely a danger to her heart.

She was in a skimpy, zebra-striped strapless bikini, lying on a lounger with tanning oil smeared all over her body. And the way he was looking down at her, she might as well have been naked. It irked her even more that he’d notice her now, when every day she’d been in that office, working her tail off, he’d quashed every glance of hunger, every hint of lust. Of course, his attentions weren’t of the amorous kind at the moment. But not even the scolding he was delivering could hide the passion that burned in his eyes, and Kat felt it right down to her toes.

“Before I was a partner, Kat, I
was
an investigator,” he said dryly. “But a word of advice, sweetheart? Never tell your best friend where you’re going when she’s sleeping with
my
best friend.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Camelot told you?” she asked, outraged that her friend would betray the sacred bonds of the sisterhood.

“No, she told Jonah, who in turn told me. Her way of getting around the ‘don’t tell Sam where I’m going’ pledge that she says you nearly made her sign in blood.” His mouth formed a straight line, obviously not happy that she’d gone to such extremes.