Under the Boardwalk: A Dazzling Collection of All New Summertime Love Stories (14 page)

She slapped him in the face with the fish. "All in all, Mr. Coryell, I'd rather sleep with a shark."

Hannah didn't run along the beach like Drew had, but she certainly walked hard. She stopped once just long enough to strip off her wet and dinging petticoat, then continued on her way. Fury fueled her pace and worry plagued her mind. She couldn't believe Drew actually proposed such a scandalous liaison.

She was ashamed at how badly she'd wanted to accept his offer.

"Hussy," she muttered. "Strumpet."

Woman.

Hannah groaned and sank down onto the sand, gazing out at the bay. What was the matter with her?

Other than the fact that you're a twenty-seven-year-old virgin?

She groaned and buried her head against her knees. The damp, gritty material of her dress plastered against her forehead, reminding her she had another problem with which to deal. She'd forgotten to get her satchel off the sailboat. She didn't even have a change of clothing with her.

If you were to take Drew up on his offer, you wouldn't need any clothes.

"Aargh!" She flopped backward on the sand and closed her eyes. Sunlight wanned her face. "Hannah Mayfield, you are staring down the barrel of a real dilemma."

Her thoughts darted back and forth like a school of minnows. She could not play the wife to Drew Coryell. She could not share his bed. How dare he make such a proposition. How scandalous. How disgraceful.

How delicious.

She groaned.
What did you expect, Hannah? What were you hoping far
?

Unprepared to answer that question, Hannah sat up. She scooped up a handful of sand and let it drain in a narrow stream from her closed fist. Over and over she repeated the action while she consciously worked to wash her mind free of troublesome thoughts. Eventually, she succeeded and slowly, she relaxed.

She'd finally made it back to Wild Horse Island, a spot she'd dreamed of for a decade. No matter what happened or didn't happen between her and Drew, she would enjoy this moment out of time here in this place of such beauty.

Standing, she brushed ineffectually at the sand clinging to her dress, then continued her walk, angling her path off the beach. She threaded her way into and around the dunes for a time, then aimed for the line of trees growing atop a rocky embankment. Finding herself back at the water, only this time some twelve feet or so above it, she halted beneath a partially shaded grassy spot that appeared so inviting she couldn't pass it up.

And so, refreshed by the peace of her walk, her face shaded by the trees, her body warmed by the sun, and her spirit soothed by the sound of the surf, Hannah slept.

Darned if she didn't dream of Drew Coryell.

Wild Horse Island was little more than a spit of sand, rocks, and trees marking the main passage to the brackish water of Wilson's Lake, where a fresh water bayou yawned into the Gulf of Mexico. Marine life occupied the waters in abundance, making the island an avid fisherman's little slice of heaven. It was also the perfect place to test Drew's most recent designs—personal and professional. He had both in mind as he followed his former wife's trail.

He'd gone about this all wrong, he could see that now. His goal was to bed Hannah. He didn't want to destroy her spirit, and forcing her surrender would do just that. Therefore, if he wanted a willing woman in his bed and not a hellcat or a martyr, he needed to take a more subtle approach. He must convince her that bedding him was the right thing for them both. In other words, he needed to seduce her.

Drew knew just how to go about it.

She'd walked a quarter of the way around the island before veering away from the beach. As he climbed the rise and spied her slumbering beneath the shade of a salt cedar tree, a grin cracked his face. For all her wandering, she'd ended up back within a hundred yards of the cabin. Drew doubted she'd done that intentionally.

Approaching the slumbering, soppy beauty, he nudged her with a bare foot. "Wake up, woman, and take off your dress."

Her eyes flew open and she sat up. "What!"

"Take off your dress." The shock on her face was priceless, and Drew couldn't help but chuckle. "You're all wet, Hannah. I think you should change."

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. "Go away. I'm not ready to talk to you again yet."

His mouth settled into a grin. She'd always been cute when grumpy. "You need to get out of that dress. Wouldn't want you to catch a chill and fall ill."

"A chill?" She rolled her eyes. "It must be ninety degrees this afternoon. I'm not going to catch a chill. Really, Drew. If this is your idea of trying to get me to fall in with your wicked scheme, then you need a lesson or two in subtlety."

"I'm simply watching out for my guest. You can't be comfortable in that dress. Doesn't the saltwater make it stiff and scratchy?"

She grimaced and plucked at her skirt. She mumbled as she stood. "I left my satchel on the sailboat."

He'd known that, of course. It was part of what made this so much fun. "What did you say?"

Her chin came up. "I left my satchel on the sailboat."

Drew studied his fingernails. "You mean you don't have any clothes to change into?"

"No, I don't. As you undoubtedly have realized."

"Hmm…" Drew dragged a hand along his jaw and studied her. "Well, that's a problem. I'm afraid that just won't do. I need you naked from the knees."

"Excuse me?" She blew a sigh filled with frustration. "Drew, I know I didn't say it in so many words, but surely you understood I refused your proposition."

"Oh, yeah. I got that. But I still want you to get rid of that skirt. Here, you can wear this." He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it to her. "You'll be more comfortable while we're negotiating an agreement about my document and demands."

"Negotiating?" She glanced down at the shirt, then back up at him. "Drew, I won't change my mind. What would that make me, agreeing to such a thing? You must understand—"

"I understand everything I need to," he interrupted. "You may have changed some over the past ten years, but you can't have changed that much. I know you want the thrill and the excitement. You want your pulse to pound." He stepped toward her, reached out, and trailed a finger down her cheek.

She visibly shuddered. "No. Really. I—"

"I know you, Hannah Mayfield," he said, his voice low and soft as the surf on a windless night. "You may claim to have made this trip on behalf of Texas, but I know another reason why you've come to my island."

"You do?" she breathed.

"Yep, so get out of that dress, sweetheart." He flashed her his pirate's grin and gestured toward the bay. "We can't go fishin' till you do."

Fishing. Hannah tugged on the tail of Drew's shirt and wished herself three inches shorter. In her younger days, she'd often bared her calves and sometimes even her knees when she waded into the surf with pole or net in hand. Never before, however, had she shown this much thigh. She couldn't believe she was doing it now, especially with Drew acting so strangely.

Fishing. He'd spoken no more about the declaration or his shameful proposition as they returned to the cabin and set about gathering up gear. When she tried to bring it up, he started talking hot spots and bait varieties and casting methods, and half of what he said sounded downright… fishy. Who ever heard of a lure called an eight-inch Throbbing Bob?

No, the man was pulling her leg, all right.
And he has plenty of leg to pull, considering the shortness of his shirttail
.

Hannah bit back a groan. A modest woman wouldn't be seen wearing something this scandalous. But then, a modest woman wouldn't jump at the chance to wade knee-deep in brackish water to wet a hook or sling a hoop. And when it came to angling, Hannah Mayfield was never modest.

The best times of her life had been spent with a baited hook in the water. Curse the man for knowing her so well.

The road to sin, in Hannah's case, was paved with fish scales. She'd been six years old when she landed her first snapper, and from that moment on, she was hooked. She spent all her free time down on the piers, and when she grew older she saved up enough money to buy her very own rowboat. Her parents had considered fishing un-feminine, but relatively harmless, and they didn't object to their daughter's spending an occasional evening in pursuit of bounty from the sea. Of course, busy as they were with social life on Galveston Island, they didn't know that "occasional" was actually every day.

Nor were they aware when a certain young man took to tossing out a line on the pier at Hannah.

What began as innocent competition for red drum quickly changed to something else. Drew and Hannah talked over trout, flirted over flounder, and stole quick kisses while filling their nets with blue crab. Still, things didn't heat up until he gave her a firsthand lesson on how to cook hoop stew.

Now it was the memory of that fire between them that filled Hannah with a combination of longing and regret as she watched him test a fishing rod's feel. How filled with emotion she had been back then. How empty she had been ever since.

Some of what was running through her mind must have showed in her expression because she saw speculation in the look Drew drilled her way. "So," he said, canting his head to one side. "Did you do much stewing after you left me?"

She froze. "What?"

"Do you make hoop stew very often?" he said, his expression filled with innocence.

Hannah sucked on her lower lip and considered him. The man was driving her crazy. He used to call the kisses and caresses they shared "stewing." Did he remember? Of course he did. He was a man, and men didn't forget such matters. At least, that's what Hannah had been told.

Besides, she was far from oblivious to the undercurrents eddying between them. The look in his eyes when he'd tossed her his shirt had been downright… challenging. The gleam in his smile when she approached him wearing it over her damp underwear had been an out-and-out leer.

But with this latest question she sensed a darker emotion flowing beneath the affable facade. Did she make hoop stew very often? She'd best step carefully here with her answer. "My family moved inland to San Antonio. Freshwater fish makes a different tasting stew, so I called it something else."

His lips twisted as he added, "Besides, you left your hoop net back on the island, didn't you?"

She heard a taint of bitterness in his tone and decided it was advisable to change the subject. Knowing Drew, she asked about the snapper fishing of late.

He gave her a look that said he recognized her purpose, but agreed to go along with it. "Haven't done much with the snapper. Day before yesterday, though, I saw a flounder leap."

"You did?" Envy washed through Hannah. She'd heard of such a phenomenon, but she'd never seen it herself. "What was it like?"

His eyes took on a faraway cast and he slowly shook his head. "I've seen smaller schools do this, but never one this big. They'd fly into the air, fish after fish after fish, must have been hundreds of them. It was like they were part of some aquatic-air ballet. Damnedest thing I've ever seen." Glancing out toward the water, he added, "Didn't even try and catch any that day. Spent all my time looking at them. I want to change that today."

Suddenly, Hannah couldn't wait to get her line wet.

Drew loaded his arms with tackle, then motioned for Hannah to get the hoop net. The contraption consisted of a billowy sock of light rope netting laced to the perimeter of a large metal hoop some four feet in diameter. She grabbed the metal with one hand, the coiled retrieval rope with the other, and lifted.

The net smelled briny and fishy and familiar, and the scent brought a smile to Hannah's lips. Contentment descended upon her. She felt a rightness with the world she had not experienced for a very long time. She had missed the salty tang of the air, the cries of the gulls, the hissing foam of a surf as it washed against a sandy beach. San Antonio lay over a hundred miles from the coast, and while she'd found it a nice place to live, she'd never called it home. Home was the beach, the gulf, the pelicans, and crabs.

Home was where Drew lived.

She started at the thought.

Why would she think something silly like that? She had never made a home here with Drew. This had been their dream, but not their reality. The reality was that she'd left him before they had a chance to make a home.

A pang of emotion stabbed through her chest and she closed her eyes as the peace she'd so briefly enjoyed evaporated. It was true. She'd been a coward and a fool and a child afraid to take a stand against her parent. She'd vowed to love Drew forever, and the first chance she got she broke that promise. She'd thrown him away, thrown
them
away. It was the single most shameful thing she'd ever done.

I'm lucky all he did was throw me in the water.

"What's the matter, Hannah?" he asked. "You're looking a little green just when the time has come to bait your hook. Don't tell me you've gone and gotten queasy in your old age."

"No, I'm fine. Just thinking."

She tugged yet again at the shirt she wore and Drew took note of her actions. "You surprise me," he said, eyeing her legs. "What would your father say if he could see you now?"

Her staid and very proper father wouldn't say anything. Roger Mayfield, current president of the Texas Historical Preservation Society, would just kill her. "I don't care to discuss my father."

Drew shrugged and changed the subject. "Follow me, Hannah. There's good wade fishing off the point just up the beach. I keep a stewpot handy there all ready to go. There's a freshwater pond a short walk from here and a patch of wild onions a little beyond that. I'll gather the water and greens if you want to get to hooping."

Hannah frowned. She'd been looking forward to fishing, not tossing the hoop. She gestured toward the load he carried in his arms. "I was hoping to give your fancy reel a try."

"I sort of figured that when I saw your eyes stroking my rod," he said dryly.

"I did not stroke. I simply studied."