Beach Season

by Lisa Jackson, Cathy Lamb, Holly Chamberlin, Rosalind Noonan

Genres: Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Four bestselling authors “explore the topic of lost love and the magical qualities of unexpected second chances” in this pitch-perfect summer collection ( Publishers Weekly). Golden sand, pounding surf, a sense of endless possibility—and four unforgettable stories of love, friendship, and starting over . . . “The Brass Ring” Lisa Jackson It’s a beautiful June day, perfect for a wedding—until Shawna learns that her fiancé, Parker, has been involved in a car crash. Though his injuries heal, his memories of her are gone. Yet Shawna won’t stop reaching to reclaim the love they once shared . . . “June’s Lace” Cathy Lamb In her studio on the Oregon coast, June MacKenzie creates beautiful lace wedding dresses, with no intention of ever wearing one again herself. Then songwriter Reece rents the house next door—and sets out to change her mind . . . “Second Chance Sweethearts” Holly Chamberlin Thea Foss is putting a bad marriage behind her in the pretty vacation town of Ogunquit, Maine. But when her first love wanders into the local diner, he reminds Thea of the person she once was, and the life it’s not too late to claim . . . “Carolina Summer” Rosalind Noonan A storm along North Carolina’s Outer Banks strands Jane Doyle in a beautiful, remote town that soon feels a lot like home. And thanks to the local sheriff, she finds herself staying longer than she ever expected . . .

Release date: June 1, 2015

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 481

Sample

“No. Absolutely not.” I gripped the phone with white knuckles as I paced around my yellow studio. “I will never agree to that.”

“Ha. I knew you wouldn’t accept those unacceptable terms, June,” Cherie Poitras, my divorce attorney, cackled. “Your soon-to-be-ex-husband has a monstrous addiction to being a jerk but don’t worry, we’re not quitting. Quitting causes my hot flashes to flare.”

“I don’t want your hot flashes to flare, Cherie. And I’m not quitting, either. I can’t.” I yanked opened the French doors to my second-story deck as lightning zigged and zagged across the night sky through the bubbling, black clouds, the waves of the Pacific Ocean crashing down the hill from my blue cottage. “If I could catch a lightning strike, I’d pitch it at him.”

“It would be thrilling to see that,” Cherie declared. “So vengefully Mother Nature-ish.”

“What a rat.” I shut the doors with a bang, then thought of my other life, the life before this one, and shuddered. I could not go back to it, and I was working as hard as I could to ensure that that wouldn’t happen. There wasn’t enough silk and satin in that other life. There wasn’t any kindness, either. Or softness. “I so want this to end.”

“He’s sadistically stubborn. I have been buried in motions, requests for mediation, time for him to recover from his fake illness, his counseling appointments, attempts to reconcile ... he’s tried everything. The paperwork alone could reach from Oregon to Arkansas and flip over two bulls and a tractor.”

“That’s what we’re dealing with, Cherie, bull.” I ran a hand through my long, blond, messy hair. It became stuck in a tangle.

“Sure are, sweets.”

“He’s doing this so I’ll come back to him.”

“That’s true. He’s a tenacious, rabid possum.”

“I don’t ever want anything to do with the rabid possum again.” I was so mad, even my bones seemed to ache. Cherie wished me a “happy wedding dress sewing evening,” and I wished her the best of luck being a ferocious attorney who scares the pants off all the male attorneys in Portland and went back to stomping around my studio.

My studio is filled with odd and found things. I need the color and creativity for inspiration for the nontraditional wedding dresses I sew. Weathered, light blue shutters from a demolished house are nailed to a wall. Two-foot-tall pink letters spell out my first name. On a huge canvas, I painted six-foot-tall purple tulips with eyes, smiles, and pink tutus. I propped that painting against a wall next to a collection of mailboxes in the shapes of a pig, elephant, dragon, dog, and monkey. The monkey mailbox scares me.

I dipped a strawberry into melted chocolate and kept stomping about. I eat when I get upset or stressed, and this had not proved to be good for the size of my bottom. Fifteen extra pounds in two years. After only four more strawberries, okay seven, and more pacing, I took a deep breath and tried to wrestle myself away from my past and back into who I am now, who I am trying most desperately to become.

“Remember, June,” I said aloud as my anger and worry surged like the waves of the Oregon coast below me. “You are in your skylighted studio. Not a cold, beige home in the city. You are living amidst stacks of colorful and slinky fabrics, buttons, flowers, faux pearls and gems, and lace. You are not living amidst legal briefs and crammed courtrooms working as an attorney with other stressed-out, maniac attorneys hyped up on their massive egos.”

My tired eyes rested, as they so often did, on my Scottish tartan, our ancestors’ tartan, which I’d hung vertically on my wall. When I’d hung it in our modern home in Portland, he’d ripped it down and hid it from me for a month. “Tacky, June, it’s tacky. We’re not kilt-wearing heathens.”

I am a wedding dress designer in the middle of a soul-crushing divorce. I am a wedding dress designer who will never again marry. I am a wedding dress designer who has about as much faith in marriage as I do that the Oregon coast will never see another drop of rain.

A blast of wind, then a hail of rain pummeled my French doors.

I ate yet another chocolate-covered strawberry. I have been told my eyes are the color of dark chocolate. Not a bad analogy. I washed the strawberry down with lemonade, then ate a carrot.

No, I have no faith in marriage.

None.

It was a bad day. A very bad day. And I knew there were more bad days to come with my ex.

I did not see the wave erupting from the ocean like a sneaky, amphibious water assault. The Oregon coast, stunning and breathtaking, can, infrequently, whip out dangerous waves that arch and stretch and cover anyone in their path with freezing cold water, a bit of foam, and a mouthful of long seaweed. If you are lucky, it will not pull you out to swim with the whales.

But I had committed the cardinal Oregon beach sin: I put my back to the ocean. Never do that.

An hour before, I’d pulled on a raincoat and rain pants and headed out for my usual five-mile “Sanity Walk,” which I do each day to settle my worries. I need to get away from work and my sticky workaholic tendencies, and an overload of him, whom I try not to think about because he contaminates my brain synapses and makes them explode.

Between the raindrops, off in the distance, I could see rays of sun slanting through the clouds, a promise of a reprieve from an early summer rain. To my right, near the rocks and tide pools, I saw a black butterfly shell and turned to pick it up, to see if it was whole, unbroken. I am always searching for whole butterfly shells. I have never found one. The left wing of this shell was halfway broken off ...

And boom.

I was soaked and choking as a wave poured down on my head. Another wave knocked me off my feet, then covered me in salt water. I struggled to find my footing, to figure out which way was up, as I fought vainly against the pull of the waves and the freezing cold. My face at one point was planted straight into the sand.

I tried to pinwheel my arms, but that didn’t work. I tried to hit the ocean floor with my feet, but they were tossed up and over my head. I was under a wall of water, heading out into the ocean, a rock scraping my back. The water sucked and spun me out and around, as if I was a black butterfly shell and it was trying to crack me in half.

I tried to breathe and choked, inhaling water, the cold claws of panic paralyzing my mind as I fought against drowning, seawater pouring over me, my head bopping through to air, then churning waves covering it again. I struggled and fought against the undertow, still not sure which way was up.

I felt a hand grab mine.

A hand.

Grabbing mine.

Within a millisecond, I was hauled up as if I weighed no more than a seagull. An arm curled around my waist, and I was thrust up against a wall of steel, the freezing water pouring off my body. A hand pounded my back as I doubled over and indelicately wretched out sea water and, I think, part of a shell, maybe a seahorse or a shark, and sand. I made another gagging sound, more water poured out, that strong arm still linked around my waist as body-freezing water swirled around us. I wretched again.

And again.

I spit out sand, my whole body going into semishock as I shook and shook. Sucking in air with a gurgly, gasping sound, my lungs totally depleted, my legs shaking, my hair glued to my head, I held on tight to the wall of steel as another wave rolled in. The wave receded, as fast as it came, the chilly water circling our thighs.

“It’s okay,” the wall of steel soothed, both arms tight around me. “I got ya. You’re okay.” He hit me on the back again, and once more I released part of the Pacific Ocean. I inhaled again with a jagged breath, vaguely thinking I sounded like a hyperventilating octopus, however that would be.

Seconds, that was what it took. Seconds before my life was suddenly in danger. Seconds after that and I’m being pounded on the back.

“Sorry about that,” the man drawled. “I’ve never hit a woman, but this seems to be an occasion where it might be beneficial.”

I leaned against his chest, arms around his waist, my whole body trembling, and between long strands of sandy, soaked hair, I eyed my rescuer.

He was a giant. I was being rescued by a green giant with blondish wavy hair.

“How ya doing?” he asked, his emerald eyes concerned, brow furrowed. “Can you get enough air?”

I studied those eyes for a minute. Honestly, they were hard to look away from, bright and intense, steady on. “Yes,” I gurgled out, “I have air.” I then leaned over, coughed in a particularly disgusting fashion, and this time spit up seaweed. I dragged one end of it out of my mouth until I had about six inches hanging from my fingers.

“Better now.” My voice was still hoarse, sand crunching between my teeth. “I had not planned on seaweed for lunch.”

“Good.” He still held on to me so I wouldn’t collapse. “I personally prefer clam chowder. Garlic bread. Less green, more flavor.”

Ah. A man with dry humor. If I wasn’t busy spewing out more sand, I would enjoy the verbal sparring. Leaning over again, his arms supporting me, I choked out yet another piece of seaweed and a mouthful of water. “Tastes terrible.”

“Some people eat it with a dash of salt. Me, personally, it has never held appeal at all. At least you didn’t swallow a fish.”

“For that, I am grateful.” I wiped my mouth. I was stunned. Overwhelmed. Two seagulls squawked above. “Thank you very much.”

“You are quite welcome. Any time.”

“Thank you,” I said once again, my teeth now chattering, as he guided me out of the water and onto the sand, an arm still slinked around my waist. He took off his green rain jacket. “Here, take off your jacket, we’ll put this one around you instead.”

“That’s chivalrous, but I’m soaked. You take it. It’ll get wet.” My body jerked as if it was being electrocuted.

“Please. Wear it. Let me help you. You’re shaking too much to do it yourself.”

That was true.

He unzipped my jacket and took one of my arms, then the other, both rattling around from cold and shock, and pulled my rain jacket off. He threw his jacket around me, stuck my arms back in, and zipped it up. I was instantly dwarfed by the giant’s jacket. He pulled the hood over my head.

“But you’ll get wet now,” I gasped.

“I am not going to get anywhere near as wet as you already are. Please. Wear it.”

He was wearing a blue sweater and I noticed that his chest was flat and the type you could sleep on, not that I would sleep on a man’s chest ever again. No way.

“Thank you. I’m so, so glad you were here.” A sense of utter relief, utter gratefulness flooded over me. Had he not been here, not taken action ... I could have died. That had not been on my agenda for today. I bit my frozen lip and tried not to cry.

“Happy to be here. I did have to run faster than I’ve ever run in my life, but I’ve got my exercise in. I’m renting a place up the hill, just arrived today, came out for a walk, and saw that huge wave hit you. It came out of nowhere, didn’t it?”

“As if it dropped out of the sky.” I pushed my dripping hair out of my eyes and stared at him, the wind lifting that blondish hair around a supertough and strong-looking jaw and prominent cheekbones. “Good of you to make a run to rescue me.”

He bowed. “My pleasure.”

Those green eyes stared right into mine, as if the drowned rat in front of him was interesting and appealing. I could not look away. The rain sprinkled down, and there we stood, staring at each other. My, how his eyes were a light and wondrous color, bold and sure, as if he wasn’t afraid to look away from life ... the trustworthy, strong, I have a deeper side to me and I want to know the deeper side of you sort of gaze.

He shook his head, blinked a couple of times, and smiled again, his eyes crinkling in the corners.

Wow. Rough and tough and manly. Wow.

“Take off your shirt.”

What? I felt myself prickle under his jacket, a blast of fear shooting through me.

“No, no, no.” He put his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. But you’re all zipped up under my jacket. Can you take off the wet clothing on your upper half so you don’t get colder on our walk back?”

“Oh, okay.” That made sense, since I was shivering so spasmodically.

“I’ll turn around to give you some privacy and keep an eye on the ocean while you wriggle out of whatever you can.”

I thought of taking my clothes off in front of this macho he-man. One graphic picture jumped into my mind after another, and my breath quickened. Honestly, June. You almost drowned and you’re thinking about getting naked? You haven’t thought about a naked man in over two years.

“Are your hands too cold to do it?” His face creased into worry lines.

“No. Yes. No and yes to you.” I coughed. Please, June, don’t embarrass yourself. “I’ll be fine.”

The water off the Oregon coast is so absolutely freezing it hurts your brain, even in summer, but as we stared at each other from inches away, my head tilted back; I felt a blush climbing up my neck.

He blinked again, as if he was somewhat rattled, too, then turned around. I started to strip while sneaking peeks at his backside. Huuuuge shoulders. A solid man, not skinny. Tall, rangy.

I wriggled underneath the jacket, still warm from his manly man heat, and managed to pull my sweater and T-shirt off. I hesitated on my bra, then thought, what the heck. I was going to freeze to death if I didn’t. The rain coming down wasn’t helping. I dropped everything in the sand, stuck my arms through the jacket’s sleeves, then rolled my soaking, sandy clothes into a ball.

“Okay, I’m undressed,” I said, then stopped. Come on, June! Think! Don’t say it that way! “I’m undressed but dressed. I’m dressed in your coat. Not naked undressed.”

He turned around and I could tell he was chuckling on the inside.

“I mean, I’m ready. Ready to walk.”

“All righty, off we go.” He pulled the hood over my head again. “We’ve probably got a couple of miles to the steps. I’m worried about you getting cold. Walking will keep you warm.”

He was worried about me? Worried about me? That was so darn sweet. I smiled at him, even though I felt my frozen lips wiggle.

“I’ll hold that.” He held out his hands for my clothes. “Wrap your arms around yourself to keep warm.”

As a river of ice ran through me from head to foot, I handed him my clothes, and of course, my bra had to drop to the sand.

I bent to snatch it up but because I was a frozen popsicle, I didn’t move real quick. He moved quicker, and my brassiere was soon in his huge hands.

“Oh no,” I groaned. It was my black-and-white–spotted cow bra. There was a pink cow across each cup, surrounded by polka dots. It was a funny gift from my sister September, because she said I was an “udderly” wonderful sister. “Put your girls in these two cows!” she’d giggled.

“I’ll take that back.” I put my trembling hand out for the bra.

“Polka dots?” He raised an eyebrow. “And two cows.” He held the bra up with both hands.

“I am so embarrassed. Please blame my sister. She sent it to me.”

“It’s original!” he declared, smiling at me. “It’s a cow bra.”

“Yes, oh me, oh my.”

“Me, oh my, too,” he said softly, and oh me, oh my, I could tell that man was struggling hard not to laugh.

Who was this man? And why, after almost drowning, was I all aflutter?

He held the pink cows up again. “I don’t think I’m going to forget today.”

“Me, neither. And not only because of the cow bra.”

Soaked, freezing, a summer rain drenching us, we laughed.

And that was the beginning. The laughter was the beginning.

The beginning of Reece and me.

Later that night, wrapped up on my bed in my blue crocheted feather-filled comforter, eating only a small piece of apple pie with whipped cream, okay, two pieces, the waves pounding on the surf, I reentertained myself with the rest of my conversation with Reece ...

He tucked the wet cows into the wad of clothes. I took a deep breath. “It’s a long walk; you don’t have to come back with me. I can return your jacket.”

“No way. I’m not letting you walk back alone. I’ll see you home to get something dry on, then we’re going to the hospital.”

“The hospital? Not a chance. I don’t enter hospitals. They make me nervous.”

“Me, too, but you’re going. You swallowed a lot of water, and I want them to check your lungs and make sure you didn’t take a knock to the head.”

“I can take myself to the hospital.”

“I’ll take you.” He smiled with nice white teeth and stuck out his hand. “Reece O’Brien.”

“Nice to meet you, Reece.” I shook his hand. My hand trembled. “I’m June MacKenzie.”

“June? Were you born in June?”

The light rain suddenly turned into a deluge as we headed to the stairway. I was a double-drowned rat. “No.”

“Oh.”

He seemed pleasantly baffled.

“It’s a family name, then?”

I didn’t want to explain. It was a wee bit embarrassing to talk about sex in front of him. “June is the month when my parents conceived me.”

“Ah. I see.”

I stared straight ahead at the pounding surf.

“Do you have brothers and sisters?” he asked.

“Yes, three of them.”

“What are your sisters’ and brothers’ names?”

I could see the hazel flecks in those green eyes, a crooked scar by his right eye, another on top of his left cheekbone. I want to kiss the scars... . Whoa, June! Had I just thought that? I want to kiss the scars. Where the heck had that come from? I was off men, completely! Done with men!

“Did you forget your brothers’ and sisters’ names?” He smiled at me.

I smiled back. He had such nice... lips! “What? No. No. I know their names.”

Yes, I did. I knew my brother’s and sisters’ names, but my, how would it feel to hug a man that size? Oh, shoot! What was I thinking? “I know their names,” I said again, with a bit of defiance, but I heard my voice come out as a whisper. “I do.”

“Good.” His eyes dropped to my lips. It was a flicker, but I saw the drop. My mouth suddenly felt like it was on fire. What? I couldn’t be on fire for him, or any man. That was ... that was ... bad!

“Their names are ...” Who was I talking about again? Whose names?

“Your brothers and sisters,” he prompted, still smiling.

I accidentally made a funny sound in my throat. “Yes! I have a brother and sisters and they have names.” I looked at the ocean for answers.

“That’s fortunate. If they didn’t, what would they be called?” His voice was low and husky.

“I don’t know what they would be called without names.” What was going on? I was freezing, I was in shock. Ha! That was it! I had almost been pulled out to sea. He’d saved me. Now I was transferring my emotions to him.

“So. My brother’s name is ...” Quick, June. Your name is June ... “His name is March. March. And I have a sister named ...” Reece was a cross between Poseidon and Zeus ... he needed only a chariot to complete the image. “August. She’s an August.” I shook my head to clear it. “Her name is August. She’s getting married soon. Her fiancé’s family is proper. Scary proper. Blue-blood proper. I have another sister ...” Chariot. Horses. A sword. Did Greek gods have swords? What would Reece’s sword be like? June, come on! “The other sister has a name. She is a September.” I bit my wet lip. “I mean, her name is September. She is not a September. It’s just September. One word.”

“Just September. One word.”

As an ex-trial attorney I have been in court hundreds of times. I was never thrown, never intimidated, never embarrassed, even when the judge was threatening to charge me with contempt of court, even with obstinate juries or screaming opposing counsel. No, never, but this man.

“Do you have brothers and sisters named for the months of the year?” What an inane question. No! No, he didn’t. You and your odd MacKenzie clan are the only ones who are all named after months!

He chuckled, deep and masculine. “I have two brothers and two sisters. Their names are Shane, Jessica, Rick, and Sandy. Dull compared to yours. Your parents must have enjoyed the months of June, August, September, and March.”

I stumbled a bit on a rock, and he caught my arm. This time, I avoided locking eyes with him so as not to be possessed by his handsome magic. “I’m sure they did enjoy those months. Every month is a happy month for my parents.”

“That’s a rare thing to hear. Tell me about them.”

Okay! I could do that! A normal conversation! “They met when they were sixteen and ran off and got married after they graduated from high school. My oldest sister arrived a year later, then my next sister, me, and my brother. We’re all eighteen months apart, give or take a few months.”

“Young parents.”

“Oh yes, and they’re way cooler than any of their kids. They’re ex-hippies.”

“Outstanding.”

“Yes, we had an outstanding childhood. Different. Wild. Nomadic.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You want to know about my childhood?” I pushed a strand of wet hair off my face.

“Yes, I do.” Those eyes were sincere. I was being pulled into a green pool, only the pool was warm and sexy and had big shoulders. Look away, June. Look away! Remember, you do not believe in lust at first sight.

I shook my head to clear my burgeoning passion. “My sister August was born on a commune in California. My next sister, September, was born in the back of our VW van. I was born in a hippie colony here in Oregon. There’s some difference, not much, from a commune. My brother was born about fifteen feet over the U.S. border.”

“Fifteen feet?”

“About that. We had been in Mexico, living on a farm with other Americans, but my nine-months-along mom decided at the last minute that she wanted March born on American soil, like the rest of us, so they drove through the night. My brother was born on the other side of the customs building.”

“That must have been quite a ride.”

“It was. I remember it. We packed up the van on the fly. We were all wearing tie-dye shirts and sandals. We also had three mutts, two cats, and a bird who flew loose in the van. We had a box of apples and a box of bananas. I slept on the floor of the van between my sisters with our dog, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, asleep over my legs. Our other dog, Flower Child, snored away on a seat, and the third dog, Fleas, because he had fleas when we found him, my sister was using as a pillow.”

“You are making my childhood sound as boring as heck. I can barely stand it.”

“We were traveling gypsies in a VW bus.” I drew my arms tight around my freezing, shaking body, the rain relentless.

“So, your brother made it to the U.S. border?”

“Yes, he did. My poor mom. No drugs at all during childbirth. She wanted it natural. All of us were natural. My father grabbed two tartans out of the back of the van for her to lie on.”

“Tartans?”

“From Scotland. Our ancestors are from Scotland, and our family takes our love of Scotland seriously. Afterward, my father’s face was whiter than my mom’s. I remember my sisters and I had to stay in the van and there were a bunch of men in uniform helping my mom, and all of a sudden one of those men was holding our brother, March, who was screaming his head off, but, I’m sure, delighted to have been born in America.”

He laughed again.

My, what a seductive and deep and gravelly laugh. My!

“And after he was born?”

“A doctor had been passing through customs and one of the guards ran him over to our mom, so he was able to do some sewing up, so to speak. A couple of hours later, after the border guards fed us, we were back in the van, March squawking in my mom’s arms where she lay on the floor. Within two hours we were in a fancy hotel. It was strange. Our childhoods were so nomadic, we worked on farms and communes, and the basics, electricity and plumbing, often weren’t there, but once or twice a year we’d go stay in a hotel with pools, hot tubs, and free breakfasts where we stuffed ourselves silly with pancakes and waffles. After March was born we had seven nights of complete luxury.”

“Then back on the road? You didn’t go to school?”

“Not traditional school. We weren’t homeschooled, we were bus-schooled.”

“What does ‘bus-schooled’ mean?”

He smiled. I melted further. For a moment I faltered again, couldn’t speak, lost my train of thought. I coughed. “We learned all about geography, geology, and the history of the earth from our travels. We’re all fluent in Spanish. Our father loved math, so in fourth grade we were doing basic algebra. He thought it was fun, so there we’d be, up at two in the morning, doing algebraic equations after learning about the constellations. My mom had us write in journals every night and we read the classics.”

“A family of readers, then?”

“We ate books. It was required. We would visit other MacKenzie relatives often, and read their books, too. Books are your friends, my mom told us.”

“How did your parents make a living?”

“My father is a talented painter so he would set up a stand at open markets, or in small towns we were passing through, and people would hire him to paint pictures of themselves, their homes, their pets. Once word got out, there were long lines. Sometimes he would paint murals at schools, churches, even civic buildings. He’d go in with a design, they’d love it, and all of a sudden they had a mural in their hallway and we had a check.”

I laughed despite the cold that seemed to be living in my body from the inside out. Could blood turn to icicles? “My mom is an incredibly talented seamstress. She made all of our clothes and called it Hippie Chick. One time she took yards of beige material bought at a garage sale for fifty cents and sewed my sisters and me dresses with six inches of lace at the hem. People loved them, they stopped us on the street. My mom sold a lot of clothes when we were in that bus. Her flowered shirts, flowy and bright, sold well. She’d buy used jeans for twenty-five cents, cut out patches from colorful material, and sew them on. She added beads and feathers to plain blue shirts. She could turn anything into a fashion statement, and she did.”

“She was a clothing artist, then.”

“Yes, and she taught us. We would all spend hours together sewing into the night. There wasn’t a formal bedtime. We’d use a lantern and she showed us how to make a boring dress unique, how to make a normal skirt something special. Ruffles, sequins, embroidery, shortening, lengthening. And lace. Oh, the lace was always in abundance. Our favorite. We used it all over everything. Satin was our second favorite. Sewing was a fun game for us.”

“And you learned a lifelong skill.”

“That I did.” I sewed until I decided, insanely, that I should let that part of my life fly off into the wind and disappear over the mountains. Part of me flew off then, too, and I was soon a miserable cog in a legal machine. I went back to sewing to refind my lost self. How strange to say sewing recently saved me, but it had.

I was so curious about his family, but we started climbing the staircase and all I could think of was that I didn’t want to go first because I didn’t want my rear in his face, but I didn’t have a choice. A gentleman, he had me go first.

I wanted to grab my bottom and hide it. It is not overly large, but let’s simply say that I enjoy eating, have never desired to be model slim, and believe my curves, instead of the skinny, intense thing I used to be, signal a healthier eating life. Besides, I could die tomorrow. Why deny myself the finer pleasures of life like chocolate, fresh lobster with garlic butter, and clam chowder?

I tripped up a step, started to tumble forward, my freezing feet and legs not responding, and that strong arm whipped around my middle and pulled me back up. Again.

But this time my back was tight against his chest. The chariot chest. Hard and tight, a thigh partly between mine.

Oh, mercy.

His face was so near to mine. Inches. Oh, inches.

He smelled delicious ... a combination of the beach and sunshine and musk.

Mercy, mercy, mercy me.

“Boil me dry, and hang me out on a laundry line like a dead possum,” Estelle said, shaking her white curls. “It is a miracle. You have brought a man to this house. Who is he and what does he want and do you even know how to talk to a man without telling him off?”

“He is a tall drink of water,” Leoni whispered, as if Reece could hear her talking through the window as she spied on him from my second-story studio. “And he’s getting back in his truck and driving away! Oh, no! Run after him, June! Get him, get him!” She whirled around and started pushing at my back. “Go, go!”

I wanted to sneak into my light blue bedroom and take a hot shower, but if I did that, my two employees, Estelle, who is seventy-eight and blunt because, “Why waste time at my age?” and Leoni, blond, twenty-seven, and a single mom, would simply trail after me, probably right into the shower. Yes, they are that nosy.

“I am not going to run after him, Leoni.” I dripped on my wood floor. I knew where Reece was going, he was going home to get changed. He said he’d be back up at my house in ten minutes. Ten minut