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Synopsis
What’s wrong with a little white lie?
There are a lot of things Ali Marshal doesn’t do: pink anything, a day without chocolate, and Hawk, her sister’s ex-husband. Sure, he’s a sexy former NHL star who can make her pulse pound with just a wink. But he belonged to Bridget first. And no matter how long she’s had a crush on him, how great he’s always been to her dad, or that her sister is engaged to someone else now and Ali needs a date to their engagement party, she can’t give in to temptation. Can she?
It’s been years since his disastrous marriage crashed and burned, and Bradley Hawk has finally moved on. So when Bridget blows back into town with her new fiancé, throwing the engagement party of the year, he could care less … until Ali tells one little lie that lands him smack dab in a fake relationship. After one promise to be Ali’s date and two of the hottest kisses he’s ever had, Hawk can’t deny how much he wants her. But what happens when this fauxmance starts to feel very, very real?
Release date: April 25, 2017
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Print pages: 384
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Feels Like the First Time
Marina Adair
Chapter 1
Nothing pissed off Bradley Hawk quite like being played. Except being played while wearing nothing but boxers and an epic case of bedhead.
For a guy whose front door faced Main Street, grabbing his hockey stick, forgoing jeans, and rushing out the door was a bonehead move. But he’d heard the alarm sound, the one rigged to let him know if someone was tampering with his inventory, and he acted without thinking.
A trait he’d worked hard to overcome, with little success.
Over the past few weeks, several empty kegs had disappeared from his bar. Not enough to call the cops, but enough to make him think one of his employees was selling them on Craigslist.
It wasn’t about the money. For Hawk, it came down to the fact that he was getting screwed over by someone he trusted. Because the Penalty Box wasn’t just a sports bar and grill, it was his home. The employees, his family. And he refused to let his home be torn apart from the inside.
Not again.
So pants be damned, Hawk raced down the steps of his apartment, which sat above the bar. The wood planks were cold beneath his bare feet, slick from the fog that had rolled in off the Pacific Ocean.
It was late spring in Destiny Bay, and Mother Nature was acting as if she were menopausal, her mood fluctuating from hot flashes to freeze your nuts off. This morning’s mood was the latter.
The sun was beginning to rise over the lush peaks of the Cascade Range, painting the sky a hazy mosaic of purples and blues. It was barely past dawn.
Meaning, it was too early for this shit.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t too early for the Senior Steppers to be out. Dressed in their matching velour sweat suits, white walking shoes, and knit caps, the group was hitting their stride and passing Steel Magnolia’s, the garden art shop next door, when Hawk hit the sidewalk.
A collection of shocked gasps filled the air. Two of the ladies even clasped their chests in a way that had Hawk skidding to a stop.
“Sorry if I scared you, ladies,” Hawk apologized, dropping his hockey stick to a nonthreatening pose by his side. “Did you see anyone suspicious walking around the parking lot?”
“We were too busy staring at your stick to notice,” Fiona Callahan, his best friend’s grandmother said, her eyes dipping embarrassingly low. “About time, too. We started to feel left out, seeing as all of the other girls in town had their peek.”
“Can I get a picture with me holding it?” Margret Collins, the senior center’s Sunshine Girl, said pulling out her phone. “For Instagram. I’m trying to build my following. And me holding a Stanley Cup winner’s stick would gain a lot of likes.”
It would gain Hawk a never-ending supply of shit from his friends.
“Maybe later, I gotta go,” he said, ignoring the giggles, and a catcall from the pastor’s wife that would make even the most confident man blush. The camera flash that lit up the parking lot as he raced toward the loading dock behind the bar, that was hard to ignore.
Hawk reached the dock, saw the stack of empty kegs that he’d left out as bait, and nothing else. No prowler, no group of employees plotting how to take down the bar one keg at a time. He spun around, looking in all directions, his eyes expertly scanning the shadows for movement. Nope, Hawk was completely alone—and missing three kegs.
Crap.
He lowered his stick once again and considered accepting the loss. That way he could go back to bed and pass out until next week. A decent night’s sleep would bring some perspective to the situation.
Ever since he and his best friend’s company, Two Bad Apples Hard Cider, had taken off, Hawk was busting his ass to fulfill cider orders by day, and running his bar at night.
Today marked his first day off in three months, and he’d be damned if he was going to spend it in a dark parking lot, contemplating who was screwing with his stuff.
Determined not to waste another second, Hawk headed for his apartment. He’d made it as far as the middle of the lot when a loud noise came from the back of the garden art shop next door.
Normally this wouldn’t set off red flags, since the owner tended to work at the most infuriating hours—namely, the five hours Hawk actually got to sleep.
But this wasn’t the normal power saw cutting through steel grating he’d come to know and loathe. This was more of a scraping of metal across the concrete.
Like someone dragging a keg through Steel Magnolia’s back room.
Hawk closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, for the first time feeling sorry for the poor SOB who had the misfortune of trying to hide stolen property in Ali Marshal’s work space. Ali didn’t like people invading her space, and she might be small enough to pass for Tinkerbell, but she packed one hell of an attitude.
Not to mention she was lethal with the blowtorch.
“You might want to come out,” Hawk said, crossing the parking lot and walking up to the back door of the repurposed firehouse. “You’re safer facing the music and turning yourself in, trust me.”
When he got no response in return, Hawk accepted his fate and pushed through the unlocked door. Only instead of finding one of his night staff huddled in the corner with his kegs, he found his thief standing over his missing metal canisters in a pair of combat boots, a welder’s mask pulled low, and a blowtorch in hand.
A lit blowtorch.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hollered as the red flame closed in on one of the kegs.
Ali’s head lifted in his direction, and from behind the mask he could feel the narrowing of those intense green eyes. The blowtorch flickered twice in warning.
Hawk jumped back right before the heat would have singed his chest hairs—and other, more crucial, parts. But that wasn’t what had him stepping back. Ali had spent the better part of the past decade threatening to roast his nuts, so that was nothing new. What was new, was the silky green strapless number that hugged her curves and showed off those toned legs that had his mind racing.
Ali either wore coveralls or denim, always black and always with a Bite me attitude that left men panting or praying for their lives. Men who weren’t named Hawk, that is.
Not only had he known Ali when she was a pierced-nosed teen, but she was also his sister-in-law. Well, she had been before Hawk’s wife, Bridget, traded him in for a newer, shinier model. He’d lost the ball when Bridget kept yanking his chain, but kept the kid sister.
Although she didn’t look like a kid in that dress. Which in no way excused the sharp jolt of awareness that was anything but brotherly. Something else he’d been trying to overcome as of late.
“One mark on my keg and I’ll post a photo of you in that dress on my timeline,” Hawk said, folding his arms across his chest—making damn sure his eyes didn’t stray below the chin.
The blowtorch flickered out and she flipped her mask up—and yup, those emerald eyes were skewering him. “Your kegs. Huh?” She set the blowtorch on the table and took off her work gloves. “Funny, since they were sitting on my side of the easement.”
“You mean the easement that is on my property, giving you and your customers access to your side of the parking lot?”
“My latest customer wanted a garden fountain made from kegs. How was I to know that those weren’t for me?”
“I don’t know, maybe by the Two Bad Apples logo on the side of each and every keg,” he said, taking in the nearly finished fountain, confirming, first off, that Ali was one hell of an artist. And second, making it clear exactly where his other kegs had disappeared to. “If that wasn’t clear enough, then the other ninety-seven sitting in my loading dock should have been a clue.”
She smiled, all smugness and attitude. “Right. I guess I can see that now. Next time you might consider keeping them on your side of the easement to avoid any confusion. Or perhaps post a sign there for folks to see. Kind of like the PARKING FOR STEEL MAGNOLIA’S CUSTOMERS ONLY signs your bar patrons continue to ignore.”
Ali took off her mask and set it on the work bench, leaving her in just her boots and that dress. Those chocolate brown curls of hers, once released, tumbled down to brush her bare shoulders and frame that expressive face.
God, she was stunning. How had he never noticed that before?
“Hawk?” she asked in that self-conscious tone that always got to him. So, when she crossed her arms in front of her, a clear sign she was picking up on vibes he’d tried to keep in check, he locked his focus on her face, even though he knew her current stance must be doing incredible things for her cleavage. “What are you staring at?”
“You’re soldering in a dress.” He waved his hand as if put out over having to explain the obvious. When, in fact, he couldn’t stop staring at her in that dress. “I was just checking to make sure you hadn’t burned yourself.”
“It’s just a dress,” she said, acting coy, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. But for whatever reason, Ali in that dress was extraordinary. It was also a sign that something was up. And unlike his patrons, he refused to ignore that sign.
“It’s not just a dress, and you know it.”
“Says the man breaking and entering in his skivvies,” she snapped, confirming something was up. “And really, do you have to wave your stick around all the time? As your friend, it’s my duty to tell you it’s getting a little embarrassing. I mean, most of the town has already seen it.”
She punctuated the word friend, yet strangely enough, she was looking at him as if he were a sculpture she couldn’t wait to get her hands on. Or rip out his throat.
Either way, that look overrode the F-word he was coming to hate.
Hawk casually swung his hockey stick in his trademark winning goal motion, tightening his abs and flexing his biceps. “Some ladies out front were begging to hold it.”
Ali rolled her eyes, but not before Hawk noticed her breath quicken. “Tell Fi she can buy a bigger one online for twenty bucks. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
“Have at it,” Hawk said, and then, he had no idea what came over him. Maybe it was the uncertainty in her gaze, or maybe it was that sexy as hell dress. He snatched her cell off the workbench and, flipping it to camera mode, snapped a picture.
Ali’s face went slack. She looked down at the light green silk that would be the talk of the town, and launched around the workbench, grabbing for her phone. Which Hawk held over her head and out of reach.
“Give it back, Bradley,” she said, jumping up to snatch it out of his hands. But her five-feet-nothing was no match for his six-feet-three-inches of badass hockey player moves. Her elbows, though, had some serious force behind them.
“Not until you tell me what the dress is about, Aliana,” he said, purposely using her given name because he knew it irked her. When she didn’t elaborate, just locked eyes with him, he added, “One swipe and it goes viral.”
“Fine.” She poked him in the peck. Hard. “One of my pieces might be in a magazine.”
“You’ve had a dozen of your pieces in magazines. None of them inspired viridian green silk.”
“What kind of guy uses the word viridian? Oh, wait, the same kind of guy who doesn’t think selling hard cider is a pussy job.”
“Cider is the next workingman’s beer. The dress?” He lifted a brow.
“It’s Architectural Digest,” she said with a shyness Hawk wasn’t used to witnessing from her.
Information, as the co-owner of the local watering hole that doubled as gossip central, Hawk was already privy to, but it was nice to hear her say it. Watch the smile hiding beneath the play it cool expression she always wore.
He knew how much this would mean to her. She’d been talking about that magazine since high school. Except there was that slight waver in her tone, one that she hadn’t ever been able to hide from him. “And you were so elated, you decided to celebrate by wearing a dress at six in the morning?”
“There’s a dinner tonight and I was breaking it in. You know, like a new pair of work boots. Now give it back.” She jumped up to snatch it back, but if there was one thing that playing in the NHL for over a decade had taught Hawk, it was how to spot a deke. And Ali was using the magazine’s prestige to fake him out, distract him from the real issue.
“A dinner?” he prodded, sliding an arm around her to keep her from ramming his shins with her steeled toes, which only managed to press her body flush with his. Noticing her gaze dropped right to his mouth, he let loose a grin. “A dinner that requires a dress like this is a dinner I’d hate to miss. So tell me, sunshine, who’s the lucky guy?”
He didn’t mention that whoever the guy was, he didn’t deserve a woman like Ali. Or that his plan to mess with her had somehow backfired, because he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her lips.
“Are you offering to be my date, Hawk?”
“Depends. Will that dress be joining us?”
“You have to come to find out.” A totally cool, almost bored expression crossed her face as she casually rested a hand on his chest—her fingers gliding down his abs. “And Dad’s grilling. I’m sure he’d love to see you.” She looked up at him through her long, thick lashes. “So would Bridget.”
It was as if a Washington winter snowstorm had blown through the shop—piercing his chest. “Bridget?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention?” Ali said, snatching her phone back. “Bridget came home, just in time for my big night. You think she’ll want to hold your stick?”
Chapter 2
One glance at Hawk’s stupid stick should have been enough to quell the flutters in Ali’s belly. She didn’t do fluttery, didn’t do beefed-up jocks, and she sure as hell didn’t do stupid—no matter how impressive the stick.
She’d tried that once and ended up with a broken heart.
Which brought her to the next thing she didn’t do—her sister’s ex-husband. No matter how irritatingly irresistible she’d always found him.
Yet when she pulled up to her dad’s house later that evening, they were still there—the residual flutters flitting around in her chest.
“Those are not flutters,” she told herself. “It’s heartburn.”
Nature’s reminder to steer clear of things that were bad for her. And as good a guy as Bradley Hawk was, he was bad for her well-being.
It wasn’t his two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of alpha-male badass, or even that he smelled like sex—something she’d gone way too long without. Nope, what had Ali feeling all feminine was the way he looked at her, touched her on occasion—as if she were all delicate and sexy.
After spending most of her life in her single dad’s machine shop, Ali, vertically challenged or not, didn’t have a delicate bone in her body. And unless a guy was turned on by steel-toed stylings and blowtorch skills, sexy wasn’t a word she’d heard all that often with regard to herself.
Which was why the second Hawk had left, she’d ditched her dress for her usual Converse, ripped jeans, and offensive tank top. Tonight’s was black with pink letters reading, THE ONLY THING SHORT ABOUT ME IS MY TEMPER. After all, informing people of her current state of mind was only polite.
Parking the car in front of the oceanfront bungalow, she grabbed two casseroles and a grocery bag off the passenger seat. The casseroles were to get her dad through one whole week without breaking his doctor’s diet. And the grocery bag was just in case.
Marty Marshal walked out onto the stone porch holding a spatula. His hair was windblown, his boat shoes unlaced, and in his Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt, he looked as if his life was a never-ending Jimmy Buffett song.
“Hey, sweet pea,” her dad said. “I thought I heard you pull up. I was around back, getting ready to fire up the grill for the steak.”
“You mean the fish and vegetable kabobs from the recipe I e-mailed you yesterday?” Ali said, giving her dad a kiss on the cheek.
Marty shrugged. “The cod didn’t look fresh, so I went with the steak.”
“Funny since the market advertises fresh cod caught daily. Right from there.” Ali pointed over the steep cliffs that jutted out from behind her childhood home, to the ocean crashing below. “Can’t get any fresher than that. And what about vegetables?”
“I got corn bread. The doctor said I can eat corn, and you girls love it with my special honey butter.”
“Corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and when you bake it in a buttered skillet then smother it in liquid sugar, I don’t think it meets the guidelines Dr. Cortes was going for.”
Ignoring this, Marty took the bag from her hand and followed her inside. “Is this the pie?”
“No.” Ali smiled. “That’s my just-in-case-you-bought-something-else.”
Marty peeked in the bag at the marinating kabobs and frowned. “What kind of man celebrates his daughter’s big news with cod and zucchini on a stick?”
“A man who doesn’t want to go into a diabetic coma,” she said, walking into the kitchen, hiding her grin at the grumbles Marty was letting loose behind her. “And don’t worry, Kennedy is bringing the pie with her.”
Kennedy was also bringing a buffer—her fiancé, Luke Callahan. If Ali was to make it through an evening with her sister without losing it, then she needed a distraction. And nothing distracted Bridget quite like a handsome man.
Kennedy Sinclair wasn’t just Destiny Bay’s newest celebrity baker; as Ali’s best friend, she also had her back. It had been a long while since someone had Ali’s back—and it felt damn good.
“Coconut cream?” Marty asked, sounding like a kid at a candy store.
“Special order.” Meaning it was high in yum factor—if one liked coconut, which Ali did not—and low in sugar for those glycemicly challenged. Marty would never know the difference. “But only men who eat their cod get dessert.”
More grumbling ensued, but this time Ali ignored it and went right to the fridge, stacking the casseroles and pulling out all the ingredients needed to make a healthy garden salad.
“Where’s Bridget?”
“Running a little behind.”
Ali looked at the clock above the stove, then over her shoulder at Marty. “I thought you were going to take her out on Chasing Destiny?” Ali asked, referring to her dad’s pride and joy—a forty-two-foot Catalina sailboat he’d spent the better part of the past decade rebuilding.
“Too windy. Bridget was afraid she’d get seasick,” Marty said and Ali wanted to call bullshit. Yes, Bridget did suffer from the occasional motion sickness, but only when they were out in the open ocean. And since Marty had been restricted to sailing within a few miles of home, doctor’s orders, Bridget would have been fine.
“I reminded her that I still have some pills left over from the last time she came up,” Marty said.
“I don’t think they make a pill for what Bridget suffers from,” Ali joked, because it was the perfect day to go sailing. And the perfect day for Marty to spend time with his other daughter. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and there was a gentle breeze coming up from the south.
The only reason Bridget didn’t want to go sailing was because Ali was better at it. And everything in Bridget’s world was a competition. Even father-daughter time.
Marty gave Ali a stern look, but his grin ruined the scolding. “I’d better check the corn bread.”
“I’ll get the corn bread,” Ali said, choosing to let it go. “And I’ll prep a nice green salad while I’m at it, so you can get the fish going on the grill.”
“The casseroles, dessert? I’m supposed to be cooking you dinner,” Marty objected.
“I don’t mind cooking for you, Dad,” she clarified.
Marty had been taking care of Ali her whole life, always going that extra step to show her that she was loved. After her parents divorced and split everything right down the middle—including the kids—Marty had done everything he could to ensure Ali had a happy childhood. So what if their roles were a little reversed now? It felt nice to pamper him for a change.
“But it’s your big night,” he said quietly. “You should be sipping a cold one on the porch and letting me take care of you.”
“Just because they’re shooting my work doesn’t mean it will make it in the magazine.”
The purpose of the article was to showcase the bold and i. . .
Nothing pissed off Bradley Hawk quite like being played. Except being played while wearing nothing but boxers and an epic case of bedhead.
For a guy whose front door faced Main Street, grabbing his hockey stick, forgoing jeans, and rushing out the door was a bonehead move. But he’d heard the alarm sound, the one rigged to let him know if someone was tampering with his inventory, and he acted without thinking.
A trait he’d worked hard to overcome, with little success.
Over the past few weeks, several empty kegs had disappeared from his bar. Not enough to call the cops, but enough to make him think one of his employees was selling them on Craigslist.
It wasn’t about the money. For Hawk, it came down to the fact that he was getting screwed over by someone he trusted. Because the Penalty Box wasn’t just a sports bar and grill, it was his home. The employees, his family. And he refused to let his home be torn apart from the inside.
Not again.
So pants be damned, Hawk raced down the steps of his apartment, which sat above the bar. The wood planks were cold beneath his bare feet, slick from the fog that had rolled in off the Pacific Ocean.
It was late spring in Destiny Bay, and Mother Nature was acting as if she were menopausal, her mood fluctuating from hot flashes to freeze your nuts off. This morning’s mood was the latter.
The sun was beginning to rise over the lush peaks of the Cascade Range, painting the sky a hazy mosaic of purples and blues. It was barely past dawn.
Meaning, it was too early for this shit.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t too early for the Senior Steppers to be out. Dressed in their matching velour sweat suits, white walking shoes, and knit caps, the group was hitting their stride and passing Steel Magnolia’s, the garden art shop next door, when Hawk hit the sidewalk.
A collection of shocked gasps filled the air. Two of the ladies even clasped their chests in a way that had Hawk skidding to a stop.
“Sorry if I scared you, ladies,” Hawk apologized, dropping his hockey stick to a nonthreatening pose by his side. “Did you see anyone suspicious walking around the parking lot?”
“We were too busy staring at your stick to notice,” Fiona Callahan, his best friend’s grandmother said, her eyes dipping embarrassingly low. “About time, too. We started to feel left out, seeing as all of the other girls in town had their peek.”
“Can I get a picture with me holding it?” Margret Collins, the senior center’s Sunshine Girl, said pulling out her phone. “For Instagram. I’m trying to build my following. And me holding a Stanley Cup winner’s stick would gain a lot of likes.”
It would gain Hawk a never-ending supply of shit from his friends.
“Maybe later, I gotta go,” he said, ignoring the giggles, and a catcall from the pastor’s wife that would make even the most confident man blush. The camera flash that lit up the parking lot as he raced toward the loading dock behind the bar, that was hard to ignore.
Hawk reached the dock, saw the stack of empty kegs that he’d left out as bait, and nothing else. No prowler, no group of employees plotting how to take down the bar one keg at a time. He spun around, looking in all directions, his eyes expertly scanning the shadows for movement. Nope, Hawk was completely alone—and missing three kegs.
Crap.
He lowered his stick once again and considered accepting the loss. That way he could go back to bed and pass out until next week. A decent night’s sleep would bring some perspective to the situation.
Ever since he and his best friend’s company, Two Bad Apples Hard Cider, had taken off, Hawk was busting his ass to fulfill cider orders by day, and running his bar at night.
Today marked his first day off in three months, and he’d be damned if he was going to spend it in a dark parking lot, contemplating who was screwing with his stuff.
Determined not to waste another second, Hawk headed for his apartment. He’d made it as far as the middle of the lot when a loud noise came from the back of the garden art shop next door.
Normally this wouldn’t set off red flags, since the owner tended to work at the most infuriating hours—namely, the five hours Hawk actually got to sleep.
But this wasn’t the normal power saw cutting through steel grating he’d come to know and loathe. This was more of a scraping of metal across the concrete.
Like someone dragging a keg through Steel Magnolia’s back room.
Hawk closed his eyes and let out a slow breath, for the first time feeling sorry for the poor SOB who had the misfortune of trying to hide stolen property in Ali Marshal’s work space. Ali didn’t like people invading her space, and she might be small enough to pass for Tinkerbell, but she packed one hell of an attitude.
Not to mention she was lethal with the blowtorch.
“You might want to come out,” Hawk said, crossing the parking lot and walking up to the back door of the repurposed firehouse. “You’re safer facing the music and turning yourself in, trust me.”
When he got no response in return, Hawk accepted his fate and pushed through the unlocked door. Only instead of finding one of his night staff huddled in the corner with his kegs, he found his thief standing over his missing metal canisters in a pair of combat boots, a welder’s mask pulled low, and a blowtorch in hand.
A lit blowtorch.
“What the hell are you doing?” he hollered as the red flame closed in on one of the kegs.
Ali’s head lifted in his direction, and from behind the mask he could feel the narrowing of those intense green eyes. The blowtorch flickered twice in warning.
Hawk jumped back right before the heat would have singed his chest hairs—and other, more crucial, parts. But that wasn’t what had him stepping back. Ali had spent the better part of the past decade threatening to roast his nuts, so that was nothing new. What was new, was the silky green strapless number that hugged her curves and showed off those toned legs that had his mind racing.
Ali either wore coveralls or denim, always black and always with a Bite me attitude that left men panting or praying for their lives. Men who weren’t named Hawk, that is.
Not only had he known Ali when she was a pierced-nosed teen, but she was also his sister-in-law. Well, she had been before Hawk’s wife, Bridget, traded him in for a newer, shinier model. He’d lost the ball when Bridget kept yanking his chain, but kept the kid sister.
Although she didn’t look like a kid in that dress. Which in no way excused the sharp jolt of awareness that was anything but brotherly. Something else he’d been trying to overcome as of late.
“One mark on my keg and I’ll post a photo of you in that dress on my timeline,” Hawk said, folding his arms across his chest—making damn sure his eyes didn’t stray below the chin.
The blowtorch flickered out and she flipped her mask up—and yup, those emerald eyes were skewering him. “Your kegs. Huh?” She set the blowtorch on the table and took off her work gloves. “Funny, since they were sitting on my side of the easement.”
“You mean the easement that is on my property, giving you and your customers access to your side of the parking lot?”
“My latest customer wanted a garden fountain made from kegs. How was I to know that those weren’t for me?”
“I don’t know, maybe by the Two Bad Apples logo on the side of each and every keg,” he said, taking in the nearly finished fountain, confirming, first off, that Ali was one hell of an artist. And second, making it clear exactly where his other kegs had disappeared to. “If that wasn’t clear enough, then the other ninety-seven sitting in my loading dock should have been a clue.”
She smiled, all smugness and attitude. “Right. I guess I can see that now. Next time you might consider keeping them on your side of the easement to avoid any confusion. Or perhaps post a sign there for folks to see. Kind of like the PARKING FOR STEEL MAGNOLIA’S CUSTOMERS ONLY signs your bar patrons continue to ignore.”
Ali took off her mask and set it on the work bench, leaving her in just her boots and that dress. Those chocolate brown curls of hers, once released, tumbled down to brush her bare shoulders and frame that expressive face.
God, she was stunning. How had he never noticed that before?
“Hawk?” she asked in that self-conscious tone that always got to him. So, when she crossed her arms in front of her, a clear sign she was picking up on vibes he’d tried to keep in check, he locked his focus on her face, even though he knew her current stance must be doing incredible things for her cleavage. “What are you staring at?”
“You’re soldering in a dress.” He waved his hand as if put out over having to explain the obvious. When, in fact, he couldn’t stop staring at her in that dress. “I was just checking to make sure you hadn’t burned yourself.”
“It’s just a dress,” she said, acting coy, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. But for whatever reason, Ali in that dress was extraordinary. It was also a sign that something was up. And unlike his patrons, he refused to ignore that sign.
“It’s not just a dress, and you know it.”
“Says the man breaking and entering in his skivvies,” she snapped, confirming something was up. “And really, do you have to wave your stick around all the time? As your friend, it’s my duty to tell you it’s getting a little embarrassing. I mean, most of the town has already seen it.”
She punctuated the word friend, yet strangely enough, she was looking at him as if he were a sculpture she couldn’t wait to get her hands on. Or rip out his throat.
Either way, that look overrode the F-word he was coming to hate.
Hawk casually swung his hockey stick in his trademark winning goal motion, tightening his abs and flexing his biceps. “Some ladies out front were begging to hold it.”
Ali rolled her eyes, but not before Hawk noticed her breath quicken. “Tell Fi she can buy a bigger one online for twenty bucks. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”
“Have at it,” Hawk said, and then, he had no idea what came over him. Maybe it was the uncertainty in her gaze, or maybe it was that sexy as hell dress. He snatched her cell off the workbench and, flipping it to camera mode, snapped a picture.
Ali’s face went slack. She looked down at the light green silk that would be the talk of the town, and launched around the workbench, grabbing for her phone. Which Hawk held over her head and out of reach.
“Give it back, Bradley,” she said, jumping up to snatch it out of his hands. But her five-feet-nothing was no match for his six-feet-three-inches of badass hockey player moves. Her elbows, though, had some serious force behind them.
“Not until you tell me what the dress is about, Aliana,” he said, purposely using her given name because he knew it irked her. When she didn’t elaborate, just locked eyes with him, he added, “One swipe and it goes viral.”
“Fine.” She poked him in the peck. Hard. “One of my pieces might be in a magazine.”
“You’ve had a dozen of your pieces in magazines. None of them inspired viridian green silk.”
“What kind of guy uses the word viridian? Oh, wait, the same kind of guy who doesn’t think selling hard cider is a pussy job.”
“Cider is the next workingman’s beer. The dress?” He lifted a brow.
“It’s Architectural Digest,” she said with a shyness Hawk wasn’t used to witnessing from her.
Information, as the co-owner of the local watering hole that doubled as gossip central, Hawk was already privy to, but it was nice to hear her say it. Watch the smile hiding beneath the play it cool expression she always wore.
He knew how much this would mean to her. She’d been talking about that magazine since high school. Except there was that slight waver in her tone, one that she hadn’t ever been able to hide from him. “And you were so elated, you decided to celebrate by wearing a dress at six in the morning?”
“There’s a dinner tonight and I was breaking it in. You know, like a new pair of work boots. Now give it back.” She jumped up to snatch it back, but if there was one thing that playing in the NHL for over a decade had taught Hawk, it was how to spot a deke. And Ali was using the magazine’s prestige to fake him out, distract him from the real issue.
“A dinner?” he prodded, sliding an arm around her to keep her from ramming his shins with her steeled toes, which only managed to press her body flush with his. Noticing her gaze dropped right to his mouth, he let loose a grin. “A dinner that requires a dress like this is a dinner I’d hate to miss. So tell me, sunshine, who’s the lucky guy?”
He didn’t mention that whoever the guy was, he didn’t deserve a woman like Ali. Or that his plan to mess with her had somehow backfired, because he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her lips.
“Are you offering to be my date, Hawk?”
“Depends. Will that dress be joining us?”
“You have to come to find out.” A totally cool, almost bored expression crossed her face as she casually rested a hand on his chest—her fingers gliding down his abs. “And Dad’s grilling. I’m sure he’d love to see you.” She looked up at him through her long, thick lashes. “So would Bridget.”
It was as if a Washington winter snowstorm had blown through the shop—piercing his chest. “Bridget?”
“Oh, didn’t I mention?” Ali said, snatching her phone back. “Bridget came home, just in time for my big night. You think she’ll want to hold your stick?”
Chapter 2
One glance at Hawk’s stupid stick should have been enough to quell the flutters in Ali’s belly. She didn’t do fluttery, didn’t do beefed-up jocks, and she sure as hell didn’t do stupid—no matter how impressive the stick.
She’d tried that once and ended up with a broken heart.
Which brought her to the next thing she didn’t do—her sister’s ex-husband. No matter how irritatingly irresistible she’d always found him.
Yet when she pulled up to her dad’s house later that evening, they were still there—the residual flutters flitting around in her chest.
“Those are not flutters,” she told herself. “It’s heartburn.”
Nature’s reminder to steer clear of things that were bad for her. And as good a guy as Bradley Hawk was, he was bad for her well-being.
It wasn’t his two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of alpha-male badass, or even that he smelled like sex—something she’d gone way too long without. Nope, what had Ali feeling all feminine was the way he looked at her, touched her on occasion—as if she were all delicate and sexy.
After spending most of her life in her single dad’s machine shop, Ali, vertically challenged or not, didn’t have a delicate bone in her body. And unless a guy was turned on by steel-toed stylings and blowtorch skills, sexy wasn’t a word she’d heard all that often with regard to herself.
Which was why the second Hawk had left, she’d ditched her dress for her usual Converse, ripped jeans, and offensive tank top. Tonight’s was black with pink letters reading, THE ONLY THING SHORT ABOUT ME IS MY TEMPER. After all, informing people of her current state of mind was only polite.
Parking the car in front of the oceanfront bungalow, she grabbed two casseroles and a grocery bag off the passenger seat. The casseroles were to get her dad through one whole week without breaking his doctor’s diet. And the grocery bag was just in case.
Marty Marshal walked out onto the stone porch holding a spatula. His hair was windblown, his boat shoes unlaced, and in his Bermuda shorts and Hawaiian shirt, he looked as if his life was a never-ending Jimmy Buffett song.
“Hey, sweet pea,” her dad said. “I thought I heard you pull up. I was around back, getting ready to fire up the grill for the steak.”
“You mean the fish and vegetable kabobs from the recipe I e-mailed you yesterday?” Ali said, giving her dad a kiss on the cheek.
Marty shrugged. “The cod didn’t look fresh, so I went with the steak.”
“Funny since the market advertises fresh cod caught daily. Right from there.” Ali pointed over the steep cliffs that jutted out from behind her childhood home, to the ocean crashing below. “Can’t get any fresher than that. And what about vegetables?”
“I got corn bread. The doctor said I can eat corn, and you girls love it with my special honey butter.”
“Corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and when you bake it in a buttered skillet then smother it in liquid sugar, I don’t think it meets the guidelines Dr. Cortes was going for.”
Ignoring this, Marty took the bag from her hand and followed her inside. “Is this the pie?”
“No.” Ali smiled. “That’s my just-in-case-you-bought-something-else.”
Marty peeked in the bag at the marinating kabobs and frowned. “What kind of man celebrates his daughter’s big news with cod and zucchini on a stick?”
“A man who doesn’t want to go into a diabetic coma,” she said, walking into the kitchen, hiding her grin at the grumbles Marty was letting loose behind her. “And don’t worry, Kennedy is bringing the pie with her.”
Kennedy was also bringing a buffer—her fiancé, Luke Callahan. If Ali was to make it through an evening with her sister without losing it, then she needed a distraction. And nothing distracted Bridget quite like a handsome man.
Kennedy Sinclair wasn’t just Destiny Bay’s newest celebrity baker; as Ali’s best friend, she also had her back. It had been a long while since someone had Ali’s back—and it felt damn good.
“Coconut cream?” Marty asked, sounding like a kid at a candy store.
“Special order.” Meaning it was high in yum factor—if one liked coconut, which Ali did not—and low in sugar for those glycemicly challenged. Marty would never know the difference. “But only men who eat their cod get dessert.”
More grumbling ensued, but this time Ali ignored it and went right to the fridge, stacking the casseroles and pulling out all the ingredients needed to make a healthy garden salad.
“Where’s Bridget?”
“Running a little behind.”
Ali looked at the clock above the stove, then over her shoulder at Marty. “I thought you were going to take her out on Chasing Destiny?” Ali asked, referring to her dad’s pride and joy—a forty-two-foot Catalina sailboat he’d spent the better part of the past decade rebuilding.
“Too windy. Bridget was afraid she’d get seasick,” Marty said and Ali wanted to call bullshit. Yes, Bridget did suffer from the occasional motion sickness, but only when they were out in the open ocean. And since Marty had been restricted to sailing within a few miles of home, doctor’s orders, Bridget would have been fine.
“I reminded her that I still have some pills left over from the last time she came up,” Marty said.
“I don’t think they make a pill for what Bridget suffers from,” Ali joked, because it was the perfect day to go sailing. And the perfect day for Marty to spend time with his other daughter. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and there was a gentle breeze coming up from the south.
The only reason Bridget didn’t want to go sailing was because Ali was better at it. And everything in Bridget’s world was a competition. Even father-daughter time.
Marty gave Ali a stern look, but his grin ruined the scolding. “I’d better check the corn bread.”
“I’ll get the corn bread,” Ali said, choosing to let it go. “And I’ll prep a nice green salad while I’m at it, so you can get the fish going on the grill.”
“The casseroles, dessert? I’m supposed to be cooking you dinner,” Marty objected.
“I don’t mind cooking for you, Dad,” she clarified.
Marty had been taking care of Ali her whole life, always going that extra step to show her that she was loved. After her parents divorced and split everything right down the middle—including the kids—Marty had done everything he could to ensure Ali had a happy childhood. So what if their roles were a little reversed now? It felt nice to pamper him for a change.
“But it’s your big night,” he said quietly. “You should be sipping a cold one on the porch and letting me take care of you.”
“Just because they’re shooting my work doesn’t mean it will make it in the magazine.”
The purpose of the article was to showcase the bold and i. . .
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