Hal’s expression grew pensive. “Our Nat’s always had a good heart, a kind heart, an artist’s heart like Bev. And, like her grandmother, she can’t dole it out in parts. It’s all or nothing for these Woolwich women, and I fear she’s had it broken a time or two.”
He got the not so subtle don’t hurt my granddaughter hint and nodded solemnly.
What else was he supposed to do? Pretending to be her boyfriend, he was walking a fine line, and he didn’t want to say anything too incriminating. He didn’t want to insinuate that there was a future for them, while at the same time, he needed her family to believe that there was—at least for this week.
“Hal, sweetheart, let Jake get some pizza,” Bev called from the kitchen, saving him from a response.
He followed Natalie’s grandfather into the snug space and found everyone congregating around a granite kitchen island. He grabbed a plate and served himself two slices of pepperoni when he noticed his fake girlfriend hadn’t started eating.
Here was his first chance to look good in front of the fam.
“Natalie, do you want me to get you a slice of pepperoni?”
The chatter stopped, and his fake girlfriend stared at him, panic welling in her eyes.
“Nat’s a vegetarian,” Lara said, sharing a look with Leslie.
“How did you not know that after five months and six days of dating?” Leslie asked with a condescending smirk.
He caught Natalie’s gaze. “I think it’s just been a long day of travel.”
“Jet lag can do that,” Bev offered kindly, but nobody looked convinced.
Natalie crossed the kitchen and came to his side. “And I might be a vegetarian, but Jake knows that I love to watch him eat meat.”
“You like to watch your boyfriend eat meat?” Leo threw back.
Shit! This was going downhill quick.
Marcus raised his hand like a kindergartner. “Meat voyeurism is a thing. People post about it on YouTube. I spent all last weekend watching videos of some chick downing a T-bone.”
“Don’t mind us, Jake. Meat-eat away,” Leslie said with a wave of her hand.
Dammit! Why couldn’t he have offered her a slice of cheese?
He picked up the piece of pepperoni and held it in front of his mouth as Natalie’s family watched her watch him eat the entire slice.
“Riveting stuff!” Marcus said, then jammed a slice into his mouth.
The group’s attention swung to the idiot podiatrist, and everyone had to be thinking the same thing.
How the hell had this man made it through grade school—let alone podiatry school?
But he owed the guy for drawing the family’s quizzical gazes off of him.
“Sorry,” he said under his breath as Natalie chose a slice of cheese.
“It’s okay. We’ll have time tonight to get our stories straight,” she whispered back.
Damn right. Everything was riding on them keeping up this con for another reason.
Charlie knew he was at the camp.
The text he’d received in the van had come from his boss, asking for an update, and the words he’d quickly hammered out in response flashed through his mind.
Met a Woolwich granddaughter on the flight. She invited me to stay at the camp with her. Nothing is standing in my way.
Now, he needed to stick to his plan and use this opportunity to get to know Hal and Bev and see what made them tick. Then, he could start the delicate work of convincing them to sell—and offer up his company as the perfect conduit to attaining that deal.
“So, Hal, how’s everything going with the business? It’s strange you’re not running a camp session this summer,” Leo asked, shifty-eyed as he tucked into a slice, and Jake’s ears perked up.
Maybe it would be easier than he thought to get the dirt on Camp Woolwich.
Hal shared a look with Bev. “We wanted to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the camp and our wedding anniversary with the people we love most without the pressure of preparing for the campers.”
“But won’t the lost revenue be a hit?” the man pressed.
“Our lost revenue is no worry of yours, Leo,” Hal answered with an edge, his New England accent growing thicker.
Leslie shared a look with Bev. “We want to make sure you both are well taken care of. Leo and I love Camp Woolwich so much, but if it’s become too much to maintain, there are options.”
“Your grandfather and I are quite fine, dear,” Bev added with a warm grin, the measured yin to Hal’s hard yang.
“I think I can speak for all the Woolwich grandchildren when I say that all we want is for you both to enjoy these golden years,” Leslie cooed.
Natalie set her plate down hard, and the clang of the dish brought all eyes their way.
“You’d never sell the camp, would you?” Natalie asked.
Bev waved her off. “Kids, we love you, but this is a celebration! There will be no talk of business! Your grandfather and I are fine. The camp is fine. Now, we’ve got you all tucked away in the three honeymoon cabins. I suggest you head over and get a good night’s rest. All the festivities start tomorrow after breakfast.”
Bev and Hal ushered the cousins and their husbands toward the front door, but Natalie hung back, boxing up the leftover pizza and tidying up the kitchen.
He collected the dishes from the table and set them next to the sink. “Are you all right?”
She stared out the window at the dark water below. “I don’t understand why Leslie and Leo would even suggest that my grandparents part with Camp Woolwich. Those two have never shown interest in the camp before.”
He schooled his features. His work started now. “Your grandparents are getting older, and fifty years is a long time to run a business.”
She played with the edge of a dishtowel. “But they love it. This place is who they are.”
This was the kind of bullshit attachment he’d never allow of himself.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry to trouble you with this. I promised you peace and relaxation, and here you are, smack dab in the middle of Woolwich family business.”
He met her gaze in the window’s reflection. “I don’t mind. And remember, I also agreed to be your fake Jake. If that means family pizza parties and meat-eating demonstrations, I’m good with that.”
She turned to him, and her ocean green eyes sparkled with gratitude. “You’re a good Jake, you know that?”
He wasn’t a good Jake. A good Jake wouldn’t be weighing his options on how to get the land she loved at the best price. But she didn’t need a good Jake. She just needed a Jake, and that’s all he could ever be to her. Still, unlike every other deal he’d closed, he’d never experienced the strange twinge he felt pulling tight in his chest that absolutely, positively could not be guilt. He didn’t do guilt, right?
Bev entered the kitchen and frowned. “Go on, you two. You’ve had a long day, and you’ll need your rest. Breakfast will be served bright and early in the dining hall at eight sharp.”
Natalie hugged her grandmother. “You’d let me know if you needed anything, right?”
Bev smoothed a lock of her granddaughter’s hair behind her ear. “Your grandfather and I are fine, sweetheart.”
“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Woolwich,” he added, ignoring that bothersome pang, and reminded himself for a second damn time that he didn’t do guilt.
Bev patted his arm. “None of that Mrs. Woolwich business. I’m just Bev around here.”
He nodded, holding the woman’s emerald gaze that matched her granddaughter’s then followed Natalie out the back door and onto a dirt trail, heading away from the water’s edge and into the thick coastal foliage.
Natalie walked next to him, silently twisting the sleeve of her coat as they followed the path. Worry creased her brow as that damn twist in his chest returned. He had to change the subject and get her mind off the camp, but before he could figure out what to say, she pitched forward, snagging her stiletto on a tree root, then cl
utched onto his arm to stay upright.
“Easy there, Heels,” he said, steadying her.
She shook her head and glanced down at her feet. “If I never wear these shoes again, it will be too soon.”
He couldn’t have her thinking that. He hadn’t lied to Leo. Natalie did look damn good in those shoes.
“Let me help,” he said.
She took a wobbly step back and raised her hands defensively. “I am not going over your shoulder again, mister.”
“How about this?” he said, scooping her up, honeymoon-style.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kicked her feet playfully. “Is this what you do with all the girls? Seems a little caveman-ish,” she added with a giggle that went straight to his cock.
Dammit! He was grateful to get her mind off selling the camp, but his cock had no place in this deal. He could not think about how good she smelled or how sexy she looked in that trench. He especially couldn’t think about how much he liked having her in his arms.
“We can’t have you falling on your ass,” he answered, trying to think of the most practical reason for whisking a woman off her feet, as he continued down the path then veered right toward the rental cottages when she tensed.
“How’d you know which way to go?”
Shit! He wasn’t supposed to know anything about Camp Woolwich.
“I figured you’d tell me if I went the wrong way. You must know this place like the back of your hand,” he added, steering the conversation away from his slipup.
She relaxed in his arms. “I do. This is my favorite place on earth.”
“Oh yeah?” he replied, that damn tightness back in his chest.
She sighed. “The water, the woods. Everything seems so possible here—like it doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve done. This place wipes it clean and gives you a fresh start. Whenever I’m here, I see the world with new eyes.” She shifted in his arms and held his gaze in the moonlight. “Do you feel it, Jake? It’s all around us.”
He stilled. “What’s all around us?”
She smiled up at him. “Hope.”
He inhaled the salty-sweet Maine air as the summer breeze rustled through the trees. The hint of smoke teased his nostrils, and he would have sworn that there was a campfire going nearby, bringing him back to a simpler time, a happier time. Caught between the past and the present, he pictured himself the summer he’d spent here, hiking the trails, exploring the abandoned lighthouse, and jumping off the dock, his arms and legs extended like a starfish and smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. He’d loved the water once. He’d loved the lightness of floating on his back and staring up at the sky.
His gaze slid to Natalie’s lips, and the memory of the girl he kissed at the well came rushing back. The kiss that left him feeling invincible. That night, in his cot, after he’d watched from behind a tree as she made it safely inside her cabin, he’d promised himself that he’d find her. Sure, it was the last night of camp, but they could write to each other. He had it all worked out and had even pictured his desk drawers, teeming with delicately addressed stamped envelopes from her, whoever she was.
But he’d never gotten the chance to find her. Not when his uncle, and not his parents, arrived to collect him from camp.
He swallowed back the memories and tightened his grip on Natalie’s lithe body. It was as if holding on to her gave him the strength to stay rooted in that moment, safe from the ghosts of his past.
He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “Yes, I feel the hope.”
“Then you get it,” she replied with a smile so genuine all he wanted to do was kiss her to get a taste of the near-palpable joy that radiated off her.
“You’re going to get it if you don’t join us for truth or dare,” came Lara’s high-pitched shriek of a laugh followed by footsteps scurrying over the top of the hill.
What the hell?
Natalie dropped her head to his shoulder. “I figured we’d outgrown that.”
“Come on, Jake and Nat! It’s a camp tradition,” came Leslie’s equally grating voice.
He started up the hill as the flickering light of a campfire, and a trio of compact cottages came into view.
He glanced over at Team Podiatry, sitting around a firepit. “How many camp traditions are there around here?”
She groaned. “Too many to count. It may be better if we get it over with. Lara has the attention span of a fruit fly, so hopefully, this won’t take long.”
“Aren’t you the gentleman, carrying Nat all the way to the honeymoon cottages,” Lara crooned from her spot next to her husband.
Leslie waved them over. “Sit! We’ve got the fire going, and it’s a Woolwich tradition to play truth or dare on the first night of camp.”
“This really isn’t camp, Les,” Natalie replied as he gently set her down.
“We’re at camp, so it is camp,” Leslie snapped over the flames.
He met the woman’s hard gaze. When this deal went through, he would need to add a clause that this bitch didn’t get a penny. But when Natalie touched his arm, all the malice drained away as they sat down on a bench across from Leo and Leslie. He was no relationship expert, but even he could feel the waves of tension passing between the two of them. For a married couple, they didn’t seem to like each other very much.
“Okay! Okay! Okay! Truth or dare, Nat,” Lara clucked, clapping her hands.
Natalie turned to him, wide-eyed, and he understood her unease. They couldn’t choose truth because they hadn’t worked all that out yet.
“Dare,” she answered.
Leo leaned forward as the fire lit his creepy as hell expression. “I dare you to take off your shoes and run around the firepit five times.”
This foot freak!
Jake squared his jaw. “Hell, no, Dr. Dix. And this is your last warning about Natalie and the foot shit. The only person here that gets to touch Natalie’s feet is me.”
He pinned the man with his gaze. He needed Dr. Tootsie Toucher to get the message loud and clear.
“Then kiss her,” Leslie barked, cutting through the testosterone haze.
“Right here? In front of everyone?” Natalie asked.
“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Lara and Marcus cheered.
Leslie crossed her arms. “That’s the dare.”
Natalie gave him a nervous smile. “A quick kiss couldn’t hurt.”
Quick kiss. Okay, he could do this. He leaned in and pecked her lips.
Bing, bang, boom! Done.
Leslie groaned. “Oh my, God! You guys look about as comfortable kissing as two thirteen-year-olds before they have to give it up for the Kiss Keeper. After five months and six days, you have slept together, right?”
In a flurry of awkward responses, Natalie said yes just as he’d shot back a resounding no.
“So, you have, or you haven’t?” Leslie demanded.
Natalie nodded emphatically. “We have. We totally have. Remember that time we had intercourse at that…hotel.”
They could not screw this up. That stink-eyed Leslie already seemed to be on to them.
He nodded to his fake girlfriend. “Yeah, and then, there was that time we had intercourse in a…bed,” he added and immediately wanted to head-butt himself.
Intercourse? What was this? High school sex ed?
Sweet Christ! They sounded like idiots.
“Twice? That’s it?” Leo questioned.
“That was…one day. We like to do it several times a day,” Natalie countered with a nonchalant wave of her hand.
He turned to her. “We do?”
She nodded, her eyes begging him to go along. “We do.”
He turned to Leslie and Leo and plastered on his best shit-eating grin. “We do.”
Leslie’s features hardened. “Then let’s see a real kiss. It can’t be hard for you guys, especially if you’re screwing multiple times a day.”
Natalie twisted the belt of her trench coat. “Sure, we can—”
But before she finished whatever the hell she was going to say, he cupped her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, and the earth shifted off its axis.
He’d kissed a lot of women, but it had been years since a kiss had taken over all his senses.
Natalie’s sweet gasps and petal-soft lips had him reeling. He watched as the shock in her eyes disappeared. She blinked them closed and leaned in, pressing her hands to his chest. They fit together like the last piece of a puzzle, clicking into place, no doubt as to where they belonged in the world. He tilted her head, and she sighed, allowing their tongues to meet in a sensual ebb and flow of warm, wet heat.
“Natalie,” he whispered, pulling back a fraction before sliding her onto his lap.
He needed to have her closer. He wanted every part of her pressed to him. She threaded her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, and his cock strained against his pants. Her breaths came in tight gasps, and he gripped her ass, shifting her body to straddle him as her breasts pressed against his chest, and her soft, supple curves met his hard angles.
He wasn’t one for kissing. He was more of a get-to-the-fucking guy. But he’d gladly kiss Natalie Callahan all night long. Unfortunately, a blow to his arm put the brakes on their kissing session.
He stared at the ground where an ugly as hell shoe rested, then glanced over at Leslie, wild-eyed, with another Dr. Scholl’s clog in her hand, ready to throw in their direction.
“Time-out, Porn Hub! We said to kiss, not dry-hump!” Leslie bit out then chucked the shoe.
This time, he was ready and caught it then tossed it to the ground. But he didn’t give a damn about a pair of orthopedic shoes and turned his attention back to the beautiful trench-wearing brunette on his lap.
“I think we nailed truth or dare. Are you ready to call it a night?”
Natalie brushed her fingertips over her kiss-swollen lips. “Okay,” she replied on a dreamy exhale.
“Okay,” he echoed, trying to sound all business and not reveal that their first kiss may have been the best kiss of his life as he lifted her back into his arms.
Natalie glanced around the courtyard in a daze. “Which cottage is ours?”
The Kiss Keeper Page 8