Barefoot at Midnight (Barefoot Bay Timeless Book 3)

by Roxanne St Claire

  Which meant she wasn’t inviting Law there tonight. Maybe she’d play her games on the beach. Sandy, but sexy. Hell, he’d go right into that water with her if that’s what she wanted.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  She lifted her hand and pointed due north. “About half a mile past the end of the resort property.”

  “I had no idea you were so close. Oh, wait.” He frowned, dragging his brain back over more whiskey-holed roads. “Didn’t your grandparents live there or something?”

  “They did, and I lived there with them, and my mother and brother, for a few years in high school. My grandparents moved away after the hurricane hit here about five years ago, which did a number on their house.”

  “They didn’t sell to the resort owner?” he asked. “She was gobbling up all of Barefoot Bay after the storm.”

  “She tried to buy the property, but my brother and I talked my grandparents out of selling, and we bought the house from them and spent a few years renovating it. I live there now.”

  Holding her hair in one hand, she angled her head to one side, like she was stretching…or tempting him.

  He studied the slant of her neck, the way her trapezius tightened and then relaxed. It was smooth, sleek, silky, and…feminine. Everything about Libby was pure female, and that just pulled him closer and made him want to wallow in…woman.

  “Is that all from yoga?” he asked, letting his gaze slide down her arm the way he wanted his hand to.

  She let the hair fall and started walking slowly into the inch-high water. He stayed on the hard-packed wet sand.

  “That’s my job, you know. I’m a yoga instructor.”

  So not aerobics. Something even sexier. “Does that make you a yogi?” he asked.

  “Well, technically anyone who practices and certainly someone who teaches can be called a yogi,” she said. “I’m still working to achieve that balance between the physical and the metaphysical, between natural and spirituality.”

  “Mmm. Sounds…esoteric and complex.”

  She laughed. “I’ll put it simply, then. I’m certified as an instructor, and I teach classes right here at the resort, on the beach and inside the spa.”

  “Really? You work here?” Now that he hadn’t known. “How come I didn’t hear about that at the high school reunion?”

  She flipped some water with her toes. “You were much too busy asking anyone who breathed if they knew who owned the Toasted Pelican.”

  “And yet you never said a word that it was you.”

  She slowed her step and circled her toe in the water, pointing it straight down with the precision of a dancer, then turned with her back to him again. “No,” she conceded. “I didn’t.”

  “Why not?” He got a little closer to her.

  “I didn’t see any reason to bring attention to the situation.”

  “In other words, you lied.”

  “By omission.”

  He recalled the time he’d seen her with his friends, Mark and Ken, in the Pelican. There was no “omission” in her answer that she didn’t know who owned the bar. Maybe evasion, but that was lying as far as Law was concerned.

  “Still a lie,” he said.

  “Maybe.” She shrugged, bringing his attention back to her sleek shoulder. Why was it so fascinating to him, a certifiable breast man? There wasn’t such a thing as a shoulder man. But Libby might make him one.

  He lost the battle not to touch, lifting his hand and laying it lightly on the dip between her shoulder and collarbone, grazing lightly, just for the sheer pleasure of the contact.

  Her skin was hot, damp, and as smooth as clotted cream. Without realizing it, he sucked in a soft breath just as water rolled over his feet and the hem of his work slacks.

  “Aww. Did you get wet?” she asked playfully, tipping her head the other way as if to say, Look, this side is just as hot.

  “Yeah.” He kept his hand where it was, trapped between her shoulder and her ear. Getting a little closer, he flicked her earlobe with his index finger and put his mouth close to her other, exposed ear. “Did you?” he breathed.

  She quivered just enough to know the answer, and then she took a few steps away, deeper into the water where she knew he couldn’t follow without his trousers getting soaked.

  Small price to pay, though.

  Still, he held back, watching her as she waded a little farther out, the water up to her knees now. She turned slowly so her back was to him again, arms slightly outstretched, head back, hair long.

  “Is that yoga?” he asked.

  “Mountain pose, for balance.”

  “Oh, I could do that.”

  “Anyone can do it, but it’s harder than it looks.”

  He snorted softly. “Standing still?”

  “Maintaining balance.”

  He took a few steps farther, ignoring the water drenching the bottoms of his pants. “I could make you lose your balance.”

  She glanced over her shoulder, the slightest smile on her lips. “You already have.”

  Two more steps and he reached her, placing his hands on her waist and leaning her from one side to the other. “You feel pretty steady to me.”

  “Inside I’m all aflutter.”

  He laughed softly and turned her around. “Is that why you came after me? To flutter?”

  She gave him a coy look and all but batted those black lashes at him. “Not sure why I came here, but I did.”

  He splayed his hands, enjoying the sleek lines of her waist and ribs and then sliding his palms down over her hips. “I’m glad.” He searched her face, looking past the high cheekbones and big eyes to figure out what she was really doing here. “I always had a thing for you.”

  “For my body.”

  “That’s you.”

  She closed her eyes, clearly not loving that comment.

  “And your rapier wit and sharp tongue.”

  She flicked that tongue between her teeth, like a little rattlesnake teasing its prey.

  “Why did you follow me here, Libby?”

  She arched ever so slightly in invitation. “I always had a thing for you, too,” she whispered.

  “And never more than now, when I have something you want.”

  She flinched imperceptibly, and he knew he’d caught her. But he let her flatten her hands on his chest and take her time appreciating everything she touched as she slid them up and around his neck. “What I want is…”

  “Jake’s will,” he finished for her.

  Her eyes flashed. “Not true. I mean, I’m interested to see it, but…” She tunneled her hands into his hair. “But that’s not all…I…oh!”

  A wave rolled into them, just strong enough to make her tumble into him. He held tight, pulling her the rest of the way to press their bodies together, the pleasure of her curves instant and powerful.

  She looked up, her lips parted with surprise. “I lost my balance.” She sounded a little horrified at that.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered, lowering his head to kiss her. “I got you.”

  Chapter Five

  Libby’s first thought was how soft Law’s mouth was, how very sweet and tender and unexpectedly gentle. But as he angled his head to intensify the kiss, that other realization hit again.

  I lost my balance.

  A whimper caught in Libby’s throat when their tongues touched, hot and wet and fast. He sucked her lower lip and dragged his hands over her hips to add some pressure and bring her even closer to him.

  But she didn’t even think about backing away. No, it felt so good to be pressed against this man, to feel his muscles and relax into strong arms, to drop her head back and give him a chance to kiss a trail down her throat.

  Twenty minutes ago, he was the enemy. And right now, he was…sliding his hand over her backside and adding pressure so she could feel exactly what this kiss was doing to him.

  And that was definitely not a belt buckle pressing against her shorts.

  Another gentle w
ave lapped against her bare legs, the cool water splashing some sense into her. She reluctantly broke the next kiss.

  Forget balance. She couldn’t breathe with him. Libby, a yoga instructor. Breath was her life. But he was…muscular and hard and so, so nice.

  The world-tipping feeling was just enough to knock some common sense into her. This plan was as stupid as Sam had said. It wouldn’t work, and all that would happen was…

  Sex.

  Libby didn’t do sex anymore. It only led to heartache and reminded her that men wanted her for one thing, so what the hell was she doing using that one thing to get what she wanted?

  “I lost my balance,” she repeated, as if saying that might get her steady again.

  “You don’t need balance.” Law bent over to get his mouth nearer her cleavage. “You got me.”

  She squeezed his arms and used real power to back away before his mouth got one inch closer to the goal.

  “No, no. That can’t happen.”

  He backed away, taking her hands in his to pull her with him. “Maybe you’ll do better on the sand.”

  “Maybe I’ll say good night.”

  He blinked, obviously surprised. “But we have so much to talk about, Libby.”

  “We’re not talking.”

  “We can.”

  “We won’t.”

  He laughed. “Sweetheart, you’re the one who tore ass down the beach announcing a skinny-dipping session. I was minding my own business trying to be pissed off at you, and next thing I know, we’re…fluttering. And wet.”

  He was right, of course. She pushed her hair back, making it to the sand and glancing at his pants, which were soaked from the knee down. “Sorry about that.”

  “Are you?” he challenged. “Why don’t you just stop playing games and tell me what you want from me? To give up the will? Give up the fight? Give up completely?” He narrowed his eyes. “That one isn’t going to happen.”

  She blew out a breath. “Something like that,” she admitted. “And it was dumb.”

  “It was nice,” he corrected. “But not if you’re going to freak out about it. What do you want? Just ask.”

  How could she? How could she admit that she and Sam had a weak court case, no DNA, and their mother was given to fantasies and gifted with a wild imagination and an incredible acting talent?

  She couldn’t. But standing here, trying to elicit an opportunity to have access to the truth by seducing Law or even teasing him? She couldn’t do that, either.

  She took a deep breath, filling her lungs and then letting it out the way she taught her students. Completely, so that there was plenty of room for truth and goodness. And logic.

  If she came out and asked for DNA, the admission could compromise the case Sam had worked so hard to build and win.

  She searched Law’s face, aching to ask him, to trust him.

  But trusting men who demonstrated that they’d pretty much say and do anything to get in her pants had never, ever worked out well for Libby.

  She took a few steps backward, then turned toward the resort, because the smartest thing to do was leave.

  “I have to be back on this beach at six thirty tomorrow morning to teach a yoga class,” she said, starting to walk. “I better go.”

  “Without telling me why you came after me? What you’re looking for?”

  She managed a shrug and kept going back toward the resort. “I wanted to kiss you,” she called over her shoulder. “Now that that’s out of my system, good night! I guess I’ll see you next week.”

  She picked up speed, but he was next to her in two strides. “You gotta be kidding.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean to tease you, Law. It was stupid and crazy. Blame it on the moon.” She gave him her best smile. “I always did have a weakness for you,” she said. “But I better go. I promised my daughter I’d be home.”

  For a second, he froze, then blinked. “You have a daughter?”

  “Yes, Jasmine. She’s twenty-three and on a date tonight, but I expect—”

  “So you’re saying Jake Peterson had a granddaughter?” He grunted softly, looking down and kicking the sand under his bare foot. “That is so damn unfair, I can’t even talk about it.”

  “Unfair?”

  “That is, assuming your story about being Jake Peterson’s biological daughter is true. Is it?”

  “How is it unfair?” she countered.

  “If you are Jake’s daughter, that alone is bad enough. If Jake had a granddaughter, too? That’s just heartbreaking. The man lived his whole life—his whole adult life, Libby—with the sense that he’d missed the most important thing a man could have. Children. And yet, all along, on the same stupid island, lived his daughter, his son”—he waved his hand in the general direction of the resort to bring her brother into the picture—“and a granddaughter? Someone made a very bad decision when they chose not to tell him that.”

  “Someone named Jake,” she shot back. “Who the hell do you think made the decision to not have his kids in his life? He didn’t want us.”

  “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “I am not.”

  “Then you’ve been told lies.” He started to walk away, back toward the resort. “Ever think of that?”

  Too many times in the past year she’d wondered, could her mother have lied? Stretched the truth? Rewritten the script of her life? All possible, but she couldn’t let Law walk away thinking that.

  “Jake wanted no parts of my mother,” she said, catching up with him. “And made that perfectly clear when she told him she was pregnant, or they would have gotten married.”

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t even compute. That isn’t possible. Why would he do that?”

  “Good question. She was twenty years old, the daughter of a prominent doctor and a socialite wife,” she told him. “In 1970, when it was still pretty damn scandalous to have a baby without a husband. He acted like it was her problem, not his. Can you imagine?”

  “No.” She heard him take a ragged breath and could feel a surprising amount of agony in it. Was it possible he knew a very different man than the one her mother had described?

  They walked in silence for a few minutes, neither one of them giving in, but no one continuing the argument, either.

  “I knew him so well,” he finally ground out as they neared the parking lot. “He would never do that. He was loyal to a fault, a friend to the end, lover of anyone in trouble. He saved my life more times than I can count.”

  “Then he had more sides than you know.”

  He searched her face, thinking. “Is your mother alive?”

  “Alive and performing her way through Europe this very moment. She’s an actress.”

  He snorted. “Perfect.”

  “That doesn’t make her a liar,” she said.

  “Does she say they were dating? Serious?” he asked.

  “They had a…thing is what we’d call it now. In the seventies? Maybe they’d call it an affair? A romance? A roll in the hay? Whatever, it was serious enough for them to have sex. After that, he wanted nothing to do with her.”

  “So what did she do?”

  “She left the island and lived with my great-aunt and had us in Indianapolis,” Libby said. “After we were born, my mother married Mike Chesterfield, a much older man who adopted us. He died of a heart attack when Sam and I were eight, and my mother started moving. A lot. We lived in Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, San Diego, Vegas, and that’s when my proclivity for getting into a lot of trouble made her come back here to live with my grandparents for most of my high school years.”

  His frown deepened, as if he were digging hard through his memory banks and having trouble coming up with…

  “Donna,” he said softly.

  Libby felt herself sway. “That’s her name.”

  “Oh man.” He closed his eyes like he’d been shot.

  “So he talked about her?”

  “Not exactly. He told me once that there was a girl who
he…he loved.”

  She gave him a disdainful look. “I seriously doubt that.”

  “That’s what he said,” Law replied. “He said she came back to Mimosa Key for a few years, with two kids. She was a widow whose husband had died when they were little. She never wanted to have anything to do with him.”

  It was Libby’s turn to feel a wave of righteous disbelief. “That’s not really what happened.” Although, whenever her mother came back to the island, she certainly refused to go anywhere near town.

  He just stared at her. “It’s coming back to me now. He only talked about her once. It was in the bar. He was cleaning. I was…sobering up.”

  “So your memory is not exactly reliable,” she pointed out.

  “No,” he said. “It isn’t. But I’m pretty sure I remember this. He said she was a little crazy. Very artsy. Wanted to be an actress, but her parents wouldn’t let her.”

  Yeah, he had the right woman. “What else did he say?”

  “That he loved her, but he wasn’t good enough for her.”

  Oh Lord. “We definitely have a disconnect here,” Libby said.

  He nodded slowly, reaching a motorcycle parked at the very edge of the Casa Blanca lot. “I have to talk to your mother.”

  “If you can find her. She’s part of an international acting troupe called Enter Stage Left, and right now she’s in…Spain? Portugal? Norway? We aren’t sure. She travels the world to obscure places and puts on plays for people who don’t get to see them. We talk to her about once a month, if that.”

  “But she knows the truth.”

  “And she’s told us the truth.” Hadn’t she?

  Oh God, Libby had to know. She had to know, and there was really only one reliable way.

  She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “You know what would be easier than tracking down my mother and giving her a lie detector test?”

  “I don’t need a lie detector, but I’d like to talk to her.”

  “That’s impossible, so why don’t we clear this up completely? Why don’t you give me something of his that might have DNA on it? Then we can put this thing to bed once and for all and have no need to rely on people’s ancient, booze-soaked memories.”