Four
McKinley
McKinley hauled ass through the rest of her shift keeping a watchful eye on Dunes, as they’d dubbed the dog. He’d settled comfortably under the glass washer on a Memphis Bowling League windbreaker they’d liberated from Lost and Found and tapped the tip of his tail every time she passed.
She’d put her customers to work, having them contact the local animal rescues. Each confirmed what the others had: no one had any room for him tonight.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself a dog for the night,” Chelsea said with a yawn. It was getting late and the crowd was starting to thin.
“Shit,” McKinley sighed, eyed Dunes as she swiped a towel over the bar where a family of four adults had enjoyed every frozen drink on the menu. “Looks like it,” she sighed. She wasn’t exactly equipped. How was she even going to get him into the car? Hold a cheeseburger in front of his face and coax him through the parking lot? “Where’d Colt go?” she asked. It was unlike him to leave without saying good-bye. But there was a stack of bills in the shot glass that held his check.
McKinley didn’t miss the lift of Chelsea’s eyebrows, the smirk that settled on her lips. “He said he had to run some errands tonight,” she said with a shrug. McKinley remembered her mystery caller earlier. Give him a shot.
As if the patrons picked up on McKinley’s impatience to get home, the crowd slowed and dissipated a little ahead of schedule. She dismissed the kitchen crew and all the servers but Leeta half an hour early. She and Leeta sped through closing, counting the drawers and flipping stools so the early morning cleaning crew could de-sticky the floor.
“Hey, Duney,” McKinley said, ducking down to peer at him in his doggy den. “It’s time to go home. Well, my home. You don’t have one yet, but I’ll make sure you get a good one.” He lifted his head and cocked it to the side as if he were listening.
She’d saved half of her turkey burger from her dinner break and used little nuggets of meat to guide Dunes out of the bar and into the parking lot.
Her skin tingled when she spotted the long, lean, shadow standing in front of her car. Colton Hayes with two large shopping bags at his feet. Dunes wriggled his backend, his tail wagging fiercely as if they were best friends.
“What’s all this?”
Colton smiled kneeling down to ruffle Dunes’ ears. “Figured you’d need a few supplies.”
Curiosity got the best of McKinley and she browsed through the bags while he ran his hands down Dunes’ skinny body. She found dog bowls, a small bag of fancy dog food, a leash and collar, a menagerie of toys—stuffed and rubber—and a very soft bed.
“Colton, you didn’t have to do this.”
“You’re taking him home. You didn’t have to do that,” he pointed out.
McKinley sighed, suddenly exhausted. The dog looked up at her with canine adoration. “Thank you,” she said grudgingly.
Colton gave her that crooked smile. “You’re welcome.
She looked at him hard for a long minute. This was the first time he hadn’t asked her out and this was the first time she wished he would.
“So, you’re gonna want to go easy on the food for him tonight since he ate a lot already. You don’t want him getting sick in your bed,” Colton said, standing up.
“He’s not sleeping in my bed. He smells like a sewer.”
Colton handed her a bar napkin.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“My number. Just in case you need anything tonight… with the dog.”
McKinley looked down at Dunes, who was leaning against her leg and watching Colton happily. She sighed a long drawn out sigh of resignation.
“When I was a kid, I wanted to design beach bikes and sell them from a stand on the boardwalk.”
His mouth lifted in the charming as sin, crooked grin.
He’d ridded her of a drunk and hand-delivered dog necessities. It was time to break the rules. “Do you want to have lunch tomorrow?”
It was too dark to read Colton’s expression exactly but the straightening of his shoulders, the cocking of his head told her he was surprised.
“I’d like that,” he said easily.
She was relieved that he didn’t press her on why exactly, after turning him down a thousand times, she’d changed her mind. He simply accepted it.
“Okay then.” McKinley nodded and opened the door to her backseat. Dunes jumped in as if he’d done it a thousand times before. “I’ll call you,” she said.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Was she blushing? Was that an actual blush turning her cheeks a heated scarlet? Crap she was out of practice.
* * *
--
* * *
McKinley felt like an idiot. She’d changed her outfit three times. Finally settling for a cute pair of patterned shorts and a simple peach tank. Perfect for the Florida summer.
“Don’t judge me,” she said, looking at Dunes in the reflection of her mirror. “I don’t date. Technically this is your fault.” The dog yawned and rolled over on her sunny yellow comforter exposing his belly. Dunes had ignored his nice new dog bed last night in favor of McKinley’s comfortable queen-size. After a bath that had turned her tub a gag-worthy shade of brown, of course.
She and Dunes had shared a breakfast—dry food for him and an omelet for her—and then taken a long, slow walk around her neighborhood and onto the beach. And now she was about to spend her Sunday afternoon with a man that she was not mentally prepared to date.
“This is the worst idea in the world, “she said to her reflection. But her reflection didn’t care. It was smiling.
She grabbed her phone and fired off the text she’d been waffling on sending.
* * *
McKinley: Hey. It’s McKinley from Sunset Point. I’ll be ready in about half an hour. I can meet you somewhere.
* * *
Good. No emojis. No exclamation points. Nothing to get his hopes up about anything beyond lunch. It was just lunch. It wasn’t like they were going to have sex. This was a casual, trial date.
Her phone rang fifteen seconds later. She rolled her eyes and answered.
“I’ll pick you up, “Colton’s voice said warmly in her ear.
“That’s okay. I can just meet you somewhere.”
“I have some things for Dunes that he’ll need.”
“What kind of things?” she hedged.
“The kind of things that will keep him occupied while he’s alone. I’ll meet you at your place. Text me your address.”
She muttered a good-bye and hung up on the smile she could hear in his voice.
“I hope you’re happy, Dunes.”
Five
McKinley
Twenty-five minutes later, she spotted Colton’s Jeep pull into her building’s parking lot. She opened her front door the second his knuckles grazed the wood. Those sharp green eyes settled on her. “Wow. I was only fifty percent sure you weren’t messing with me,” he said, letting his gaze roam her from head to toe.
“Seriously?” McKinley laughed.
“I thought I’d knock and a middle-aged NASCAR fan would answer. And I’d have to save face by pretending I was doing door-to-door surveys about delivery pizza.”
“That’s oddly specific.”
“I gave it a lot of thought last night.”
Dunes scampered to the door, shoved his face between McKinley’s legs to rub his nose in Colton’s crotch. “Hey there buddy,” Colton said, leaning down to ruffle Dunes’ ears. “You smell a lot better.”
McKinley wrinkled her nose. “My bathtub needs a deep cleaning, but at least this way he’s allowed to touch my furniture.”
Colton straightened and McKinley felt her heart do a little flip-flop when his gaze returned to her. “I brought a few more things for him,” Colton said, holding up a bag.
Just because she invited him in, didn’t mean they were having sex, she reminded herself. McKinley bit her lip because right now he looked good enough to have
sex with in casual shorts and another polo that hugged his athletic frame. “Come on in, then.”
Colton and the dog followed her inside, down the narrow foyer and hallway into her little living room. Colton made himself at home on her couch and unpacked the bag on the coffee table. Dunes nosed through the items with excitement. “I thought since we were leaving him alone today we could give him something to entertain himself with,” Colton said.
He dropped a large rubber item on the coffee table and placed a jar of peanut butter next to it. McKinley stared at the items.
“What is that?”
“It’s a Kong. You fill it with peanut butter and the dog spends a crazy amount of time trying to lick it out.” He demonstrated by finding her kitchen and her utensil drawer and filling the mysterious Kong with peanut butter.
“Dogs are so weird,” McKinley observed as Dunes tap-danced on his hind legs.
“So are dog lovers,” Colton said, making Dunes sit before handing over the toy to the ecstatic dog. “You look great. Are you ready?”
She resisted the urge to smooth a hand over her hair. “Uh. Sure. Let me get my bag.”
She paused in the doorway and looked back at Dunes. He was slurping away at the Kong on his belly halfway in the kitchen and living room. “He’ll be okay, right?”
Colton laid a hand on her shoulder. She hated that she liked the shock of his touch. “He’ll be fine. I promise.”
“I’m holding you personally responsible if he destroys my couch or cries sad little dog tears while I’m gone.”
Colton looped an arm over her shoulder and steered her toward the door. It was a friendly move, but her blood started to sing. Everything about him was easy, charming, and just a little too sexy. “He’ll be just fine,” he said confidently.
He led the way to his topless Jeep in the parking lot and McKinley looked over her shoulder up at the window of her apartment expecting to see Dunes’ face mournfully staring after them. There was no dog face in her window.
“He’ll be fine. He has his peanut butter,” Colton promised, reading her mind.
“Where we going?”
He held the passenger door open for her and waited until she slid onto the seat before closing it. “I thought we’d take a little side trip before we eat. Hope you don’t mind.”
Colton navigated the streets of St. Pete, heading east. The hot Florida breeze blew her hair off her neck. Nineties R&B, the kind that took her back to high school, poured from the speakers.
“You’re not taking me to my work on my day off, are you?” McKinley joked, when Colton headed in the direction of Sunset Point.
“Please. Give a guy who’s been thinking about a first date for eight months a little credit.”
McKinley’s lips curved. There was that easy charm.
“The airport?” she asked, when Colton swung the Jeep into the small lot. “So you’re taking me to your work.”
“Ever touched the clouds before?” he asked, turning the engine off.
McKinley shot him a skeptical look. “Does that line actually work?”
Colton gifted her the full wattage and made her toes curl against her flip-flops. He leaned in close enough for her to smell his soap. “I’ll let you know in about half an hour,” he said.
McKinley laughed despite herself. “Seriously what are we doing here?”
He reached over and unfastened her seatbelt. “We’re going up there,” he said, pointing an index finger towards the sky.
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I don’t know you well enough to get in a tiny metal can and go thousands of feet above the ground.”
Colton was undisturbed. He hopped out from behind the wheel and rounded the vehicle to open her door. “McKinley, you know every single detail of my life thanks to our getting-to-know-you dance. You can trust me. I want to take you up. Show you my happy place.”
Reluctantly, McKinley slid out of the Jeep. “You’re not going to do any weird loop de loops or pretend we’re out of gas, are you?” she asked suspiciously.
“Jesus, what kind of guys have you dated?” Colton wondered, taking her hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do.
“I don’t date,” she told him. He held the door for her and she entered the small airport office.
“Good,” he said, with a wink. “Because then I’m really going to stand out.” He led the way down the hall to the U-shaped desk in a reception area overlooking the runway. “This is where Talia works during the week,” he said.
“Hey, Colt,” the silver-haired man at the desk wore a blue polo shirt and a bored expression.
“How’s it going, Martin?” Colton asked, picking up a clipboard and scrawling some information on the page. “Can we get two headsets, please?”
“Sure thing. I’ll get the extra good one for your pretty friend,” Martin said with a long, slow wink in McKinley’s direction.
Colton laughed. “Get your own girl, Martin.”
Martin held up a hand to the side of his mouth. “Give me a call if you get sick of this one,” he said in a stage whisper to McKinley.
“I’ll do that,” McKinley returned.
Martin produced two headsets and wished them a happy flight.
McKinley’s nerves started vibrating the second her flip-flopped feet hit the tarmac. Colton, on the other hand, sauntered toward a small shiny single engine plane whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world.
He must have sensed her hesitation because he paused and held out his hand. “I promise you’ll love it,” he told her.
And damn if she didn’t believe him. She approached the shiny aluminum beast the way she would a horse. Slowly and with great respect. McKinley watched Colton clamor around the long slim body checking the plane from propeller to tail and back again.
“Preflight check,” he explained.
She nodded, gnawing on her lower lip. He could spend an extra hour checking if it meant she’d get to put two feet on solid ground again.
“All set,” he said, opening the passenger side door.
“Oh, god,” she whispered under her breath. McKinley had flown before. Once. When she was seven she and her parents had flown to Buffalo, New York, to visit her grandparents. But she’d never set foot in a plane so tiny. She peered into the cockpit. A wall of instruments that looked like she really shouldn’t touch them sat innocuously beneath the small windshield. There was a steering wheel—a yoke—in front of her seat. Probably in case Colton was knocked unconscious and she had to take over and crash land in the Gulf.
“Hop in,” Colton said. He held her hand while she scrambled into the seat. He popped her window open and then shut the door. The sweltering Florida heat had taken up residence inside the small plane and McKinley wondered nervously if she’d remembered to apply deodorant.
Colton opened the opposite door and climbed in. “I’ll get the air going,” he said, swiping his hat off his head and replacing it with the headset. He turned the key—planes had keys?—and the engine sputtered to life along with a blast of slightly cooler air.
He took the plug of her headset and inserted it into the auxiliary jack. McKinley hesitated briefly then put it on over her ears and adjusted the microphone.
“Couple more preflight things and we’ll be on our way,” Colt’s voice crackled in her ear. McKinley turned to look at him and felt her pulse kick up a notch. They sat shoulder to shoulder in the crammed cockpit and he was running through some mystery checklist.
He radioed the tower and must have understood the garbled reply because then they were suddenly moving, bouncing and rolling in a wide arc. The turquoise bay was straight ahead, the nice, safe building at their back. Colton turned them again in a tight 180 to line them up with one of what looked like hundreds of lines on the ground.
He leaned over her and pulled her window shut. Colton looked at McKinley and grinned. “Ready?”
No, she was not ready. She wanted her nice quiet apartment and her familiar job. She didn’t
want to be flying hundreds of feet above where human beings were supposed to be. She didn’t want to date. She just wanted the comfort and safety of her normal.
Oh, shit. What if they crashed? Who would know to look in on Dunes?
But they were moving, lumbering and bumping forward, the whine of the engine loud even through the headset. Terrified, unprepared, McKinley reached out and gripped the muscle of Colton’s thigh.
She thought she heard an intake of breath through her headset, but it could have been the whooshing of her blood as it left her head. She was in a tiny metal bucket that was rapidly picking up speed with a man she hadn’t intended to date. This was the single dumbest thing she’d ever done in her entire life. This could be the world’s shortest first date.
And then the wheels stopped bumping, the ground dropped, and everything was smooth. “Holy shit,” she murmured.
Colton’s laugh echoed softly in her ears.
The ground was falling away beneath them as the nose of the plane tilted, driving them higher. They were being pushed and pulled and suspended and suddenly there was nothing but blue beneath them and above them.
Six
Colton
Colton leveled off at one thousand feet, incredibly conscious of McKinley’s hand that still gripped high on his thigh. She wasn’t looking at him, her face was plastered against her window and he couldn’t tell if she was excited or ready to barf.
“You okay over there?” Colton asked.
She turned toward him, eyes wide and dazed. “We’re flying,” she said.
“Welcome to my favorite part of St. Pete’s,” he said.
“This is…” she trailed off, leaving him anxious. Did she see what he saw or was she blinded by fear?
“What?” he asked.
“Amazing.” The smile she shot him went straight to his gut. He’d considered himself something of a McKinley aficionado since he’d first laid eyes on her all those months ago, but he’d never seen her looking this happy, this free. “It’s so peaceful and beautiful and… I feel like this is how heaven is supposed to look,” she said.
Beach Reads Page 15