If I’d had the energy, I would have pointed out he never would have spoken like that when grandma was alive. In fact, his use of profanity seemed to be on the upswing lately. Maybe I should mention that to the doctor at his next appointment.
“She’s really something, isn’t she?” he said, his tone softening. “Reminds me of my Lilly when we first met.” His tone took on a dreamy quality, as if remembering the day. Then he smiled. “I can sure pick em’ can’t I? Your granddad’s still got it.”
That smile, again, when I hadn’t seen it in months…and he was smiling because of Leigh.
My drink came and I chugged it down. Then Murphy insisted I eat something before he’d let me drive. While I scarfed down a cheeseburger and fries, he ate a piece of the chocolate layer cake he and grandma used to share on their anniversary while he spoke at length about his earlier dinner companion.
“She’s staying with a friend in Wainscott, over in East Hampton.”
Probably with her boyfriend, who no doubt had more money than I did.
“You owe her an apology, you know.” He used his napkin to wipe some chocolate icing from his upper lip.
Maybe I did. “How do you propose I go about doing that? Do you have her telephone number?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I only gave her mine.”
“Do you know where she’s staying in Wainscott?”
He shook his head again. Then his eyes widened. “But she did mention she and her friends are going to a big bonfire Sunday night.” He smiled. “I bet you could find out where.”
Shit.
Leigh
It took another forty-five minutes in the car, more because of traffic than distance, to get to Storme’s beach house. I made good use of my time to calm down after that awful confrontation with Murphy’s horrible grandson. Poor Murphy, having to deal with that rude, controlling halfwit on a regular basis.
Too bad his short dark hair, sensual blue eyes, and brooding good looks were wasted on a tall, well-put-together man who was completely lacking in manners, tact, and personality.
Feeling much more relaxed, I pulled into Storme’s driveway. The house…took my breath away. Opulent came to mind. Huge. More of an estate than the ‘summer cottage’ she’d invited me to visit. For fun and frolic, she’d said. Honestly, I wasn’t the type to frolic, but fun? I was in dire need of some fun.
I parked my trusty, six-year-old white Subaru right between Storme’s shiny, cherry red convertible and the dark blue, classic muscle car Kelsey had inherited from her dad when she’d turned twenty-one. I think she’d called it a 1968 Shelby Mustang, as if that meant something. The cars, like the three of us, couldn’t be more different.
Storme, a gorgeous brunette, Kelsey, a beautiful blond, as strong as she was pretty, and me, with light brownish-red hair and okay looks, at least in my opinion. Storme’s family very wealthy and living life so everybody knew it, Kelsey’s family the exact opposite of wealthy, and my family…well, my dad made a lot of money, but we lived our lives somewhere in between.
The front door opened and Storme ran out first, her dark wavy hair loose, wearing skimpy denim shorts and a clingy pink tank top. “Finally. If you didn’t get here soon we were going to go out looking for you.” She pulled me into a hug.
Kelsey followed behind her, blond hair up in a loose, messy knot, dressed in ‘thrift shop chic,’ as she called it, but always managing to look great. “Heard you tried to back out,” she said, her words tinged with a sweet southern accent as she hugged me too. “We would have come up to Westchester to get you.” She looked me in the eyes. “You know that, right?”
I smiled, deciding I’d wait until later to tell them my plans to return home at least one night a week to check on my dad and grandpa. “Why else do you think I came?”
“To spend the summer in the Hamptons,” Storme said. “To relax on the beach during the day and party all night.”
Threat of sunburn aside, relaxing on the beach sounded great. Partying all night? Not so much.
“To meet hot guys and have raunchy sex under the starry sky.” Kelsey winked.
She knew that wasn’t me at all.
“Stop it,” Storme said, giving Kelsey a playful push on the shoulder. Then she slid her arm through mine and led me up the stairs and into the house. “I’d settle for Leigh meeting one nice guy for a sweet summer romance.” Storme glanced up at me. “Before you lose yourself in sixty hour work weeks and coast to coast travel.”
Storme guided me though an exquisite entryway with immaculate white walls, along beautiful dark hardwood floors, to a huge open kitchen toward the back of the house.
“Yeah,” Kelsey said, pouring a glass of white wine and handing it to me. “We’re not going to be there to pull you out of the library and force you to have a social life.”
To be honest, that worried me a little bit.
I took the glass. If I’d refused, my friends would have known something was wrong, because I love my wine. I took a sip. Certainly a few small sips wouldn’t hurt the baby…if there was a baby.
“What’s wrong?” Storme asked. She could read me better than anyone.
“Nothing,” I lied, pulling up a chair to take a seat at the counter.
She gave me that worried look that usually got me talking, but not this time. I would not bring down the happy vibe in the room or take the focus away from our summer of carefree fun and planning for Storme’s end-of-summer wedding by sharing my pregnancy concern.
And that, in a nutshell, was why I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test. If I didn’t know for certain, then I could cling to the hope I wasn’t pregnant, that the future I’d planned so carefully was not on the verge of falling apart, that I wouldn’t be responsible for finishing off my dad with the news he was about to become a grandpa. No downward spiral of doom and gloom necessary.
I looked up. Great, Kelsey had concern in her eyes, too. Knowing I had to give them something to explain my sudden quiet, I swirled my glass and took another small sip. “Every time I drink this I’ll think of both of you and how much you mean to me.”
‘This,’ of course, being the delicious wine produced by Storme’s family’s vineyard, right on Long Island.
“I’d say the same,” Kelsey took a sip from her own glass, “except this stuff is too expensive for my budget.”
“Once you figure out what you’ll be doing after the summer, and where you’ll be doing it, I’ll have a case delivered to you every month,” Storme said, like it was no big deal, because to her, it wasn’t. Sure, she loved her designer clothes and fancy cars, but other than that, there was nothing ‘rich girl’ about Storme. She was the kindest, sweetest, most generous person I’d ever met.
“To friendship.” I held up my glass in a toast. “Rooming with the two of you freshman year was the best thing that ever happened to me.” Storme, the outgoing life of the party, Kelsey fun but more selective in her friends, and me, the quiet one, happier alone with my Kindle than out at a party or bar. Yet somehow we’d bonded like sisters that year, and our friendship had only grown stronger since then.
We all clinked glasses.
“To getting Leigh laid,” Kelsey said.
“I’ll drink to that.” Storme tapped her glass to Kelsey’s.
Since the last time I’d ‘gotten laid’ – or gotten close to getting laid — may not have worked out so well for me, I tried to interrupt. “Hey, wait a minute.” But they both leaned in and tapped my glass with big smiles on their faces.
Storme added, “And to Kelsey finally fulfilling her lifeguard fantasy.”
Kelsey laughed. “I am all over that.”
I hoped, with all my heart, that Kelsey did meet a big, strong, sexy lifeguard for the summer fling she’d been talking about for months. She was such a loyal friend, always there for me. After losing her dad in the war, if anyone deserved a little happiness in her life, Kelsey did.
“And to Storme having the perfect wedding,” I said, holding out my gla
ss. Was it my imagination, or did the soon-to-be bride hesitate before clinking my glass? Did her smile falter? Was that uncertainty I saw flash in her eyes?
If so, she recovered quickly, raising her glass. “Of course I will. I have the two best maids-of-honor ever who will make sure I do.”
“You know it,” Kelsey said.
“Of course,” I agreed, watching my friend, wondering what was going on in that head of hers.
After that we sat around for a while talking about what we’d been doing since graduation. I gave them updates on dad and grandpa. Storme filled us in on some new wedding plans, and Kelsey talked about possibly going to Europe for graduate school and the lifeguard she’d met earlier that day.
All too soon Storme insisted on showing me to my room, which had a private bathroom attached, so we could get changed for a pool party I had no desire to go to.
Nick
When had I gotten so old? When was the last time I’d walked on the beach? I missed the feel of sand between my toes, so I kicked off my flip flops and carried them. I missed the smell of the ocean and the sound of waves crashing into the shore, so I took a moment to enjoy the beauty of the sun setting over the water. As much as I hadn’t wanted to come tonight, the bonfire up ahead, the music, and the laughter had me feeling a bit nostalgic for the summers of my youth, when my life revolved around lifeguarding and pretty girls in tiny bikinis.
Two years of eighty hour work weeks as an analyst on Wall Street, and at the age of twenty-four I felt closer to forty. Forget fun. At present, my social life consisted of networking with business associates, always looking to get noticed, always fighting for that promotion, and not much else.
For the past year, my downtime, what little I had, had all been spent with grandma and granddad, doing the things my parents should have been doing, only they’d chosen North Carolina over Long Island. To escape the New York winters, they’d said initially. Now they stayed down there year round.
“Nick! My man! How’s it going?”
“Jake.” I held out my pasty white hand to shake my old friend’s sunbaked, golden brown one.
Nothing escaped Jake. He held up my hand, squinting at the imagined glare from my skin. “That office job is killing you,” he said. “Sucking the color of life right out of you.”
No argument there. “I’ll be sticking around for a few days.” Not by choice, more like for lack of anything better to do while I updated my resumé and got in touch with a few headhunters to get my job search going. “Should have my color back in no time.”
At the thought of kicking around the beach, doing some swimming and bikini watching, my spirits lifted. “Where you hiding the beer?” Despite the restriction on alcohol, I knew the big red plastic cups everyone had were not filled with soda.
Jake pointed to an Italian ice pushcart. “Keg’s in there.”
I smiled. “Like old times.”
“You know it.” Jake held out his fist and I bumped it with mine. “Now get yourself a nice cold drink, shake off that New York City grime, and let’s have us some fun.”
Just what I needed.
It didn’t take long to find Leigh. All I had to do was look in the direction most of the men around me kept looking, and there she was with her two friends. Each one dressed in a similar, colorful beach cover-up that left one shoulder and their long, slender legs bare. Each one was as pretty as the next: a blond, a brunette, and a light-brownish-redhead, one for each preference.
If only the light-brownish-redhead didn’t think I was a total ass.
Leigh separated from her friends and walked toward a large plastic trash barrel over by a set of wooden stairs. She looked around as if trying to see if her friends were watching. They weren’t, but I was, and I saw her dump the contents of her big red plastic cup into the barrel, take a bottle of water from her string backpack, and pour its contents into the cup before tossing away the container.
Interesting.
Apparently seeing Leigh on her own, vulnerable prey separated from the herd, a big guy, more bulk than brawn, staggered in her direction. I headed that way, too. Just in case. When he reached her, Leigh smiled politely and tried to walk around him. He stopped her. I picked up my pace.
Before I could get there, Leigh’s blond friend jogged over. A few quick words I couldn’t hear, and the guy turned himself right back around.
Leigh laughed. A beautiful sound. Then she smiled. For some reason, that smile warmed my insides. On the way back to their brunette friend, Leigh stopped and pulled a cell phone out of her bag to take a call. Motioning toward the water, her blond friend nodded, and Leigh walked off on her own.
Naturally, I followed. To keep her safe, I told myself, feeling rather protective of the woman who’d shown my granddad such kindness. The woman who’d made him happier than I’d seen him in months. The woman who’d impressed him so much he could hardly stop talking about her – to the point I felt like I knew her.
The fact that I liked following her, watching her graceful form as she walked, pretty painted toenails, toned legs, and hips swaying… Well, that was an added bonus.
Except I started to feel a bit like a creeper, stalking along after her.
When she settled into a spot on the sand, facing the ocean, the waves almost reaching the tips of her toes before receding, I returned to the fringes of the party, giving her privacy, still on guard, waiting for my chance to talk to her so I could apologize.
“Hey there, handsome.” A young woman with black hair piled into a loose, messy bun on top of her head walked over to me, smiling. “You look lonely.”
I wasn’t.
She held out her hand. “I’m Mackenzie.”
Good manners had me reaching out to shake it. “Nick.”
“You from around here?” she asked. “Or just visiting for the summer?”
Mackenzie made conversation easy, asking lots of questions, pretending to be interested in me and my life. There was a time I would have jumped at the chance to pick up a woman like her. She was pretty enough, with a bangin’ body and flirty personality, but tonight…tonight she didn’t do anything for me.
What the…? “I’ve gotta run,” I told her and left without waiting for a response, because at some point in the last few minutes, some guy had planted his butt in the sand next to Leigh. I didn’t like that one bit.
“Leigh,” I yelled as I approached. In the fading light, she turned toward me, then disentangled herself from the arm wrapped around her shoulders and stood. Relieved? Angry? I couldn’t tell. Not welcoming, that was for sure.
“What are you doing here?”
“Dude, keep moving,” the guy beside her said, as he stood too. “I got here first.”
As if that gave him the right to have her.
Leigh dropped her phone into her string backpack, slung it over her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Let me guess,” she said to me. “Your grandfather made you track me down to apologize.”
Yup. She knew it, and I knew it, so why lie? As soon as she gave the guy standing next to her the kiss off, I could get it over with and be on my way.
But she didn’t give him the kiss off. Instead, she stood there, looking back and forth between the two of us.
“What?” I asked. “Am I interrupting? Did you want this guy’s attention?”
“Actually,” she said. “I’m trying to decide which of you is the lesser of two evils.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. It felt good.
“Pick me, babe,” the surfer dude said, raising his hand. “You want evil? I’m up for anything. Let me take you back to my place and show you.”
His brain likely fried from a mix of sun and marijuana, he’d totally missed her point. That made me smile even more.
Leigh rolled her eyes. “Well that makes my decision easier.” She took a giant step toward me. “Sorry, Big One.”
“Your loss,” he said with a shrug. Then he strutted back to the party, likely in s
earch of another babe to take back to his place.
“Big One?” I asked.
“He said people call him that for lots of reasons.” She glanced up at me with a small smile. “Kind of makes you wonder, right?”
I laughed. “No. It does not make me wonder at all.” I stepped aside and motioned toward the other man’s retreating form. “But if you…”
“I don’t.” She waved me off. “Really…”
“I’d hate for you to feel like you’re missing out on anything big because of me.”
She looked up. “You mean you’re not…?”
Whoa. “Oh yes I am,” I told her. “In fact,” I puffed up my chest. “People call me ‘The Biggest One’…for lots of reasons,” I teased, enjoying myself.
Until Leigh looked down and said, “The biggest jerk?”
Yeah. That’d been me. I let out a breath. “My granddad told me you mentioned you’d be at a big bonfire tonight. Based on you staying in Wainscott, I figured this would be the one. And yes, while I didn’t exactly ‘hunt you down,’ I did come here specifically to see you…so I could apologize.”
She crossed her arms over her chest again and stood there, looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m waiting.” With the last remnants of the sun fading on the horizon, I couldn’t see her feet. If I could, I would bet she’d be tapping one of them. “For the apology.”
Right. “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.
Apparently Leigh didn’t realize the significance of those two words coming from my mouth together, in that particular sequence, a phenomenon that didn’t happen often, because she simply said, “For what? Calling me a prostitute in front of a patio full of people? Or insinuating I couldn’t possibly be the kind of woman who would have an innocent meal with a nice old man without nefarious intent?”
If she hadn’t been standing there looking so serious, the word ‘nefarious’ would have made me smile, but only because I’d bet my large but soon-to-be depleted bank account that the word ‘nefarious’ wasn’t in the vocabulary of the beach bunny who’d sidled up to me earlier. I liked that it was a part of Leigh’s vocabulary. Granddad was right. She’s a smart one.
Summer Temptation (Hot in the Hamptons Book 2) Page 2