Stolen Kisses

by Annie Rains

  Stolen Kisses is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2017 by Annie Rains

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Loveswept is a registered trademark and the Loveswept colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9780399182075

  Cover design: Makeready Designs

  Cover photograph: gpagomenos/iStock

  randomhousebooks.com

  v4.1

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Annie Rains

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Krista Nelson wanted to pop the Barbie’s head right off her shoulders. She was blond, unlike Krista. Tall, unlike Krista. And she was Noah Sawyer’s date.

  Unlike Krista.

  Krista swallowed and waved a hand at the two sitting across from her. “Of course it’s okay that you brought a friend.” Her smile was so large and fake that she felt like her face might crumble onto the table where they were seated. It was fine. She and Noah had dinner every Wednesday night, just the two of them. Until tonight. But it was fine.

  Krista narrowed her eyes on the Barbie. Amber was her real name, she thought she remembered Noah saying. And she was probably a nice person under her thick shell of perfection.

  “So how long have you two known each other?” Barbie asked.

  Noah answered the question. “Kris lived in the house across from me and my brothers growing up.”

  “That’s cool,” his date said.

  “My parents moved a few miles away during my senior year of high school,” Krista said, “but we never lost touch.”

  Noah grinned, those boyish dimples of his poking deep craters in his tanned cheeks. “She just can’t stay away from me.”

  Krista shook her head on a smile. “Because you’re so irresistible.”

  Noah glanced over at his date. “Don’t worry. It’s not like that between us,” he told her. “Kris has always been just one of the guys.”

  Pain seared through Krista’s heart. “You know I hate when you use that expression. I’m a woman.” In case he hadn’t noticed.

  “What I meant to say,” he amended, “is that we’ve always been best friends. Nothing more.” He swung an easy arm around Barbie, hooking her opposite shoulder and pulling her closer.

  “Wow, that’s really great,” Barbie said, turning and meeting his eyes. She and Noah were so close their lips were practically touching.

  And Krista suddenly felt a little nauseous. There was no way she could endure seeing Noah with his date for another hour. Her heart might fracture into a million little pieces. Seeing no other choice, she grabbed her phone as if it had alerted her. Noah and his date were so absorbed in each other, they wouldn’t know that it hadn’t. “Oh,” Krista said, glancing at the screensaver of a beach somewhere. A place that she’d definitely rather be right now instead of here, playing third wheel to her lifelong best friend and his date. “I’m getting a phone call, you two. Please excuse me.” She had to admit, this was pretty lame.

  “Sure,” Barbie said.

  Shooting up from the table, Krista turned her back and let her smile drop. Once she was beyond the normal Wednesday Wings crowd, she veered into the bathroom and whipped out her cellphone to text her brother, Joey. He’d once worked on the fishing boat with her father, but after her dad had retired, Joey decided to take a break from the family tradition. Right now he was a cab driver in Blushing Bay and her personal chauffeur when she came to Castaways, the local bar that sat on the waterfront.

  SOS! she typed. She needed rescuing almost as badly as she needed another stiff drink. And another man to occupy her thoughts and the space in her heart that Noah kept. The space he’d always kept since they were little kids running along the riverbanks.

  You okay?

  Yes, she typed back. Even if that was only partially true.

  On my way.

  Krista blew out a breath and walked over to the mirror. She wasn’t half bad in the looks department, in her humble opinion. She had black shoulder-length hair that carried a natural wave that gave it a little body. People always said she had her mother’s eyes, with varying shades of pale to dark blue. She certainly wasn’t a Barbie, though, which seemed to be all that Noah ever dated. Every few weeks, a new Barbie with a different hair color or shade of skin. They all had curves, were all beautiful, and none of them were her.

  The bathroom door opened and Noah’s date breezed in. Krista’s smile snapped back into place, like a brand-new rubber band. “Hi!” she said, a little too peppy.

  Barbie smiled back with her perfect pearly whites.

  Krista couldn’t help it. She hated her.

  “Your friend is so cute, isn’t he?” Barbie said, pulling a lipstick from her purse and standing in front of the mirror beside Krista. She ran it over full, kissable lips. Noah would probably be all over that later tonight.

  “Um, yeah. I guess. I don’t really pay attention,” Krista said. Which was a flat-out lie.

  Barbie laughed as she tossed her lipstick back in her purse and fluffed her platinum hair in the mirror. “Right. One of the guys. A woman would have to be dead not to notice, though. And he’s so sweet. And funny, too.”

  Krista swallowed painfully. Then, hallelujah, her phone vibrated in her hand.

  I’m here, Joey texted. Meter’s running.

  Okay, she could hold herself together for a few more minutes until she was back at the townhouse she shared with her brother. She faked a frown at Barbie. “I’m so sorry, but something has come up and I need to go. Do you mind telling Noah for me?”

  Barbie looked genuinely disappointed as the corners of her mouth pulled down. “Aww, that’s a shame. I’ll tell him.”

  “Thanks.” Krista pushed through the bathroom door, weaved through the crowd, and headed straight toward the exit. She could tell Noah herself, but he’d ask questions. He’d want to know what had come up. Why did she need to leave? What was the real problem? Because he could always see right through her. The only thing he couldn’t seem to see was how she felt about him, and that was for the best.

  The cool fall air hit Krista as she exited Castaways. Her shoes crunched as she cut across the lot sprinkled with oyster shells instead of gravel, giving the place seaside charm. She whipped open the door and plopped into the front passenger seat of Joey’s cab, then blew out the breath she’d been holding until she’d escaped. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “First you have to explain yourself,” Joey said. “Is there someone in there whose ass I need to kick?”

  Krista smiled at her large, overbearing brute of a brother. “Yes. A blond Barbie doll’s.”

  His wide shoulders
lowered a notch. “If it was a dude, you know I’d have your back.”

  “I know, and it’s one of the many reasons I love you. Now let’s go.” Before Noah headed outside. Before she lost her dinner and the beers she’d consumed a little too fast in the last hour.

  The cab started moving and Krista melted back into the passenger seat. She closed her eyes, suddenly drained. She was twenty-eight years old. Maybe she was getting too old to be going out and having beers on a work night anyway. Maybe she should start spending more nights in, reading books, watching the Hallmark Channel, and going to sleep at a reasonable hour.

  “You coming in?” Krista asked as Joey pulled in front of their brick townhome ten minutes later.

  “No. I’m going to take a few more calls from paying customers. Emphasis on paying.” He winked.

  Krista knew he was joking. He’d always been the one to insist on driving her around at night to keep her safe, even if she couldn’t imagine a safer place than Blushing Bay, North Carolina. The small, cozy town centered around a major fishing port off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It was full of a lot of things, primarily fisherfolk, but not hardened criminals. “Thanks again. I owe you big,” she told him as she climbed out, fumbled with her house keys, and headed inside. Then she poured herself a glass of water to offset the beer and tucked herself into bed—alone.

  —

  “It’s fine.” Krista shrugged the next morning over coffee and muffins with her good friend Grace Donner. They were at one of the best bakeries in town, the Blushing Bay Café. It rested snugly between the two marinas on the waterfront and catered to the local fishermen and fisherwomen, including Noah’s family, who Grace worked for. “I mean, Noah needs to find himself a good woman who’ll make him settle down. That man has undiagnosed attention deficit disorder, I swear. I’m a pediatric nurse, I’d know.”

  Grace laughed and glanced at her watch. “Ten ’til eight. I have to get to the office.”

  Krista usually envied the fact that Grace got to go to the Sawyer Seafood Company and see Noah every day, but not today. Today, Krista was glad she didn’t have to face him.

  Krista stood as well. “Me, too.” She had several patients on the peds floor right now that she was eager to get back to. Leaving them in their beds while she went home to hers didn’t mean they’d left her mind. The nurse in her always wished she could check on them in the middle of the night, just to ensure they were comfortable. “I’ll see you at Castaways tonight for drinks?”

  “Sure thing,” Grace said, waving.

  Krista drove a few miles to the Blushing Bay Memorial Hospital and parked out front. In her rearview mirror she saw Dr. Chandler Dale pull in across from her. Grabbing her stuff, she hurried toward the entrance. She’d didn’t feel like making small talk with the young cardiologist this morning. He’d hinted at going out a time or two in the past and, while he was good-looking and seemed nice enough, she wasn’t interested.

  She pushed into the elevator and was relieved when the doors closed with her in it alone. Two floors later, she exited on the pediatric-unit floor. Karen Brim, the head pediatric nurse, waved at Krista as she headed to the nurse’s station to put her things down. Then she logged in at a computer and started scanning the patient data from last night. Afterward she would check with the nurse on the prior shift to make sure everything had gone smoothly.

  Please let things have gone smoothly.

  The times Krista arrived and met the hollow eyes of the prior shift’s nurse were the worst. Those were the times where things hadn’t gone smoothly the night before. Krista swallowed as she pulled up the data for seven-year-old Adam Reese. He’d been admitted the day before. Her eyes skimmed the on-screen text looking for keywords.

  Stable.

  Resting well.

  Comfortable.

  “Hey.” Olivia, the nightshift nurse, walked up behind Krista. Her eyes were bright and shiny, with a smudge of dark circles underneath. Tired, but nothing more.

  Krista exhaled. “Hey. Everything go okay last night?”

  Olivia nodded. She was a younger nurse who’d been at Blushing Bay Memorial for maybe a year. Most of the nurses on the pediatric floor were young or similar in age to Krista, except for Karen, the head nurse. Peds nurses had a high rate of burnout. At least here. It wasn’t an easy job, but in Krista’s experience, it was a rewarding one. She loved helping kids.

  “They’re all clean, dry, well rested, and waiting eagerly on breakfast,” Olivia told her. “Adam was asking for you.”

  Krista lifted both brows. “Me?”

  “He says you’re supposed to teach him how to play Uno today.”

  Krista laughed. “That was mine and Joey’s favorite card game growing up. I am an Uno master. I told him I’d play after my shift, though.” Because when she was on shift, there was barely any time to breathe, much less eat or use the bathroom.

  Olivia yawned while pulling her stethoscope from around her neck. “I’m going home to bed now. See you on the other side. Good luck.”

  Krista nodded. “Sleep well.” She reached for her own stethoscope tucked inside the nurse’s station and draped it around her neck. Her hand reached into her pocket and fingered the stack of cards she’d brought from home. She and Joey still enjoyed a good game every now and then. She’d do her rounds first, make sure all of her patients’ needs were met, then she’d circle back and say hello to Adam, the sweet little seven-year-old with a missing front tooth and orange freckles dusting the bridge of his nose. Her boss faulted Krista for getting too close to the kids she worked with, but in Krista’s mind that was part of the job, too. There was no keeping your distance from a child who was scared. She understood how it felt to be scared and alone better than most. She’d been ten when she’d spent several months on this very floor, in this very hospital. She hadn’t just gotten a new kidney that year, she’d decided what she wanted to do when she grew up and she’d met the woman who would one day become her boss. Karen was a couple months from retirement now. Her years in the profession had taught her not to make friends with the patients. It was, as Karen put it, naïve.

  Krista wasn’t being naïve in her work life, though. Only in her personal life, and she knew it. She lifted her cellphone from the pocket of her plum-colored scrubs that featured kittens and eyed a text from Noah.

  Where did you go last night? No goodbyes?

  She dropped the phone back into the depths of her pocket, unwilling to shrug off her feelings right now. She was tired of shrugging off her feelings. Tired of being in love with a man who viewed her as just one of the guys.

  Just plain tired.

  —

  Noah Sawyer loved the wind whipping against his skin. It was the best feeling in the world. Better than being five beers into a baseball game, better than sex—not that he’d had that in a few months. Purely by choice. His date last night had seemed interested, but he’d dropped her home with little more than a wink and a “Have a good night.” The disappointment on her face had been as thick as her makeup. He was tired of dating those kinds of women, though. Beautiful, sure, but most of his dates couldn’t hold a conversation past the first ten minutes. Or they could, but he wasn’t interested in what they had to say. That’s why he’d brought Amber to Wednesday Wings last night. He’d thought it would be a safe way to test the waters with his date. Except Krista had promptly bailed and Amber had proved as uninteresting as all the rest.

  Maybe he should just take a break from dating for a while.

  Killing the fishing boat’s engine, he walked on deck and lowered the anchor into the deep waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The October air was crisp, chilling the windburn he’d just enjoyed as he’d bumped and zipped along. His newest co-captain hopped up on one of the seats lining the front deck and let out a commanding bark. The chocolate Lab pup was yet another example of his lack of impulse control. The houseboat where he lived wasn’t really big enough for a pet, especially one that promised to grow to over a hundred pounds, but, un
like with Amber, he hadn’t been able to resist those brown take-me-home eyes when he’d seen Beauty at a rescue event outside the town’s grocery store a couple weeks back. Along with a cart full of groceries, he’d taken home a bag of puppy food and an energetic pup. He was tired of living alone and, while a dog was definitely a commitment, it didn’t scare him the way living with a roommate or significant other did.

  Beauty thumped her tail on the boat’s floor and barked again.

  “Shush. You’ll scare away the fish.” His voice dropped to a tone he would use on an actual human child. “Co-captains who scare the fish walk the plank,” he threatened.

  Beauty leaped up and propped the pads of her front paws on his thigh, eyes sparkling with excitement. That was something Noah’s temporary crew this past summer had lacked. None of them had been thrilled by the catch. So here he was, fishing with just a puppy who didn’t lack for enthusiasm but who might scare off all the fish in a fifty-mile radius. He’d likely have to stick to a smaller catch until he could hire on another crew member or two. Just thinking of that exhausted him. He was tired of training guys who didn’t love being out here. Guys who were just looking for their next paycheck. Noah wanted someone who knew what they were doing and who could pull in a decent day’s catch.

  Gathering some shrimp bait and a bottled water, he settled in for a long day. Long fishing days allowed him time to think. His first thought: maybe Krista was miffed at him last night for bringing a date to Wednesday Wings. He’d never done that before and he hadn’t given her any warning. He knew from experience that Krista didn’t like to share when it came to him. There were times when her own brother had tried to be a third wheel on their escapades, and Krista had promptly nipped that in the bud. It was cute, really. She was cute. But, like he’d told Amber last night, he and Krista didn’t have that kind of relationship.