“I don’t want him civil. I want him gone.”
Savannah made a beeline for Daisy to get changed—before Nate could guess the truth. Nothing about the reaction Glen stirred in her, physically or emotionally, was civil.
***
Riding with Glen was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.
Savannah knew it the moment she climbed into his vehicle and slammed the door. Trapped with a man who filled the small space with the drool-worthy scent of clean guy. He hulked next to her in black board shorts and an ancient The Lord of the Rings tee.
Can anyone say claustrophobia? Or maybe androphobia—the fear of men. No, that wasn’t quite right, either. Glenophobia. She was Glenophobic in the sense she had an irrational, persistent dislike of the man, not because she was afraid. At least, not afraid in the normal sense of the word, and so, she didn’t need to be snuffling up delicious man-smell for the duration of this uncomfortable trip. She tucked herself into the corner of the passenger seat and buzzed down the window.
The only thing that made the thirty-minute drive to the beach bearable was the utter silence. Sav mentally ran through her lines while staring out the window at the green foliage blasting past as they wound their way down the hill to the wide-open sprawl of Bounty Bay.
Thwack-thwack-thwack. She flicked the flip-flop dangling off her toes against the sole of her foot over and over, her peripheral vision catching Glen’s glance at her legs, bare to the frayed hem of her worn-soft Daisy Dukes. She tugged her loose cotton shirt closer over her swimsuit and folded her arms. Glen cleared his throat and lowered his window, the fresh, salt-scented breeze flicking strands of her ponytail into her mouth.
Ahead, Nate’s Range Rover signaled and turned onto the concrete beach ramp. A few other cars drove slowly along the hard-packed sand, avoiding the paler, soft sand near the dunes. Glen followed, elbow resting on the open sill, steering with easy confidence.
They drove past kids boogie boarding in the shallows, and farther along, a small posse of surf casters tried their luck in hooking a snapper or kawhai off the beach. Where the bush-covered hills met the low, rocky reef, a line of cars waited to cross the rocks exposed by the low tide to better, but more isolated, fishing spots around the coastline.
“Is this safe?” Sav blurted as the SUV’s tires bumped and jostled them over the rocks.
She flicked a glance at Glen, who stared out the windshield, following the exact path as the Range Rover ahead. To their right, waves rolled in, kicking up plumes of spray as they tumbled over the rocky edge. In a few hours, this ledge would be under water again.
“It’s safe. You’ve never been around here?” he asked, tapping the brakes.
“My parents’ family lives south of Auckland. We never came north when I was a kid, and I didn’t get a chance to go with Nate and Lauren when I was up here last. Have you spent much time in the area?”
Glen shifted his legs, board shorts whispering on the seat. “Nate and I and some mates came up to fish a couple of times over the years, and once to go surfing. It’s a popular spot.”
Glen, surfing? She couldn’t imagine it. Arguing in court or looking down his nose at some poor client over a fancy-schmancy desk? Yes. Wet and ripped and carefree, out there riding the breakers? No. He was the polar opposite of Lauren’s big teddy bear of a brother, Todd—who was six-foot-three of genuine, laidback, blonde surfer dude.
“You surf?”
Glen aimed an indecipherable look at her. “Surfed. It was a one-time deal, and I sucked. Major-league sucked.”
The tough guy admitting suckability at something? That she hadn’t expected.
She offered him a wry smile. “I’m not great on the whole upright balancing on a slab of fiberglass thing either.”
The corner of his mouth kicked up as he faced front again.
Nate’s Range Rover continued on around the coastline, occasionally passing a fisherman’s shack tucked behind the dunes. Although the day was clear, the water temperature wasn’t warm enough to bring droves of families down to the beach, just gumboot-wearing people casting lines off the exposed reef.
Finally, Nate pulled into a sheltered inlet and parked near a grassy bank—a perfect spot for the afternoon snack Lauren insisted on preparing. Glen stopped a short distance away from Nate, and Sav exited his car as if her shorts were on fire, jogging over to where Lauren hauled out a huge cooler.
“Need a hand?” Savannah asked.
Lauren shooed her away. “No, no. You go set up with the guys. Drew’s looking forward to teaching you to fish.”
Super. Sav couldn’t turn down one of Nate’s spare rods, not when Glen smirked next to her. Fishing ranked up there with watching nail-polish dry or listening to sports commentary in a foreign language, but it was a necessary evil in order to make a little boy’s day.
“Come on, Aunty Sav!” Drew tugged on her hand. “We’re going to catch the biggest fish ever.”
An hour later, the four of them had lost two hooks, dragged in numerous clumps of seaweed, and had ninety percent of their bait nibbled away—all without catching a single thing. Sav kept close to Nate and Drew, while Glen chose a spot farther down the rocks.
Nate and Drew bent over to examine the hook—once again minus the bait. “Looks as if the fish don’t want to be caught today.”
“One last time, Dad?”
Sav caught Nate’s eye and grinned at the sappy expression on her cousin’s face.
“Never get tired of hearing it,” he said and slipped the rod into Drew’s hands. “You hold this, and I’ll bait us up.”
She laid her rod next to Nate’s tackle box. “I’ll keep both my fingers crossed that you get a fish before Glen does.” She demonstrated crossing her fingers.
Drew giggled, trying to cross his fingers while not losing his grip on the fishing rod.
Sav flicked her gaze sideways at the long, lean line of Glen’s three-quarter profile, the sharp grin a dead giveaway he’d heard her comment. The corded muscles in his biceps flexed under the tee shirt sleeves as he wound in his line. Without returning to the dwindling slab of stinky fish bait, Glen glanced at his empty hook and then cast off again.
She watched him behind her sunglasses and huffed out a sigh as the wind ruffled his slightly too-long-on-top brown hair. He was sweet to a little boy, so what? He’d stopped and loved up Java before, too. Being kind to kids and animals didn’t excuse him for being a rude, stubborn jerk.
Nate cast out the line and Drew shimmied with excitement in front of him. Nate wedged the rod into a rock crack and guided Drew’s fingers onto the lower half. “Hold on tight.”
The rod dipped sharply, so sharply that even Sav, standing to the side and a little behind them, jumped.
“You got a bite,” Nate shouted.
“A fish, a fish!”
Drew promptly released the rod and clapped his hands, while Nate grabbed hold.
With his new daddy’s big hands guiding him, Drew slowly wound the line in until the glistening, silver-scaled body of a snapper flopped onto the rocks.
“Little mate, you’ve landed a big one.”
Glen jammed his rod into a rock crack and came to stand silently beside her. Heat pumped off his body, negating the slight chill of the wind now the sun had slipped behind a cloud bank.
“I’ll hold the rod, Drew,” Nate said. “You and Glen go and grab your fish.”
Drew shook his head violently. “I wanna go with Aunty Sav, ‘cause she hasn’t been fishing for a long time.” He turned and held out his hand.
The thought of pulling the hook from the creature’s mouth then bashing it over the head made her want to hurl. But she gamely took Drew’s hand and forced her lips into an interested smile. They picked their way over to where the fish flapped and fought for freedom.
As they drew alongside, Drew’s hand clenched around hers, and his lower lip quivered.
“Are you okay, honey?” she said softly.
“He looks scary.”
“He’s got sharp teeth.”
She couldn’t let a five-year-old deal with the hook piercing the fish’s lower jaw. “I’ll take out the hook, shall I?”
At Drew’s nod, Sav crinkled up her nose and placed one flip-flop covered foot onto the silvery body to steady it so she could drag out the hook. The fish went ballistic, thrashing and fighting. Drew let out a little whimper. Savannah bent and pulled out the hook before the poor kid got even more freaked. The snapper opened and shut its mouth some more but didn’t fight quite as frantically.
“He’s dying. I don’t want him to die.”
Drew’s voice cracked as he yanked on her elbow. He flung another glance behind him to Nate and Glen, both men now wearing identical frowns. Nate shoved the rod into Glen’s hand and headed toward them. A tear streaked down Drew’s face, which he scrubbed away with his fist.
“Let me have a look at him.” She lifted up her foot enough to grab the fish’s slippery body, then with a quick flick of her wrist, tossed the snapper back into the waves.
Sav clapped a hand—which reeked of fish—to her mouth and popped open her eyes wide. “Oh, my goodness! I’m so sorry, Drew. He wriggled right out of my hands!”
“Hey.” Nate crouched at Drew’s side and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He got away, huh?”
“I’m such a butter-fingers,” Sav said. “He was huge, and he scared the crap outta me.”
“It’s okay, Aunty Sav.” Drew sniffed heroically and straightened his spine. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“That’s right, mate. And you still get bragging rights for catching such a whopper.” Nate ruffled Drew’s hair. “How about we get some fish n’ chips, since Aunty Sav lost our dinner?”
Drew glanced up at her, and Sav grinned, adding a magnificent eye roll.
“Whoops. My bad.”
“Yay!” Drew’s tears evaporated at the idea of a special treat for dinner. “I’ll go tell Mummy.”
Drew ran whooping toward his mother, scaring a cluster of seagulls eyeing up the bait remains.
Nate stood and tugged her ponytail, giving her a lopsided smile. “Thanks, butter-fingers.”
“You’re welcome.”
They walked over to Glen, who watched them stoically from behind his wraparound shades.
“You two up for takeaways?” Nate reclaimed his rod and finished reeling in the line.
Sav’s mouth watered at the thought of crispy, battered fish and hot chips, but she swallowed it down with a glance at her thighs. Twenty pounds weren’t going to evaporate by themselves, and she’d already been tempted beyond reason and had caved by eating one of Lauren’s cookies earlier.
“Not for me, thanks.”
Glen’s bland expression didn’t change as he crouched beside the bait board and fishing knife. “I’m going to stay a bit longer. We’ll catch up with you.”
Nate shrugged. “Don’t be too long; the tide’s on the way in.”
“Thirty minutes, max,” Glen said, then looked over his shoulder at her. “You want some bait?”
Savannah shook her head. “Think I’ll go for a run.”
Glen turned back, sawing off another chunk of bait. Savannah’s nose crinkled. Aside from having enough fishy experience to last her until next spring, no way would she hang around with Glen without Nate and his family acting as a buffer.
A run, at least, would clear her mind of the disturbing images that kept popping into it. Images of Glen’s bare torso, ridged with muscle. Images of his perfect mouth and the appeal of his scruff-covered jaw. Images of running her fingers through the windblown waves of his dark-brown hair, of testing the hardness of his mouth with her lips.
Images she had no business thinking about.
***
Savannah Payne was a trouble-with-a-capital-T man slayer, with killer curves and the personality of a piranha.
Glen gave up the pretense of fishing fifteen minutes after Nate, Lauren, and Drew left. Leaning against the side of his SUV, he soaked up the last afternoon rays before the sun dipped behind the towering sand dunes. He glanced down at the small pair of flip-flops by the front tires.
Savannah Payne was all of that, and yet she also understood the fragility of a five-year-old boy’s ego.
He didn’t know how to assimilate that knowledge, and had even less of a clue on how to box this conundrum of a woman into a nice, tidy package he could store on his I’m done with this shelf.
She rounded the curve of the little inlet, ponytail blowing out behind her as she ran. The white shirt tied around her waist flapped in the breeze and left her toned arms bare. Not to mention the bright-red top of her swimsuit. She was a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition fantasy—except he’d never lusted this way after the pouty-faced models parading around in skimpy, impractical scraps of fabric.
But Savannah was something else entirely.
Glen was helpless when he couldn’t avoid being close to her. Helpless not to devour the sleek lines of her long legs, and holy shit-balls, the lush curve of cleavage underneath the top of her swimsuit. But he wasn’t stupid enough to touch any part of that soft skin, or worse, give in to the temptation to taste her lips to see if she was as sweet as her cherry or bubble-gum lip-gloss.
Trouble with a capital T. He wouldn’t forget it.
He walked to the driver’s door as she drew alongside, chest heaving, her cheeks scarlet. Huh. So the woman meant it when she said she was going for a run. None of that sashaying around, barely-breaking-a-sweat nonsense. Savannah meant business.
“Good run?” he said.
She nodded and held up a finger, indicating she needed a minute. After puffing for another ten seconds, she said, “We’d better get a move on; the tide’s coming in fast.”
“Not me holding up the works.” He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Savannah grabbed her flip-flops and hopped into the seat beside him. She slammed the door hard enough to rock the car but said nothing, just pulled the shirt from around her waist and tossed it into the back seat. Then slid on her sunglasses, face forward, mouth a thin line.
Yeah, okay, he was acting like someone had shoved a pointy stick up his ass, but trap him in close quarters with Savannah and his manners vanished. He slanted a glance at her, unable to stop his gaze slipping to the jut of her nipples through the thin swimsuit. Her skin above the neckline glistened, and his head spun with the scent of berries, sea salt, and the sweet, tempting smell of woman.
Stop it, stop it, stop it. His pulse leaped in time to the mantra. To break this crazy fixation, Glen slammed the SUV into drive and planted his bare foot on the gas. The vehicle lurched forward then the back wheels spun, churning up drifts of sand. He tried again—with the restraint he should’ve used on the first attempt—slow and steady. The wheels continued to spin, making a high-pitched whine.
He removed his foot from the accelerator, fingers squeezing the steering wheel hard enough to crimp metal. First rule of beach driving? To prevent extreme humiliation in the presence of a diva, engage the bloody four-wheel drive.
If he was lucky, she’d let him off the hook.
Savannah tipped down her shades, green eyes sparkling like chips of polished sea glass. “Ready to leave when you are, Suit.”
Nope. She was going to milk it. He couldn’t blame her. With a grin that was more a gritting of teeth, Glen opened his door and climbed out. “Hop over here. I’ll push.”
She climbed over the center console, lips curving into a knowing smirk as she settled into his seat.
“When I’m in position and yell go, give it some gas—but not too much, right?”
“Gotcha.” She wriggled her butt into a more comfortable position, which did nothing toward lowering his thundering heartbeat.
Both rear tires had scooped deep trenches out of the sand. Unless he suddenly developed superpowers, pushing would have the effect of a solitary ant attempting to shift a peanut.
Savannah buzzed down the window, signaling with a wave that she was ready. Glen positioned himself behind the right hand tire, which didn’t appear to be sunk as deep into the sand as the left did.
Bracing his hands under the bumper, he yelled, “Go!”
Wheels spun and sand flew. At least half a cubic ton of it sprayed over him. He hollered at her to stop, wondering if she could even hear him over the revving engine. The car stalled. Glen propped himself against the bumper with his eyes shut, scraping sand off his face.
The car door slammed, and a few seconds later, she pressed a cool bottle of water into his hands.
“Here, take this.”
“Can’t see to open it.” He turned his face away from her and spat out granules of sand.
He heard the sharp crick of a plastic cap being cracked open.
“Keep your eyes closed.”
Her palm pressed against his chest, branding him through his tee shirt. Her breath hissed softly and the scent of berries grew stronger.
“Hold still.”
Something warm and pliable brushed against his biceps, but before his brain could process what that might be, cold water trickled onto his forehead and over his face. She swiped sand off his cheek, the touch of her fingertips sending hot darts of sensation to his lower belly.
“Almost done.”
Her voice was a silky murmur his junk decided was a come-on. Bad junk. The palm on his chest disappeared.
“You can open your eyes now. I think I got all the sand off.”
Glen cracked opened his eyes. He muttered a gruff, “Thanks,” and took the offered bottle. He considered upending the cold water over his crotch, but nope, didn’t want to draw attention to the bulge in his shorts. He gulped down the rest of the water and focused his mind on the dullest thing he knew—his father’s law lectures.
Know Your Heart: A New Zealand Enemies to Lovers Romance (Far North Series Book 2) Page 7