by Coralie Moss
She took the glass in one hand and reached for his with the other, coming to stand next to the birthday man on the deck of the cottage he was renovating.
“Sorry. I was admiring the scenery.” She shot him the most lascivious grin she could manage and kissed his chin.
He took her wrist and guided her hand to the backside of his linen shorts. “You’re allowed to do more than just admire the scenery, you know.”
“I know,” she whispered. “We can do a little bushwhacking later.”
Laughter and conversation filled the air around them, growing louder as she peeled her gaze away from his eyes—and her hand off his butt—and turned to greet the newest arrivals to the birthday party.
“Suki! You brought the baby!” Anna set her glass next to her dinner plate and held out both arms for her sleeping granddaughter. Liliana’s round cheeks were chapped and slightly red from cutting her first tooth.
“Hi, Mom,” Suki said, kissing her cheek. “Sorry we’re late. Lili’s had a rough day, teething and all, and I’m wiped out.”
“Thanks for coming. And I’m happy to relieve you of this sweet angel anytime. I think I remember how to handle a cranky baby.”
Her daughter-in-law’s shoulder’s relaxed. She leaned in, one hand on Anna’s back, the other pulling the damp corner of the baby’s cotton T-shirt away from a roll of baby fat. “I’m still getting used to the whole motherhood thing, and how to ask for help.”
“I know. We want to think we can do it all ourselves, but these kids don’t come with instruction manuals. Gary Jr. didn’t, and there were so many times I was terrified I’d done permanent damage.”
Suki nodded, wide-eyed. “Keep reminding me of that,” she said. “You and my mom make it look so easy.”
“Our mothers did too, sweetheart. Do you mind if I circulate while I hold her?”
“Not at all. I’m going to help myself to some of that bubbly stuff and have a few adult-only minutes with my husband. If I can find him,” she added, searching the crowd. “He’s got so many questions for Liam about the house.”
Suki kissed her daughter’s cheek and left. Anna made her way toward a group of friends. Time for Elaine and her daughter, Romy, to do some baby-admiring while they attended to last-minute party details. Liam’s birthday dinner was catered by the apprentice-chef who bought one of Elaine’s food trucks, and the young woman was rightfully proud to unveil her new menu at the gathering. And Romy was on a heart-mending visit home.
Three long, rectangular tables filled the center of the deck. They were protected by soaring canvas awnings designed to look like abstract bird wings. Anna had designed them specifically for the house. Awnings and party tents were just two of the new products her outdoor living workshop had started to produce, and orders from both coasts were beginning to fill her inbox.
What made her most proud was the series of sculptures taking shape in her studio. Over the summer, a gallery owner from Vancouver visited and made an offer of representation before he left. She wasn’t ready to unveil her work publicly, but she was getting closer.
She twirled Liliana around the tables and settled her in a baby carrier when it was time to eat. After dinner, more candles were lit and placed in glass holders. Anna excused herself from the table and enlisted Romy’s help with hanging a few from the awnings and scattering others around the edges of the deck. The setting was perfect for a rousing round of “Happy Birthday” and passing out slices of fresh-baked pies, laden with island-grown fruits.
When everyone had a full plate and a refilled drink, Liam attacked the pile of gifts with gusto. Anna saved hers for last, calling for quiet as she placed it in his hands and kissed him on the cheek.
He peeled the paper off the small box, glancing over at her as he took hold of the lid and lifted. A tiny card lay folded on a bed of fragrant wood shavings. His hand shook when he plucked the card from the box, and his voice wasn’t much steadier when he read what she’d written in rose-red ink.
Liam stood so fast he knocked over his folding chair. Grabbing Anna, he lifted her off her feet, pressed the full length of her curvaceous body to his front, and proceeded to share a very private kind of kiss in a very public place.
Setting her on her feet, he turned to the cheering crowd. Old friends sat alongside new friends. Sleeves were rolled up, drinks were raised, and a few kids ran around the lawn, squealing.
Liam tapped his plate with his knife, and waited for the noise to die down. “I have a little story to tell you all this evening.”
He cleared his throat and swallowed half a glass of champagne before continuing.
“As some of you might know, I asked this woman to marry me a few months ago.” He wrapped an arm around Anna’s waist. The dress she was wearing—short, white, and sexy—rode up one thigh. She let it stay. More cheers and whistles erupted. Liam patted the air with his palm, shook his head, and forced a pained grimace onto his face. “She said no.”
A few of their more vocal friends faked a chorus of tears.
“But today, today she might have a different answer. Anybody here think I should ask her again?”
Feet stomped the wood deck and flatware smacked against tabletops. The vibrations traveled through her body, adding to the trembling in her legs and chest.
Turning to her, Liam dug into the front pocket of his shorts and pulled out a shiny object. The size of the sparkle left no doubt what it was. He interlaced their hands and looked out over the people who had gathered to help him celebrate a birthday. The slight tremor in his fingers had nothing to do with his cancer treatments and everything to do with what they both invested in getting to this moment.
Anna let him pull her to the center of the deck, where dancing was scheduled for after dessert, and melted inside as he went to one knee. She would do anything for this man’s happiness.
“Anna. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”
It had been so long since she had shed tears of exquisite joy. She stood tall, a fully formed flower amongst the field of friends, and answered his proposal from every cell in her body.
“Yes.”
THE END
About the Author
Coralie Moss is an author who specializes in seasoned romance based out of British Columbia, Canada.
For news, giveaways, and excerpts of upcoming stories, please visit Coralie at www.coraliemoss.com
Twitter: @moss_coralie
Facebook: facebook.com/CoralieMossWrites
Instagram: instagram.com/authorcoraliemoss
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Read on for a sneak peek of Summer Rules,
the story of Elaine’s ‘Happily Ever After’ with the island’s number one tree guy.
Sneak Peek at Elaine’s novelette
Summer Rules
As far as Elaine is concerned, when summer's tourist season arrives on Salt Spring Island, it's the off-season for romance. Her mini-empire of gourmet food trucks needs her undivided attention, and from the end of June through Labor Day, her ironclad Summer Rules are in effect. Sex is off the menu.
Richie's a local tree trimmer, focused on building his business. He's on hiatus from relationships until he meets the renowned entrepreneur, Elaine Atkins. She needs an experienced lumberjack to take down a tree that threatens to land on her most popular food truck. And when her cook can't make it into work, Richie can't say no to Elaine's plea for a temporary sous chef.
The saucy rapport and spicy heat inside her popular taco truck aren't all coming from what's cooking on the stove. Elaine's a vital woman in her mid-forties, and though Richie is twelve years younger, he deftly handles everything she tosses at him, starting with her resistance. By the end of the lunch rush, he's ready to ask her for a date. And that's when Elaine finds out just how hard it is to stick to her Summer Rules.
CHAPTER ONE
Elaine stood an arm’s length from the shade-giving hemlock tree. Her fingertips t
raced the vertical grooves in its multi-hued bark. High winds the night before had brought down the top quarter and cracked the next lowest section of trunk.
She loved this tree and its twin. The sentimental part of her heart said it would be fine to leave it standing. The loud-mouthed business side overrode her attachment, cited public safety, and called a local tree-removal service. The man who took her call assured her he’d be at the food truck’s parking lot within thirty minutes.
Over an hour later, Elaine raised her face skyward and made a silent plea for patience. She needed a professional to remove the fractured hemlock. What she wasn’t expecting was a guy who spoke to her like she was a contemporary of his grandmother. At forty-seven years old—not eighty-seven—she knew her curves looked good coming and going, and yes, she knew he thought he was being polite, but certain phrases rubbed her the wrong way.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” The man with the deep voice moved closer as he spoke again, the ma’am another nail in his coffin.
“My name is Elaine.” Keeping her back to the unwitting irritant, she stepped onto one of her many soapboxes and continued. “Elaine Atkins. Not ‘ma’am,’ not ‘honey.’ E-laine.” She planted her fists on her hips and pivoted on the ball of her foot. “And you are?”
The twinkle in the tree man’s eyes threw off enough sparks to jump start the industrial cook stove inside her locked truck.
Oh. Maybe she’d been a little quick out of the gate.
“Richie Havens, ma—Elaine. Not the Richie Havens, of course.” He opened his arms wide to the sides, cocked his head, and gave her a hopeful look.
“Obviously.” She crossed her arms under her breasts, aware the move accentuated one of her mightiest assets. Richie had gorgeous, tea-with-cream-colored skin and wavy, dark brown hair, but he was no famous musician by way of Brooklyn. Right now, she needed the most highly recommended tree guy on the island to fix the situation. Or she’d be calling the second most highly recommended tree guy.
She pointed to the taller of the two hemlocks. “This one cracked last night when we had those high winds.”
Richie tilted his head and moved his gaze up. Elaine pulled oversized sunglasses over her eyes to hide her gawking and affected an I’m-waiting stance. Damn, this Richie Havens might not possess any musical skill, but he had that sex-on-a-stick, wide-legged stance down to a one-two beat. She practically swooned when he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked one hip to the side then the other and back again, all the while appearing to assess the condition of her two trees.
Summer Rules are in effect, Elaine. July first through Labor Day. And rule number one states, “There shall be no distractions of the sexual kind.” Because distractions of the sexual kind during the height of tourist season meant her attention wasn’t where it needed to be: on her business.
He finally spoke. “Shouldn’t take long to bring this down. You want me to haul it off or cut it into firewood?”
She waved away his question. “I have no use for soft wood. You’re welcome to it.”
“I prefer hard woods myself. They burn longer and hotter. But I’m not going to turn down free firewood.”
“I have a whole stack of well-seasoned wood waiting for me at home.” Elaine removed her sunglasses, hooked them over the neckline of her T-shirt, and ignored the way one side of his mouth twitched. “Burns slow and steady and heats the whole house.”
Richie scratched at his head and smiled more fully. Light bounced off the sun-bleached tips of his waves as he dipped his chin, cocked an eyebrow, and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Now that we’ve established you like older wood, should I remove the hemlock, or would you prefer I get my dad or my uncle out here? They’ve both got at least two decades on me.”
Elaine had stumbled into his double entendre like she was playing a blindfolded game of Marco Polo. In the woods. Drunk. But she stood her ground. “I would appreciate it if you could get that tree down and out of here as soon as possible. The one beside it can stay, if you think that’s okay.”
“I’ll check it for damage and let you know. Elaine.”
“Cash okay?” She inserted her key into the handle on the back door to the food truck.
“Cash is fine,” he answered.
She nodded and, when she stepped up into the truck, promptly forgot about flirting further with the not-legendary Richie Havens. A branch had punctured a hole in the skylight, and the pesky raccoon family that visited her on rotation had helped themselves to the packages of flour tortillas she’d forgotten to put away.
“Dammit, Rocky!”
The truck shifted with the weight of another body entering through the back door. Elaine grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself and bent over to pick up a ripped plastic bag.
“It’s Richie, not Rocky.”
She straightened quickly, pulled fistfuls of her curly hair away from her face, twisted them into a topknot, and secured them with an elastic. “I know who you are. I was yelling at the raccoons. They’re all named Rocky, and right now, they’re all on my shit list.”
Richie chuckled as he surveyed the mess. “I can help you with this. Got some of those heavy black trash bags in my truck. I can toss whatever’s spoiled onto my compost, if that would ease your mind about the waste.”
Knowing a day’s worth of ruined, organic whole-grain tortillas would end up eventually doing some good for the environment and not waste away in the trash pile was a small bit of solace. She offered a tight-lipped smile. “That’d be really helpful. The farm that takes my compostables wouldn’t appreciate an excess of commercially prepared bread on their pile.”
“Well, my stack gets pretty hot, and the turnover’s pretty quick.”
Please, God, make him stop. Summer Rule Number Two clearly states,“There is to be no sex with island boys.” Richie was definitely an island boy. Man, island man. Shit. Island men frequented the same places she liked to, year round, which made it no fun when their play time was up. At least with tourists, she could rest assured they had return ticket in their pockets.
“I’ll take one of those bags.” She turned her back to the distracting sight of muscles and tendons and the implied strength of his forearms. “When can you get started on the tree?”
“Right now.” Richie stepped out of the truck.
Elaine flicked the light switch and surveyed the damage inside the mobile kitchen. It could’ve been much worse, especially if Rocky had visited during the rainy season. She and her assistant should be able to have the truck cleaned and disinfected within the hour and still be ready for the lunch rush.
Lunch rush.
She sucked in a short breath. Tourists arrived via prop planes, ferries, and pleasure boats, and they’d be flocking to her food trucks in under two hours. She stepped out of the truck and found her tree guy at the base of the hemlock. “Can you have a look at the damage to my roof when you come back down?”
“Sure. Give me a few minutes.”
She shook open the bag he’d left on the portable steps, filled it with nibbled-on tortillas, and hauled it to his truck. An assortment of neatly organized ladders filled the raised rack in the back. She left the bag underneath; she could check the roof herself.
“Hey, Richie, can I borrow one of your smaller ladders?” she yelled, directing her voice to a spot two-thirds of the way up the cracked tree.
“Borrow whatever you like,” he answered.
Elaine grabbed a pair of heavy canvas gloves with leather finger patches. She guesstimated the twelve-foot ladder would get her safely to the flat roof of her truck and slid the equipment off the rack. The ends rested on the gravel parking area, and when she tried to lift, it was heavier than she expected.
Shit.
She dragged the ladder through the gravel, leaving two long trails from his truck to hers. Now all she had to do was figure out how to open it close enough to the back of the food truck to allow her to get to the roof and not ding the custom-painted sides.
Dr
opping the ladder where no one would trip over it, she checked her cell phone and sighed in exasperation. Her missing assistant should have arrived soon after Richie, and cleaning up from Rocky’s nighttime incursion was taking entirely too much time. She had food to prep, and as she looked across the lot and into town, a tour bus stopped near the information center and began to disgorge passengers. Hungry passengers who were likely unfolding maps and firing up apps and plotting their paths to the island’s “must visit” spots. She’d busted her butt to guarantee her food trucks stayed at the top of the rankings.
Elaine checked her cell phone again, this time for messages, and sure enough there was a text from Claudia.
“Projectile vomiting.”
Great.
She shoved the ladder with her foot and strode to the hemlock tree. A muscular male ass in tight jeans and a special sling greeted her upward gaze. “Hey, Richie.”
He shifted slightly and propped his boots against the trunk, allowing him to look over his shoulder and down at her. “What’s up, Elaine?”
“How are you in the kitchen?”
His chuckle tumbled through the branches and rattled her bones. “You want my opinion, or you wanna call some of my other clients?”
Elaine snorted. He really was full of himself. But with time marching on, a hole in the roof, and hungry tourists on their way, she was desperate. “Twenty-five bucks an hour for the next four hours if you get your butt out of the tree, into my truck, and help me in the kitchen. My regular cook is sick.”
Silence. He loosened something and slid a few feet closer. “I can make a lot more than that hanging out in trees.”
Shit.
“Thirty. And lunches on me for one week.”
Richie loosened his pulley system a little more. His biceps flexed, and his calves clenched the tree trunk. One more disaster and she’d affix a closed sign to the side of her truck and offer to let Richie climb her for free.