by Jill Shalvis
“Very good,” Chloe said. “Can you say the alphabet, too?”
“As the middle, I’m the logical choice for mediator. We have decisions to make, and they get made right now. Majority rules.” She looked at each of them. “We walk away or rebuild. We’re voting, now. Youngest first.”
Chloe pulled out an iTouch, which Lance had lent her in the hospital, and brought up a Magic 8-Ball application. “Magic 8-Ball,” she intoned with great ceremony. “Should I stay here in Lucky Harbor?”
Maddie was boggled. “What? You can’t leave your vote up to a Magic 8-Ball!”
“I can’t?”
“No!” But Maddie bit her lip, trying to see the iTouch screen. “What did it say?”
Chloe looked down and sighed. “Outlook not so good. Just as well. I’m ready to blow this popsicle stand anyway.”
Disappointment practically choking her, Maddie turned to Tara.
Tara held her hand out for Chloe’s iTouch. “Let me see that thing.”
“You aren’t serious.” Maddie’s throat felt like she’d swallowed shards of glass. “Please say you’re not serious.”
“Okay. I’m not serious.” Tara reached for Maddie’s hand, her smile a little watery. “I vote we stay here.”
“Me, too,” Chloe said. “I was only kidding before. We can’t leave now. Things are just getting good.”
“Two yeses,” Tara said. “Maddie?”
She was dizzy, overwhelmed, and confused as hell.
“Aw, look at her,” Tara murmured. “Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
“She’s got fear written all over her,” Chloe agreed. “Definitely a high flight risk. Makes me wonder if she wanted us to vote the other way.”
“Huh,” Tara said, nodding. “Interesting. You mean she wanted us to make the decision for her so she didn’t have to be accountable?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m right here,” Maddie said. “I can hear you.”
“You know what you need?” Chloe asked. “You need to get over yourself.”
“Hey,” Maddie said. “When you first showed up here with your bad ’tude, did I tell you to get over it?”
“Yes, actually. Several times.”
Okay, true. Maddie turned on a smug Tara and narrowed her eyes. “And you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“I gave you sympathy. I want sympathy!”
“Are you kidding me? You have the sexiest man on the planet wanting you. You’re getting laid regularly. No sympathy for you!”
Maddie stood up. “I need some fresh air.”
“Last time you said that, you went to the bar, got toasted, and kissed a hottie.”
Halfway to the door, Maddie came back and snatched Chloe’s iTouch out of her hands. “And I need this.”
Just outside, she closed her eyes and whispered, “Am I going to get it right this time?”
The iTouch clouded and then cleared with her answer:
Ask again later
Dammit! She shoved the thing in her pocket and got into her car. She drove along the beach, which was dense with fog. The water was gray and choppy today, an endless cycle of unrestrained violence.
Sort of how her gut felt.
Somehow she ended up at the pier, ticket in hand, staring up at the Ferris wheel. Do it, the brave little voice in her head said.
Live.
Which is how she found herself in the swinging seat, clinging to the bar in front of her, her legs like jelly as she rose in the air.
And—oh, shit—rose some more.
And more…
And then, when she was as high as she could go—and not breathing—the Ferris wheel stuttered to a stop.
Her heart did the same.
Around her, the few others on the wheel with her gasped and woo-hoo’d their delight.
She wasn’t feeling delight. She was feeling stark terror. Whose idea had this been? What the hell had she been thinking? Life was just as good on the ground!
She tried to look at that ground, but her forward motion had the bucket tilting forward, and she felt her head spin. “Oh, God, oh, God—” She had a death grip on the bar now. She couldn’t feel her legs at all. And her stomach was sitting in her throat, blocking all air from coming through.
Stop looking down. Forcing her head up, she stared out at the view. It was incredible. If she discounted the vertigo, that is. From this high, she had a three-hundred-sixty-degree vista of the sparkling Pacific Ocean and the rocky shores for as far as she could see.
And the town. She could see all of Lucky Harbor from here, and it was as pretty as a postcard. It was a perspective she never would have appreciated had she not faced her fear and come up here.
Okay, so she hadn’t quite overcome the fear, and she was a minute from hyperventilating, but she’d get there.
Thing was, she had a lot of fears to overcome. She had a lot of “roads not taken,” or “rides not taken.” There’d been things she’d convinced herself she couldn’t do.
For instance, she’d convinced herself her mother hadn’t been interested in more of a relationship. It was too late for what-ifs on that one, but what about her sisters? It didn’t seem too late for them, even though she’d told herself that they hadn’t wanted her in their lives. The truth was, she hadn’t reached out, either, and she could have. She should have.
She’d done the same to Jax. He might not have been forthright, not completely, but he’d shown her from the beginning how he felt, without words. He’d pushed her to want more—more of the truth from him, more of everything. Why hadn’t she wanted to hear it?
Fear. She’d let it rule her.
That had to change. If she lived through this stupid ride.
Just as she thought it, the Ferris wheel jerked and her bucket swung as the ride started moving again. And ten minutes later, after she’d gone around three times and finally had her feet firmly back on the ground, she grinned.
She’d made it. She got back into her car feeling better and more determined and drove without a destination in mind.
No, that was a lie. She knew exactly where she was going. She pulled into Jax’s driveway and parked. It was forty-five degrees out, and she was sweating.
You know what to do, he’d said.
And he’d been right. She wanted to stay in Lucky Harbor, and she wanted to be a family with her sisters.
Both of those things were within her reach.
She also wanted Jax.
Hopefully he was still within her reach, as well. She knocked on his door, and when he didn’t answer, she twisted around and eyed his Jeep. He was home…
Then she heard it, the steady, rhythmic banging, and she followed the sound around to the back of the house. He was there in battered boots, a gray Henley, and beloved old Levi’s faded to threads in spots. He was chopping wood, the ax rising and falling with easy grace. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and clinging to his every hard inch.
He had a lot of hard inches. Just watching him gave her a hot flash.
He had to have seen her come around the side of the house. He had instincts like a cat, and she was making no move to be secretive, but he kept chopping.
Saying nothing.
Finally, she risked life and limb and stepped close enough that he was forced to stop or put her in danger from the flying shards of wood.
Lowering the ax, he leaned on it, his breath coming steady but hard.
Still saying nothing.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Hey. What are you doing here?”
Fair enough question, since she’d asked him the same only this morning. It figured that he’d get right to the point. He was good at that.
She wasn’t. “I was… confused. And I guess a little mad at everyone, and then I went for a drive and my car came here.”
His mouth quirked very slightly. “Did your car forget that you’re mad at me, as well?”
“Well,” she sa
id, “out of all the people I’m mad at, I think I’m the least mad at you.”
“Why’s that?”
Maddie fought the urge to pull out Chloe’s iTouch and ask the Magic 8-Ball how she was doing with Jax, but she had a feeling she knew.
“Why, Maddie?”
Dammit, he wasn’t going to let her off the hook. She went with flippant. After all, it was her number-one defense mechanism. “You did recently put a damn good smile on my face. Maybe you get partial immunity. I don’t know.”
He eyed her for a long moment, clearly seeing right through her. “I gave you more than a smile,” he said, setting down his ax and walking into the house.
Jax headed into his kitchen and straight for the refrigerator, pulling out a bottle of water for his suddenly parched throat.
Do-or-die moment. Either she’d come to say thanks for the memories and vanish off into the sunset, or she was here to… Hell, he was afraid to hope.
When he’d been a lawyer, he’d walked into court every day knowing he was going to win. Always.
It’d be nice to know the verdict on this.
Distance. He needed some. He downed the water, tossed the bottle aside, and moved through the house. Not a total ass, he’d left the slider open in case she wanted to come in and destroy him some more, but without looking back, he went into his bathroom. Stripping out of his sweaty clothes, he cranked the shower up to scalding and stepped in. Bowing his head beneath the spray, he let the water bead down his back and tried to clear his mind.
Not happening.
Instead, images came to him: Maddie standing beneath the hot water with him, glistening and soapy, her eyes soft and warm on his; him gliding his hands over that body until those eyes glazed with passion, listening to her pant his name over and over as she came—
When the door opened behind him, he didn’t move, didn’t lift his head, didn’t open his eyes. Her arms came around him, and he felt her naked body press up against his.
And here was the thing. All his good intentions went out the window as those hands drifted down his chest and over his abs, because it was hard to remain distant with the hard-on of his life.
“Why are you here?” he asked again.
Maddie swallowed hard and tried to channel… which actress? Damn, she couldn’t think of an actress to save her life! She was on her own. “Well, you seemed pretty sweaty,” she said in her best come-hither voice. “Thought maybe I could help wash your back.” She leaned in and licked a droplet of water off his neck.
She felt him draw a deep breath. “Maddie.”
Okay, so he wasn’t in the mood for flippant. She could understand that. She paused, her eyes on the smooth muscles of his back. “You bared yourself to me.”
He turned to face her. “Yes, as it happens, I’m as bare-ass naked as it gets.”
They both looked down. Yeah, he was naked. Gloriously so. “I meant more than your body,” she whispered. “You bared yourself to me, and… and it took me longer than it should have to notice.”
God, he was perfect. Hard and ripped and heart-stoppingly perfect. She ran her finger over the drops of water on one pec, and, whoops, grazed his nipple.
“Maddie?”
“Yeah?”
“Up here.”
She tore her gaze off him and met his eyes. They were slightly warmer, and maybe, possibly, amused. Relief hit her so hard she nearly slid to the tile floor. “Oh, Jax. I’m sorry that it took me so long to get with the program. That I doubted you, that I pushed you away. I wasn’t looking for this. And I know you weren’t, either, even less than me, but you… you handled it better.”
His hand slid over her stomach and settled on her hip, which made it all but impossible to think, but she struggled to try. “I know I said some things… about where we’re at.”
“Actually, you made yourself pretty clear about where we weren’t at.” Reaching for the soap, he turned away and began to scrub up.
“About that. I was wrong.” She was a little breathless just from watching his hands run over his body, leaving soapy trails in their midst, and lost her train of thought.
He didn’t say anything, just finished what he was doing. Finally he put the soap back, rinsed off, and then moved unexpectedly, pulling her in close, wrapping his arms around her and just holding on. Tight. She didn’t mind. She could have stayed like that forever, feeling safe and warm and stupidly happy. But she had more to say. “Jax, I—”
“Whatever you want,” he said, his voice low and raw. “Except for letting go. I’m not going to let go.”
“I hope you mean that. Because you were right about something else, too. I was scared, scared to the bone.” She grimaced. “I might have panicked even.”
“You did do a lot of knitting,” he said with an utterly straight face and then moved his lips down her neck.
Shivering at the feel of his mouth brushing over her wet skin, she clutched at him. When he lifted his head, he was smiling. The sight threatened to short out her brain. Or maybe that was his touch. She wasn’t sure, except she was breathing hard and was dangerously close to leaping into his arms and impaling herself on him. “You said to fight for what I want. You said to get into the ring.” She looked down. “Um, not to change the subject, but you want me.”
“Hard to hide it.”
“I want you back,” she whispered, which isn’t what she’d meant to say. Exactly.
“For how long?”
“As long as you’ll have me.”
He drew a shuddery breath. “So this is you, fighting for what you want?”
“Yes.” It was hard to concentrate. His hand was on her hip, slowly making its way north until it cupped her breast. His thumb glided over her already pebbled nipple, his expression a mixture of heat, affection, need, and so much more that it took her breath. She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his chest, shivering when he cupped the back of her neck. “I came to Lucky Harbor out of obligation, but really, I was looking for something.”
“Did you find it?”
She loved the way his voice rumbled through his chest, his body radiating into hers. “Yeah, I found it. I’m staying in Lucky Harbor, Jax. We’re going to rebuild. For the first time in my life, I fit. I have my sisters, a place that’s mine—well, it’s only one-third mine, and we still owe you a ton of money, not to mention it’s half charred—but you know what I mean.”
His lips twitched.
“And!” She drew a breath, because this was the big one. “I let myself love and, in return, be loved.”
He went utterly still, his eyes twin dark pools. His fingers brushed up her spine, sinking into her hair. “Did you?”
“Yes.” Her heart clenched that he’d doubted it, even for a minute. “I love you, Jax. And you love me back.”
“I do,” he said, warm emotion thickening his voice, and all her worries began to fade completely away. He pressed his mouth to the beat of the pulse at the base of her neck. When he lifted his head and met her gaze, his eyes were shining fiercely. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Looking at him, she saw her future and felt all the ragged tears in her heart heal themselves. “I fit,” she whispered in marvel, stepping into him. “I fit with you.”
He nodded and wrapped his arms around her. “Perfectly.”
Maddie’s Boyfriend Scarf
Materials
One skein super-bulky yarn, at least 100 yards
1 pair size 13 needles (straight)
1 size G (4 mm) crochet hook
Instructions:
1. Cast on 15 stitches (or enough stitches to make the scarf 6 to 8 inches wide).
2. Knit every row—this is called a garter stitch—until your scarf is 60˝ long. (If you have more yarn left and a very tall boyfriend, you may choose to make the scarf a bit longer.)
3. Bind off.
4. Use your crochet hook to weave in the ends at the top and bottom. See how easy that was!
Personalize
your gift:
1. Feel free to use a different weight of yarn but check on the label to see what size needles are recommended and use them instead.
2. Knit with two different strands held together throughout. This creates a unique yarn only your beloved will have.
3. Create stripes by buying several colors of yarn, starting a new color at the end of a row, and leaving a tail for each color (which will be woven in with the crochet hook during step #4 above).
4. Add fringe: Cut 64 lengths of yarn approximately 10˝ each. Take four lengths of yarn and fold them in half. Insert the crochet hook into one of the corners of the scarf. Pull the loop through the scarf with the crochet hook. Then bring the ends of the yarn through the loop and tighten. On the narrow edges of the scarf, make 8 tassels spaced evenly.
The Sweetest
Thing
To another oldest sister, Kelsey, who always knows what to do and how to make us feel better. Love you forever.
Chapter 1
“There is no snooze button on life.”
TARA DANIELS
Muffin?” Tara asked as she walked along the long line of people waiting on the pier to enter Lucky Harbor’s summer festival. “Have a free Life’s-a-Peach Muffin?”
The large basket was heavier than she’d anticipated, and the late afternoon June sun beat down on her head in tune to the Pacific’s thrashing waves beating the shore. Perspiration beaded on her skin, which really chapped her hide. It was the steel magnolia in her. Perspiring wasn’t just undignified, it contradicted her never let ’em see you sweat motto.
Telling herself that she was merely glistening, and hopefully looking luminous while she was at it, Tara amped up her smile and kept going. At least her sundress was lightweight, the material gauzy and playful against her skin. She’d bought it to look sophisticated and elegant. And to boost her confidence.