Love Me if You Dare

by Toni Blake

  “And . . . ?”

  He gave his head a short shake. “Life is short, that’s all.”

  She took that in, and then stated what she felt was obvious. “Everyone’s is. You’re wasting time, too, Fletch.” She’d had that very thought regarding him only moments earlier, after all. So the irony here seemed richer by the second.

  Yet he only gave her a slight, gentle smile. “It’s different for me. I know how my story ends and it’s good, I promise. Your story isn’t written yet.” He tilted his head. “Do you know how you want it to turn out? Do you know what your happily ever after is about?”

  Tamra’s heart beat so hard now that it hurt. She simply . . . wasn’t prepared for this conversation. She hadn’t seen it coming and felt as if she’d been smacked in the head with a sheet of her own stained glass.

  The fact was . . . maybe . . . maybe Reece was on her mind . . . a lot.

  And maybe being around him made her feel . . . warm inside. And happy. Because he was funny and self-assured and easy to be with. And she’d always been aware that his eyes sparkled when he smiled and that it made her heart skip a beat.

  And for a long time, she’d just told herself it was because he was just that kind of person. That he made everyone feel that way. Though in this moment it was suddenly hard to deny that . . . there might indeed be something there. Inside her. That she might . . . care for him. In a different way than she cared about Fletcher or other men she knew. In a way that was . . . romantic.

  But Fletcher was right—she was afraid of it.

  Because what if he didn’t feel the same way? How much would that hurt? And how embarrassing would that be? And what if it ruined their really wonderful friendship? Some things didn’t change when you got older—there were still risks involved in letting your feelings for someone show.

  She bit her lip and tried to form a reply to Fletcher’s question. “No, I don’t know how my happily ever after goes. Or if I even get one.” She shook her head, trying to explain better. “You know I’m just glad to be where I am in life, to have friends I trust and care about.” She’d been raised in a commune in Arizona. Everyone there was supposed to have been her family—but no one there had ever really felt like her family. Except, that is, for the real family who’d willingly given up ties to her.

  For Tamra, real relationships were like gold, rare and valuable. And to risk a friendship for the sake of romance . . . that was big to her, maybe even impossible. She valued her friendships deeply, more than she thought most people did—because they were all she had.

  “Of course you get a happily ever after,” Fletcher said with convincing certainty. “We all do. If we want it enough to be open to it.”

  Hmm. The truth was, she’d just never spent much time thinking about being open to romance; maybe she even pushed it away. In the commune, when it came to romance and sex—well, she’d ended up feeling it was all fleeting, and confusing. Everyone there talked about love and claimed their attachments to each other were deeply meaningful, but to her, the bonds formed had seemed weak, so fragile as to not count for much in the end. She’d never sorted through it all—she’d just left it behind in a quest for a simpler, more normal life. People in her commune had preached simplicity, but she’d felt they lived in a very complex sort of emotional poverty instead.

  “I . . . I . . . really don’t feel that way about Reece,” she finally fibbed. “Maybe someone, someday, but . . . Reece is my friend, that’s all.”

  Because what it came down to was, she valued him too much to ever let him know she might want more. Even if Fletcher had made her realize that was probably at least part of why she hadn’t liked Cami, or Camille, or whatever her name was. Despite his denials, Reece had clearly felt drawn to the other woman—and maybe that had stung in a way Tamra hadn’t quite wanted to recognize.

  Fletcher gave her a long look before finally saying, “Okay, Tam, okay. If you say so, I’ll believe you.”

  “Good. Because I say so.” She switched her gaze back to the beach, where the artsy-looking girl had now spread out a towel and sat down on it, facing the water. “Now, about that girl in the tie-dyed bikini.”

  “You know what I think?” Fletcher asked, sounding a little tired.

  “What?”

  “That we should just quit trying to meddle in each other’s romantic lives and go get some ice cream.” He pointed over his shoulder in the direction of the ice cream shop up the street and around the corner.

  She made an observation. “For being such a deep guy, you always seem to think ice cream is the answer to every complicated issue.”

  “One of the secrets to life,” he informed her, “is to appreciate the little things and let everything else take care of itself.”

  Hmm. She wasn’t sure if life’s big problems really took care of themselves, but at the moment, she supposed ice cream seemed like a good enough solution to her, too. “Let’s go,” she said.

  A KNOCK on the door of her room at the Happy Crab the next afternoon sent Camille scurrying to answer, expecting to find Reece on the other side. Instead, before her stood a twenty-something Mexican girl in jeans and a T-shirt next to a maid’s cart. Her heart sank a little as she forced a smile. “Juanita, I bet.”

  “Si,” the girl said. “Mr. Reece sent me to clean your room. Is this is a good time?” She spoke with an accent, but her English was excellent.

  “Sure,” Camille said, still feeling the silly sting of disappointment as she stepped back to let Juanita inside.

  “I’ll try to be quick,” Juanita said, carrying in fresh towels.

  “No rush—take your time,” Camille told her, then returned to the round table she’d been using as office space since her arrival. Though the bulk of her work was done face to face, in meetings, there was still email to answer and company business to keep up with. Just this morning she’d gotten an email from her boss, Phil, informing her that her expertise with new “holdouts” might soon be required at desired properties in both Key West and Myrtle Beach.

  Holdouts—that was the official company term for business owners like Reece who didn’t want to sell. It struck her now that it was a little dehumanizing in a way—it lumped them all into one big category and just made them sound like a nuisance, nothing more, and nothing less.

  Oh crap. This is the trouble with getting to know one of them—it makes you . . . soft.

  That word, soft, kept coming up—and she couldn’t deny that little bits of softness around her usually hard emotional shell had been developing almost since the moment she’d decided to check in here.

  Maybe it had been the wrong move. Maybe you should check out right now. Go home. Or move on to the next assignment—get your usual confidence back in place. Then revisit this Happy Crab situation from a distance—figure out some other way to get the job done.

  As Juanita scurried around the room—scouring the sink outside the small bathroom, stripping the king size bed—Camille seriously considered doing just that. Distance, in this particular instance, might indeed make more sense than staying so near. She kept giving herself that same advice—so why hadn’t she taken it yet?

  Because it always came back to the same issue: She’d never left a place before closing a deal. And even if it might be wise to revisit this negotiation later, if she departed without getting the job done, it would feel like a defeat. Inside her. And it might look like one, too, to Phil and other higher ups.

  And she really did believe that if she stuck with this, she would find out what was keeping Reece from selling, and therein lay the solution to changing his mind.

  But one more self pep talk seemed in order.

  Do. Not. Get. Emotionally. Involved.

  The fact that she’d wanted him to be on the other side of that door wasn’t a good thing. The fact that she’d suffered a disappointment that felt downright physical was even worse.

  Who were these women who could dabble in men like they were snacks? Who could feast on one a littl
e while and then just be done? She’d known a few of them. And she’d always assumed that if she wanted to be one of them, she could. She was confident, after all. And independent. And she didn’t need relationships to the degree that many people seemed to. She was content in her solitude because she’d chosen it.

  So why can’t you just play with him a little? Like a toy? The way so many men were so adept at doing with women?

  You can. You absolutely can.

  After all, it’s not like he’s shown terribly much affection for you; it’s not like you owe him any loyalty.

  So time to take a new tack. Think of him like candy, or a piece of cake. Tasty for a moment in time—and then it’s gone and you forget about it and move on with your life.

  As Juanita was finishing up, Camille reached for her purse and gave her a healthy tip. “For coming in to do only one room. It was probably inconvenient.” She was young, and pretty, and it was easy to envision her having plenty else to do with her time.

  But the younger woman was gracious. “Oh, I don’t mind at all. I was surprised, since it’s been empty lately, but I was already cleaning Mr. Reece’s house today, so I just came here after.”

  Camille tilted her head. “Oh, you clean his apartment next to the office?” She pointed vaguely in that direction.

  But Juanita laughed. “No, though I suspect it could probably use it. Mr. Reece has a house on Sea Shell Lane that he doesn’t live in. But it has furniture, and pictures on the walls, and dishes in the cabinets, just the same as if he did. I clean it for him every two weeks.”

  Hmm. That was more than a little interesting. “But you don’t know why he doesn’t live there?”

  Juanita gave her head a carefree shake that informed Camille she’d never bothered to wonder, either. “No.”

  “And you’re sure no one else does?”

  This time she nodded. “I would know. Nothing’s ever moved—everything is always exactly the way I left it other than the dust that gathers. It’s an easy job,” she finished with a confiding grin.

  As Juanita left, Camille remained intrigued by this little mystery. There was definitely more to Reece Donovan than met the eye, and this reinvigorated her determination to find out what. And to make it work for her.

  Just keep playing this out, seeing where it leads.

  Having renewed her resolve once more, she decided that was exactly what she was going to do. And with that, she picked up the room’s phone and dialed zero to reach the front desk. It rang for a long while—and she supposed it shouldn’t surprise her since Reece didn’t seem overly concerned with keeping it manned—but just when she was about to give up, he answered. “You rang, Tinkerbell?”

  She ignored the annoying nickname—she was getting better at that. “I’d like to get out and explore the area a little more. Are you interested in accompanying me or am I free to go by myself?”

  Slight hesitation. Then, “I’ll go with you. Can’t have you out and about in Coral Cove on your own.”

  “I’m not sure what it is you’re so afraid I’ll do, but okay. As long as you promise to quit introducing me as, ‘she’s not my friend.’ ”

  “Are you my friend, Cami?” There was a hint of sarcasm and amusement in his voice, but it also felt like kind of a dare. And possibly even a flirtation.

  “Maybe,” she said lightly. “And maybe that remains to be seen. But regardless, I’m not the enemy you make me out to be.”

  “Hmm,” he said, sounding skeptical.

  Though she didn’t let that get under her skin, professionally or personally. “So do we have a deal? I’ll let you hang out with me so long as you don’t make me sound like a creep?”

  “I might choose to think of it more as chaperoning than hanging out,” he quipped, “but yeah, okay. Leave in half an hour?”

  “Sounds good.”

  After disconnecting, Camille changed into a cute outfit of white shorts and a beaded pink tank—having packed little, she’d gone shopping earlier at Beachtique, a surprisingly pleasant shop a few establishments up from Reece’s. Then she ran a curling iron through the tips of her hair to give it some bounce, and applied makeup, focusing on making her eyes stand out. And when she realized she was putting in the same effort as if she were getting ready for a date—albeit a casual, impromptu one—she let herself off the hook with: All in a day’s work.

  . . . Perhaps it was because of the soft beauty

  of the evening . . .

  J. M. Barrie, Peter and Wendy

  Chapter 7

  AS THEY walked past the Hungry Fisherman on Coral Street, the town’s main thoroughfare, a few seagulls passed overhead and a salty sea breeze wafted past. Something in the moment delivered her back to a time when being at the beach was brand new to her, and a little magical, when she’d first had the chance to start traveling. After having been raised in Michigan and spending her college years in Lansing, getting out of the state and seeing different parts of the country had been a revelation to Camille. To discover how many different kinds of places and people and lifestyles there were out in the world had opened her eyes. It had been what she considered the real beginning of her life.

  “I love the beach,” she said on a reminiscent sigh. But then remembered who she was with. She glanced up at the handsome beach bum next to her. “That probably sounds silly to you, having always lived here, but . . . it’s an entirely different environment from anything I knew growing up and I just had a little flashback to my first visits to the ocean.”

  “So how did you get from rural Michigan to the beach, Tink?” He sounded sincerely interested, not a trace of sarcasm lacing his voice.

  “The usual way,” she said on a light laugh. “College trip. Spring break.”

  Next to her, he raised his eyebrows, took on a playful look. “Didn’t do anything naughty, did you?”

  She wondered what he wanted the answer to be—and then was honest. “Not every college spring break trip is about sex and alcohol. Maybe it was that way for a couple of my friends, but not for me.” She focused back ahead—beach to the left, small storefronts to the right—as she added, “Anything naughty I’ve done was not on spring break.”

  “Tell me more,” he prodded.

  Yet she replied with a coy smile, “I’m afraid that’ll just have to stay a mystery.”

  Funny—in the beginning with Reece, confidence had come via her professional persona only, fading when more personal sides of her had shown through. But now, slowly, she was beginning to feel a softer sort of confidence with him, even when being personal. Though—yikes—softer. That word again.

  “Fine, then back to your more distant past,” he said. “What was it like growing up in Michigan?”

  She cast him a glance, trying to decide how much to say. Be careful here. Then again, that should be easy—she’d spent most of her adult life making conversation about things like this without saying too much. She was good at it now. And yet . . . what was it about him that made it feel easy to share? “It was snowy,” she replied on another gentle chuckle. “Nice in the summer, though—not usually too hot. Working in warmer climates has taken some adjustment, but I really do love being at the beach.”

  “I wasn’t really asking about the weather,” he pointed out.

  Though she already knew that. “What is it you want to know about then?”

  His eyes narrowed on her and she sensed him trying to see beneath the surface. And for the first time it really hit her that in the same way he was a mystery to her, she really was a bit of a mystery to him, too. And that might just work for me. Professionally. It was a new thing for her to be combining the professional and the personal—making the personal part of the professional. But I can do it. In fact, she liked the challenge.

  “I want to know just what makes Cami Thompson tick,” he finally said.

  Good question. But choose your reply with care. No chinks in the armor. “My parents were . . . strict,” she began. “And they expected a lot of me. And we w
ere poor. So as I got older, I made choices that ensured I wouldn’t be poor anymore. And that allowed me to take charge of my own life, be in control, make my own decisions.” She peered up at him. “Is that what you were after?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “And . . . sorry. I mean . . . well, it doesn’t sound like a great childhood.”

  Damn. She kind of thought she’d stated it with such strength that he’d focus on the outcome, not the start. So she blew it off as nothing. “It’s fine. It’s long in the past and pretty much forgotten. I’m a here-and-now kinda woman.”

  As they’d walked on, she’d studied the other Coral Street establishments closer than she had up to now. Other than the Beachtique boutique, which frankly felt too upscale for its surroundings, the rest had seen better days: Beachside Bakery, whose sign was sorely in need of paint; a souvenir shop in the same situation; a pizza place that might be open or closed—she couldn’t tell; and a few storefronts that were vacant and appeared rundown.

  She couldn’t help thinking the decay of the place—of any place—was sad, but on the other hand, she truly believed that the arrival of a Windchime Resort would allow many of these businesses to revive or reinvent themselves. New money would come into the community and everyone would profit. Except for Reece. But he would profit in a whole different way—just not at the Happy Crab, or at least not at its current location.

  “Have you ever thought of relocating?” she asked without weighing it.

  “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re seriously asking me that? Like I haven’t made my feelings on this perfectly clear?” She wasn’t looking at him, but could feel the intense widening of his eyes on her anyway.

  “We never discussed relocating exactly,” she calmly explained. “And there are empty stretches of land around here. I saw an out-of-business car lot on the way in. You could build a newer, better Happy Crab and take the run-off business from the Windchime.”