by Taryn Quinn
Stop stalling.
I was tempted to roll my eyes at myself, but that took too much energy and I didn’t have much to spare. I grabbed a fruit plate and a scoop of cottage cheese to get me through the rest of the evening. Sage and I might have time for a bite after the dinner rush, but more often than not, it just rolled into dessert business and the endless coffee mug crowd.
I snagged a menu on my way down the aisle to him. Seth was sprawled in his favorite booth, his long legs encroaching on my side. I kicked his boot as I sat down and dropped the menu in front of him. “How you don’t have that memorized is beyond me.”
He straightened and placed his phone face down on the table, then propped the menu against the wall. “Just coffee this time.”
“Oh. Have an appointment?” I ate a forkful of my cottage cheese.
He sneered at my plate. “So gross.”
I forked up some more and held it in front of him. “So good.”
“Disgusting.”
I snagged a piece of pineapple to go with my forkful and chewed with a smile. “How would you know? You still won’t try the wonders of my fruit plate.”
“It’s a texture thing.”
“And yet you’ll eat grits.”
“Only Angelo’s grits. Which reminds me.” He flipped over his menu. “I have been dreaming about his kitchen sink omelet.”
“Kinda lame dreams.”
He glanced over the menu. “I can’t have dreams about you naked all the time.”
“Har-har.”
He winked at me and I tamped down the hormones prepared to leap across the table.
Sage came over with a grilled cheese sandwich and slid it in front of me. In her other hand was a pot of coffee. “What are you having, Seth?”
I frowned. “I didn’t order this.”
Sage put her hand on her hip. “That fruit thing isn’t going to hold you over for the rest of the day.”
“Thanks. My ass won’t thank you, but I do.”
“Your ass is just fine.”
“Sure is,” Seth agreed.
What the hell was up with the comments? He didn’t notice my ass.
Did he?
I shook my head and peeled the triangles apart as the lava-like mixture of cheddar and muenster that spilled onto the plate made me moan. Cheese was my downfall. I could pretty much give up anything except that.
Noticing Seth’s smirk, I dragged my fingertip through the cheese and brought it to my mouth. “What?”
“Should we leave you alone?”
“Fine by me. We’ll live happily ever after, won’t we, you gooey piece of perfection?”
Seth shook his head. He flipped his mug right side up on the saucer. “I’ll just have coffee.”
“You sure?” Sage asked as she poured.
“Yeah. I really want that omelet, but it’ll have to wait until next time.”
Sage nodded. “You got it.” She glanced at me. “I got Mrs. Diggs.”
“Oh, crap. I forgot.” I swiveled to give the older woman a smile.
“No worries.”
“She wasn’t mad?”
Sage shook her head. “Too busy staring at this one’s ass.” She nodded at Seth.
He waggled his eyebrows.
Sage rolled her eyes. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”
As soon as she walked away, Seth folded his hands on the folder. “So about the house.”
I looked down at my sandwich and picked up half. “Want?”
He smiled. “I wouldn’t want to come between you two.”
I shrugged. Fine by me. I sucked at sharing anyway. If he wanted to keep it about business, I could do that. “How’d we do?”
He blew out a breath. “I’d prefer to leave it on the market so we—”
“Nope. Can’t. John Chandler gave me three months to sell and here we are a week past that.”
His eyebrows snapped down and his jaw muscle flexed. I’d bet twenty bucks he was grinding his molars. But it was my decision, not his.
“I told you I could—”
“Nope.” I yanked a napkin out of the dispenser to degrease my fingertips before I covered his clenched hands. “You know I can’t.” He’d been trying to throw money at all my problems for years, but my answer was always the same. Even if he had more money than most of the Crescent Cove population combined, I couldn’t take money from a friend.
Especially not Seth.
God, not him.
“Let me talk to John. We throw him a hell of a lot of business. I can pull a favor.”
“No.”
I had a feeling the three months I’d been granted was already one of those favors. No matter how much history I had in this town, a banker wasn’t going to let me slide when it came to prime land, even if it was on the fringes of lakefront property. Add in the mortgage I could barely scrape together now that my mother’s social security was gone and the only math that made sense was selling the house.
John Chandler over at Crescent Cove Credit Union might be a sweet man who coached Little League on the weekends, but he was still a businessman. And there were rules.
Rules I was intimately aware of. My mother’s modest life insurance policy did little more than cover her burial and a small memorial service.
“I’ve got a guy who’s buying up some of the older…” He trailed off.
I squeezed him one last time before sliding my hands back across the table and picking up my sandwich again. “Shacks? You can say it. I know my house wasn’t much.”
He swiped his hand along the back of his neck. “Dammit, Al.”
“It is what it is. She wanted a house on the lake, and it was all I could afford on my meager salary and what she had in the bank. It was enough for us.” My bedroom had been little more than a closet, but my mom had been happy her last few years and that had been all that mattered.
“A new company is looking to build family houses on the lake to beef up the rentals for the season.”
“The Kennedys kind or…?”
He nodded. “The middle-income kind of families. I’m not completely against what they’re doing.”
I broke off a corner of my toasted cheese and popped it in my mouth. “That’s great. You know this town relies on seasonal visitors. Though I’m glad they’re not just making mansions.”
His eyes glittered. “No.”
I knew Seth and his brother had been working hard to keep Crescent Cove from turning into the Hamptons part two. They were probably the only reason half the coast hadn’t been razed and turned into huge houses and overpriced hotels.
But the Cove was a mix of wealthy and working class. Just the way I loved it. Though I wouldn’t mind being one of the wealthy someday.
And maybe if I could get the house sold and get back to even, I’d have at least a chance at some kind of future besides drowning in debt.
“What’s the offer?”
I listened to him drone on about the sale and the banks. I swallowed when he opened the folder and slid a printed page my way. The sale price wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but it would cover what I needed it to.
It would leave me with a big fat zero in my bank, but at least it wasn’t a minus sign.
Right now, that was glorious and I was calling it a win. I folded the paper in half. “Thank you, Seth.”
“Don’t thank me. I’d rather you walked away or haggled for more.”
I lifted my chin and pushed my plate away. “Do you think I’d actually get it?” He opened his mouth. “Without doing upgrades and all the things you wanted me to do to the house?” He shut it. “I thought so.”
“Fuck.” He slumped in seat a little. “I don’t like any of this.”
“You don’t have to like it. Just make sure I don’t get too screwed and be my friend. Simple things. It’s all I really need.” I put my leg out and twisted my ankle to show off my splattered shoes. “And a new pair of sneakers. Which I need to work to pay for. Just let me know when and where to be to
sign the papers.” I started to slide out of the booth.
“Your fifteen isn’t over yet.”
I paused.
“Almost. Fifteen minutes goes quick. You know that.”
He pressed his lips together and his eyes flared with something. I didn’t even want to think about what they flared with. It didn’t happen often, but there were moments when I wondered if he thought about other, less platonic things when it came to me.
But it was much easier to file those moments away as aberrations and fantasies.
“Just one more thing.”
“It’s never just one more thing with you.”
“You’re killing me, Al.”
“Right back atcha, buddy.” Exasperation was the word of the day. When he leaned forward, his dark eyes were a little too serious. I straightened and pulled my hands away from my plate to land in my lap. I twirled my thumb ring as a sudden chill climbed up my hairline.
He leaned forward, suddenly earnest. Too earnest. When Seth Hamilton acted solemn, he was up to something, and chances were high I wouldn’t like it.
“Will you have my baby?”
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USA Today bestselling author, Taryn Quinn, is the redheaded stepchild of bestselling authors Taryn Elliott & Cari Quinn. We have been writing together for a lifetime–wait, no it's really been only a handful of years, but we have a lot of fun. Sometimes we write stories that don’t quite fit into our regular catalog.
Do you like shorter and dirtier reads?
Anything goes with this pen name.
• Sexy—check.
• Erotic—check.
• Sweet—usually mixed in with the sexy…so, yeah—check.
• Rom Com—check.
• Dark—oh, yeah…check.
• Paranormal—check.
Did we mention that we like all the genres?
So, c’mon in. Light some candles, pour a glass of wine…maybe even put on some sexy music.
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